Dave ’50

A Magical, Exotic place —   Memories of McMaster  

Mac was much smaller when I started in 1947, with about 1100 students. The war had just ended, and a lot of returning veterans provider a countervailing stability to us cocky youngsters fresh out of high school.  Most of the time, that is. A bunch of vets lived in Edwards Annex and they had a reputation of being the Campus Wild Ones, escaping the Officially Dry campus with sorties to Paddy Green’s pub. The Annex was one of several buildings built for the military.  Now surplus, they were moved to campus to become a men’s residence; they also served as classrooms, library annex, book store and student centre (“the Rec Hut” where you could buy coffee for a quarter, even sandwiches.)

As someone who’d come from a small town in an agricultural community, the Mac that I encountered was a magical, exotic place.

Marlene ’80

Fine Art…one of my favourite memories was seeing our model “Jerry” in our life drawing class taking off his robe to model for the first time in the nude, only to reveal that he was wearing leopard patterned underwear…something that still makes me laugh!