The More Things Change…
There's a particular chauvinism at play for those whose memories go back to the 1960s.
Not the late 60s – when society's seams couldn't hold together anymore after Watts, the Chicago Seven and Altamont. Before that, before Tet, be- fore RFK and MLK were gunned down and be- fore four lads from Liverpool changed music and hairstyles simultaneously.
It was a little past halfway on the continu- um between the Wright brothers and Twit- ter, when the Eisenhower Interstate Sys- tem was more dream than reality and the hi-tech, state of the art, brand-new IMB Selectric typewriter had been on the mar- ket for a few weeks.
At the risk of losing those less than 50, that's when this story begins. 1961.
The story
needs a jukebox with Brenda Lee, some Perry Como and a little Chubby Checker on the side. It also needs unlatched screen doors in the summer, Schwinn bicycles with baseball cards in the spokes, and ev- erybody dressing up and going together on rare occasions to take a relative to the airport.
That's what it was like when JoAnn Chit- wood went to work for Dr. Joe Chapman '40,
the C-N biology teaching legend
whose position included a partial assign- ment of serving alumni through events and personal updates. The office's location
8 JOURNEY fall 2011
in the basement of Warren Science (now Warren Art) Building made sense because Chapman's Alumni Relations predecessor had been Professor Alex Chavis '22, who had become C-N's part-time alumni secretary when he joined the faculty in 1926.
by Mark Brown
