When I arrived at Carleton in the fall of 1964, I was assigned to first Davis with roommate Tom Fabel. We shared a bathroom with an adjoining room occupied by Ken Wishnow and Tom Williamson. Their door opened to the main hallway which was a straight shot for those returning to their rooms from the Burton dining hall or the first Burton hallway. As a result of the heavy foot traffic and our “open door” policy, our rooms were frequent gathering places. That year, first Davis and second Musser were all-freshmen floors, two of the last bastions of class segregation. This would be the final year of class segregation. In addition to the roommates, frequent visitors included Eric Janus, Bruce Muchmore, David Gast, and, most notably Donny Mazer. Mazer was a character. He was very small and very smart. He loved jazz and math and was clearly his own person. He also loved gin. He was a heavy drinker who suffered a serious medical incident his senior year requiring a hospital stay. Eventually, he was diagnosed as epileptic. Stories about the “Maje” could go on all night. In later years, he would don his knee-length army jacket, his leather air force helmet, and hitch hike back to East Stroudsburg, PA from Carleton for the summer. As a jazz aficionado, he would hitch hike into NYC and hole up at the Village Vanguard. He played the piano and sang to himself his whole life. After graduation, I lost track of Mage for a few years, reconnecting in 1977. I returned from a research trip to the Barbados, got divorced, and was pretty much at loose ends. I hopped a D.C.-bound bus to visit Williamson and Tim Pile, but decided to detour to East Stroudsburg to look up the Maje. It was to be my only visit to his rural home which his father had built and where he lived with his mother. I recall that he had made a stab at grad school at SUNY-Binghamton. However, due to health issues—and possibly a lack of social skills—this did not work out, and he returned home to stay. We connected more often in the mid-1990s when my job gave me access to a toll-free phone number. We had wide-ranging conversations at least every other week during the next several years. Don read the NY Times daily and was very well-informed. During these years, he took care of his mother, held local day-labor jobs, tended to the upkeep of the house, and continued playing the piano. Eventually, his mother moved to a retirement home. After her death, Don was pretty much on his own. In the spring of 2006, I realized that I hadn’t heard from him in quite some time. Previously, he had always called on my toll-free line—I didn’t have his phone number. I finally located the number, but it was disconnected. I was a stockbroker then, and we had often discussed investments. I remembered the firm he invested with, called them, and discovered that he had died. Subsequently, I spoke to his sister. Apparently, he had suffered a seizure, fallen, and hit his head. She told me that he had taken up whittling and sent me one of his carvings. It is sort of a Celtic knot carved from one piece of wood with the connecting parts folding back inside the piece to reconnect to the opposite side. It is complicated. And it is a wonderful representation of Maje himself. Those bull sessions in our freshman dorm rooms bring back fantastic memories, especially of Maje. He was not always an easy friend, but he was a unique, complicated, interesting character. I will always be grateful for knowing him.
Donnie Dean ‘68
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When I arrived at Carleton in the fall of 1964, I was assigned to first Davis with roommate Tom Fabel. We shared a bathroom with an adjoining room occupied by Ken Wishnow and Tom Williamson. Their door opened to the main hallway which was a straight shot for those returning to their rooms from the Burton dining hall or the first Burton hallway. As a result of the heavy foot traffic and our “open door” policy, our rooms were frequent gathering places. That year, first Davis and second Musser were all-freshmen floors, two of the last bastions of class segregation. This would be the final year of class segregation. In addition to the roommates, frequent visitors included Eric Janus, Bruce Muchmore, David Gast, and, most notably Donny Mazer. Mazer was a character. He was very small and very smart. He loved jazz and math and was clearly his own person. He also loved gin. He was a heavy drinker who suffered a serious medical incident his senior year requiring a hospital stay. Eventually, he was diagnosed as epileptic. Stories about the “Maje” could go on all night. In later years, he would don his knee-length army jacket, his leather air force helmet, and hitch hike back to East Stroudsburg, PA from Carleton for the summer. As a jazz aficionado, he would hitch hike into NYC and hole up at the Village Vanguard. He played the piano and sang to himself his whole life. After graduation, I lost track of Mage for a few years, reconnecting in 1977. I returned from a research trip to the Barbados, got divorced, and was pretty much at loose ends. I hopped a D.C.-bound bus to visit Williamson and Tim Pile, but decided to detour to East Stroudsburg to look up the Maje. It was to be my only visit to his rural home which his father had built and where he lived with his mother. I recall that he had made a stab at grad school at SUNY-Binghamton. However, due to health issues – and possibly a lack of social skills – this did not work out, and he returned home to stay. We connected more often in the mid-1990s when my job gave me access to a toll-free phone number. We had wide-ranging conversations at least every other week during the next several years. Don read the NY Times daily and was very well-informed. During these years, he took care of his mother, held local day-labor jobs, tended to the upkeep of the house, and continued playing the piano. Eventually, his mother moved to a retirement home. After her death, Don was pretty much on his own. In the spring of 2006, I realized that I hadn’t heard from him in quite some time. Previously, he had always called on my toll-free line – I didn’t have his phone number. I finally located the number, but it was disconnected. I was a stockbroker then, and we had often discussed investments. I remembered the firm he invested with, called them, and discovered that he had died. Subsequently, I spoke to his sister. Apparently, he had suffered a seizure, fallen, and hit his head. She told me that he had taken up whittling and sent me one of his carvings. It is sort of a Celtic knot carved from one piece of wood with the connecting parts folding back inside the piece to reconnect to the opposite side. It is complicated. And it is a wonderful representation of Maje himself. Those bull sessions in our freshman dorm rooms bring back fantastic memories, especially of Maje. He was not always an easy friend, but he was a unique, complicated, interesting character. I will always be grateful for knowing him. Donnie Dean