The Whole Coffeehouse Part 3

In the previous 2 parts of this 3 part story, I had been working at The Whole Coffeehouse, fallen in love and at this point had picked up an old man that I had found wandering around on the freeway during a deadly cold winter night.

The waitress came up to us and Helen ordered three cups of coffee and three sweet rolls. The waitress was obviously curious about what was going on, but didn't say anything. When she returned, she asked, "Say, what are you two kids doing with this guy. He doesn't look very good." I explained how we had picked him up on the exit ramp, how he didn't know his last name, and how he didn't know where he lived.

"Well, it was nice of you two to pick him up. What are you going to do?", she asked.

"I was thinking about calling the police", I said. "I've found that usually works out pretty good. Do you have their number? Maybe you could call them while Helen, Carl and I warm up with this coffee."

It turned out that Carl was a professional coffee drinker and had drained his cup by that time. The waitress smiled and said she'd be happy to make the call, and she'd bring another cup of coffee for Carl. I smiled at Helen. She smiled back. Her smile always filled me up. "So, this is pretty nice isn't it Carl", I said looking back at Carl. He smiled at me too. I smiled back. He had stopped shaking and was warming up nicely.

I was surprised at how fast the cops arrived with their lights flashing. It couldn't have been five minutes. Two officers walked into the dinner rapidly, looked around and came directly to our booth. "Are you the two kids that found an old man?" they asked.

"Yup. I'm John, this is Helen and this is Carl. We don't know his last name and he can't remember where he lives", I explained. "We found him walking toward I94 on the ramp from Vandalia. He was in pretty bad shape", I told the officer.

"Wow. Carl is a lucky man. It's a good thing you kids stopped. If he had gotten to the freeway, no telling what would have happened", said one of the officers. "His name is Carl Hokinson. He's been missing since he walked out of his daughter's house late this afternoon. He has dementia. There has been a bulletin out on him for almost six hours. The whole town has been looking all over 'hell and high water' for old Carl here", he explained.

"Carl. How are you doing?" the office asked as he squatted down next to our booth.

"Well, I'm doing pretty good. I'd like to go home now. Can you bring me home?" he asked.

"You betcha Carl. Why don't you finish up that cup of coffee and we'll take you right home", the officer said as he stood up.

Both the cops looked over to me, and the one doing the talking said, "You two did a really good thing here tonight. You might have saved his life; who knows. Thank you. Carl's family will be relieved to hear that he's been found." He then helped Carl up and they walked slowly outside to the patrol car. Once out the door, a spontaneous round of applause went up from the patrons and staff of the dinner. I was embarrassed, and didn't know what to say, but both Helen and I thanked them. When I asked the waitress how much we owed for the coffee and sweet rolls, she said they were on the house. Pretty cool. Helen and I left the dinner and I drove her home.

Neither Helen nor I never saw or heard of Carl again. But our argument was over and forgotten. We never argued that adamantly again. I think we both grew up a little that dark, stormy, winter night. Life is too short and there are other things that are more important. After that night we were more considerate of each other, and others...

*  *  *  *  *

Although I didn't make any money working at The Whole, there were many other benefits. One of them was that being Manager of The Whole, automatically made me a Governor on the Union Board of Governors, UBOG. This was a body of nine students that ran many of the student activities that were organized on campus.

In the Spring of 1971, a massive student strike of the University was organized in protest over the war in Vietnam. Over half of the students and professors shut down most of the campus, at least CLA. This was a very big deal. There were many speeches given from the steps of many of the campus buildings, including Coffman Union, every day. Thousands of students milled around campus, many carrying protest signs and there were armed police throughout. A throng of kids blocked every entrance to all the classroom buildings on the East Bank of the campus keeping all but the most dedicated students and professors from getting inside. At times there were heated arguments between the protesters and those that wanted to attend their classes. Many of these arguments drew quite a crowd. Tempers were heated. Tens of thousands of young men had been killed in Vietnam and the protesters were 100% dedicated to doing whatever they could to get the message to the 'silent majority', that the war was a mistake and we needed to get out - and get out now.

I was adamantly opposed to the war and participated in multiple marches to the government center downtown from campus over the previous couple of years. That said, I had paid my tuition from my own meager and dwindling savings and was not a supporter of the University Strike. Fortunately, all my classes were in the School of Business on the West Bank, and there were not any protesters over there, at least not enough to shut anything down. The Business School was pretty conservative and there really wasn't much of a fuss in or around any of the classroom buildings.  I was able to continue my studies uninterrupted.

A couple of days into the Strike, the Chairman of UBOG, Allan Margolis, called an emergency meeting; he wanted to strike the student union - shut it down. This made absolutely no sense to me because this is where many of the strike organizers conducted their meetings and organized events for the tens of thousands of students that were participating in the strike. This also where many, many students came to eat lunch, get out of the weather, go to the bathroom and rest. To me, Coffman Union was the one building that needed to stay open to the students.

I was pretty good buddies with most of the other Governors, some of whom organized the big concerts at Northrop Hall, brought in famous guest speakers on various subjects, etc. and I knew some, if not all of them, would be in favor of shutting down the Union.

Allan opened up the meeting with a passionate speech about the horrors of the Vietnam War and how we all owed it to the thousands of dead soldiers and those about to be killed to do everything we could to end the slaughter. Very passionate. Most of the other Governors of the Board agreed and said pretty much the same thing in their own words. This wasn't really going how I wanted it to go. Allan called for a motion to vote but I suggested we need to continue the discussion first.

After having had listened patiently to the others, I stated my case.  I told them that I agreed with most of what Allan and the others were saying about the war. However, I was not in favor of the Strike and I certainly wasn't in favor of shutting down the Union.

I outlined all the points I wanted to make, and made logical arguments regarding the relevant points concerning shutting down the Union. I made as good an argument as I could, supporting the continued operations of the Union's activities and spaces. Once I got rolling, it went pretty well, and I could see I was gaining ground from some the others.

After two hours of, at times, pretty heated debate, Allan once again called for a motion. One of the Governors made the motion to shut down most of the Union, but to keep the restaurants open, a compromise position that at which we had arrived. I voted against the motion, but only after being assured it would be passed because the 'Yea' votes were taken first. I felt that this was all I was going to get, but I continued in my belief that the entire Student Union should remain open. However I knew, and I'm pretty sure the rest of them knew, that if any part of the Union was still open, the students would use almost all of its resources - and that is pretty much what happened. However, the concerts at The Whole were banned until the Strike ended.

It was a good compromise.  

Another benefit of being Manager of The Whole Coffeehouse was that once per year, the Manager and our Staff Advisor, Tom Stark, would travel to New York City to see new talent that we may want to book. This trip was made possible because we were a member of the New York Coffeehouse Circuit, which was comprised of numerous university supported coffeehouses. The business model was for some of the coffeehouses  to book the same artist(s), who would then travel for a month or two performing at a dozen or more venues. It was steady work for the performers and supplied very good artists to all of the coffeehouses that would not normally be able to book this high caliper of talent. A good deal for all. There were also seminars during the day which offered ideas on how to make each of our coffeehouses more successful.

These annual trips consisted of an all expense paid trip to and from New York City, including air fare, hotel and meals, plus we had free access to dozens of clubs in Greenwich Village. As Manager for two years, I was able to make this trip twice. A couple of years before, a buddy of mine named Don Hanson had hitchhiked with me to Boston, and then to NYC. By the time we arrived in New York we had less than a hundred dollars between us. The main thing we learned on that part of our trip was not to go to New York City with less than a hundred dollars in your pocket. We were only able to stay one night and that part of our trip was uncomfortable - to say the least. I was happy when we finally picked up a ride out of the city and hitchhiked back home to Fridley, MN.

Visiting NYC on an expense account completely changed my opinion of New York. When you don't need to worry about running out of money, the city was bright, exciting and enlightening. Tom Stark and I were pretty good buddies, albeit he was probably 15 years older than me, and we were busy from 7 AM to past midnight for the three days of our visits. On one evening before we began our tour of the clubs in the Village, we went to the original Broadway Musical, HAIR. At the time the soundtrack from HAIR included a couple of Top 10 songs and Tom and I enjoyed ourselves immensely. I was exposed to an entirely different way of life from what I was living in Minnesota. These two trips were good for me.

Back in Minnesota, running The Whole took the better part of 30 hours a week for 4 years, working as a volunteer. There was a steady stream of new volunteers to recruit and train, with new artists to meet and entertain before and after their shows. The entire time I was honing my management style and experimenting with different techniques of marketing and advertising.

I liked 'running the show' and it was a great training ground for a burgeoning businessman. Even before I began my studies at the U, I knew I wanted to operate my own business, and as a Freshman had registered as a Pre-Business Student; I just didn't know what kind of business I wanted to eventually own. This time at The Whole was a very important part of my life. Although I didn't realize it at the time, I gained more than I gave during these years of volunteering at The Whole Coffeehouse and the lessons learned have served me well while operating our family business, Mickman Brothers, Inc.

During my graduating quarter at the University, Winter Quarter of 1973, Tom Stark resigned his position to take a job out of state somewhere.  To this day I am convinced I was the best candidate for this professionally, paid position. I submitted my resume and was interviewed for the job. All the interviews went extremely well, after all I had been a driving force for much of the success of The Whole, and knew every aspect of the operation. I was extremely hopeful and excited about the possibility of working as a professional in this part of the entertainment industry and felt that at some time I might open my own music club.

At the end of the process however, they chose a different person for the job. The person they hired was a 40 year old, Afro-American woman. She had no experience in any aspect of the coffeehouse business, wasn't at all familiar with the type of music I had learned our audiences wanted to see and had never managed or advised a group of volunteers. I was shocked, to say the least.

Although no one would say it out laud, one of the decision makers, Dan, confided in me afterward that the University had a quota of minority employees that needed to be filled and they were told they had to hire a minority person for that particular position. I was blown away and became completely disillusioned with 'the establishment’. One of the popular tenants of the time was, 'Don't trust anyone over 30'. I guessed they were right.

To hell with them. The day after my last final examination, well before the graduation ceremony, I began my return trip to Kodiak, Alaska where I had gotten a job as a commercial fisherman the previous Spring and Summer. I stayed four years working as a commercial shrimp and King Crab fisherman in the North Pacific and Bering Seas. These were the most exciting years of my life.

I didn't visit The Whole again for 20 years. That chapter of my life was over...

The End

The Whole Coffeehouse Part 2

In Part l, I had begun working as a volunteer at The Whole and was really enjoying meeting many new friends. This volunteer ‘job’ was one that lasted all 4 years of my time at the University of MN.

During the Winter of 1970, my brother Mark was killed. I immediately moved out of the rooming house I had been renting and returned back home to Fridley. This was a very tough time on me and our whole family. By this time I had sold my ’57 Chevy and had purchased a ’62 MGB and commuted back and forth to campus with it. It had no heater to speak of, and each commute, to and fro, was cold and lonely. This was a very bad time, probably the lowest point in my life. My mom and dad were devastated. My brothers and sister were lost. None of us really took charge of our family. To me, we all seemed to be alone in our sorrow. I wept often. Mark and I had gone through so much together. The only thing that made sense to me was something a family friend said told after the funeral. Mr. Filipczak said, "John, there is no doubt that Mark's death is going to change your life. Right? You owe it to him to make a change for the better. Don't you?". I was so weepy I couldn't reply, but I kept this thought for a long time. Even to today. Yes, I need to do as good a job as I can. Mark would expect no less of me. Even 45 years later, my brother Mark is still only 18 years old and I'm still trying to make changes for the better.

I resolved not to let my friends down and continued my work at The Whole as best I could during this time. Working like that did much to take my mind off my sorrow - much better than my schoolwork did. My grades slid somewhat, but my friends at The Whole did much to drive me to do good work at the coffeehouse. My friend Brian helped me get a job for the summer at the company where his dad worked, the distribution warehouse for 'Our Own Hardware' hardware stores. It was a good job and I did well there. I started dating an attractive young women that worked in the front office, and all the old farts I worked with were green with envy. Cool. My job was to 'float' around the different departments of the warehouse when the full timers went on vacation. Pretty soon everyone in the company knew who I was and I was well liked.

That Fall of 1970, Brian Carron 'retired' as Manager of The Whole, and I was elected by the crew as the next Manager. What a thrill that was. I continued the same management style that Brian had put in place and kept many of the same committee chairpersons. I set up a couple more committees including a Public Relations Committee, chaired by my buddy Rick Rukes. He was a smooth operator and a 'way cool' person who could talk to anyone about any subject that came up. I did change the chair of the Booking Committee to Jim Anderson, who knew more about music than anyone I knew. We both had the same taste in music and Jim booked as many of our favorite artists as he could. We expanded our weekly concerts from Friday & Saturday nights to two more evenings on Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday's were open stages for local artists that wanted to have an audience. On Thursdays we had pretty good luck booking bigger names that were busy on the weekends. Being a University sponsored venue, we only had to break-even, so we were able to charge only $1 - $5 for most acts that performed.

By that time, I was a Junior in the School of Business, and was able to practice many of the things I was learning in class while managing The Whole. Three or four times over the two years while managing, I earned credits for writing papers on some aspect of management or marketing. Managing a group of volunteers is different and in many ways more challenging than managing a paid staff; if they were not enjoying their work they simply wouldn't show up again. So I made working at The Whole as fun as I could, including organizing some off-campus, overnight retreats. We always got some work accomplished, but my main goal was for everyone to have fun. They did. The staff increased even more.

Due to the size of the audiences we were attracting, we decided to tear down the first office and move our 'headquarters' into the Graffiti Room. We should have done this in the first place. We painted the new office and the girls fixed it up really cool - in the style of the day; hippie like. The largest room was the meeting area and one of the smaller spaces was a lounge area for the artists to keep their gear and get 'fixed up'. The other small space, about 8 feet square was my personal office, although the door was rarely closed. This office was my home away from home for almost two years. I did all of my homework there and my entire social life was right outside my door. Life was good; very good.

During this time I fell in love with a girl named Helen. She and I became extremely close, and since she worked in Coffman Union as a Receptionist, she was never far away. Ours was a passionate, and at times, turbulent relationship. We really were not much alike, me as a Business Student and she as a Theatre Major. We disagreed on most subjects of significance, but in most cases they were considered, considerate discussions.

However, sometimes we would get into extremely heated arguments, seemingly with no way out. During one of these heated arguments, I was driving her home after a late night concert at The Whole, to Highland Park where she lived with her folks. It was a very heated argument, and I just wanted to get her home and out of my car. Being after midnight, it was pitch black with small snowflakes being blasted down sideways by a driving wind. It was extremely cold. Driving was treacherous because my MG wasn't designed for that type of weather and there wasn't much tread on any of my tires. The damn car didn't even really have a heater; I'd flick a toggle switch for a small fan and some lukewarm air would come out of two defrost ports - only if the weather wasn't cold. As I was sliding up the exit ramp onto Vandalia Avenue at about 60 mph, I thought I saw a person walking back toward the freeway, back down the ramp. I stopped talking for a second, then asked Helen if she had seen anybody. Nope; she hadn't see anything.

I stopped the car before I got to Vandalia and, because I couldn't see through my scratched up rear, plastic window, I got out to look. In the dark I could barely see anything, but I did see the shadow of a person walking toward the freeway. Something was wrong. I jumped back into the MG, put 'er into reverse and managed to back up without getting stuck. When we got to the person, Helen and I could see in the headlights that it was a very old man dressed in a thin, short jacket. He didn't look at us - he was looking down, and just kept walking. I asked Helen to crawl behind the seat of the two-seater MG, got out of the car and walked up to the guy.

"Hi buddy. Where are you going?", I asked in a friendly tone.

The guy stopped walking and looked at me stiffly, "I'm just walking along here. I'm walking home. I'm not sure if I'm going the right way. I'm getting cold.", he said, but his mouth was freezing, slurring his speech.

"Well why don't I give you a ride home in my car? It's right here, and I can have you home is just a few minutes. What do you think about that?", I asked him.

He looked around at the MG, and began shuffling toward it without saying anything else. I opened the door on Helen's side and helped him in. He was stiff, freezing stiff. I realized from the light on my dash that he was deathly grey and in real trouble. After getting him situated, I closed his door and ran around to my side, got in and drove up to Vandalia. I had to turn either right or left.

"So where do you live?" I asked.

"St. Paul."

"My name is John and this is my girlfriend Helen. What's your name?"

"Carl."

"Do you know your address Carl?"

"I've been thinking about it but I can't remember."

"What's your last name Carl. Mine's Mickman. John Mickman."

Carl thought for a moment then said, "I can't remember right now, but it will come to me."

"That's OK Carl. Don't worry about it", I said. I was worried about it though. This was going to be a big deal, and I didn't have any good ideas as to what to do.

I thought about it for a second, put the MG in gear and turned left toward University Avenue, which would take us into the heart of St. Paul. "Carl, let's just drive around a little bit. Maybe you'll recognize something near your house", I suggested. He said OK.

I turned toward St. Paul on University. Being after midnight and due to the storm, there was very little traffic, and none of the stores and few of the restaurants were open. I really didn't have any idea how this was going to end up. I looked back at Helen and asked her if she had any ideas. She thought maybe we could take him back to her folk's place. Maybe...

After driving a mile or so I noticed that Carl was starting to shake. A lot. The 'no heater in the MB' situation wasn't helping at all. "Hey Carl. How about a cup of nice hot coffee? There's a dinner up on the next block, and you and I and Helen could go right in there and get a nice, hot cup of coffee. What do you think?" I asked him. "Whatever you think", he said. "What was your name again?" I thought this might be a good sign. "John. John Mickman", I said as I turned into the parking lot of the small dinner. "Here we are. Let's go in and get a nice cup of coffee Carl."

I helped both him and Helen out of the MG. There really wasn't room for a human being behind those seats and she was getting stiff too, both from the cold and form being all cramped up behind the seats. All three of us were cold, and getting colder. We walked into the dinner and sat down at a window booth. It was warm, dry and cozy. A nice dinner; small and welcoming. There were a half dozen other patrons sitting at 3 or 4 other booths and they were looking at us: A young hippie couple with a tattered old man that was obviously in trouble. I smiled at them but didn't say anything.

End of Part ll

Find our what happened to Carl – and Helen and me in next weeks’ eNewsletter

The Whole Coffeehouse

In the Fall of 1968 when I enrolled as a Freshman at the University of Minnesota, there were 50,000 students in attendance. For a 17 year old boy coming from a graduating class of 160-some kids at Fridley High in MN, the experience was, to put it bluntly, terrifying.

I had never been that good a student, but I was determined to do as good a job as I could at the U and studied very hard. The booklets they passed out to us Freshman suggested that for every hour of class one attended, 3 - 4 hours of preparatory time needed to be spent. That's pretty much what I did.

That first quarter I lived at home with my folks and worked for my dad in the family Christmas Wreath Business. In later years he confided to me that his business wouldn't have been as successful as it was without the help of my brothers and me through all the years.

I had become pretty good friends with my buddy Don Hanson with whom I had just completed a fabulous hitchhiking trip out to Boston/New York City.  We agreed to commute together and took turns driving. He had a 1957 Oldsmobile, all chromed out, and I had a hot rod '57 Chevy that was really a screamer. Not living on campus that Fall, I really didn't feel connected to school - which didn't help my thoughts of not liking the experience much.

Parking was a big problem.  After a few days, I identified a Catholic Church in the heart of Dinkytown that had a huge empty parking lot and I convinced Don that we should give this a try. After all, I was a baptized Catholic and had contributed mightily to the weekly coughers as I was growing up.

Multiple signs strongly suggested 'NO PARKING', but I talked Don into trying it anyway. After two or three weeks of not being towed away, we figured that even if we did get towed, we would be money ahead because the towing charge was $50, and we had saved that much already by not paying the shysters that operated the university's parking lots ($2 per day). Unfortunately, on the one day that we both had to drive, the Christian's had BOTH our cars towed away and we had to cough up over $100 - in cash! Another plan foiled...

One sunny Fall day as Don and I were walking across campus back to the church parking lot, I noticed a big fat squirrel running straight down a tree toward the ground. As I talked to Don, I watched this fuzzy grey creature and admired his dexterity. Well, about 5 feet from the ground, the squirrel stopped running down the trunk of the tree and looked right at me. Actually, looking me right in the eye. After a moment or two of this, I stopped walking and commented to Don, who also stopped, that the squirrel on that tree over there was looking right at me - from a distance of about 50 feet or so.

 "Are you sure he's looking right at you?", Don asked me. "Well yeah. Right at me. It's so weird!", I replied, still looking right at the squirrel.

The sidewalk was crowded with lots of other students that had begun detouring around us on the crowded sidewalk as Don looked at me - looking at the squirrel. After a minute or so of this, in a flash, the squirrel leaped from the tree in one jump and began bounding toward me as fast has his tiny little legs would propel him. "Well look at that Don. That little guy is running right at me, and look at him; he's still looking right at me! This is really getting weird", I exclaimed as the squirrel got closer.

At about 15 feet away however, I became a little concerned with what was going to happen next, when the fuzzy little guy got to me. Don started backing away, and the nearby students sidled off to the side - not wanting to become involved with any of the campus's wild animals. When the squirrel was 5 feet from me, he made a giant leap and landed on the front of my thigh and actually gripped right on to me - all the while looking straight up into my eyes. "Well Jesus Christ!" I screamed to no one in particular. I was spectacularly alarmed. I dropped my books and started shaking my leg as hard as I could in an attempt to dislodge the crazy creature - to no avail; he was stuck to me like glue, his tiny little claws digging into my thigh. Finally, with both hands, I shoved him off of my leg and ran like hell. After all the yelling and swearing I was doing, quite a crowd had stopped to watch the spectacle and they all cleared the way for me and the squirrel. I've always been a fast runner and with a few looks over my shoulder I could see that the squirrel couldn't keep up to me as he gave chase. I raced to the corner of University Avenue, taking note that the stop light was green, and ran across the street. And finally stopped running. I had escaped. There was no sign of the squirrel.

How unreal was that, I thought to myself. I was chased off campus by a damn squirrel. Just about the time I caught my breath, Don arrived with my books. "That's the damndest thing I've ever seen in my life John. That's even weirder than staying overnight in prison with you."

We never walked that way back to the church parking lot. Ever. To this day.

Despite this episode with the wild animals on campus, I survived Fall Quarter and successfully registered for Winter Quarter. I had worked out a plan with my dad that I would live at home each Fall and help him with his business, but live on campus for Winter/Spring Quarters. I had enough saved to pay for all of my tuition, books, car upkeep and personal expenses, if he and mom would pay for my room and board while I lived on campus and attended school. Dad's thinking was that he wanted to support me in my decision to attend college, and his payment for room & board accomplished this. I wanted to live on campus away from home, and begin life on my own terms. My parents lived up to their agreement all four years of college.

I had always been frugal, and tuition plus fees was less than $165 per quarter. My books were less than $50, so my personal expenditures weren't much. I parked my '57 Chevy in a snowdrift at home for the Winter/Spring so I didn't need gas money. This also kept me from visiting home, which didn't bother me much either.

That first Winter, I stayed  in Frontier Hall, one of the many dormitory's that were built after WWII to house all the returning soldiers that had the GI Bill. It wasn't fancy but it was just fine with me. My roommate Gary Morgan was on a full athletic scholarship in baseball. He was a good guy and was also a pre-business student. We had many of the same classes during both Winter and Spring Quarters and studied together each night. Besides that however, the only thing we had in common was a love of the new show, Star Trek. We and the rest of the guys on our floor gathered in the TV lounge down the hall and faithfully watched each new episode. Gary was in love with a girl from his hometown of Austin, MN and had no social life on campus other than his daily afternoon baseball practices and games.

So, on my first Friday night at the dorm, I put on my warm P-Coat (US Navy Surplus) after dinner and wandered around campus looking for something to do, or someone to meet. Here I was on a university campus that must have close to 25,000 girls. Surely, I could find something or someone to keep myself occupied.

I soon found myself in Coffman Union, the student union building on campus. I got a coke and watched some guys playing billiards. Not my game. I walked down to the ground floor and saw a poster for The Whole Coffeehouse. The poster announced that Jim Croce was playing. WHAT!? REALLY! This was too much (Jim Croce was a really popular national performer). After quite a bit of exploring, I finally found The Whole in an entryway of the ground floor, between two sets of doors. Finally finding the entrance, I walked along a dark entryway, down a dimly lit cavernous stairway, the walls of which had big black and white pictures of performers, some of whom I had heard of and some I hadn't. After turning a corner, I descended down a long concrete ramp that opened up into the coffeehouse.

The lights were up, and three girls were putting checkered table cloths and mesh covered, red, green and blue glass, jar candles on each of the many tables. I walked up to the nearest girl and introduced myself to her. "My name is Sylvia", she said. I looked around, saw the stage including some huge speakers and stage lights.  "Is there a concert here tonight? I heard that Jim Croce might be playing", I asked. "Yeah, that's right. We're getting set up right now. Do you want to work here? I'm in charge of set-up tonight and we're behind. We could really use the help.", Sylvia asked.

Well, I wasn't looking for a job, but I sure needed some new friends on campus so, without any thought at all I agreed to help. "So how much will I make?" I asked Sylvia after working with her for a few minutes. "Oh, we're all volunteers", she replied.

I looked around at half a dozen or so kids all working together getting ready for the concert. Some tech-y looking guys were adjusting the stage lights and testing the sound system. Others were setting up the soft drink fountains, some were adjusting the wooden tables and bent back chairs to suit what they expected to be a pretty large audience. A pretty cool guy with wavy blonde hair walked up to Sylvia and me and asked her to get some fresh candles from the back room. Sylvia looked at me and said, "Otte, this is John. He wants to work here." Otte looked at me, smiled in a most friendly way and shook my hand. "Well I'm happy to have you join us John. I'm Otte, the manager. We could really use your help tonight. I expect a huge crowd and we need all the help we can get." With his slight Dutch accent, he asked me to help him move some tables and chairs from behind the coffeehouse out onto the floor. Otte Boersma and I became fast friends for the next four years of my life. He was a Junior in International Relations - a major I hadn't even heard of before. I learned a lot from Otte over the years.

The concert was a success with over 500 people crowding into The Whole. It became quite hot and smoky with so many people, all eating free, in the shell, salted peanuts, and most of the crowd were smokers, including me. The soda bar was full all the time. I was the guy that hauled the heavy metal tanks of pop from the back room. We were all working hard. For free. But I had a great time and met dozens of new people. At the end of the evening, Otte asked me how much time I wanted to volunteer. "Well, I don't have or need a job, and I have to admit this has been really fun Otte. I'll work every weekend if you want me to", I told him.

And I did for four years.

Otte had founded The Whole Coffeehouse just the previous Fall, so it was a new endeavor. Coffeehouses were THE cool thing in the late '60's and there was a surplus of young talented musicians that were looking for clubs in which to perform. Otte's management style was casual and fun, but everything was very well organized with nothing being overlooked. He was in charge of pretty much everything, and everyone came to him for instructions. Everyone liked working for Otte.

After that first year, Otte 'retired' and his second in command, Brian Carron became the manager. Brian and I also became fast friends and after a short time I was Brian's second in command. Brian management style was different than Otte's and he established formal 'committees' for each of the different tasks that needed to be performed. These included Bookings, Set-up, Refreshments, Publicity, Accounting, etc. Each committee had a chairperson that was responsible for recruiting and scheduling workers to perform the required tasks. He worked hard at setting this all up, but after being established, everything ran very smoothly.

I volunteered as chairman of the Publicity Committee - opening up the world of marketing and advertising to me. Each weekend we had new performers and I needed to get the word out. I recruited a talented art student named Becca Martinson to design the posters we had printed up and I had a dozen other kids that posted them up all over campus. 200 per week. The university's radio station needed to be informed of the upcoming acts, ads needed to be designed and placed in University's newspaper, The Minnesota Daily. I designed most of these ads and tried many different ways to attract audiences each weekend. For some of the more popular acts, like Bonnie Raitt and Leo Kottke, I set up radio interviews at the local Rock & Roll radio station, KQRS. My favorite DJ was Allan Stone and he became quick to accept my requests to interview many of these artists. I was having fun and meeting some really cool people.

Brian and I decided to build an office in a far corner of The Whole to help build camaraderie and a stronger team with his staff. The Staff Advisor, Tom Stark, was always available and received permission from the administrators of Coffman Union for us to build the 30' x 40' office. This office became the nerve center of The Whole for over a year. We conducted all the meetings in this space and we got a lot of work done and always had a good time. Brian had no trouble recruiting all the volunteers we needed. In the opposite side of The Whole, adjacent to the ramp leading from the entrance, was the 'Graffiti Room'. This space was very large and included three sections, all painted with flat, black paint. On special evenings, we would supply florescent paint to customers to paint graffiti on the walls. FREE LOVE, STOP THE WAR, MAKE LOVE NOT WAR were common themes. The Graffiti Room was lit with ‘black lights’ which made it WAY COOL and this room was always open for viewing. We all had a lot of fun in this space.

By John S. Mickman
End of Part l

Watch for Part ll in next week's eNewsletter

Hard Time Part 4

(In chapter III of Hard Time, a rough character named Attila has demanded that I throw a cigarette across the aisle to him. Trying to be as congenial as possible, I agree...)

"Well, I think that'll be OK", I called back in as cheery a tone as I could muster. I pulled out my box of Marlboro's and opened it up only to find one, single cigarette inside. As far as I knew in my young life, no one ever expected a person to hand over their very last cigarette, especially when there were no more to be found. It just wasn't the cool thing to do. So, I looked back to Attila, who I thought deserved to be spending Hard Time in prison and him told that, much as I hate to say it, I only had the one cigarette left so unfortunately I couldn't give him one after all.

Now, a few years later I found myself working on a battered old wooden shrimp fishing boat in the North Pacific, and in that life I heard about the worst language imaginable. Nasty stuff. But I have to admit that Attila the Hun could have given swearing lessons to the nastiest of the seamen I ever met. Attila grabbed onto the bars of his cell, started shaking them with all his might and said something like, "By (swear word!). You'll give me that (many swear words) cigarette or I'll break through these (swear word) bars and come and get the (multiple swear words!) cigarette myself!!!"

As I watched him try to tear apart the steel bars, I sincerely thought that he might actually rip off the door and come and get me. "Geez", I said to Attila. "I'll give you the cigarette. Relax."

He stopped shaking the door and said, "Boy, you just throw that cigarette over here, and don't screw it up. I'm waiting." I thought to myself that it was no surprise that they locked up this guy. He just didn't know how to communicate to normal people in a positive manner at all!

"All right, here it comes", I said to Attila as I took careful aim through the bars, and I let my last Marlboro fly. It only had to go about 20 feet or so, and I had always taken pride in my fine throwing arm - from way back in Pee-Wee League Baseball when I was a kid. This should have been an easy toss. Maybe Attila had shaken me up, maybe I was too cold, tired and wet or maybe I didn't really want to succeed in getting the cigarette to him after all. But, whatever the reason, the Marlboro just nicked the edge of one of the prison cell bars and it fell to the floor, right in the middle of the aisle.

"Bummer", I said as I looked over at Attila. He first stared at the cigarette in disbelief, then he looked over at me and a new torrent of obscenities came flying at me as he began shaking the door of his cell again. I backed away from the door of my cell just in case he broke his door down. Now I was sure he deserved to be spending Hard Time in the prison.

The other inmates had been watching and listening to our exchange silently, but now they began cheering and jeering at Attila which enraged him even more. With no police officer around, there was no one to calm these guys down. It was like a riot might happen. Or something. This wasn't good, but there was nothing I could do about it; the Marlboro was out of reach from all of us. Sitting all by itself in the amazingly clean, baron floor, tempting Attila without remorse.

Not being able to do anything about the situation, and feeling quite safe in my cell, I changed into my dry clothes and crawled under the thin blanket of the cot. It had been quite an evening, but now the lights were low, the riotous cheering subsided, I took a few deep breaths and fell sound asleep.

* * *

At 5:30 AM, I was awakened by someone shaking me and whispering to me that was time to go. I opened my eyes to see an officer in my cell. "Wake up; it's time to go", he said. "Be quite so we don't wake up everyone else", he warned. I said OK, and asked him to wake up my buddy Don, down the line somewhere while I dressed.

I had hung my wet clothes around the cell and they were somewhat dryer so I put them on instead of wasting  my other set of clean clothes. Don came around to my cell with the officer, I stuffed my shorts and t-shirt in my pack, strapped it around my shoulders and I was ready to go.  "Geez Don, you got dressed fast", I whispered. Don replied, "I went to bed in my clothes, but didn't get much sleep" and he looked like it.

We followed the officer back through all the locked doors as we climbed the stairs back up to street level. This new guy asked a few questions and commented about us being from Minnesota and all. "Yup, that's right. Minnesota..."

When we emerged from prison, the clouds had flown away and the sun was beginning to show on the eastern horizon. I was warm, my clothes were dry, we hadn't wasted any money on a hotel and we were back on the road. Don suggested we stop at a little diner not far from the prison and get some coffee and breakfast. Good idea. They had a cigarette machine there into which I fed 2 quarters to get a fresh pack of Marlboro's.

We sat down on one of the round, cushioned seats at the diner's counter and gave the lady our order as I lit my first cigarette of the day. "You boys look like you had a rough night", she said. "Well, we just spent the night sleeping in that prison over there", I said as I pointed out the window toward the prison which was looming a couple of blocks away. "We're from Minnesota, hitchhiking out to see my cousin at Tuft's, in Medford..."

She was the first person to have a hard time believing our story; there were to be many others.

* * *

We made it to Tufts University in Medford and met my cousin Jody, who snuck us into the dormitory cafeteria for lunch. Jody introduced us to many of her new friends and I fell in love with the cutest little red haired girl you ever did see, Joyce T.,  - for about 6 wondrous days.

After our time at Tuft's in Medford, Don and I decided to hitchhike down to New York City to see Greenwich Village, at that time in the late '60's, the coolest place ever. After all, we still had a whole week left of our adventure and I still had almost $75 of my original $100.

But that's another story...

John Mickman

Overnight Hard Timer