By Donald H. Harrison
EL CAJON, California — Whimsy was a theme of Grossmont College’s two-day festival celebrating its 50th anniversary. An old-fashioned sock hop in the college’s gymnasium on Friday, April 13, looked back to the college’s founding in 1962, and students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends gave the “old college try” on Saturday, April 14, in an apparently successful attempt to get the most people ever to sign a birthday card and thereby gain a Guinness World Record.
In between these events were demonstrations and contests in almost every building, nook, cranny and quad of the community college — all geared to be fun for families.
Behind it all was a serious purpose, said Ron Oberndorfer, a member of the private Foundation for Grossmont and Cuyamaca Colleges, which underwrote the festival. The purpose of the festival, which also included the dedication of two recently remodeled buildings on campus — the Griffin Center for students and the Student Services and Administration Building– “is to show the community what they have paid for (through bonds), how exceptional it is, and what resources are available here, not only for students who can’t afford four-year schools, but for the community at large as well.”
Oberndorfer, an attorney, noted that his wife, Lisa, and David Kroll, members of the local Jewish community, sing in the Grossmont College’s Master Chorale, one of numerous activities that lure to the campus people who are already beyond their college educations.
The Friday night sock hop featured a band belting out the songs and instrumental solos of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, in a balloon-festooned gym where everyone was asked to take off their shoes and dance in their socks in order not to scuff the floor. I even saw one student wearing a poodle skirt, which might have once belonged to her grandmother. Attendees did the twist, the lindy, and other dances with children, parents and grandparents all having dance fun in their own way. Music was provided by Footloose, a band whose members could remember–rather than have to learn–some of the favorite old rock standards.
Although the forecast of rain, which sounded far worse than Saturday’s slight amount of precipitation, kept some people away on Saturday, there were more than enough to lay claim to the birthday signature record. Under the rules, people needed not only to sign their names, but also to add a wish of some sort –whether it be “Happy Birthday” or “Mazal tov,” or in my case, a thank you for having had the opportunity to teach journalism at Grossmont over the past two years.
People began signing the large birthday card at 9 a.m., and the written well-wishing did not end until the stroke of 2 p.m. The old record was 1,468 signatures, and Chancellor Cindy L. Miles, chancellor of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, and Sunita V. Cooke, president of Grossmont College, kept close tabs on the mounting totals. By 1 p.m., it was clear that the record would be surpassed, and after the event ended, Cooke happily spread the word that 1,821 signatures (with messages) had been collected on campus and via Grossmont College’s Facebook page.
The signatures need to be officially verified by the Guinness Book of Records, to make certain that there were no duplications or procedural errors. All who went through the line gave their names, addresses, emails and telephone numbers, and were handed a perforated ticket. One part of it, they gave to an official who dropped it into a box — so it could be counted. The other part of the ticket was redeemable for a cloth tote bag, and a tee-shirt bearing the image of Gizmo the Griffin, Grossmont College’s mascot — a griffin being a mythical being that is half lion and half eagle. Below the image of Gizmo was the boast that “I helped set a World’s Record At Grossmont College.” As the shirts were distributed before the world record was set, it could have been embarrassing if not enough people had joined the signature line.
There was plenty of room for swag in the bags, especially from some of the 46 organizations which, as contributors to the event, had their logos printed on the back of the shirt. Among the sponsors were Indian casinos, soft drink companies, shopping centers, news organizations, radio stations, law firms, service clubs, utilities, hospitals, food service companies and Grossmont’s (younger) sister, Cuyamaca College.
With events happening all over the campus, everyone who attended may have had different sequences of experiences. I attended on Saturday with my wife Nancy, and our oldest grandson, Shor, 10. One activity involved using a GPS for a campus scavenger hunt. The activity led us from point to point on the campus, and, among other knowledge gained, were the names of various rocks and plants used in the landscaping.
A Math Cab, modeled after the Cash Cab of television fame, let us ride in comfort as long as we could answer questions relating to math. Even I knew who was the man responsible for Euclidian geometry, but I made a silly mistake when asked what were the chances that I would pick a spade from a deck of cards. Blahhhhb went the buzzer when I said 1-in-13, thinking there are 13 cards in a suit. But of course, there are four suits of the same size, so the right answer was 1-4.
Later Shor and I played a game of Wheel of Fortune in which all the answers somehow related to mathematics . The phrase that we were trying to guess was “Fibonacci Sequence,” which refers to a string of numbers beginning with 0 and 1, followed in sequence by the sum of the two previous numbers. The sequence starts off 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and so forth. We didn’t guess it, but a girl who seemed about Shor’s age was able to get it through a process of elimination. For our Cash Cab and Wheel of Fortune efforts, we won some candy and, perhaps more pointedly, some green-and-white Grossmont College pencils with which we can practice math skills.
Exhibits and demonstrations we witnessed on campus ranged from classic cars to ceramics made by members of the Student Veterans Organization (working in clay can be a productive outlet for veterans with PTSD), to Arabic dancing (El Cajon has a very large Iraqi community.)
The printed program was stuffed with listings for a great variety of activities that we simply couldn’t get to– including exploring a mock crime scene created by the Administration of Justice program; an art exhibit portraying Grossmont College’s role in the community; digital assistive technology including speech-synthesizing computers; clinics in various sports; examining the microscopic world in the biology department; getting an ultrasound image of our heart and blood vessels; making lipstick; experiencing a “retro childhood” of the 1960s at the child development department; fruit carving tips from the culinary arts department; and interpretive dances by students.
There were also readings of student works at the English department; video recordings by the History Department of attendees’ recollections of their experiences at Grossmont; tours of the Media Communications Department’s TV studio, digital audio studio, and Griffin Radio; a health promotion fair by the Nursing Department; having a cast put on our fingers or arms by Orthopedic Tech students; a lecture on ethics by the philosophy department; photos of people in 1960s costumes; dissection of a sheep brain in the psychology department; exercises in normal breathing in the respiratory therapy department; having our body mass index checked by student health services, and taking backstage tours at the theatre arts department.
Shor was drawn to a video game competition at the Griffin Center, and I am proud to report that he made it to the semi-finals of Super Smash Bros Brawl — as his grandmother and I watched in complete befuddlement.
There were numerous food trucks on campus, but in that we still were observing Passover’s ban on bread products, we had to choose very carefully. Shor selected French Fries, with catsup, from an outfit called “Bitchin’ Burger.” He asked, with a little embarrassment, if the company’s first name isn’t a cuss word. Nancy and I told him that back in our day, “bitchin'” was slang for terrific.
For our family, Grossmont College’s Golden Anniversary was a big hit. “Bitchin'” in fact.
*
Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com