Share Your Memory or Message

After 2020, we can all relate better to this story.

I was a B-school graduate student living in RHAP at 22 Colvin Circle with 3 undergraduate roommates, Deborah Grimstead (Comms),  Mary Ellen Payne (CE) and Shelly Trow (Math). We shared costs for toilet paper among other items. We were concerned about not running out of toilet paper but we were also concerned about reducing the cost while choosing a brand we felt was acceptable to us all.

To solve this most important of issues, we commenced a toilet paper study, dutifully tracking our usage on a pad of paper kept near the toilet, store receipts and noted CSAT with each brand we tried during a period of a several weeks.

We discussed our results as a group, cost calculations in hand and debated the merits of aspects such as thickness, softness, #sheets/roll, scent, “feel” and how many sheets we used depending on the brand for #1 or #2.

I can’t remember exactly everyone’s preferences but I do remember that Mary Ellen insisted that she like to smell the scented toilet paper. After considering all these factors and “olfactors” our compromise was the economical Scott 1000 sheets/roll, a choice that is popular in the Norton household to this day. 😀

Spontaneous snowball fight in main quad, running laps on the  wooden track of the ’87 gym, iced teas at Elda’s, pizza bagels at Coffee Tyme, being inside a chapel (Voorhees), Billy Idol at the CSNY Albany gym, hockey games, parts of GM week, burgers at Sutter’s, …

Your photo of the Poly office asks the question “Do you recognize anyone?” Yes I do.  That’s me in the back standing next to the bulletin board.  I can certainly identify everyone else in the picture. The photo is from an article I wrote for the alumni magazine, August 1982 issue, on the history of the Poly newspaper.  I was editor-in-chief in 1981-82.  Fun fact: I painted the logo on the back wall.

I remember all those reunions: 1960, 65, 70, etc. up through 2015. Are you going to come to our delayed 65th reunion in October? Send an email to carrollz@umich.edu

Lots of memories coming back to mind! Labmates taking me to fancy Holmes&Watson for a Belgian beer on my first day on campus. Orientation week where I met many lasting friends. The windowless lab at -1 in JEC. Ending up on the front page of The Rensselaer after working late in the computer lab. Going camping at Lake George and caving in the Catskills with the Outing Club. Going down to Troy for NY chicken wings at El Dorado’s and playing pitchers at Sutter’s then crawling back up the mountain. Having a girlfriend in the then male dominated student population. Watching sports games on TV endlessly with roommates. Being invited for Thanksgiving by my host family. Driving my Buick Le Sabre ‘78 around and outside town hoping nothing would break down – the brakes did! Practising gymnastics and ending up in the student hospital and surgery at Albany’s children hospital. Playing basketball at the ‘87 gym and winning the intramural competition against Casa. Hanging out with great people from the Math department. Learning interesting stuff about robotics, finite elements, and non-linear dynamics from great professors. Graduating in the Field House with commencement speaker Tom Clancy. Having a last wild night before leaving RPI. Visiting back multiple times for homecoming as well as with my children many years later… And SOOO many more!

being in Sutter’s 4 hours after arriving on campus

The 1952 lacrosse and the 1954 hockey championships are terrific memories, both teams coached by Ned Harkness.  When I chose RPI for my Chemical Engineering studies little did I know of RPI’s prowess in both these sports. I wound up spending too much time as a fan for those four years at RPI. I still follow RPI men’s hockey and, living near Princeton U. I get to see at least one RPI game every year.

Realizing I could dial into the mainframe from my apartment using my Ti 99/4a (later my Commodore 64) rather than trudge through the snow to the computer center (haha). MTV on 24 x7.  Front row tickets for The Clash at the Field House!  Watching a fire on the mountain across the valley from Williams Apartments with Victor Vega while listening to “Fire on the Mountain” by the Grateful Dead.  Friday evening cocktail parties.  Hanging out with DJ Sir Walford.  Spending many spring days hanging out under the Chrinitoid.  Learning how to learn and get through anything!

The Linear Accelerator, a device for accelerating electrons along straight lines, was the most powerful ever built at the time of its opening in 1961. Today, the campus hosts the Artificial Intelligence Multiprocessing Optimized System, or AiMOS – among the most powerful supercomputers in the world.  What facility, lab, or field of study drew you to Rensselaer?

Over the years, the Houston Field House, in addition to hosting many great hockey games, commencement ceremonies, and other special events, has been a venue for big-name bands – including  Ray Charles (1961), Johnny Cash (1969), Bruce Springsteen (1978), Rod Stewart (1989), and Alanis Morissette (1996) – to name only a few.  What concert, sports competition, or special event brings back great Houston Field House memories for you?

The Quad is just one of the residence halls on campus.  Did you live on campus in one of them, or other on-campus housing?  Or did you live in a Greek house, or off-campus apartment? Whether it was Freshman Hill, Tin Town, Barton Hall, or Blitman Commons … share your story with us!

This is a picture of the Jonsson Engineering Center groundbreaking ceremony, which took place on April 18, 1975. The underground explosion you can see in the picture was triggered by a long-distance phone call placed by Margaret Jonsson from Dallas, Texas.  The Rensselaer campus is always growing and changing.  What was the big construction project on campus during your time here?

This image of The Poly staff at work comes, we believe, from the 1980s.  Do you recognize anyone in the photo?  What was your favorite student club/activity?