Viking_Yearbook_67

The Martha Washington was as elegant as ever. The (My God, it’s as old as the hills) residence hall still served the needs of homeless girls. Every night at 11, cars were parked up and down both sides of 10th street. On moonlit nights, a bass yell opened almost every window in the building. Most people still lived at “home.” Meals were more complete and more punctual. Laundry was done free. Though one could not do everything, one knew what one could and could not do. Privacy was the reason most often given for moving down­ town. Students wanted a place to be alone, a place to think in. But there was no lack of distraction, and too many parties. And a diagnosis of mono could and did send many students back to their forgiving parents. 34-37 Daytime, cops and parking meters, digging for change, looking for a place to park, waiting for lights to change, run­ ning downtown to pick up a blouse before the stores closed, usually finding them closed. . . In warm weather the bums out looking for money or a place in the sun to sit and relax in .. . someone distributing Bible tracts and free advice . . . every once in a while a parade, buses stopping, and cars held up for miles . .. At night, everything going on . . . Lights flashing, signs— BROADWAY INN, BROADWAY THEATER, THE PARA­ MOUNT, THE MUSIC BOX, HANDE PANTRE, DRUG STORE, THE HEATHMAN, THE GAY BLADE-and every­ thing to do in town pretty much right there . . . “How much for a six-pack?” . . . Kids dragging the street, not going any­ where—just being away from home, but going all night. . . Cops checking ID’s, sirens screaming ! ! ! the girls out picking up sailors, people just out breathing the air, or looking for action. . . . Cars honking, people rolling down their windows and yell­ ing, everyone downtown for New Year’s Eve, screaming and yelling. . . . Rainy nights when nothing happens, except to the couple holding hands and looking at rings . . . Papa John’s Grocery . . . “I’ve only got a dollar, can I bring the rest tomorrow?” . . . every beer run ending up at Papa’s . . . the place for credit when it counts . . Papa sitting inside on rainy nights looking up at the empty buildings . . . Bianca’s sign being carted away . . . a new dress shop start­ ing every month . .. hamburgers at the Wee College Inn . . . the Broadway House giving its own brand of a cocktail party. Broadway went on until you hit the freeway. 38-41 A couple at Portland State finds no help in the typical “housing for married students” section of a campus catalogue. At PSC there is none. But, Jim and Shelley Hunt regard their apartment as novel and speak of the building, the old San Raphael, rather nostalgically as “... the last remaining struc­ ture in Portland that has authentic New Orleans architecture.” The decor inside, however, is authentic Hunt; both Shelley, a twenty year old junior in the Urban Studies program, and Jim a twenty-one year old junior majoring in political science, consider the surroundings an ideal reflection of the sometimes whimsical combination of study and housekeeping. While Jim spends his evenings working with disturbed children at the Parry Center, Shelley might try sewing, painting the windows with colorful translucent patterns for privacy or leafing through Peace Corps material; both hope to join after graduation and work with a community development project, preferably in southern Asia. The Hunts are only one instance in a figure which sets mar­ ried students at twenty-two per cent of the PSC enrollment (based on full-time day students). They mirror the unique blend of being both “married” and being “a couple.” If they have anything in common with the rest of the percentage, it’s wonderfully vague, as Shelley says, on the question of whether or not they’re typical. “No, no, not at all. I’ve never been around anyone who’s typical; maybe that’s the problem.”