1966: The Beginning of a Grand Adventure

As some of you know from A Surprise View of My Past, I was recently gifted with digital copies of slides my father had taken during my childhood. Since I left home when I was 17 years old, I had never seen most of those photos before.  The only childhood pictures I have are all  in black and white, whereas the slides my brother sent me were all in color. Since I have very few memories of my childhood, I viewed them with great interest.

When I read today’s The Daily Post Writing Challenge: Snapshot Stories the three pictures of me leaving home for college came to mind.

I had been unhappy at home for as long as I could remember. For three years, I marked off the days on a calendar; each day a day closer to the time I would leave to go to college.

During August of 1965, I  traveled throughout the western part of the United States with my church youth group studying Beliefs Men Live By.   In Seattle, we were to learn about the Greek Orthodox church. Prior to that trip, I had seen a catalog for Seattle Pacific College and wanted to check it out while I was there. A staff member accompanied me when that time came. The college was beautiful and its nursing program was highly regarded.  Yes, this was where I would get my higher education.

So a year later, August or September of 1966, I moved to Seattle.  I don’t remember the scenes in the pictures, but I do remember the red suitcases. I had them at least for another 15 years! I also remember my first day in Seattle. I arrived late at night so stayed in a downtown hotel. As I wandered the streets the next morning, I was amazed at how tall the buildings were. I had grown up in the army and when my father retired, we moved to Florida.  I had never been in a city that had buildings like these.

I realize now that buildings I considered to be gigantic actually weren’t.  At that time the tallest building in Seattle was the Smith Tower. There was a big political fight when a company wanted to build a structure higher than the Smith Tower.    (The Smith Tower was built in 1914 and at 489 feet was the tallest office building west of the Mississippi River until 1931.)

250px-SmithTower_Seattle_WA_USA2
Smith Tower

The other thing I remember about my first day in Seattle was purchasing a small, lightweight, typewriter. While electric typewriters apparently existed in 1966, I didn’t know about them; manual typewriters were the norm.  My new typewriter was also in a red case. I don’t recall ever having a preference for red, but I obviously did at that time!

I walked through the city streets, carrying my red typewriter case, marveling at the sights and sounds of the city. It didn’t matter to me in the slightest that I didn’t know anyone.  I had a new home and I was starting a grand adventure!

25 thoughts on “1966: The Beginning of a Grand Adventure”

    1. It was a fun one for me to write. I have no memory of actually going to the college that day although I know I did. I only remember the big buildings downtown, the typewriter and the excitement!

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  2. Hi! 🙂

    Thank you for visiting my blog.
    It was a pleasure to read your post. Do you have a post about your college life? Having recently graduated myself, I’d like to know how people feel about their own college experiences.

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    1. True! Plastics didn’t start getting mainstream use until the 50’s. After that it seems like almost everything turned disposable.

      I’m not surprised you remember the suitcases but I didn’t remember I had the typewriter for so long. But now that I think about it, I do remember it was in the storage closet long after I was using an Atari word processor!

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  4. Nice post. It is interesting to find out people’s experiences at that time. I remember my first typewriter was a manual. My dad got a brother electric one for me later. It was so loud. My roommates at school hated it.

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      2. The original Atari wasn’t a word processor, or was it? I remember my first word processor was an Atari but it seems like I had the game first. I’ve been wondering about that.

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