I must have bought this oldest artificial Christmas tree when I was in college. It came in a box, with the flat stand in the bottom, then a brown trunk-like-paper-wrapped pole with slanted holes drilled it it. Each plastic branch was stacked flat, one on top of another. After the trunk screwed to the stand, the branches (starting with the top one was easiest) poked in at an angle.
It was sturdy and cute, about 2 1/2 feet tall, didn’t need watering, was easy to pack away–every year for decades. Except for the box. It finally gave up. But the little plastic tree still lives with us, after about 60 years.
We were seniors at SCI. I worked part-time as a student supervisor in the circulation department of the Donald O. Rod Library, where I’d worked since its opening the fall of 1963. (I’d started out in the original college library.) I’d been elected secretary of Lawther Hall’s dorm government. Our meetings were at 10:00 at night and I’d type up the minutes on my portable manual typewriter after that.
With the Vietnam War lurking in our background, Guy was about to join the Air Force delayed enlistment program to avoid the draft.