Michigan State University - Red Cedar Log Yearbook (East Lansing, MI)

Page 15 text:

PRING QUARTER BEGAN AS A CLIMATIC HANGOVER from a rough winter. Snow was dirty, disappointing, and melting. Travel was almost amphibious. On your way to south campus you paused on the bridge to watch a swollen Red Cedar engulf the bandshell and canoe shelter. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow bothered the impervious ducks. You weren ' t aware, until you stopped to look, that a young and vital season was here to stay awhile. Everyone talked about it. Four years you watched Spring brighten up everything on campus including yourself, and every year it was new to you. Profs struggled in vain to keep your thoughts from wander- ing out of second floor Berkey Hall to the little babushka-and-saddle-shoe freshman bound for the grill. When the lecture was over, you looked down on your notes to find one comprehensible sentence and twenty or more meaningless doodles. There were long periods when you would stretch out beneath the trees to read, rest, eat strawberry ice cream cones, or talk with your girl. You liked to be outside because everything smelled good and clean, because all about you asserted the world a better place than it had ever been. From that day on, you beat a path to the river. The hard-nosed business world didn ' t exist. You were young. Dancing at the Mardi Gras was often something of a problem. Either you couldn ' t see out of your costume, or move your arm, or sit down. There were plenty of laughs and the big attendance proved most of you thought it well worth the effort. A regular year of school was just about wrapped up in class books and machine scored tests. There was a feeling that ran high in every living group at State, during the closing days of Spring quarter. It was time for celebration, time for Water Carnival! For weeks every sort of float was conceived and fe- verishly worked on. You watched nearly two score of them towed down the river beneath the spotlights. They were aesthetically pleasing, earthy, humorous, the best and near-best. One thing certain, they were the result of many hands, many minds. They were an expression of joy that the lonely, long travail was ended. Spring quarter left amid the glitter of paint and pageantry, in a celebration which was exclusively part of State ' s traditions.

Page 17 text:

ASUAL WAS THE WATCH- WORD OF YOUR SUMMER AT STATE. Class- rooms went out-of-doors. It was just what the Land- scape Architecture department had been waiting for, and just what the surveying students had tseen praying for. The broad sweeping lawn in front of Wells Hall was Coney Island come to Michigan. Sun decks of women ' s dorms and sorority houses were given a work-out in sun tan oil and smoked glasses, as every- one pooh-poohed the harmful effects of ultra-violet rays and nursed their burns. Students gathered in the grill for their morning cup of bracer and planned big exoduses to the quarry. Joe and Joan College looked dejectedly at last year ' s worn swimming suit and went searching for a new one downtown. Tennis courts near Dem Hall were busy from morning through the long twilights. Jennison ' s swim- ming pool resounded with wild shouts of laughter and games of water polo. It was often dangerously full. You gave your room maximum ventilation on the warmer nights. Buddies from down the hall came around too often to pass the time in nocturnal ses- sions which covered everything from Aristotle ' s uni- versals to the Tiger ' s pennant potentialities. You probably did a lot of just plain walking about campus to keep from falling asleep. Organizations did only enough to keep body and charter together. The State News was published every other day, while the gentlemen of the fourth estate took a much-deserved breather from rigorous dead- lines. The Spartan funny men were completely out of laughs for a few months. Student Council kept a skeleton staff to take care of whatever might arise in student government. It was a summer of Sabbaths. Of course, you probably noticed that competition was a little tougher for grades than usual. Despite a certain weariness that fell upon you occasionally, your classmates were likely to be a little older and more serious about their goals. The utility of the summer quarter was still the vital factor, no matter how many swimming parties and tennis games were arranged. Summer went to bed in late August with a yawn. ' 49, a year of accomplishment and good fun,