Interview with Philip Aggen, 11/22/2016

JN: Okay so today's date is November 22, 2016. It is currently 10:00 and I'm at the Alumni Welcome and Conference Center in Oshkosh. My name is Jared Nicholls and I am interviewing Phil Aggen. Now Phil, let me begin by asking where did 00:01:00you grow up?

PA: Well, I grew up in Central Wisconsin up near Clintonville between Clintonville and Wausau. I was born and raised on a farm up there. I was the oldest of six kids so I was the first one to go off to college in 1967 here in Oshkosh. So that's where I grew up on a farm so coming to school here and going to college was a really new experience for me.

JN: How was that?

PA: It was good. I had had some friends who went to Stevens Point but I 00:02:00decided to come to Oshkosh and it was a good experience coming to Oshkosh.

JN: How was it on the farm?

PA: Well, it was a lot of work. Being the oldest I was sort of like the hired hand because I helped with the chores all the time and did a lot of the work with my dad so it was a lot of work. One of the things I remember when I first 00:03:00started here as a freshman was every night we'd have to go out to the barn to help with the chores and feed the cows and all of that. So, my freshman year when it got to be six o'clock at night and I didn't have to go out and do the chores wow that was a great new experience for me and I remember so distinctly because it was wow this experience and instead of going out to do the chores the first week or so I would go down to the bar and have a beer and it was so wonderful not to have to go out and work in the barn and do all of those things so it was a real vacation for me from all the farm work that's for sure.

JN: What were your parents like?

PA: Well, they were just High School graduated. My dad and mom both valued 00:04:00education and my dad made sure we got good grades in High School and rewarded us for that and at one point he was on the school board in Tigerton, which was the school that I went to and so I think he always told us that getting an education and graduating from a four year college was sort of your ticket to the future, it was how you got ahead. Actually two of my sisters graduated from Oshkosh also and eventually all five of my siblings graduated from college somewhere so it really worked out well that emphasis on education that my parents gave me certainly helped.

JN: What did your parents do for a living?

PA: They were just on the farm. They didn't work outside, well eventually they sold the farm and my dad went into construction and eventually into real estate. My mother worked as a clerk in a pharmacy eventually but during the time I was growing up and most of my brothers and sisters they were just working on the farm.

JN: So did people around you typically go to college?

PA: It was about half and half, I mean I think in my high school graduating class maybe a third went to college, a couple went to technical school maybe and the others just stayed around Tigerton and worked on the farm or in the factory or that kind of thing. So I would say a third went to college like I said Stevens Point so of them went to so.

JN: So how did your neighborhood change as you started to grow up?

PA: Well, the area around where I grew up is pretty stable. It stayed pretty much the same it's still a farming area to this day but over the years since I 00:07:00left that area most of the farms no longer milk cows so, it's kind of that way all over Wisconsin you see old farmsteads where the barn in no longer used but at that time every farm on the road where I grew up had twenty to thirty cows and some kids and they were a business all their own. That's how they survived, they farmed and that was true of a lot but then over the years as the people, like our family, got older and their kids didn't want to go into farming, which I didn't want to do, the kids left, the parents got old and then they sold the farm.

JN: So why didn't you want to go into farming?

PA: (laughter) Two words a lot of work, long hours. By the time I was in my senior year I pretty much knew I didn't want any more work with the seven day a week schedule so I was happy. Neither of my brothers were interested so.

JN: What did you aspire to be as a kid?

PA: Well, I think really the only interest that I had even into my high school years kind of what I can remember was psychology and that was my major when I 00:09:00was here and minored in sociology. I was probably kind of weird but it was partly because of the farm upbringing. When you're on a farm your kind of isolated, you don't interact with a lot of other people like my classmates who lived in Tigerton who left school and hung out with friends. Well, I went home on the bus and worked and interacted with my brothers and sisters so I was always interested in what made people function, how they operated and partly I guess probably so I could survive in the world. Figure other people so I could interact with them and so psychology really was the only real thing I was interested in.

JN: When did you start to think about college?

PA: Well, it was during somewhere in my high school years probably I mean I guess because of the emphasis on education in our family it was sort of the forgone conclusion really. As I looked around my teachers and things it was pretty obvious that the only way to get a good job off the farm was to get a college education, although that probably wasn't true of everybody but in our family it was a forgone conclusion that you got good grades in high school so you could go to college.

JN: So speaking of college, where did consider going to college?

PA: Well like I said, the only other place I really seriously considered was Stevens Point because I knew people who were going there but then Oshkosh was the other one and I think I remember I came down and took a tour I don't remember exactly but I chose it because it was reasonably close by and in some ways it was where my friends didn't go because I wanted to go off on my own a little bit.

JN: So speaking of psychology, why did you consider studying psychology?

PA: Well, like I said it was kind of an early interest of mine and think it was just basically to try and understand how people function and like I said more 00:12:00for maybe my own survival to get along in the world and that's as I remember that's the only kind of motivation I had. Like I said I was kind of weird because in high school, one of the things I remember reading was a psychology by Karl Menninger, he was a famous psychiatrist at that time and had a clinic out in Kansas, and where other people were reading Sports Illustrated or whatever I was reading psychology books. That's kind of probably my main motivation.

JN: Were there other majors that you were interested in?

PA: Well, the only other one like I said I minored in sociology and again I 00:13:00think it kind of came from my background where being on farm you're pretty isolated and you're not used to the big city ways and all of that. So sociology was a way of understanding how people interacted with each other and in groups and cities and that kind of thing, something I wasn't familiar with.

JN: So what did you know about Oshkosh before attending?

PA: Not really much actually. Like I said I think I came for a tour with my parents but other than that those were the days when we didn't have internet so you couldn't even look it up on the internet, they didn't have cell phones back 00:14:00then which reminds me I probably have to turn mine down.

JN: So what were the first impressions of the campus?

PA: Well, if I remember back it was exciting I liked the campus I think because it was in a small area, in a reasonably small town it wasn't like UW-Madison, I 00:15:00never considered that because that was just too big for me. I really liked the closeness of it. It was an exciting experience, I think I remember going through the Reeve Union and that was exciting. All of these neat people sitting around.

JN: What were the classes like back then?

PA: Well, it's kind of hard to remember back that far, it's been like 45, 50 years, but in thinking about all of this it's funny how much comes back to your 00:16:00mind and a lot of it is the images and things I'm not sure if you're going to be talking about the dorms or that kind of thing are you? (Interviewer nodes) Okay. But the classes they were basically you had your theater type classrooms and then your smaller classrooms. In the first year I took the introduction to psychology and the same thing with sociology and the one class I probably shouldn't have taken for the first two years was French so my degree is a Bachelor of Arts degree because of the foreign language but for some reason I thought I needed to learn French which I never did (laughs). Those were my C's and D classes. I remember I had an advanced Algebra class I didn't do very well in so that's the last math class I took too but the psychology and sociology ones were good and I think I had to take a science and biology class or 00:17:00something like that.

JN: How did you do your first year?

PA: Pretty good. Like I said with the exception of French and the math course, I don't remember if I took that first semester or second semester, I did pretty good I don't think I had a big, high grade point average I think it was more of an average one but I got B's and C's. I don't know if I ever got an A or not but B's were okay because my goal was to graduate it wasn't to be at the top of the class and plus there was a social aspect to of it that I enjoyed so I probably didn't study as much as I could have but.

JN: I know it's a long time ago but what gen eds (general education) which one 00:18:00was your favorite?

PA: Of the what?

JN: The general education courses?

PA: I think I had to take an English course too. I remember taking an English course and it's funny all of the things you remember back then because the one English class I remember taking and I remember it so vividly that from a 00:19:00psychology point of view it's fascinating to me that what happens in your life, what you experienced, stays there for so long and mostly it's in images. I'm reading a book on left brain and right brain right now and what registers mostly goes into your right brain in turns of in the form of images and I remember this one English class he had us write an essay on a book we picked out, so I picked out a book from the library it was about this couple that had this store and I really got interested in the book and I spent a lot of time on writing that paper, which is kind of unusual because I just usually wrote out what I had to and that that's bad. But I really spent a lot of time thinking about it, reading about it and I handed the paper in and a week later when he handed the papers back and on the top of my paper it said see me, and that's never a good 00:20:00thing, so I went into his office and sat down and he said ya know this is a really good paper. In effect he was kind of getting at did you really write this and I said yeah I got interested in the story and I wrote the paper, so he gave me an A on it but I remember that professor and that whole situation because it was so unusual. But anyway I don't know if that answered your question or not.

JN: So what kind of student were you?

PA: Well, I was just kind of an average student I guess. I don't know how other people's experiences are in this. You may have picked the wrong person to interview here because I wasn't involved in the fraternities, in that whole 00:21:00scene and I didn't get involved in clubs and I regret that. I wish I had gotten involved in like the psychology club and that kind of thing. But part of the reason was, for me anyway, it was such a new experience and so much social life. One of the things that kind of came back to me as I was sort of thinking about my time here and preparing for this is that the sixties, from sixty-seven to seventy-one, was an exciting time, it was a time when there was a lot going on and it kind of reminded me of that old Chinese curse, I don't know if you've heard this, may you live in interesting times. It's a curse because the interesting times are fun and exciting, but there's also downside to it too and there were some downsides to the sixties. But the social life, it was the 00:22:00beginning of the sexual revolution and there was just so much going on that the studies kind of took a back seat. There was all kinds of things going on that were more interesting and more fun than studying let me tell you. I was just kind of an average student I mean I had average intelligence probably so I probably just got average grades.

JN: Where did you spend most of your time on campus?

PA: Well, usually either the library or the union (Reeve Union) and part of the reason for that, we are going to talk about the dorm experience I guess, but my 00:23:00freshman year I was put in a dorm that is no longer there it was actually on North Jackson Street, it was a big old building and it was like a monastery or a hospital for retired priests. It was kind of an interesting building, it was built in the late eighteen hundreds I think and it was marble floors and plaster walls and high ceilings and they were echoed but it was kind of neat. Anyway, it was on North Jackson so I had to walk into class every day to campus and once you got there, especially in the winter, in between classes you don't want to walk all of the way back to the dorm so you went to the library or the union (Reeve Union) to hang out until your next class. I had a lot of classes in Clow building I think so I would spend some time there and stuff but mostly the library or the union (Reeve Union). In the library I spent time, well actually 00:24:00I smoked at that time so I spent some time in the smoking lounge reading French magazines trying to figure out how to read French.

JN: How often did you go home?

PA: Well, that first year, the freshman year, very seldom probably for Christmas cause I didn't have a car. Then after that, I got a car in the summer between freshman and sophomore and so then after that, sophomore and junior, every couple of months I'd go home or something like that. The other part of this, along with the social, is that being raised on a farm we didn't have a lot 00:25:00of money and so I got a small scholarship and then I had work study and so I worked on work study part time some years and other years I got part time jobs in town. When I wasn't in class a lot of it was spent working.

JN: So where did you work?

PA: Well, the two work study jobs that I remember, one of them was in the psychology lab I think his name I looked at the website for some of the retired professors and one of them was a Dr. Michael Meeker and I think he was the one who taught experimental psychology and he had me putting these components on circuit boards for these computer things that he built to do psychology 00:26:00experiments on rats and things like that. The other work study job I did was cleaning up the classrooms in the Science building I think in the afternoons or evenings and in turns of off campus I worked at a gas station for a while and I worked at a foundry down here by the river kind of for a year or so, that one was a good job that one paid well I had some money when I worked there. The foundry and then the last couple of years I worked at an auto body shop up in Marian, Wisconsin over the summer and then I worked there during the Christmas break too. I think I worked work study one year when I did that.

JN: How were the dorms?

PA: Well, like I said the one out on North Jackson there that was kind of 00:27:00interesting because it was so old, it's not there anymore it's torn down its ball fields and things, and then actually the next year, the sophomore year, I think it was Breeze Hall, it was right by the union (Reeve Union) and that one's gone now I think too. They tore that one down and Fletcher (Hall) I believe and built a nice new one, but the other interesting thing about the dorms that I was thinking about is we didn't have coed dorms.

JN: So how was that experience with the coed dorms?

PA: We didn't think anything of it because it was just a norm for that time. I think the only time women were allowed in the dorm was like four hours on a Sunday afternoon, so your mother could come visit you and stuff like that but we didn't think anything of it. There were plenty of places to get together with women off campus and at the bars and things like that so we didn't think too much of it. If you knew somebody that lived off campus like in a house or an apartment you just went over and whatever so we didn't think too much about it.

JN: So what were the other students on campus like?

PA: Well, it's interesting I was thinking about that too. The people on campus sort of reflected the time in our society at that time. It was a time when, during the sixties sixty eight was an election year and all kinds of things happened in sixty eight I don't know if you studied the history of nineteen sixty eight but it was an amazing kind of year, and in our culture a lot of things were happening. There was the sexual revolution, there was a lot of drugs, experimentation, there was the hippy movement, the Beatles were popular, and all of those things. So, in society there were sort of the hippies and the drug experimenters and then there were the straight people, the traditional nineteen fifties people, and that's kind of how people were on campus too. You 00:30:00had the long hair hippies and then you had the serious business students. I guess I was sort of somewhere in the middle because the one roommate I had was sort of a hippy, the long hair, used marijuana and stuff he was a nice guy he was from Antigo. Then my other roommates, the two of them I had, were business majors. One was from Pittsburgh and one was from Chicago and that was kind of interesting too because they weren't all Wisconsin people. There was people that came from all over the country, one of the guys in my freshman year that, talk about wild and crazy things, he was from Toms River, New Jersey and he was kind of wild guy. Anyway my freshman year he talked me into, he had parents in 00:31:00Fort Myers, Florida, hitchhiking to Florida over Easter break, which was a crazy thing to do, but we made it but he was from New Jersey and then a couple from Chicago. The one fellow my Sophomore year he was from Louisiana and in sixty eight, during the election year, George Wallace was running and of course he was a big supporter of George Wallace, who is from the south, and he had talked me into going to a George Wallace rally, George Wallace came for his campaign so. So they were kind of from all over the country in a way.

JN: What are some memories that you have with friends on campus?

PA: Well, I guess mostly I remember my roommates. I think that's why I wish I had been more involved in the organizations because I really haven't kept in touch with the people I knew so much on campus because they went their separate ways and I went mine and we scattered out all over. I lived out of state for most of the time up until about nineteen seventy eight. I think I came back to Wisconsin and they had their things and stuff. What I remember a lot about was the socializing and a lot of the socializing for guys like me involved going to the bars. Because the other part of what was happening at that time was I 00:33:00mentioned there was so much new stuff going on, there was the drugs, there was the music, there was a lot happening in science at that time and politics of course and so there was a lot of really good rock bands during that time from like Detroit and some of those places, really good bands, and so a lot of the social life was around bars. At that time there were twenty one year old bars and eighteen year old bars, and you served beer at the eighteen, that's where the bands were and the dancing was, so a lot of my memories go back to those beer bars and the bands and the girls.

JN: Speaking of the bars, what kind of atmosphere was around there?

PA: Well, there were a lot of bars at that time and I don't know how it is now but there used to be the College Inn, which was I think there's a cosmetology school something on the corner of Jackson and Pearl or someplace there, that was a big one. There was another one called the Bavarian Inn, which was farther out toward Jackson I think somewhere closer to downtown, but there was small bars on every corner and there was a bar in the hotel downtown and they had some good bands down there. People drank beer out of glass cups and listened to the music, there was a lot of marijuana in hash available but it wasn't in the bars, 00:35:00you had to go back to the apartment or wherever, but there was a lot of it available. So it was what you did on the weekend, it was what everybody did pretty much. So, that was a big part of the social life.

JN: So, did you feel comfortable on campus?

PA: Yeah, in terms of like safety you mean?

JN: Yeah.

PA: Yeah, no there really wasn't any problems like that at that time. You could pretty much be up all night on campus and not worry about a thing.

JN: Well that's good.

PA: Yeah, even the girls they really didn't have to worry. If they knew how to deal with drunks (laughter) at one in the morning they were alright, they could handle it I mean that's not to say that things didn't happen.

JN: So, how often were you off campus?

PA: Well, you mean like during the week?

JN: Just whenever. In general

PA: Well, the first two years I lived in a dorm and the second year I was in 00:37:00Breeze Hall, by the union (Reeve Union) so because in particular that year because the dorm was on campus I spent most of my time on campus. I think that was the year, although I'm not sure, I started working at the foundry so I walked to work because it was nice and close but then my junior year and senior year I lived in apartments off campus. So, then of course I spent more time off campus then when I was done with my classes and working and stuff (inaudible)

JN: Now we talked about this earlier but what was the social life like on campus?

PA: Well, like I said there was a lot of it, most of it took place, at the bars but there was the union (Reeve Union) where people got together in between classes so that was a big part of the social life. Between classes you went and got a coke or a coffee and sat down and talked with people you knew and whatever and then in the basement of the union (Reeve Union) they had a pool hall and you went down there and shot some pool with the guys you knew or whatever and there were things on campus that the campus set up for you to do. I remember this one movie I went to on campus, at that time one of the popular movies was Rosemarie's Baby, and so I remember seeing that in the union on the second floor above the entry way there and again it's one of those things you remember from the visual images. I remember sitting back and on the aisle and watching the 00:39:00movie and stuff. So, there were different things to be involved in socially, I imagine the people who were involved in the fraternities and sororities they spent more time with their own fraternity and things like that. There were some good movies out at that time, so you took a day either to the bar or to the movie.

JN: What did you do for fun?

PA: Well, mostly went to the bars, that seems to be a recurring theme (laughs), but the bars really were the sort of center of social life, for most people not everybody. We liberal arts majors probably spent more time in the bars than the 00:40:00business majors or the science majors probably because we were more involved in the cultural turmoil and things like that at that time.

JN: So what do you recall about Black Thursday?

PA: Well, if it's what I think you're referring to the thing that really struck me when I was going back and thinking about my time here at Oshkosh was what a central sort of background music or the background for everything that happened during those years was the Vietnam War. It was sometime during the sixties that 00:41:00they instituted the lottery draft, the draft lottery, and so depending on what your draft number was, what your lottery number was, your fate was sort of sealed. During nineteen sixty eight, of course it was an election year, and the Vietnam War was going heavy and the protests it was looking to most people like the war was lost, like there was no hope winning the war, and so more and more people were protesting wanting us to get out of the war. It ended up to be like fifty eight thousand guys lost their lives in the war and so it was the backdrop for everything that was going on at that time for everybody, pretty much, whether you were a guy or a girl. So, if I remember right it was, well the politicians were here in the spring of sixty eight and then the fall of sixty eight because in, I'll give you a little history lesson in March Martin Luther 00:42:00King was killed, in June Bobby Kennedy was killed, in August we had the Democratic conventions in Chicago, the Chicago Seven and all that. So in the fall of sixty eight there was a march in Oshkosh, I don't remember exactly when it was, but I participated and it went down Main Street and there was a lot of people involved it was a big march I don't remember exactly where it ended up but it was around that time I think when there was protests on campus and I remember there was a sit in at the administration building and I think that was sort of probably related to what you're talking about. I don't really remember but what I do remember is that one night a bunch of people went out with picks 00:43:00and shovels or whatever and tore up Algoma Blvd. and built this like two foot wall that closed off Algoma Blvd. So I went out and looked at that, I thought that was pretty interesting, but it might have been at that time when they closed down the university for like three days or two days and so if this was on a Wednesday or a Thursday they closed it for the rest of the week and reopened it the next week or whatever. That's what I remember I don't know if it was exactly that Thursday or whatever but that's what I remember. So, being a young healthy guy I took that opportunity, since they closed the university, to jump in the car and drive up to Ashland Wisconsin where my girlfriend at that time was going to Lakeland College. I wasn't a real dedicated protester.

JN: So speaking about dating, how often would you date?

PA: Well, it was kind of limited because like I said between I took a full time program, full time courses and full schedule, and then the working it was kind of limited and plus you had to have a certain amount of money to do date which I didn't have a lot of either. So, it was kind of limited, you went out to the bars, met a girl, maybe you took her out a couple times and in my sophomore year I had a steady girlfriend that I had met over the summer, she lives up in 00:45:00Ashland and so I didn't to a lot of dating that year, mostly concentrated on studying and stuff. We broke up eventually and my senior year I think I met my wife and so she was working up in Manawa, Wisconsin and again I didn't do a lot of dating after I started going with her. Like I said, in terms of the dating there was a lot of dating and it was the beginning of the sexual revolution and so there was a lot of sexual freedom at that time. So other people probably dated more than I did but like I said there were downsides to all of the exciting things that were happening and one of the downsides of that sexual revolution was that a lot of people ended up with sexually transmitted diseases too which wasn't good.

JN: What did you learn at Oshkosh?

PA: Well, I think I got some good educational background. I mean I think the teachers that were here were really good. I don't remember a professor who I what I would call a lemon. They were all really good professors and they really did a good job. So, the academic background I got was solid, it was good. I learned how to interact with people and deal with people and for me that was a 00:47:00big thing, coming from that farm background that was an important learning for me.

JN: So what did want to do when you finished college?

PA: Well, like I said that your draft number was an important determiner of your fate and my draft number turned out to be like sixty eight, sixty nine, seventy something like that, based on their drawing in the lottery. At that 00:48:00time while I was in college you do deferment it, but once you graduate then the deferment is gone and Uncle Sam sends you a letter saying come on in. So, at that time they were drafting up to like one hundred and twenty, one hundred twenty five, so my fate was written on graduation. So, my choice at that time wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do but what I had to do. What I decided to do was since I had done this four years of hard work and was getting my degree, I could go into the Air Force, in the officers' training program, and I could spend four years in the Air Force as an officer, or two years in the army in Vietnam so I chose the Air Force. So the value to Oshkosh, to me really, was 00:49:00what I got in the end which you had asked me about memorabilia or things like that and I really don't have anything because I didn't have a lot to begin with when I was here and what I did have wasn't worth much but I brought my diploma along because that's hung in my office walls for forty five years and my diploma was my ticket into officers training school. The only way you could get into officers training school at that time was to sign up for helicopter pilot training and so after three months of officers training then I went to flight school for a year to become a helicopter pilot and eventually went up and served in Minot, North Dakota at a missile base up there. So like I said, it really wasn't so much of what I wanted to do but what I had to do, what I was forced and decided to do.

JN: I know that we kind of talked about this but since college what have you done?

PA: Well, I went through the military, served in the Air Force up in Minot(Minnesota) for about three years, I was in the Air Force a total of four years. In Minot there was a weekend program that was on base through North Dakota State University, which is in Fargo (North Dakota), and it was a weekend program through the education department, in specifically guidance and 00:51:00counseling. So I enrolled in that because what being in the Air Force got me was the GI Bill and some money to pay for an education. So after I got in January of seventy six we moved to Fargo and I went through the master's program there full time and got a master's degree in guidance and counseling and I did some Juvenal probation counseling for about a year there at Fargo and then wanted to come back to Wisconsin. So then I got a job in Juneau (Wisconsin), in Dodge County, through the mental health system there as a drug and alcohol counselor and then I was a disability coordinator and eventually the director of the agency. It was during that time that I actually came back to Oshkosh, I think it was in eighty seven, Oshkosh had a weekend program for people that 00:52:00worked in public administration and I was doing kind of an administrative job at that time so I enrolled and so I actually have eighteen credits here at Oshkosh toward a master's in public administration but then we moved up to Iron Mountain, Michigan and I ran a community action agency up there for five years and then moved back down here Germantown, where I live now, and ran a housing management company in Milwaukee for eleven years for low income people, subsides apartments. Then I moved to another agency that managed low income apartments and that's where I retired from. I've been retired two years now.

JN: Congratulations.

PA: Thank you it was an interesting experience not to have to go to work after all those years. I've been busy catching up on all of those projects you put 00:53:00off because you don't have time to do them or whatever but I'm enjoying it.

JN: What the job market like back then?

PA: Well, like I said I'm not sure I really know because I really didn't go into the job market. I didn't really even explore it because it wasn't an option for me. I think it was pretty good, the economy was booming, it was doing pretty well so I think for the most part it was pretty good if I remember right. I don't remember any recessions or depressions at that point.

JN: So have you been involved in Oshkosh since you've graduated like on campus?

PA: Well, no not really and part of it because like I said I was out of state. The other part is I lived down in Germantown, which isn't that far, and I sort of wish I had been more involved in some of the alumni things. I've decided I want to try to do that which is how I kind of got connected. I get the alumni newsletter and stuff and there's a UW-Oshkosh alumni group in Milwaukee so I've thought about getting involved with that. I really haven't and I kind of wish I would have. Every once in a while when I come through town I'll stop at the 00:55:00Pane Art Center, I used to love going to the Pane Art Center it's a really cool building, so I stop there every once in a while but I've come back to campus a couple times just to see what's changed and things. It's been really fun, mostly since I've been retired but it's been fun.

JN: So how has Oshkosh as a whole changed since you've graduated?

PA: Well, there's been a lot of new buildings, that's one things I've noticed, not only classroom buildings, I've heard of a couple new classroom buildings and this building the alumni center is pretty new and so that's one thing. A couple 00:56:00of the places I was looking for at time are torn down and gone so the infrastructure has changed but some of the things haven't. Like I said, I haven't spent a whole lot of time here so it's kind of hard to say in terms of the social life and things like that. I think it's really a really nice city to live in I think. We have some friends who live in Stevens Point, and they went to school there, and we just visited them here a month or so ago and went over there and they showed us around the city and there more connected into the alumni, they just actually went on a trip out to New York to see some plays through the alumni office that were arranged. So, my wife and I are kind of thinking about doing something like that eventually.

JN: So finally, what advice would you give to students right now?

PA: Well, if it's at all possible I would try and get involved in some organizations. It doesn't have to be a fraternity or anything like or a sorority, it can be a group that you're interested in that's somehow connected to your major, like a history group or history club or whatever, but to get to know some people and develop some relationships through people that have similar interests. I think that would really be a good thing for people to do. I did 00:58:00take advantage of some of the things that were happening on campus that I still remember to this day in terms of politics and things. One of the things I went to that they offered on campus was a speakers bureau or whatever, they brought in speakers from around the country, and I still remember going to listen to Julian Bond, who was a Georgia legislature at that time and was kind of an up and coming Politian and some thought he would eventually run for president and stuff but didn't quite work out, but he was an articulate, well-spoken person and I remember going to his speech. So going to those kind of things are things that you remember and you benefit from.

JN: Well thank you for your time.

PA: Well you're very welcome. It's been fun having the opportunity to kind of reminisce and remember back some of the things. It's been fun thank you for asking.