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