My Central Michigan University Photo Album
A lot of my friends have lived in fear that this page might actually come to be, and the pictures herein might finally be publicly displayed.
For now, I'm staying fairly tame...but who knows when that might change?
| For Christmas I got a Rolle auto-focus built-in-flash 35mm camera, and with it began my long career of documenting. Because I had no camera before this, I have no photos and few recollections of the start of my freshman year. So this story must begin with its second semester. One of the first photos I took was of the "New Year Baby", who just happened to be my neice Heather. |  |
| Here it is. My dorm room at 126 Robinson, First Floor East. It looks quite primitive now, I suppose. There was no cable TV, there were no desktop computers or laptops. Our entertainment came from a hi-fi my parents bought me. We thought it was a big deal since it had a built-in cassette player! Our TV had rabbit ears and we could at best get three channels. Tbe guy sitting is Mike Auquier, one of my room mates. The chair and couch are his. The books and posters are mine. The hubcap was found. |  |
| You can check out more of our room's quetsionable interior decorating. The color scheme and paint job, including the elaborate phoenix on the radiator, was from the previous tenants. This picture shows Mike and the guy across the hall, John Kurko (left), killing time by weight lighting. This was fairly popular my first year. I had some pretty decent biceps for a couple months, but this changed as I grew more lazy. |  |
| During the Spring it was decided that all dorm rooms had to be repainted. They had to conform to a limited number of pastel colors, in an attempt to make them more uniform. We chose "Desert Clay", I believe, but for some reason it came out looking more like pink. Progressive rock fans all along the floor shed a tear as Mike painted one of our walls. |  |
| The land was pretty flat and low-lying around Mt Pleasant, so it was frequently windy and Spring was good kite-flying season. I myself make a rare appearance in my Photo Album, shown hearing flying a kite. This picture is particularly remarkable since that field does not exist any more. To the left is married-housing and (off-camera) Moore Hall. Now, this field (I think) is the new science building and parking lot. |  |
| These next three photos were all taken on the same evening. We had a sudden rain late in the afternoon, during dinner. The setting sun broke free however, making the trees glow against the still ominous sky. The effect was quite striking, so I rushed outside with my camera and ran about campus trying to get as many shots as I could. This is facing east down Bellows Rd, looking down toward The Malt Shop and Student Book Exchange (with my residence hall behind me). |
 |
| This is looking northward, I think. And I believe the building on the bottom is Barnes, which means Robinson is to my left. |  |
| One of my favorite pictures, and one which prompted me to start My Photo Gallery. The building is the Park Library. |  |
| We engaged in many past-times. Here we see Brett Morrow and John Kurko engaged in one of them: a good healthy slapbox match. |  |
| Another pastime was playing catch in the hallway, as practiced here by Mike Auquier (left) and Bill Huddleston (right). |  |
| Our long hallway was also good for bowling, which was best done with a basetball and an empty 2-liter pop bottle. |  |
| As our first year drew to a close, we ended up with what we thought was a pretty big trophy case (shown here on Dan Pozsgai's desk). The Jim Beam front and center was what laid me low on my nineteenth birthday. The Mad Dog 20/20 to the right of it we kept just because we were impressed we finished it. Same with the Boone's Farm on the extreme left. The many Seagrams bottles were used to make our favorite drink (besides beer): poppers. |  |
| One of the last events of the year was "Mock Rock" at the Wayside Central. I guess this was a precursor to karaoke, except people lip-synched to songs. A few guys from our floor competed, miming to "Since You're Gone" from The Cars. They looked great since they brought real instruments on stage. It paid off, since they won the contest. Iguess this was deemed unfair by other competitors, so real instruments (even for show) were deemed unacceptable. As music videos grew more dance-oriented, so did Mock Rock. We lost interest in it after a few years, since it degenerated into a kind of cheerleading or line-dancing competition. And, with the onset of Michael Jackson, the music started to suck anyway. |
 |
| Here's a publicity shot of The Cars which I took before their winning performance. I always thought it would make a great back cover for their album. From left to right: Doug Burnham, Bill Markel (our Resident Assistant), Howie Everts (kneeling), Terry Fleigel, Gary Mans. |
 |
| After the school year was over, some of the guys met at my house during the Summer and we took a trip down to Cedar Point, in Sandusky Ohio. Seen here are (from left to right) Dan Pozsgai, Howie Everts, Mike Chinavare, Brett Morrow, and John Kurko -- hiding under the arcade awning to get out of the rain. This trip also marked my only run in with the police. We were cruising around town, early in the evening, and were quite surprised how dead the place was. One of us (oh all right, it was Dan) yelled out the window "This town sucks!" (note the absence of a profanity, too) and almost immediately a cop car pulled us over. We had to exit our van while it was searched for alcohol and contraband. The first officer found nothing, but that didn't stop Officer Bob from fingering his holster while he stood by us, glowering. |
 |
| Following our Cedar Point trip we returned to my house, and lounged around by the pool. I include this shot just to remind us how thin we all once used to be. Once again from left to right: John Kurko, Brett Morrow, Howie Everts, Dan Pozsgai, Mike Auquier, Mike Chinavare. |  |