Monday, December 23, 2013

Lamar State College of Technology in the late 1950s--Dave Oliphant's HARBINGERS OF BOOKS TO COME, p. 21

From September 1957 through August 1959 I worked 8 at night to 4 in the morning in the Freight Office of the Kansas City Southern Railroad in Port Arthur and commuted to Lamar. Oliphant and I had some of the same teachers but not the same classes.

When I read this paragraph aloud to the resident philosopher she said, "You don't say much about the teachers at Lamar and all you say about the teachers at Northwestern is that they were terrible. The only teachers you praise were at West Contra Costa Junior College." Well, that's pretty much true. At WCCJrC Mark Eccles was a great art history teacher and Charles Lovy was a world-class language teacher.

Oliphant seems to remember everything. I remember 22 units one semester and prolonged sleep deprivation. I never had the interaction with professors that Oliphant had as a regular student and confident guy. I was a commuting student and hopelessly shy. But I find his depictions of teachers absolutely fascinating

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