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

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