My dorm roommate got a blue '71 Ford
Pinto station wagon. Man, what a piece! But it ran good. I remember him hauling our coed rec league broom ball team to the games. We finished second, I think, in class "C". We lived in a quad room arrangement of rooms at the end of a hallway in Sanford hall. The quad was nicknamed "The Mountain". Our floor, the 3rd floor of the old building, was the only coed floor in the dorm where both young men and women cohabitated by room. I mean to say that on one side of the long hallway were rooms with female roommates while the other was for male roommates. I kind of had an unofficial woman roommate: she and Scott ended up getting married. To free up space in our little room, Scott kept his desk outside the room in the hall next to a window. The desk was used as a place to throw discarded Playboy magazines, etc. "The Sexy Secretary" is one tome I recall. Open our door any time night or day and most likely somebody's sitting at Scott's desk reading or looking at pictures.

The University of Minnesota campus is split into East Bank and West bank campuses. The "bank" is the Mississippi river. The double level Washington Avenue Bridge connects the two halves. It's a pretty long bridge. The bottom has room for four lanes of traffic. Up on top is for pedestrians. One quarter of the width across the top of the bridge - each edge - is exposed to the elements. The center half is enclosed. During a snowstorm one cold winter night in 1980, a 1971 blue Ford Pinto station wagon ascended the pedestrian ramp along Smith Hall, turned West, and proceeded to cross the pedestrian level of the Washington Avenue Bridge. Once on the West Bank, a left turn was made and several wheel-cranked ovals were left in the fresh snow in front of Wilson Library. Two roommates exchanged seats and the Pinto retraced its tracks back across the Washington Avenue Bridge Eastward. A left turn was executed and the Smith Hall ramp was again made use of. Alcohol may have been involved. In later years, I would often see University police cars driving across the pedestrian level of the bridge. And as often, I thought to myself, "It's been done".

 

Return to  informationhighwaytohell.com        Return for  more Monologue