At the Big Olive…or the OK Library ..where someone has drawn a pink chalk heart outside with ” we will be OK” underneath it…(is that double entendre?)

we have just watched Paul Zink’s Zenior project piece…it is purely Paul and purely poetic…and after watching it we are trying not to be faklempt…..

Paul Zink is our “lazt?” graduate…perhaps? and zon of a truztee….

here is the link…you will have to provide your own popcorn and kleenex.

Paul is wonderfully creative and resourceful and did some rolling shots on a skateboard and even climbed a giant tree on front campus at the crack of dawn to get the perfect paulish and poetic view of the towers..

try this link…….

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1931941570034192232

much love to all and perhaps you will see yourself or friends during this 18 minute piece…. hey Mr. Spalt!!!

Sundance film festival anyone?

and be sure to forward this link to peers and other peeps…

xoxox please think about reunion…..the company of your peers is bound to be uplifting check antiochians.org for reunion details and alumni board ballot info (soon)

or call the College Revival Office, 716 Xenia Avenue 937 767-2341

Duffy ‘77 (and all the yearz since)

People like Paul and Maclean, a bronze sculptor who did a bust of Coretta Scott King are well…wonderful…..

Dear Bangalore Blue……

and other friends…….many of us are exhausted…many of us are helping getting these students finished up…..many of us are enduring moments like the old Heinz Catsup commercials..

the joy of ant-ti-ci-paaaation. And we are going through grief, anger, anxiety, and some moments of joy.

For those folks who are not totally intellectual and indulge in some pop-culture…well, a metaphor that comes to mind is the original Stark Trek pilot..where the the original Capt. (Who is NOT Bill Shatner, Capt. Kirk…. but Jeffrey Hunter, Captain Pike).

He is enduring a court martial and being cross examined about everything..but all that is left of him is from the chest up..and he can no longer even speak…..there are three lights at the base of the bust…….which can blink answers.

Of course that Capt had crashed on a far away planet and was burned beyond recognitiion but resident and (we assume) super intelligent aliens tried to fix everything and provide him with an alternate sense of reality…but their intentions were…well not totally benign.In discussig this metaphor with a co-op faculty member…well, we certainly laughed…and she said that the three buttons were reminiscent of what we have all ENDURED for a year…. the three butoons were YES, NO and WAIT…. anyhooooooo Really wonderfully classic sci-fci……and a great metaphor….for what we are truly enduring…..we are the results of much experimentation……ughhh.

The phone number for the CRF College Revival Fund, Inc. is 937 767-2341 its fax 937 767-2376

address 716 Xenia Avenue, Mellow Springs, Ohio.

The CRF is the alumni advocacygroup for maintaining our collective legacy…..in its most accurately perceived form……

And don’t forget Antiochians.org saveantioch.org and other links.

YSO is plain beautiful right now…wall to wall flowers, eh……..smelly trees and all…….

many alums and other folks are talking out there and have decided to go through Antiochians.org or G-mail groups.

and other venues…not trusting the other e-venues.

I am hearing that Alumni Board Ballots are going out and that Reunion is anticipated.

Antiochians are creative and resourceful…so I imagine something serendipitous is in the works…

Take care……whoever you are bangalore blue….

Duffy ‘77

Hey yall..just passing through utopia on a spring Saturday.

and just a quick chat and then I have those mundane things to do like get a student to shelve some books and then go back to horrid Dayton and do my Sattiday shopping. But wanted also to tell you guys a story or two.,….

Please…all you New York Times readers…be sure to open the link you were just sent about a fairly long NYT article in the April 20th NYT. and if you like “paper” still..well get that paper tomorrah. “The college that would not go gently……..’”

Fun to read an article when I know all the names in print…….fun for me that is…….

and finally, well, push for us (your own legacy) as your spirit and energy will allow.

I am amazed, always, that eventhough there are not enough students or donations to make the corner of the spreadsheets smile….that the students we have are many cuts above the norm.

One of the reasons I came here a jillion years ago was having seen a picture of the Empire State Building in the catalog….with the hint that I could go to college in Ohio but still be a New Yorker ( I have since cut that umbilical chord…….and discovered what the catalog hinted ..that the world was the Antioch campus….)

after wandering the planet…YSO was comfortable for me…

However, many Antiochians are like a word in that NYT article…nomadic…..

In this age, of course, you can be anywhere in the world and still use services offered through the Olive Kettering Library and its friends (OHIOLINK)….a couple of years ago I received an email…as I often do….from a student somewhere on the planet.

“Can you tell me my barcode?” To do research, you see, one must know their name and barcode to get anywhere.

After I sent her that barcode..I asked…as I usually do…where are you, how r u, and whadya doing?

The answer was… “I am at an eleplant sanctuary in Thailand and want to do some research….”

Tania..has been back and forth to Thailand over the past couple of years…and mostly in Thailand….. but poppped up this week..like many folks who are getting ready to walk the mound and then head to the big co-op-in -the-sky…

She came by the library and dropped off a post card advertisig her senior photo exhibit.

I can’t always make it to every senior show…especially when I live 35 minues away and gas is so expensive….but hers was at the right time.

Neddless to say…her photographs…..all taken in Thailand and all connected to elephants were absolutely marvelous. Not only was the photography first class but the paper the prints were on was coarse and parchment-like with heavy fibers running through them. Turns out that the paper was made using elepnat dung….

She was able to tell a story behind each picture…and one in particular..that I had stopped to view was an interesting story all in itself.

Turns out that ..that eleplant had like many elepjhants in Thailand …..was used in logging operations…….elephants, btw, have a 24 month gestation period….. so during her pregnancy she was working hard and shot up with amphetamines and worked as hard as could be. She eventually had a miscarriage while she was working and her stillborn rolled down a hill…..after this the elephant was depressed and grieving and became unproductive.,..so the loggers beat her anbd then shot]her in the eye..

and then sold her to another logging company..there she faired no better…was worked and beaten some more…and then shot in the other eye…so became a blind elephant.. who was then made to become a “begging” elephant..used to raise alms…… finally, Tania said, the elephant made its way to the santuary where she was worked and finally received some love. As Tania was tawking she mentioned how social elephant herds are and described how the elephants in the sanctuary would come over and give her support and help…..

This is one anecdote, of course, but so many Antiochians do these sorts of things .I feel that this more prevalent here than say..UD or Wittenberg or many comaparable schools.

In between all the anger and turmoil of folks analyzing and working on social issues and injustices there are many folks here who are so focused and driven here…I am glad and proud to be near these Antiochians. even up to the clas of ‘08…

As always…Be ashamed to let it die…and non stop-Arthur. Rambling on before I ramble on.

Duffy ‘77

Graduation next Sattiday….

some folks have deep roots

—– Original Message —–

Friday, April 18, 2008 12:26:03 PM
Message From: mwdole
Subject: History
To: Steven Duffy

Duffy, I loved your history blogs about Antioch in the twenties. My parents, Margaret and Harvey Welsh attended the college in that era. I think they read in the Readers Digest about the new coop plan that Arthur Morgan had started, At any rate they transferred to the college from Grinnell and the University of Minnesota respectively. My father graduated about 1923 and my mother in 1927. (I attended her graduation.) I have a picture of my father in front of the equipment for Antioch‚s first radio station. My mother had a coop job in Dayton, demonstrating stoves. She later had a part time secretarial job with Senator S.D. Fess (former president of Antioch) whose home was on Xenia Avenue. My folks had a great anecdote about Yellow Springs water. It seems that one of the professors was accustomed to taking his morning shower in the gym. When the village announced that they were temporarily cutting off the town water for maintenance and warned people not to turn the water on until further notice, this professor said he was dammed if he was going to give up his shower. So he went to the gym, turned on the water and soaped up. Suddenly the water slowed and gushed out this horrible yellow slush mixture all over him.

Marj Dole Œ46

Back to the cultivation of Hugh Taylor Birch’s friendship….

The next summer the papers were full of the accounts of another Florida Hurricane. remembering Mr. Birch’s worries over his coconut palms, which had greatly suffered in the earlier storm. wrote him that I hoped they were not badly hit again. My letter seemed to re awaken his interest. After he had investigated and been assured that we lived sufficiently well for him to visit us ( I heard directly), he wired me he would stop for lunch with us. In those days he was good company and really lonesome for companionship. He and arthur found a great deal in common in their love of the out-of-doors. He liked our house The Morgan House on Limestone Street), though he said it was quite too small. Lottie, my cook and friend, and I learned to serve him the meals he had ecied on, alfalfa tea, yolks of eggs without any whites, etc.,etc. Remembering his early days in the Glen as a boy and later as a student under Edward Orton,…. he conceived the plan of purchasing the Glen as a meorial to his daughter Helen, who had died a few year before. He spent a good deal of time with us as he annexed tract after tyract of land along Yellow Springs creek and the the Little Miami River to complete his dream of “Glen Helen”. Almost at once he demanded “a book about it.” Allyn Swinnerton and Ondess Inman complied with good scientifioc descirptions. He looked them over and said, “This is not what I want”. But no one could find out what he did want, so Aniona Spitler, an Antioch graduate, and I went to visit him in his summer house in Massachusetts to see if we could solve the problem. When we settled down to it, it did not take long to find out that he wanted a book about Hugh Taylor Birch, and as his life had been really interesting, we got along very well writing “The Story of Glen Helen” Then he got me to superintend building and furnishing a new home at the southern end of Glen Helen, and he sett;ed down to enjoy it all…….

In the story of Glen Helen, Mrs. Jessie Armstrong’s part must be told. She proposed to Arthur in 1926 a memorial at Antioch to her husband. The Glen had been purchased, but was still unpaid for. She said it was just the sort of thing he would have liked and paid for it. In 1928 when Mr. Birch wanted it, Arthur said, “But it is already given as a memorial.” Mr. Birch brushed that aside with :Oh, let her give something else” That did not seem to us just the proper proceeding, but we did let Mrs. Armstrong know of the propsal, and she generously said..”Surely I will let him have it.” She then gave the money for the college power plant, which though not as romantic, was also a valuable aset to the college, as well as an appropriate memorial to her engineer husband…….. . pioneering days continues on to talk about the Foundry, The Antioch Shoe Company, and the Antioch Press..early industries in YS….

and finally Lucy tawks about her Limestone street home which is now the Bed and Breakfast…

Our house at 120 West Limestone was my dream houese…we had many happy times there/ We took folks in to live with us after both the early college fires, and for all sorts of other emergencies. It was a fine place for parties, but it seemed it must have been fore-ordained as a co-op houyse, for the dumb-waiter, which was a very casual result of a visitor’s suggestion just at a time in construction when it could be easily added, proved to be the indispensible item for the use to which I put it in 1931 and ‘32. It was sad for me to leave the house, but it is a joy to see the students using it.

To all Antiochians and friends of Antioch who read this, Arthur and I send our greetings.

Well..again..non-stop Arthur…it’s part of our colective legacy that we take for granted.

Imagine Ralph Walso Emerson vacating in YS…..

I guess I had a celebrity sit with me in YS as well….remembering Stokely Carmichael and others feasting on Gabby’s ribs in his speak easy on Stafford street circa 1983 or so.

It is a shame for theese light bulbs to go dim….

Duffy’77