When I actually had a lot going on my life, when new events were occurring, I didn’t have the time, or take the opportunity, to write about them. In high school, when my daily life was boring, I wrote comments about how it was boring – or I doodled to fill up otherwise blank pages. Life at Kent State University was very different. My diary for the 16-month period of September 1953 through December 1954 had less than a dozen notations. Yet those months covered more new activities than I had encountered in all of my previous eighteen years.
First, there was my life in Stopher Hall, one of the two residence halls on campus for men. Although the gender ratio for all of the students was equal, there were many more dorms for women than there were for men. KSU was known as a “commuter college.” Since Youngstown was some fifty miles east of Kent and Cleveland was about the same distance north of the campus, it was possible for most students to drive daily from their hometowns in northeastern Ohio to attend classes, especially if they had scheduled them for only two or three days a week.
I was among the few who did not commute. In fact, I rarely went home, except for breaks between the four “quarters” of the academic year. It was only during these breaks that the campus truly closed down. I often attended summer school, the “fourth” quarter, and was able, during my four years at Kent, to earn two degrees: B.S. (with a major in chemistry) and B.S. in Ed. (with an emphasis in the sciences and mathematics at the secondary level.)
At the beginning of my freshman year, I shared a room with Eugene Kalal, who came from Rocky River, Ohio. He usually went home on weekends. He was a bland roommate; I remember very little about him. The space we shared was a typical dorm room, with bunk beds which Gene and I took apart, since neither of us wanted to sleep on an upper bunk. There were two wardrobes for folded and hanging clothes; two study desks with wooden chairs; a single, wooden, yet comfortable, padded armchair for reading; and a shared bookcase; we each had two shelves. Our illumination came from one window, a ceiling light, and our individual goose-necked desk lamps for late studying after one or the other of us went to bed.
The best part of our room was that it was opposite the drinking fountain for our top-floor corridor. Not only did we have direct access at all hours to cold water, we also were available for drop-in visitors, since we usually kept our door open. The corridor restroom was also across the hall from us, offering us ready access to the communal toilets, sinks and showers, as well as a knowledge of the best time to use them, given the morning rush for getting ready for breakfast and classes, and the evening preparation for bed.
My second focus was a place appropriately called the Hub, the campus-wide location for meals, and, more important, for coffee breaks between classes. It was a challenge to see how many chairs could be placed around a small, four-sided table for coffee drinkers. The Hub was the center for both commuters and campus residents at all hours of the day. It was part of the Student Union building with its lounges, meeting rooms and game rooms. Commuters made use of the lounges for midday study or naps. Dormitory residents had their own lounges, used mainly in the evenings while their commuter colleagues had to work at paying jobs in order to afford attending the University.
Although I had a scholarship that paid for tuition and fees, I did need to work to provide for other costs. Fortunately, I was able to work in the reception office, or front desk, at Stopher Hall. My main task was answering the telephone and connecting callers with one of the phones located in each of the resident lounges on the three floors of the dorm. Anyone passing by a ringing phone was expected to answer it and shout down the corridor to summon the guy being called. When there was no response, I’d take a message and put it in his personal mailbox. Each evening, I had plenty of time to study between attending to calls and talking with semi-drunk students returning from one of the town bars. What with classes, late night studying and time spent in the Hub, there was little left over for keeping a diary. It was better to live life than merely to record it.