Cornell Homecoming 1976, Tractor ride, Keith Stroup & Portraits

The Cornell College 1976 homecoming theme was to honor the 200 years since United States independence.  Altoona Hall joined the dorm decoration contests celebrating the event.  You will elsewhere see Pfeiffer Hall’s sign, "Pfanny Pfieffer wishes America a Happy Birthday!" that won the competition.  Altoona Hall chose to commemorate 200 years of American slums.

Chris Dewey dressed and spoke as an Irish policeman.  Jeff Torricelli dressed and spoke as a Chicago street punk.  As you see in the photos, someone put a car up on blocks in the front yard.  We put our stereo speakers to the windows and played different radio stations.  Someone overturned trash cans. 

Eventually the judging committee came.  I was dressed as a bum.  Just before the event I had quickly swallowed a double shot of whisky and splashed more on my coat to smell ripe.  When the college president came to take a closer look at the dorm, I stepped up, coughed in my hand, and then extended it asking if he had any spare change.  He declined.  The rest of dorm engaged in street theater.  These are the photographs.

A highlight of a visit to the grandparents is a ride on a tractor or a wagon.  These are photographs of granddad Pat Weston taking his daughter Nancy and some of his grandchildren for a ride in the wagon.  He would tow us at low speed around the feed lot, across the bridge over the creek and then up and down the hills to the back 40.  There, he’d turn around and head back.  It was more fun than a Disney ride.  With the lurching back and forth and fore and aft it may have been more dangerous.  There were no seat belts, only chains holding the sides of the wagon together.  Some of the grandkids loved running back and forth in the wagon like a carnival ride. 

Keith Stroup was the founder and leader of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws - NORML.  He was my childhood hero.  He and the Iowa director were at Cornell College to tell their story and show the film, Reefer Madness.  Before the show started I introduced myself to Mr. Stroup in the hallway.  I asked him if he’d be interested in talking more about legalization with some students after the show.  I invited him back to Altoona and said that there would be a lot of people there interested in the subject who were going on to law school.  He agreed.  Those photos and their stories are elsewhere.  As we walked to the dorm I told him that I remembered a letter he’d written to Playboy a few years earlier.  He had complained in the letter that Playboy wouldn’t sell him advertising.  Then a few months later they ran the advertisement, “Queen Victoria Smoked Pot.”  He laughed and wondered whether anyone was paying attention.

The rest of the contact sheet are portraits.  The Cornell College yearbook, The Royal Purple, published portraits of graduating seniors.  Some of those graduating seniors needed photographs taken.  I did some of the photography.  I don’t know if other photographers charged for the pictures.  I didn’t.  I also shot other photos for the yearbook and it seemed part of the gig.  I also enjoyed figuring out how to take good portraits.  Or better portraits at least.

The photographs referred to in this essay can be found in the Numbered Photographs section under the gallery 00031.