Summer 1969

I spent the summer of 1969 in a small room on Carlisle Street, directly across the street from the college - I could see Dwight Eisenhower's office from my window..  Mrs. Giles, who owned the Pub Restaurant on the square,  lived on the first floor with her two kids.  Allison was her daughter's name.   Her son enlisted in the Marine Corps that summer - there was a big party with the second floor bathtub full of ice and cases of beer cans.   During the school year Mrs. Giles rented the rooms on the second and third floors to students.   For part of the summer there were a couple of TKE guys down the hall and a British student.  There was no air conditioning and the third floor was too hot for anyone to consider living there in the summer.  

I had no cooking /refrigeration devices and  no phone.  But unlike in my dorm room I had a 13" B&W television and a fan in the window.  I was there to take a summer school class but also worked the swing shift (4PM - midnight) as a forklift operator at a Knouse Foods applesauce warehouse just north of Biglerville.   Someone at the college had clued me into the state employment office downtown which had led to the job.  Ultimately a lucky break because it meant I got to use my mother's car - a 67 Corvair - for the summer.   She was a teacher and had the summer off so the car was available although my getting it was a huge favor.   

When my course ended I was able to quit the warehouse and start work as the night clerk at Larson's Motel.   I think my shift ran from 8PM until 8AM but there was a bed in the back of the office and I could get six hours of sleep during the middle of the shift.   Oddly I am unable to recall where I got regular meals during the summer.  There were vending machines in the warehouse and occasionally the crew would hit a nearby Biglerville restaurant.  No fast food except for a place on the south side of Gettysburg,  amusingly called "Jasper's Tube Steaks",   but I rarely went there.

I do recall eating at what is now Ernie's Texas Lunch to the west of the square - still in operation thru 2023 - see above photo.   It was cheap,  fast,  and pretty good. 

And directly across the street at 53 Chambersburg St.  was Chris' Restaurant,  another informal place.  I  probably divided my time between them,  enough that together they would qualify as my "go-to" place.

As the night clerk I got a discount at the Dutch Pantry Restaurant - it was part of Lawson's Motel and Lee's Headquarters but that job did not start until late in the summer.    It seems odd that Larson's was willing to hire and train me for a job of such short duration but they probably had a student lined up to work during the school year.   I just bridged the gap and the job was pretty straight-forward.

The Woodstock Festival was held August 15-18 that summer.   It was within feasible driving range but I could not have gotten off work.  For that matter no one in Gettysburg had any idea of the importance and scale of the festival.  Had I gone I probably would have messed up the Corvair and then gone directly to the Air Force recruiter and enlisted on the spot.  There would have been no way I could have gone home.   Less than three years later I would attend a three day rock festival outside Liverpool - it was nicknamed Mudstock for reasons obvious to everyone in attendance.

https://sites.google.com/view/2013babyboomerblog/rock-concerts

In addition to the Criterion,  Carlisle Street in 1969 had the College Motel and the Sleepy Bear Travel Lodge just to the north and the Colonial two blocks to the south.  All have since been purchased by the college and converted to student housing.   Over the last 50 years the college has gradually bought up almost all the residences on Carlisle Street in a successful effort to preserve its residential appearance. 

Built about 1960,  before it got its Travel Lodge affiliation it was called the Lincoln Motor Lodge.

The hot months of 1969 were my first extended period on my own and the first time I was aware that I thrived on solitude.  Socially the summer was not entirely a lonely grind although working two jobs and taking a class did tend to keep me occupied.  One weekend I drove to D.C. with a couple of guys from the warehouse for a Senators game - Ted Williams was managing the team that year.   Bruce Winnacott from school lived in a small duplex in back of Mrs. Giles house and worked as a lifeguard at the newly built Stonehenge Lodge south of town.  We hung out together when not working.

Since that summer I have had many summer visits to Gettysburg and especially enjoy the solitude of the campus when school is not in session.   I suspect that is one legacy of the summer of 1969.  

Hollis Upson and Tom Stoughton were also taking summer school classes.  I ended up driving Hollis to Elmira at the end of classes where he was met by his parents and where I "legally" bought my first case of beer (Schmidt's tall boys I believe).   Dreary central Pennsylvania was replaced by the magical finger lakes on a beautiful sunny summer afternoon.  Making this favor for a friend into a fateful trip as it planted the first seed that would eventually lead to my transferring to Cornell,  where I "finally" secured my degree.  

Back in Gettysburg with my beer there was a weird dynamic at the very end of summer,  by then all the summer school students had left town and there was a short interval before everyone returned for the fall semester.  For a few days I was alone with the Ghosts until I packed up the Corvair and headed back to Ohio.  

I should mention that the town offered no Ghost Tours back then.  It would be at least a decade before that became a cottage industry catering to the tourist trade.   I did take a ghost tour years later and read several "Ghosts of Gettysburg" books.   It was only then that I realized that I should have been terrified living at 311 Carlisle Street and taking night walks around the deserted campus.  Not only was I living next door to a funeral home but with Stevens Hall across the street and about half the nearby houses also  haunted I should have been experiencing competing ghostly appearances.   Not a thing happened.