With the delivery done I walked the length of the campus to the student union.
I felt out of place. There were thirty- eight years of change.
Out in front
the water fountain
with jutting slabs of rock
were alien to me.
Just like the movie Back To The Future.
Sigh. Being an alumnus....
Now that I have seen
and it should look familiar
when I come back. Ha.
The Nebraska bookstore was still inside. There were no food courts when I was a student. You ate at a dorm cafeteria or off campus restaurants. That said, I enjoyed having a Valentino's lunch.
On the north end of the Nebraska Union were the granite steps I remember from years ago. A brass handrail led me down to the basement and the vacated office sprawl of the Daily Nebraskan newspaper.
Fluorescent lights blared. Desk stations were devoid of journalist students. It was the silence of summer break. I waited, listening. A wee distant voice drew me across the place I once knew.
Last man to stay behind, general manager Dan Shattil waved me into his office.
Black hair combed to the side, glasses, and knowing eyes, yes, he remembered Amy Lenzen, the editor I worked for in 1979. There used to be a photo and plaque that hung on the awards wall, he said, that honored her leadership. Today that plaque was absent, others in its place.
Back then I lived at Abel Hall on campus, I told Shattil. Beginning in September Lenzen printed my cartoons in her paper. Students called it the campus rag.
Original artwork from my scrapbook. Published Thursday, October 25, 1979 issue. Double click to enlarge.
The Daily Nebraskan ran the Bottle Bill issue in September of 1979.
SPLAT !! The State Fair was then held in Lincoln, Nebraska. September 6, 1979 issue
After I graduated from the University of Nebraska, I lived in Seward, Nebraska. The 11 pm to 7 am Pinkerton security guard shift paid my bachelor bills.
Self-employed art came out of my bachelor apartment, aptly called Studio Four. My cat cartoon hung by the front door. Book cover and bio page from self-published book, Seward Drawings: a beginning.
The work I did for the Daily Nebraskan helped open the door to do editorial cartoons for my hometown paper. The managers Dennis and Charlene Behrens agreed to pay me eight dollars for each cartoon which appeared in print. The paper came out once a week. My cartoons ran August 1980 to June 1983.
September 21, 1981 issue
June 15, 1981 issue
That one shows my whole family. My father, mother, me, and my brother.
Back to the present. I thanked Dan Shattil for being around. He told me the paper was coming out next semester on-line only, no more paper and ink.
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