Mugshot 2: Off to the Navy

This is the photo which accompanied the papers I submitted for acceptance to the Naval Aviation Cadet program at the end of my sophomore year, 1954. The G.I. Bill, which offered financial support for college, was being cut off in January of 1955, so I decided to join up to take advantage of it for my last two years. I entered the program in August of 1954.

College Man 2

Off to college, on my own for the first time, I peer happily out the window of my room at the then-recently built Gilbert Hall men's dormatory at Northern Illinois State Teacher's College. When I returned to NIU in 1999, I found Gilbert Hall--once surrounded by expansive green lawns--is an office building cheek-to-jowel with 400 other buildings. It is true one can't go back again, but it hurts to realize it.

College Man

In September of 1952 I enrolled as a freshman at Northern Illinois State Teachers College (now Northern Illinois University) in DeKalb, Illinois. I had no intention of becoming a teacher, but I could not afford to go to my first-choice school, Northwestern. The NISTC student body numbered, I believe, around 2,500. Today, NIU has far in excess of 25,000. I vastly preferred it the way it was.

Punk Days

I really have no idea when this photo was taken or why, but I rather expect to see a police blotter number under it. Terrible when I can't remember. I suspect it may have had to do with my application to the Naval Aviation Cadet program in 1954, which means we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves here. But, hey, I saw it and decided to use it now. Okay with you?

The Future LIes Ahead

High School graduation photo? Already? Good Lord, but the time flies! I've been trying to keep these in somewhat chronological order, but have missed many. Anyway, you'll note the clip-on bow tie (I am nothing if not debonair) and the happy smile, brought on mainly by my finally getting the hell out of high school. So many adventures lie ahead. Bring 'em on!

The Mills of Time

The mills of time slowly grind us away, day by day, year by year. This photo, taken probably the same day as the one in "To the Manor Born" since the same Christmas tree appears in both shots, was taken when we were living for a short while, again, in Loves Park, around 1950.

You look at these people and probably have no idea of who they actually were as individual human beings. You never spent time in their company, heard their voices, or their laugh, or felt the comfort of being part of them. But I do, still.

Oh, Family!

The four most important people in my life were...and still are...my mother, my father (as usual taking the photo), Aunt Thyra, and Uncle Buck (Fearn), here with me and Grandpa Fearn and cousin Judi, somewhere around 1950. Even today, nearly sixty years later, my chest aches for them.