Portland State University - Viking Yearbook (Portland, OR)

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16-27 A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ah, Bang, bang, bang, Clank, uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uhhhh, sputter. Another day at PSC had begun. Classes were never quite suspended in South Park Hall, but they were frequently drowned out by the noise. English majors at PSC don't sit in rose gardens discussing literature or reciting poetry, commented one of the English faculty, their thoughts throb to the meter of jack-hammers and riveting. Between Broadway and South Park Hall, giant cranes held girders suspended. Bulldozers pulled in and out all day exca- vating. The water main broke and the bulldozers and the people slid in and out of the mud. Students stood on the over- pass watching the labor pains of PSC's continual process of becoming a university. More houses came down and the library began to go up. Swami, the spiritual advisor of many a student, was moved out. And one of the best gardens in the neighborhood disappeared in the concrete forest. The Campus Christian Community con- tributed to both the new construction and the housing shortage by displacing a 1910 Broadway relic of a building with its handsome new center. Somewhere along the street, the K-House mosaic cross dis- appeared and ended up in the home of one of the Hippy groups. Through the efforts of an unidentified student, the cross was finally returned. It was a protest, someone said, and besides, we liked it. Three more floors on the parking facility, and still no one could find a place to park. The freeway came in and several streets disappeared. Students became more dependent on the pioneer instinct as sidewalks and streets disappeared under mud and forests of lumber. The cafeterias disappeared under a great wash of paper and plastic utensils. The food has always tasted like cardboard. Now it is. 28-33 For the first time, Portland State had a dorm. A typi- cal room in the Viking Residence Hall had a window with a view, two beds, two chairs, two desks and an adjoining bath. There was a choice of color. Say red. Then, the red drapes har- monized with the red rug and the red rug went well with the red bedspread. Boys and girls lived on separate floors with separate elevators. Eating and harmless good fun were com- munal. ' 1 Actor Paul Massey, here to play Hamlet, was put on the top floor. I had to take the girls' elevator and everyone told me I couldn,t. When I got up there it was completely empty and the silence was deadly. He moved to a hotel three days later. The Hippies took over the area near the Ross Island Bridge. They lived communally in the grand old Bohemian style. They painted their walls in iconological images, read the San Fran- cisco Oracle, took drugs, and lived in continual fear of the BUST, One finally happened and eleven PSC students were arrested, Jail is dirtier than my place, one said.

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The Martha Washington was as elegant as ever. The CMy God, it's as old as the hills? residence hall still served the needs of homeless girls. Every night at 11, cars were parked up and down both sides of 10th street. On moonlit nights, a bass yell opened almost every window in the building. Most people still lived at home Meals were more complete and more punctual. Laundry was done free. Though one could not do everything, one knew what one could and could not do. Privacy was the reason most often given for moving down- town. Students wanted a place to be alone, a place to think in. But there was no lack of distraction, and too many parties. And a diagnosis of mono could and did send many students back to their forgiving parents. 34-37 Daytime, cops and parking meters, digging for change, looking for a place to park, waiting for lights to change, run- ning downtown to pick up a blouse before the stores closed, usually finding them closed. . .In warm weather the bums out looking for money or a place in the sun to sit and relax in . . . someone distributing Bible tracts and free advice . . . every once in a while a parade, buses stopping, and cars held up for miles . . . At night, everything going on . . . Lights flashing, signs- BROADWAY INN, BROADWAY THEATER, THE PARA- MOUNT, THE MUSIC BOX, HANDE PANTRE, DRUG STORE, THE HEATHMAN, THE GAY BLADE-and every- thing to do in town pretty much right there . . . f'How much for a six-pack? . . . Kids dragging the street, not going any- where-just being away from home, but going all night . . . Cops checking ID's, sirens screaming ! I ! the girls out picking up sailors, people just out breathing the air, or looking for action. . . . Cars honking, people rolling down their windows and yell- ing, everyone downtown for New Year's Eve, screaming and yelling .... Rainy nights when nothing happens, except to the couple holding hands and looking at rings . . . Papa J ohnis Grocery . . . I've only got a dollar, can I bring the rest tomorrow? . . . every beer run ending up at Papa's . . . the place for credit when it counts . . Papa sitting inside on rainy nights looking up at the empty buildings . . . Bianca's sign being carted away . . . a new dress shop start- ing every month. . .hamburgers at the Wee College Inn. . . the Broadway House giving its own brand of a cocktail party. Broadway went on until you hit the freeway. 38-41 A couple at Portland State finds no help in the typical housing for married students section of a campus catalogue. At PSC there is none. But, Jim and Shelley Hunt regard their apartment as novel and speak of the building, the old San Raphael, rather nostalgically as . . .the last remaining struc- ture in Portland that has authentic New Orleans architecture. The decor inside, however, is authentic Hunt, both Shelley, a twenty year old junior in the Urban Studies program, and Jim a twenty-one year old junior majoring in political science, consider the surroundings an ideal reflection of the sometimes whimsical combination of study and housekeeping. While Jim spends his evenings working with disturbed children at the Parry Center, Shelley might try sewing, painting the windows with colorful translucent patterns for privacy or leafing through Peace Corps material, both hope to join after graduation and work with a community development project, preferably in southern Asia. The Hunts are only one instance in a figure which sets mar- ried students at twenty-two per cent of the PSC enrollment Cbased on full-time day studentsb. They mirror the unique blend of being both married and being a couple. If they have anything in common with the rest of the percentage, it's wonderfully vague, as Shelley says, on the question of whether or not they're typical. No, no, not at all. I've never been around anyone who's typical, maybe that's the problem.