ORC House of today was Cooke House of the '70s
By Lilias Jones Jarding, ’74
Lawrence Today magazine, Summer 2004
The picture was obvious — “That’s Cooke House,” I
told my husband, who had no idea what I was talking about — but the article in the spring issue of Lawrence
Today (“Theme houses and one beautiful
porch”) was about something called “the home of the Outdoor Recreation
Club.” I knew the porch was right, and the description of it as “a
haven for shaggy-haired youths” sure sounded familiar — even though
the author was talking about something that had only existed since 1998.
Cooke House, as the photo of us all dressed up for a “Prom” shows,
became student housing about 1971 and had that name through the decade. I befriended
it as a junior in the fall of 1972. I knew by then that I wasn’t going
to graduate in 1974 with “my” class and had decided to make new
friends among younger students who would still be around after my peers went
on with their lives. The “Prom” photo from spring 1975 shows some
of those new friends, standing in front of the aforementioned porch.
The other photos in my rather worn album show some of the inside of what the
more recent author rightly called a building that had “been chopped and
patched to maximize sleeping quarters.” Without the photos, I wouldn’t
remember much about the building’s insides, but I can see a bed here,
a doorway there, the standard issue LU lamp, and lots of photos of the porch,
which was “one beautiful porch” then, too. Among the furnishings
are the faces of my friends — frozen in time and in their youth 30 years
ago — playing guitar, smoking, studying, and enjoying the view from the
fire escape over the porch.
I have a photo of my best friend and my dog on that porch. I got the dog while
on a university-sponsored research trip to the Mohawk Reservation at Akwesasne
in upstate New York. He almost got me kicked out of LU. I didn’t like
the rules and thought he should surely be allowed to live in Cooke House. I
kept trying, but never quite succeeded in getting booted out of school. I sometimes
think they let me stay until I graduated just because I kept taking out loans
to pay for college — then an exorbitant $3,600 a year. Plus, my friends
and I kept things interesting for the staff. After I graduated, I went back
to see my
dean’s office file, which showed that we, at least, kept them busy writing
memos.
Another photo shows the old black El Camino that belonged to Professor Vern
Roelofs’ son in the driveway between Cooke House and the house next door — which
was the Roelofs’ place then. I don’t know if it’s even there
anymore, but I have a picture of its porch, too. Professor Roelofs was the
senior member of the history department. If I remember right,
the car went over 200,000 miles before unceremoniously creeping into a junkyard.
Some things aren’t in the pictures, but they’re clear in my mind,
like the motorcycle parts that were sometimes strewn all over the main room.
A lot of days, there was no place to sit, because someone’s bike frame
was in the middle of the room, and the parts covered the furniture. In that
era, the landing that the recent author said had “no discernable function” had
a job — it served as a resting place for motorcycle parts. I visited
a couple years after I left Appleton and pointed proudly to the gash I’d
left in the lawn during my first attempt to ride a motorcycle. I can still
picture the terrified look the bike’s owner had when I finally got it
under control after doing a wheelie across Meade Street.
By 1974, the motorcycles had moved out. One of those rooms with the bay windows
was basically a greenhouse, with giant spider plants everywhere. The residents
would spend time every day spraying the plants, so the room was as moist as
any greenhouse, too. Years later, I heard that a grass fire destroyed their
home in California, and I wondered if it also burned some of those carefully
tended plants.
Then there was our game of “playing gargoyle.” This involved two
people lying on either side of the peaked roof over the porch in mirror poses — and
seeing how long it would be until a passerby noticed. I guess we must have
been bored sometimes. Students couldn’t have cars — I don’t
know if that’s still true [Ed. note: It's not, which has led
to a perennial campus parking shortage] — but
we were pretty much locked into “in
loco parentis-land” when I was a student. It kept us out of car crashes,
if not off the streets.
My favorite place in Cooke House isn’t even there anymore. Last time
I looked — and it’s been awhile — there was still a sidewalk
that led up to what was once my private door on the back of the building. The
door went to a glassed-in porch. With plastic over all the windows, a space
heater, and an open window from the hall, it was warm enough, and it was comparatively
private — for campus housing. I could play loud music and not annoy the
other denizens of the house. It would have probably been Frank Zappa, Jimi
Hendrix, or the occasional Irish rebel music — which my friends hated.
Beware, new alums. When I try to link the person who lived in Cooke House with
who I am today, there’s not a whole lot to go on. I landed my college
dream of moving back West. I now (safely) drive a Harley-Davidson Softail.
I’ve kept my interests in politics and in issues relating to American
Indians — even wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on the topic. My hair’s
still long and straight, but not blonde. My kids are almost the age I was in
the “Prom” photo — my son is graduating from another small
Midwestern liberal arts college this year.
It sounds as if Cooke House is still enjoyed by the students who live there — and
it’s still painted gray. I guess the Lawrence physical-plant crew hasn’t
gotten any more creative than when they tried to keep me off the roof of Sage
Hall by putting a screen over my fourth-floor window. But that’s another
story.
Lilias Jones Jarding, ’74, Fort Collins, Colo., is research and development
coordinator for Turning Point Center for
Youth and Family Development, a non-profit
adolescent treatment center, and also teaches one class
a semester at Colorado State University in political science and ethnic studies.
She serves on the board of Fellowship House, a clubhouse for recovering addicts,
and loves to garden and to camp, hike, and ride in the
Rocky Mountains, which are ten minutes away.
