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Swedish Exchange Student Rows,.
Works Out For Olympic Tryouts
A 20-year-old junior with a
passion for sports says she has
plans to make it to the Olympics
in 1976, but she won’t be
representing the United States.
Helena Kretz, Swedish
student on a Rotary Scholar
ship, wants to row for her
country. And because of that
desire, she is working out and
training now for her return to
rowing next summer.
This is not just a whim;
Helena was the Swedish
champion skiff rower last year.
Although there is no rowing club
in Carrollton, Helena has made
arrangements to work out with
a club at Stone Mountain.
A blue-eyed blonde, Helena
said the men here were rather
shocked to see her in the weight
lifting room the first time.
“For training I should be
working out with weights, doing
150 sit-ups, two or three times a
week, and I should run on a
regular basis/’ she said.
Gad in sweat pants and a
Disney World T-shirt, the ex
change student said American
students differed from
European students in their
dress and maturity.
Three Decades Here
Campus Worker Remembers WGC
BY VAN THOMASON
On a gray cloudy Friday afternoon a lone
figure emerged from the rear of the West
Georgia cafeteria, paused and glanced up at
the ominous sky. Unconsciously shifting the pan
full of scraps to a more comfortable position
beneath his arm he slowly made his way towards
the secluded duck pond behind the student
center.
There he was greeted by a multitude of hungry
ducks who made joyful noise at his approach.
Feeding the ducks was a job he had taken upon
himself many years ago. As he watched the
ducks feed on the scraps that he had brought he
looked out over the dead and dying grass and
saw one duck that will never greet him again.
For the unwary creature had strayed too far
from the water, and became the prey of some
fleet footed K-9.
George Jackson, 56, has seen over three
decades on this campus. He came here when the
college was little more than three buildings and a
few acres of wooded farm land. Remembering
the past he recalled that his grandfather, who
was a cook, allowed him to tag along as he made
his way to work when the college was just the
small A and M School.
Jackson is one of many behind the scenes
people that are rarely seen around campus. His
job is in the kitchen as a clean-up and utility
man. Now he works with modern equipment,
GEORGE JACKSON
“American students are a bit
immature, but they look much
older. They don’t show their
feelings like Europeans do, and
clothing and appearance seem
to matter much more," said
Helena.
She also explained that
European students don’t em
phasize dating as much as
American students do.
•*We have few dates in
Sweden; the women are a lot
v iPll' ||l| mßmm-
| Jb m\ h*
Kicky Jordan (I), a freshman from Mableton, looks on while
junior Helena Kretz, an exchange student from Sweden, works out
in preparation for Olympic tryouts.
electric lights and gas stoves, yet he can
remember the days when wood and coal were the
only means of heating and cooking.
The Carrollton native noted that when he first
came to work here “Roosevelt was in the
president’s chair.” Thinking back, he recalled
with apparent amusement that when he started
working he was given a wooden block to stand on
so that he could reach the sink to wash the
dishes. Things not so amusing to him were the
cold winter mornings and the mile walk from his
house to work so that he could have the stove lit
by 3 a m. for breakfast.
in moments of nostalgia, Jackson told how the
road in front of the campus could be a dusty lane
in the heat of summer or a muddy, slippery
torment when the winter wind brought its ice and
snow. “Used to be,” he said,” a chain was strung
across the front drive late at night after curfew,
to keep cars from coming in. Back then they
were a lot stricter than they are today, especially
with the girls.”
Jackson says he has seen many students come
and go in the years he has worked here, and with
a smile he says that the girls are as pretty today
as they were back then.
liooking out over the close cropped rolling
lawn of the campus, Jackson points out that
behind the gym there once was a dairy farm.
That which is left of the old barn, strips of
cement that once were the foundation , can still
be seen.
Pom ting to the library, he said that white
chickens once roosted and fed where the
building is now. “On the other side of the gym
cotton and corn fields could be found, and the
school had to have some means of cultivation so
naturally it was done by a team of mules.”
To the left of the student center, in the direc
tion of Roberts hall, hogs were penned and raised
in the thick woods alongside the narrow gully
that separates the dormitory from the rest of the
campus.
Jackson said that the school raised its own
meat and had fresh vegetables, but at that time,
there were only about three or four hundred
students to feed.
Thirty years ago, he said, thick woods grew
where the gym now stands The spaceship-looking
student center would have been unthinkable in
the days of the great depression, for at that time,
all that was there were oak trees and pines which
were kept company by a creek.
Continued On Page 8
more independent and dating is
not so important to them,” she
said.
A girl who says she enjoys
sports very much, Helena
commented that in Europe
sports are more of a game, and
they are a lot more fun.
Helena is studying American
literature, psychology and
music. She plans to major in
physical education and is
participating in the women’s
volleyball activities.
David Willingham
H|
Did it ever occur to you that the average West Georgia student is
perhaps not the most studious person on the face on this blighted
earth? Did you ever actually begin to believe those rumors that
students view the various academic buildings merely as shelter
from the November rains, and that somewhere on the fourth floor
of the library sits the cob-web-encrusted skeleton of a reference
librarian who refused to leave her post, even though she hadn’t
seen a student in 35 years? Nonsense.
I recently paid a visit to that lonely building called the college
library. Wind whistled through the broken windowpanes, and the
ceiling sagged dangerously under what I was told was the weight of
a 30 year collection of the “National Geographic.”
I made my way to the fiction section, selected a mouldering copy
of Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop, and proceded to the
crumbling circulation desk. As I prepared to fill out the twenty-odd
forms necessary to check out the book, I opened the volume to its
back cover, and, after the dust had subsided and a large insect of
indeterminate nature had crawled out of the way, noticed that this
particular copy of Mr. Dickens’ brainchild had not been checked
out since February 18, 1946.
“Excuse me,” I asked the girl behind the counter, “could this be
possible?”
She laid down her copy of “Sex Offender’s Gazette” long enough
to scowl at me. “What?” she said.
“This book hasn’t been used since 1946. Is that possible?”
“That’s what it says, don’t it? Jeez, what a fruitbrain."
With that, she continued her perusal of the magazine, making
further conversation, however delightful, impossible.
Somewhat later, I was showing a few friends (and you thought I
didn’t have any friends, didn’t you?) the book. It had last been
circulated to someone named Bill Mitchell with a due date of
February 18, 1946. That was only a period of almost 29 years that
the poor little book had sat patiently on the shelf, gathering dust
and hoping that some wayward scholar would have the curiosity to
pick it up.
Twenty nine years. My friends and I were amazed. We looked at
the volume lovingly, fondling its yellowed pages as though it were a
religious relic or even a piece of mail that had arrived intact
through the campus post office.
“Just think,” said a friend with a far-away look in his eye, “of all
that has taken place since this book was last brought into the fresh
air. Think of all the technical advances that have been made, think
of all the wars, and assassinations, and,” he was now jumping up
and down feverishly, “killing and death, and undeclared skir
mishes in Southeast Asia, and ocean-liner mishaps, and oil
slicks...” he fell to the ground in ecstasy.
“Yeah,” said another , “this Mitchell guy probably came
marching home frorfi the war just beofre he checked out this book.”
“The Big War?” asked another.
“No, the intramural football wars. Hell, I bet flag football was
really rough back then.”
“A lot has changed since ’46,” said someone else. “Why, we’ve
put a man on the moon and got the price of gas up to 60 cents a
gallon.”
The discussion continued to rage all about me, but I was lost in
my own thoughts. What if, I wondered, some 40 or 50 years from
now somone else should have the discretion to check out this par
ticular book? What would his reaction be to this ancient tome from
the seventies? What would he think? I wonder...
...“Hey, Ithlum, look at this.”
“What’s that Humphrey?”
“Look at this old book I found in the library. My gosh, this thing
hasn’t been checked out since 1974.”
“1974? That’s almost 48 years ago.”
“I know. I guess nobody reads Dickens around here.
“Think of all that has happened since that book was last checked
out, Humphrey. Whoever had that book in ’74 was really living in
the dark ages.”
“You know it. That guy was probably around during the great
Pritchard Hall black-out of ’75, and he might even have lived
through the Love Valley race riots of 1976.”
“I wonder if he was in Carrollton in late ’76 when that Baptist
group burnt down McDonald’s for serving beer?”
“I don’t know, but I hope he wasn’t a freak, or he probably didn’t
survive the Greek Hippie Purge of ’77.”
“Maybe he was a member of the class of ’77 - you know, the ones
who had their diplomas canceled by the Board of Regents.”
“ If he was class of ’77, he would have been prime draft bait during
World War 111. I wonder what it was like to fight in Palestine.”
“I don’t know, but after WWIII the poor schmuck probably got
caught in the V.D. Epidemic of 1979.”
“Yeah, and if he lived through that he was right in the middle of
the Greater Depression and maybe even got wiped out in the
‘Nuclear Mistake’ of ’81.”
“O r maybe even the Great Disaster 0f...”
I managed to snap out of my reverie, and slow ly closed the an
cient book It’s funny how time slips away from you, isn’t it?
TWt WWT CXOtOIAN WOVIMMt U, 1t74
Fetid
Future
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