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Imagine it is March
of 1972 as we start our tour of Green Valley's campus in front of The Big
House. To get here we drove through Orange City, turned east on Graves
Avenue and then south on Monastery Road.
Upstairs is the behavior lab and downstairs are
the administration offices. If we go through the front door, Don File's
office will be on our left and the office girls will be on our right, typing
on their IBM Selectric typewriters and filing the carbon copies in a bank of
Steelcase file cabinets. I can almost smell the Whiteout.
If we go towards the back of the house we find
Earl Nettles in his office. Earl is the most unpopular man on campus. Earl's job
is to impose some discipline on the spending. And with all the drifters, nair-do-wells and college kids on the staff, his job is not an easy one. One time
years later, when Earl and I were hauling off what we could salvage from the Buckbrook
campus before it was to be torn down, George put his hand on Earl's shoulder and told him that he
always understood that he was in his debt, because Earl had married the most obnoxious woman in Orange City,
thereby stopping George's brother from doing so and keeping her out of
George's family. As high praise as that was, I am sure that is not why George gave Earl the job. With his prickly,
in-your-face personality, Earl was a natural and just the man you would want
keep everyone in line when it came to the spending. Most people want to be
liked, but Earl didn't give a damn what you thought of him and would be happy
to tell you so.
Well, we could go inside, but that singing you
hear coming from The Big House means the George is on campus. No point in tempting
fate. Let's duck off the right before we are spotted.
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