If you have children under the age of 18, they might not recognize that item with the folding glass door on the front of it. That is a phone booth. It was often used as a place into which fraternity brothers would try to fit as many of their pledges as possible (before Volkswagen Beetles came along), and the outdoor versions could also be used as a urinal by undergraduates who'd gotten loaded at one of the Back Bay nightclubs. But in the '70s, it was a primary means of communication at a time when there were no such things as cellphones (or texting or IM'ing or WTF) and the phone company was a monopoly called AT&T (the more things change, the more they stay the same). In London, these anachronistic devices are painted red and look like the Tardis.
East Campus had at least two phone booths, from which 25-cent calls could be made to the local Domino's for pizza (see, some things really don't change). And it was part of the dormitory phone system, which consisted of a network of tin cans connected together with string. I suppose I'm being harsh; it was a wire-and-PBX system by 1975, but you could call your obnoxious neighbor's room from the hall phone and "pin" their phone (making it impossible for them to call out) simply by leaving the phone off the hook.
Anyway, Pud Stickles arrived at East Campus in the Fall of 1975. The residents on his floor bore a slight resemblance to people I knew on my floor, which was Second East; you could call them caricatures. This was actually the first strip published by thursday in my sophomore season; you could call it sophomoric humor...
It was followed by this strip...
...and...
It should be noted that while East Campus was officially co-ed, some floors were not. Second East was unofficially co-ed, which meant a couple of students brought their girlfriends to live with them. The female character in Stickles lived only with her cat, who showed up in later strips...
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