Carnegie Tech

I was able to do a reasonable amount of studying while living at McNeilly's. I made myself a study table using a 4' x 4' 1/2" plywood and four collapsable legs.

The McNeilly's were a Scotch-Irish elderly couple with some quirks. She described a taxi ride she had taken, and the need for tipping, the dialogue being thus: "Poor as I am, I'll give you a dime." "Aw, keep it lady, you need it more than I do." On another occasion she said to her husband, "For as long as you've been shaving, you ought to be able to shave in the dark. We might as well have it as Duquene Light." Mr. McNeilly once expressed concern about eating food canned in metal cans, and speculated on the possibility of metal dust. They lived at 6463 1/2 Aurelia St., East Liberty. There was a diner just down the street where I ate breakfast.

I ate lunch at the "Beanery", otherwise known as "Skibo", on campus. I commuted via trolly. On at least one or two occasions I had my laundry done at a Chinese Laundry.

While standing in line to register for all my classes, the fellow just ahead of me told me his plans: He was going to take a night watchman's job and spend that time to do all his homework. I wondered how it would work, and a year or so later, I asked him. He had a straight "A", but was always sleepy. Another fellow (then or later), told me that he lived with his wife rent-free, or nearly so. I asked how. He said that he went door-to-door near the campus looking for low-cost rent, and ran across one party with servants quarters over their garage that they were able to get. This method I took my cue from and applied it successfully in Connecticut.

I had some interesting professors. One was an elderly Gerald Patterson, originally from Tuscon, AZ, and he longed to be able to return, but felt trapped in Pittsburgh due to job and family. I took careful note of his situation, and determined it would not happen to me. One day he came and made the comment, "I got up late this morning and had time only to either eat breakfast or shave, so I flipped a coin. It said shave, so I ate breakfast." He taught EEE (Elements of Electrical Engineering". One of his comments: "I have my radio grounded to the garbage can."
One thing he taught us was the procedure for designing transformers, among other things.

Another professor was Claude Schwab, from France, who taught us Chemistry. One of his comments: "I came to Carnegie Tech IN SPITE of Pittsburgh" (which at that time was the Smokey City due to coal burning and open hearth furnaces). The air there was bad, very bad. He described a rig he had made using a play pen to keep the air clean for his little one. He was very much against hydrogenated oil for human consumption, saying it was totally unnatural, and produced by using nickel catalyst which was poisonous. Also he was dead set against Cocoa Cola, which he said was illegal in France. However, it was recommended for cleaning white sidewall tires.

Just about all my classmates were newly returned WWII servicemen like myself. One of my professors, this one in economics, was ultra left-wing. One of my classmates named VanBuzkirk was I believe probably upper class, with money. The Economics prof. insisted on calling VanBuzkirk "Buzkirk", thus there was friction between the two. Once this prof (whose name escapes me), took a poll of the class, asking "How many of you would be here anyway, without any G.I. Bill?" I had an English prof. who looked down on me after giving me a "C", indiicating that "probably that was all I was capable of doing." He was not my favorite prof.

One of my math instructors was named "V. A. Zora". He had us come up and do work at the blackboard. He always spoke in a smooth monotone. Strange. Believe he was a grad student.

Another instructor, also later for math, was from Czechoslovokia, and his accent was so bad you had to sit on the edge of your chair and concentrate just to understand his "English".

Our Chemistry instructor guaranteed us a "B" if we would do all our homework. But the homework was a "bear", and for me at least, sometimes impossible to do.

Regarding Drafting and Spacial Mechanics, the Carnegie Tech catalog said that homework for this course is NOT required. I faithfully adheered to this specification, but as a consequence, just barely passed. I note that I may have been nearly the only one NOT doing additional studying at home for this course.

A classmate, Miller, and I talked of making plans for the first summer we had off from school to travel down to Tennessee, and find totally unspoiled girls to be our wives. But we (I at least) never got that far. To handle the big influx of students, Carnegie Tech, as many other schools, ran full classes year round for the first year or two after the war.

For my part, I came up with another theory: If any girl had to take dancing lessons because she never learned to in high school, then she must be unspoiled and shy. Thus I enrolled at Griffith's Dance Studio in downtown Pittsburgh, and met several girls. One was a blond just out of high school, and she was going to attend Cornell Univ. in Ithica , NY. She wrote me about a nine page letter all in green ink. But at that time I had already met Marjorie, so wrote the other a short letter and that ended that. Marjorie was always beeing danced with by "the guy in the blue suit", but I think she liked me better.

So once I took her home, via the trolly, to 748 Warrington Ave., and down a dark alley, and up over a candy store. On the mailbox it said: Minster, Winrick, Holzer, Duckworth, Nudine. I didn't know what to make of all this, but we were very much attraced to each other. On another occasion she invited me for dinner with the family, and it helped us to get acquainted. Then I began seeing her quite regularly.

It may have been about May, 1947, and I had possibly a week off from school, and I went home. That may have been the time tha sticks in my memory. So what I'm about to describe may be the composite of more than one trip, as I made quite a few between Connecticut and Pgh while in school. Anyway, let's say this time I flew to New York, and then hitch-hiked home from there, which I did one time. Coming in for a landing during a thinderstorm, the pilot changed his mind at the last minute, gave it the gun, stood the plane on one wing in a tight bank and came around again and landed.

It was the first warm weather of early spring, and I was hitch-hiking through the night, getting finally, a ride as far as Talcotville. From there I had to walk home, about 3 miles. As I was walking along Thrall Road, it must have been getting towards dawn, and all the birds started singing beautifully. I continued home, letting myself in, and climbed up stairs and crawled into bed. Every day that week I received a 2 or 3 page perfumed letter from Marjorie.

Another time I was hitch-hiking between Connecticut and Pgh. I got a ride with a little old lady
who said she was on the way to visit her husband in an asylum (she didn't say what kind). Along the way she picked up a lot of us hitch hikers. One problem, she would notice and comment on various things along the 2-lane highway, but when she was commenting on something over to the left, the car would veer over to the left, into the other lane. Also, her passing of cars left an awful lot to be desired, especially when there was oncoming traffic. One by one, me included, we all came to the conclusion this ride wasn't worth the risk, and at various places, we all abandoned her.

Got to go. More later.