Remembering and archiving an old photo of Gaskill Hall

Posted By on November 9, 2017

So this looks like a nondescript photo of an older brick building (click for larger photo)… which it WAS, before being turned into Armstrong Student Center. Back in 1981-82, I was a replacement instructor at Miami University in the college town of Oxford, Ohio for a professor on sabbatical. MUGaskill2009CGradSchoolI moved into his office in Gaskill Hall and taught his undergraduate classes.

So back when we were visiting our son Taylor and walking around campus back in 2009, I shared my stories and took a photo when we walked by. Shortly after, the this photo the building was under a huge renovation (a link to the history). I’m glad to have at least one last picture. Good memories.

The one of the two labs I was in charge of had a full photography darkroom (the other was a printing lab – interestingly a business I would eventually start), so on a visit from my fiancé (Brenda) in the fall … we took photos and processed them, some of which I’ve posted before. The other highlight from that weekend was a date-night movie Brenda and I had with Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Besides barely making enough money to pay rent and survive, the free graduate school tuition was a great perk and allowed me to earn my Master’s degree while I was there. Unfortunately I was really too distracted to really enjoy the opportunity teaching and living in a college town afforded since my mind was elsewhere busy planning a wedding, finding a house and starting the first of many routine drives to and from southwestern Ohio to northeastern Ohio.

One last memory of Oxford is one that I share with my son, although our incidents were 30 years apart – mine in 1982 and less severe. I was hit with a tire-iron at night in the parking lot after surprising someone trying to break into a car behind Gaskill Hall (the parking lot below) … and my son was assaulted when he was at Miami in 2012.

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Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
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