Illini Tower

When I started as a freshman at the University of Illini in September 1972, I lived at Illini Tower, a dorm at 409 W. Chalmers, Champaign, Illinois, basically on Chalmers Street between 4th and 5th Streets. The rooms at IT are more like apartments than dorm rooms. Most of the apartments at IT have two bedrooms, each shared by two room-mates, and a common living area shared by all four suite-mates, that is, the folks in both bedrooms. I lived in Room 802. My room-mate was Alan Hale, a great guy. He was two years older than I was, a junior as I started my freshman year.

But our suite-mates, the two guys in the other bedroom, were rude, loud, obnoxious, childish, self-centered, self-possessed, selfish, that is, real jerks. They seldom woke up before noon, and then stayed up late into the night allegedly studying while making a heck of a lot of noise. Accordingly, Alan and I took advantage of the chance to move to another apartment after the first semester.

We moved down the hall to Room 805, which we shared with Neil Harms and Duane Stephens, also two great guys. The four of us lived together for three semesters, Spring of 1973, which was the second semester of our sophomore year for Neil, Duane, and me, and then both Fall of 1973 and Spring of 1974, which was our sophomore year and Alan's senior year.

We had a heck of a lot of fun, most of which you are never going to hear about. But we remember, and when we get together, we still tell stories that still crack us up even though we've heard them before, even though we're over 30 years removed from those times.

In August of 2007, Ben Brown organized a reunion of folks from the 8th floor during that 1973-74 school year. I'll be posting some photos here soon.