Not much inspiration today. The letter is from someone I don't remember and never really knew. Apparently she was someone who came to spend a weekend at Carthage, and was hostessed by Ann (my roommate) and I. It's a thank you note.

It's February 1, 1962, so perhaps we don't know yet that the college is moving to Kenosha, Wisconsin within a few short years. I was there for two years, and sometimes I think I appreciated it as much as I should have at the time. It was a lovely, traditional little campus. The buildings were midwestern gothic, built around a green commons. Girls dorms were on one side of the U. Boys were on the other. The boys side also housed the gymnasium and science wings - they were considered boyish, I suppose. I'm certain that when they were built, there was no thought that perhaps girls would use them often. The top of the U held the administrative buildings, and, I think, the chapel. Were the liberal arts classrooms there too? I think so. And the library. It was lovely, tree-embowered, ivy-covered. I remember Ann and I getting very excited our second year, when we got a fourth-floor dormer room looking out over the commons. We felt as if we lived in a castle. I remember scooping paper cups of snow from the windowsill, and putting fizzies in them.

Carthage College in Kenosha is a modern, steel and glass campus with all the other accoutrements of modernity. Probably has co-ed dorms, no dorm mothers, no curfew hours. We hated having hours, dorm mothers, boy-girl separation. When boys came to see us, we met them in the sitting room downstairs. No males were allowed above the first floor. Except fathers. Or brothers. On visiting days. I may be getting senile, but I think they had something there. There was intrigue. There was mystery. There was sneaking out and sneaking in. There was adventure.

I forgot to send in my National Honor scholarship renewal papers, so could not return for a third year. By then I was living in Chicago, dumping Larry and embarking on citylife.