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Dennis Murphy

For the students, by the students

Dean Payne - back in the day

What was Dean Payne like in college? Read on to find out what he had to say about his college experience, in his own words.

I was an undergrad at the University of California-Santa Barbara. Some called it the beach and party school. There was a bunch of both. But I didn't party for long…

I got married about four months after going there. Alice and I did meet at a party, however. We were from the same town but didn't really meet until we were away at school.

I was initially a pre-med curriculum major with the goal of becoming a brain surgeon. But I became distracted and majored in psych. That became a bit boring - running rats through mazes - so I switched to zoology in which I received a BA, with a minor in psych.

For relaxation, Alice and I walked on the beach; I worked on our car; we went to the drive-in movie once per month - with a dozen weinerschnitzel hot dogs (10 cents a piece) and a six-pack; and we visited and partied with the neighbors in married student housing. You know, I have a pound of hamburger, you have some corn, we have some old meat loaf and I have a six-pack… Let's get together and party. We did.
I guess you can say I was a "lady's man" - Alice's. I wasn't at college and single long enough to be otherwise.

I don't think I made any glaring mistakes. I did change my major a few times, and it took an extra year to finish, but that was good experience. Hey, it helps me understand some of our students! Right!

I certainly didn't make a mistake marrying Alice. However, she might have made one marrying me. But she has hung in there for 40 years, so I guess she is living with it if she did!

I never got into any trouble in college. (Whew, I'm glad we're only talking about college here.)

Well, I did get some questioning when my classmate and I were shooting rodents in a road right-of-way. We were pressed to get two more specimens to stuff for our zoology class. We were coming back to campus and saw a rabbit and some other critters in between the two roads, so we tried to bag 'em. We did and didn't hit anything, but someone complained. Hmmmmm… We were just doing our homework assignment. Oh, and we didn't have any borax (the stuff you use when skinning and stuffing things), so we used flour. Ugh, what a mess. We turned in the critters, and the professor said we might as well have fried them. Might have gotten us a better grade.

Our extracurricular activities were fairly simple...and cheap. As I said, we walked on the beach. We also hiked in the hills, played cards with neighbors and watched TV some. We were hooked on the series "The Fugitive." We did a bunch of things with the other young marrieds. We fished off of the beach. Hey, that was dinner sometimes. We also collected kelp crabs for food. Wow, it took 200 legs for a mouthful. They were little buggers. And because of a natural offshore oil seepage, we spent a bunch of time cleaning tar off of our tennis shoes, too.

Nightlife? We watched the sun set, partied with neighbors, walked the beach when there was a phosphorescent tide, watched TV...snuggled a bunch...

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