University of Maine - Prism Yearbook (Orono, ME)

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200O°F re MAKE it jo V'ASHl Beer H| Borrow J3oTrLE3M£M Von YES ■ $W7 f RlSk BOTTLE BILL The biggest controversy at UMO during election time concerned the Bottle Bill. Did Maine want to demand returnable bottles and cans? How would this affect the economy? The environment? There were two student factions involved with the BBill. One campaigning for it. one campaigning against it. After all. think of the roadsides and how very many bottles are negligently tossed in the ditch to bake in the sun. Maybe people would think twice if the bottles were worth money. At least the little kids would pick them up for candy money. (We all did it years ago.) The bill had to help the litter problem. But was it worth the cost? The grocers would have to clean all those bottles and ship them back for reuse. They didn't have the equipment or the manpower. Think of the bottle makers. It costs more to make reusable bottles. And wouldn't they have to make special bottles for Maine? Wouldn't the cost of beer and soft drinks go up? Students against the Bill said. It's the right idea but the wrong answer.” However, in the end. Maine voted YES for the Bottle Bill, making Maine the third state in the nation to adopt this policy. Since the bill wouldn't go into effect until 1978. the subject died down. After the initial reaction to the vote, no one spoke about the bill. Everyone just waited. (And are still waiting.) 17

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1976. The presidential elections. Long remembered for the fight between the elephant who couldn't walk without falling, and the donkey who had a fetish for peanuts. Ford and Carter. What a pair. Every speech they made, the press tried their damndest to catch a candidate making a slip. Scandal was the major theme of the elections. Not that newspapers had much to deal with; you can't put a guy in jail for lusting after innocent women, as long as he does it in his mind . And what could you say about Pres. Ford except his kid smokes pot and his wife was outspoken? So on it went. The candidates' platforms were not that different, varying only in degrees, because Carter is. after all. a conservative Democrat and Ford is a fairly liberal Republican. What did we voters have to go on except their smiles? They were both honest family men. Just what the country was looking for. Jimmy was a little more rural. They both had blonde kids. Course Jimmy Carter had Miss Lillian to speak for him. That might have been the edge that won him the election. It sure was close If you went to bed before the New York votes were all in. you went to bed in ignorance of the fact JC was the newly elected president of the USA. And poor Jerry Ford, nice guy that he was. was a has been. And will never be again. A straw hat poll taken by the Maine Campus in October correctly indicated Bill Cohen, a Reublican. would go back to Washington and do his third term as our Rep in the House of Reps. Another incumbent. Ed Muskie. our Democrat in the U.S. Senate, would also remain in his seat, according to the poll. (Again correct.) The smooth, charming Cohen was challenged by Leighton Cooney, and the almost-as-charming Muskie was up against Bob Monks, a millionaire from Cape Elizabeth. Local elections: To the Maine Senate went Ted Curtis. No big thrill probably, since this would be his 7th year. Curtis’ idea-of-the-year was to abolish the Super-U system and make each Maine university a separate entity. His opponent was Tom Caruso. A former UMO student. Dick Davies, was elected in the Orono district to go back to the Maine House and fight for what is right (mainly the University.) He beat out Stu Georgitis (Rep.) a UMO student. ELECTION ’76 g STATE 5 SENATE GEORGITIS —STATE REPRESENTATIVE-

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There were two big decisions the students of UMO had to make in the fall of '76. One: which presidential candidate to vote for; two: whether or not to get a swine flu shot. There was a lot of controversy, doubt, apprehension, and even fear about the swine flu and the shots The whole thing started in 1975 at Fort Dix where one man died of swine flu. and many more were sick. Pres. Ford asked all his flu experts for their expert opinions on the situation, and they said: let's immunize. Remember all the hassle0 Mass immunization: the serum needed, the money it would take to issue the shots, the safety of the shots, insurance (who's responsible if the shots kill you first?), etc I So. students said. Ya sure, if there is an epidemic some of us could get seriously ill. Could get seriously dead. But what I are the chances of an epidemic? The flu never spread out of Fort Dix. Nobody else got it. What was the fuss’ And then we'd see a newspaper article about some old time Vermonters who remembered the flu epidemic of 1918. and how many people died in this country. Not just the very old. or the very young, but strong healthy people. It was called the Spanish Flu (flu not fly) at the time, but later doctors identified tfc$t particular strain assfcne flu.