University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

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This year, the Commuter Committee has assumed a more active role in dealing with the commuter population. During Homecoming Week, a group of commuters constructed a float that was entered in the parade and float competition. The committee is now focusing on several other projects. A Commuter Suggestion Box has been placed in the Student Union by the elevators. This will serve as a means for all commuters to voice their problems, complaints.or suggestions. A nearby bulletin board will keep commuters aware of Committee developments. A major program now being developed by the Commuter Coin mittee is the Commuter Bandit . This program involves four general parking areas immediately surrounding the University. The bandit will deposit 5 cents in an expired meter that has not been ticketed. This program will hopefully in time become self-supporting. The bandits are members of the committee and are being assisted by brothers of Phi Delta Theta fraternity. Another undertaking is improvement of the Rec Room food service. The Committee is responsible for the addition of regular size hot dogs, chile and hot chocolate. Many of their other recommendations will hopefully be carried out. It is hoped that the efforts of the Commuter Committee will result in increased commuter involvement in all campus organizations and thus, more awareness that the commuters are the maiority of Pitt's population. 17

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The Lonely Long Distance C0mmUTER5 BY Angele Ellis I rode in via Forbes Avenue, past Arby's and Sera-Tech Biological , the bank clock that blinked 9 57 (late again) the and the burned out Strand Bowling sign. My view ol Oak land, through grime spattered U Bus windows, narrowed like a bowling alley, with the Cathedral as a grotesque head pin. I stumbled oil the bus at Hillman Library, clutching the tell-tale commuter's burden a day's load ol books and Iolder and a crumpled bag lunch. I ran to class and slipped into a seat, feeling conspicuous and foreign, like a housewife, returning to college after 30 years. And. like a housewife. I lived in a suburb world of lawns, family dinners and next-door neighbors. For me. Put ended at 5 pin.. when the II II sighed to a stop across from the Cathedral. In class, conversations floated around me talk of roommates. cafeteria food, weekend plans. My remarks were limited to coursework and professors' eccentricities. Other students, with their room keys and meal tickets, were unreal to me. All I had was my II 4 and a wrinkled bus pass. I never would run into them in Towers lobby or Hillman some evening. or sit near them at a Pangborn movie. College life is fluid. Around me. people were changing, discarding and remolding their ideas, friends, habits and lives. But how could I change, when I came home every night and dumped my books, high school-style, on the kitchen counter? A my life narrowed. I clung to the few high school friends who attended Pitt. We ale lunch together, an isolated circle on the Cathedral lawn when the weather was good, a group huddled in the neo-Gothic shadows of the Commons Room when the weather was bad. Even this enforced togetherness was preferable to the days when, due to schedule or sickness. I was left alone. I sought refuge in a nook in the Cathedral or in a chair in Hill man. There. I felt safe. My loneliness was not exposed, as it was the few times I loitered in Burger Chef. using a Pitt News (filled with the events I couldn’t participate in) as a frail defense against the chatter around me. I also was saved from wandering through the decaying. Hot I Baltimore like Student Union, with the sinking sensation of being checked out - and rejected 30 limes in as many seconds. In the evening, during the long, rush-hour bus ride. I lapsed into commuter mononucleosis, as the targon of Poll Sci 50 or Math SO jangled in my head, and the world-the guarded faces of the other riders, the graying scene outside pressed m with relentless ugliness. At home, life continued in the disjointed, empty pattern of high school. Weekday nights blurred by with TV or study. More television than study it was hard to concentrate, and the loud, mindless action on the tulie numbed my fatigue. Weekends slipped away with bickering or reading. I took trips to silly movies and aimless drives to escape the liousc and the sensation of endless childhood. I decided to move to Oakland one winter night when the U Bus didn't come. I stood in the bus shelter across from the Cathedral for 45 minutes, the cold attacking my feet and my book-cramped hands. I had a headache, and hated the pros peel of taking a 0's bus and blundering downtown in the dark, looking for my Inis stop. I hung up and trudged upstairs. The Commons Room was deserted - chairs pushed away from tables, lights clouded. and stone gnomes grinning spookily in the dusk. It reminded me of a story in which a man wandered through an empty towiii each building he entered seemed to have been deserted the moment before. My footsteps, hurrying outside. sounded loud and hollow. I stood on the Cathedral balcony for a long time, hands hooked onto the cold stone railing, watching my frozen breath dissolve in the night. I looked out on the people living behind them I failed. One group of people, then another. passed beneath me. laughing. After a while. I went to meet my ride. 16

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by Mark Murphy When I first moved into tlu dormitories that September day m 19761 figured I was in for four years of hell. I anticipated cramped j quarters, bad food and a real loser for a roommate. Boy. was I wrong, through the windows of the Towers. I could lean out and absorb all the beauty and culture of Oakland. I will .idmil it did take me some lime, about a full year, to see what I had i been missing What convinced me was a letter from tin Office of Residence I ife telling me the results ol a poll they took of inmates , .m death row in San Quentin prison. They asked the inmates to j describe the place that seemed like home, and nearly all. 93.7%. i described quarters uncannily resembling the Towers. I said to myself. People like that must know a lot about living. ' I thought lor a moment, and considered the alternatives to J dormitory life. Commuters must battle traffic, weather, and the PAT system ! lust to get to school m time to hear it has been cancelled. An apartment dweller must deal with monthly rent payments, j grizzled landlords, and heating bills that rise in proportion to the , (ailing lempaiure. The first plus I discovered about dorm life was acquiring a ’ roommate. Some students prefer to pick their roommates in ad ] vance. which is not nearly as much fun as sharing your most intimate bodily aberrations with a total stranger. What is more, your room | mate is always a great guy. Never will he be so inconsiderate as to make drug deals using the room phone. Never will the arsenal of weapons he keeps in the bolster go off accidentally when Ik lights a match And never, but never will he entertain Ins girlfriend in your room while you lie in feigned peaceful slumber |u$t three feel away. Instead, most roommates play a great deal of pinochle, (when not studying, of course), and take turns at leading group prayer. The space the University allots to each student is more than adequate. I will admit that I had to move my annual square dance t out of my room and into the hall but after the first month. I rarely knocked my roommates teeth while stretching to yawn. There was plenty of space for my three shirts and pair of jeans, and the slu lf space was more than sufficient tor any lour thin books I chose to . bring. The bathroom is perhaps the most fun place in the dorms Always clean and ready for use (after stepping over the pile of yuk in the doorway), the bathrooms feature steaming hot water. If you are small enough to crawl into a sink, you may use some of that water, but for most people, a lukewarm (more luke than warm) shower will have to do.