PML - Edit 5
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Growing up, I just knew I was
gonna come to Guelph.
My dad came here,
my mom was the secretary to
the Department of English.
There's actually a picture of her
standing behind the circulation desk
and him studying at the
Horseshoe tables
...and they didn't
know each other.
First year I was living
in Lambton,
which at the time, was a very
much a first year resident,
we were all in the same boat,
not knowing many people.
I really wanted to take home
economics and be a teacher.
I think it was one of the best
programs that anybody could take.
It was really, really, a
practical education,
and being part of a large community,
I think was really great.
You really knew everybody and
you worked with everybody
in whatever you were doing.
It's a pretty big place for a little
country boy from Harley, Ontario,
to come to a city even the
size of Guelph at that time.
I had decided in grade 7 that I
wanted to be a veterinarian.
It was so exciting to get here, and to
find there was all these people,
there were 65 other people, who
wanted to be veterinarians.
I grew up in Guelph and I really
felt that I needed to move away
to go to school, probably like
a lot of students.
I really was drawn to Guelph
because it had
this great university centre
and I felt like
it was a really walkable campus,
so I stayed home.
Being the first class
of Wellington,
we really didn't have a
home, anywhere.
So our classes were in
many different buildings.
It was quite a map, you had to figure
out where all your classes were.
Grillman Hall was
the big spot.
As a male who eats a lot,
it was very difficult to make
your cards last the
full semester.
We had names for everything.
One of them was elephant scabs,
which is veal cutlets.
You know, we had mystery meat
back then too,
and we had spaghetti
food fights.
We had a big milk cooler,
where you could go over
and- all the milk you wanted,
it was not cartons,
you had a glass, and you just lifted
this lever up and milk came out.
and they took the milk bags out
and quickly put in some beer.
And when it was all done, there was
broken glass everywhere
'cause there was just a mad riot to
get some beer from the cooler.
I stayed in Mountain, and it was
interesting 'cause my year
was a year that for some reason,
Mountain South was all girls.
I didn't actually sign up to be
in an all girls residence,
so that was a surprise,
I think, for all of us.
So they put everybody in
residence rooms,
four to a room.
So there were no single beds here,
there were double bunks,
four people to a room, and it was,
I'd say, the centre of high energy.
At the time the residence was
basically, I think,
10 or 12 rooms male,
10 or 12 rooms female,
and we got into a battle
with the ladies one day,
and we decided to
take it out on them
by dismantling all the partitions
in their washroom that night
and putting them to the side,
so when they came in the morning
to go to the washroom,
there was just exposed toilets
and nothing else,
at which point they took over
our washroom
'til we put it back together again.
Painting the canon was
one of the big things
that everybody liked to do. And then
you just sign your year on it.
So about 5 or 6 of us got together
and planned this all out,
and it was planned with
the ultimate detail.
It could have been Ocean's 11,
the way the planning was.
We went out and we watched the
security police drive around twice,
so that we would know
how much time we had
to pull this off, and somebody
was the lookout,
somebody was a timer, and
somebody was a painter.
or several were painters.
The women were all locked up
after 7 'o' clock.
If they wanted to go to the library,
they had to sign out.
And through the semester,
they could only get, I think
it's 3 keys that would
let them come back in
after the doors were
locked at 11 'o'clock.
Miss Kid, I think you probably
heard about Miss Kid,
she was very strict.
No boys upstairs.
On our first date,
Barry came
and he had to you know,
to sign in with Miss Kid,
and she called up, and I
came down and all very proper.
So there were lots of times
when we were
boosting Mac girls in
through the windows
in the Mac Hall Annex at the back,
'cause they couldn't get in otherwise.
Looking back, it was interesting
how the school was developing.
because as I said, we were a
small school at the time,
they really had to try to blend us
with other parts of the school.
which was fun, because we got to
meet lots of other people.
Just about everybody back then
who came, was from rural Ontario
and this was the very first time
they were away from home.
And it was a lot of home sickness,
a lot of people who, you know,
I think benefited from all the
camaraderie that we had
and all the fun that we had.
Now looking back, the
exposure that I had,
and being able to draw on both
my academic experiences
and just life at Guelph,
really has made me happy
that I made that choice.
When you think back there,
I think you remember just
a great bunch of friends
that you were sharing a big
segment of your life with.
And it was really good to be meeting
people from across Canada,
and they were just good times.
University of Guelph has been
my stepping stone in life.
It helped me grow
as a person,
and University of Guelph has
played a big part in our lives.