The Houghton jones

—“Wait a minute!” I yelled to a cute young girl at my supermarket’s service-desk.
She turned and started walking away.
“Don’t go anywhere yet,” I yelled. “Turn around and lemme see your sweatshirt.”
It was purple, and said “Houghton College .”
“Class of ’66!” I said.
Her father was with her; she was embarrassed.
“Was it worth it?” he asked.
“Awfully glad I went there,” I said. “Found my wife there, and she was extraordinary. 55 years later Houghton still rings in my head.
I can still recite Shakespeare’s 116th Sonnet from memory, and I know what the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is, and also the Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan.
And you can be sure any text I do will be properly spelled and fully punctuated. That’s Houghton’s legacy: namely ‘GET IT RIGHT!’”
The girl was embarrassed. I bet that sweatshirt goes in her drawer. Her father was saving her — I bet he also was a Houghton-grad.
I revisited Houghton for our 50-year class reunion. We were known as “the radicals;” the ones who supposedly turned Houghton around.
Houghton was overly judgmental before us, but we challenged that.
And it wasn’t just we sinners. It was also the zealots.
We were the cusp of the ‘60s college revolution. It’s like after us they gave up!
Houghton is an evangelical college. People wonder why I went there. It was the Great Compromise with my hyper-religious father, who wanted me to attend Moody Bible Institute in Chicago like he did; and so become a Bible-Beater.
But in 1962 Moody was not a four-year college, and I wanted a BA. We compromised because Houghton was a four-year evangelical college. I also gained friendships among Houghton students on the staff of a religious boys camp in MD.
Houghton is much different than when we were there. Back then girls couldn’t wear shorts or sleeveless dresses.
And back then male students other than freshmen stayed in rooming-houses, not dormitories. Those rooming-houses were professors or college employees.
What I always say is Houghton went to-Hell-in-a-handbasket since I graduated. It’s no longer a self-proclaimed tiny island-of-decency. (Or is it?)
But the chimes in the bell-tower still ring off every hour like they did when we were there.
And Houghton is still evangelical, but I think more tolerant. They were tolerant to let me graduate.

• “Wait a minute!” is what I’m always accused of saying before I pontificate.
• RE: Sonnet 116: play the podcast readers! (It’s a link.)

We don’t live forever

Mother Lindley (1922-2018).

One of my two favorite professors at Houghton College, Katherine Lindley, MA, PhD, died March 8th.
It’s hard to know where to start.
Dr. Lindley began teaching at Houghton during my sophomore year — she graduated Houghton in 1943. She was married to Kenneth Lindley, who began teaching physics and science at Houghton at the same time. Dr. Lindley taught European History and Political Science; I majored in History and minored in Political Science and Philosophy.
Dr. Lindley gave the History Department two fabulous professors. Most had only one, or NONE.
History had one other fabulous professor, Richard L. Troutman, MA, PhD, also a Houghton-grad. He was enough to make me switch majors. Dr. Lindley made History even more attractive.
I call her “Mother Lindley” because she was the mother I wish I had. My actual mother became less demanding when she realized my father was losing me. But she wasn’t Dr. Lindley.
My values are Dr. Lindley’s values: mainly “Get it Right.” Despite my being an utter mess, perceived by others as stupid, rebellious, and Of-the-Devil, she cared about me, probably because of how I thought. My penchant for pillorying self-declared holier-than-thou’s, and purveyors of incredible wisdom.
Others perceived me as threatening, yet Dr. Lindley found me interesting. Dr. Lindley, plus others, loved having me in class.
Once she was extolling the virtues of “the middle-of-the-road.” “But Dr. Lindley,” I said. “What if the middle-of-the-road is wrong?” She kept going, but it was clear I punched her in the gut. “He has a point. That Hughes-kid always makes me question.”
This was true of much of Houghton. I’ve never regretted attending. Houghton began reversal of my dreadful childhood. It was the first place adult authority-figures solicited and valued my opinions. Instead of automatically declaring me rebellious.
Dr. Lindley was the one who suggested I became a scholar. It was probably because of the way I thought. I deferred. Scholarly pursuit seemed driven by posturing = “I know more than you; nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyaahhh!”
I came to Houghton desiring to prove the altruism of our nation’s founders. I left frustrated. For every argument there was an equal and interesting counter — i.e. “they have a point.”
I left it all behind; I had a life to live.
Dr. Lindley was also the first authority-figure to note my wife-to-be and I were coming together. “I see two of my students are finding each other,” she observed. She was probably thrilled — well beyond the assessment of my sanctimonious judges.
And now she’s gone — the lady who set my direction. Many of my professorial contacts at Houghton were similar, but she was foremost. She’d quickly whip out her red pen to point out flaws in my thinking. She wasn’t elitist. “That Hughes-kid gets me thinking.”
The picture is from my 1966 college yearbook. She made 96; her husband died 12 years ago. I considered driving to her viewing, but that was last night before I started writing this, and 75 miles distant.
And there’s a pretty good likelihood others attending would perceive me a threat = “one of those radicals (GASP).”
Her obit tells of the many lives she effected, and I am but one. Still messy, but marked by “Mother Lindley.”

• I graduated “Houghton College” in western New York with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.

The Houghton Paradigm (not “diggem”)

“So whadja get outta Houghton?”people ask.
“A wife,” I always say; “and a really good one.”
Houghton (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”) is my college. It was very religious when I was there. Still is, pretty much.
My wife and I were both Class of ’66.
Houghton was a compromise with my hyper-religious father, who wanted me to become a Bible-thumping zealot like him. He wanted me to attend his beloved Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, to learn how to browbeat street vagrants with religion.
At that time Moody wasn’t a college — it may be now. I wanted a four-year college degree. Ergo the “Great Houghton Compromise,” since Houghton was evangelical.
My father was angry when I graduated, since Houghton didn’t “straighten me out.” There were people at Houghton who woulda loved to “straighten me out.” But our professors were more inclined to value we students, and thereby guide us into Godliness.
Houghton also left what I call “The Houghton Paradigm:” namely “get it right!” They cared about us, and that rubbed off.
A sterling example follows: “Any text by me is gonna be properly spelled and punctuated.”
“Bob,” my hairdresser says. “You don’t need to do that.”
“Do too,” I say, wagging my index-finger. That’s Houghton’s legacy, the so-called “Houghton Paradigm.”
STORY TIME:
As a retired transit bus-driver I’m entitled to a negotiated vision-care benefit. I don’t use it. I instead use Eye-Care Center in nearby Canandaigua, and here’s why:
Years ago I was doing vision-care with an HMO near Rochester. They noticed a “scar” in one eyeball, and told me not to worry. Eye-Care Center was poking around, and “you’ll see the scar,” I said.
They went ballistic. “Scar my foot! That’s a retinal tear; you need that fixed right away.”
DROP EVERYTHING! They brought in Heidi Piper, MD, to repair the tear with laser surgery.
I found later Heidi was a Houghton grad, class of ’87. Well of course. Knowledgable and extremely conscientious, and cared about what she was doing = “get it right!”
And most importantly she wasn’t pulling rank.
Why are Houghton grads possessed of “The Houghton Paradigm?” I’m old, so eventually I’ll need cataract surgery. I’m pulling for Heidi.
And now my wife is gone. I miss her immensely; the BEST friend I ever had. Cancer took her over five years ago.
Things are different since then; it comes from living alone. If I run out of carrots, it’s my fault, not her’s. Living alone I hafta be more tolerant of foul-ups; often they’re my foul-ups. If something goes awry in my house, the one fixing it is me.
What a shame I had to lose my best friend to figger that out. She had to die never getting the slack she deserved.
One Houghton professor wanted me to become a scholar. She liked my insights, and penchant for pillorying know-it-all blowhards.
I couldn’t get interested. It seemed scholarly pursuit was obsessed with scoring points. “I’m smarter than you are. Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyaaaah!”
I had a life to live, and in accordance with Houghton’s paradigm. They cared about us, and that rubbed off.

• RE: “Retired transit bus-driver......” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that 12 years ago.

Cheaters

Yr Fthfl Srvnt caved.
I decided to carry my cheaters in my front shirt pocket. I always need ‘em. “I can’t read that. Where are my cheaters?”
I held out as long as I could, into my 70s. But my vision started degrading. My railfan brother, who accompanies me to Altoona, PA, to photograph trains, turned 60 last year.
He also wears cheaters. His eyesight degraded before mine — probably his genealogy. He also carries his cheaters.
“Wait a minute! I can’t see that!” Out come my cheaters.
“I can’t even sign my name.” I probably could, and often do, but cheaters help.
The ones in my pocket are my ‘pyooter glasses, 1.5X, I have others elsewhere, all 2.5X. I have five 2.5s, all compliments of Canandaigua Eye-Care Center.
I had an insurance benny of $100. Five times $20 is $100. “But I don’t need five pairs of cheaters,” I said.“Your benefit is $100; anything less is out-of-yer-pocket.”
So five pair of drugstore cheaters elegantly dispersed throughout my house, in my car, etc.
Silly as that was, I prefer Eye-Care Center. As a retired RTS bus-driver, I’m entitled to a negotiated vision-care benefit.
PASS! I prefer Eye-Care Center, which is paid by my health insurance.
The reason is Heidi Piper, M.D. , Houghton College, 1987. I could tell she was a Houghton grad as soon as I met her. “Get it right!” Extremely professional, and she cared about what she was doing instead of pulling rank.
I graduated Houghton in 1966.
Prior to Eye-Care, I was using vision-care at an HMO near Rochester, (I don’t know that HMOs exist any more.) They looked in my eyes, and noticed I had a scar.
“You’ll notice the scar,” I informed my Eye-Care Ophthalmologist. They went ballistic. “That’s a retinal tear; you need that fixed right away!”
DROP EVERYTHING! Heidi was brought in to do laser eye surgery. M.D. from St. Louis University School of Medicine, internship at Strong Memorial Hospital in Obstetrics and Gynecology, general surgery and Ophthalmology residencies at Penn State-Geisinger Medical Center, but BS from Houghton. Feet-on-the-ground, no posturing.
Why are so many Houghton graduates like that? I think it was because our professors weren’t elitists. They cared about us, and it rubbed off.
I’ve met a few Houghton grads over the years, and they all weren’t elitists. Feet-on-the-ground. The Executive-Editor at the Mighty Mezz was Houghton 1980.
Even a guy who was a complete jerk at Houghton now has his feet on-the-ground.
So now I’m awash in 2.5X cheaters, and I need ‘em.
When it comes time for cataract surgery I’m gonna advocate for Heidi.

• “RTS” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired 12 years ago. Best job I ever had — I was employed there almost 10 years —worked there over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern.

51 long years ago.....

In August of 1966, yr fthfl srvnt was granted a Bachelor of Arts degree at nearby Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”) — despite his inability to master French.
Houghton is about 80 miles south of Rochester.
I was first in my family to do so, although I’m sure my father coulda done it, but he was Depression, when the imperative was to Get a job.
I also owed them 400 smackaroos, which I quickly paid after graduation.
I did well in other courses, so they graduated me anyway.
Houghton was founded in 1883, but not as a college. It’s evangelical, affiliated with the Wesleyan-Methodist Connection. It was a reaction by Willard Houghton, a Wesleyan-Methodist minister, to what the town that later became Houghton was, a den of iniquity.
The town was originally named “Jockey Street,” and was along the Genesee Valley Canal (“jen-uh-SEE”), from Rochester south to Olean in vast Genesee valley.
The canal shipped grain (mainly wheat) north to Rochester, where it might get shipped east on the Erie Canal. Rochester also had mills powered by the Genesee river.
Genesee valley was this nation’s first bread-basket.
Jockey Street was rife with bawdiness, taverns and prostitution to serve the “canalers” (“kin-ALL-ers”).
The town was so-named because people raced their horses over the town’s long main street.
So Willard arrived and decided to clean up the town. He established a seminary (a high-school), a “little island of decency.”
In 1899 a few college classes were offered; the college department’s first diploma was awarded in 1901. Houghton College received its provisional charter from New York State in 1923, and awarded its first 19 baccalaureate degrees two years later. A permanent charter was granted in 1927, and accreditation by the Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges came in 1935.
Houghton acquired its first academically-trained president, James S. Luckey, who served until his death in 1937. He was succeeded by Stephen W. Paine, who served until 1972.
Under Paine’s leadership the college expanded from about 300 students to 1,200, necessitating new buildings. The percentage of faculty with earned doctorates tripled.
Under Paine Houghton became the second-best evangelical college behind Wheaton College near Chicago.
I’m sure for Paine it was a constant wrastling-match = his evangelical desire to make Houghton serious, versus the protective Wesleyan-Methodist zealots.
Paine got a compromise that allowed the National Defense Student-Loan program by no longer requiring chapel-attendance.
No doubt the zealots wrung their hands = “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
“Hell in a handbasket,” I tell ya!
If not for the National Defense Student-Loan program (NDSL) I woulda never attended college = dead, a ‘Nam-victim.
“Chapel-checkers” recorded attendance, and if you failed to show you got fined. But you weren’t required to attend — at least I don’t think you were; I always attended.
NY state seems to have nurtured who-knows-how-many fervent religious institutions. Nearby in the Town of Lima (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”) is Elim Bible Institute. It’s not a four-year college — all it offers are two-year associate degrees.
Yet what buildings it has remind me of Houghton’s old buildings. Like Elim crashed whereas Houghton didn’t. No Steve Paine.
My going to Houghton resulted from a great compromise with my hyper-religious father, who wanted me to attend Moody Bible Institute like he did in the late ‘30s.
Trouble at that time, about 1960, was Moody wasn’t a college. All it could render was a two-year Associate Degree. I wanted a four-year college degree. (I think by now Moody is a four-year college.)
In summer of 1960 my family took a vacation including through Chicago to visit Moody, and also Wheaton.
We stayed overnight in a Moody dorm, and I was nervous. Moody was urban, and I’m from the suburbs. —My father was from the city.
So Moody was comfortable for him, but not for me.
Moody was also hot to convert students into brow-beating street evangelists = rendering judgment on anyone other than themselves.
Not this kid! No way was I gonna scream at some vagrant = hellfire and damnation.
In the summer of ’61 I worked at a Christian Boys Camp that had Houghton students on staff.
Houghton sounded interesting, so we visited, probably early in ’62.
Thus ensued “the Great Compromise” (my terminology) = Houghton or Wheaton instead of Moody — since both were evangelical colleges.
I applied to both, but Wheaton turned me down. Houghton would admit me if I proved I could do college-level study = six weeks of Houghton Summer-School.
My course would be Bible Introduction; somehow I managed a “B.” Pass-or-fail; and “‘Nam for you baby” if you fail!
“So what did you get outta Houghton?” friends ask.
“A wife, “ I always say.
“And a really good one,” I add. “Also an unbeliever like me;” totally unexpected at Houghton.
My father was angry; Houghton had not “straightened me out.”
Instead of beating me to a pulp, adult authority figures valued and solicited my opinions.
This was revelatory compared to the way I was brought up. Always declared stupid and rebellious, even by my parents.
I’ve never regretted Houghton. My younger sister (deceased), who also attended Houghton, but only two years — she didn’t graduate — said I “flowered” there. Discussion replaced intimidation.
I majored in history — two good professors instead of only one — and minored in secondary education. I set about to teach high-school history, and even did a short stint of student-teaching.
But high-school teaching seemed loaded with politics, or so seemed my mentor teacher. So I didn’t complete my student-teaching.
Houghton had other presidents since I graduated, mainly Daniel Chamberlain from 1976 to 2006.
I’m probably misreading him, but I always felt he was a clown; that he was cashing in on the extraordinary legacy Steve Paine left.

Faire Shirley.

The current prez is Shirley Mullen, who graduated Houghton in 1976.
I’m told a college president’s ability to generate funding is all-important, and apparently Shirley is good at it.
I felt she was a shill at first, but now I’m impressed. She’s a good discussion; my wife was like that. Also a cousin I knew long ago. That cousin was such an excellent discussion I wanted to marry a girl like her. And I did.
Houghton e-mails a monthly newsletter, and Shirley leads. Although Shirley and I are far apart, I always read her.
I attended my 50-year class reunion last year. Quite a few were pleased to see me, although there were the usual judgmental nay-sayers.
I never really fit at Houghton, almost canned on an attitude rap.
Others in my class are far more religious than me.
I graduated unprepared for the work-a-day world, but I’m glad I attended. It set my values; mainly because adults cared about me, which made me a bleeding-heart Liberal (gasp!) like them.
I graduated with the makings of a self I could accept. I was able to walk away from parental badmouthing.
My “self” has been tenuous ever since. Houghton was the start.
I was finally able to shut down my father.

“So what’s ‘Houghton’?”

(“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”)
That’s my good friend *****, a custodian at the Canandaigua YMCA, pointing at my teeshirt.
“It’s where I went to college,” I said; “about 75 miles south of Rochester in the Genesee (“Jen-uh-SEE”) valley.
As a matter fact, I’m first in my family to earn a college degree, although my father coulda done it, except he was Depression, when the imperative was to Get a job.”
“Well, all I did was high-school,” ***** said. “After that lay low and stay outta trouble.”
“So I graduated college,” I said. “La-dee-dah!”
I don’t lord that over people. I can’t. Too many of my best friends are non-college.
It’s been that way all my life. One of my best friends during my college summer job was illiterate.
Smart as a tack, yet illiterate.
My parents convinced me I was stupid and rebellious. As a result, I’m a “bleeding-heart Liberal” (Gasp!), even worse a DEMOCRAT (Double-gasp!).
Often college-graduates are elitists. Maybe they were groomed to be that way.
Not this kid.
Once while driving transit bus in Rochester, a group of young hot-shot lawyers badmouthed cripples in wheelchairs crossing the Genesee River on Main Street.
“They belong in the river,” one snapped.
“There, but for the grace of God, go you and I,” I said.
Shut ‘em right up! They picked the wrong bus-driver.
I’ve never regretted attending Houghton. It seemed more interested is shaping my values — than preparing me for employ.
It was the first time I wasn’t badmouthed. Adult authority figures valued and solicited my opinions.
My slightly younger sister (deceased), who also attended Houghton, but only two years — she didn’t graduate — says I “flowered” at Houghton.
So when I returned home after four years at Houghton, I walked out. I’d had enough. I wasn’t constantly badmouthed at Houghton.
Off to Rochester I went, 360+ miles from constant badmouthing.
And much to my hyper-religious father’s dismay, I didn’t return “the Prodigal Son” — “slay the fatted calf, etc.” (To which I always add “What does the ‘fatted calf’ think?”)
So yes, I graduated college.
But it meant more than “graduating college.”

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that 11 years ago.
• “Home” was Wilmington, DE.

Conclave of Heathens

Three of the heathens: Tom Eades (left), me (center), and Charlie Gardiner (right). (Photo by Tom Hiltsley [somewhat heathen].)

“I hafta remember to not blurt anything that could be perceived as hateful or snide,” I said; “even to you guys.”
I was attending the 50-year reunion of my college class.
“I hafta lay low,” I said.
50 long years ago, 1966, our class graduated Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”), an evangelical religious college about 75-80 miles south of Rochester.
Our class was labeled the “radicals” who supposedly turned the college around.
Houghton was very strict at that time; I don’t know as it is now.
Like, after us they gave up.
I visited my hairdresser the other day: “Yeah, I know Houghton. It has a nursing-home. I deliver coffee there.”
He delivers coffee for a coffee service.
“Girls weren’t allowed to wear slacks, they weren’t allowed to wear shorts or sleeveless dresses. Makeup and jewelry were verboten. Dancing was ‘of-the-Devil,’ as was television.”
“Wow, I never knew it was like that.”
“Were it not for certain professors, who were in deepest do-do for having televisions, we would have been unable to follow the Kennedy Assassination.
People at the college declared Kennedy had it coming.”
Certain of us were perceived as radicals: me, Tom Eades, and Charlie Gardiner, among others.
We resisted the strictures of the college. We were known first as “Da Cronies.”
Eades and Gardiner patronized bars — I didn’t. My sin was having a bad attitude, and I was strident.
We often got called on the carpet, threatened with dismissal, but they never canned us.
We all got degrees. I was first in my family.
So here we were again, 50 years later, a conclave of heathens.
“What can I say about this?” I kept asking.
Eades gave me the story line. “Hughzey you survived this entire torturous ordeal. Made the whole day without infuriating anyone.”
Eades invited me and Charlie to our Alumni Banquet. Cows had given their lives so we could pig out on steak, prime rib, whatever. Charlie’s was so rare it looked like ham.
The entire day I never felt as out-of-it in my life.
I’m not one of these people. I haven’t attended a church function in 50 years. I’m not a believer.
So why Houghton? It was a compromise with my hyper-religious father, who wanted me to attend Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, like he did.
At that time Moody wasn’t a college, and I wanted a degree.
Furthermore, Moody was an urban school, which I found frightening.
So Houghton it was; and my father was mad as Hell it didn’t “straighten me out.”
But Houghton, for whatever reason, was the first place I found adult authority-figures who valued and solicited my opinions. Instead of automatically branding me “of-the-Devil.”
Nevertheless we heathens set the tone for our class. Cantankerous and ornery. “Of-the-Devil, I tell ya!”
And here we were again to sew fear and loathing. Although that ain’t what happened.
They were not judgmental, as they were 50 years ago.
But they get to natter about my failure to clap, sing, close my eyes during prayer, or stand for standing ovations.
I just felt too out-of-it.
At least I managed to not excoriate the college president for shilling for a car-dealer.

Houghton College

(“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”)
Despite graduating as a ne’er-do-well, that is, they didn’t kick me out, although they nearly kicked me out twice, I don’t regret my attending Houghton College.
And I have friends that tell me Houghton was worst experience they ever endured.
Once I was nearly kicked-out for wearing tight pants, a-la-Rolling Stones — the dreaded “tight-pants” rap.
The second time I was nearly kicked out for scrawling “Cheap American Trash” in the salt-encrusted flanks of the Dean’s son’s Pontiac G-T-O.
There may have been other contretemps; I forget. It seemed I was always riding the ragged-edge.
Such was the life of a free-thinker who dared mock conventional-wisdom.
With me it’s because Houghton was the first place that took me seriously.
That is, adult authority-figures there valued my opinions. I wasn’t automatically declared “Of-the-Devil,” as I had been before Houghton.
Houghton was a compromise with my father, who wanted me to attend Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, like he did. And become a Bible-beating zealot, loudly preaching at and passing judgment on vagrants.
At that time Moody wasn’t a college; I think now it is.
My father wanted me to attend Moody first, then transfer to a college.
But I wanted to attend a four-year college.
Such a college was Houghton, which like Moody was evangelical.
I also wanted no part of Chicago. We stayed there once to visit Moody, and it was frightening.
During my high-school summers I worked at an evangelical boys camp on Chesapeake Bay in northeastern MD. I taught horsemanship and worked in the stables.
During the summer of ’61, that boys camp had many on its staff that were Houghton students.
One was David Droppa (“DROH-puh;” as in “owe”), Houghton Class of ’64.
He was enthusiastic about Houghton, and made it sound interesting.
I also visited Houghton, perhaps in my senior-year of high-school.
Houghton is extremely rural, yet it’s an extension of the east-coast megalopolis, where it got many of its students.
It was an island of suburban values in a vast sea of rurality.
Years ago a canal passed through the town, at that time named “Jockey-Street,” since renamed after the college. The college was part of an effort to clean up Jockey-Street, a bawdy canal-town. The clean-up man was zealous Willard J. Houghton.
I also applied at Wheaton College near Chicago. It’s the alma-mater of Billy Graham, and also the premier evangelical college.
Houghton was number-two.
Wheaton turned me down — I wasn’t very interested anyway — but Houghton would only admit me if I proved I could do college-level work at their summer-school.
So much for boys-camp, I would do six weeks of Houghton’s summer-school.
Which makes me part of the vaunted Summer-School gang; about 10-15 people who got into Houghton by attending summer-school to prove they could do college-level work.
My six-week summer-school course would be Bible-Introduction. I had no idea how I’d ever pass that, since my Bible background was nil.
But it was either that or ‘Nam. At that time our nation had a military-draft for the Vietnam War, but college-students were deferred.
I did pretty good in that Bible-Intro course; I almost aced it.
I would matriculate into Houghton College.
And so began my Freshman year, through 1963. Various members of our Summer-School gang flunked out, or were tossed out, but I did okay.
I chose Physics as my major, although my college-advisor, who also happened to be my Physics professor, counseled against it.
I almost aced Physics; I was the only one in our class who got the hang of it, mainly the math (algebra). The math was essentially a tool. I used it like a socket-set; I’d drive it every-which-way, which I could.
Others, trying to memorize Physics formulas, were utterly lost; and that was despite their megadollar slide-rules slapping their thighs. (Remember slide-rules?)
Mine was only a cheesy appliance held together with Scotch-tape, plus its hairline was missing.
The answers it gave me were only close, but it was clear I knew what I was doing. The others didn’t.
I could have aced college-Physics if I’d known I had an A-average going into the final.
My study for that final was scattershot, which lowered my final grade to “B.”
By then I had also lost interest in Physics. The Physics labs were in “the Dungeons,” musty basement laboratories in an ancient building, since torn down.
I had also been doing a History-requirement, and came across a professor I thought the world of.
His name was “Troutman” (same as the fish); and he valued my opinions.
He was always in trouble with his cohorts, since -a) his wife wore jewelry (gasp!), -b) he was a Democrat (double gasp!), and worse yet he was a liberal-Democrat (“Get thee behind me Satan!”).
I had run into such tolerance in Summer-School when my Bible-Intro professor said he was sorry I couldn’t have faith.
What to me was the faith that reversed all the tenets that worked against religion; like so-called scientific fact.
But he wasn’t loudly passing judgment on me telling me I was “Of-the-Devil.”
He just wasn’t as inspiring as Troutman.
I changed my major to History; I was majoring in the good professors.
During my sophomore or junior year (’64 or ’65), a second professor came to the History Department named Katherine Lindley.
She was also as good as Troutman. Now I had two excellent professors in my major, so I stayed a History-major.
Usually a department had only one good professor; the History-Department had two.
By then I was wondering what I’d do after college, so I decided to train for Secondary-Education.
The Sec-Ed minor was stupid, gut-courses. I used to say “If you can’t do it, teach it. If you can’t teach, teach others how to teach.”
I eventually did trial student-teaching as a junior in a nearby high-school, but it was awful. My mentor teacher was a droll politician. I remember a girl-student I wanted to take under my wing, and try to inspire, but he claimed all she needed was a spanking. In other words, he cut me off; and in so doing he cut off my efforts to become a teacher.
My “under my wing” bit was an extension of my successes at that boys camp.
But it was obvious the educational establishment had no room for such altruism.
What it wanted, apparently, was military order, that is, independent thinking was stomped.
The official student-teaching I was supposed to do at the beginning of my senior-year went by-the-boards —I didn’t do it.
Toward the end of my junior year I befriended a philosophy-professor named Miller.
He was a good argument, always poking holes in any assertion, just like Troutman.
Which is what I was doing.
He convinced me I should do an extra year at Houghton so I could major in both History and Philosophy.
I began various Philosophy courses in my senior year, one of which was logic. I was utterly buffaloed. I could have probably done well in logic if that was the only course I was taking. I had to drop it.
Earlier a math-professor wanted me to take Calculus, aware I had nearly aced Physics. I deferred. I decided the only way to make sense of Calculus was to only do Calculus.
But I also had a full course-load. How could I make sense of Calculus when I also had to memorize the beginning of Canterbury Tales in Olde English? Also the name of Napoleon’s horse. (“It’s on page 1024 of the text, class, as a caption.”)
I was also tired by then, tired of studying so hard. Professors were telling me I should be  scholar; the bane of a questioner.
But I had had enough — I was just cruising anyway. It seems all a liberal-arts college teaches you is the history of western civilization. Master it, and you can ace just about anything.
I felt like I wanted to move on, and live my life.
So that proposed Philosophy-major became a minor, and I only did four years.
I also had to do summer-school again, because I did poorly in two previous courses. In the end all that stood between me and a degree was passing second-year French.
They graduated me; an August graduate.
They also refused to issue transcripts, since I owed them money — which I soon paid.
So my college-education ended a whimper.
But I’ve never regretted it. They were the first ones to not tell me I was “Of-the-Devil.”
I have since decided college is mainly your mastering time-management; being able to crank out a gigantic amount of work, or at least what appeared to be gigantic, in not enough time.
I cranked out a gigantic annotated-bibliography for Troutman; I was the only one that did. His grading it took years; even he was time-challenged.
He gave me an “A,” but I doubt he actually read it. If he had, he would have seen what a cheap-shot it was — mainly a display of superb time-management.
To do an annotated-bibliography you’re supposed to read all 89 bazilyun books on a topic; for reviewing. Uh, all I read were the first few paragraphs of each. 15-20 minutes per day for weeks.
I figured out the time-allotments needed.
People also tell me the whole point of a college-education is getting a good wife, which I did.
But I think Houghton was more than that.

• RE: “His wife wore jewelry (gasp!).” —At that time, Houghton was run by Wesleyan-Methodists, who were against wearing jewelry. Later Troutman’s house burned out, and the Wesleyan-Methodists who ran the college loudly declared that a sign from above. —I don’t know as Houghton is Wesleyan-Methodist any more.

“Getting a life”

Dr. Shirley A. Mullen.

I’ve never been able to warm up to Shirley Mullen, the current president of my alma-mater, Houghton College (“HO-tin;” not “how” or “who”) in western New York.
Mullen succeeded Daniel Chamberlain, who more-or-less succeeded Steve Paine, who was college-president when I was at Houghton.
Chamberlain didn’t actually succeed Paine. That was Wilbur Dayton, but he only lasted a few years.
Paine was a class act, sort of a jerk, but juggling an incredible balancing-act of a strident fundamentalist Board of Trustees versus the needs of the college.

Dr. Steven W. Paine.

Houghton is a religious college, and could be ridiculous.
When I was there, television was of-the-Devil. We weren’t even allowed to view President Kennedy’s funeral-parade after he was assassinated.
It was almost as if Kennedy got what he deserved.
The Board of Trustees wanted to continue requiring chapel attendance, which made it impossible for Houghton to participate in the Nation-Defense Student-Loan program.
Yet Paine saw the value of NDSL, so negated requiring chapel attendance.
I hope I have this right. I know chapel attendance wasn’t required, and I don’t think NDSL could fund religious institutions that required chapel attendance.
Without NDSL Houghton might have foundered.
My college-degree is compliments of the Nation-Defense Student-Loan program.
Nearby is Lima Christian (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”), and it looks like what Houghton could have become.
Little-used buildings gone fallow. It looks like it could have become a college.

Dr. Daniel Chamberlain.

I never felt serious about Chamberlain. He was a joke! For the college’s 100th birthday in 1983 he jumped out of a large imitation cake.
Paine would have never done that.
So now we have Shirley Mullen, a 1976 graduate of Houghton.
I can imagine Paine spinning in his grave.
She’s not Paine, but not as questionable as Chamberlain, and not quickly crashing like Wilbur Dayton.
And she said something that rang a bell with me.
“The culture tells us that education is about getting a job. At Houghton education is about getting a life.” (My underlining.)
Granted, she went on to praise the value of a Christian education, but “getting a life” is why I value my time at Houghton.
I’ve never regretted attending Houghton. It was the first time adult authority-figures valued me. At Houghton I was no longer of-the-Devil.
It was the professors. They weren’t elitist. They valued my input.
They wanted me in their classes for that.....
For once my opinions weren’t automatically badmouthed as rebellious or of-the-Devil.
My opinions were no longer perceived as a threat to social order; I had a point.
And so it’s been ever since I graduated.
Houghton left its mark; it gave me “a life.”
I’ve met any number of Houghton-grads since graduating myself, and they all seem to have the same values: caring about things, a legacy of Houghton professors not being elitists, and caring about us.
My Houghton degree counted for little. It never landed me a supreme job.
But I graduated Houghton with “a life.”

Reunion

(Left-to-right) Carol Weiss, Joy Slavin, and my wife — at the outdoor campus directory and map. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

For the past few days, two girls my wife shared a small dorm-house (Hazlett [“haze-LET”]) with during her earliest years in college visited us.
The girls are Carol Weiss (“wice”) and Joy Slavin (“slave-in”).
Neither are married.
Weiss lives by herself in her own house in Nyack, NY.
Slavin lives with her family in Manheim, PA. That includes her mother, who is 95, and most of her siblings.
Both were teachers, both retired.
This visit was prompted by my e-mail to them a few months ago, when my wife was at death’s door.
She no longer is; she’s fully recovered.
My wife has cancer, but supposedly it’s not fatal.
It’s treatable.
Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer.
The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen.
That was poofed with chemotherapy.
The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts.
It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes.
We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.
Her breast-cancer just about disappeared.
My e-mail made things sound terrible; which they were at that time.
The cancer was growing in her abdomen, and restricting blood and urine flow.
Her legs swelled, she was in pain, and her kidneys began failing.
She also was getting very weak — anemia.
We visited a nearby hospital’s Emergency Room a few times, and she was blood-transfused many times. She was eventually admitted to that hospital.
Meanwhile our cancer-center, which is in another hospital in Rochester, was engaged in a turf-battle.
Since she has two cancers, her two treatment specialists were at each other’s throats — a Three Stooges movie.
“Not my cancer!” “Is too!” “Is not!”
The lymphoma specialist had also been appointed a head-honcho, so he was pulling rank.
They finally began to wake up when I called the breast-cancer doctor myself and said “I hope she lasts the night.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Well, I’m biased of course, but I think so.”
The breast-cancer doctor thereafter called my wife herself at the other hospital.
My wife had her cellphone.
With that call, our breast-cancer doctor could hear how bad my wife was.
Suddenly things began moving — the Stooges movie ended.
My wife would be transferred to the Rochester hospital for treatment.
She was admitted, was there almost two weeks, and is now home fully recovered.
She was also given chemotherapy that snuffed the fire in her abdomen.
Stents were also installed in her ureter-tubes (to flow urine through the blockage); and they have since been removed.
Our college, Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”) in Western NY, was very strict when we were there.
It still is, although not as strict as when we were there, when women couldn’t wear slacks or shorts, and sleeveless dresses weren’t allowed.
Television was also not allowed, so that when President Kennedy was assassinated, we had to hit the homes (and TVs) of professors.
Television was sinful and of-the-Devil.
Plus Kennedy had it coming (a Democrat — gasp!).
Those professors were of-the-Devil too.
The college was founded and run by religious fundamentalists, almost to the point of being ridiculous.
The village is along what once was the Genesee Valley Canal, and the broad fertile Genesee valley was the first breadbasket of the nation.
Wheat would be grown in the valley, shipped to Rochester via the Genesee Valley Canal, and then shipped east on the Erie Canal after milling in Rochester.
The village was a den of bawdy iniquity, brothels, drinking, gambling, and fighting.
The village was named “Jockey Street,” because people would race their horses up the long main drag.
A religious zealot named Willard Houghton arrived, and decided to clean up the town.
He was a Wesleyan Methodist, much stricter than the average Methodist.
A seminary was established in the village in 1883, and it eventually became Houghton College.
By the time I attended, Houghton was thought to be one of the two best religious colleges.
The other was Wheaton College (supposedly the best) outside Chicago, where I was refused admittance.
Houghton only accepted me after I proved I could do college-level work in their summer-school.
My attending Houghton was a compromise with my father. He wanted me to attend Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, where he attended.
Moody Bible Institute wasn’t a college at that time, but is now.
I wanted to do college, the first in my family to get a college degree. (My father could have done it, but never tried.)
Houghton is also a liberal arts college (dread!). “Liberal” is of-the-Devil, and liberal-arts isn’t studying for a specific career.
It’s too general (gasp!), and encourages consideration of the opposite side of an issue (greater gasp!), instead of noisily trumpeting only the side the tub-thumpers think correct.
And loudly browbeating with ad hominem put-downs and name-calling anyone that dares render an opposing argument.
I’ve never regretted attending Houghton, although I graduated somewhat a misfit. And not approved by the college, since I didn’t graduate a zealot.
What I like most about Houghton was that the professors weren’t elitists; and cared about we students.
It was the first time adults actually listened to me, and valued my opinions.
They even used to steal my ideas.
They encouraged questioning — which in my case made me not a zealot.
I went there with no idea what to major in, although I was gonna major in Physics. (The whole idea was to avoid ‘Nam.)
But I ended up majoring in History, because that’s where all the good professors were.
Other majors might have one good professor, but History had two.
Early during my time at Houghton I fell into trying to prove the Founding Fathers of this nation were inspired — that they had faith in the good of mankind, and our nation was a manifestation of this.
One of my two good History professors, who I really respected, and who inspired me to become a History-major, quickly put the kibosh on that, by trotting out the Beardian theory that the American Revolution was economically motivated, and all that high-sounding philosophizing about the good of mankind was pure bunk, mere justification for an economically motivated revolution.
He was just challenging me. The sort of intellectual challenge any scholar would have to endure.
After four years I’d had enough. There were no answers. Most scholarly pursuit seemed mere belly-button picking, and I had a life to live.
“So what brought you to Rochester?” Joy asked.
“Her,” I said, pointing to my wife, who was only my wife-to-be at that time.
My wife had enrolled in a Library Science Masters program at nearby Geneseo State college, but that failed too.
My wife tired of serious discussions about how librarians should dress.
So we both moved to Rochester, me first from home in October of 1966.
I also had been declared 4-F (not draft-able), so I wasn’t going to ‘Nam. —I had a duodenal ulcer.
My wife moved up later, after failing Library School.
I also didn’t wanna be at home with meddling parents, after four years of relative independence.
Our first stop was Letchworth State park, a really great park, perhaps 10-15 miles north of Houghton, where students hung out a lot.
The mighty Genesee (“jen-uh-SEE”) river, which traverses Western New York south to north, has to go from higher elevations in the southern part of the state, to lower in the north.
(The Genesee also passes Houghton.)
There are waterfalls, and a deep gorge carved out of rock, all in Letchworth Park, an area once owned by William Pryor Letchworth, later converted to a state park.
There was desire to harness the power in the waterfalls, but that never happened.
The gorge and waterfalls remained natural.
The only visible incursion of mankind is a huge railroad trestle above the Upper Falls.
At first the trestle was wood, but that burned down.
The current trestle is steel, but I think there was a wrought-iron trestle before that.
The trestle is Erie Railroad, their Buffalo Extension.
The line is now Norfolk Southern, and they will replace the trestle.
The trestle is down to 10 mph, and if a train locked its brakes (“emergency”) it might take down the trestle.
That trestle is part of Norfolk Southern’s railroad from Buffalo toward New York City, motivation to replace it.
We first looked at waterfalls, and then set up a picnic within view of the trestle and Letchworth’s mansion.
The park exists mainly because of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, who built rock walls, overlooks, and carved paths.
They also built giant picnic-tables out of rock, and we set up on one.
The table was a giant slab of flat shale, about four inches thick, perhaps five feet by eight.
Those picnic-tables are forever. The only wood was the seat-benches, twin wooden 2x6 planks.
Our next stop was our college, our alma mater.
“This place lacks the charm it had when we were here,” Carol said.
A gigantic new Fine Arts building was built behind the Chapel-Auditorium, which was a class building.
The Fine Arts building overpowers the Chapel-Auditorium, and makes it look inferior.

Photo by BobbaLew.

John and Charles Wesley Memorial Chapel-Auditorium in 1965.

That Chapel was the classiest building on the campus. It’s a big box, but it still looks right. It was the portico that did it.
We went inside the lobby, and saw the infamous mural of the Biblical passing of time.
We gazed inside the auditorium. It looked great; just like it did when we left.
Although it has new seats, and temporary air-conditioning through removed window-panes from outdoors rental AC units.
The old radio-station control-room had been blanked off.
It looked nowhere near as bad as last time, when columns were on the stage.
An artist’s rendering of how it would look after renovation appeared in our alumni newsletter. It included the columns.
I wrote them a letter: if they included those columns in their renovation they weren’t getting another red cent.
So no columns this time. An empty expansive stage, except a small string orchestra was on it sawing away.
It sounded like Beethoven.
A youth music-camp was on campus, and the orchestra sounded pretty good.
A little murky, but nowhere near as bad as a high-school band, which can be annoying.
We also perused the new Fine Arts building, finding various empty galleries.
I went upstairs (via elevator, of all things.....), and found numerous tiny well-insulated practice rooms. They were inhabited by youngsters, a girl practicing scales on her flute, various pianists, and a soprano voicing scales with piano accompaniment.
It was barely audible.
Totally unlike the old Music Building, where it was so hot inside the students opened their windows, even in winter, and we were greeted with gorgeous cacophony when we exited the Chapel-building.
Trumpets and pianos and cellos, and yodeling sopranos and bellowing baritones — a torrential mishmash of convoluted clashing sound, cascading all over you.
The new Fine Arts building mutes that.
People used to call the old Music Building “Blare Hall.”
We then checked out the Campus Center, unheard of when we were students.
(Ours was nothing.)
Upstairs was the dining-room, and food was apparently served cafeteria-style.
When we were there it was by waiter; a job for students.
And Joy and my wife and Carol and myself all worked in the vaunted dishroom. Do students wash the dishes in this new arrangement?
I’m sorry, but I agree with my wife’s friends.
Houghton had character when we were there.
A character it now seems to lack.
And as we left we were passed by a skinny stick-human earnestly studying his iPhone.
He smiled as we passed, as did most everyone we met.
Do these people have any idea what the real world is like?
I drove city transit bus 16&1/2 years, and found that most strangers frown or snap at you.
Only people that know you smile.
The bell-tower rang three o’clock as we prepared to leave. Just like old times — probably the same recording (over speakers).
“Why was everyone so sincere?” I asked as we departed.
(My wife’s Hazlett dorm was gone, replaced by townhouses with the same name.)

• The upper wall of the Wesley Chapel lobby has a gigantic 150-foot mural titled “Redemption” painted by H. Willard Ortlip, a Houghton faculty member. It traces the entire passing of earthly history, from Biblical Creation to the end of time. (Ortlip took sick while painting the shackling of Satan. —Hmmmmmnnnnn.........)

Da Cronies

During my freshman year, ‘62-‘63, at nearby Houghton College, I fell in with a pack a’ ne’er-do-wells known as “Da Cronies.”
I probably generated the name myself.
It was comprised of most of the vaunted “Summer-School Gang,” and a few others.
The “Summer-School Gang” were all those who had to attend college summer-school to gain acceptance.
Failing that, you became cannon-fodder for ‘Nam.
I was Summer-School Gang and made it.
Houghton was at that time strictly fundamentalist; I don’t know about now.
Back then girls couldn’t even wear sleeveless dresses, and shorts were utterly beyond the pale.
Our goal was to overtake the college, and perhaps loosen it some.
All the freshman boys were in the same dormitory: Shenawana (“Shen-uh-WAA-nuh;” as in “wand” and “then”).
After your freshman year, the boys moved into private housing.
Most houses in town had way more rooms than a family needed. So the extra rooms were rented to men students.
Girls from all classes roomed in dormitories, although a few didn’t.
Most of the residents of the town were employees of the college, so in essence it was a college room in a private home.
With the Freshman boys all in the same dorm, it was easy to keep “Da Cronies” alive.
We’d gather furtively in the room of a fellow ne’er-do-well, and swap strategy.
We didn’t get very far.
Our efforts prompted fear-and-loathing among fellow students, that an evil cabal of Devil-worshipers was trying to take over.
“Da Cronies” quickly fell apart.
Pursuing a college education was more important.
“Da Cronies” lasted maybe 3-4 months, and by Sophomore year, when we all moved out into private homes, it was dead.

• “Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• “‘Nam” is of course Vietnam.
• “Fundamentalist” is to be strictly religious, particularly relevant to social mores — i.e. if it’s fun, it’s sin.

Wiscoy

The reservoir formed by the damming of Wiscoy Creek. (Screenshot of a Google satellite-view.)

Years ago, Spring of 1966, while I was a senior at Houghton, I was introduced to a bucolic rural location by my wife-to-be.
The name of this place was Wiscoy (“wiss-KOY”) Creek, a few miles northeast of Fillmore, which was a few miles north of Houghton.
She wasn’t my wife yet.
We’d pile into my car (“the Beast”) and roar up to Wiscoy Creek. It was a place to escape Houghton; let it all hang out — shorts, etc.
It was she that introduced me to this place; I had never even known of it.
My favored rural hangout was under the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad trestle east of Fillmore. A train might cross it, and I’m a railfan.
That railroad has since been abandoned, and the trestle removed.
Wiscoy Creek fed the Genesee River, and was a narrow gorge through the western hills of the vast Genesee Valley.
A flood-control dam had been installed upstream.
The local power-company had installed a generation system to generate electricity from the outflow from the dam.
A large wooden pipe, known as “the flume,” four to six feet in diameter, had been installed down the gorge from the dam to the generating station — at least a mile or so.
We’d hike atop that pipe to the dam.
Since it was wood, it had numerous leaks: high narrow fountains of misty spray 90° from the pipe-casing.
The drill was to avoid the leaks, yet not fall off the pipe, which wasn’t too hard.
A few years ago I went back up the road we had traveled, but found nothing; not even a dam.
Apparently I hadn’t gone far enough.
Yesterday (Friday, March 13, 2009), at the YMCA, the guy from Fillmore was in the Mens Locker-Room when I arrived.
“Aren’t you the guy from Fillmore?” I asked. —He knew me, and was trying to make conversation.
“Yes,” and then a long confused silence followed.
“Actually from Wiscoy,” he finally said.
“Oh yeah?” I said. “Seems to me there was a dam there, but I couldn’t find it a few years ago.”
“Actually there are three,” he said. “One holds back Rushford Lake.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I water-skied that.”
“A second is at Mills-Mills; and the third dams Wiscoy Creek.
All are flood-control dams, but the power-company put in generating stations to generate electricity from the outflows.
Rochester Gas & Electric bought that power-company, and the generating-stations become them, although all have since been abandoned,” he said.
“So that dam at Wiscoy Creek still exists,” I said.
“Yep, ya can buy it of ya want. It’s for sale,”
“I’m gonna go back and find that sucker. I bet I can find it on my Google satellite-views,” I said.

My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.”

“Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college. (At that time the college would not allow shorts or sleeveless dresses.)

“The Beast” was my first car, a 1958 Triumph TR3 sportscar. It was very fast.

The “Erie-Lackawanna Railroad” was a merger of the Erie and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroads in 1960. The line east of Fillmore was a way to bypass all the Erie’s grades west of Hornell. It was abandoned when the railroad became no longer through to Chicago.

The “Genesee River” is a river that flows north across NY state and empties into Lake Ontario at Rochester. Its valley was the nation’s first breadbasket, mainly because of the Erie Canal (and a feeder canal down the valley).

“Rochester Gas & Electric” is the power-utility based in Rochester.

I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym.

blah-blah-blah-blah-blah

Shirley Mullen, ‘76; Houghton’s president.

Houghton College, our fair alma mater, where we both graduated in 1966 with Bachelor-of-Arts degrees, me in History, and my wife in both History and English, celebrated its 125th anniversary last year.
Houghton is an evangelical liberal arts college in Western New York, about an hour south of Rochester, but in a very bucolic rural setting.
I’ve never regretted going there, even though I graduated as a reprehensible outcast.
I completed the requirements, so was granted a degree.
I was the first in my family to do so, although I’m sure my father could have got his degree.
But he came of age during the Depression, so his parents wanted him to forget education and get a job.
His going off to Chicago to attend a Bible school was perceived as running away.
My father wanted me to attend that same Bible school, to “straighten me out;” but I wanted a college degree.
Houghton was the compromise, because it was an evangelical college.
I should add that my parents were both tub-thumping born-again Christians, quick to pass judgment, and loudly determined I follow in their hallowed footsteps.
Houghton was founded in 1883, although not as a college at first. At first it was a religious high-school, but was accredited as a college in 1923.
By 1960 it had become the number-two evangelical college in reputation, second only to Wheaton college, near Chicago.
1961 was my third summer on the staff of Sandy Hill Boys Camp along Chesapeake Bay in northeastern MD, an evangelical operation.
That summer many of the camp’s counselors were Houghton students; I was only a Counselor-in-Training (“CIT”), age 17. (I’d graduate high-school in a year; 1962.)
They relayed to me what a wonderful place Houghton was, so I applied.
I also applied to Wheaton, but they turned me down.
My acceptance at Houghton was provisional; I had to attend summer-school to prove I could do college level work.
It was do-or-die: succeed or get sucked into the Vietnam quagmire.
So I succeeded, and thereby matriculated.
I graduated four years later, despite so-so grades.
My grades were always marginal, but the professors loved having me in class.
That was because unlike most, I was a thinker. I’d come up with a cogent snide remark that caught the professors off guard.
One time a venerable history-professor was telling us “the middle-of-the-road” was the best route.
“But Dr. Lindley,” I said. “What if the middle-of-the-road is wrong?”
WHAM! Stopped her in her tracks.
“That Hughes-kid is always coming up with the perfect response; the one that makes us question.”
Houghton has come a long way since.
The guy who was college-president (Steve Paine [“PAIN”], pictured below) retired and eventually died.
The fact Houghton became number-two was largely his doing; and he was riding a bucking bronco — balancing a board of ultraconservative and sanctimonious zealots against the needs of the college (like bending college rules to accommodate President Johnson’s National Defense Student-Loan program, the way I funded my education).
When we were there TV was still of-the-Devil, girls couldn’t wear shorts or sleeveless dresses, and dancing and movies were unthinkable.
Paine was replaced by Wilbur Dayton (‘38), who was a bit buffaloed, and only held the position a few years.
Dayton was replaced by Dan Chamberlain (“CHAIM-brr-lin”), who I always perceived as a clown. He probably wasn’t, but he popped out of a cake for the college’s centennial in 1983.
Chamberlain retired in 2005, and was replaced by Shirley Mullen (‘76); the college’s first woman president.
The vaunted “Milieu” (we call it “Mildew”), the college alumni magazine, did a treatment of Houghton at 125, “celebrating the journey.”
President Mullen had a speech therein, and it follows:

Steve Paine; Houghton’s president when we were there.

“In order to be an effective Christian liberal arts college for the 21st century, we must be sharper than ever in the sciences and more intentional about our strategy for preparing Christians who are effective in cross cultural settings at home and overseas. We have a strong tradition and foundation to build on in the sciences and global engagement, but the rapid pace of change in both areas will require concentrated and sustained attention in the coming days to assure our continued strength.”
My first thought was “she sure had a liberal-arts education.”
My wife’s comment was “CEO-speak!”
“Sure had a liberal-arts education” is something a professor once told me at Rochester Institute of Technology, for a photography course I was taking, requiring a term-paper.
I was no good as a photographer, but I sure could write.
The professor said that, giving me back that term-paper, for which he had given me an “A.”
“What did she say?” I cried. “Is she trying to make up for the fact she’s flat-chested?”
“Boy,” I commented. “Things sure have changed since Steve Paine was telling us to join him ‘up on the curb.’”

My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.”

The “Bible school” was Moody Bible Institute, now a college — very urban, in downtown Chicago; which I didn’t like.

RE: “For a photography course I was taking.....” —At that time (early ‘70s) I was trying to freelance photography; but I didn’t have the eye (“I was no good as a photographer”).

RE: “Steve Paine was telling us to join him ‘up on the curb.......’” —College president Steve Paine was always bewailing that Houghton students were “in-the-gutter,” and admonishing us to “join him ‘on the curb.’”

“I was a reprehensible sinner!”

I’m in the Mens Locker-Room at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA.
“I did my work-out here the other day, and then went home to another work-out: shoveling snow,” said some guy to Jim, one of the few people I know at the Canandaigua YMCA.
Jim, like me, is a runner — probably in his 40s or even 50s.
“But I like snow,” the guy said.
“Yeah, so do I,” I said. “I’ve done more cross-country skiing this year than I did in the past five previous years combined.”
“Houghton, eh?” the guy said looking at me.
I was wearing the dark maroon Houghton tee-shirt I bought at the Houghton bookstore, when we all visited there two summers ago.
“Yep,” I said; “Class of ‘66.”
“I’m from Fillmore,” the guy said.
“Which is right up the road; Route 19,” I responded.
“Almost went to Houghton, but they didn’t have intercollegiate sports,” he said.
“Nor when I was there,” I said. “First intercollegiate sports event was a cross-country foot-race in 1967. That was a year after I graduated.”
The guy was slightly older than me.
“Back then ya weren’t allowed to go to movies, or attend dances......”
“And sleeveless dresses were forbidden, as were shorts,” I added.
“Yep,” he chuckled; “shorts were of-the-devil.”
“I was there in 1963 when Kennedy was assassinated, and were it not for my house-owner, we couldn’t watch all the news on the TV. TV was of-the-devil. There were no TVs on campus. Didja hear all that, Jim?”
Jim looked at me strangely and grimaced.
“Yet look at the place now,” the guy said. “It’s a beautiful campus. And it sure has changed.”
“Yep; I’ve never regretted going there, and that’s despite their graduating me without their approval,” I said. “I was a reprehensible sinner. Worse yet, I was a mocker!”

I work out at the Canandaigua YMCA evercise-gym.

“Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. Houghton is a religious liberal-arts college.

RE: “When we all visited there two summers ago........” —“All” is most members of my family.

State “Route 19” is the main north-south drag through Houghton.