University of Oklahoma - Sooner Yearbook (Norman, OK)

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BVIOUSI.Y there have been man} physical changes in the University in ten years, as there have been in the town of Norman. Both have mushroomed, and both seem dcteiinined to keep spreading out. Any student who has been here two or three years has seen how much expanding O.U. and sur- rounding countryside ha c done. The remodelled stadium, the enlarged Union building, the Quadrangle, the new power plant, the geology building, with other projects not yet begun. AH this in three years. Assume that this growing has been going on since 1940, and try to picture what O.U. must have been like then. In 1940 Lindsay Road was the southern cit limit. O.L ' . had no parking lot then because none was needed. Instead of a parking lot, O.U. had a no car rule. Students weren ' t allowed to possess love buggies, and a man was not as he now is considered handsome if he had warts and a ellow Cadillac convertible. Everybody walked, except the more daring renegades who kept cars in rented garages around town and sneaked out for a joyride now and then. In 1940 there was no Kaufman Hall ; where it now stands existed at that time a kind of landscaped rendezvous with trees and shrubs. The golf course was then practically out in the coun- try as there were no buildings south or east of it except the .shanties of Hooverville in the shadow of the water tower. From Hooverville to Parkview Apartments in ten short ( ' ars. There was no Sooner Citv then, only a handful of houses on Jenkins, and where tlu-ri ' are now men ' s doinii- tories facing the practice football fields across Lindsay Road, in 1940 there were stables and corrals for O.U. ' s horse- drawn artillery, and for the polo team, and for the women ' s physical e iucation curriculum. Yep, things sure have changed since 1940. For one tiuiig I ' m five years older. And in that penultimate yeai ' of Amer- ica ' s peacetime era, I thought the coeds were all women, whereas now all the coeds seem to be very young girls, just a bunch of pretty kids. They must be rushing them through high school nowadays. Ah, time, like the lady poet said, turn backward in your Hight. To a year when the campus looked very much like a campus and less like a brain factory, to mellow autumn after- noons when walks in the country were the best possible ex- cuse for cutting a class, when we used to play hookey to watch girls play hockey back of Hester Hall, when there was more to do on the campus, for free, and you could walk across any campus street without being run down by a guy in a maroon convertible hurrying to keep a date in Chickasha or Tulsa or Ardmore. There was something leisurel and collegiate and poign- ant about everything back in 1940. A war was consuming Europe like wildfire, and we feared we would get singed but A ccmvertilik- tnp cl.nvii, a il

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(iiaci Kiniint; hack to iciriMtc liis outli and linilin; all llu- I liaM;;t tinu- has w roiiiilu. He is consiinu-d with M i tal;jia, Ml-, lie IccU real brought down. (lu know? I koou. L ' l.l ' s l(jok at It loda the ,i I si ' c it. the t()da ot now when I disi ii CI I iu t ami now hci v in the (|in kcniiiL: ti-ni| o ol nioilcin [ iii riMt lili-. ' Take the otlu-r attcinoon, w lirii 1 arose ■akin troiii iin f tii rissi- after onl clcxcii hours ol iiiHMsx sliiinhcr, and c.mcd ni slo i anil tarclul wax to till ' campus corner tor an iini cji atinji dish of medicinal tea. Ir was an axeraye alreinocjii in the health lesort 1 tieqnent and the crowd was heterojieneons. .A bearded prof spraxv led in a booth starin ; (luizzicallx aromul the room, his beaxer niuhilarin} with ill- concealcd amuseiiieiit. I ' xen scorn, perhaps. He was prob- ablx thinkiiif; about the scene in tour difterenr lani;u.i es, and his presence there toned the |ilace np. xoii know. W ' h.it he XX ;is doin , he xx as contributing: an almost luminous aura ol intellectnalism. Around a I mxeisitx ou t to haxc an .iiii.i of intellectualism sometimes. ( )n ,1 neaibx table sIikjiI, m a ni.innei ot speaking, three ( i reeks xx ho xx ere chantiilf; esoteric tribal threnodies. .Some counselors I roni the ( uadraiisle xx ere upio.iriouslx exchan;;- in ; occupational anecdotes around a table littered xx ith emptx containers. ' l he facultx member laughed diabcdicallx throiiLih a hole in his shrubbeix, and suddenix 1 re.ili ed 1 xxasn ' t noxxheie. It xx as then 1 j rexx axx are ot hoxx ' brought doxx II I reallx xxas. .Nrar the hot-air rej isfer a trio ol midille-aneil joimnsters, inciiKhiiK old Dave, criHichcd os ' cr mullcil coffee laced with lladacol, munihlin«. 1 assumed they were dcnoiiiicinj{ the nian.ig -ment tor piittinj; in the new booths that obscured the vi(-w ot yestertimes. The booths w(-re ajiainst the plate j;lass windows, and the jilass it.seh had been painted neck-high on a medium-tall woman, and this par- ticular covey of declininK lechers were not interested in studying faces. I felt much the same wax, and decided to join them. It was a pretty long walk for a man of m years — about fifteen feet, but I made it and lowered myself into a ch.iir, onl to discover that, since their salacious pastime had been curtailed, the old-timers were fall- in;; back on that monotonous rcc- re,-ition of the aged, reminiscing. According to one Clyde Brion Daxis XX ho recentlx authored a book dealing with the sub- ject, nostalgia is, ipiote the rose-scented goose grease on the toboggan slide to scnilitx , unquote. These gu)s were bob- sledding. Things ain ' t like thex used to be, an oldster of lierhaps txx ent -nine said glumly. .Shucks, croaked old Dave, an incorrigible epigrammat- ist, thex nexer xxas. So all right. 1 xxas a l ' ' i-eshman xx hen .Mule Train Heath was elexen xears old. Okax, I ' m an O.l ' . .Alumnus, an Old (ii.id txpe. I ' xe seen O.V. develop from a first-ratc unixer- sitx XX ith a third-rate football team to a first-rate school with a grid-iron machine rated number one in the nation. Pass the rose-scented goose grea.se, and sing a sleighing song. ys cokes lur tneiuls al Ion time. Kiidell I.aiulers ami Stuart Mmu; exert their crcitivc t.ilriil tin ar(l sculptiirinj;.

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liip|H-il that Millie iiiiracic (iiil l kciji AiiiciiiM (iiit cil it. Stitchi ' d tliiounh tile easy ii ' laxcd patti-iii of lollrjic lilc a tin- scarli ' t thrc-ail ot iiim-m-y. Tlu ' war in Kuropi- wasn ' t at all liki- tho j;allant, soim-how sportsmanliki ' v ai our elders icmenihereii, hen anks went aeross the atei to iliMhaij;e a deht to l,ata ette. l ' cii Iroiii here, the l ' an ei ami tin- lielli li cli e hombers were tii;;hteniii; . So w c were eil-i-oii- mIou I laietree, aiiil I ' cril ii:i c its own peiiiliar .est to eani- pii- lile. ' { ' lie eai l ' ' ' (l-Sl is .hH ' eicnt m iiKin wa s, hut Miiiilai in Ml man others. We iiail the Hurkes-W ' adsworth bill then vxhii ' h beeame a :i eallinn lor Selective Service, and we registered tor the draft, and expected to be called as .soon as ' he .school term ended. What ' s so different about that? I ' er- h.ips like l ' ' 40-4l, this ear will he the curtain fall foi ' an- other epic scene in history ' s constantl rew ritteii melodiaiii.i. .Act II, in which .Americans finally came to the bitter reali a- tion that no other nation was strong enouf;h to take the initi- ative in the ine itable shoot-out between two incompatible ideologies. ' l -n years ago we told each other with regret and resignation, that we ' d have to throw in with the sct-upon and help destroy Hitler ' s homicidal legions. The big trouble about 1940 was that there had been tw en- t -two years of no war, and homo sapiens got to ha c .i little old war exeiy once in awhile to keep from il iiig ot boredom, and in spite of the fact that ,ill of us were scared aiul de- pressed around O.U. we were .also undeni.ably exhilarated Religi.m pla IsiH sllnlillls. Pii-siilini Cniss pauses in from tit the library lo chat with students. and a trifle eager at times to rid the world of National So- cialism. So you got to take that into consideration when I tell ()u the autumn of 1040 was a splendid time to be ati t).l ' . stiulent, with lU ' without a car, even if you were broke as most ot us usual l were. .A little more of that rose-scented goose grease, please. JL t ' s eas to become confused, looking over vour shoulder this wa . One minute oil are shocked at the great changes. 1 hen, .itter ou ' c peered astigmatically at those changes, oii wonder if tlie aren ' t for the most part superficial, if by and large the similarities aren ' t slightlv more amazing than the di.ssimilarities. Having been here during the past three ears and accepted the growth those years have efifected, the other changes that meet the coursing e e should be conimon- place. Huildings are buildings, hut people are .something else again. .No matter how much dough the Hoard of Regents scrapes up, (Hi can ' t build new people. .And people never seem to change much except that there are more of them or less ot them and the ratio between the various sexes Huctu- ates trom ear to ear. Romance pii)h.ibl tlourishes on the campus today prettv much the w.i it li.is every year since liS ' )J, when there were iinl ' ' students. Knowing very little about the matter as it applies ill l ' ' ()- l, I would venture to guess that the chief difference between now and 1940-41 is that we spent more time out-of-doors. The campus itself was the best place to take a girl in those earless days. Kvcrywhere von looked, shrubbery. .And the ratio then was one girl and bov for everv campus nightw atchman. Where buildings now crowd out