Chapter 15

Melissa was the first to wake up, stirring to life at 8:18 am. She washed and changed her clothes, by which time Megan had woken at 8:39. David awoke at 8:57, and Billy minutes before his alarm had been set, at 9:18.

When Billy awoke, he noticed the daylight coming through the windows and looked at his phone, hoping it would be 7 or 8 am. Finding it just eight minutes before his alarm would go off and still tired, Billy started playing with his phone, re-setting the alarm to 9:53.

A few minutes later, Billy drifted back to sleep, but awoke once again at 9:35, by which time David was in the shower, when Melissa called out “Time to wake up.”

“I’m tired.” said Billy.

‘Do you need some coffee?” asked Melissa.

“That would be nice. With milk and cream if you can.” said Billy.

Billy heard a Keurig operating, before Melissa brought him a blonde cup of coffee which was warm but not hot. Newly energized, he got out of the bed and, just as David was exiting the bathroom dressed, took his change of clothes, went into the bathroom, and showered, brushed his teeth, and dressed in just 11 minutes. When he finished, he went into room 1017, where Melissa, David, and Megan were gathered. Megan finished getting ready about five minutes after Billy.

The explorers made their way downstairs to the cafeteria, where they enjoyed a breakfast of pancakes, sausages, and eggs before, at 10:27, leaving the hotel and heading back toward Izzy.

“What are we exploring today?” asked David.

“There’s a few things I want to get to, but I’m up for ideas. Anything in west Izzy will have to be tomorrow, though.” said Melissa.

“Well, finishing the university might be a good start, as much as we can.” said David.

“You know those apartments that were sort of a black steel and glass, minimalist design? Those, and that really odd restaurant that looked like it was from a Look-Alikes book. Do you know where I’m talking about? They’re pretty near each other, kind of in southeast Izzy. I’ve wanted to go to those places my whole life.” said Billy.

“Those apartments are in pretty bad shape, but we can do that and the restaurant. I used to love that restaurant myself. And we’ll also go in a couple buildings at the university, but we can’t spend all day there,” said Melissa.

“The twin towers of Izzy. I know that’ll probably be tomorrow.” said David.

“A video game store.” said Billy.

“Something outside or in a sturdy building that’s safe.” said Megan.

“Well, we’ve done an airport, a school, some varied businesses, a hospital, research center, computer chip factory… I don’t know, maybe a bank or post office or something.” said David.

“A movie theater, maybe?” asked Megan.

“I would say an office building, but the twin towers of Izzy would be office buildings. I’m with Megan, a movie theater or something like that. Preferably, one as ‘80s-y as possible.” said Billy.

“Oh, I can give you ‘80s.” said Melissa. 

At 11:29 am, the explorers’ second day started when Melissa parked the van at a parking lot across from the university’s student center. The explorers weighed their options. The basketball stadium was missing some windows, covered in a considerable amount of ivy, and was in a very dilapidated condition, but still looked reasonably safe to explore. The student center appeared to be in slightly better condition, though still missing many of its windows.

The explorers wanted to get a better feel for the campus before going into the buildings. A 4-story building with a circular footprint, identified by a sign as “Puckett Hall” had a major roof collapse that was obvious from 50 feet away. Another building with a circular footprint, this time a dorm 9 stories tall, still looked as if it would be safe. The conference center was overgrown, had a large hole in the wall on the second floor, about 80% of its windows broken, and cracks in the brick – it was iffy on exploration. It said “V n r fer e” on the top, most of the metal letters having fallen over time.

“That used to say Vincent W. Dorfman Conference Center. It was one of the oldest buildings at the university, built in 1943, I think. Some of the copper on those finishes around the windows came from melted down shells recovered from World War II battlefields.” said Melissa.

The explorers decided to look at the journalism building first. Letters engraved into the building’s concrete façade said “WHALIN MEDIA BUILDING”. The building was made of concrete, with windows that extended from chest height to the top of each of the building’s 3 floors. The building was grimy, but only a couple of windows were missing, and its concrete structure looked intact.

“This building was built in 1973, by which time all new buildings at the university were using laminated glass windows instead of plate glass or tempered glass. I know the standards here required new government buildings to have laminated or tempered glass starting in 1956.” said Billy.

“Yeah, and the private buildings started having to have it around maybe 1965 or so, but the older buildings were grandfathered in. I remember there was a big campaign to get your windows replaced by safety glass. We got our windows replaced by tempered glass in 1972 at my childhood home, but I went with laminated glass in my first house I lived in on my own.” said Melissa.

“Why would anyone go with tempered glass?” asked Billy.

“Tempered is a lot cheaper.” said Melissa.

The explorers walked under an overhang supported by four concrete pillars about 2 feet in diameter; the pillars looked intact. A label scar which said “WHALIN MEDIA BUILDING” was on the left wall; the red metal letters, each about 6 inches tall, were scattered on the floor, roughly below where they’d each been.

“I never walk under Ls on signs. I’m always worried that they’ll fall and hit me, and they’re sharp and pointy so they’ll cut me up.” said Billy.

“Funny you’d mention that.” said Melissa, pointing to the wall directly above the doors going into the building. “Those letters used to be attached up here, above the doors. One day, the L in Building fell off and hit a student in the head. She actually got a head injury.” said Melissa.

“Was she okay? When did this happen?” asked Billy.

“She ended up fine, missed a couple days of school. This would have been about November or December of 1985, it was cold, and we were getting toward finals, my senior year. I was in the building, someone looked out the window and said, “somebody’s hurt outside”. Me and a few people in the room went to the window and saw a crowd gathered, then we went downstairs and saw her laying on the ground, her head bleeding. By then, there were already a few people helping her, so we just watched for a bit and went back to class. One of my sorority sisters helped her out.” said Melissa.

The explorers walked through the doors into the building. They were in an atrium, with skylights illuminating the entire area. Several lounge chairs were along the sides of the atrium. An alcove inside a staircase had a 32-inch Sony TV, while racks containing a variety of local, national, and international newspapers sat next to the staircase. The level of decay was modest, but there was a piece of glass fence railing hanging from the third floor, chipped paint, and many fallen ceiling tiles. Billy grabbed a local newspaper entitled the “Izydorczak Informer” and read a few headlines.

They included, “Local Man Has All National Geographic Magazines Ever Printed”, “New Burger Restaurant Opens on Samberg Slopes”, and “Five Fun Things to Do This Spring”.

“Well, this is refreshing. Where’s all the negative news?” asked Billy.

“We didn’t do a lot of negative news. We were a Messenbaugh Group newspaper, and our motto was that ‘people should come away from reading the news happier than they started out’. We reported on crime if it was nearby, but we didn’t do a play by play of the trial or anything. Those were on obscure cable channels.” said Melissa.

Melissa led the explorers into a bagel shop. A sign above the serving counter simply said “L”, but the label scar revealed the original name, Big Apple Bagels. The rest of the letters, this time about two inches tall, were, again, on the ground. As the explorers made their way through the shop, which was about the size of a living room in a large house, the remaining L fell off and bounced off Melissa’s left arm before falling to the ground.

“Thanks for shielding me from that L. Are you okay?” said Billy.

“Yeah, didn’t hurt.” said Melissa.

The restaurant had a mild stench of rotten food. The approximately 20 tables still had all their chairs positioned neatly around them. A standee advertised the “Ocean Special” sandwich, which had lox and smoked salmon cream cheese on an asiago bagel, for $4.99.

“Wow, they had the Ocean Special back in 1987. I thought it would be 2000s at the oldest.” said Billy.

“I think they’d only been around a few years in 1987.” said Melissa.

“At $4.99 back then, they couldn’t have been popular.” said Billy.

“You’d be surprised. I had a couple, they were delicious.” said Melissa.

“I don’t eat raw fish now; I can’t imagine eating it in the ‘80s.” said Megan.

Billy saw the soda machine and wanted to see if it would work after 33 years, so he grabbed a paper cup and pushed the button for Coca-Cola. A small amount of nasty-looking, tar-like substance came out from the spigot.

“You know I don’t like it when people mess with stuff.” said Melissa.

“I’m sorry, Melissa. Just wanted to see what would come out of a Coke machine after 33 years.” said Billy.

Billy went outside, threw the fossilized Coke on the ground, and put the cup back where he’d found it before the explorers climbed the stairs and went to the second floor, entering a hallway adjacent to the atrium. Down the hallway a bit, water dripped through a small gap between the floor above and the wall, forming a puddle on the ground. The masonry core of the wall showed through on a section about four feet wide where the apparent roof leak had worn away the drywall.

Melissa decided not to chance walking through the area, as it seemed to be an isolated patch of decay. Instead, she and the explorers turned into a classroom, room 214.

The whiteboard said, “Layout 101”. Three rows of tables, each with 7 chairs in them, sat facing the whiteboard. A drop-down screen had an empty Eiki overhead projector facing it, its arm still extended upwards. Other than the March 26, 1987 date written in green marker on the whiteboard, it looked much like a standard classroom setup in 2020. Underneath the date, in red, was a note saying, “Layout Assignment 3 due March 31 for TR classes, April 1 for MW classes”, the whiteboard was empty otherwise.

As the explorers began to look around, they began to see outdated objects, some of which were foreign even to Billy, himself a journalism student. At tables lining the back and right side of the room, there were ten Commander devices that looked like typewriters, but had a large LCD screen – about 3 inches by 6 inches – above the keyboard.

Billy, Megan, and David took a closer look. There was a slot for a 5 ¼” floppy disk to the side of the LCD screen, but there was paper sticking out of the top of the device, much like a normal typewriter. The bars seen in a normal typewriter weren’t there. Several of the buttons seemed strange – such as a big, red button that said “Enter”.

“What is it?” asked Megan.

“I think it’s some kind of early laptop combined with a printer, like one of the old Osbornes. But the printer seems integrated, not an add-on device.” said Billy.

“My family had something like this when I was a kid, but the screen wasn’t nearly as big. It had one line you could type in and it would print it just like a normal typewriter, but you could spell check what you wrote before printing it.” said David.

“That’s an electronic typewriter. Kind of like a computer, but it could only do text, sort of like if your computer today only had Word on it, but even more limited than that. If you wanted to change a font, you had to change out one of these wheels, called a daisy wheel.” said Melissa, holding up a daisy wheel. “We had four different sizes of text we could do, three fonts, so we had to keep twelve different kinds of these wheels around. The typewriter would have to cycle through the wheel, like a rotary phone, and strike the appropriate letter.”

“Each letter? Wow, that sounds slow. Also, I would have thought they would have had computers by then.” said Billy.

“Truth be told, by 1987 these things were becoming outdated, but they weren’t that slow. A page would take about 3 or 4 minutes to print. We did have computers, but they went to the school newspaper and the higher-level classes first, where the work was more complicated. I remember the day we got Macs in our school paper my junior year. It took a few days to learn, and then things got a lot more efficient and easier. We never stopped praising those Macs.” said Melissa.

“How did this class work?” asked Billy.

“This was just a 101 class, so things weren’t as complicated, I took it freshman year. First, we wrote out what we wanted to type, so we’d know what sizes and fonts of type to use. Then we’d type out everything of a certain size or font, switch out the daisy wheel, go to the next, usually we kept it to 2 or 3 different sizes and/or fonts. We’d lay it all out on the typewriter so we could cut it all out in one piece with the X-Acto knives. We’d take our printed-off papers and cut out what we wanted in a certain section and glued it on to a thicker piece of paper. We had to be very careful and measure everything, because if we glued something in the wrong spot, you might have to do it all over again, and one project might require 20 pieces. After we were done, we’d photocopy the whole thing. People got in the habit of printing out two copies of everything. You have no idea how easy computers make things nowadays.” said Melissa.

“I just gained a ridiculous respect for the older journalists.” said Billy.

Melissa showed the explorers the photocopiers and trays containing X-Acto knives and glue.

“Did I say something wrong?” asked Billy.

“About what?” asked Melissa.

“The ‘older journalists’ thing.” said Billy.

“Oh, you’re fine.” said Melissa as she chuckled slightly and pat Billy on the back.

“Ugh, can’t imagine having to use one of these. Did people get cut?” asked Megan, pointing to a knife.

“Actually, I can only remember one time hearing about someone getting cut. It wasn’t bad.” said Melissa.

The explorers left the room and went toward the staircase, but a row of bust sculptures caught David’s eye. As the explorers walked over to the bronze sculptures, each of which were on plinths, all were impressed by the level of detail and quality. Billy, however, was interested in it as a chronicle of the university presidents’ history. He slowly panned his camera over each sculpture and made sure to get seven pictures of each sculpture: one of each side of the bust, front and rear of the bust and plinth, and plaque. 

A plaque on the bottom of the first sculpture said, “William P. McGraw, Founding President of Izydorczak University, served 1939-1947, Born October 6, 1881, Died April 19, 1978. Sculpture Dedicated August 1, 1978.” All five of the sculptures would end up being dedicated on the same date. The second sculpture was for Don James, served 1947-1951, born September 6, 1893, died January 3, 1951. The third was Stephen V. Merheb, served 1951-1957, born June 3, 1894, died October 20, 1986. Robert Radford, served 1957-1972, born December 31, 1912, and Yancey LaCalameto, served since 1972 and born June 14, 1928, were the last two.

“Was Yancey LaCalameto still president in 1987 and is he still alive?” asked Billy, as he looked up Robert Radford, finding he’d lived to age 88, dying on March 8, 2001.

“As far as I know, yes on both. He was a great president, put a lot into U of Izzy.” said Melissa.

After looking at the sculptures for a few minutes, the explorers went up to the third floor. At the top of the stairs, they could see the cause another section of missing drywall and the section of glass fence hanging down next to it, where the attachment points had corroded. There was a pool of water on the ground. Billy walked toward the area, testing the floor with each step, and the other explorers followed.

“Be careful. We don’t want what happened to Dirk to happen to you.” said Melissa.

“I know.” said Billy.

The explorers looked up to find the source of the damage, a crack in one of the skylights that extended all the way through. The damaged section of wall looked damp, but not soaked. The floor underneath the water was bowed down.

“Probably only been leaking a couple years. Water does its damage fast. This floor will probably be collapsing by 2025.” said Billy, filming the section.

“I’m surprised it’s taken this long.” said Melissa.

“Well, they probably designed it really well because they didn’t want to have to constantly maintain it. Triple-paned glass, stuff like that.” said David.

Billy looked over at the skylight and saw that some of the glass panels were cracked, but the innermost panels looked to be intact.

“Triple-paned glass.” said Billy.

The explorers walked away from the roof leak and turned right to go into an inner hallway of the building. Most of the ceiling tiles had fallen and created a mush on the ground, but the floors still felt stable. Billy and David looked into what appeared to be a computer lab, with vintage Mac computers at each desk, before moving on. Billy took a picture of the computer lab.

Melissa led the explorers into a pitch-black room. The flashlights illuminated the room, which had black walls, some red-tinted fluorescent lights on the wall, and a table with hundreds of pictures on it. The pictures looked faded and washed out.

“Why are there so many pictures?” asked David. “I know this was a film development studio, but this is just packed. Midterms or something?”

“It was the weekend before midterms, so a lot of the photojournalism students would have been developing their pictures over the weekend. They’d drop them off Friday and pick them up Monday. Students got their pictures developed for free, so a lot of the students used this.” said Melissa.

The explorers all looked at the pictures, which told a story of the last few days in Izzy. Billy made sure to get a picture of anything that looked passable and interesting, including a picture from the center of campus, which included the campus center, the circular dorm, and the very building they were in, amid cherry trees that were just starting to bloom. Another picture showed a man and a woman sitting on a park bench together, gently smiling. Another showed the volcano itself, its top covered in snow.

“These are good pictures. Sad that they’re left behind.” said Megan.

“I’m preserving them digitally, and besides, I think everyone in these classes automatically passed. So if the pictures’ job was to help their photographer get a good grade, they did it.” said Billy.

After Billy finished photographing the salvageable pictures, the explorers left the room.

“Next building?” asked Melissa.

“Sounds good.” said David.

The explorers walked out of the journalism building, and Melissa led them to the old administration building, which was on the other side of the student center. The Radford Administrative Building was bad shape, with most of the windows broken and numerous cracks in its ivy-covered, dirty brick exterior. There were some small holes in the roof.

“Does anyone feel comfortable exploring this one?” asked Melissa.

“I’m out.” said Megan.

Melissa, Billy, and David went in through a door that had been propped open, finding themselves in a narrow hallway with green carpet flooring, faded white painted walls, and a ceiling missing all its tiles. A large picture in a frame had fallen from the wall; Billy looked at the picture, but it was so crumpled, and water damaged that he couldn’t tell what it was. The explorers passed a few offices before getting to a dangling sign, with so many letters missing that it was unintelligible other than one word: “R G STR R”

Melissa led the explorers into a large room. There were 15 counters on one side of the room and chairs on the other side, much like a bank lobby. Large binders, each labeled with a subject, sat on end tables adjacent to the chairs. There was a small hole in the ceiling at the far end of the room, and moss growing in a few spots.

“This is the registrar’s office, for 95% of the students, it was their only reason to be in this building.” said Melissa.

“My dad says that there was a room in the attic with every yearbook ever printed, but the woman who worked up there wasn’t very nice.” said Billy.

“We can go up there if it’s still structurally stable. I know what room you’re talking about.” said Melissa.

“How’d you all know what professors are good and bad back in those days?” asked Billy.

“If you were in the Greek system, which 90 percent of the students were, they had lists of professors that were good and bad, like a Rate My Professor before the internet. Non-Greeks could access these lists too, so no one was left out of the loop.” said Melissa.

“What about you, David? How did you register for class?” asked Billy.

“They had computer-based registration by then.” said David.

Billy found a binder that said, “Elective and Other Classes”. He looked through it, asking “Wonder what interesting classes they offered here?”

“I do know they had a major in operatic dancing here. It was the only operatic dancing program in all of Helmintoller.” said Melissa.

“Looking in this book, looks like they had a class called ‘The Science of Star Wars”. said Billy.

“That one was quite popular, if I remember correctly.” said Melissa.

“What about ‘A History of Soviet Cars’? I’d love to have taken that class.” asked Billy.

“Never heard of it, but I know that they often tested classes here before launching them at other universities, and the Yugo came out about that time. I can see how that would be interesting”.  said Melissa.

“They do have a basket weaving class!” said Billy.

“They had that at my college too. Got a good laugh about it.” said David.

Billy put the binder down and filmed the rest of the room, by which time the explorers were ready to go to another room.

“Yearbook room?” asked Billy.

“Sounds interesting.” said David.

The explorers left the room and went to a nearby stairwell. The stairs were white-tiled, fairly standard college stairs. Melissa stepped on the first step, finding it spongy feeling and a bit unstable.

“How are the stairs?” asked Billy.

“They’re a bit sketchy. Very borderline. I say we try the stairwell on the other side of the building.” said Melissa.

The explorers left the room and followed Melissa down a corridor to the other stairwell. Inside the room, a wall bowing outward didn’t bode well for the trip, and the stairs themselves looked physically worse than the others, with more debris on them and corroded handrails. Melissa carefully stepped on the first step. It felt stable. She tried the next, and it was still stable.

“Stay to the right, and if things get too sketchy, we’re going to have to go back down.” said Melissa.

When the explorers reached the third floor, they found a hole in the roof, perhaps half a square foot, mere inches from the stairwell. The stairs remained stable.

The third floor had a wide hallway, with offices branching off each side. There were no holes in the floor, but there were a few spots where the roof had holes in it and water pooled on the floor. Melissa tested the floor.

“It’s marginal, but it looks like we’ll have a path to the yearbook room.” said Melissa.

“Can we take some yearbooks home?” asked Billy.

“We’ll see.” said Melissa.

The explorers carefully crossed the hallway, following Melissa and carefully avoiding the soft spots. They reached a staircase. The stairs were dark green, with a marble finish, and still felt surprisingly stable. Once the explorers reached the top of the stairs, they found a hallway. To the left, the floor looked sketchy; to the right, there was a large hole in the floor underneath a large roof leak. Billy’s heart sank.

“I’m out.” said David, who stayed behind on the stairs.

Melissa turned to the left and tested the floors, finding them relatively stable; Billy followed, and after seeing them go a few steps safely, David followed. They reached the end of the hallway, which led directly into the yearbook room.

Inside the room, there was a desk with a Commander 64K computer on it. There were two chairs, one for a “Wilma Curwen” who worked in the room, and another on the opposite side of the desk. A bookshelf with the yearbooks was beside that chair. The wall behind Wilma’s chair was missing, and part of the roof had collapsed, making Wilma’s chair fall backward where it precariously dangled over the edge. Billy filmed the entire room, making sure to get every yearbook as well as the desk.

“Can we take the yearbooks?” asked Billy, only to see Melissa with an armload of them.

“Put some of them in my camera bag. I’ll just carry my camera with the loop.” said Billy.

Melissa stuffed the 1975-1986 yearbooks in the bag. Billy grabbed the 1963-1974’s, David the 1950-1962’s, and Melissa the 1939-1949’s. All three found it difficult to see, so Melissa held her yearbooks over her head as she crossed the hallway. The explorers then went back down the stairs they came and took a break once they got out of the building, putting the yearbooks on a relatively clean section of ground.

“I thought you said we weren’t to steal anything. That’s why Dirk got kicked out.” said David.

“This was a special case because these yearbooks are rare and the room they were in was about to totally collapse. It looked like that wall only collapsed in the past few weeks, because these yearbooks are still in reasonably good condition. These yearbooks would have been done for within a few months.” said Melissa.

“I say, if there’s room in the van, we take them home.” said Billy.

“I say we put them in a more secure building on campus, and then decide what to do from there. They’ll be fine in the journalism building for now.” said Melissa.

“Yeah, well I don’t think someone who died in 2004 is going to care about us taking her yearbooks.” said Billy.

“Maybe so, but it’s still wrong to steal. Besides, the journalism building is closer, anyway, than the van.” said Melissa.

The explorers lugged the yearbooks to the journalism building, where they left them in a first-floor classroom that was still largely intact.

“I’ll see about getting these yearbooks out to digitize them.” said Melissa.

“Can’t wait.” said Billy.

At this point, the explorers had been on campus for over an hour, so they decided to go to the next exploration. On their way out, they found the campus’s oldest building, McGraw Hall. It was a shell, the entire interior collapsed into the basement.

“What a shame. They used it for 48 years and it was fine, they leave it abandoned for 33 and it just totally collapses.” said Melissa.