Oral History as a Kind of Resource

Troy: I remember…not like it being a big deal. It wasn’t a big deal. You know we loaded up the family car. I think it was just a little sedan, and it was like a hockey bag worth of clothes, my boombox, and maybe like a bucket to take to the shower with my toiletries. Residence Life had sent out the packing list, and they still do that. But it was like “oh, think about bringing a wash tub, and like a glass, or a bowl.” Oh, I did have a hot pot because those were allowed. I don’t remember really making anything in it. Maybe some boiling water for some tea maybe? But I can remember how quickly we moved in. And I was right on first floor so I think my parents were very excited that they didn’t have to carry a lot of stuff up. And back in those days there were move-in assistants that would help you bring your stuff. But again, it was maybe two trips from the car. It wasn’t the furniture and everything that students bring [now]. I was randomly assigned a roommate. I didn’t know who he was. We exchanged one letter over the summer cause that’s what they suggested that we do. And after getting his letter, I wasn’t really excited that he was gonna be my roommate, cause he was into heavy metal and I was more into the new wave punk. And I thought it would be a clash. He was a nice guy, very smart, but lost his way quickly [laughs] in college. But going back to that first day, I remember like this weird feeling of… “okay, mom and dad you can go now.” And my mom, I remember her crying, and I was just like, “what are you crying for?” You know, I’m 75 miles away. I think they were so excited because, again, seeing your kids go to college is something monumental. Got moved in and just like move-in day now, it’s just such a wild, wild, day. Lot of movement. And just two blocks away from Wentz [Hall] where there’s—I think it’s the Munson Realty place—that used to be a place called Burgmaier’s, which was a liquor store. And drinking age was 18. So, I remember plugging in the refrigerator, and coming from Minnesota drinking age was 19, so I partook in my new freedom and I went and bought a six pack of PBR tall boys and put ‘em in the fridge. And then I remember my roommate coming and that awkwardness of like, okay and you know, you put your stuff in your dressers and you go, “do I stay in the room or do I go walk around?” And really kind of foggy as to what happened. I think then we had a floor meeting held by the RAs, these are the activities that are happening. And back then, probably different than now, is that you moved in a week before classes started and they had a whole variety of orientation activities. And that was key for getting students out of their rooms and building the connections. So, I remember my first days very fondly. And I think it was just one of those, “boy you are here, there is no going back, you have a roommate, you gotta get along.” So, it was just like, “boom get started.”

Tiffany: So, tell me a little bit about that transition from the social life, and the arrival, and sort of adjustment to living in the dorms and sort of being on your own in that way for the first time. There’s this social life you are explaining. But then there’s the first day of class, the first week of classes, the transition into the academic dimension of college life. So, what do you remember about your first day or first week of classes?

Troy: I do remember during orientation week, in addition to all the fun social activities, there were different sessions on how to take notes. There was tours of campus because again, although I went to a large high school all in one building, this was the first time we’d have to go to this building for a Math class, this building for an English class. So I can remember having my schedule and walking like okay, “Monday is going to be class and trying to figure out…Oh my god, there is only ten minutes between classes, how are you going to get there?” And then I remember writing English 110 on a notebook and folder to be all prepared. And then going those first days, your English class was small, it was only like 25 students. And I had Dr. [Thomas] Pribek for that, still see him on campus every once in a while. And then I also had some larger classes, that I can’t remember if it was first semester or not, but like Psychology was in the [Graff] Main Hall auditorium so that was a large class. I remember having Pre-Calc[ulus] and that was in Cowley [Hall], and my least favorite class ever, but had a good teacher. But just thinking about how you sat in class and you just took notes, you took notes, and you were lucky if you had a faculty who wrote on the chalk boards. There weren’t powerpoints slides, there weren’t online notes that were distributed. It was your responsibility to sit in class, feverishly writing in your notebook because you had some faculty who didn’t take a breath for 55 minutes... I can also remember, I don’t know if this was my first semester or if it was my second semester, I had Dr. [James] Parker for history. And it was in the big lecture room in Wimberly [Hall]. And class started, I think it was a Tuesday Thursday class so maybe like at 8:45 or 9:15, no at 8 o’clock—that was it. He came walking down, and if you know Jim Parker, he looks like a cross between the Marlboro man and Robert Redford. And he comes down, he plops down on the front desk, lights a cigarette, takes a huge drag, blows out the smoke, and says “where the fuck should we start?” And I’m like going, “oh my god, this is college, a professor just swore, said the F-bomb in class!” And I’m like going “oh boy, this will be a trip of a class!” And maybe we will get to this later on in the interview, but I just remember how profound that experience was to say, “hey, this isn’t high school. This is something completely different”… And I think that was maybe, you know, just that reality of like you’re not gonna have a teacher that—you don’t do daily homework. I mean there was homework assigned, especially for math class, you didn’t turn it in, it wasn't graded, you were only, only, graded on your exams... Probably students today can still relate to this is that first day when the faculty goes over the syllabus and you sit there and you go “holy hell, how am I going to get done all of this in a semester? I have four other classes. I just don’t have this one.” And I remember being very overwhelmed at that point. And then you get into the semester, and you go “okay,” you figure it out, but I think learning…well, understanding that so much of the learning was your responsibility and no longer the instructor or teacher's responsibility.

Karolyn: Well, if you were to look from the outside it doesn’t look any different 30 years later [laughter] and I’m sure it didn’t back then either from being open 30 years prior to that. But you know it was just such your stereotypical residence hall kind of experience. That cement, you know the tile floor, you know it was a cold floor. We all brought rugs in. We lofted our beds. It was hot, there was no air conditioning, and everyone had fans propped up everywhere. But it didn’t matter. I mean it was just such an excitement for us all to be independent and on our own at the time. Most of the students—I mean Drake [Hall] was a little bit mixed it wasn’t all underclass, I mean it wasn’t all first-year students so we had some upperclassmen too, which I think, I think it was good. It forced us to like, think outside of that first-year kind of experience. But I mean my best friends still to this day are from Drake Hall. My friend Dana lived on the third floor. Sarah and Missy were on the first floor. And you always had your door open because, well, I was so social, I just wanted to talk all the time which was probably part of my struggles. And then you had…like the bathrooms. I mean we all have to shower in the same space and wear flip flops and those green tiles or yellow-tiled floors. And those curtains that if you’d touch they’d stick to you, it was so gross, but we loved it. It was home. And, it was not a commuter campus, I mean students stayed around on the weekends. And, but what I did notice are those students—and I started to fall into this a little bit because I was struggling a little bit but not wanting to admit it to people. But it’s easy to want to go home, and to like slip back into what’s comfortable. And so, I remember there were some days where I was like “I just need to go home, I need my mom to come get me.” And I remember calling her and she’s like “I’ll come to you.” And she took me to get my clothes washed, or she took me to the grocery store, but then she made me go back. And I’m not sure that—had she let me come home, I probably would have wanted just to move home. Because I’d seen some of my classmates from high school who, you know thought like it was too expensive and “why would you live on campus?” that it, because they weren’t able to connect with other people, never really figured out a way to develop community, and many of them ended up dropping out. I give so much credit to my parents because they didn’t know what they were doing, but they knew what I needed when I didn’t. So, my parents knew that they had to push me a little bit. And because of that, that second semester is when I really started to turn it around because they had forced me to create friends and find community and, figure out, who I was cause you know it’s such a change in your identity and you finally get to be who you want to be. You know that feeling like in high school, you’ve been together forever and everyone knows everything about everyone, and all of a sudden, I could be who I wanted to be and not be lumped in, or in the clique or whatever so, I just. I’m very lucky I had great parents. I do, I have great parents. [Trimmer laughs]

Tiffany: That’s awesome. And evidenced by the fact your dad built your bunk bed in the dorm? [Both laugh.]

Karolyn: Oh my gosh. Well, every dad did back then. The trips to Menards [hardware store] were very frequent. My dad’s very handy and so, yeah, I remember a lot of swearing that first weekend. [Trimmer laughs.] My dad and a lot of other parents, swearing trying to get the bunk beds up. Because back then you brought your own stuff. Like if you didn’t have it, your beds were on the floor. Sometimes you could buy them from somebody who had moved off campus. But for the most part, you're bringing all your own supplies to do all that, so.

Tiffany: So, part of that process of setting up as a first-semester college student, it sounds like it was really about like making your space in the [dorms]?

Karolyn: Oh yeah. Like we spent, you know weeks—my roommate and I either calling each other or writing. We wrote letters to each other, what we were going to bring and what colors things were going to be, and, half of it we didn’t probably need at all, but we didn’t know any better. So, our parents probably went home with a whole lot of stuff [Bald laughs] that we didn’t need that first weekend but we thought we did, so.

Tiffany: Tell me a little bit about the technology you had access to. So were you, was there TV, was there microwave? ...What did you have? And then what else, what did you not have in your room that you had to go elsewhere to access?

Karolyn: So we had, one of us had a TV, and a microwave. Well you know what, the microwave I’m not even sure, we must have. But I remember having like a hot pot that I could boil water in and I would make ramen in it, when I would get tired of Whitney [Dining Center]. But, you know, we spent a lot of time at Whitney [Dining Center]. Also, Whitney [Dining Center] was where like our source of where we’d go eat but it was also a social hour. So you know we would all plan to go together and walk together and so forth. But, no computers. There might have been two or three computers in the basement of the building. But you had to go to the front desk and get a key, and check out a key to go downstairs to use a computer. So a lot of us had typewriters and it was like a really big deal if you got a typewriter that had some memory in it. So you like didn’t necessarily have to type each letter you could type like a few sentences. And then when you were good, you could press you know return or whatever and then it would type that. And if you had that, I mean you were kind of big time if you had that. But there was still a lot of paper, pencil. And we had a phone. Every room had its own phone because of course we didn’t have cell phones. And I remember registration time. You got a registration time, and it might have been like May 1st. Well phones opened at 5 [am] so everyone was up at—I don't remember if it was 5 [am] something like that—but you were up at like 4:30 [am], ready to go, and you would start dialing probably about 5 minutes ‘til and you would just keep redialing until you got through. And so there was no specific time that you had to call in. It was just that was your day so everyone was up, like before the sun was up, like redial, redial, redial until you got through hoping you would get the classes you want. And so if your roommate was sleeping, you hoped that your phone had a long enough cord you could do it in the hallway. Otherwise, you were going to have to bribe your roommate or figure out a way to pay them back for disrupting their much-needed sleep that we all need in college.

Katie: Hmm. I think I was mostly nervous ‘cause even though La Crosse is small compared to now what I've seen [laughs] at other institutions. I was nervous about finding my way around. So just like finding the buildings, knowing which way to turn in the halls. So I was definitely the kid who left like twenty-five minutes before class just to make sure I was able to find it, and then awkwardly like waited outside once I did find it because the previous class was still in there. So, I definitely had some anxiety just about, you know, did my high school prepare me for the course load? And also, could I figure out where I needed to be?

Ellie: Yeah. And then we'll kind of talk about like course load differences later too, but, and then what do you think was one of the most important experiences from your freshman year?

Katie: A tough one. I think it was just like the autonomy of figuring out how to function on campus. So the fact that, you know, we did have advisors and stuff like that. But it was on you to figure out how to get to class, to figure out meals, to figure out laundry. You know, I just didn't really realize how much my parents had done for me before and how much I relied on them. But, you know, you're an adult and they treated you like that, especially in the dorms. You know, there were consequences for actions, and there was support when you needed it, but a lot of the time I felt like it was, you need to, you know, work to figure these things out. But that has served me really well. Now like even my mom will joke. She's like, “oh, well, you didn't come back after you graduated from UWL.” Because like so many people do return home while they're looking for jobs and stuff like that. But I'm like “no, that's a success. Like that was supposed to happen. I learned how to do stuff for myself.

Harry: So, I will tell you one of my funniest experiences of being at school and, you’ll have to be of our age to appreciate this, but there was a movie a million years ago—totally you couldn’t make this movie today—called "Revenge of the Nerds." And my dad wanted to take me up to school. My mother couldn’t handle it—she wasn't going. But my father had another trip to go on, he couldn't be there. My oldest brother, who I love dearly, and a friend of his, Joe, said “We’ll take him.” And I thought, “this is great".... So, I had a trunk, and I know you know what I’m talking about. I had a giant steamer trunk and my father had a big-ass blue Cadillac, and we put it in the back of the trunk, and we drove up to Wisconsin. And here I am like the first scene in "Revenge of the Nerds," and we're carrying this trunk across campus in this big blue...and could I have just written "Jew" across my face. I’m driving, I’m in this giant Cadillac and we’re dragging this trunk and Joe, god bless him, he’s wearing a t-shirt two sizes too small. His name is Joe Leonardiz. He’s an Italian guy and he’s convinced he knows some girl on campus and he’s looking for her. And he doesn’t have his glasses so he can’t see anything. It was like a scene out of that movie. It was the best start I coulda had to school ‘cause it made me laugh. And the best advice I got though about being in college was not from college, it was from my brother. My brother said—he’s several years older than me—and he said, “you're gonna go up to your dorm room and I’m gonna leave. You need to–when you get lonely tonight and you’re bored"–cause I don’t know anybody. I don’t know a soul here. My roommate was from Skokie [Illinois], he’s from Morton Grove [Illinois], a town over by us. But he was out drinking the moment he hit the ground. He wasn’t Jewish, he wasn’t from my group. He was from the other high school. We got paired up by the private tutor that we had. We shared the same private tutor. He's gone. I don’t know anybody. My brother gave me advice. He said, “find the other kid that’s sitting in his room not doing anything and introduce yourself.” And I did. And that ended up being my best friend at school. That ended up being Mark Griebling, my best friend at school. He was sitting there waiting for his roommate to show up–who’s chronically late for everything–reading his Rolling Stone magazine, and yeah. He ended up, well I knocked on his door and said, “Hey I’m Harry,” and he said, “Hey I’m Mark.” And we just started talking and we ended up living together and ended up being friends until he passed away a while ago, but yeah he ended up being my best friend. That was the best advice I ever got so. I gave that advice to my own kid too and that was the best advice I ever got.

Alex: That's a great question. I remember them being very difficult. I'm not going to lie. I was in an Economics class, in a Earth Sciences class, a History class, and I remember just kind of being in this whole new environment this first week. You know, we're trying to make friends, build a new community, oftentimes even if you came, if I came to UWL with people from Middleton High School they were across campus, or making friends of their own. So, I definitely remember kind of needing to figure out how to operate both socially and academically on this campus and it was hard. And so, I always encourage people now that I'm kind of past that freshman phase of life is that in trying something new or doing something new it is always going to be a little bit difficult in the first week or so when you're doing it. So, don't give up. Don't stop. And I remember calling my mom a few weeks after that I had been there, and I was like, “ugh it's just so difficult I feel like I'm still trying to meet people, I'm still trying to make sure that I'm succeeding in my academic work?” And she's like, “I just want you to stay there and try it a little bit longer, keep going.” And that first week, that first month was tough. That first semester was tough, because this is new, a new course load that I have never looked at before. I'm living in a completely new place trying to meet new people. I do have a poor memory of meeting one of my friends there. We were going out the first night to play some kind of glow-in-the-dark tag that the residence halls [laughs] had put on for a first week event, and she was just sitting there and I pointed I was like, “hey, your shoe’s untied.” ‘Cause it was, and weirdly me stopping and saying that developed our friendship that lasted throughout my four years, and even now we text once in a while. So, it's kind of crazy how you'll have those moments where you'll meet somebody and you never know that they may be a good friend of yours for the rest of your campus life. So, those are kind of some core memories that I have.

Tiffany: So you told this amazing story of the conversation with your mom, and how that kind of like kept you going, and kept you continuing. Were there any conversations like that happening among students? Like I'm curious how you were all processing, and like talking with each other about, what the first weeks were like, and whether you were already—as you're bonding with folks that you're meeting as first-year students—kind of talking with each other about how to survive?

Alex: Yes, I definitely have memories of talking to other people that we're in the same class as me, and asking, “are you going through the same hardships that I am? Are you trying to figure out these same things that I'm trying to figure out in this Economics class that I had never really done before.” Or, I remember joining the Residence Hall Association Council—which I don't know if it is still there on campus—but that's where I kind of developed a core group of people that I was able to kind of figure out my first year with, which was good. So, I always suggest to people get involved right away, find something that you think you might be interested in because that's a good way to meet new people—and you know, if you don't like it that's fine—but just try to find a group of people that you might want to invest in friendships with. So, and that was helpful when we were able to talk through some of the harder parts of being on the new campus and experiencing new things.