Graduate Memories

A great post on MGoBlog about graffiti in a UofM Library copy of a book about OSU football reminded me about a unique feature of the graduate library on campus. When I was an undergrad, I would always go to the grad library as someplace quiet to study and get work done. On the south side of the upper floors of library the stacks were surrounded by these little study rooms that were not more than 5'x5'. They included a desk, a small shelf above the desk, one chair, a window just large enough to see the weather outside, and a heater vent underneath the window. The heater vent included slats that were just wide enough and were angled in such a way that you could write a few words on them. In every cubicle, people had written short, pithy snippets of many of the slats, most of which included the date it was written. So you would get things like:
8-9-74: Nixon Resigns
10-22-83: Beat Iowa 16-13
4-14-87: 72 degrees!!
It was a great piece of living history, and I would find myself drifting back to those dates and imagining what it must have been like for the people who were holed up inside on those dates just as I was.

Unfortunately before my senior year the library went through and repainted the interiors of all the cubicles, wiping out that small piece of history.