Meaningful Montgomery Memories

Meaningful Montgomery Memories
by
Irvin H. Schick

Having had the privilege of being associated with the College for most of the forty years of its growth and development, I participated in numerous special events and countless enjoyable occasions. Reflecting on those memorable experiences, I find I have a particular fondness for the very early days at Takoma Park, following the acquisition by MJC of the Bliss Electrical School as its own first campus.

Recollections of those times evoke pleasant and sentimental images such as: Dean Price conducting a full-time faculty meeting in a room about fifteen feet by twenty-five feet; Lee Ehrbright keeping the business functions on track (when he wasn’t playing on the tennis courts); Bernice Pierson and George Morrison coping with war surplus equipment in the laboratories; Bill Fox looking out the window of his office in the enviable location at the corner of the Academic Building and observing Freda Malone nurturing her beloved rose garden (when she wasn’t “mothering” the early editions of the yearbook); Harvey Cheston proudly driving his dark green Chevrolet coupe (for many years); and Julien Ripley nursing his cantankerous Model A Ford; Steve Wright closing and locking his classroom door after the bell had rung; Allen Jones wading through a myriad of student themes; Harriett Preble computing quality point averages by hand (oh, for today’s computers); Frank Rubini coaching his winning teams (football teams practicing on the limited site of the present Social Sciences Pavilion at Takoma Park); the Physical Education staff contending with the facilities at Silver Spring Intermediate School; students purchasing books in the space remodeled from the Bliss bakery (with occasional leaky pipes); students using lounge facilities created in the former Bliss storage and coalbin areas; Eric Labouvie installing listening stations for the first language laboratory; Virginia Pinney struggling with those old manual typewriters; Sadie Higgins developing the office for student personnel services in an old electrical laboratory; Golda Payne establishing the library in the original Bliss infirmary; and Margaret Aldrich politely laughing at my jokes, even when sometimes they weren’t all that funny.

Then there were: the proms, the family picnics, the outdoor commencement exercises under the trees (especially the year locusts competed with the speakers), the drama production in the dining hall (sometimes blowing fuses) and even in a tent on the tennis courts, the outdoor holiday activities around the lighted evergreen tree (affectionately named “Old Timothy”) even after some vandal had “topped” it, and the necessary pauses in activities in the cafeteria whenever the B&O freight trains came lumbering past.

During the years I served the College, I had the pleasure of knowing and working with many, many fine persons—students, faculty, staff. Some may recall two themes I expounded. First, not to compare things that are not comparable—“Don’t mix apples and oranges.” Second, that regardless of all the problems and difficulties experienced, fundamentally things have been and continue to be good—“The glass is half full.”

As I consider the chronicle of the College and the milieu in which it was established and flourished, I realize how grateful I am for having been a part of it, and how much I cherish the associations I shared and the richly rewarding experiences I had.

I am convinced that, as the result of the efforts of a great many dedicated people, high quality learning has taken place at Montgomery College and will continue. Accolades to MC for this noteworthy stature on the occasion of its fortieth anniversary.

Takoma Park and Rockville Campuses: Electrical/Electrical Technology Department; chairman, dean of administration 1969–1974; administrative vice president 1975–1978; Professor Emeritus; Vice President Emeritus.