Tag: northwestern

A find during Googling recently — Lindsay sent a photo of Evanston restaurant Hecky’s, a place we never went while we actually attended Northwestern — is Martha Larson’s “Computer Lab Swing” (lyrics and mp3), which turns out to be an amazing capture of an odd time and place: NU’s late-’90s digital world.

The servers named after neighborhood restaurants (Hecky’s is the only survivor), the Telnet text-only email client, the “Ph” service that operated like a digital phone directory but then became a semi-social network before social networks existed…. all of these things were real and our children will never believe us.

It’s a high-class joint where the big names rendezvous
You’ve got Hecky, Casbah, Merle and Sweet Lulu
The lights are white and the screens glow a funky green,
And, baby, pine is the secret word, if you know what I mean
Keep on swingin’ there’s no stoppin’, the Cyberworld is always hoppin’
Computer Lab…Computer Lab

I sing bee-billi-oten-boten-bobo-skideeten-be-bop
As I take that mouse for a spin across my desktop
The guy sittin’ next to me is a real Johnny Style,
So I’ll Ph that cat, and get his profile
All those masterminds a-thinkin’ but there ain’t no food or drinkin’
Computer Lab…Computer Lab

Our current interns will never believe us.

The rest of Larson’s songs from that time aren’t online, but I bet they’d be interesting to Northwestern people as well.  A 1999 graduate of the NU mechanical-engineering program, say her liner notes, “Martha performed the title track to her album, Lonesome Techie Woman, at the 1999 McCormick School of Engineering commencement ceremony.”

The new issue of the Medill alumni magazine collects memories of the school’s Washington program, in celebration of the program’s 50th anniversary. Of the anecdotes, the best comes from a man named David Dees, MSJ ’81:

The Medill program was located in an old office building, on the
ninth floor (I think). By late spring, the weather was warm and our
office had no air-conditioning so we kept the windows open. I was
the only married student in my group. My wife, Sherri Sandow
Dees, was back in Evanston working on her master’s in music
performance. I got to joking that the only reason I was married
was that I couldn’t remove my wedding ring. To prove my point,
I shook my hand to one side, once, twice, then whoosh, the ring
flew from my sweaty finger, over my neighbor’s desk, against a sill,
and out the window before plummeting to the busy sidewalk.
Bursting onto the sidewalk, I counted up the floors and across
the windows to locate the window. Then I scanned back down the
drab brick wall to the sidewalk. No ring. I ran into the street. I ran
across the street and back again. I looked under parked cars and
moving cars. I looked under pedestrians. Then I looked up the
sidewalk to see a metal grate covering a subterranean labyrinth. I
was sure that my ring had bounced, rolled or been kicked into the
abyss.

By this time, an elevator load of my classmates had joined the
search. Soon, one of them, a woman whose name I have long
since forgotten, approached me. “Is this it?” she asked calmly,
holding up the ring. I was too astonished to say, “What do you
mean ‘Is this it?’ How many gold bands do you expect to find on
the sidewalk this afternoon?” I don’t think I said anything, but
instead grabbed her and kissed her right on the mouth.

The impact left the ring less than round, and I gradually gained
too much weight to wear it anymore. But fortunately, nearly 35
years later, I still have the same ring–and the same wife.

… the purple Evanston Suit. Meet the Stadium sweater.

From this fall’s Northwestern alumni magazine:

John H. Worthington ’48 MS of Foxborough, Mass., is still going strong at age 93. He writes letters of the editor and to his three daughters. “Typing on my old manual typewriter is still a compulsion,” he writes.

There’s also a good piece on storytelling helping coma patients.

Meanwhile in this fall’s Medill alumni magazine, the back cover has a great picture (credit unknown) of young Michael Wilbon and Christine Brennan:

From the class notes in the latest issue of the NU alumni magazine:

Water H. Sobel (McC34) of Wilmette, Ill., celebrated his 100th birthday with family and friends on July 27. He survived a kamikaze attack aboard the USS New Mexico during World War II. A former architect who lives in a Frank Lloyd Wright home, Sobel designed synagogues and other landmarks on the North Shore. He closed his downtown office in 2003. Sobel and his wife, Betty, raised five children in Wilmette. She died in 1997.

And then:

Helen Froelich Holt (WCAS34, G38) of Boca Raton, Fla., celebrated her 100th birthday in August. She was West Virginia’s first female secretary of state, serving from 1957 to 1959. In May 2013 West Virginia University awarded her an honorary doctorate. Holt graduated from Northwestern with a degree in zoology and started her career as a teacher. When her husband, Rush Holt Sr., a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, died in 1955, she filled his empty seat, serving from 1955 to 1957. In 1960 President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Holt to spearhead the Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance program. She was reappointed by six presidents and retired in 1983. Her son, Rush Holt Jr., has served in Congress since 1998.

On the same page are a pair of 98-year-old men, friends since Evanston.

I like alumni magazines. But I love the alumni updates in the back matter of alumni magazines. So, continuing my occasional posting of favorites, here are highlights from the Northwestern magazine winter 2013 issue.

From a 103-year-old in the class of 1933, the mag’s first listing: “She keeps up with current events and cheers on the Wildcats football team.”

From a class of 1954 graduate: “… was diagnosed with metastatic stage 4 inoperable lung cancer at age 80, but after aggressive chemotherapy is cancer free. She planned to take a 17-day trip to Africa in the fall.”

From a school of engineering graduate, now living in Manchester, Conn.: “… was recently selected at Manchester’s first town troubadour.”

From a political consultant, news that one of his TV spots had won a contest: “The spot won first place for best use of a negative contrast.”

From a historian: “… has worked as a clown with the Ringling Brothers & Bailey Circus, equity actor and playwright and military policeman.”

From an actor: “is best known for his role as the Geico caveman.”

Doesn’t matter whom from: “With a month to herself, she booked a last-minute trip to Thailand to visit a friend she had not seen in almost 10 years. While there, she rode elephants and played with baby tigers.”

A Facebook post today about CAESAR, Northwestern’s online registration system, made me think of the tool’s early days. The bad, bad early days.

November 5, 1999, The Daily Northwestern, by one Casey Newton.

Northwestern’s online preregistration, scheduled to begin Monday, was cancelled Friday morning because the software couldn’t handle multiple users, administrators said.

Students can expect to receive an e-mail later today or tomorrow detailing registration procedures, said Registrar Suzanne Anderson. Anderson said she is confident that regular registration, scheduled to begin Nov. 15, will be online.

“We will have Web registration, I have every confidence in that,” she said Friday afternoon. “We’re not going back to bubble sheets.”

October 21, 2012, The Daily Northwestern, full story.

Northwestern University Information Technology unveiled its new home page Sunday for the online registration system CAESAR, garnering a negative response from many students.

The new home page, previously known as the “Student Center,” organizes links into 13 modules, including enrollment, class searches, and course and teacher evaluations, called CTECs. The page also has new sections displaying exam schedules, and an “Academic Calendar” in yellow text on the right lists important deadlines.

Weinberg sophomore Halima Nur called the page “cluttered” and a “mess.” The new modules are too spread out, making the overall page “overwhelming,” she said.