Topic 199: Safety Valves in Student Life

Carol:

             Pass the Pitcher

“This place was really cool. At night the bar was actually pretty kickin', and the bartender poured super stiff drinks.  The karaoke was always hilarious.    ..Alas, this place is closed (2009 online review of Frank’s).

A safety valve is a device that allows the automatic release of something (usually steam) from a boiler or pressurized vessel. Without that release, the tank can build up pressure to the point of exploding.  I never really felt enough anger or frustration to reach that point of near-explosion. But, my college friends studied a lot harder than I did, felt more family pressure than I did, and worried more about their grades and scholarships.  So, we had our hang-outs as a way to let go of that built-up steam.
 

In 1970, that hang-out in Riverside was Frank’s on Iowa off of West Blaine. No karaoke back then, no stiff drinks. It was just a “blue collar” bar close to campus with a juke box heavily loaded with country western music and several dark tables where we gathered for hours over cheap pitchers of beer.  We never really mixed with the guys on the barstools who were finishing off the week’s work, probably using Frank’s as their own safety valve. There was always the feeling that we should lower our voices when we got to talking about The War, Reagan, or any of the other touchstone events of that year of protest. Politics was an issue where Town and Gown didn’t always see eye to eye.
 

Maybe Frank’s Bar needed to find more ways to attract the students who didn’t want to hear Willie Nelson or drink cheap pitchers. The bar and grill closed in 2009 although there was talk that it might open under new ownership.
 

Mory's around 1914

The guy I drank with at Frank’s in Riverside headed back East to law school, and I joined him there the year before we got married. The student safety valve of choice at Yale depended a lot on pedigree. The aristos and legacies often congregated at Mory’s, adjacent to campus. It had been founded as a private club in 1849, but the establishment eventually broadened its membership under pressure from a changing Yale community. Still, women weren’t allowed to join until 1972, the year I was working at Yale as a secretary. The guy I shared pitchers with at Frank’s recollects that he went in there to look around once, but not having the money or inclination to pay for a membership, he never ate there. History and pedigree aside, Mory’s closed its doors in 2009 after suffering increasing financial losses. Thanks to aggressive fundraising and a new business model, Mory’s reopened in 2010 and membership fees for students and alums are pretty reasonable.
 

Instead of hanging out at Mory’s, Marc and his friends showed up for  pizza and beer at Hungry Charlie’s on York Street. I don’t recollect anything distinctly unique about the place, another loud and noisy student spot where we were bound to run into someone we knew after a night of study. We said good-bye to New Haven in 1974, the same year   New Haven said good-bye to Hungry Charlie’s. Its new owners turned it into a very successful night club and concert spot called Toad’s Place.
 

Bars close, students graduate, new pressures build up with jobs, family and mortgages. Frank’s and Hungry Charlie’s morphed into the Daley Double in Encinitas where our friends would gather for a pitcher and listen to Willie Nelson. The real safety valve—then and now—was not the beer but the people that came with it.

Sources:
Image of beer.  Silk Tort 14 Feb 2006.
Mory’s. Wikipedia.
Toad’s Place. Wikipedia. 

Megan:

Public Safety at Mills College

Mills Hall

I've mentioned several times that I went to  Mills College, in Oakland CA. I had no intention of attending a women’s school, but I fell in love with the campus. I remember the brochure for prospective students claimed there were 11 trees for every student. The campus, as I have described elsewhere, is 135 acres of rolling hills, oak and eucalyptus trees, with a creek and a small lake.  What makes this setting even more unique is the fact that it sits right in the middle of one of the poorest, rundown areas of Oakland – although since I graduated, that area has undergone a transformation. Mills was founded in 1852, and has sat at its present location for more than 100 years – so the college predates the neighborhood.

As the city grew up around the college, the campus became more isolated. Walls and fences were erected and the multiple entrances were reduced to one. A major freeway cut the campus in half, and would have eliminated it completely had the founders not been buried there. Still, when I visited with my father in the Spring of 1999, it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. My father loved it too, but I could tell he had concerns about the neighborhood.  And he was reassured by the single entrance, with a gatehouse manned 24 hours a day by campus security. I don’t want to give the impression that the Mills had a closed campus – the school put a lot of effort into integrating with the community, opening the pool for local children, allowing dog walkers and other pedestrians. But all visitors had to check in with campus security as they came onto the campus.

The undergraduate students had a love/hate relationship with the security team, which is called “Public Safety.” Depending on our moods, we were sometimes reassured and sometimes annoyed at having to present our IDs at the gate. Other times, if we were waved through without having to stop, we would say to each other – “That’s not right! I could be here to kill everyone. “ As if presenting an ID would have identified us as killers. 

Public Safety also annoyed us if we were trying to break rules.  As with all colleges, there was significant part of the student population drinking underage and taking recreational drugs.  For the most part, I believe, Public Safety didn’t consider it their jobs to interfere – as long as we weren’t too obvious about it. Once we had a BBQ on the president’s lawn, hid a keg in her shrubbery, and just got a wave from the security guards as they drove by in a golf cart.

The President's House

There was only one time when I thought we might get in actual trouble. Freshman year, one of my friends had a Jeep Wrangler that she liked to take off-roading around the campus. There were clear signs on the hiking trails forbidding motorized traffic, but this was a new car and she wanted to play with it. On more than one occasion we engaged in a low-speed chase with Public Safety, lights flashing as they pursued us in a little SUV. My friend never stopped, and she always beat them. Eventually, they erected barriers of hay stacks and fallen trees, which the Jeep still could have cleared, but we didn’t want to push our luck.

The Library

For the most part though, Public Safety was our friend. And after dark, we used them as a taxi service. I always worked the late shifts in the library – finishing around midnight. It was quieter then, and I could wear my pajamas. Every night, about 5 minutes before closing, a Public Safety officer would patrol the library, and then give the student workers a ride up the hill to the dorms. In my opinion, this was their greatest service, not because of the “dangerous” neighborhood, but because the campus was riddled with skunks.





*PS: Mom just asked me where the valves part of the essay is as if she's never strayed from a topic before.