What Utah State University Looked Like In 1959...Thumbing Through History

I found my father's Utah State University yearbook while looking in some boxes we have not yet unpacked. There's actually three yearbooks. I chose the 1959 edition, the one where my dad graduated with his degree in Engineering.

So much history...

It also has a couple of incredible pictures of Logan, one view looking northeast, the other south from Old Main. How things have changed.

My father passed away when I was eight years old. I never got to ask him about his college days, about things they used to do, what they did for fun. Much of the yearbook has pictures of activities and the greek clubs. My dad wasn't involved in those things...he was married when he attended USU. Still, I would have loved to hear him talk about what life was like as an Aggie in 1959.

I checked the back of the book. They actually misspelled his name. Instead of Harry A. Taylor, he's immortalized in the yearbook under the name, "Marry A. Taylor." I wonder if he thought that was funny or it made him mad.

My father was born in 1924. In a few months he would have turned 98 years old. It made me think...as I thumbed through the pages, I wonder how many of those students are still with us. My father was thirty-five when he graduated. Still, the other students would be in their late 80s now, so many would still be alive. It's strange to look at page after page of faces full of promise wondering how their lives turned out.

I don't know when they stopped publishing university yearbooks. I know they didn't have them when I attended (briefly...) Utah State University in 1984, twenty-five years after my father attended. I wonder if they had yearbooks in 1984, would I be in more than just the one picture? I wonder if I'd be mad if they misspelled my name...

We'll never know.

 

I Live In Aggie Country...And I Don't Mind One Bit

 Back in the mid to late 1980s, the entire state of Utah was BYU Cougar Country. At least, that's how it seemed to me when I attended the University of Utah. Even in Salt Lake City, where you'd think the U would have flags and signs and banners at homes, I remember seeing a lot of blue.

That didn't really make me happy.

I kept thinking that there should be a place where U of U pride could be displayed, appreciated, honored. But, I kept seeing Y stuff, Y flags, Y banner, Y bumper stickers all round the Salt Lake Valley.

When the U began to dominate (yes, I wrote--and meant--dominate...) the Y in sports, that's when Salt Lake began to bleed red. Utah County was, and in my opinion, always should be a place for all things cougar, but I was glad to see Salt Lake County begin to show it's Ute colors. It took a long time--a very long time--but it happened.

Fast forward a decade or so and we moved, moved north, moved to a land where once again the color blue hung in storefronts, except the letter changed from the second to last in the alphabet to the first letter of the alphabet...

A...for Utah State Aggies.

A few days ago we had to run errands in Logan and the bold blue A was plastered everywhere. I loved seeing it. Even in the small town where we now live, you can see Aggie flags, bumper stickers, banners, and license plates. Personally, I love pretty much everything about USU. It was where I first went to college decades ago, where my brother, father, uncle, and many many friends attended and graduated.

Sure, it's not red, but seeing so much Aggie Blue is fine with me.

Not Somebody That I Used To Know...But Some Place That I Used To Live

 We've been doing a lot of driving lately. That happens when you're about to move seventy miles to the north. It's a whole new world up there, a world we don't know very well. For decades I've known about a mountain pass linking Tremonton to Cache Valley, but I've never taken it.

That' changed last week.

We needed to be at the new house for some installations. We had time between appointments so we decided to take a little drive. That upper pass sounded like a perfect trip. It was beautiful. I've been to Logan Utah and Cache Valley numerous times, but I never drove west of the main drag. It's an amazing world out there, one I didn't expect.

Because we were in Logan, I had to drive past my first college apartment, just below campus and Old Main--a tri-plex built probably around the 1950s or 1960s, maybe even earlier. I moved into that apartment (bottom left, under the stairs...) the fall of 1984, a few months after I graduated from high school. I had three roommates who I knew very well--my brother, my brother's best friend, and a mutual friend from St. George and Lagoon.

My first college experience was a lot of fun. I was not a stellar high school student and I carried that reputation over to higher education. The classes were tougher, but I enjoyed them. I loved the purpose of learning, of being educated. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but since I was only going to be there a couple of months, I didn't have to worry about that.

Back then, Utah State University was on the quarter system. My first college experience only lasted about ten weeks, then I left for my LDS mission to Denmark. I hope I never forget that almost broken-down place that didn't have a proper shower (so we made our own...), and where Corn Jelopy was made at least once a week.

I can't imagine how many students have lived in that particular apartment since December, 1984. It's almost a dizzying prospect to think of all the degrees, the broken dreams and hearts, of triumphs over completed courses, of new loves, of degrees earned and goals achieved.

The building still stands...a place I used to live.

Happy Birthday...College Football!

Apparently, it's a birthday, but not for a person, or a country, but a sport. One-hundred and fifty years ago today two college teams competed for the first time.

The result: Rutgers beat New Jersey (now, Princeton...) 6 - 4.

According to NCAA.com, the game was much different than what we see on Saturdays (and sometimes, Fridays, Thursdays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays...). Rutgers and New Jersey actually played ten games--if you scored, you got a point, then a new "game" began, hence the 6 - 4 score.

Flash forward a century and a half and we have a multi-billion dollar industry. We have dreams fulfilled and dreams dashed, fanatical fans ecstatic and fans heartbroken, legends made and players forgotten. I never attended a college football game until I was in college. It wasn't a tradition for my dad to take us--he had passed long before. I never had that connection that some have.

But, I did go to many games while I was a student (probably because they were free...). I went to several games as an Aggie. They were not a good team back in 1984. I went to several games as a University of Utah student in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Once again, the teams were no where close to the caliber of team Coach Whittingham has now.

Since it wasn't a tradition going to games as a kid, taking my own children to games is not something they've grown up with. I don't know if the Taylor fandom will end with me. It's possible--my kids are more into electronic sports than "on the field" sports.

I wonder what the next half century will bring, or the next century. Will the game transform as much as it did when it was first played November 6th, 1869?

Time will tell.

A Utah (State) Man Was Dad...

Utah State University, located in Logan, Utah, is the home of the Utah State Aggies. My father, the first in my family to graduate from college, attended this fine institution of higher learning in the 1950s.

Next came my brother, who followed in my dad's large footsteps (he was a tall man...) and attended Utah State University in the 1980s. He graduated as well, but not as quickly as my dad who earned his four-year bachelor's degree in three years. Not an easy thing to do.

But my dad was an amazing man.

He graduated in Tool Engineering. It's my understanding this is no longer a degree offered at any university. Tool Engineering evolved into Mechanical Engineering--a tough field, lots of math.

Today I found a couple of my father's university yearbooks. I guess they did that back then. They had pictures of him and others in his program. The pictures are how I remember him, tall, little hair. Of course, no kids remember their dads when their dads were in their twenties, unless they had use of a time machine and could go back and see your father in his younger years.

Most kids have the opportunity to see their father age, to see him grow old, see his hair turn gray, hear him tell about what life was like when he was your age, to worry about him when he forgets things, to wonder if it's time to talk to him about him driving not so much. Kids get to see the circle of life through their fathers. It helps the kids better understand and appreciate what it means to be a father to their own children.

The pictures in the yearbooks reminded me of how I remember my dad. He died when I was eight years old, which means he passed away sixteen or so years after these pictures were taken. Though my dad wasn't around to teach me and council me and spoil my kids, his grandkids. Instead, I've come to glean his wisdom, his work ethic, the way he was--and would have been--a dad through his example. And a better example I personally don't know.

Today, the Utah State University men's basketball team secured a birth in the NCAA basketball tournament, more likely the only local team to do so. It reminded me of my college days. After I graduated from Davis High School (and yes, I sang that I would have fought for it...), I attended USU. I followed in my father's footsteps, walked the much bigger campus where he walked, lived in housing that existed long before either of us were Aggies. My dad stayed for three years; I stayed three months and never returned. Harry Taylor, Aggie alum, great dad.

Thank You...Dr. Hendricks

Back when I first entered college--decades ago--I remember sitting in on an informal orientation with a bunch of other freshmen at the beginning of the new year. It was a Utah State and I was glad for the meeting. I really didn't know much about college. In fact, I had not yet chosen a major. I thought I HAD to choose a major when I started school. Such was the depth of my lack of knowledge.

A few of us sat around the student union building (I forgot the name of it...) and the person from school assigned to our group asked us each what degree we were pursuing. I said I wasn't sure, but I remember one guy who was quite sure what he wanted to do.

He wanted to be a chiropractor.

The USU rep said, "Oh, so you want to make a lot of money?" He said he did and we all laughed.

I think that's the first time I ever heard about chiropractic care. I never saw a chiropractor in my youth and I really didn't know what they did. Today I visited, for the second time in as many days, a chiropractor and he has helped my back feel so much better. If you're in Davis County, Dr. Hendricks has my recommendation.

And now that I think about it...I wonder if that fellow student ever became a chiropractor. I mean, if he just wanted to make a lot of money, it's much easier to start a church.