I ran across this today, in a guy’s scrapbook. He graduated in 1940 and this was probably circulated sometime during his junior year. Click on it to read. Click twice if your eyes are bad. The first line made me snort with laughter. I was also interested that he didn’t answer all the questions, but kind of went out of his way to declare his opposition to jitterbugging.
In 1939, the Rice Owl was a campus magazine. They seem to have been the ones doing the polling. If I have time tomorrow, I’ll check whether the results were published.
Bonus: Earlier this summer I put up a picture of workers putting in the new floor of Autry Court.
I have it from a generally reliable source that part of the old floor has been recycled and put into service on the walls of the new student Coffee House in the RMC. I went and had a look and although they’ve changed the color and fancied it up a little, it sure looks like it to me. I think that’s pretty ingenious.
The fellow said he was a fan of ‘sweet music,’ so it’s not likely he’d go for swing/jitterbug bands. The epitome of sweet music was Guy Lombardo – whining saxophones & languid melodies. I suppose Lawrence Welk could be considered a sweet music proponent, so you can see his favorites wouldn’t be Benny Goodman or Artie Shaw.
What kind of humor magazine admonishes readers to answer “seriously and truthfully”? Or, as late as 1939, offers collegians only a Manichean choice between sweet music and swing, not even hot swing? On this otherwise strait-laced form — which somehow asks readers to distinguish between “Brunette” and “Brownette” — how could you not “encircle the girl” with “Oomph”? The affirmative pencil mark in answer to “Are you in love?” seems to lack the conviction of his other check-marks.
Melissa:
As you may know, other floorboards from Autry Court now form the second-story floor of Wilson House, the new Wiess College master’s house. The boards there are a lot blonder than the ones at the Coffee House. Last summer I took a “hard hat” tour of Wilson House before it was finished, and at that time some of the boards still had the basketball court lines. I thought it would be neat if those lines remained on the finished floor, because little things like that prompt questions, which prompt stories, which are good things. But the builders (and perhaps the masters) had other ideas. So in the end, the court lines were sanded off before the house was finished.
Perhaps at the Coffee House (which, unlike the 2nd floor of Wilson House, is a public place) could have a little marker that mentions where the boards came from — so that the knowledge is not lost.