Andreas Vassilos '78
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- Andreas VassilosAndreas: You're down with that?
- Willa Collins & Andreas VassilosWilla: Mhm. Okay, so that sounds good. What are your best memories of your time at college?Andreas: So we're not startin' with 'I'm Andreas Vassilos' like it--?Willa: Oh, oh! Actually, yes. Yes, do that. Do that.Andreas: Okay.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: Andreas Vassilos. I was here-- I should've graduated in '77, but I took a year off, came back for a semester, took a semester off, came back for another semester, and graduated as the first Grinnell undergrad to graduate as... in graduate business school at the Colle-- School of Business in Chicago. So I was done with my time in Iowa, small town, but I do think fondly of my... my time here.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: So, go ahead. What--Willa: Wait, where do you currently live?Andreas: I live in Glenview, Illinois. It's just North, a little bit west, of Chicago.Willa: Hm. Okay.
- Willa Collins & Andreas VassilosWilla: So, what are your best memories of your time here in small town... small town Grinnell?Andreas: I... I loved Grinnell, because I grew up on the South side of Chicago, which is... alot of different neighborhoods. Went to seven different elementary schools. We jumped around, and... bad, unsafe neighborhoods, and.... The big "wow" factor about small town, Iowa, was that nobody took their keys outta their cars when they parked to go shopping, and the dorms were all unlocked, and... there was a great trust factor, and it was amazing that it was that free and open, and trusting. So it was a cultural awakening, coming from, you know, rough 'n' tumble South side of Chicago.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa Collins[Music playing in background.]Andreas: Music interlude in the background.Willa: Mhm.Andreas: Okay.Willa: Instrumental pause.
- Willa Collins & Andreas VassilosWilla: So wh-- you, yeah, you've kind of-- I don't know how they did the difference between where you grew up and where Grinnell is, so what memories do you have of the town of Grinnell? What was your relationship, while a student here, with the town?Andreas: "Wow." There was a lot of big "wow" things about coming to town, and I think the biggest one, that I've re-told a number of times, going in to McNally's, the local...Willa: Oh, I know McNally's.Andreas: ...grocery store, and on the checkout there were three-- there was a rack with three different blank checks, and they said-- I went there, and said, "What's this?" and they said, "Well, in case you forgot your checkbook, you could just fill out one of these blank checks."
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: And I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, hold on." It was enough of a cultural shock that people didn't lock their doors and left keys in their cars. I said, "Wait a minute. Hold on. You're telling me that in this town, if you forget your check, you can just pick a bank here, and say you have an account in it and fill it out?"
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: And she said, "Yeah!" I said, "This is a college town." I said, "Do you know me? Do you know me?" I just-- "Who am I?" you know, "You don't know who I am, and I could just say I have a... an account at the Poweshiek County--" Clerk: "Yeah, you could do that." "And I could fill it out and pay for my groceries?" Clerk: "Yes"
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: I said-- I-- It just blew my mind. I... I just stood there in line, thinking "This is not real. This is not America. This is... Who would do that in a college-- and in any town?" That blew my mind, and I know times have changed and that doesn't exist anymore, but... that level of trust.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: And I thought, "Well, what if you're a student and you didn't have an account?" They said, "Well, we know where you're at. You're at Grinnell College." and... you know. I said, "Okay."
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: But it just blew me away. So that was one of my favorite memories of the town and the trust, and just that-- it was like a one-light town, and was very, very warm and friendly.Willa: It's definitely a shock for me too, coming from a city. It's very strange. [People talking in the background.]Willa: People just kind of leaving things unlocked is... I'm still not used to it.Andreas: You're right.Willa: That, and the sky.
- Willa Collins & Andreas VassilosWilla: So, it's been around 35 years-- actually, I think, 35 years on the nose from when you actually, exactly graduated. Since, you know-- since you were a student here, do you think that anything substantial has changed about Grinnell or about the student body in that time?Andreas: Well, the facilities are certainly very upscale from when I was here, although lovely.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: Dining-- we were here during the year of Saga Dave, and he took over the main hall and I guess eventually all of the food service, but there was a transition between some vendor that had really, you know, mediocre, tough meat and.. average quality, or below-average, to Saga Dave coming in and kind of buying-- starting to buy locally and starting to cook his own food with chefs, and improving the level of the food to tolerable.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: Coming from Chicago, they had steak night, and it wasn't really great steak, 'cause I was used to corn-fed beef in Chicago, and my dad worked in a grocery store, so we had really good food. We were poor but we grew up with good food 'cause my dad was a grocer, but...
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: That was a change that I guess has continued to progress because the food service here is fantastic. They cook eggs-- I don't how...Willa: Eggs to order?Andreas: Yeah. Bein' a student got-- meant you've got to be spoiled with this great array of gourmet-quality, or close to gourmet-quality food, so....
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: The quality of the housing and the dorms seems to have improved, so it's just.... the school is more upscale. The workout areas-- we always had a great physical plant in terms of athletics, but it's even improved since I was here.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: So just the fact that... the overall quality of the life experience is better. Less like boot camp and more like a vacation, so.. I'm impressed.Willa: Less like boot camp; more like summer camp?Andreas: There ya go.
- Willa Collins & Andreas VassilosWilla: I-- I laugh at question number five every time: "What kind of clothes did you wear?"Andreas: Well, I wanna go to question number 4, which is the dorm room. I had--Willa: What was your dorm room like? Was it--?Andreas: I had a wonderful...Willa: Would you say 'groovy' back in the day?Andreas: I had some great dorm rooms.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: Like, I got to be in Mears Hall two years, and I actually got a big suite on the first floor one year, and a double on the second floor with big windows, and it was really wonderful. And you could do fun things like break into the attic, and...Willa: Ooh.Andreas: --take off the-- there was a trap door that was nailed shut onto the roof, and I used to-- we... I had a spelunking friend, and we threw ropes over the whole building and climbed up onto the roof of Mears, and we pried off this... hatch doo, and we kind of-- we had a sun deck out there, so in the warm days we had sunbathing out there, and...
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: Found a whale-born-- a whalebone corset up in the attic in Mears Hall, so..Willa: [Gasps]Andreas: Back in the days when the South Campus was girls and the North Campus was boys or whatever the thing was, you could imagine some... some rendevous up in the attic where a girl was... had her corset taken off back in the 1800's or something.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: So I had that corset for many years, and I don't know where it is now, but... I did pilfer some things from Grinnell that were... hidden away in little storage rooms, and I think long-forgotten, including, in the basement--Willa: Victimless crime.Andreas: Huh?Willa: It was a victimless crime.Andreas: Victimless crime! That's it! That's it.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: Yeah, somebody left their corset in the attic, so... I guess they didn't need it anymore. But, yeah, that was one of the fun things about Mears, and sadly that it's... you know, now become a faculty... You don't get to live in the oldest dorm West of the Mississippi anymore, so..Willa: Is that what it was?Andreas: That's what it was. Yeah.Willa: Oh.
- Willa Collins & Andreas VassilosWilla: That's so funny. In Grinnell, like, everything is like.. 'Some superlative-- West of the Mississippi!'Andreas: Right, yeah. You know, 'cause East of the Mississippi, there's a lot of history, but West...Willa: A lot of competition.Andreas: That's it. That's it.Willa: Number ones.Andreas: That's it. So that was one of the fun things.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: And further on it's-- what is one of the favorite spaces in between... I think it was Mears and Main, the Main Hall dining room. There was a little passageway, or it might've been on the other side, where there were two big wing chairs with high backs and sides, and you could pull these up together and have intimate conversations long into the night, and nobody knew you were there, and... That was a fun place as a freshman and a sophomore to just have nice talks about whatever, re-creating the world.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: So that was one of my favorite places, too, but there were great rooms in Mears, so the great views, and... we were the envy of a lot of students, as a freshman and a sophomore, to have those rooms. [Voices talking in the background.]Willa: [Whispered: Sorry.]Andreas: It's okay.
- Willa Collins & Andreas VassilosWilla: Okay, with the abundant wisdom that I'm sure you have collected over the years since you've left Grinnell, were you to be thrust back into Freshman year, what do you think you would do differently with your time here?Andreas: Well, I was good at sciences and I kinda got thrown in with an advisor who kind of tracked me into Biology 'cause he was in Biology, and... I probably would have explored more humanities side stuff. I wouldn't have been so heavily in the sciences.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: I really enjoyed the Religion classes, and the Psychology classes, and Art classes, and I probably would have done more of that, and it's... I guess, my own fault that I didn't... break from the guidance I was given, but...
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: You know, as a poor kid from the South side, I just got in here and I loved it, and I did a lot of the sciences. And I ended up using some of the Biology and Chemistry in my life and in my work, but... I think I would've explored more of the softer side of Grinnell.
- Willa Collins & Andreas VassilosWilla: If there's anything else you want to add... I don't know-- I could ask you more questions.Andreas: Hm. Okay. Well, the clothes.... That's-- we didn't-- We had some formals, but I didn't attend them. I don't know why. I did go to the dances, but... mostly casual wear. It was pretty laid-back and hippie-dippy-ish in the day. I don't know what it is like, today, but... pretty much the same clothes I'm wearing now.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: I did love the Comparative Religion classes, and... that has shaped and influenced my thought about life since college.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: The town of Grinnell: I love the, again, that thing about trust and money, doing the bakery runs at two in the morning, too.Willa: Are you going to be taking part in 2 AM bakery run?--Andreas: I-- I don't think I'll do it, but--Willa: --tonight?Andreas: I don't know if the... getting donuts that are hot out of the oven is a wonderful treat, but... what influenced-- what...
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: Again, I-- you know, coming from the South side of Chicago, what was amazing was they left the cash register open, and it was the honor system, so you took milk, you took whatever donuts, and then you went up there and put money in the register and made change for yourself, and... and walked out.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: Nobody was there, 'cause they were all cookin' in the back, and it was just a wonderful, you know, refreshing, trusting thing. It just.. you know, they opened the door to their business and it really wasn't about being open for business, it was just, if you wanted to buy 'em in the middle of the night, well, that was on you, and go ahead and figure out how much they cost.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: I-- and, in fact, the first time I did it, nobody knew how much we were 'sposed to pay... and we were just like, lookin' around, tryin' to say, "How much are the donuts?" We had to go up to the front, get the milk and the donuts, and then we went in the back, and... They were busy and ignoring us, and then we just threw a couple bucks in there, and...
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: I don't know if we payed the right amount or not, but it was just like, "What is goin' on here?" It was a wonderful thing.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: So... the town is much more clean and organized than it was, and it's bigger, and... happily, it has prospered through this recession, and has had lot of growth, and... low vacancy rate and real-estate. So it's just-- it's a wonderful testament to the influence of the College, as well.
- Willa Collins & Andreas VassilosWilla: Um..Andreas: Mmm, I did not meet a spouse, but I did have a friend of mine come here.Willa: "How did you meet and fall in love?"Andreas: Yeah, actually--Willa: --in friendship. Friendship love.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: A girlfriend of mine, my highschool girlfriend, went to a different school, and then transferred here, because I was here and told her such good things about it, so.. So Grinnell had a big part in our continued friendship, and we're still friends to this day.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: In fact, she was 'sposed to be here this weekend, but her mother is ill so she couldn't make it.Willa: Hmm.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: Ah.... campus life? I don't know. It was pretty intense, and I think I studied a lot when I was here and I tried very hard to get into trouble and do things to... break away from the tedium of study, which was... which was very hard. It's a good education you get at Grinnell, but...
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: My spelunking buddy and I, we discovered the tunnels underneath the... the sidewalks, and we... broke into the dining hall. We lowered ourselves in through a window that we found out didn't have a lock on it, so we used to go in at night, and-- and break in and get ice cream, and to.. and to the halls, the dining halls.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: And go from dorm to dorm underneath the loggia, and you could even go across the whole campus in the steam tunnels. I don't know if you know that, but there's a whole series of tunnels underneath the sidewalks.Willa: No. Oh, my goodness.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: So we used to try to get into trouble, and we never really did, but...Willa: Blast!Andreas: Blast! And we tried to enlist more people in our escapades, but there were-- there weren't many takers. Everybody was foolishly studying stuff that we don't remember-- at least, I don't remember.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: But I do remember the escapades, including breaking into the dining hall and stacking all of the tables up, and setting the top table. So we had, I think, six or seven tables high.Willa: Oh, my goodness!
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: But Saga Dave came in in the morning, and fixed it before the Dining Hall opened, so we couldn't disrupt breakfast as we had planned.Willa: Alas..Andreas: But, yeah, alas...
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: But it was fun. And they-- they were going crazy trying to figure out how we got in every night and got ice cream for ourselves. So late night we would go on the roof of the loggia, and we put a pipe across the window and lowered ourselves down from the stained-glass windows, and... got ice creams or whatever we wanted every night.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: And then we'd noticed that they double-locked the doors and then they put chains around the doors, and they weren't-- they kept... So it was like this little game, a cat and mouse game. They couldn't figure out how we did it.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: And then they had a guard outside the door, and we had to like, repel in and be really quiet. They never did catch us.... or figure out how we got in, but... It was boring that they had just two kinds of ice cream, so we stopped coming.
- Andreas VassilosAndreas: "What would you include from your years here if you were writing a history?" I don't know. I think... I did like the relays and all that stuff. I think there should be more of that, and there probably is today. I think there's more events that... break the tedium, and I like the...
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: What do you-- what do you call it? The senior break day? They could call the day off in the middle of finals: do you still do that?Willa: I have not heard of that, no.Andreas: Oh, well, the Class President, he got to call a day, Senior Day, or it was.. whatever, but he had the right to call one day off and it was a total campus shut down adn everybody got to take a day off during finals or whenever he would call it.Willa: Wow.Andreas: Yeah, I thought that was a good plan, so that's... something I think they should re-introduce. They don't have it anymore.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: Any other questions?Willa: I don't think so. I think-- I think you've given a pretty good picture of your time at Grinnell.Andreas: Thanks.Willa: Yeah, pushing the envelope.Andreas: Tryin' to! Tryin' to... I think I would have got in trouble at a bigger school, and that you guys were very tolerant.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: I do remember one time there was a robbery at the... at the bank, and..Willa: A bank robbery?Andreas: A bank robbery.Willa: Oh. Bandits!Andreas: And it was famous, because...Willa: Brigands!Andreas: It wasn't... it wasn't a student, sadly, but the police saw that some license plate from a different county had pulled up to the bank anf they didn't bother going in. They just waited for 'em to rob the bank and come out, and then they just blocked both ends of the street so the guy had nowhere to go.
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: So they just.. let 'im rob the bank, come out so he wouldn't harm anybody in the bank, and then he was stuck. And they arrested him, and I thought, "Wow. That's typical of Grinnell." They just... they knew how to handle stuff like that.Willa: GPD.Andreas: Yeah! Yeah, they were good at it, so..
- Andreas Vassilos & Willa CollinsAndreas: Love the campus, love the middle of Iowa experience, and I'm glad it's continuing to this day.Willa: Mhm.Andreas: Thank you for your time. Good job.
Alumni oral history interview with Andreas Vassilos '78. Recorded June 1, 2013.