…the entire Thanksgiving week off! Officially it’s the combining of Thanksgiving and fall break. The latter began a few years ago in October as a way to let students take a two-day time out and catch up — despite what we say about students “getting soft,” classes really are much more intense now.
But it’s always been hard to keep students in town for those three orphan days of classes before Thanksgiving. Four days of free time on one side and two on the other bracketed a time where the only way you were staying in Boulder was if you had a professor mean enough to give a test. You let that happen only once.
I remember my freshman year there was a group of us so broke or so desperate to study (because we were so far behind) that we decided to stay in the dorms together for the Thanksgiving break. It was a great three-day party. We actually had a full blown turkey dinner for about 10 of us up in the 13th floor study lounge of Stearns East. Who, by the way, builds a building with 13 floors? No wonder it sways.
Christine found a picture of the festivities the other day (notice the high quality photos those pocket Instamatics took) and, based on all the booze on the table, it’s amazing any of us are still here!
Reality hit Sunday morning as floormates from around the state and country started drifting in and we realized we had totally wasted our chance to catch up. The studying and papers that we were so sure would be behind us loomed even larger as we realized finals were just 11 days away.
To this day I couldn’t tell you what those classes were or how any of us got through the end of that semester without flunking out, but we did. Our grades and even the trials of those frantic days have all disappeared from the memory banks.
What hasn’t disappeared is what a special time that long weekend was, how we patched together a temporary family and brought a lot of very different people from some strange and faraway places much closer together. That I will always remember.
And we cooked a mean Thanksgiving meal in some pretty sparse surroundings (you try and cook a 20-pound turkey in one of those dorm floor kitchen ovens).
Have a great Thanksgiving holiday — all nine days of it!
Best wishes, and don’t forget to invite a new friend to your table.
CU soon,
Kent Zimmerman
President, CU-Boulder Alumni Association
303-492-6213; kent.zimmerman@colorado.edu
I always enjoy your column. As I live in walking distance at 2915 Baseline Road (behind Denny’s), I walk to many events at CU, mostly music: Faculty Music, Artist Series, CU Opera, Boulder Philharmonic and so on. I go to a few lectures too, like the recent one on Anasazi.
I took the “Death March” from Maroon Creek to Gothic (officially Aspen to Crested Butte) a few years ago. Kept trying til I finally made it over both passes. I did remember to turn in your 2-way “Family Radio” afterward, too.
Keep up the good work. Roger AC Williams, M.S. ’90.
Wow, what memories! I lived in Stearns West about the same time. We all looked SO good back then, did we not?
Does anyone have some good pics of Williams Village from those days, or even later? I did a scrapbook of my college years but couldn’t find any exterior Willy Villy shots. Thanks!
Kent your stories are always so entertaining! I remember my first Thanksgiving Break at CU. We almost didn’t get out of Boulder. It was thigh deep on campus, but when we got to Aspen, our destination, there was barely a dusting of powder! “Welcome to Colorado”, someone said. I have enjoyed the many years we’ve worked together. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.
I like your pictures!! I work at CU now and manage Baker Hall. It’s really interesting to see some of that furniture in the pictures…I believe it is still around and used today.