Badger Love Stories - 1960s
I met the "Love of My Life" at the University of Wisconsin in the fall of 1958. I was president of the UW Nurses' Dormitory and Warren was president of Acacia Fraternity. We met over the phone, as we planned a "beer supper" for our members. The event went well as we were both good planners. Our relationship was shocked but not chilled by the fraternity tradition of throwing the president and his date into Lake Mendota -- right after the ice cleared the next spring!
We married the weekend after graduation in 1960 and will celebrate 48 years this June--three children, four grandchildren, careers in engineering and nursing in California, and "retirement jobs" of 3 1/2 years teaching at a Catholic technical high school in Cameroon, West Africa. May we always continue to plan well.
Deanna (deBower) Bowers '60 and Warren Bowers '60
My future husband, Lee Rudolph and I met in a line while picking up our Badger Yearbooks. He was with two other guys. We all talked about various things but didn't exchange names. He did know that I lived in Liz Waters. He somehow decided he wanted to ask me out so he searched group pictures of the Liz Waters women. Quite a challenge, considering what a large dorm it is. Miraculously, he found me and gave me a call.
When I got the call, I had a bit of a dilemma. I didn't know which of the three guys he was and I didn't particularly want to go out with either of the other two. Finally, something was said that convinced me I was talking to the "cute one". The rest is history. We have been married 46 years.
Sally Harford Rudolph '61
Between 1958-62 when I was an undergraduate, a phrase heard on campus was, "Meet your spouse at Hillel House" and that it is exactly what happened. It was Passover of 1960 and Al Erlebacher, my husband of 47 years, and I were both attending a Passover Seder. We were seated next to each other and the two of us decided to stay after the seder and help clean up. As he was walking me home to Shepherd Hall on Lake Lawn Avenue, we went through the general, "What is your major?" It turned out he was doing course work on his doctorate in American History and I was struggling through Professor Current's 'Civil War and Reconstruction.'
I asked if he would tutor me which he did. I ended up getting an A in the course and I marrying my tutor 16 months later. He has continued to be my tutor through life's journey. So yes, "You can meet your spouse at Hillel House.
Dolores Adler Erlebacher '62
In the fall of 1961 I was playing in a band on campus called the Ascots. Our lead singer was Don Smith. Both of us were Phi Delts. At that time live bands were in and our competition was Steve Miller and Boz Skaggs. Music then was all over campus. And it was a great sound.
One afternoon Don asked me to check out the stage at the Union to see how we would set up for the band the next night at the Fall Freshman Dance they were having for all incoming freshman. We went to the Union around 4PM and there was a Freshman "get to meet your class" dance going on that afternoon too. No band just piped in music.
While on the stage in the Great Hall I looked out and saw this cut little blonde dancing with a guy. After a few minutes Don was ready to go , but I stayed and went out on the floor and asked her to dance. Walked her home and found out she was dating someone.
I stayed in contact with her and within months she was following the band sitting next to my drums every week-end while I played at the Fraternity houses. Today after 46 years and two sons ( a PhD and MD) we are still dancing and she still ( once in a while ) listens to those same drums. Although Steve Miller and I see each other once a year he seems to have done better at making great music. Me? I became a dentist.
Jim (Papy) Papandrea '63
Big disaster! I was invited to some big affair. My brother's frat brother was my date. I bought a dress at Manchesters. My sister gave me a manicure appointment on State St. The salon was so busy I had to leave to get ready. In the meantime my date had broken his arm and couldn't drive his VW, so I had to drive. Of course, I had no experience on a stick shift. I was trying to drive, and my date got madder and madder as I about ruined his transmission. He was expecting a reward at the end of the evening which I refused to give. Live and learn.
Suzanne Arnold Redenius '63
Being in Engineering school, we did our 'work', close to campus which in those days meant staying close to the dorm and the west end of University Ave, the 18, 19 credit hour semesters with labs didn't leave time for State St "binging" or fraternities. I convinced two other classmates that we should take our Calculus course on the 'hill' where all the girls were. We signed up not realizing we'd entered a class of math majors. After the 6 weeks exam, my two friends not only dropped the course, they dropped out of Engineering. I persisted and though passing the 6 and 12 weeks and the final exam was flunked! The grad assistant teacher explained that I hadn't done as well as the others, a negative curve! I did well the next try on the Engineering campus and met the girl who was to become my wife, she was the secretary in our Engineering school and became the mother of our two sons so again, if I'd stayed close to 'home' I wouldn't have wasted that one class.
Bob Warshal '63
Sort of a love story...I spent many evenings pushing my dates back into the window of Gilman House after hours. I lived above the Pub which had only one shower/toilet room. When a female guest needed to use the facilities, we posted ourselves as guards in the hall.
Stephen Eckstone '64
I didn't meet my wife on campus because I graduated four years ahead of her. However, we did meet at a UW Alumni Club Founders Day dinner. I arrived in NYC in March of '69 after five years of Naval Service. Diane Benzenberg, who grew up in Scarsdale, NY, spent a year working in Madison following graduation and returned home in the summer of '69. It was the UW Alumni Club of NYC that brought us together on April 10, 1970. We both chose to attend the Founders Day Dinner to meet somebody. As it turned out, we did not meet until it was over when mutual friends were planning to go to the Copter Club at the top of the Pan AM Building for a nightcap. We were both standing around while everyone was deciding whether to go or not when I looked at her and said, "Are you going?" She looked me up and down and said, "Sure. Are you going?" I said "Sure." When everyone left the Copter Club, we clearly were not ready to go home so we went for a cup of coffee. (At that age you could still do that and sleep later!) Obviously, something clicked and we were engaged in July and married in September. 37 plus years and two beautiful children later, we're still cookin'! As many local alums will attest, I've used this story many, many times to persuade young, single alums that I meet to attend UW Alumni Club functions. You never know?!?
Jim Goetz '64
EXCHANGE DINNERS In the early 1960's the Lakeshore dorms would have "Exchange Dinners" between men and women's dorm houses. At these events dorm residents would have a served, sit down dinner in a group setting with a blind date. The house social chairpersons would initiate negotiations for these events. Before my dorm, Tarrant House in Adams Hall, would agree to participate we would check yearbook photos, send out scouts, and network with contacts to see if the women were up to our standards. The other big hurtle in agreeing to participate was the method of pairing persons for the blind date. One method was the random line up. The women would line up in their house lounge and the men would line up outside and then walk into the lounge. The lines would face off and your blind date was the person opposite you. Another method was to tear a deck of cards in half and give a half of a card to each participant. Your date was the person with the half card matching yours. On occasion the social chairpersons would pair people; a potentially perilous task. Another method was to pair by height. At a Tarrant House exchange dinner with Bleyer House of Elm Drive A, in December 1961, blind dates were paired by height and therefore I had a 6 foot 3 inch tall date since I am 6 feet 4 inches in height. Based upon the Exchange Dinner date this woman agreed to be my substitute date at the Tarrant House spring picnic in 1963. My picnic date canceled out, but found the substitute date by pandering the Tarrant house yearbook picture, which included me, around Bleyer House. After our picnic date at Devil's Lake this woman searched me out in July 1963 while she was at summer school. She found me in the Pine Room, below Carson Gully dining hall (Then Van Hise dining hall.), when I arrived for the Chemical Engineering summer lab course in late July 1963. We went up to Observatory Hill that night and out to Picnic Point a week later. In June 2008 we will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary.
Duane Huetter '64 and Mary (Kienow) Huetter '65
As a freshman in 1960, I pledged Sigma Chi fraternity in the fall semester. But for the final chapter, my college story might have made that choice a mistake, at least that early in the process. Combined with following my high school advisor's advice to take German my first semester, and the fact that I found college life at UW to be an amazingly good time, after my first semester I was on serious academic probation, and while my second semester made it likely that I could continue in college, I found myself a holdover pledge, but the social chairman of the pledge class, whose self-designated duty was to design and plan spectacular decorations for the Sig house, a large, tudor? mansion located on Lake Street where the alumni house now stands. While I had attended several parties during the first two semesters, with girls met at the "beer suppers" that were held at that time on Friday nights, (beer was legal for 18 year-olds) those relationships ended after 1-3 dates.
I had also had two blind dates, one so-so, the second a disaster, (another story), and I vowed that if I ever had another blind date, it would be the last one in my lifetime.
The party was a hobo party, and some of the decorations included a suspension bridge extending from one end of the dining room to the fireplace in the living room a distance of 50-60 feet, and starting about 7 1/2 feet above the floor and suspended from the 12' plus ceiling height. Using wires stretched between the walls, and cup hooks suspended from the ceiling, the bridge involved hundreds of yards of crepe paper, and awed both actives and pledges. The "party room" off the living room had a working fireplace, carpeted for informal parties with old cotton mattresses stored in the 4th floor attic, was walled off with 2x4s and a combination of old aluminum roofing materials and cardboard, to resemble a tin and cardboard shack, redolent with graffiti, were truly amazing, if I do say so myself. Because this was to be a major party, much of the decorating was done by Wednesday, as we did not have a beer party that particular Friday night. Several of my fellow pledges pleaded with me not to go dateless to the party I had designed and organized.
I called a former high school classmate, who had arranged the more acceptable of the first two blind dates, who said the roommate of the former was free that night, and was the saluditorian of her high school class, (bad news) and also a cheerleader, (good). I called her with some nervousness, and was teased and ribbed unmercifully, and thought as I tried to respond in kind that this would either be a lot of fun or almost as big a disaster as the other blind date.
So early Saturday night, a sober me resplendent with ripped jeans, an old striped white shirt with the pocket torn out and the elbows worn through, and a straw flat hat with a bite out of the rim and the top loose, and dirt (eye liner) smudged cheeks, I walked nervously up Langdon street to pick up my sharp-tongued date.
She must have seen something in me, because dozens, perhaps hundreds of study dates later, we were married in December of my junior year, had the first of our two sons in my senior year, and both graduated in June of 1967, with two children, no debts, and with my wife's B.S. in political science, and my B.S. Econ, 1964, and J.D. (1967). Along the way, her uncle paid only her tuition, and but for that, we both worked our way through. Thank you deans, for allowing our schedules to allow me to attend classes M-W-F, and my wife to attend T-Th, so we could watch our children when the other was at class.
Our marriage made fraternity life rather inappropriate, and I never activated, but between work and study something had to take a back seat. After 4 years as District Attorney, and 25 years in all practicing law, I be came and independent investment representative, and make use of my econ degree.
That blind date was 47 years ago, and we just returned from a week in Jamaica, celebrating our 45th anniversary. We had to sell our tickets to two basketball games, but sacrifices had to be made. Thank you UW, for being a place where one could get a great education and have a good time doing it.
Robert M Bell '64 and JD'67 and Jeanne L. (Niotis) Bell '67
I spent my 21st birthday with a fellow badger. It was our first date and he took me to Troias (sp) a supper club that was a major hangout in the 60's. It had an age requirement of 21 so it was a huge deal to go there. We had a great time but he couldn't believe I didn't sign out for a 12:30 and was annoyed that he had to get me back to my dorm by 10:30. We dated a long time but didn't end up together. However, he still calls me on my birthday. It was indeed a memorable first date in badger land.
Sharron Smith-Calvert '65
"It was a dark and stormy night" ... well, the truth is I don't remember. It was September 1963 and I was living with my 5 nurse roommates on Fiedler Lane. We'd prepared earlier for a party we were going to host on Sat night. "Why don't we go to the Office? Maybe we'll meet some cute guys to invite." Now the office was NOT where we earned the rent money. The Office was a piano bar on Park St. where a gaggle of single nurses could socialize and sing the Wiffenpoof Song with young men who were also kind of looking across the piano.
"These guys are our neighbors!" My roommie with tons more socializing savey shouted out and immediately 6 nurses answered the call and surrounded the 4 engineering grad students chattering and checking them out! The party invitation was extended and accepted. There was one I was immediately drawn to ... the very quiet bookish cute looking pipesmoking grad student.
Myrna Melrose Ridings has delighted in telling our story for 45 years. I'm still quiet and so she mostly speaks for both of us. In answer to the how did you meet question, we can always say we met at the office and we may or may not add that it in fact was a bar. It worked well for us.
Richard V. Ridings, PhD'67
John and the Spider Early Fall, 1967 -- Madison, WI
John was the new man in my life. He was going to be my first real date since my first love moved to New Jersey. John was handsome, smart and funny. Oh yes, I spotted him the first day I got to Madison and had begun to accidentally bump into him everywhere. "What a coincidence? Here we are both studying a the medical library again." The poor guy did not have a chance in hell of avoiding me.
When he got around to asking me out, I was thrilled. All day on Saturday, I primped and curled and changed outfits in preparation for the great date.
When he picked me up, I was extra charming. I giggled, I smiled until my cheeks hurt and I asked him all about himself. All the magazines said that the girl should do that. Advice columnists were unified -- men loved to talk about themselves and were really not that interested in what their dates had to say. One was supposed to smile and bat her eyelashes in order to make it appear that what their date had to say was fascinating.
The date was going well. John took my hand as we walked back to the dorm and I knew that the first kiss was coming. After some hugging, I closed my eyes in preparation for the big moment. As on as our lips met, I heard a bloodcurdling scream. It was my soon to be beloved. He jumped back at least three feet and was brushing something off his shoulder. "It's a spider," he cried. Imagine my shock. It wasn't a spider at all, just one of my false eyelashes. Hoping that he wouldn't notice, I quickly disposed of the "spider" but lost "the moment" forever.
To this day, I have never batted false eyelashes again!
Annette Gippe '69
It was early Sept, 1967, a warm day sitting outside at the Rathskellar where I was first introduced to Maryanne. I was starting my 3rd year working towards a Ph.D. in computer science and Maryanne her 2nd year aiming for a Ph.D. in european history. The terrace was full of people, and we talked about our summer travels, our courses, and our roommates. From there we moved upstairs as the "Grad Club" was having its first "social tea event" of the year. We continued to talk, always in groups, but the attraction was evident. From there we went to the Anti-Military Ball, a raucous affair full of bandaged and bloodied undergraduates (ala Halloween) and a great rock band. We danced till late in the evening.
Maryanne and I will be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary this June 23rd. We both became professors, thanks to the wonderful faculty at UW. We will always have a favored spot in our hearts for UW, the campus, the city, the people.
Ellis MS'67, PhD'70 & maryanne MA'68, PhD'70 horowitz
I was a green freshman walking down State Street on a beautiful brown October day with another girl I had just met a week before. I was a country Black girl from Anniston, Alabama and scared to death because my dorm was as tall as the tallest building in Anniston. All of a sudden, a car stopped and several members of the UW track team (They proudly told me.) got out of their car and asked us for our numbers. I gave my number to the tallest one. Well, I was thrilled but of course never got a phone call from that tall guy. I did get a call from the shortest one whose name was Richard. I called him back and since there were no caller ID's or cell phones, another Richard, who lived in the same apartment, talked to me as if he had called. He invited me to a party and picked me up the night of the party. He left that party with another girl and I felt like the biggest, red country jerk in the world. As I prepared to leave alone, a handsome young man came up to me and asked if he could walk me home. I realized that he was that shortest member of the car stopping track team. He was so very sweet and never mentioned that I had been dumped and left at the party until our 20th wedding anniversary.
Ena Harris '68, MS'71
I always knew that it would pay to study!
It happened at one of the University Library study rooms during final exams.(Do the study rooms still exist?) My roommate and I were seated at a study table and next to her was this great looking engineering student (his slide rule gave him away!). I'm not usually a forward person, but when he got up to leave several hours later I just started talking to him. He said something about "The Pub". Was he asking me to go to "The Pub" with him? I really didn't know but decided to pack up my books and go with him anyway! (His side of the story -- "She blatantly picked me up!")
We got engaged the next fall and have been married for 39 years!
Susan (Miller) Whiting '69 and Jim Whiting '69, MS'81
We married the weekend after graduation in 1960 and will celebrate 48 years this June--three children, four grandchildren, careers in engineering and nursing in California, and "retirement jobs" of 3 1/2 years teaching at a Catholic technical high school in Cameroon, West Africa. May we always continue to plan well.
Deanna (deBower) Bowers '60 and Warren Bowers '60
My future husband, Lee Rudolph and I met in a line while picking up our Badger Yearbooks. He was with two other guys. We all talked about various things but didn't exchange names. He did know that I lived in Liz Waters. He somehow decided he wanted to ask me out so he searched group pictures of the Liz Waters women. Quite a challenge, considering what a large dorm it is. Miraculously, he found me and gave me a call.
When I got the call, I had a bit of a dilemma. I didn't know which of the three guys he was and I didn't particularly want to go out with either of the other two. Finally, something was said that convinced me I was talking to the "cute one". The rest is history. We have been married 46 years.
Sally Harford Rudolph '61
Between 1958-62 when I was an undergraduate, a phrase heard on campus was, "Meet your spouse at Hillel House" and that it is exactly what happened. It was Passover of 1960 and Al Erlebacher, my husband of 47 years, and I were both attending a Passover Seder. We were seated next to each other and the two of us decided to stay after the seder and help clean up. As he was walking me home to Shepherd Hall on Lake Lawn Avenue, we went through the general, "What is your major?" It turned out he was doing course work on his doctorate in American History and I was struggling through Professor Current's 'Civil War and Reconstruction.'
I asked if he would tutor me which he did. I ended up getting an A in the course and I marrying my tutor 16 months later. He has continued to be my tutor through life's journey. So yes, "You can meet your spouse at Hillel House.
Dolores Adler Erlebacher '62
In the fall of 1961 I was playing in a band on campus called the Ascots. Our lead singer was Don Smith. Both of us were Phi Delts. At that time live bands were in and our competition was Steve Miller and Boz Skaggs. Music then was all over campus. And it was a great sound.
One afternoon Don asked me to check out the stage at the Union to see how we would set up for the band the next night at the Fall Freshman Dance they were having for all incoming freshman. We went to the Union around 4PM and there was a Freshman "get to meet your class" dance going on that afternoon too. No band just piped in music.
While on the stage in the Great Hall I looked out and saw this cut little blonde dancing with a guy. After a few minutes Don was ready to go , but I stayed and went out on the floor and asked her to dance. Walked her home and found out she was dating someone.
I stayed in contact with her and within months she was following the band sitting next to my drums every week-end while I played at the Fraternity houses. Today after 46 years and two sons ( a PhD and MD) we are still dancing and she still ( once in a while ) listens to those same drums. Although Steve Miller and I see each other once a year he seems to have done better at making great music. Me? I became a dentist.
Jim (Papy) Papandrea '63
Big disaster! I was invited to some big affair. My brother's frat brother was my date. I bought a dress at Manchesters. My sister gave me a manicure appointment on State St. The salon was so busy I had to leave to get ready. In the meantime my date had broken his arm and couldn't drive his VW, so I had to drive. Of course, I had no experience on a stick shift. I was trying to drive, and my date got madder and madder as I about ruined his transmission. He was expecting a reward at the end of the evening which I refused to give. Live and learn.
Suzanne Arnold Redenius '63
Being in Engineering school, we did our 'work', close to campus which in those days meant staying close to the dorm and the west end of University Ave, the 18, 19 credit hour semesters with labs didn't leave time for State St "binging" or fraternities. I convinced two other classmates that we should take our Calculus course on the 'hill' where all the girls were. We signed up not realizing we'd entered a class of math majors. After the 6 weeks exam, my two friends not only dropped the course, they dropped out of Engineering. I persisted and though passing the 6 and 12 weeks and the final exam was flunked! The grad assistant teacher explained that I hadn't done as well as the others, a negative curve! I did well the next try on the Engineering campus and met the girl who was to become my wife, she was the secretary in our Engineering school and became the mother of our two sons so again, if I'd stayed close to 'home' I wouldn't have wasted that one class.
Bob Warshal '63
Sort of a love story...I spent many evenings pushing my dates back into the window of Gilman House after hours. I lived above the Pub which had only one shower/toilet room. When a female guest needed to use the facilities, we posted ourselves as guards in the hall.
Stephen Eckstone '64
I didn't meet my wife on campus because I graduated four years ahead of her. However, we did meet at a UW Alumni Club Founders Day dinner. I arrived in NYC in March of '69 after five years of Naval Service. Diane Benzenberg, who grew up in Scarsdale, NY, spent a year working in Madison following graduation and returned home in the summer of '69. It was the UW Alumni Club of NYC that brought us together on April 10, 1970. We both chose to attend the Founders Day Dinner to meet somebody. As it turned out, we did not meet until it was over when mutual friends were planning to go to the Copter Club at the top of the Pan AM Building for a nightcap. We were both standing around while everyone was deciding whether to go or not when I looked at her and said, "Are you going?" She looked me up and down and said, "Sure. Are you going?" I said "Sure." When everyone left the Copter Club, we clearly were not ready to go home so we went for a cup of coffee. (At that age you could still do that and sleep later!) Obviously, something clicked and we were engaged in July and married in September. 37 plus years and two beautiful children later, we're still cookin'! As many local alums will attest, I've used this story many, many times to persuade young, single alums that I meet to attend UW Alumni Club functions. You never know?!?
Jim Goetz '64
EXCHANGE DINNERS In the early 1960's the Lakeshore dorms would have "Exchange Dinners" between men and women's dorm houses. At these events dorm residents would have a served, sit down dinner in a group setting with a blind date. The house social chairpersons would initiate negotiations for these events. Before my dorm, Tarrant House in Adams Hall, would agree to participate we would check yearbook photos, send out scouts, and network with contacts to see if the women were up to our standards. The other big hurtle in agreeing to participate was the method of pairing persons for the blind date. One method was the random line up. The women would line up in their house lounge and the men would line up outside and then walk into the lounge. The lines would face off and your blind date was the person opposite you. Another method was to tear a deck of cards in half and give a half of a card to each participant. Your date was the person with the half card matching yours. On occasion the social chairpersons would pair people; a potentially perilous task. Another method was to pair by height. At a Tarrant House exchange dinner with Bleyer House of Elm Drive A, in December 1961, blind dates were paired by height and therefore I had a 6 foot 3 inch tall date since I am 6 feet 4 inches in height. Based upon the Exchange Dinner date this woman agreed to be my substitute date at the Tarrant House spring picnic in 1963. My picnic date canceled out, but found the substitute date by pandering the Tarrant house yearbook picture, which included me, around Bleyer House. After our picnic date at Devil's Lake this woman searched me out in July 1963 while she was at summer school. She found me in the Pine Room, below Carson Gully dining hall (Then Van Hise dining hall.), when I arrived for the Chemical Engineering summer lab course in late July 1963. We went up to Observatory Hill that night and out to Picnic Point a week later. In June 2008 we will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary.
Duane Huetter '64 and Mary (Kienow) Huetter '65
As a freshman in 1960, I pledged Sigma Chi fraternity in the fall semester. But for the final chapter, my college story might have made that choice a mistake, at least that early in the process. Combined with following my high school advisor's advice to take German my first semester, and the fact that I found college life at UW to be an amazingly good time, after my first semester I was on serious academic probation, and while my second semester made it likely that I could continue in college, I found myself a holdover pledge, but the social chairman of the pledge class, whose self-designated duty was to design and plan spectacular decorations for the Sig house, a large, tudor? mansion located on Lake Street where the alumni house now stands. While I had attended several parties during the first two semesters, with girls met at the "beer suppers" that were held at that time on Friday nights, (beer was legal for 18 year-olds) those relationships ended after 1-3 dates.
I had also had two blind dates, one so-so, the second a disaster, (another story), and I vowed that if I ever had another blind date, it would be the last one in my lifetime.
The party was a hobo party, and some of the decorations included a suspension bridge extending from one end of the dining room to the fireplace in the living room a distance of 50-60 feet, and starting about 7 1/2 feet above the floor and suspended from the 12' plus ceiling height. Using wires stretched between the walls, and cup hooks suspended from the ceiling, the bridge involved hundreds of yards of crepe paper, and awed both actives and pledges. The "party room" off the living room had a working fireplace, carpeted for informal parties with old cotton mattresses stored in the 4th floor attic, was walled off with 2x4s and a combination of old aluminum roofing materials and cardboard, to resemble a tin and cardboard shack, redolent with graffiti, were truly amazing, if I do say so myself. Because this was to be a major party, much of the decorating was done by Wednesday, as we did not have a beer party that particular Friday night. Several of my fellow pledges pleaded with me not to go dateless to the party I had designed and organized.
I called a former high school classmate, who had arranged the more acceptable of the first two blind dates, who said the roommate of the former was free that night, and was the saluditorian of her high school class, (bad news) and also a cheerleader, (good). I called her with some nervousness, and was teased and ribbed unmercifully, and thought as I tried to respond in kind that this would either be a lot of fun or almost as big a disaster as the other blind date.
So early Saturday night, a sober me resplendent with ripped jeans, an old striped white shirt with the pocket torn out and the elbows worn through, and a straw flat hat with a bite out of the rim and the top loose, and dirt (eye liner) smudged cheeks, I walked nervously up Langdon street to pick up my sharp-tongued date.
She must have seen something in me, because dozens, perhaps hundreds of study dates later, we were married in December of my junior year, had the first of our two sons in my senior year, and both graduated in June of 1967, with two children, no debts, and with my wife's B.S. in political science, and my B.S. Econ, 1964, and J.D. (1967). Along the way, her uncle paid only her tuition, and but for that, we both worked our way through. Thank you deans, for allowing our schedules to allow me to attend classes M-W-F, and my wife to attend T-Th, so we could watch our children when the other was at class.
Our marriage made fraternity life rather inappropriate, and I never activated, but between work and study something had to take a back seat. After 4 years as District Attorney, and 25 years in all practicing law, I be came and independent investment representative, and make use of my econ degree.
That blind date was 47 years ago, and we just returned from a week in Jamaica, celebrating our 45th anniversary. We had to sell our tickets to two basketball games, but sacrifices had to be made. Thank you UW, for being a place where one could get a great education and have a good time doing it.
Robert M Bell '64 and JD'67 and Jeanne L. (Niotis) Bell '67
I spent my 21st birthday with a fellow badger. It was our first date and he took me to Troias (sp) a supper club that was a major hangout in the 60's. It had an age requirement of 21 so it was a huge deal to go there. We had a great time but he couldn't believe I didn't sign out for a 12:30 and was annoyed that he had to get me back to my dorm by 10:30. We dated a long time but didn't end up together. However, he still calls me on my birthday. It was indeed a memorable first date in badger land.
Sharron Smith-Calvert '65
"It was a dark and stormy night" ... well, the truth is I don't remember. It was September 1963 and I was living with my 5 nurse roommates on Fiedler Lane. We'd prepared earlier for a party we were going to host on Sat night. "Why don't we go to the Office? Maybe we'll meet some cute guys to invite." Now the office was NOT where we earned the rent money. The Office was a piano bar on Park St. where a gaggle of single nurses could socialize and sing the Wiffenpoof Song with young men who were also kind of looking across the piano.
"These guys are our neighbors!" My roommie with tons more socializing savey shouted out and immediately 6 nurses answered the call and surrounded the 4 engineering grad students chattering and checking them out! The party invitation was extended and accepted. There was one I was immediately drawn to ... the very quiet bookish cute looking pipesmoking grad student.
Myrna Melrose Ridings has delighted in telling our story for 45 years. I'm still quiet and so she mostly speaks for both of us. In answer to the how did you meet question, we can always say we met at the office and we may or may not add that it in fact was a bar. It worked well for us.
Richard V. Ridings, PhD'67
John and the Spider Early Fall, 1967 -- Madison, WI
John was the new man in my life. He was going to be my first real date since my first love moved to New Jersey. John was handsome, smart and funny. Oh yes, I spotted him the first day I got to Madison and had begun to accidentally bump into him everywhere. "What a coincidence? Here we are both studying a the medical library again." The poor guy did not have a chance in hell of avoiding me.
When he got around to asking me out, I was thrilled. All day on Saturday, I primped and curled and changed outfits in preparation for the great date.
When he picked me up, I was extra charming. I giggled, I smiled until my cheeks hurt and I asked him all about himself. All the magazines said that the girl should do that. Advice columnists were unified -- men loved to talk about themselves and were really not that interested in what their dates had to say. One was supposed to smile and bat her eyelashes in order to make it appear that what their date had to say was fascinating.
The date was going well. John took my hand as we walked back to the dorm and I knew that the first kiss was coming. After some hugging, I closed my eyes in preparation for the big moment. As on as our lips met, I heard a bloodcurdling scream. It was my soon to be beloved. He jumped back at least three feet and was brushing something off his shoulder. "It's a spider," he cried. Imagine my shock. It wasn't a spider at all, just one of my false eyelashes. Hoping that he wouldn't notice, I quickly disposed of the "spider" but lost "the moment" forever.
To this day, I have never batted false eyelashes again!
Annette Gippe '69
It was early Sept, 1967, a warm day sitting outside at the Rathskellar where I was first introduced to Maryanne. I was starting my 3rd year working towards a Ph.D. in computer science and Maryanne her 2nd year aiming for a Ph.D. in european history. The terrace was full of people, and we talked about our summer travels, our courses, and our roommates. From there we moved upstairs as the "Grad Club" was having its first "social tea event" of the year. We continued to talk, always in groups, but the attraction was evident. From there we went to the Anti-Military Ball, a raucous affair full of bandaged and bloodied undergraduates (ala Halloween) and a great rock band. We danced till late in the evening.
Maryanne and I will be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary this June 23rd. We both became professors, thanks to the wonderful faculty at UW. We will always have a favored spot in our hearts for UW, the campus, the city, the people.
Ellis MS'67, PhD'70 & maryanne MA'68, PhD'70 horowitz
I was a green freshman walking down State Street on a beautiful brown October day with another girl I had just met a week before. I was a country Black girl from Anniston, Alabama and scared to death because my dorm was as tall as the tallest building in Anniston. All of a sudden, a car stopped and several members of the UW track team (They proudly told me.) got out of their car and asked us for our numbers. I gave my number to the tallest one. Well, I was thrilled but of course never got a phone call from that tall guy. I did get a call from the shortest one whose name was Richard. I called him back and since there were no caller ID's or cell phones, another Richard, who lived in the same apartment, talked to me as if he had called. He invited me to a party and picked me up the night of the party. He left that party with another girl and I felt like the biggest, red country jerk in the world. As I prepared to leave alone, a handsome young man came up to me and asked if he could walk me home. I realized that he was that shortest member of the car stopping track team. He was so very sweet and never mentioned that I had been dumped and left at the party until our 20th wedding anniversary.
Ena Harris '68, MS'71
I always knew that it would pay to study!
It happened at one of the University Library study rooms during final exams.(Do the study rooms still exist?) My roommate and I were seated at a study table and next to her was this great looking engineering student (his slide rule gave him away!). I'm not usually a forward person, but when he got up to leave several hours later I just started talking to him. He said something about "The Pub". Was he asking me to go to "The Pub" with him? I really didn't know but decided to pack up my books and go with him anyway! (His side of the story -- "She blatantly picked me up!")
We got engaged the next fall and have been married for 39 years!
Susan (Miller) Whiting '69 and Jim Whiting '69, MS'81
Events
- Ethics and The Future of Democratic Media - December 2
- Twin Cities - Volunteer with Loaves and Fishes - December 3
- WAA-Chicago Holiday Party 2008 - December 4
- UW & Marquette Young Alumni Holiday Happy Hour - December 4
