Fall 1973 – Selecting a College and People of Color

Fall 1973 – Selecting a College and People of Color

My summer job at the bakery was over. At my previous Air Force Reserve weekend in August, my supervisors were asking me what school I would be going to in the fall. I explained that I really wanted to go to school out west but would have to wait a year till my reserve commitment was up. When they heard that, they told me that I could do the next years two weeks now and a few weekends in a row to complete my time. Then I could just go and they would handle all the paperwork. They would send me my release when my commitment was up. Wow! That was so nice. They actually liked me. They not only promoted me but they set it up so I could finish my commitment early. I suppose having to see me only two days a month helped. I am apparently more likable in small doses. It was too late for the Fall term but I could still apply for the coming Winter or Spring term depending on the school. I immediately applied to both UC Berkeley and the University of Oregon.

I moved out of the frat house I had been living in and and bought a Greyhound Ameripass ticket for $99. The pass was good for 30 contiguous days of Greyhound travel within the 48 states. The idea was to visit the colleges I was interested in. I took my stuff down to Long Island to store at my parents' house. Dottie was planning on staying in Watervliet and I was not sure what I was going to do when I returned. I left my car with my parents and caught a Greyhound bus out of New York City. My plan was at a minimum to visit the University of Wisconsin, the University of Colorado, UC Berkeley, and the University of Oregon. I had already ruled out Amherst.

I also was planning to visit friends along the way and so my first stop was Fort Wayne, Indiana where I visited with Bill and Maryann, friends from Valparaiso. They were running a halfway house at the time and so I got to spend four or five days with four women who were trying to work their way back to independent living after being institutionalized for a number of years. Three of them were rather timid and seemed unsure of themselves. The other one, Marion, seemed to be the most independent, more self assured, and smartest, not to mention bossy (she was always telling the other girls what they needed to do to make it on their own). I later checked on their progress. To my surprise I learned that the 3 that acted less self assured eventually made it but Marion who appeared to be the strongest never did. She turned out to be too afraid of being on her own. She had seemed to be the sure bet when I was visiting. Marion had been institutionalized the longest of the four. She could talk the talk but it wasn't enough.

From Fort Wayne I went to Madison Wisconsin to take a look at the University. I got to the University and started looking around. It was a beautiful campus but I decided I was not really going to choose it so why waste my time. I returned to the bus station and took the next bus going to Colorado. On the way to Colorado I started thinking the same thing about Boulder. I realized I was really set on being on the west coast, either California or Oregon. (Heck I had only sent applications to those two schools, who was I kidding?) I stopped in LA to visit with some friends for a couple of days and then headed up to San Francisco. My good friend from the Air Force, Larry, lived there. When I got to SF I still had just over two weeks left on the pass. I hung out with Larry and finally did visit Berkeley. I liked Berkeley but it was more urban than I was wanting. I really wanted more of a college town. Time was running out. I was having a good time with Larry and now there were only four or five days left on my pass. I realized I needed to get to Eugene right away. But we had plans for the next day so I figured heck, I've already eliminated all the others so I guess I'm going to the U of O. No need to spend time visiting I can just hang out with Larry for another day. So after all that I essentially picked Oregon sight unseen. As the days were counting down I was having a great time and I kept putting off getting back on the bus. Greyhound had a bus that went from SF to NY with a gazillion stops of course. I hung out in SF until the last day of my pass. This of course meant I would have to stay on that one bus until I reached NY, an entire three days. Have I mentioned I am prone to procrastination? I got on the bus to NY on the afternoon of my last day. It was a long bus ride but I made it back.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Once back Dottie was living in our apartment upstate and although we saw each other a couple of times we still were not really back together. With no place to really go I moved back into my parents' house, paying them a small monthly rent. I found employment with a lighting and lamp parts wholesale company in Babylon. I drove the delivery truck for them. They sold bulbs, light fixtures and lamp parts to retail stores in the greater New York Metropolitan area. I loved this job. Most days I would get to the warehouse, load up the delivery truck and then take off for the day making deliveries all over Nassau County, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and New Jersey. The two owners had roots in Brooklyn so the majority of their customers were in Brooklyn. I had always had trouble navigating around Brooklyn but this job forced me to learn how to efficiently get around. This was way before that thing we call GPS. I loved being out on my own all day and I always liked driving and listening to the radio. Because they were lamp parts the packages were all relatively light, so loading and unloading was easy. I could break for lunch or stop for something to drink whenever I wanted to. No one was looking over my shoulder and as long as I got back on time I was good. It was a small company with only 5 or 6 other employees.

In November, the two owners decided to shut down for a week, They called me in and explained the situation to me. They told me they were going to layoff everyone. One of the partners had to have some sort of an operation and they were closing down for that week and would also use the week to take inventory. They said they were going to hire me and most of the staff back. They wanted me to manage the warehouse. This meant I would not be driving the delivery truck anymore but I was going to get a big pay raise. I later discovered that the employees they were planning to hire back were just the white ones. I realized that I could not go back under those conditions. Ironically, the two people I had made friends with in the warehouse were the two people they were not bringing back, both fit the disenfranchised category of “people of color”. When they called me to hire me back, to their surprise I turned them down. I had planned to work into February and could have used the money but I couldn't go back under those circumstances. I am a white man and as such, living in America, I have been afforded privileges and advantages over people of color all my life. There was a time in my life which I was not really aware of this but I know it to be true now and I have known it for most of my adult life. While I honestly wish I lived in a society like the one America professes and promises (liberty, equality, fraternity for all) rather than a society of white male supremacy, I have nonetheless accepted the benefits of being the “right kind”. I have rarely turned down those advantages. And while I have participated in some protests and movements, I have not really made any significant reparation to the victims that I have no doubt benefited from all my life. Although I am not sure how I would exactly go about doing this, the net result is I'm just another case of talking the talk while failing to fully walk the walk...

   

In the meantime I was accepted to UC Berkeley for their spring term. Oddly, I was rejected by the University of Oregon. Yes, you read that right. There's a reasonable explanation but I don't see any need to bother you with that now. Given I was now unemployed, I decided it was time to head out to Oregon. I needed to have a talk with them. I was going to have to talk my way into their school. Now that I was free to move wherever I wanted and had finally made my decision on a college, I wasn't going to let a little thing like rejection stop me. I went back up to Watervliet to pack up the rest of my stuff. Dottie would be staying and so we said goodbye for the time being anyway. I was finally going to be on my way west where I wanted to be. Eugene, Oregon here I come!

This follows “Summer of 73 and the Freihofer's Bakery”