1967-1969 Part 2: U-M Debate

Posted on September 29, 2020 by Mike

Debate in the middle years. Continue reading →

A primer explaining the format and other details of intercollegiate debate can be found here.

Fall 1967: When I returned to school after the summer of 1967, I discovered some very important changes in the debate program at U-M. Dr. Colburn was still the Director of Forensics, and Jeff Sampson was still coaching. Juddi (pronounced “Judy”) Tappan, a high school coach from Belleville, had been added to the staff. My recollection is that in her last year at Belleville two girls from her team had won the state championship.

Juddi’s assignment at U-M that year was to coach the novices. She had a very good crop. I think that both of those girls from Belleville came to U-M. One might have participated in debate for a short while, but by the time that the tournament season started, neither was involved. The four principal players were Bill Davey, an exceptionally smart guy¹ from Albion, MI, Ann Stueve from Kentucky, Jim Fellows, whom I never got to know very well, and Alexa Canady from Lansing. All four of them were almost certainly better debaters than I was when I first set foot in the Frieze Building a year earlier. They all definitely had more experience than I did.

I think that there was one other coach, but he spent little time with any debaters and none with me.

For me the debate season began bizarrely. Jeff Sampson escorted me and either Bob Hirshon or Lee Hess to Expo ’67 in Montreal to debate against two guys from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh about abortion. The whole debate only lasted for a little over thirty minutes and was attended by the coach/escorts of both teams and three ladies who had years earlier passed the age for which family planning is much of an issue. The guys from Duquesne had done quite a bit of research and presented a lot of serious arguments. We mostly told jokes.

Surely this was an appropriate metaphor for the age: four young guys debating about the circumstances in which women should be allowed to have abortions. Moreover, two of us were not even taking it seriously.

I don’t remember that we took an airplane to Montreal, but neither do I recall a long car trip with a border crossing. I retain a rather vivid memory of a rude cab driver who pretended that he did not understand English. If we had a car, why would we take a cab? Maybe parking was an issue.

This trip was undeniably a waste of time and money; perhaps some other organization paid for it. The plus side was that we did have time to wander around the Expo for a day or so. My strongest memory of the fair itself is eating a reindeer sandwich at one of the Scandinavian pavilions. It tasted a little funny, but it was not awful.

I also remember that we attended a performance of Laterna Magika, a multi-media theater troop from Prague, which at the time was on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Jeff chided me for trying to figure out what message was being conveyed.

Years later my wife Sue told me that she was also in Montreal during that period, had heard about the debate in which we participated, and almost went to it. This was five years before I even met her. So, this was almost a great story.

I considered the national debate resolution for that year, “that the federal government should guarantee a minimum annual cash income to all citizens”, uninspired. I cannot remember much about the individual arguments. Of course, debaters argued whether the states were “closer to the people” or whether in-kind payments were better than cash, but I cannot imagine that there would be enough meat there for a year’s worth of debates.

I think that I had three partners during the year:

I remember debating with Larry Rogers, a junior, at the tournament at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle (UICC). I remember that he performed brilliantly in one debate, but overall we did not do well together, and I did not enjoy the experience at all. I also remember that one morning he took what he called “a Polish shower” with Right Guard before he dressed for the debates that day. By the way, all the male debaters wore suits Larry quit the team before the end of the year.
I am sure that I debated in at least one tournament with Lee Hess, another junior, who was my partner during the whirlwind spring 1967 season. I have a vague recollection that we debated together at Ohio State, but details have escaped from my memory. Lee had a motorcycle. I think that he might have had an accident with it that semester.
My third partner was Gary Black, a senior. I think that we did well together at one tournament, but I don’t remember the details. The main thing that sticks out in my mind is that I did “outsides” on the affirmative, which meant that I delivered the first affirmative constructive and the second affirmative rebuttal. Usually, this is only done when one debater is much better than the other, but my speaker ratings were generally equal to or better than Gary’s. He designed the affirmative case; I could not have defended it with much enthusiasm.

I might have debated with Bob Hirshon at one unmemorable tournament.

Spring 1988: Just before finals for the fall semester Jeff took me, Lee, and Gary aside, and had us write down on a sheet of paper the name of the other member of the trio that we would prefer to debate with. They both chose me. Although I chose Lee, Jeff decided to pair me with Gary for the important tournaments in the second semester (January-March 1968).

Here is what I remember of that time.

Both Lee and Bob quit debating before the semester began.
Gary and I had a practice debate against Bill and Ann in which we performed badly. Juddi remarked that it was a classic case of the novices showing up the varsity. I was too arrogant to get upset by this.
Gary and I made the elimination rounds at a few tournaments, but we did not have any exceptionally good performances.
We went 2-6 at Northwestern, which was an improvement over what I had done as a freshman.
Gary and I flew unaccompanied to a tournament at Loyola of Baltimore. The field was weak. I think that we qualified for the elim rounds, but then we lost. I lost my overcoat on this trip. Another passenger evidently took mine from the overhead rack by mistake when the plane stopped in Pittsburgh.

Throughout the year ballots from several judges remarked that I should tone it down. I would start out at a reasonable volume, but after a while I got excited and started shouting. I worked on this.
Jeff did not work with Gary and me as much as he had helped Lee and me the previous year.
At the District 5 qualifying tournament for the NDT Gary and I were 4-4 with twelve ballots out of twenty-four, exactly average and exactly the same as Lee and I did the previous year.
Both freshman teams did quite well throughout the year. I don’t remember the details.

I think that this is a recent picture of Gary Black.

Jim Fellows decided that he did not want to debate any more.

My roommate in Allen Rumsey House, Charlie Delos, remarked that if he looked like Gary, he would kill himself.

The summer of 1968 was definitely unique. Assassinations led to destructive and bloody riots. The suburbs of KC, where I was, were not affected, but Detroit, one of the centers of the protest, is less than an hour from Ann Arbor. The police also rioted outside of the Democratic Party’s national convention in Chicago. Then Nixon disclosed the existence of his secret plan to end the War in Vietnam.

I had my first real job in the actuarial department of the insurance company that my dad worked for. My summer adventures are described here.

Fall 1968: Jeff Sampson moved on. Juddi made all the decisions about partnerships. She also did whatever coaching was done.

The team had one very talented freshman, Mike Hartmann. He had a pretty good partner, Dean Mellor.

After the election the "executive" was this guy. — After the election the “executive” was this guy.

The resolution was “that executive control of United States foreign policy should be significantly curtailed.”

I was paired with Alexa. We ran a case that banned deployment of troops to fight without a congressional declaration of war. I was first negative and second affirmative. Bill and Ann were the other varsity team.

Here is what I remember of the first semester.

I enjoyed debating with Alexa. I had never had a female partner before. She was a talented debater and a good partner, but the thing that really impressed me was that she carried her own evidence boxes.
A small percentage of varsity debaters were female. Black debaters were very rare. Alexa was the only Black female debater whom I ever saw at a varsity tournament in my four years as an undergraduate debater. This could not have been easy for her.

In one round we faced a good team that presented a a plan to use American food to feed starving people around the world. I had heard of this and done a little research, but I had never discussed it with Alexa. I decided to argue topicality and to present a counterplan that included all aspects of the affirmative plan, but no reduction in executive control. Alexa did not know what to argue in the second negative, but she soldiered on and did not complain, even when we ended up losing the round.
Our best tournament was Ohio State. We made it to the semifinals, which qualified us for the Tournament of Champions. We might have been the first U-M team ever to accomplish this.
For some reason Juddi drove us to Oshkosh, WI, to a second-rate six-round tournament at the state university there. In the first round we debated a really obnoxious team from Ripon College on our affirmative. The second round was allegedly power-matched, but we were scheduled to meet the same team on the same side! I immediately complained to the staff. I was told that we should just switch sides. I really did not want to debate that team again, but we had no choice. The teams that we faced after that were a little better, but I was depressed after the last round. Then they announced the results. I was astounded when they announced that Alexa was the second-place speaker. I never had lower points than she did, and, sure enough, I won the award for top speaker, which, as I recall was a hearty handclasp. Alexa and I had won all six debates and qualified for the quarterfinals, where we were quickly eliminated on a 2-1 decision that no one in the audience could believe.
Juddi smoked. She expected one of the males to light her cigarettes for her.
We stopped for gas once when Juddi was driving her own car. She purchased $.50 worth of regular.
Juddi wore a LOT of makeup. Alexa, who roomed with her on trips, said that it was frightening to see her when she first got out of bed. One of the other grad students said that Juddi always looked like a million dollars, but you had to suspect that at least half of it was counterfeit.
Before final exams both Ann and Alexa quit the team. So, Bill and I were the only varsity debaters left.

We could not take the shortcut through Ontario because of the stop in Oberlin.

Spring 1969: The first tournaments that Bill and I attended together were at Harvard and Dartmouth in January. Juddi made the arrangements. We drove to Oberlin College in Ohio to pick up their team, Roger Conner² and Mark Arnold, and their coach, Dan Rohrer. We then proceeded to Buffalo to pick up a team from Canisius College. I never heard of teams car-pooling to debate tournaments, and this was uncomfortable, at least for me. Mark Arnold disliked me intensely. Also, the Oberlin and Canisius teams had much better records than we did.

We definitely attended the tournament at Northwestern. I think that we were 4-4, which continued my trend of improvement over the previous year with three different partners.

The only other tournament that semester that I clearly recall was the very long drive to Minneapolis to attend a tournament at St. Thomas College, now known as St. Thomas University. I think that this was the first time that Jimmie Trent, a famous debate coach and a professor in the speech department at Wayne State, accompanied us. We attended a peculiar set of tournaments for the next year and a half. It was not until considerably later that I began to suspect that Juddi tried to schedule tournaments that she was reasonably certain that she and Jimmie would not run into anyone from Wayne State.

Jimmie definitely was very knowledgeable about debate, and he was also great fun to be with on tournaments. He specialized in my favorite kind of humor, the shaggy dog story, which was ideal for a long drive. His presence almost counterbalanced having to deal with Juddi. At some point they got married, but, as far as I could tell, that did not change the political implications of a Wayne State speech professor helping U-M debaters.

The tournament at St. Tom’s was at best second-rate. It did not even supply standard ballots for the judges. They had to fill in these yellow cards that rated speakers on a twenty-point scale instead of the thirty point version. There was also very little space for the judge to express the reasoning, if any, behind the decision.

When we were on the St. Tom's campus, all this was covered with several feet of snow. — When we were on the St. Tom’s campus, all this was covered with several feet of snow.

The three feet of snow on the ground made traipsing between buildings carrying our evidence a real pain and led everyone to question the motivation for the trip.

Bill and I went 7-1 in the prelims. That made us the top seed in the elimination rounds, which, as I recall, began with quarterfinals. Almost all tournaments used seeded brackets for the elimination rounds, but not this one. Instead, for some reason, they drew the pairings at random. In the quarterfinals we ended up debating against a team from Augustana College in Illinois that we had already defeated on our negative. We were “locked in” on the affirmative because tournaments generally guarantee that no team will debate another team twice on the same side.

This was the worst possible draw for us. I had a much better record on the negative throughout my career, especially with Bill. It was a tough round. I will always think that I won this round with a joke. I started my last affirmative rebuttal with this remark: “I have been wondering why Mr. ______ (the second negative) wore galoshes to the debate. Now that I see all the snow that they tried to bury the plan under, I understand. Let’s start digging.”

Everybody in the audience laughed. We won the room and two of the three judges.

In the semifinals we faced the team that gave us our only loss in the prelims. However, this time we were locked in on the negative and won easily.

In the finals we faced two guys from Iowa whom I had debated several times over the years. We were locked in on the affirmative. As it turned out, in the elimination rounds we faced the second, third, and fourth seeds, in that order. All were teams that we had already debated.

At this point in the year we had a pretty strong non-intervention case, but we also had a food case that we had pulled out (successfully) a few times that year. The northern plains was a very conservative part of the debate world, and so we decided to stick with the non-intervention case.

Just before the debate started, they introduced the five judges. Two were debate coaches with whom both teams knew pretty well. Three of them were local luminaries. Of course, we did not get to interview them, and so we had no way of know how familiar they were with debates at this level.

Debate coaches have a lot of practice at following arguments. The best tactics for dealing with inexperienced judges are not at all as clear as they are for dealing with debate coaches. The thought occurred to me that we should perhaps run the food case. Any yokel can relate to starving millions. However, it was only a flickering thought; we went with our original plan.

The trip back to Ann Arbor seemed longer.

We won both debate coaches, but lost the three civilians. I will always think that if we had used the food case, we would have won the outsiders and maybe lost the coaches. I had plenty of time to think about this on the long drive home. Winning this (or any) tournament would have been a feather in our cap. Finishing second in such a sorry gathering made us just an “also ran”.

Bill and I went 4-4 at the district qualifier in March. We only won eleven ballots. So, I appeared to be regressing a little.

During the summer I worked in a the actuarial department of Kansas City Life, not my dad’s employer. Two other guys, Todd and Tom worked there. One day someone asked if they had gone to lunch, and I was able to use a line I had been saving for weeks: “Tom and Todd wait for no man.”

Man also landed on the moon.

Fall 1969: I learned that two strong additions had been made to the debate staff, Roger Conner1, who had an exemplary record debating at Oberlin, and Cheryn Heinen, a very good debater from another strong debate school, Butler. Roger and Cheryn could probably have been a big help, but they were seldom allowed to go to big tournaments, and neither planned a career as a debate coach. Because the program had very few debaters, we hardly ever had practice rounds, and when we did, Juddi ran them.

Since Bill and I were the only debaters on the team with experience at the varsity level, I had assumed that we would be paired up from day 1. Partner-switching is uncommon at most schools.

I was therefore unpleasantly surprised and disgruntled to find myself paired with Dean Mellor at the beginning of the year. Bill and Mike must have also been debating together.

Cheryn did not work with us much. Still, the most memorable event of the semester occurred when she was driving us in a car from the university’s motor pool westbound on I-94. There were three other debaters in the car. One was certainly Bill. The other two must have been Dean and Mike.

The car was proceeding at the speed limit when all of a sudden the front hood came unlatched and was flung backwards by air pressure into the windshield. It also made a dent of at least six inches in the roof of the passenger compartment, but it remained attached to the hinges. The glass on the windshield shattered, but it stayed together. This video is what it felt like from the inside. However, we were going much faster, and both the windshield and hood were obviously beyond repair.

Cheryn screamed in terror, but she quickly regained composure. We were very fortunate to be quite close to an exit. Bill and I rolled down windows and gave Cheryn driving instructions to get the car onto the exit ramp and then into a service station.

Cheryn called the university and reported the problem. The people at the motor pool insisted that one of us had opened the hood for some reason and failed to latch it. We all insisted that no such event had occurred. After a few hours someone brought us a different car to use, and we continued on to the tournament without further incident.

The resolution for 1969-70 was that the federal government should grant annually a specific percentage of its income tax revenue to the state governments. I think that we ran the same case all year. It called for granting 50 percent of the income tax revenue to the states through existing grant-in-aid programs. We claimed that Congress would never finance the programs to that extent because of the power of the Military-Industrial Complex.

I do not remember details from too many tournament. I remember attending the Ohio State with Dean. We had been doing pretty well for the first seven rounds. In the eighth round, however, Dean got all flustered in the 1AR, and totally made a mess of things. His speech was so bad that there was no chance of winning after that. It was too bad, because we would have qualified for the elimination rounds if we had won.

I am not sure where we were, but at one tournament Juddi arranged for us to eat supper with the debaters from Emory University in Atlanta. She liked their southern charm. At dinner she ordered a steak well done. The waiter brought it. Juddi cut it and sent it back for more cooking. She judged that the substitute was sufficiently dead. She smothered it in red sauce. Before she could take a bite one of the Emory debaters asked her very politely why she didn’t just order a piece of bread and cover it with ketchup.

By the middle of November Juddi had changed the pairings so that I was again with Bill. On Thursday November 22 we drove to Chicago for a tournament at UICC. It was a fairly important tournament for us, but it meant that we would miss the last game of the football season.

Students at U-M were allotted one reduced-price season ticket on the south and west sides of Michigan stadium. I had a superb ticket on the 50-yard line. How I managed to get such a good seat is described here. On this occasion I gave my seat away to someone. I don’t remember who received it.

We missed the best game in the storied history of Michigan football. Ohio State was rated #1 in both polls. Michigan was 7-2. OSU had never been behind at any point in any of their previous games. Nevertheless, Michigan prevailed 24-12 that Saturday and won a ticket to the Rose Bowl for the only time in my undergraduate career.

Meanwhile, Bill and I had our worst tournament ever. For me the worst aspect was our loss to my old friend and high school debate partner, John Williams, who represented UMKC. I was more depressed about this than about any previous result. Still, I only had one semester left, and I resolved to make the most of it.

Where are my U-M debate partners in 2020?

On Twitter I follow Bill Black, who is rather famous for finding fraudulent activity in corporate and political America. He currently teaches law and economics at UMKC. His Wikipedia page is here.

I have not been in touch with Gary Black. I was quite surprised to find this web page on the Internet. I am not positive that this is the Gary Black that I knew, but the age and colleges match. I wonder what Charlie Delos would think of Gary’s new career.

Alexa Canady is a famous neurosurgeon who is now retired and living in Pensacola, FL. I emailed her because I noticed that she was a member of the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL). She responded to the email, but we have not had any further correspondence. Her Wikipedia page is here.

I have seen Bill Davey twice since I graduated in 1970. When I came to Ann Arbor after being discharged from the army, he let me crash in his apartment for a week or so. I also saw him at a debate tournament at Georgetown in the mid-seventies. He was then clerking for Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. Later Bill was a big player in the development of the World Trade Organization. He is now retired from his teaching position at the University of Illinois. His biographical information is here.

Mike Hartmann is an attorney at the international law firm, Miller-Canfield. He was the CEO from 2007 to 2013. His bio page is here. I have been in touch with him by email.

Lee Hess is the Chairman of Cairngorm Capital and lives in Columbus, OH. I have communicated with him by email a few times. His bio page at his company is here.

Bob Hirshon is a professor at the U-M Law School.

I have not been in touch with Dean Mellor. Apparently he is doing something in sales in the L.A. area. His LinkedIn profile is here.

I have not been in touch with Larry Rogers.

1. Bill was a Presidential Scholar in his senior year of high school (1967), which indicates that he had one of the two highest scores in the state of Michigan on the National Merit exams.

2. I asked Roger why Mark Arnold hated me. He told me that I was right about that, but he did not know why. Roger was an interesting guy. He sold bibles in his youth. He tried to teach us to yodel, which he insisted was the best way to prepare for debates. He spent thirty years as lobbyist, mostly on immigration issues. I almost went to see him when he was leading a seminar in Hartford. In 2020 he is an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt.

1966-1970 U-M: Lingo and Abbreviations

Posted on September 25, 2020 by Mike

Abbreviations & idiomatic terms. Continue reading →

1A: First affirmative speaker. Add C for constructive or R for rebuttal.

2A: Second affirmative speaker. Add C for constructive or R for rebuttal.

1N: First negative speaker. Add C for constructive or R for rebuttal.

2N: Second negative speaker. Add C for constructive or R for rebuttal.

AR: Allen Rumsey House.

Chihote (hee HO tay): A device consisting of surgical tubing and a kneepad for propelling water balloons great distances.

Co-ed: 1) n. female student. 2) adj. containing both male and female students. In this period no house was co-ed, but some dorms (e.g., South Quad) were.

Constructive: Ten-minute speech.

Drop: In debate, to miss or neglect an argument made by the other team.

Flowing: Taking notes (including planned responses to an opponent’s arguments) in a debate. The sheet(s) of paper is called a flow or flow sheet.

House: Smallest unit of dorms at Michigan. Quads had 6-10 houses.

IM: Intramural sports. At Michigan the competition was separated between frat houses and dorms.

MISL: Michigan Intercollegiate Speech League—all colleges in Michigan

NDT: National Debate Tournament held in March every year.

RA: Resident Adviser: one per floor in a dorm.

RD: Resident Director: one per house in a dorm.

Rebuttal: Five-minute speech for advancing, refuting, and summarizing arguments. No new arguments are allowed in the rebuttals.

Resolution: The topic being debated. The same resolution is debated all year. The ones for 1966-1970 were:
1966-1967 RESOLVED: “That the United States should substantially reduce its foreign policy commitments.”
1967-1968 RESOLVED: “That the federal government should guarantee a minimum annual cash income to all citizens.”
1968-1969 RESOLVED: “That executive control of United States foreign policy should be significantly curtailed.”
1969-1970 RESOLVED: “That the federal government should grant annually a specific percentage of its income tax revenue to the state governments.”

Spread: To present an inordinately large number of arguments, sometimes with the intention of dropping some later. If the opponent does not mention an argument, it can be claimed as valid by the team that made it. Spreading can be done by talking fast or using economy of language. The best debaters do both.

SQ: South Quad.

Topicality: The issue in a debate as to whether the affirmative’s plan is a legitimate interpretation of the debate resolution.

U-M: University of Michigan

WQ: West Quad.

1967-1969 Part 1: U-M Classes

Posted on September 23, 2020 by Mike

Classes in the middle years. Continue reading →

To the best of my recollection this was my undergraduate academic schedule at Michigan:

Freshman	Fall 1966	Math 195	Russian 101	Chem 103	Latin 350
	Spring 1967	Math 196	Russian 102	Chem 106	Greek 101
Sophomore	Fall 1967	Math 295	Comp Prog	Econ 101	Greek 102
	Spring 1968	Math 296	Comm Sci	Sp Persuasion	Greek 201
Junior	Fall 1968	Math 395	Econ Intl	Sp Debate	Greek 202
	Spring 1969	Math 396	Topology	Homer	Thucydides
Senior	Fall 1969	Probability	Statistics	Psychology	Euripides
	Spring 1970	Sp Study	Linguistics	Russ Lit	Anthropology

The classes for the first semester of freshman year (fall 1966) are discussed here.

The classes for the second semester of freshman year (spring 1967) are discussed here.

The classes for the second semester of senior year (spring 1970) are discussed here.

Here is what I remember from the middle years by subject:

Math: The three-year basic sequence (195-6, 295-6, 395-6) started with a review of calculus. The last semester covered, I think, the calculus of several—more than three—variables. It was during this last class that I realized that I had absolutely no interest in being a mathematician. I could no longer visualize what was being talked about. I am sure that it is valuable for things like string theory, but it was not for me.

In fact, I was lucky to last that long. These six classes were all taught by professors, as opposed to graduate students.¹ We were expected (but not required) to do the problems at the end of each chapter of the text. I looked at them, but I never did them. Our tests asked for proofs rather than solutions to problems. The material became more and more difficult as the course numbers got higher. I familiarized myself with the concepts, but I did not actually learn them. That was not my goal; my goal was to pass the tests.

I developed several techniques for pretending to prove that formula A is equivalent to formula B, which is the format for most, but not all, mathematical proofs. It would be best to come up with an actual proof, but this is not like horseshoes or hand grenades. Coming close can count for a lot. I thrived on partial credit.

The first technique is known as proof by induction, a legitimate and powerful method absolutely essential for proving some mathematical concepts. It even has its own Wikipedia page. Any time than something countable—an integer or even a rational number—was mentioned in either formula A or formula B, I would used proof by induction. It was always good for a half-page of paper, and I never got less that seven out of ten points. Occasionally, it actually produced the required proof.

The technique that I invented and perfected was the Wavada Squeeze. You will not find it on Wikipedia yet. Here is how you do it: Start with formula A, and in a column beneath it make as many manipulations of it as you can think of. For example, you could multiply and divide by something: A=((x+3) x A)/(x+3). After ten or so manipulations, you end up with something quite different from what you started with. On a separate sheet of paper perform a different set of manipulations on formula B. Once in a while one of the two will actually show the way to a proof, and that’s great. However, even if neither does, you can maximize your partial credit by writing the the manipulations of B in reverse order beneath the manipulations of A. This will give you a “proof” that A=B with twenty or so legitimate manipulations, and one horrible leap somewhere in the middle. This was usually good for at least five out of ten, which was much better than nothing.

I made the mistake of taking one graduate-level class, Topology. I ended up with a C, which is a terrible grade in a graduate class. I remember entering the classroom on one Monday after a debate tournament. Everyone was busy writing their names on “Blue Books”, which meant that an exam was about to take place. This was news to me. Evidently, it was announced in a class that I had not attended. Usually I tried to make sure that I had a friend in classes to warn me about such events. This class, however, was composed of graduate students in math. None seemed approachable. I got one right out of nine. Showing up clueless in a classroom full of people with Blue Books appeared frequently in nightmares over the decades.

I am embarrassed to say that not only have I forgotten the names of these teachers, but I also have only vague recollections of any of the concepts, never mind the details, of what I supposedly learned. I never considered graduate school in math.

Actuarial Science: I passed part 1 of the actuarial exams in May of 1969. I took two classes from Cecil Nesbitt², a very famous actuary, in the fall semester of 1969 with the half-hearted purpose of passing part 2—probability and statistics. I was not a bit impressed with the quality of the other students, when compared with the guys (and girl) in my math sequence.

My attendance in both classes was extremely spotty. I did not do any of the assigned problems. Nevertheless, I thought that I had passed part 2 in November, but i was wrong. The exam was offered again in May, but I was not upset enough about this failure to study more in the spring session. The result is described here.

Cecil Nesbitt’s Wikipedia page is here.

Greek: For the first two Greek³ classes the teacher was H.D. Cameron.⁴ I can clearly visualize the professor who taught the 200-level classes as well, but I am embarrassed to report that I cannot remember his name. He also taught the Thucydides class.

My clearest recollection of those last two classes in the sequence involved the final exam. With less than one hour remaining before the Greek final, I realized that I had misread the exam schedule and studied for a different subject. The exam for that subject was a day of two later. So, I ended up taking the Greek test with practically no cramming.

Thank goodness it a Greek course was the one to which I gave insufficient attention; I got an A anyway. If I had neglected the other subject (I forget what it was), I would have been in a world of hurt. This kind of thing was also a subject of many future nightmares.

In all honesty the university should not have allowed me to take these four classes. My high school Greek class was good enough that I could almost certainly have placed out of Greek. However, there was no placement test for Greek at U-M. I am thankful for the lack; I received four easy A’s.

The Homer and Thucydides classes were more difficult. All of the other students in both classes were graduate students who took nothing but Greek classes and spent all of their daylight hours in the classics department. I was lucky to survive.

I enrolled in a course that translated the plays of Euripides. I had to get special permission from the professor to join. However, after a week or two I dropped the class. It was just too demanding for my schedule.

If I had applied to graduate school in 1970, I would have tried for a masters in the classics. These were the only classes that I enjoyed the most.

Speech: I took only one real speech class, persuasion. It was taught by Bruce Gronbeck.⁵ The other two speech classes were gift A’s to compensate for the time that my participation in debate consumed.

I went to the persuasion class every time that I was in town. I gave all the speeches and turned in the assigned paper. I found the material presented boring, but the speeches were quite interesting.

I have several vivid recollections. We talked about some of the speeches as a class. In one situation I remarked that I thought that the speaker had seemed sincere. Prof. Gronbeck asked me why I thought that, and I was stumped. Nobody else really had a better answer. As Jean Giraudoux famously noted, “The secret of success is sincerity. Once you fake that you’ve got it made.”

Jim Pitts, the captain of the basketball team, was on the roster for the class, but he never attended, not even for the assigned speeches. Prof. Gronbeck told Dr. Colburn about this, and a few days later Jim appeared, and he was prepared to give a speech. No speeches were scheduled for that day, but he was allowed to deliver his speech, which was about abortion.

Jim took the floor with about twenty 3″x5″ cards held in very large hands. The use of a deck of cards in a speech is always a bad idea unless you plan to demonstrate how to throw them. Jim’s first line was “The chances of getting an abortion in this country are 1. Slim and 2. None.” On the fourth card he could not read the handwriting of whoever wrote the speech. A few cards later the cards were in the wrong order, which always seems to happen. When he finished the speech, Prof. Gronbeck thanked him, and no one else said anything. The class then continued as usual.

That was Jim’s last speech, but he never missed any basketball games that year.

Prof. Gronbeck wanted to hold a one-on-one debate, and I volunteered. My opponent, who was from Germany, chose as the topic the reunification of her country. She was against it. It wasn’t much of a debate. I had to go first, and we only got one speech each. She made no attempt to refute anything that I had said.

Communication Science: For some reason in those days the academic department at U-M that dealt with computers was called “Communication Science”. I took two courses. The first was the introductory programming class. My instructor was Господин Muchnik, whom I already knew as a student in my first-semester Russian class. We learned to program in MAD, which stood for Michigan Algorithm Decoder, a programming language used nowhere else in the world.

There were no terminals. We had to record our programs and our data on eighty-column IBM cards. This required use of a machine to punch the cards. Each card corresponded to a line of code or a row of data. There was no backspace or delete key. If you made a mistake when you punched the, you had to eject the card and throw it away. The university had a dozen or more of these machines for students, and they were located on the other side of campus. If they were all in use, you just had to wait or come back later.

When you finally had your program and data punched, you inserted the deck of cards into the pre-compiler, a small machine that found syntax errors in MAD programs. When you fixed all of the errors that it found, you were ready put a rubber band around your deck of cards to submit a job to the computer. The operator would accept the job, assign it a number, and give you a card with your job’s number and a phone number for a recording that announced the number of the job that the computer was currently on. It might be hours or even days befor the announced number was greater than the number of your job. When it finally happened, you walked back to the computing center to retrieve your output and your deck.

The first few times that you did this, the output consisted of a list of errors. If there were only a few errors, you would wait for a keypunch machine to be available, fix the errors, and resubmit the deck. This process went on until you either despaired or were euphoric when you finally got some results.

For our final project we could do any program that we wanted. The only requirement was that it be at least one hundred lines of code. My project read in a bridge hand of thirteen cards and output the opening bid using the standard American system taught by Charles Goren. I did it over the Thanksgiving holiday when there were no lines for the keypunch machines, and shorter waits for the jobs. I got it to work well pretty quickly.

Needless to say, I really liked programming, and I was good at it.

The other Comm Sci class that I took was a strange amalgam of language theory and the history of computer languages back to the Turing machine. I did not get a lot out of it.

Economics: You cannot debate as much as I did without doing quite a bit of research into economics. By the time (sophomore year) that I enrolled for the introductory class at U-M I had already read hundreds of articles and several books on economics. The format for the class was lecture plus recitations. I enjoyed the lectures, although my memory of who gave them cannot be correct. I found the recitations tiresome and overly simplistic.

I studied for the final with my debate partner, Gary Black, a senior. I helped him more than he helped me. I was more than a little peeved when he got a low A, and I got a high B.

I took one more economics class. I did not like anything about the way the course in international economics was taught. I put in as little effort as possible. I think that I got a C.

My enduring impression about the field of economics was that it was 99 percent unproven theories. I was right. The next fifty years proved conclusively that most of what I was taught was just wrong. In fact, Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, won a Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for demonstrating that the basic behavioral assumption underlying all economic analysis is nonsense.

Psychology: As a senior I signed up for the introduction to psychology in the honors program. I was allowed to take one class pass-fail, and this was the one that I selected. Grades lower than C were unheard of in honors classes. So, I correctly determined that I could pass this class with virtually no effort.

The teacher was a female graduate student, and she insisted that we understand the principles of feminism. Most of us had never heard of the word. I remember very little else about the class, except that it was full of freshmen with first names like Hill or Twink. Twink told us that in the home in which he grew up no one ever questioned Freud’s teachings. I found that astounding, but I suppose that it is no more astounding than believing in the Book of Mormon or, for that matter, the Bible.

Twink was a fairly big guy, maybe 6’3″. Once I was walking somewhere with my friend, Tom Rigles, who had already heard me tell stories about him. Tom said that he did not imagine him being so big. I casually remarked that I could take him. Rigles scoffed at me. As God is my witness, I could take Twink then, and if he is still alive, I could take him now.

I don’t think that the psych class had a final exam, but we were required to write a paper. I had picked up a book called Games People Play by Eric Berne. The night before the papers were due, I skimmed the book and wrote and typed the paper. It was the third and last paper of my entire undergraduate career

I disliked all the “social science” courses that I took. If you had predicted in 1970 that I would voluntarily take almost nothing but social science courses for six years in graduate school, I would have told you that you did not know what you were talking about.

1. Ted Kaczynski, the notorious Unabomber, was a graduate assistant in the math department at U-M during the sixties. The offer of the teaching position was the main reason that Ted chose Michigan over Cal Berkeley and the University of Chicago.

2. My best friend since 1972, Tom Corcoran, worked as an actuary. One year I was shopping for a birthday card for him. I looked through about twenty humorous cards until I found one that actually mentioned Cecil Nesbitt! I was absolutely astounded.

3. I learned classical Greek in high school and college. Decades later I tried to teach myself modern Greek in preparation for a Hellenic vacation. The alphabet was the same, and the grammar was similar. However, the vocabulary and pronunciation were drastically different.

4. Professor Cameron in 2020 is emeritus in the classics department and curator of the university’s Museum of Zoology.

5. Professor Gronbeck died in 2014. A very lengthy obituary can be read here.

1967 U-M Spring Semester

Posted on September 18, 2020 by Mike

A lot of debate. A little class time. Continue reading →

Debate: If you need a primer about intercollegiate debate in this era, you can find it here.

I learned that my partner, Lee Hess, was in ZBT, the Jewish fraternity. He had attended New Trier High in the Chicago area. He claimed that his father was a “cowboy”, by which he meant that he traded futures on livestock prices. Lee had contacts all over the country. He was the complete opposite of me, a stranger in every town save one.

One tournament that I remember rather vividly was at Northwestern. I am pretty sure that we unveiled the moon case there. We ended up with a 1-7 record. My recollection of that “1” is not clear. Maybe we won one affirmative, but I suspect that the moon case exploded on the launch pad.

Jeff chased down the judges of a few of our affirmative rounds to ask them whether we lost the debate on topicality or on one of the substantive issues. I don’t remember what the answer was. It was inconceivable that we would run such a squirrelly case at the district tournament in March. So, I think that we decided to put our effort into patching up the holes in the case¹ that Lee and his partner had run in the first semester. I don’t recall the specifics, but I know that I learned a lot.

The process of debating at the varsity level was a more striking change for me than the actual debates. In high school and in the first semester at U-M we rode to tournaments in cars and/or buses. We always ate at places that emphasized quantity per dollar rather than quality or exotic tastes. We stayed in roadside ma and pa motels or at second- or third-rate hotels.

Early in 1967 Lee and I flew to Boston with Jeff Sampson for the annual debate tournament at Harvard. I had only flown on planes a very few times. I cannot remember previous flights except the ones to and from KC for the holiday break between semesters, and those were both using the program prevalent in that era by which students could fly standby for half-price.

Our first supper on this trip was at the legendary Jimmy’s Harborside in Boston. The three of us took a taxi from Cambridge. I suspect that this was the first time that I had ridden in a taxi.

I know for sure that this was the first time that I had ever eaten lobster. Jeff and Lee pressured me to try it. It seemed to me at the time (and ever since) that it was pretty much a tasteless vehicle for delivering melted butter to one’s mouth. Also, an excessive amount of effort was required to extract the meat. I did get to wear a bib for the first time since I learned to walk.

I am not sure where Jeff stayed, but Lee and I stayed in the dorm at Harvard. It in no way reminded me of Allen Rumsey House. It was a suite; each student had his own bedroom. One or two of the residents were present; the others were still on some sort of break. Lee and I stayed in an empty suite that featured—get this!—a loft with an extra bed. I vaguely recall that one of the missing suite-mates was the son of a U.S. Senator.

On the second night Lee arranged for a young lady whom he already knew from somewhere to visit us in the dorm. Lee produced a couple of bottles of wine and fed Frank Zappa and Fugs albums to the record player. I made myself as scarce as I could without leaving the room—where would I go? Pretty soon Lee and she went up to the loft, where they stayed until morning.

At that point we had debated seven rounds, four on the negative and three on the affirmative. I had no way to judge how well we were doing, but we had faced some pretty good teams. Since the last six rounds were power-matched, that is usually a good sign. Our opponent was the University of Texas, a pretty good team.

The girl was gone when I woke up. Lee was a mess. If we had been on the negative, we probably would have just forfeited. As 1A, Lee just had to read the constructive speech. The rebuttal would definitely be difficult, but Lee was determined to give it a try. We removed a sentence or two from the 1AC, but he still could not quite finish what was left in ten minutes. Nevertheless, we were still in contention until Lee’s rebuttal, which was unspeakably bad. I tried to pull it out in the last rebuttal, but it was hopeless. For the first time in my life I mentally blamed my partner for losing a debate. I only did it one other time.

I am uncertain how important that debate was. Both teams were either 4-3 or 5-2 going into the debate. If we were 5-2, it probably cost us qualifying for the octafinals. If we were 4-3, it only kept us from having a winning record.

Jeff did not yell at Lee, at least not in my presence.

Mike Denger became an anti-trust lawyer. — Mike Denger became a prominent anti-trust lawyer.

I don’t remember when it happened, but at some point I got to watch Northwestern’s team of David Zarefsky and Mike Denger debate in an elimination round against Georgetown, another national power. I was very impressed with all four debaters, but especially Denger, who had won the NDT the year before. It gave me something to aspire to.

At least once Dr. Colburn drove us on a debate trip. He liked to stop at Win Schuler’s restaurant, an institution in Michigan. Their specialty was prime rib. It was pretty late, and the place was almost empty by the time that we were finishing supper. Dr. Colburn had ordered a yard of beer, in which he had made little progress. A guy at the next table was giving him a good-natured hard time about it. Somehow a wager was made as to whether Dr. Colburn could finish the whole yard. Dr. Colburn promised that if he couldn’t, he would stand on his chair and sing “The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi.” The other guy offered to stand on his chair and sing “God Bless America” if Dr. Colburn finished it. Dr. C., not that far removed from his fraternity days at Sigma Chi at the University of Indiana, had little difficulty, and the other fellow paid off. We all applauded his performance.

Dr. Colburn never considered asking Lee or me to drive us back to Ann Arbor, but we made it in one piece.

Lee and I went 4-4 at districts with twelve ballots out of twenty-four. We had ascended to mediocrity.

Classes: My recollection is that I attended nine or ten debate tournaments during the semester. We ordinarily left Wednesday afternoon or early on Thursday and returned late on Sunday. So, I missed a lot of classes.

I remember almost nothing about Math 196. I attended less than half the classes. I don’t remember the teacher at all. I kept up with the textbook by studying for a couple of hours per week early in the morning. I ended up with a B, which was something of a triumph considering how little effort I expended.

Russian was a big problem. I had no time to go to the Language Lab to improve my listening skills, which were negligible. Furthermore, I had missed so many classes that I had lost my ear for the language.

After acing the class in the first semester, I did very poorly on the midterm in the second. We were required to listen to a paragraph read by one of the teachers and then answer questions about it. The fact that I could not understand the reading and therefore could not answer the questions contributed to my panic on the grammar section of the test as well. I knew enough to do pretty well, but I choked.

I went to see the teacher. His desk was in the Frieze Building, right next to the desk of Mrs. Rado, my teacher from the fall semester. I explained to him about my attendance at the debate tournaments. He knew that I had done well in the first semester, but he was not too sympathetic about the way that I set my priorities. I did pretty well on the final. I was hoping for a B, but I only got a C.

My other big problem was Chemistry 106. I had taken 103 in the first semester; the continuation course was 105. My faculty adviser insisted that this was beneath me, and he signed me up for 106, the continuation class for 104. I never really got on track in this class. I scored an abysmal 38% on the midterm. Believe it or not, my score was only a little below average.

The worst part was that my labs were on Thursdays. After one of the few recitation session that I had attended, I approached my teacher, Ms. Koljenin, and told her that I had missed six chem labs. She denied that I had done so.

I patiently explained that because I represented the university at intercollegiate debate tournaments, I had indeed missed six labs. She asked me my name and looked it up in her grade book.

“You’ve missed six labs!” she exclaimed.

I asked her if I could make them up over the Easter break. She said that would be impossible. I then asked if the lab would be open. She affirmed that it would. Before she could say anything more, I asked if she would allow me to try to make up as many as I could over the break. She relented.

Most of the experiments involved identifying an unknown sample by performing various tests on it. I got my samples and made every effort to do all the experiments. However, I am really bad at this sort of thing. My samples would not cooperate. For example, if I was supposed to judge the color as yellow or green, it would appear brown. I did all six experiments, but if I got half of them right, I would be surprised.

I studied diligently for the final. I did much better than on the midterm. I got a C in the class. I was just happy that I would not need to take any more science classes.

Fortunately, my fourth class was Greek 101. No one else in the class had ever taken Greek. I had four semesters in high school with a very good teacher. In a class in the third week I was called on to read—in Greek—a few sentences that we had never seen. I did, with good pronunciation and very few pauses. I then translated them without any difficulty. The next day fully half of the students were missing from the class. In any case, I cruised to an A.

In sum, I got an A, a B, and two C’s. Not good, but not a catastrophe. I certainly did not want to explain a D to my parents, who were, after all, footing the bill.

I learned that semester that I needed to be more careful about selecting my classes. If my chem labs had been on Monday or Tuesday, I probably would have gotten a B in chemistry. If I had also insisted on taking 105 instead of 106, I might have gotten an A.

Although I enjoyed Russian a lot, I realized that I needed to avoid languages that required listening skills. They just required more time than I could afford to devote.

I also realized that I needed to avoid taking classes that required papers. I may have dodged a bullet by missing out on Great Books.

My phys ed class, which was held in Waterman Gymnasium, was in badminton. I learned very little from the instructor. He explained the rules and then basically let us play. One guy, who was an accomplished tennis player, was much better than anyone else. My recollection is that I was a distant second, but that might just be arrogance.

We had two tournaments. In the singles tournament I drew the tennis player in the first round, and he crushed me. However, in the doubles my partner and I did not face him until the finals. By picking on his hapless partner we actually gave them a pretty good game, but we lost.

Allen Rumsey House: Charlie Delos² and I shared room 315 for the second semester. We got along well enough that we planned to share a room for sophomore year as well.

By the second semester I knew everyone on the floor pretty well and most people in the house. The people who had pledged fraternities in the first semester were seldom seen in the second. They mostly hung around at their frat house.

At some point I learned how to juggle. So did quite a few other people, including Dave Zuk. I remember him practicing throwing three balls against the eastern wall in 314.

When we could not get four for bridge, we played hearts or spades. Paul Stoner was the worst hearts player ever. He was fascinated with “shooting the moon”—taking tricks containing all thirteen hearts and the queen of spades. Sometimes he would try for it even after one of the other players had taken a heart. This became known as a “Stoner run”.

On Friday nights the television set in the separate TV room was set to NBC to watch the back-to-back acronym shows, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “T.H.E. Cat”. I wasn’t much invested in the latter, but a bunch of adventurous guys, including Dave Zuk, actively emulated the show’s hero, played by Robert Loggia. They got into various locked university buildings either through the network of tunnels that hey had mapped or by climbing the drain pipes to gain access through unlocked windows on higher floors. Unfortunately, one of these guys was seriously injured when a drain pipe came loose and he fell a few stories to the ground.

Incidentally, on these Friday nights the guys in the game room were usually watching an NHL game. I had no interest whatever in hockey. I was a big fan in general of many sports—I had religiously watched ABC’s Wide World of Sports as a kid. However, I could not follow the puck very well on the black & white television.

This changed after the first time that I saw Bobby Orr on the ice. Over the next three years I watched him as often as I could. If the Bruins were not on, I still had no interest in the sport.

AR held elections for all officers in the spring. Only students who were planning on returning to the dorm the next year were allowed to vote. I decided not to run for secretary. Instead I ran unopposed for the office of the editor of the house’s newsletter, Rumsey Rumors. I think that there had only been one issue all year, but I planned to take the job at least a little more seriously.

I am a little confused about who ran for president. If Ken Nelson was not the president during my freshman year, then he ran unopposed and won. At the time there was a rule that one could be president only for one year.

1. In his basement Lee recently found a typed copy of the constructive speech that he used when debating with me in the spring of 1967. It must have been the very speech that he read in that infamous eighth round at Harvard. It called for the U.S. to abandon the commitment to Taiwan (specifically to Chiang Kai-Shek), to recognize Communist China, and to terminate the trade embargo. I have no recollection of running this case. I must not have done much research.

2. I found this webpage devoted to Charlie Delos.

1966 U-M Fall Semester

Posted on September 17, 2020 by Mike

September-December 1966 Continue reading →

Classes: I took four classes. Each was memorable in its own way.

The math department had three sequences that math majors could take. Two were for students in the honors program. I took the higher honors sequence—six classes over three years with the same classmates.

Our teacher was Professor D.J. Lewis¹. The class consisted of about twenty guys and one girl. I don’t remember any names. Dr. Lewis began by saying that there were two ways to teach math. One was to go through the proofs at a fairly brisk pace. The other was to make sure that most people were comfortable with each concept before moving on to another. He said that as a student he much preferred the latter, but when he looked back on it, he learned more from the former method. So, all through the class he filled the blackboard with formulas. I went to every class, or at least nearly every class, and I did get quite a bit out of them.

The Russian teacher was Mrs. Rado. I had the advantage over the other students of knowing the Greek alphabet, which is similar to the Cyrillic alphabet. My primary disadvantages was that all my language experience was in dead languages. In high school we learned how to translate Latin and Greek, but not how to speak or understand them. I had to spend quite a bit of time memorizing and rehearsing the conversations. Fortunately, I had the time and inclination to do it. By the end of the semester she referred to me as the “отличник“, which was a little embarrassing, especially since most of the other students were older.

I also remember one class in which I was repeatedly asked by Mrs. Rado to pronounce the Russian word for five (пять). I never did it to her satisfaction.

The class that I was worried about was chemistry. I was enrolled in Chemistry 103, which, according to the catalog, was for students who did not take chemistry in high school. When I found out that the vast majority of my classmates had indeed already taken chemistry, I was ready to panic. However, it turned out that the subject matter was very easy—basically just a lot of permutations of Boyle’s law, PV=nRT.

I was lucky to have a lab partner who knew his stuff. I don’t remember his name, but he taught me, among other things, the use of the MIT Fudge Factor, which is .9677. He explained that if you were unable or unwilling to complete an experiment, begin by calculating the correct answer. Then, multiply or divide by the MFF. That is what you report. If you multiplied last time, divide this time.

We only needed this technique once, when he decided to augment the assigned experiment with some creative glassblowing over the Bunsen burner. Unfortunately, he accidentally bumped the beaker containing our unweighed sample with his still white-hot objet d’art. We needed the weight of the sample in the beaker to be accurate to a fraction of a gram. We successfully detached the two pieces of glass, but the weight of the beaker had certainly changed. So, we worked backwards using the MFF.

The first Latin class had a strong effect on me. Mrs. Sorenson, a somewhat elderly lady, handed out a three-page single-space text of one of Cicero’s orations. She explained that this was our assignment.

Marcus Tullius Cicero — Pronounced Kikero.

In that first session I was asked to read aloud a short section. The other students giggled at my pronunciation. They had all taken four semesters of Latin at U-M. In my eight semesters at Rockhurst High School we used the Church’s pronunciation. At U-M (and, I presume, at other heathen institutions) they used a different pronunciation in which v’s sound like w’s in English, and c’s sound like k’s. There were a few other differences as well. It took me a while to get used to this.

The three pages of translation was a lot more than I expected as an assignment. However, the first class was on Thursday, and the next class was not until the next Tuesday. I knuckled down over the weekend, and I felt pretty comfortable about being able to translate the whole speech on demand.

The next Tuesday I was not called on, and the class only got through the second paragraph on the first page. It turned out that when the teacher had said that this was our assignment, she meant the assignment for the entire semester!

So, I had a lot more free time than I had calculated.

I did very well in all four classes. I was not a bit surprised that I received four A’s. Only one other guy in Allen Rumsey matched my GPA. We both won the Branstrom Freshman Prize, which was a copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.

Everyone was required to take two semesters of phys ed as a freshman. I took golf during the first semester. I learned nothing. The teacher was a coach in some other sport. Most of the time we just hit golf balls into nets in the old Waterman Gymnasium, which was torn down in 1977.

One of our classes was held at a driving range well south of campus. I walked to class; it was the only time all year that I broke a sweat. We got to see our instructor hit a golf ball. He never whiffed, but he had an enormous slice. There is no way that he could break 90 with that swing, but he taught a course in golf at the best university in the state.

Debate: If you need a primer about intercollegiate debate in this era, you can find it here.

My partner, Bob Hirshon, who lived in East Quad, and I occasionally met to prepare for the Michigan Intercollegiate Speech League tournament. Since we were only scheduled to debate on the negative we did not need to coordinate our approaches too much. I researched the good things about our treaty obligations to NATO, SEATO, OAS, and the UN and prepared some disadvantages to leaving each. I think that Bob and I also talked about what we would do on the affirmative when we had to debate both sides, but I don’t remember what kind of case we decided on.

The symbol of NATO and flags of member nations.

I have reason to think that the MISL tournament was held at Wayne State. U-M brought a handful of novice pairs. There were only three rounds. All three affirmative teams that we faced argued that the U.S. should pull out of NATO. I gave virtually the same constructive speech three times. It claimed that the pullout would be damaging economically, politically, and socially. None of their answers to these arguments seemed very good to me. The teams that we faced would have been considered mediocre to bad on the Missouri high school debate circuit.

The judge voted for us in all three debates, and I was was awarded more speaker points than anyone else. I don’t remember that I actually won a prize, but they might have given me a certificate or something like that.

I think that Bob was also one of the top speakers. After they had announced the second-place speaker, Bob nudged me and said, “It’s going to be you.” Having no comparable experience in high school, I was still quite surprised. The other U-M teams had mediocre records or worse.

It seems as if we must have gone to at least one other tournament during the first semester, but I have no recollection of it. I don’t even remember any practice debates, but we may have had a few.

They did send Bob and me to some exhibition debates, at least three. I remember one vividly. We went to one of the Ann Arbor high schools and debated against each other in front of an assembly. We wore our suits and told lots of jokes, and the kids loved us.

What I remember most vividly was how young and small the high school students looked. In the movies college kids come back to their old high school and seem to fit right in. In contrast, after I had spent only a month or so at college, these kids looked like grade-schoolers to me.

I eventually met most of the other people on the debate team. The top team was Lee Hess and his partner, a red-haired guy named Rosenberg or something like that. They had represented U-M last March at the district’s qualifying tournament for the National Debate Tournament. Their record was 0-8. At the time there were many good teams in the district, but I feel certain that there were also some that I would consider horrible.

Jeff Sampson worked with the varsity teams a lot. I don’t remember anyone working much with Bob and me. In early December I was therefore very surprised when Dr. Colburn asked me to meet with him, Jeff, and Lee Hess. I learned that Lee’s partner had quit the team, and they wanted me to debate varsity with Lee in the second semester. This would require me to go to quite a few top-quality tournaments, which would mean missing classes.

I was shocked that they had chosen me over all the other more experienced debaters. The most amazing aspect was that they wanted me to do second affirmative. Generally, the stronger debater does the 2A. The first affirmative constructive is actually written out ahead of time. How well it is delivered is not really considered very important by most judges. The debater just reads it. So the 1A’s only responsibility is the five-minute rebuttal. It consisted of presenting arguments rapidly, not selling them.

I also was asked to be 1N, which was fine with me. The 1NC usually presents a lot of arguments, and I could “spread” better than Lee could. His job would be to analyze the affirmative’s plan and come up with reasons why it was a bad idea. Experience pays off in that role.

I decided to give it a try. I had had so little difficulty with classes in the first semester that I had gained a great deal of confidence about classes. Also, of course, I absolutely loved going to tournaments—win, lose, or … uh, there are no draws in debate. You can go 4-4, however.

Jeff and Lee and I worked together through the end of finals. We decided to run a “squirrel” case on the affirmative—ending the commitment to be the first country to put a man on the moon. At the very least this approach would mean that more experienced teams would not be able to use most of their tried-and-true “canned” arguments against us. I was definitely up for that.

In those days debaters kept evidence—short quotes from books and magazine articles fully cited on 4″x6″ index cards.² By the end of the year top debaters amassed thousands of them carried them in steel cases or briefcases. Walking from one classroom to another at a tournament was sometimes a real workout.

The best schools had systems for making sure that all debaters on the team had access to all the evidence recorded by al debaters on the team. Some even traded with other teams. U-M had no such system. I was fortunate to inherit the evidence amassed by Lee’s former partner.

Everyone organized his/her own evidence. Tabbed dividers were required. It seemed obvious to me that the tabs should be numbered like an outline: IA1a, etc., but not everyone did this. I don’t know how they managed. I pulled at least fifty cards per debate, and it was crucial to place them back in the right section. Also, at least twice in my career a drawer of cards fell off a desk and spilled all over the floor. It never took me more than five minutes to put the cards back in order.

The Hatcher Graduate Library has five basements. A second building is behind this one. The campus has many specialty libraries, as well.

In those days my handwriting was still good enough that my partner and others could read it. Later I typed all the cards.

I also purchased a large artist’s pad to use for taking notes in debates, a process called “flowing”. Most people in those days used legal pads, but I could never get an entire debate on one sheet of legal paper, and I wanted to be able to see the debate at a glance.

One advantage that U-M debaters cherished was the amazing network of libraries on the campus. If it had been published, we could almost certainly lay our hands on it.

Allen Rumsey House: For all four years I enjoyed living in Allen Rumsey House immensely. It was conveniently located, and I got along fine with almost all of the guys. It was a little difficult to get used to having only two showers and three toilets available for thirty residents, but many guys were elsewhere much of the time.

There was usually a card game going on our floor—hearts, spades, or euchre. We also played another trick-taking game called “Oh, hell.” I came up with a revised scoring method that everyone adopted. One day in the first week of class Gritty introduced me to Charlie Delos from Bloomfield, who know how to play bridge. We played pretty often against Gritty and Andy. Eventually, a more or less permanent bridge game arose in the lounge. I was a frequent but not constant participant.

Charlie Delos had a date on October 22 for the Homecoming Concert that featured the Beach Boys. She canceled at the last minute. I bought her ticket from Charlie. The opening act was the Standells, a glorified garage band from Boston. All of their songs were forgettable except for the finale, which they called a “medley of our hit”, “Dirty Water.”

It was homecoming, but they did sing a song called "Graduation Day". — It was actually a homecoming concert, but they did sing a song called “Graduation Day”.

The Beach Boys recorded the concert as a live performance. They began with “Help Me, Rhonda”, which started suddenly while it appeared that they were still tuning their instruments. The highlight was “Good Vibrations”, a big hit for them that no one in the audience had ever heard before. Despite all the special effects it was just as good in person as on the record. All of the original Beach Boys (the Wilson Brothers, Al Jardine, and Mike Love) plus Bruce Johnston played and sang. It was a great day. We got to see the Wolverines beat Minnesota 49-0, and then saw a great concert. I suspect that Charlie would have preferred the date.

One of the few people who got under my skin was my roommate, Ed Agnew. He had a very strange schedule. I got up early, showered, dressed, and left by seven or so. He slept late every single morning. I never saw him in the afternoon or evening. He would roll in some time between three and four in the morning, turn on the light, and (loudly) wash his face in the sink with a lotion that he kept in a squeeze bottle. The sink was on my side of the room, and the light woke me up every time. It was very annoying.

I never saw the Ag take a shower or brush his teeth in the entire semester. Neither had anyone else on the floor. He might have taken showers at phys ed classes, but still.

The Ag spent most of his time at the undergraduate library, which everyone at Michigan calls the UGLI. There are many good places to study at Michigan. The worst is the UGLI. The selection of books is both weak and obscure. Concentration is virtually impossible because of all of the activity. In short it is primarily a pickup spot, but I never saw any evidence that the Ag had any luck in that department.

The one thing that he had going for him was his stereo. However, his taste ran to big band music. His favorite album was Victory at Sea. If he turned on the stereo in my presence, I had to leave.

Ed’s parents moved to California. He dropped out after the first semester. I knew that his grades were awful; he may have flunked out.

Charlie also did not like his roommate very much. He moved into Ed’s bed in 315 for the second semester. I liked Charlie a lot, and he even had a stereo. It was not quite as nice as Ed’s, but it would do.

The two guys across the hall, Dave Zuk and Paul Stoner became pretty good friends. Both were in the engineering school, which was easier to get into in those days than Literature, Science, and the Arts. Dave knew a lot about electricity and electronics. Paul struggled in the classes, but at least he made it to the second semester, which is more than the Ag could claim. We played a lot of hearts. Paul was a master of what we called the “Stoner Run,” in which, having already lost a heart, he would try to see how close he could come to taking all of them. He usually collected the other twelve twelve.

Stoner had a home-town honey (HTH) who was still in high school in Adrian, MI. This astounded me. I had participated in some exhibition debates in high schools. They seemed to be full of midgets! At any rate, Paul invited me to Adrian (only 20 minutes away) one weekend day. It was nothing to speak of.

In November or December Paul’s girlfriend dumped him. Paul was incredibly distressed. This was the first time I ever encountered this phenomenon.

AR had a house council that met every week on Wednesday evenings. The secretary took minutes, typed them up, mimeographed 50 copies, and slid a copy under every door. I don’t remember his name, but I really liked his style. Halfway through the semester he resigned. Gritty asked me to take his place. It seemed easy enough, and so I did it. Thus, I became embroiled in dorm politics almost as soon as I arrived.

AR had a few traditions that I was not expecting. One was the inter-floor water fights. They usually pitted the third four residents against the fourth floor. One would start with an unexpected dowsing with a water balloon or a waste basket full of water. Soon water was several inches deep in the hallways, and it became critical to dam up the bottom of the doors to the rooms with towels and whatever else was available. The most epic of these battles led to waterfalls cascading down the stairs all the way to the basement.

I am not sure when it started, but some guys on the third and fourth floors also threw water balloons. The house president, Ken Nelson, had a great arm. He could throw one from the fourth floor all the way across the street to the front door of South Quad. The hapless victims never suspected that the missile had come from such a distance.

Balloons were launched from room 415 (L in the lower right). T1 and T2 (top) are the target areas. The trees were much smaller then.

The guys in 415, right above us, invented a water balloon launcher that defied belief. It consisted of surgical tubing that was affixed to each side of a window and to a kneepad that held the ammunition. two guy would then pull back the kneepad across the room, through the door, the hall, and into room 414, where they carefully set the kneepad down on the floor and simultaneously released it. Mishaps were common, but if they were careful, the balloon came out with absolutely incredible force. It would clear both the center and the northern section of West Quad across the street and over the trees (smaller than shown in the image) into the plaza between the LS&A building and the Administrative Building. Spotters from AR were stationed there to document the bombings. No one could ever have suspected where they came from. They called the device the “Chee ho tay”. I don’t know how they spelled it.

I personally saw them operate the device, and once I saw a balloon speed over the top of the north side of West Quad.

Nobody called me “Wave” in Ann Arbor. In Allen Rumsey house most people called me KC or Case. Elsewhere, I was just Mike.

Sports: Despite the fact that a super-talented future All-American basketball player lived a few feet to the west of Allen Rumsey House, everyone was most interested in football. All the freshmen pooled all of their ID’s together, and someone purchased a block of tickets for us in the corner of the end zone.

I remember that just a few days after school started one of the assistant football coaches visited A-R and put on a short presentation about the U-M football team. A large group of the house’s residents crammed into the rec room to watch a film that he showed about the team. It featured footage of some of the underclassmen on the 1965 team who would be playing in the first game that was just around the corner. The coach that year was Bump Elliott³, and my favorite player was Dick Vidmer⁴, the quarterback. By the end of the season I judged that the former did not take full advantage of the latter’s abilities.

A fairly strict ritual was followed on the Saturdays of home games. After breakfast a group of us would watch cartoons⁵ downstairs. Depending on the starting time for the game, we would then try to grab an early lunch before following the band for the one-mile walk to Michigan Stadium⁶. This would get us there in plenty of time before kickoff.

The stadium was surprisingly unimpressive from the outside. I knew that it held 100,000 people, but it did not seem possible. To me it looked smaller than Municipal Stadium in KC. When I entered the stadium, it became clear. Fully half of the stadium is below street-level. When you entered, half or more of the stadium was below you.

If the team was on the road, we would listen to Bob Ufer’s completely unbiased accounts of the action on the radio. More than a few fans brought transistor radios to the games and listened during home games, too.

Even then, Michigan Stadium was gigantic. The team was mediocre during my first two years at U-M. Nearly all undergraduate students attended the games, but the graduate students represented approximately half the student body. They and the alumni did not attend in numbers nearly as great as in 1968 and every following year.

There were no back support or arm rests in Michigan Stadium until "premium seats" were added. — There were no back support or arm rests in Michigan Stadium until a relatively small number of “premium seats” were added decades later.

This is not to say that there were empty seats those first two years. Michigan Stadium did not have seats. It had very hard metal benches with numbers painted on them. You sat on the number corresponding to your ticket.

An obvious problem developed if people were wider than the distance between numbers. Very heavy students were a lot less prevalent then, but for the Ohio State game with everyone in parkas in late November, a few late arrivals ended up sitting on the steps.

Rudy T. probably could have been and All-American in volleyball. — Rudy T. probably could have been an All-American in volleyball.

Very few students regularly attended basketball games, even when Rudy Tomjanovich was scoring 30+ points per game. I remember watching one game in the Crisler Center in my sophomore year. All of the fans were making fun of the way that the coach, Dave Strack, clapped his hands when the team huddled during a timeout.

Intramural sports were big in Allen Rumsey, especially volleyball and ping pong. I remember John Dalby, the fourth floor RA, started recruiting volleyball players during the first week of school. When I arrived, AR had never won the overall IM dorm championsip, but we were defending champs in volleyball.

I did not play on any of AR’s intramural teams as a freshman. In the first semester I was concerned with classes and other matters. In the second semester I was much too busy debating.

Many pickup football games were played that first semester. There were several fields that were in walking distance of AR. I made many good friends in these games.

I attended a few of the house’s intramural contests, including the two epic struggles in the finals of ping pong and volleyball, both against Wenley House. We lost in ping pong when our best player, Gritty, was defeated by a guy who overcame the handicap of a cast on one leg with reflexes of a cat. However, we won the volleyball championship by keeping the ball away from Rudy T. at all costs.

1. Among many other accomplishments, Dr. Donald J. Lewis became chairman of the U-M math department. He died in 2015. His Wikipedia page is here

2. At some point in the twenty-first century index cards and everything else on paper was replaced by laptops.

3. “George of the Jungle”, which began in 1967, was definitely our favorite. I don’t remember what, if anything, we watched in 1966.

4. After he left Michigan Bump Elliott became the Athletic Director at Iowa. He died in 2019.

5. Dick Vidmer got a bachelors, a masters, and a PhD at U-M. He studied economics as an undergrad and Soviet politics and government as a grad student. He developed multiple sclerosis in 1983, which forced him to retire in 1999. He died in 2022

6. I never heard anyone in Ann Arbor call Michigan Stadium “the Big House”.

Wavablog

Memoirs, bridge, popes, travel, and other stuff

Monthly Archives: September 2020

1967-1969 Part 2: U-M Debate

1966-1970 U-M: Lingo and Abbreviations

1967-1969 Part 1: U-M Classes

1967 U-M Spring Semester

1966 U-M Fall Semester