Boston Trip: MIT Memories Part 1

Joe and Margaret's flight from Washington, DC was due into Logan airport at 10:02 am Saturday morning. John, Sue, Frank and I all piled into John and Sue's seven passenger van to pick them up, ready for a day of déjà vu on the MIT campus and a dinner at an upscale wharf-side restaurant in Boston. After dropping Frank and me off at the terminal to meet Joe and Margaret, John and Sue parked in the cell phone lot for Logan. I kept them updated on the status of Joe and Margaret's flight, their arrival, and luggage collection with a pretty constant chatter of texts.

I had just gotten a new iPhone a week or so earlier and was practicing how to use it.  I had said that one of the first things I was going to do when I retired was get a smart phone but I did not appreciate just how dumb smart phones can make you feel.  I used the voice activated feature of Siri to create the texts. That is a laugh in itself to see how what you say is interpreted and converted to text by the phone but since I text at a snail's pace it helps a lot.  It would also be a lot faster if I were not so anal as to go back and correct these misinterpreted text words before sending off the message. I need to get with the program and realize that it is culturally acceptable to have misspelled words in text messages.

After a few brief moments of concern when the luggage carousel stopped moving and no bag for Margaret was to be seen, a porter brought out a cart of additonal bags.  Lo and behold her bag was at the very bottom of it. Crisis avoided, we proceeded with curbside pickup and drove on into Cambridge to walk the MIT campus and environs.

We visited our old large lecture hall 26-100 where a lot of the core classes were held. I remember taking an electronics course there, among others. Behind Sue (our biology major) near the left upper corner was still suspended a 12+ foot long double helix DNA model.  I wonder if it was the same one from 40 years ago? Do they dust it regularly?

Margaret, Sue, Joe, me, Frank at the top of 26-100.

John, Margaret, Sue, Joe, and Frank. The guys were grad students. We gals were all undergrads, class of '75.

We also visited the other large lecture Hall 10-250. I listened to many a lecture and took many a test in 10-250.

I could still feel the jitters of taking my gosh awful hard fluid dynamics final here.
I remember taking the final. I remember nothing on it. I remember it was HARD!
I remember I got an A and the professor offered me a job with his company.

Those nine blackboards in 10-250 raised and lowered and by the end of a lecture they would often be filled!

We sung the MIT parody of the song "Give My Regards to Broadway"

          Give my regards to Kresge

          Remember me to Kendall Square

          Tell all the nerds in 10-250

          That I will soon be there...

We walked the long main corridor and looked at the bulletin boards.  The Square Dancing club is still active.  Joe, Margaret, Frank, and I belonged and were active members in our youthful (ahem) days at MIT. 

Pass Thru, Star Thru, and go Left Allemande.      Sides Face... Grand Square!

We exited at the end of the main corridor, looking forward from 77 Massachusetts Avenue toward Kresge Auditorium.

Kresge Auditorium, McCormick Hall girls dorm, and the Chapel are to the left. The student union is to the right.
The school store, the Coop, is relocated to Kendall Square and is no longer in the student union.
We used to square dance in the student union.

Traditionally the night before registration the Lecture Series Committee would show a porn flick.
Usually more cultural correct events were held here. I remember seeing the Man of La Mancha performed.
(I also remember going with Frank to the porn flick Flesh Gordon.  Setting? The planet Porno.)

We crossed Mass Ave and looked back.

 This is the image of MIT from 77 Massachusetts Avenue that is emblazoned in my memory. The iconic Great Dome which is is cast into the MIT class ring along with a beaver is farther back on the building, not visible in this photo.
The ring is affectionately called a Brass Rat. Why?
Because the beaver is the engineer of the animal world and the MIT engineer is the animal of the engineering world!

Aaaah... so many times I had crossed at that intersection, passed through those columns, and looked up...

Entry to MIT from "77 Mass Ave"