Early October, 1974. The school year was just starting. The "Encountering America" coordinated studies program went into a retreat somewhere at a lake up in Mason County.

One of the faculty members, Dumi Maraire, prepared dinner for us. Dumi was a native of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe, where Dumi returned and died in 1999) and had a short and controversial career at Evergreen. He brought in a live goat and slaughtered it before the assembled students. Then we cooked and ate it. I think even some of the vegetarians took part, since it was almost an insult not to. Actually, it was pretty good.

While I was helping unload the car of another faculty member who was bringing in supplies from the outside world, I saw the headlines of a newspaper she had just picked up. Back at TESC, an Evergreen student named Vicki Schneider had fallen, jumped, or was pushed off a top floor of A Dorm and landed on the pavement next to the circle. Right under my window. Matt Groening's room was next door.

When I got back to TESC I learned all my roommates had been first on the scene. The death was ruled suicide.

It was going to be a very weird quarter.