Yale student who secretly lived in ventilation shaft

Student embarrassed by failing at UMICH lived in a church attic for four years, 1955-1959.
http://michigantoday.umich.edu/a8555/

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You’re among friends here.

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Cardboard box? Luxury.
We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank.
We used to have to get up at six o’clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out.
When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

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Also, popcorn.

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Just call me “Dr Meredith”. And never forget to check your references.

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Hopefully, he didn’t find old cylinders of chlorine trifluoride lying around.

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Always…no, no. ‘Never’ forget to check your references. I think the young people rather enjoy it when I ‘get down’ verbally, don’t you?

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it’s a little tight, but I’ve got central air!

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I wonder if the people using the squash courts ever complained about the “Eau du Kornfeld”?

Ha, wild! My uncle lived in a tent just off a beach in Nantucket for a year, but it was back in the 70’s so he flew under the radar I guess.

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It is fascinating how much of modern building floorplans are taken up with “Plenum” (ventilation shaft). About the only people who see them are workers running communication wires through them. I am surprised more mutants don’t reclaim this space… seems like it would be a good place for growing pot or other quasi legal processes. So long as the airflow doesn’t change direction.

For the longest time I didn’t know the name of the movie, but remembered key bits about the creepy guy who lived in the wall and won a mail-away sweepstakes by printing a ton of entries. I re-discovered it after some internet sleuthing one day, but have neglected to actually re-watch it. I think I’m bumping it up to a higher spot on my list now though.

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For those in the Seattle area, there’s a free screening of Real Genius coming up at Paul Allen’s Living Computers museum:

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