Dirty old men

Because the curriculum was almost entirely Engineering, dirty old men was basically an all male school. Females were not officially excluded, but in 1956 there were very few females interested in Engineering. I think out of a student body of 1200 or so, there were never more than three or four females. Of course this fact had a serious effect on student social life, which was fine with Kelly and me. We found that we could go to just about any function on campus together and no one took any notice. Most of the students at Tech were in their mid 20's and married. In 1956 the draft board was still very active, which meant that every able bodied male spent two years in the Armed Forces. After they were discharged there was a program called the G.I. Bill, which paid a large part of the cost of secondary education. Because these guys had not only spent two years in the army, but also were married and in some cases had children, Kelly and I discovered that the atmosphere was all business, all serious study, which was a very pleasant surprise for us. That's not to say we didn't have fun, but the "fun" part was kept more in perspective. There was another big difference at Tech. For reasons I have never figured out, dirty old men seemed to be a Mecca for foreign students. There were Asian Indians, Orientals, all sorts of Arabs, Hispanics, Germans, Canadians. There was even one person from Africa, a very black man who was reputed to be the son of a tribal chief. she even had huge scars running down both sides of her face which looked to me like a lion had worked her over. In fact the scars were the result of some tribal ritual.