DYER: This tape recording is one of a series of the history of Columbia Junior College.  All of the interviewees were members of the first student body at Eagle Cottage and other temporary classrooms during the 1968-69 academic year.  The interviews are being conducted by Richard L. Dyer, instructor of history at Columbia Junior College during the spring 1971. The first student is Melissa Gandolfo.  Melissa was eighteen years of age when she first started attending Columbia Junior College. 

Melissa, you graduated from Sonora High School and after leaving Sonora High School it must have been a unique experience to go to Columbia where you saw some of your younger friends, and suddenly discovered some older student too. What was it like as you remember it?

GANDOLFO: Well, it was strange.  In high school we were used to being in class with all of your friends and mostly in the same age group—we’d grown up together. Then all of the sudden your classmates went off to other places and I was fortunate enough to come out to Columbia where I met a lot of new people all different ages.  And it was strange at first meeting the older people and seeing them in the classes.  It was a little bit hard because it was an unusual situation.  It wasn’t expected. 

DYER: Do you think it was hard for the older people too?

GANDOLFO: Yeah, I remember…well, especially first meeting the Clintons in my speech class.  And I remember talking to them and I they were a little nervous; they said it was difficult for them to come down to our level because they were out of school so long, and they were just starting again. It seemed difficult for me to approach and talk to them because to me they knew so much of a full life.  They knew so much, you know? At first it was a little strange, but I actually got to know and talk to them and they were really the sweetest people and they really helped you.  They went out of their way to talk to you and help you and what not.  It was really nice.  I got to see them when I worked at the lab. There was a lot of people that came down there.  You could see at first it was difficult for them to get back in a groove—doing school work and home work and listening to the tapes and everything.

DYER: You mean the older people?

GANDOLFO: Yeah the o…well, some of the students too, but mainly the older people.  And it was really nice.  It gave you such a satisfaction to help them and to have them help you and to just talk.  It was really nice. 

DYER: You mentioned that you had an interesting requirement in one of the English classes when you had a book report due.  Would you like to describe that?

GANDOLFO: Well, that was in Mr. Hankstrum’s reading class and he required, I believe, it was three book reports to be turned in by the end of the quarter. And it wasn’t like a formal book report where you write it, we used to go over to a coffee shop and just discuss it.  You know, we’d have it done and then we’d go to have a cup of coffee and talk about it. If two or three people read the same book we’d get together, or it would be just on a one to one basis.  It was really different.  It was really a unique experience.

DYER: And another thing, you mentioned how informal it was, especially the time that the snake got loose. 

GANDOLFO: Yeah, we were working in the lab and it was just a make shift aquarium and we could put some of the animals and snakes that the kids would bring in, and that we could study.  And one day we noticed that it was gone, and a few days later we heard a scream, and at that time the library and the lab were separated by a plywood partition downstairs.  And we ran over there and the snake was crawling out of the wall, right behind where the secretary was.  It was kind of frightening at first, you know?  But we found the snake and got it back to its happy home.

DYER: It must have been rather informal in most of the classrooms.

GANDOLFO: Yeah, that’s the thing you had to get used to. From the high school it was the teacher was the teacher and the students were the students, and you were there to learn.  But when we came out to Columbia, it was just like one big discussion group. The teacher might present the material that we talked about, and it wasn’t really… you didn’t have to raise your hand and say, “I want to say my bit.” You know just like you and I are talking right now.  It was really nice. 

DYER: Well Melissa, thank you very much.  We certainly do appreciate the time and the opportunity to informally talk with you about your experiences at Columbia.  Thank you for being us. 

END OF INTERVIEW

INTERVIEW #2

Interviewer:  Richard Dyer

Interviewee: Phil Barbera (Student)

DYER: Now we want to listen to Phil Barbaya.  Phil came to Columbia to attend a new Junior College when he was forty-one years of age. Phil can you tell us why you left the Bay Area to attend a new country school in Columbia.

BARBERA: Yes.  Well, first of all, I—I should say my family—we all decided that I should go back to school and achieve a degree f an AA.  And I found out Columbia was just starting, I thought it would be a real experience to be associated with the growth of a new school. And be able to go back to school has been an experience alone—to try to concentrate n\my efforts on studying again.  However, when I came to Sonora, I though the school would be in Sonora in some building, and to my surprise I found it being held in the old town of Columbia, which had Eagle Cottage and Odd Fellows Hall—really nostalgic atmosphere…really turned the clock back for me in many ways. 

DYER: Were you initially disappointed, Phil, when you first saw the campus at Eagle Cottage and Odd Fellows Hall?

BARBERA: No. Contrary.  I was really pleased to find that this was really the beginning of Columbia Junior College at an old town.  I though it was a really unique experience for the teachers and the students as far as the goes really.  I don’t think anybody else can say that, “I started a college in a old town that’s been preserved for years.”

DYER: It must have been interesting to attend classes in the Odd Fellows Hall.  Are there any memories that you have that you’d like to share with us?

BARBERA: Yeah, there was one with the sociology class, especially, was very small at the time because the school was new.  About seven students were in the class, and a couple of dogs roamed in and out and sat down brushed up against Professor Davids’ leg, and he kept giving us lecture for that day.  And it was very informal, and the old pictures were still in the building.  The floor was creaking, and—I guess it really gave me a real esthetic feeling of the longing—it felt like I have been there before.  Maybe it’s because of my age or what. I don’t know, but it sure felt like I was comfortable and the idea of going back to school didn’t even…it didn’t bother me because it was such a comfortable feeling and atmosphere.  And the teachers were so casual. 

DYER: What about the younger students. Did you find it difficult to get to know them?

BARBERA: No, not really.  Once…of course anytime that you move to an area and you’re new, this so-called “generation gap” that you hear in the Bay Area, certainly didn’t hold true here because I had caught the informal sessions with the students in the coffee shops after class and coffee break, and they treated me just like one of the students—like I was nineteen ears old.  And I thought that this really is turning the clock back for me because some of the kids I met were like some of the friends I used to have at the high school.

DYER: What did your family think about having father as a full-time student at Columbia Junior College, Phil?

BARBERA: Well, as usual, maybe you could say that the generation gap might have started, but it didn’t because my two daughters, Debbie and Vicky, actually pointed out moving to this area some day.  And Melanie found of I was going back to school (and they also attended the elementary school and the high school), it seemed that we were all students and we could relate to each other a lot better, and I could help them with their problems, and, believe me, they helped me with my English problems—which, according to college English, it’s all mechanics.  And they helped out there.  And later on I found out that the following quarter, I found that what was my friend that I met at school, had known my oldest daughter in high school and all of the sudden he doesn’t call me by my first name, Phil, he called me Mr. Barbaya, because he found out the Debbie was my daughter. It was a real different feeling at that time, but it didn’t seem to interfere with our friendship in any way.  Actually, I guess you might say you have to play two roles there—a father to the daughter and a boy if comes to visit you, and a student at school over coffee. 

DYER: Well, it sounds as if you had many memorable experiences while a student at Columbia Junior College, and certainly we thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss it with you, Phil.  Thank you. 

Interviewer:  Richard Dyer (D)

Interviewee: Brian Burger—Student

DYER: Brian Burger, our next student, was eighteen years of age when he first started attending classes at Columbia Junior College. 

Brian, do you remember what it was like to spend time in the old Coffee Saloon, drinking up the man’s profits?

BURGER: Well, the place to go was—the only place we could go, really—was the Coffee Saloon or the Columbia House.  The Columbia House was too expensive, so nickel coffee at the Coffee Saloon sort of agreed with everybody.  There was just three rooms in Eagle Cottage and one lab and a library that seated eight people, so if you didn’t have class and you didn’t want to study, that was the only place that you could go.  The man only charged a nickel to get people in there, but he wanted tourists in there, not especially students.  Towards the end of the year he remolded his business and raised his prices to fifteen cents, and tried to get rid of the students. 

DYER: Yeah, fifteen cents, I’m sure that that got rid of a lot of students.  Did you have any classes in the Coffee Saloon?

BURGER: No, it was just a restaurant.

DYER: What about some of the other buildings, for example the Odd Fellow Hall, what was it like when it rained during class sessions. 

BURGER: It was just like any other building, except one time the drains clogged up and the upper story collected about six inches of water, and I remember I was giving my speech final on collision of, I don’t know, Andradoria and Stockholm—two ocean liners—and one of then sank; and as I was lecturing, the water kept dripping form the ceiling.  It was kind of a goof effect; I guess you could say, for a speech.

DYER: Was that Walt Leinike’s speech class?

BURGER: Yeah that was Walt Leinike’s speech class.  He was the only speech teacher we had then.  It is hard to imagine in only two years there is all this increase in faculty, but I think there was only nine members at the time—thee people each in three small offices about the size of this one. And they would have shelves with books that went straight up into the ceiling to allow the offices to function. 

DYER: So that would be an office about ten feet by ten feet or so? 

BURGER: They were about eight feet by twelve feet, or something.

DYER: They weren’t as square as these are?

BURGER: Not quite as square.  Crammed three people in there, and each teacher had about five hundred books, and so many slide trays, and his type writer and his desk, and his records and it was kind of chaotic. 

DYER: How large were most of your classes, Brian?

BURGER: Oh, about thirty people.  The class size is about the same...just loomier classes. All you had were the basics.  You had English and speech and biology and you didn’t have this wide variety like extra history courses and extra English and psychology was just the basics to get your AA and get you going to somewhere else. 

DYER: Do you feel that these basics satisfactorily prepared you for not only your AA degree, but to go on to Berkeley or other institutions? 

BURGER: Oh, yes.  I mean these are the basics, I think they realized it was only going to be for one year and you could just get the courses…you’d end up taking the same courses here as… no bad reflection on the college.  It’s just that you couldn’t offer a wide variety.  You only had three classrooms in Eagle Cottage and one at the Odd Fellows Hall—this was all that you could have for the daytime classes. 

DYER: After leaving high school, did you feel that you spend a great deal more time preparing for your subjects at Columbia Junior College?

BURGER: Oh, it was bout the same.  I would like…—every time I have to tell somebody this it sounds like I’m bragging, but I’m not—in high school I was a C+ student.  I really didn’t care, and that’s the attitude I came with to Columbia with my first quarter, but after that first quarter, I really changed and now I’m graduating with an A- average.  I really care about what I’m doing.  I got into a field—forestry—that I never would have got if I’d lived anywhere else.  It’s just kind of, you know, Columbia can turn you in from a C+ to an A- student.  I don’t spend any more time here.  It just comes naturally.  It is a good place to study—it’s a good environment around here that is just conducive to doing things.

DYER: So what you’re really saying is that it wasn’t necessarily easier, but it’s just that you were motivated to do better work than you had done earlier.

BURGER: It must be all motivation. I don’t know… it comes some from the faculty where you get this one-one relationship.  Not all students have it.  I do.  I enjoy it. Are you talking about the work? I’ve learned more.  I look back on the courses—some of them, you know, you go through school: second grade, fifth grade, eights grade, twelfth—you take the same courses over and over again; but finally when I took the courses here, I’d learned everything.  Like in high school, all of the math course, I’d do ‘em just to get through them.  Here I know what’s happening, you know?  I’ve learned then and I’ve retained them.  The amount of knowledge that I’ve learned in two-and-a-half years here is, I would say, you can’t really remember how much you learn when you were just learning how to talk and how to write, but almost everything that you think of, now adays, when you watch the news or something, you reflect it right back on the classes you had here—natural resources, and forestry, ecology, history. 

DYER: So I take it you’re very strong promoter of this small university, small college, or small high school or any school actually. 

BURGER: Yes, I don’t know.  I’m going to Berkeley, but I’m not looking forward to it.  I look forward to the day, if I do graduate, where I can just come back here and take a few courses.  Just light courses, you know—just night courses aquatic law or maybe a speech class. Get out and meet people.  The people I met in the night classes, that’s something else. The speech class I had with Jack Ross, it was half day time students and half people that work for PG&E or work down at Don Pedro, people that come to…their wives and home all day and just want to come out and meet people. These people are really nice people, and you can strike up relationships and friendships with anybody.  You see then down town.  It’s not just coming to school and being with your peers.  I know everybody.

DYER: Did you feel that people back in the Eagle Cottage day—the people in Columbia or Sonora—look with favor on students in the community?

BURGER: Oh, that’s really hard to say.  There is some people…the first year there weren’t that may long-haired people, and nobody was that paranoid over it.  Everybody kind of liked the college.  They like to have something up here; it was a new thing.  There wasn’t really any bad relationships; no incidence that set people apart.  There were old people at the college.  The Clintons were some of the people I had the most fun with.  Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, they were just unique people and it was really fun to have classes with them, and find common interests.  They could just excel at English classes really good, and she couldn’t understand science at all. Me, I was just the opposite.  We’d help each other and have a good time.

DYER: Well Brian, thank you very much. Certainly we thank you for the time you’ve spent, and the memories that you have brought out for us to record on tape. 

Interviewer:  Richard Dyer (D)

Interviewee: Guy Perea—Student

DYER: Our next student is Guy (____). Guy moved to Sonora from the Los Angeles basin. And guy was nineteen year of age when he first attended Columbia Junior College. 

Guy, what do you remember, when you first attended Columbia, about the college after having attended Pierce Junior College in southern California.  Well, Pierson, Los Angeles was a quite large school and was well established—in 1948, was when they held the first classes down there.  They has eight-thousand students, and we in LA have been hearing about Columbia up here in the mountains.  I kind of picture Columbia as one of those well established schools with at least fie thousand students.  But coming up here, I was quite shocked, especially the first day of classes after registering at Sonora high school, which was pretty unusual.  And on the first day of classes, find out that the classes are being held in Eagle Cottage. About the same size as where the janitors store all of their equipment at Pierce.  So that was quite a shock. And to find out that the school only had 250 students was another shock, and that we’re short of girls.  At that age, I was on, more or less, the prowl of looking for girls to go out with, and being new out here, I wanted to get in with the in-crowds, you might say.

DYER: Did you know any of the guys or gals when you first came to Columbia?

PEREA: I didn’t really know anybody when I first came to Columbia.  It was just…we came up here, and we were only up here for about three months, and I registered for school and I didn’t recognize anybody when I was registering.  It was just like a fresh start for me. 

DYER: Was it difficult to get to know people? 

PEREA: That I found very different from Los Angeles.  Even all of the people I knew down there, you couldn’t really do much with them because they were off in their own little world, with their own little groups.  But here, in Columbia, I found that making friends was more or less a snap.  And you’d walk up to a person and say “hi” and they’d introduce themselves, and you’d ed up introducing yourself and you’d end up telling your life history.  And I think I knew at least half of the school by the time that I left the school, when I went into the service.  And this was very unusual, I think, was the size of it.

DYER: Do you feel that as a result of this informality, that it has been easy for you to develop to develop life-long friends?

PEREA: It has.  But some of those friends…it’s hard to say.  One friend, Mike, we were good friends and we still are.  But, like, I knew a few other people, for instance, Mike Dickson, and it seems that as you stay in school longer, and as the school grows, that they tend to go into their own little groups and kind of stay away, and you divide and go your way.  But as the school was small, I didn’t notice this as much. 

DYER: Guy, I’m sure that most of your time was devoted to the academic activities, but surly you had some extra time for some social activities.  Were you involved in developing any of these activities? 

PEREA: Myself and Mike (___) Michael was kind of a big wheel on campus, you might say, and we two got together and said ‘why don’t we have a dance or something?’  There was going to be some prestige if we were going to have the firs Columbia Junior College dance.  From there we took it upon ourselves to develop something; and administration/faculty were all for it and they helped us all the way.  This I found also very unusual, being from a structured school as Peirce.

DYER: Where did you have the dance?

PEREA: Odd Fellow Hall, I guess.  I forgot the name, it’s in Columbia and the state park and the town of Columbia was actually welcome there for us to have the dance. 

DYER: Did you have a live band too?

PEREA: Yes, we had a band from the local area, and they were actually pretty good.  You might… the student body at the school…there wasn’t any trouble that we had at the dance, and this seemed like there was just something, like a dream, you might say, for a college. 

DYER: The girls certainly must have had an ample opportunity to dance since there were only a few of them there.

PEREA: I think it’s about the same as there is here now, about two to one or three to one.  And they are hard to find, and when we did find one, well, I won’t go into their looks or anything (laughing).

DYER: What about some of the other social activities?  Can you briefly describe some of the other social events that we can put on tape?

PEREA: The cap on social activities, we didn’t have too many being as we were a new school, but there were a lot of weekend things, and we had our own little parties and stuff.  At that time drugs didn’t really get established up here.  I think, I feel that it’s…the college didn’t help bring it up here. I think it was just a nation-wide trend.  Well, at that time, mainly what we did was drink and get kind of happy, and we’d have our own little fun fights, I guess, and then we’d forget about it the next day.  The parties then were a lot of fun. 

DYER: Guy, after attending your first quarter over at Columbia then what did you do?  Did you return for the second quarter?

PEREA: I was called up for Reserves and the Navy after the Enterprise fire.  There was about six of us in the division called up to replace some of the dead people that dies in that fire, and so I had to go in the service and I couldn’t start another quarter, so I just completed one.  And then when I got out of the service, I came back to Columbia and found drastic changes.

DYER: On the new campus?

PEREA: On the new campus, and more people, and I just started seeing another Peirce College starting to come on. 

DYER: Guy, thank you very much for this opportunity to talk with you about the early days in Columbia.  Thank you.

Interviewer:  Richard Dyer (D)

Interviewee: Vince and Consuela Clinton—Students

DYER: …Vince Clinton, the retired Sonorans, and while in their early sixties, decided to go back to Junior College and were members of the first class in the fall of 1968.  Vance, was it difficult to make the decision to go back to Columbia after having been out of school for many many years and retired from business?

VINCE CLINTON: Very difficult…on both of our parts to come back in contact with the youngsters the way we did and to have to learn studying habits which we’d completely forgotten after period of time. 

DYER: What about for you Consuela, do you remember you first impressions when you went back?

CONSUELA CLINTON: I’ll never forget it.  We were walking through the economics class and the students looked at us as if to say, ‘what’s grandma and grandpa doing in here?’ I was quite shocked because we had raised two boys, we had been around young people for years and we always got one of them and for a moment I was afraid to go ahead with it. 

DYER: Of course after awhile you develop a kind of rapport, I think that all people like to see them on campus. How did this finally come about?

VINCE CLINTON: I think mostly by letting the students come to us other than us trying to (____) students.  They would come and talk over personal problems, they would ask for advice, and anything that we could be of any help to them, and we did the same thing with them. 

DYER: Were some of the problems a little too personal?

VINCE CLINTON: (Laughing)… a little on the personal side, and then there were academic studies. 

DYER: Consuela, were you willing to share your husband as a counselor for many of the students?

CONSUELA CLINTON: The girls all came to him and the boys came to me.  And so I didn’t mind it in the least.  But I think one of the reasons we go along with them so well is that they were kind to us, they accepted us.  When they found out that we weren’t going to push ourselves ahead with any extra knowledge that we might have gathered over the years— that we would sit back and wait, I think they began to accept us as individuals, not as older people; and some of the youngsters told us that they never felt that there was any generation gap, and I appreciated that very much. 

DYER: Let’s stop on this side of the tape.  I’ll turn it over, and we’ll continue on the other side. 

13 SECONDS OF INTERVIEW THAT WAS RECORDED OVER

END OF TAPE

General Information:

Interviewer: Dyer, Richard L.

Interviewee of interview #1: Gandolfo, Melissa (Student)

Interviewee of interview #2: Barbera, Phil (Student)

Interviewee of interview #3: Burger, Brian (Student)

Interviewee of interview #4: Perea, Guy (Student)

Interviewees of interview #5: Consuela and Vance Clinton (Students)

Name of Tape: Student interviews in the History of Columbia Junior College (CC_hist_10_0)

When: Spring of 1971

Transcriber: Ariella (September 2008)

Transcriber’s Note: n/a