2008 Woodie Awards
Thoughts From Yesterday...
By John Feeley
3/28/07 - Opinion
It was the summer of 1959 and most of it had been spent on the end of a 70 pound jackhammer participating in the "birth" of I 95 in Bangor, Maine... And I was about to begin an experience that would be even more difficult but a lot more rewarding than the pounding of pavement I had withstood for more than three months.
September 01 arrived and soon I was off for the Bangor airport… a diminutive terminal on an endless runway shared with Dow Airforce Base. The aircraft of the day was a DC 3 that made it to New York City and the awaiting Lockheed Super G Constellation and a non stop flight to Denver….legal age at that time was 18 in New York and a Bud seemed to make sense for someone from a small town in the woods of Maine about to take on an educational experience without equal.
And an education it turned out to be… one that did not come easy... but with the seemingly endless hours of study came rewards that could only be found at CSM and in Golden.
It all started with the hike up Lookout Mountain with a 10 pound rock for the annual white wash job, the gauntlet, surveying up "repeat hill", Duds and the Ace High, summer courses, the Staggering M Band, freshman physics, Dean Burger, the clay pits, The Beta Hawaiian party complete with a truck load of sand shoveled into the cellar of the old long gone Barn, hog tied and dumped on the Quad of the Air Force Academy in ROTC attire, a bit of Mines football, a rollover courtesy of a Saudi friend driving us back from a beer blast in Clear Creek Canyon, and I must not forget Norabell…
One of the many particularly rewarding experiences from my days at Mines was the opportunity to serve as editor of The Oredigger… there wasn't much time for the TV that did exist and the Mines student paper got plenty of attention…Some called those of us at Mines technological barbarians… supposedly because of the concentration of engineering courses… they doubted we could even write, spell, or publish a regular student paper… they just didn't get it, and those of you who do so today, continue a tradition of getting it done with a sense of pride and understanding for what a real college education entails…..
Go Get It !
Sincerely,
John Feeley, Met. E
September 01 arrived and soon I was off for the Bangor airport… a diminutive terminal on an endless runway shared with Dow Airforce Base. The aircraft of the day was a DC 3 that made it to New York City and the awaiting Lockheed Super G Constellation and a non stop flight to Denver….legal age at that time was 18 in New York and a Bud seemed to make sense for someone from a small town in the woods of Maine about to take on an educational experience without equal.
And an education it turned out to be… one that did not come easy... but with the seemingly endless hours of study came rewards that could only be found at CSM and in Golden.
It all started with the hike up Lookout Mountain with a 10 pound rock for the annual white wash job, the gauntlet, surveying up "repeat hill", Duds and the Ace High, summer courses, the Staggering M Band, freshman physics, Dean Burger, the clay pits, The Beta Hawaiian party complete with a truck load of sand shoveled into the cellar of the old long gone Barn, hog tied and dumped on the Quad of the Air Force Academy in ROTC attire, a bit of Mines football, a rollover courtesy of a Saudi friend driving us back from a beer blast in Clear Creek Canyon, and I must not forget Norabell…
One of the many particularly rewarding experiences from my days at Mines was the opportunity to serve as editor of The Oredigger… there wasn't much time for the TV that did exist and the Mines student paper got plenty of attention…Some called those of us at Mines technological barbarians… supposedly because of the concentration of engineering courses… they doubted we could even write, spell, or publish a regular student paper… they just didn't get it, and those of you who do so today, continue a tradition of getting it done with a sense of pride and understanding for what a real college education entails…..
Go Get It !
Sincerely,
John Feeley, Met. E
Be the first to comment on this story