Holy cow. Another college shot with the Wombie. That big guy on the right is Mark N., son of Canonsburg, PA. That's how I learned about Iron City beer and he was the only one on the floor who had a copy of Stairway To Heaven. That made him and his room very popular that freshman year in McKibbin Hall. I still remember the way he would swing his keys around his finger and stop them and then do it all over again, making a kind of marching sound as he strolled through the dorm hall. All would be quiet except for those keys somehow reverberating throughout the dorm. "Time and tide wait for no one." His favorite line. He was coach-like even back then.
We all ended up Phi Delts and for a few years after graduation some of us met up here and there to talk old times and have some fun. Mark was a football coach and when he retired a few years ago had risen to school superintendent status in the Arizona area. Now he plays golf and sells houses.
Wish I could give you more details on the picture, but when you are young you tend not to think what you will need and/or miss decades in the future. If I had to guess I would surmise this picture was taken on a trip to KC area after graduation. This is definitely a motel room and we likely gathered to catch up - which kind of means you can't quite let go of college. We did this maybe another time or two then circumstances and life would prevent further gatherings. Mark would go to Utah for his first coaching job. Tom would head up to Marengo, Iowa to the family business. The rest of us would pursue whatever it was we felt pursuable. Life would simply get on with it and these last clinging attempts to stay in the college bubble would simply fall away.
With cigarette in hand and a glass in my hand, it was probably a party weekend. The Wombie looking dark and menacingly as was the fashion of the day. Usually at my side. Usually helping me to navigate what was obvious to most. Whatever would I have done without him.
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