Seattle – Arrival and Overview

Frank and I just got back Saturday, July 26th from a ten-day trip to Seattle where we vacationed with two couples, friends from our college days at MIT. The first few days we did outdoorsy activities in the Mount Rainier area and at Snoqualmie Falls. Later in our stay we got a City Pass and enjoyed metropolitan day trips in the city of Seattle itself. We had a great mixture of eating out at local restaurants and eating in at the five bedroom craftsman style house we rented. We talked or played games in the evenings. This blog post is the first in a series that will describe our adventures.

Sue & John, Joe & Margaret, and Frank & I had this photo taken
when we were all at the top of the iconic Space Needle of Seattle.
This was our motley crew for the Seattle trip.

Before having all this fun though I needed to get ready for the trip. I am OK once on the plane but usually I am a nervous pre-traveler. I dislike packing and I generally stress out about forgetting something, or losing my ID, or having overweight luggage, or getting to the airport too late, or leaving something behind at security. For this trip I was more relaxed. There was no need to remember the oodles of gift items I usually take when visiting Dan's or Robin's families. Alex with his medications and other special needs was not coming along. It was just Frank and me traveling and we were taking Southwest Airlines as we do the majority of the time. We had an early afternoon departure time on Thursday, July 17th. The flight time was only 1 hour and 55 minutes. Piece o' cake!

Southwest does not pre-assign seats but you need to get a boarding pass within 24 hours of your flight that dictates your boarding order for the plane and subsequently your seat selection. We generally sit poised in front of the computer and hit the submit key at the first second of the opening of that 24-hour window. Well, I guess I was blasé enough this trip, that we nearly forgot to get those passes! We were so late that, horror of horrors we were B58 and B59, out of the boarding pass groups of A1-A60, B1-B60, or C1-C60. This meant that about two thirds of the plane would board before us and select their seats. Relatively calm for the trip up to this point, this minor incident illogically triggered my travel panic button and I fretted immensely over it. To my inane travel mind, it was a sign that the entire trip would go badly. Well, we boarded the plane and wound up sitting in an exit row. The row had only two seats and those seats turned out to be great. We had more room. Getting out to the aisle was easier. We had a view out the window unobscured by any other passenger's head. My mood brightened. This was a sign that the rest of the trip was going to be great! And it was. The weather was unseasonably beautiful for Seattle - there was very little rain and it was temperately sunny most of the time we were there.

Our two exit row seats were roomy, private, an a pleasant surprise allaying my dire fears.

Our flight went smoothly, landed on time, but was delayed slightly on the runway waiting for a gate to open up for our plane. Once we deplaned, we spotted our luggage on a carousel even before we were able to figure out which carousel it was supposed to be on.  We boarded the shuttle bus for the satellite rental car facility. On the way we passed the turn around for the ubiquitous Seattle County yellow taxis that service the SeaTac Airport. Those sporty, itty-bitty, sunshine-colored cars were so cute as they zipped around the turn-around quickly. They reminded me of bees busily buzzing around a hive.

I was delighted and bemused by this scene of scurrying taxis, our first glimpse of Seattle
from the windows of the rental car shuttle bus.

Our 72 mile drive to our cabin in Ashford at the base of Mount Rainier was full of a variety of sites to behold. We drove right by the Tacoma Dome, saw planes overhead from nearby military facilities, and had lush lakeside vistas to view along side the roadway.

The Tacoma Dome has the capacity to seat 23,000 and was built in 1983.
It loomed up in front to us on our drive to Mount Rainier.

We made a pitstop at the McDonald's near Puyallup and just had to look up to see
these planes that populated the sky due to nearby air fields.

There were several lake vistas and views of dams on our way to Mount Rainier.

Our cabin was in the town of Ashford at the base of Mount Rainier, just outside the west entrance to Mt. Rainier National Park. Halfway up to the Mt. Rainier summit is a visitor and overlook area titled Paradise. Appropriately the place we stayed near the base was called Almost Paradise Lodging.

Our drive from Sea-Tac airpiort (A) to Ashford (B) took a little under two hours . On the final stretch
heading east, the silhouette of Mount Rainier would suddenly and periodically surprise us
by peeking out directly in front of us when the surrounding trees allowed.

Our cabin was the Paradise Guest House.

This brochure welcomed us to our cabin,
The Paradise Guest House.

The closest corner of this lodge building was our cabin home during our two night stay near Mount Rainer.
The three windows on the left were in our kitchen and family room. The sliding door led out to our hot tub.
We never did use the hot tub but the yellow rubber duckie perched on it
was a cheery greeting as we went in and out.

The roomy living room boasted the comfort of a cozy fireplace and
the simple pleasure of a TV and large selection of DVDs free to borrow.

I was very pleased to find a handcrafted quilt on the bed.

This is Dugan, a huge but very friendly German Shepherd
who roamed the grounds in search of any one willing to play.

Our friends John and Sue had rented a cabin a bit down the road and we found their place. It was late enough in the evening that they'd already had dinner but they came with us to the Copper Creek Restaurant. Frank and I both had chicken with a topping of apples and sour cream that was moist, delicious, unusual, and perfectly prepared. John had the unlikely but yummy combination of french fires followed by blackberry pie. Blackberry pie is a specialty of the Mount Rainier area. Sue was full. She just had tea. We sat at the outdoor table that you see in the photo. The balmy evening was perfect for dining alfresco and catching up with old friends. Afterwards, we all retreated to our cabins, tired from a day of hiking for them and a day of travel for us. 

Frank & I and John & Sue leisurely dined at the leftmost outside table shown in the photo.

Here is an overview of how we kept busy that hints at the content of the blog posts to come. You really did not expect to get six nerds from MIT together without generating a spreadsheet or two, now did you?

Here is a chart of our outings, meals, and games while in Seattle, Washington.

Actually, since we were socializing on this trip, we are more correctly dubbed geeks, rather than nerds. We enjoyed looking up the difference. I think that may make us dorks as well.

While at lunch one day we asked Siri what were the differences among nerds, geeks, and dorks.
She knew and displayed it easily. Does that make Siri a geek?

Memories of McCormick Hall

After not having been to Boston in decades, here we are going twice within three months. Dan and Carrie's gift to us last Christmas was time shared with us.  They proposed scheduling a trip to New England during the peak in fall foliage and having us show them the sites at MIT and around our old stomping grounds near Boston. As it turns out, the 50th anniversary celebration of McCormick Hall, my dorm while at MIT, was being held the first weekend in October so we scheduled the trip to include that.

About 200 women attended the celebration.

Dan and his wife Carrie flew out to the east coast half a week ahead of Frank and me and did some hiking and touring in the Vermont and New Hampshire area north of Boston, catching the foliage at its peak for that location. They picked us up at Boston's Logan Airport Friday night, and we took the "T" back to our town home condominium in Boston. I was bemused that the transit tickets are called Charlie Passes. The name is in honor of the Kingston Trio's 1959 song hit, titled Charlie on the M.T.A., that objected to the rise in fares for the subway system. Frank, Dan, Carrie and I each paid $18.00 for a 7 day pass. Note that Charlie's fare was a dime and he could not afford the additional nickel to get off.

Lyrics to Charlie on the M.T.A.

Our lodging was not far from the Harvard Bridge crossing over the Charles River. This sparked the story of how the unit of measure of the bridge is Smoots. A smoot is the height of a fairly short fraternity brother who was reportedly tied to a plank while inebriated and rotated head to toe, toe to head to pace off the bridge distance. The length of the Harvard Bridge is 364.4 smoots with an uncertainty in measurement of ± one ear. Another Harvard Bridge story is the origin of its name.  Anecdotally there was an essay contest among the Boston area colleges. The winner of the contest was given the honor of naming the bridge.  Reportedly MIT won and chose to name it the Harvard Bridge because MIT engineers had calculated it to be structurally unsound. The bridge was indeed declared unsound in 1909 and major renovations to the superstructure were made in the 1980's. The story is fun to repeat and displays MIT loyalty even if it does stretch the truth just a bit.

After dropping off our luggage, we relaxed at a late dinner in a restaurant called Stephi's on Tremont (Street), a short walk from our lodging. We had a great meal with a bit of wine and a tad of memorable conversation seated at a window with a pleasant view of the street but snug from the misty night air.

Stephi's on Tremont is the restaurant where we dined
with Dan and Carrie on our first night of arrival to Boston.

The next morning, Saturday, Frank and I went to McCormick for a brunch where we met my former suite mates Brenda, Norma, Sue and her husband John.  Dan and Carrie joined us later for the McCormick Hall tour and a round of MIT tourism. McCormick Hall was built from an endowment from Katherine Dexter McCormick with the stipulation that it was to house only female students. The intent was to give women at MIT a comfortable, welcoming, haven-like environment as a home base from which they would best be supported in pursuing a science career among a largely male dominated campus. Boys in the bathrooms, or rather absence thereof, was debated often, was a big deal, and apparently still is a big deal judging by this posted sign. 

The fine print of footnote above defines guys as brother, father, just a friend (really), delivery man, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, male person, sire, fellow, chap, gentlemen, gent, don, Mister, Monsieur, signior, drake, gander, peacock, stag, hart, steer. 

McCormick Hall was built in two stages with two towers as are caricatured by the anniversary logo. The west tower is laid out in the long hallway fashion typical of hotels and hospitals and many dormitories. On our tour we were able to view Room 203 on the second floor of the west tower where I stayed for my freshman year. That first year my friend Sue was housed in the East Tower.  We would cart our food, pots and pans, and dishes across the lobby joining the two towers each night to cook and eat our dinner with each other.

Me outside my freshman home,  Room 203.

The next three college years I spent in the East Tower in a Room 527, one of eight rooms in a suite on the fifth floor that shares a communal bathroom (no guys permitted) and a large kitchen lounge area with a view of the Charles River. One day while I was inside studying away, my suite mates taped over the door with newspapers. They tried to work silently but after a while I heard rustling and giggling and opened my door inward only to be  confronted with an entire wall of newspaper print. I punched my way out. I know we took a picture of just my head poking out but it was the pre-digital camera age so only a hard copy and maybe a negative exist somewhere. Silly activities such as this were the stress relievers during those school days.

Me outside my sophomore, junior, and senior home, Room 527, 5th River East.

It was such a pleasure to visit the old haunts of my college dorm and share them and the associated stories of those days with college suite mates, Sue, Brenda, and Norma and my son and daughter-in-law.  Husbands Frank and John went along for the stroll down memory lane also. Here is the view from the penthouse with the Boston skyline in the background. We used to have parties in the penthouse. 

Frank, me, Carrie and Dan from the penthouse of the McCormick Hall East Tower.

One Halloween bash, John and Sue dressed up as Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. We had "rocket fuel punch" courtesy of some dry ice from one of the labs. Brenda, Margaret, and I dressed up as Snap, Crackle, and Pop, the Rice Krispies elves and sang the jingle as well. I think I was Crackle, that Brenda was Snap, and that Margaret was Pop. Anybody want to correct my memory?

Do any of you remember those smiling little elves singing this peppy jingle
extolling the praises of the popular breakfast cereal Rice Krispies?

After the McCormick Hall tour we walked parts of the MIT campus. We passed the Chapel. I described it in my post for August 25, 2013. This time my memory of the location drifted to less spiritual thoughts. I relayed to Dan and Carrie that outside this chapel was where I saw my first streaker cutting across the green outside the student center.  

Frank and me at one entrance to the inter-denominational MIT Chapel

Streaking was a popular prank in the early 1970's. Naive as I was, this was my first time viewing the naked male anatomy. I also experience a male streaker sprinting through one of the lecture halls during one of my core classes. He entered from the double doors at the far right, cut across in front of the first row of seats, and exited at the far left. The professor glanced up only briefly and continued writing his notes on the blackboard. I do not remember what core class, what professor, and what lecture hall. I was somewhat distracted at the time, you see, and did not form that memory. Another not-so-godly reminiscence was the evening when my suite mates and I estimated the volume of water in the moat surrounding the chapel. We then calculated the number of boxes of Jello that would be required to immobilize the ripples of the water in the moat. I tell you – more world class calculations are performed at this esteemed institute than you can ever imagine!

Pushing onward, we walked to tour the main building. Carrie took a picture of us old folk ready to cross the street at 77 Massachusetts Avenue, one of the most heavy trafficked entrances to MIT's main building.

Brenda, me, Frank, Sue, John about to cross "Mass Ave"

.

The Great Dome of the MIT main building houses the engineering library.  The stacks seem to go on forever.  They do, actually, if you do not mark where you start, since they run in a continuous circle within the circumference of the dome. Carrie wanted to lay hands on the hard copy of my master's thesis, but that was so long ago the hard copy is not there. It was scanned to microfiche. You can google it. Really. All 174 pages of it. I looked at it online and it was as if someone other than me had authored it, hand drawn those figures, and submitted it way back in May of 1976.

Me outside the Engineering Library where my thesis isn't.

Excerpt from my Master's thesis – I can't believe I wrote the WHOLE thing!

We posed for one last picture in the Great Court. That domed roof in the background is where we just were, in the engineering library. We also went to the Earth Sciences Building on another part of campus to see if a mural Brenda had helped paint was still there. Sadly it was not. It had been painted over. I guess that the biggest traces of our sojourn in MIT remain in our memories and in the memories of our friends.

Brenda, Sue, me, Frank, John in the Great Court.

We parted company with Dan and Carrie at this point and continued on to the Symposium and Dinner portion of the McCormick Hall Anniversary Celebration. Some symposium topics were very interesting and some not so much. Speeches at the dinner were... well let me just say they had a captive audience. The post-dinner entertainment of student dance performances were pretty awesome though and well worth the wait.

We all took home with us our stress beaver, a souvenir handed out as part of the McCormick Hall Anniversary celebration. Long after we were finished hugging our friends good bye and good night, we will still have this little fellow to squeeze.

The beaver is the engineer of the animal world
and the MIT engineer is the animal of the engineering world.

Busy, Busy, Busy

It has been over three weeks since my last post to Wander or Ponder but I have been very busy. We are doing some remodeling sandwiched in between traveling. Today is Friday, October 18th and Frank and I just got back late Tuesday night from traveling to Boston and Oklahoma City from October 4th through October 15th.

• Mon Sep 23rd-Thu Oct 3rd   electrical, plaster, and audio visual contractors
• Fri Oct 4th                             fly to Boston
• Sat Oct 5th                            attend McCormick Hall 50th anniversary celebration
• Sun Oct 6th-Tues Oct 8th     tour in Boston area with Dan and Carrie
• Wed Oct 9th                          fly to Oklahoma City
• Thu Oct 10-Fri Oct 11th       visit with Jeremy, Robin, Autumn and Oxenfords
• Sat Oct 12th                          prep for and attend Autumn's 1st birthday party
• Sun Oct 13th-Tue Oct 14th   visit and celebrate Robin's birthday
• Tue Oct 15th                          fly back to SFO
• Wed Oct 16th                        recommence remodeling work

Bright and early Wednesday morning, the day after our return, we had a plasterer filling in two 4" diameter holes in our dining room ceiling that were put in by the electrician about 10 inches away from where they were supposed to be to hang two fixtures centered over the long table. As I write this I am crowded between stacks of furniture and dishes that are being covered with dust, as I listen to pounding, sanding, dropping lumber, Mexican music, a shop vac, a compressor, and general cacophony. We are having hardwood floors installed in our living/dining room, hall and powder room downstairs.

The family room now houses the large dining room table, laden with all the dishes and glassware
we had to remove from the hutch. All sorts of other "stuff" is stacked here as well.
There is one small trail from the garage to the kitchen through it all.

Wall to wall carpet was pulled up and we removed a half height wall to the far lower right of the photo.
Hardwood is being installed in the living room and dining room.

I just felt something sticky on my hand and looked down in my lap to see a huge blob that must have fallen from a PB&J sandwich I just was eating. Luckily the blob targeted my lap and not the computer keyboard. Frank just left for Orchard Supply Hardware to purchase felt foot pads for the furniture legs and, as a bonus, to breathe in some non-dust-laden peace and quiet.

It is difficult to think straight. It is also difficult to stand straight. After five take-offs and landings in ten days, I developed a mild case of positional vertigo where if I turn my head too quickly in certain ways I get dizzy due to an inner ear issue. My doctor told me to see her next week and in the interim I have an OTC med to alleviate the symptoms. I think the meds have tough competition to win out over the remodeling noises. I also learned from Wikipedia that positional vertigo is exacerbated by change in barometric presser, lack of sleep, and stress. Hey! Great news! I am three for three!

Ah, yes. I am bemused rather than depressed by all this. Pacing myself is a skill yet to be learned in this stage of my life. Retirement is not what I expected and it certainly is not for the faint of heart. Those of you out there who are still working, do not be too envious.

To write this post, I took a break from downloading pictures from the camera our two cell phones and figuring out how to upload them to Dropbox. As I succeed and organize the pictures from our recent trip, I will have more posts about the great times we had in Boston and Oklahoma City. And we did have loads of fun.  We just now need to recover from and reflect on all that revelry.

Boston Trip: MIT Memories Part 2

We began our walk down memory lane by walking inside the MIT Chapel. The wind caught the heavy wooden door and it banged open. Whoops! We broke right into a wedding in progress. Beating a hasty retreat we decided to break for lunch and ate at a pub type restaurant near Kendall Square called the Cambridge Brewing Company.

This is not us in the picture but you get the general vibe that this  pub style restaurant gives off.

After lunch we make a short detour to the MIT Museum before going back to campus. Alumni get in for free by showing your brass rat or spouting off the number of your course major. Sound off:

     Diane       Course 2.0, Mechanical Engineering,
     Margaret  Course 6.3, Computer Science
     Sue          Course 7.0, Biology
     Frank       Course 8.0, Physics
     Joe           Course 8.0, Physics
     John         Course 16.0, Aero and Astro Engineering

This may not be the exact route we walked but you get the idea.

One of the first exhibits on the main floor of the museum is a tribute to slide rules. Here is the exhibit. Look closely at that picture second down on the left. Recognize anyone?

In my finals we were not allowed to use hand held calculators since not all students had the advantage of owning one.

Yup. The photo captures me intently working away in one of my mechanical dynamics labs. That is pure analog equipment there – none of that new fangled digital stuff!

I am memorialized as a part of MIT history!

After touring the MIT museum we went back to campus to see the chapel, interface, and dorms. Surely that wedding must be over by now! Frank and Joe pulled on the chapel doors and they were locked. Oh, well. I tried and must have had the right touch because one sprung open. I peeked inside gingerly. Another wedding! This time I backed out inconspicuously. We moved on to McCormick Hall.

McCormick Hall was dedicated to offering a female only residence option to MIT coeds.  The first floor even provided "date rooms".

Since I'd been an undergraduate living there, McCormick Hall had expanded to encompass the neighboring building, previously called the Interface, and now called it the Annex. We used to have coffee and donuts after Catholic Mass there every Sunday. Margaret and I made the coffee. At first Joe brought the Dunkin' Donuts. Once Frank learned there were coeds involved he volunteered to help Joe. I remembering saving the chocolate covered donuts for the kids, much to their parents' dismay. That is where Frank and I met, and Joe and Margaret met, and the rest is history. TCC, the Tech Catholic Community, held work parties during which we painted the kitchen area and the seating area where students socialized after Mass.

John and Frank are inspecting and displaying pride in what they had worked on painting so many years ago.

John and I are pretending we are holding donuts. Hmm. I think donuts may have been bigger back then.

We continued our McCormick Hall tour after our diversion to the former Interface and Sunday morning memories. Here is the parlor where a social get together was hosted for the incoming freshman (no parents). Sue and I were the first person each of us met respectively right after our parents left after saying goodbye. We were both feeling a bit nervous, a bit scared, mildly abandoned, kind of excited, cautious, jittery... you name it – you get the picture.

This large parlor was the hub of many meetings and parties.

Sue and I talked to each other, really hit it off, and clung to each other as the first college friend we had made. Even though freshman year I was in the West Tower and she was in the East Tower, we would carry our food down the elevator, across the lobby and up the other elevator to have dinner together.

Sue (right) and me 42 years after we first met. Yikes!

After McCormick, Frank and I tried one last time to see the MIT Chapel. The chapel has a unique architectural design.  It is surrounded by a moat and has clear panels on the periphery of the circular building that look down at the water. When the sun is shining and the breeze is blowing, light bouncing off the ripples on the water is reflected back up onto the interior walls of the chapel, giving it really cool presence-of-God effect. Irreverently, one of our pastimes was calculating just how many packages of Jello would be required to immobilize those ripples into a big solid blob.

A wedding was just being dismissed and there was a receiving line. I respectfully and quietly walked behind the receiving line into the chapel. "What's the matter..." I whispered to a chagrined Frank, "...the bride and the groom will each think we are a guest for the other person's side... kind of like in the Wedding Crashers". I was bound and determined to get a picture of each of us in that chapel.

The sculpture behind the altar further enhances the dancing lights on the walls created by the ripples of the moat.

We attended many a Mass here.
One Christmas, the priest allowed Frank to read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" as the sermon.

While Frank and I participated in our chapel shenanigans, John went to get the car. We drove past the tennis courts, past some of the other dorms, and around Tang Hall, the graduate dorm where Frank and Joe had lived. We were to meet up for dinner with Sue and John's son and his girlfriend and with our Boston area friends Norma and Stan, also from MIT days. Norma was a year behind Margaret, Sue, and me and Stan was a grad student and still is a co-worker of John's. Norma had made  5:00 pm dinner reservations at Strega's Waterfront known for its celebrity customers, stunning architecture, and authentic Italian cuisine.

We had waterfront window seats at the far end of this photo as you look through this grandiose tiled arch.

We enjoyed good conversation, great food, and had the great pleasure being joined by John and Sues' grown son John and his girlfriend Sasha.

Sasha and John were instrumental in selecting the restaurant.

Here are the eight MIT grads gathered for our photo op on the Boston waterfront. I think we look happy and damn good after all these years!

The grad school guys Joe, Stan, Frank, John
The undergrad gals Margaret, Norma, me, Sue

The red building in the far background is Anthony's Pier 4 restaurant.  That was Frank's and my special place for the occasional fancy dinner when we were at MIT. Our timing this trip was a bit off. Anthony's Pier 4 closed just one week before we arrived due to Boston Waterfront renewal project. Hopefully they will re-open and we will catch them on another trip back east. I remember waitresses there would walk around in colonial garb and hand out buttered corn on the cob and huge popovers that were to die for.

Frank and me in front of our special place, Anthony's Pier 4.

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"