University of Detroit - Tower Yearbook (Detroit, MI)

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Na eG a ate eee Ae . fet You don’t have to be afraid to walk down the That’s because we are protecting you. Our co-eds used to protest because of at- tacks at night. Stabbings in the dorms and armed robberies by the dozen were not un- usual, Cars were stolen from our parking lots at a rate of one every six hours. Rape. You never knew where it was coming from next. — There used to be dark areas on campus. — Lighting was spotty and ill maintained. A stu- dent escort service was started to guide girls safely. Until even the escort service got mugged. We knew something had to be done.

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' W. went around the summer calling cowards “timmie sissies” and plunged into the middle of stories without introduction for don’t they, all things begin that way. And vacationing in Boston, Actress Eileen tall girl with butterfly net is the originator of “timmie sissy” having been one for many years haven’t we alll. She had this thing about butterflies, really liked them, and even if she did catch one in her net she would admire and coo “ooh poor butterfly” in silly nasal baby talk as she quite often did and us too, right? and then let the damn thing go. She’s crazy. She had butterfly- mobiles and butterfly ashtrays and butter- fly real wings with painted paper bodies under a ribbed plastic lamination on her bulletin board by the bed. The image of things captured and manufactured and displayed but she hated the thought of true butterfly captivity, and us too so Preface: (It is fitting indeed and just, right and helpful to salvation for us al- ways and everywhere to) extricate our- selves from the normal plot line of life and live our summers in someone else’s plot and setting, net and city. That was how that summer and that’s where — the house on Englewood (big and once white) and there’s Chuck, also big and white, he fell and fell in love with Eileen according to the script. And now Eileen mumbling All The World’s A Stage dot dot dot Actors and concluding: “Of course, | was scared shit- less.” This remarked dramatically. That was Eileen no matter how or where. “| went anyway, but that ol’ Mary, Jesus, she was such a timmie sissy she wasn’t gonna go near the place not for all the balloons in a balloon factory. Well, | wasn’t about to go either but then Chuck starts poking me in the back saying “Come on, you’re the one big on witch hunts, whatsamatter, scared? Damn right I’m scared you go first.’ We scramble apprehensively up the grassy slight incline to the haunted house and observe the four stairs leading up to the porch which extends half-way across the front of the place. Typical, we think, grey, grey old house with rotten wood and each stair sunken in the middle has a severe crack running almost lengthwise. Chuck you go first you’re the man and watch! Watch the third stair there walk on the left where it’s sturdier and lookout! Don’t don’t bump your head right into that spider web (did you ever see one so big). It was placed there to guard the portal of this Greek temple see how the webbing suspends from the pillar (Yah. Some pillar. Rotten wood and early American no-style) to the porch. And Jesus God Almighty it’s no time to be squeamish about spiders at all. It’s quite natural and standard we assure each other to have spiders in haunted houses, temples and the like. What are you waiting for Chuck try the door, of course it’s going to be locked... We try the door. It is locked and yet with firm and steady pressure on the handle, something gives way and the door swings open. Quickly Chuck and Eileen stealthily saunter through the door. Chuck leads the way, Mary and | follow Eileen. The farm was haunted according to reputation, but not weirdly so. The stories weren't so outlandish that they were un- believable, just a little psychy or some- thing. The clinching factor was that the four of us were “believers”; figured Pike and Dixon were together people, and Jesus, the Pentecostals and their prayer meetings! “Aw, it’s all emotion,” Chuck scoffed Spanky-style. Yah, well me Mary and Eileen: didn’t give a damn what it was it was just really weird and feelable. We weren’t dummies. We were rational having gotten BA’s in the hodgepodge make- shift latepaper way that we finally did Continued on page 20. Ged

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streets at the University of Detroit So we put in new lights, Mercury vapor lamps. Next we tripled the contracted security force. Over the summer we changed the lock systems. We asked students to help us by re- porting suspicious occurances. We hired one of the top security adminis- trators in the country. He studied the problem for months. Now he’s building our own police force, with professional training in areas like narcotics detection and riot control. We think we’ve turned the corner on this problem. University of Detroit