University of Rhode Island - Renaissance / Grist Yearbook (Kingston, RI)

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Jfour flcars tn iRetneto .

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July 7, 1969 Class of 1973 Inters ®.!U) (I aa writing you a letter a yearbook at graduation...) It ' s been a long time since the days of football games on Saturday afternoons, beer drinking at the park, playing our guitars together... But it all seems like yesterday. In a couple of months we ' ll both be at our respective colleges, you way out in the midwest, and me down at URI. I ' m looking forward to living away from hone (aren ' t you — isn ' t everyon?) but at the same time, I expect that it ' ll be quite scary at first. We ' ll both be going our own wqpo out into the world, and I ' ll surely miss walking to school with you, going to the movies, and eve ything else we shared during our relationship. I rjaprocise that I won ' t go out with any boys at URI (I heard they ' re all pretty faggy — hahahaha) if you promise the same to me. But then we might discorer that going steady with each other hundreds of miles apart isn ' t such I ' ll miss everyone who won ' t be going to URI in the fall and most of our friends, as you know, .will be though. (Our high school will be almost transplanted to Kingston!) I don ' t know, I Just can’t wait — for the freedom, the independence, the heavy experiences we ' re all sure to encounter at college. I hear URI is pretty liberal as far aa drugs and sex go. (That ' s great!) Cod, I feel sentimental right now. We’re leaving an era of our lives behind us, while a whole new one begins. (I suddenly feel real old.) Well, have a great time at camp thiasummer (I miss you already!!!!) And, remember, Ron, we ' re college kids now!!! Love you always 24

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JUNE 1970 RATHSKELLER OPENS IN UNION: FIRST STUDENT BAR FOR URI O CO H j s o o H U H 13 53 H U HH 0 co H H M 0 2 13 p 25 13 53 0 U 0 co H 0 Let’s face it. Freshman year is a tough year to write about under any circumstances. The entire year is marked by delusions of structure, aim, and other things that would hint at integrity or unity. Perhaps at the heart of these delusions is the idea of college life, and the fear of the new grading systems, that are expected to be so new and unusual after all those high school horror stories that you were subjected to. If I had any advice to give to new freshmen, I would say don ' t be afraid that you ' re going to flunk out the entire time. Once in awhile, like the night before a final, and you’re slinko, and you don ' t even remember the name of the course, sure by all means get a little concerned; but for heaven’s sake don’t make the same mistake I did. I spent the whole first two semesters getting the worst marks I ' ve ever had in school, because I was too busy worrying about them. Listen, when you’re living in a triple in Butterfield, and the combined cumulative averages of all three of you doesn ' t add up to 2.0, you’ve got to keep your sense of humor. Just look at all the people who gel good grades and say to yourself, “there ’s someone who is lousy in BED ! I can 7 emphasize the word enough. Bed is home to a freshman on campus, and anyone who doesn 7 think so, hasn ' t done enough time on campus. I mean, it was a regular POW camp that year. We. freshman, couldn 7 have a car on campus, and there were no girls allowed in the male dorms, and freshmen couldn 7 live off campus. This means that freshmen learned two things very quickly: one, that alot of people fell in love with their right hands (except for those lucky ambidextorous types), and two, that you must immediately devise ways of breaking the rules. So, the earliest recollections I have of college life are learning from the ‘big boys’ how to sneak girls and liquor into the dorm, without detection, (and they say the A Cl is a training ground for new criminals). But these are very normal freshmen stories, and I’m sure your father could tell the same ones to you. But add to this the biggest event of the sixties, the Woodstock Generation. I mean, if everyone who came back to school saying that they had been to Woodstock had actually been there, they probably would have had enough people to start a country. But this is not to say that they were not there, because they were, in spirit. I mean this in a very real sense. When we came to school in 1969, we were ready to take off our clothes, make love in the streets, and play frisbee until the fringe was literally flapped off our jackets. But what did we find at URI? The answer, as always, was about five days-slraighl-of what must have been the worst rain to ever hit our little ' Kingston Swamp Estate. ’ FACULTY SEN. PASSES B.A. CURRICULUM URI MORATORIUM PROTESTS FOR PEACE PS 3 H PS P 0 o 26 70” TO INCLUDE FOUR DORMS AND