in Haggett last year?" I inquired, remembering as we stepped out into the dining level Ellen's question last night.
"I was, Fall Quarter," Duncan said. "Then I moved over to Lander. Why?"
"Oh," I said, "I met a woman last night who thought she might have known you over there."
"Lots of people did probably," Duncan said with a breezy air.
Breakfast was varied and reasonably plentiful. Scrambled eggs, Pershing rolls, sausage patties, fruit cocktail and several kinds of juice. We loaded trays and Duncan showed us to a table which disappointingly appeared to harbor only other young men.
"Hi Duncan!" a pair of boys across the table from us hailed my roommate. "Which floor are you on?"
"Third North," Duncan said, not introducing me, but chattering away with his friends about others not present and various activities in buildings I seldom if ever visited.
A guy with a central european-sounding accent seemed to have said something upsetting to his neighbor or roommate and quelled an angry retort with "That's your problem." Duncan continued animatedly until after I'd been finished for five minutes or so and finally said "Well I've got to go. You ready yet, Dave?" I got up without comment, holding my tray in one arm, taking Duncan's elbow with the other hand.
"Good-bye," the foreign-sounding guy said.
I smiled in his direction. "Have a good day."
***
I made a bad start by being late to my first class, an Electrical Engineering 306 lab. Fortunately, timing wasn't paramount in this more or less self-paced summer session course offering for non-majors. My lab partner Jack and I would watch fairly brief video-recorded lectures from a professor named Potter who never put in an appearance, and on the basis of these and the text book, we'd attempt a series of experiments. The first lecture was on electrical and magnetic fields. Electrical fields emanate from stationary or "static" charges, magnetic fields from charges in motion. We then measured electric and magnetic field intensities first from charged plates then from an electromagnet.
My next class was Social Psychology. In this first session we discussed the fact that we'd be going into more depth regarding some of the things we'd learned in the intro 101 course. We'd focus on the research techniques used to study group behavior and their results so far as could be interpreted. This class had a double purpose for me: I was studying journalism as well as engineering and needed twenty credits in one social science as a prerequisite for this. My engineering studies were intended to address issues of human beings working with and living within technological systems and I felt a grounding in psychology would also be pertinent here. My next class would start at 1:30 in the afternoon.
I made it back to the dorm for an early lunch. My meal card allowed me 19 meals, so I could have lunch five days a week and let the remaining four punches see me through the weekend.
I was eating alone when a familiar voice addressed me from across the table and two chairs pulled out more or less simultaneously. "Hello," Ellen said. "Have you done your laundry yet?" (A little giggle.)
"Most of it," I said straight-faced.
"Goood," she enthused. "Meet Janice, my roomie."
"Hi," said a voice maybe an octave lower in pitch than Ellen's.
"Hello," I responded around my turkey sandwich.
"Is your roommate nice yet?" Ellen quipped.
"He's okay I guess," I said. "We've only talked a few minutes so far."
"Well," Ellen responded "Give him a chance. Nothing like a long, leisurely evening to get acquainted!" Both women seemed to think this was quite amusing.
"O--kay," I said. Then when the laughter continued, "What?"
"I saw you two at breakfast," Ellen said, getting control. "He's the person I'd seen in Haggett. Sure. He's a nice guy. Give him a chance!"
"No problem," I said.
"Before midterms start happening," Janice put in. "We're having a party. This weekend."
"In our cluster," Ellen added. "Do you think you and Duncan might be interested in coming?"
"Don't see why not," I told them. "Maybe come by and let me know when?"
"A deal," Ellen said. We killed the next 20 minutes with more small talk and I had plenty of time to make it back across the street, to the communications building where I had my afternoon news writing class.
I considered my primary major to be engineering but had determined early on carrying a second one in communications, editorial Journalism option. The university of Washington didn't recognize minors except in some special cases such as teaching. Had I been able to declare a minor I'd likely have done so, but as things stood, maintaining both majors was the only way to have something official to show for the fairly intense work that goes into coherent expression of information and ideas on paper.
There were maybe thirty of us in Communications 320 News writing I. Each desk had it's own typewriter each of which would log considerable mileage before end of quarter.
"I'm William J Johnston," announced our instructor, a venerable fixture in this department. He had the somewhat bluff manner of one used to talking with strangers and discovering things not always gladly rendered. Between paragraphs he breathed somewhat heavily with a slight wheeze. Johnston tended to sip coffee during lectures. He'd only speak about a third of any given class.
"Folks usually call me BJ," Johnston continued. "I worked for twenty-three years on The Seattle Times as a reporter. At some point I realized that clarity in reporting and journalistic excellence was flagging; is flagging. I left the work I loved to help new people learn to write as well as they possibly can. I challenge you to write as well as you are able and when you can write better than that, to do so!"
Professor Johnston paused for a moment to scan our group. As always I'd find, he appeared to center on me but I'm sure everyone else felt so as well.
"At some point," he resumed, "it won't happen today or tomorrow. It may not happen this quarter or even before you graduate, but some day you will get hold of the idea of excellence. You will make a commitment to yourself that everything you write will be the very best piece on that particular topic that you are currently able to write."
Not everyone will write in the same way nor should he. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all covered the same story but each told his story differently. However each of us chooses to report a story, there are basic rules, basic principles according to which we work and by which we live as journalists. These will comprise the present course. Sometimes you'll dislike me. Sometimes you will be sick of me because I'll always be here looking over your shoulder and I'll always be available to help you get the most that you can out of this class."
Sipping noises and the waft of caffeine, because at this moment BJ was standing about four feet in front of my desk.
"There's a pile of yellow copy paper up here on the front table," Johnston informed. "We use that for in-class exercises. There is also a pile of white typing paper which you are free to take for final assignments and submissions to the Daily or other publications. With each article written out of class, you will use a carbon and make a copy on yellow copy paper. Now I see we have typewriters for everyone. Please write me an article
