University of Nebraska Omaha - Tomahawk / Gateway Yearbook (Omaha, NE)

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Spray-painted Greek signs hang from the black- beamed ceihng. Notices are tacked up on any available space. People exist in groups in the coffee- house; individuals are banished. Tables littered with cigarette packages and coffee cups hold at least a half dozen people in earnest conversation. There are floaters who grace several tables before finding the right spot. This continues non-stop until the coffee- house reluctantly clears at three for cleaning. The chicks in the coffeehouse wear slacks with hems. Jeans with ragged cuffs are found in the game room. The game room swells with intense young men clustered around the game tables, sometimes a dozen strong, watching motionlessly as the player ' s bulging pockets gradually empty of quarters. The only break is on the half-hour, when the tables exchange these fanatics with new ones. In an hour, they are back, hunched over the tables while an occasional female student stands by staring vaguely into space while her boyfriend gets emotionally involved with a silver ball. Both the coffeehouse and the game room experi- enced a slight surge in activity when The Pit ' s estimated 150 patrons were forced to vacate. The Pit, once the sight of red-eyed card players and students who have been at UNO since the beginning of time, was transformed into office space because of campus construction. The Pit patrons therefore either: A) dispersed to other areas of the Student Center, B) left school when the last card game ended or 23

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by Rathy Parcher Since 1959, the Milo Bail Student Center has been the core of student activity and the only area specifically designed to meet the needs of students with nothing to do. The center became a home for the leisure stricken. For the few brave souls who venture upstairs, offices and study rooms will be found, but for most students, the center is a place to relax, talk, eat, and pass the time until the next class. The MBSC underwent restructuring in 1972, leaving a larger bookstore and less first floor space for students. Students found themselves with a coffeehouse inside and a meeting area outside the new south entrance, complete with abstract clocks that have a time all thier own. The Student Center is characterized by a social caste system of sorts, implied rather than specified. But nonetheless, the order has continued unchanged for years, with faces coming and going but the people somehow remaining the same. The Coffeehouse, in room 118, is the scene of the largest congregation of students, the mighty Greeks, who are attired in fashionably faded T-shirts with letters, numbers, or an occasional UNO stencile. The doors to the coffeehouse are in continuous motion. The doors open; the people sitting at the near tables look up to inspect the intruders. Heads down until the doors swing open again. 22

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C) joined the circus. Those who were attached by the wrists to the pinball machines followed them into the game room. But many of the patrons made the big step across the hall to the coffeehouse, where they were immediately offended by the Greek signs. Between the coffeehouse and the game room is the information desk, also known as the last place to go for information. Clustered around the desk are jostling groups of blacks, leaning in accute observation of passing girls who return the attention— maybe. Raucous laughter, good-natured put downs, coming on and getting off on the atmosphere, they begin to fade away at mid-afternoon, when students turn into people. Upstairs, the Ballroom, called Napalm Hall back in the days when we thought about napalm, is quieter. Bootstrappers reading, girls sitting in muffled conversation, the Ballroom ' s only activity occurs during speeches, panel discussions or art sales. The rest of the time, one feels guilty making the unnerving noise of footsteps, as the studious gaze at passersby on their way to the cafeteria. Ah, the cafeteria, where people of all social persuasions gather, spurned by a common lust for food. People can actually sit alone in the cafeteria without fear of being persecuted as heretics. If you try everywhere else in the Student Center and you just don ' t fit, sooner or later you will find yourself in the cafeteria, staring at a salt-covered table and trying not to smell the food. There are other gathering places. Sparsely filled study rooms line the third floor hall. The area outside the Center is, on warm days, lined with students; on cold days, it is deserted. Comfort always prevails. The bookstore, or the masked marauders, attracts people for five minute intervals. In otherwords, as long as it takes to buy a blue book or a pack of Marlboros.