The U.S. was in a post-Korean War recession, an 11-month downturn brought on by the usual things, raised interest rates, high inflation brought about from an influx of money into a wartime economy. The gross domestic product lost 2.2 percent of growth, and unemployment peaked at about 6 percent. McCarthyism ended, Jonas Salk’s polio vaccines began. Medical science also saw the first successful organ transplant, a kidney moved from one twin to another. Vietnam was divided into two countries according to the Geneva Accords. RCA produced its first color TV, and about 29 million American homes had a television, most of them black and white, of course. They invented the piña colada in Cuba, and RC mastered sodas in cans. The Butterball turkey, M&M’s, the transistor radio and the first electric drip coffee maker hit the shelves.

The Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education, though it sadly took another decade before my alma mater integrated. Even though that was slow to pass, a lot was going on at the time. Some of it we can look back on here, in the old yearbooks I collect.

This is the fifth installment of our glance through 1954. Part one is here, and you can find part two here. We met some interesting people in part three. And part four was last week. All of them will wind up in the Glomerata section (eventually). You can see others, here. Or maybe you’d like to click through to see all the covers. I wouldn’t blame you. They’re quite handsome. The university hosts their collection here.

Freshmen are showing their spirit in their pajamas. It’s a part of the lore of the Georgia Tech rivalry, commemorating Auburn’s first home game against Georgia Tech, their first ever home game, in 1896. Tech was coming in by a special train, but before it arrived some API students coated the rails with grease, lard, soap and who knows what else. The train couldn’t stop, so the visiting team had to walk back, several miles, on that same railway, football gear in hand.

By game time, the Tech boys were understandably tired, and Auburn won 45-0. Campus stories are just the best. And from that story came the Wreck Tech Pajama Parade, with students marching down to the train station for a pep rally. It was an annual event until the series was discontinued as a regular part of the schedule in 1987.

In 1953 the game was in Atlanta, and Tech won 36-6. Probably the freshmen’s fault.

The caption says “Mike Donahue honored at Dad’s Day.” I don’t know if that means Father’s Day, or if there was some other university-centric theme here, but Donahue was even important in 1954. Born an Irishman, he came to the U.S., was a five-foot-four three sport star at Yale, and then getting hired by Auburn, starting out a sterling career, which culminated in this magical moment of human literature.

He coached football at API for 18 years, had three undefeated seasons, and held, for 70-plus years, the highest winning percentage in school history. He won six conference championships, became athletic director and coached basketball, baseball, track and soccer. He moved on to another stellar run at LSU in the 1920s for some reason, and so he has roads named after him on both campuses.

But LSU students are legendarily bad spellers, so he never got this honor down there. An inaugural member of the College Football Hall of Fame, he died in Baton Rouge in 1960, age 84.

We’re not in the sports section of the book yet, I promise, but this random space filler from the undergrad headshot section was too great not to share. That’s Hal Herring, in the suit. He’s the defensive line coach, in a suit.

He’s about 30 years old in this photo. Born in the nearby small town of Lanett, he played at Auburn, and then for the Buffalo Bills and Cleveland Browns. He would later work as a coach for the Falcons and the Chargers in the NFL as well. This was his first of 13 seasons at Auburn, where he helped cultivate a reputation of stout defenses, which were ranked first in the nation six times and were in the top 10 every season. He also helped cultivate the less-than-sterling reputation of paying players. The conference fined the school and the NCAA put them on probation for three years because he supposedly slipped a few C-notes to recruits. He was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. He and his wife, had five children, and were married for 58 years. He died in 2014.

Frank D’Agostino, with the helmet, was on his way to becoming an All-American lineman who later played professionally for the Eagles and the New York Titans. He died in Florida in 1997. He’s sitting next to Vince Nardone. And I know that because this photo, and the team photo with captions, are the only places Nardone shows up in this yearbook. He’s not easy to track down online, either, but a bit of sports copy from an Athens, Georgia newspaper in December of 1953 tells us he left the team near the end of the season to go home to New Jersey, and was being enlisted into the Army.

I found a Vincent Nardone from that same town, a NYC bedroom community, population of 25,000 at the time. How many Vincent Nardones could there have been in that era? At least two, but I found the correct one.

Our guy served in Okinawa during the Korean War and then came home to work in the family contracting business. He raised two children, turned to gardening and thoroughbred breeding. He was 86 when he died in 2019. He had four grandchildren and that same smile.

Here’s the marching band, in parade in Birmingham. The cutline confirms it, but that Britling sign is the giveaway. Britling was a famous cafeteria chain which would eventually count 16 stores across that city and about a dozen more elsewhere. During the Great Depression the cafeteria gave a free hot breakfast to needy customers downtown. They did that until 1975. They were a big hit with kids, and sponsored the local children’s TV program, when that was a thing. Romper Room had a live audience and kids finished a glass of milk during their visit got a punch card. Drinking enough milk would earn you a ceramic mug with the Britling logo on one side and Romper Room’s jack-in-the-box on the other. You can still buy their stuff at auction.

I think everything in this photo is different now, but this is where the band was marching.

It’s OK to admit it, but for the longest time, when you thought of college, it looked something like this, didn’t it?

To those students, this is the Main Library. Today, it is Mary Martin Hall, named for the woman who served as library from 1918 to 1949. It was the first purpose-built library on campus, and was still in its prime here. In 1963 it became an administrative building, housing the registrar’s office, financial aid and career center. This was the Street Maps view in 2016.

The caption reads “We’ll be there next year.” This was at the end of Shug Jordan’s third year at the helm, the Tigers finished 7–3–1, losing to to Texas Tech in the Gator Bowl. So there was real optimism. Vince Dooley was wrapping up his stellar career and there was surely more to come for his younger teammates.

With that spirit and some talented players, the next year they went 8–3 overall, reeling off seven-straight to finish the season, including a win over Alabama in the Iron Bowl and a return to the Gator Bowl, where they bested Baylor. That sign was ahead of its time. They didn’t make it to the Sugar Bowl until 1972.

The caption here reads, “No dealing off the bottom, Gaylord.” So I was settling in to spin the yard of a notorious east Alabama card shark …

But there is no one in this yearbook named Gaylord. Nor does it seem to be a common slang expression, and so we’ll never go.

Go fish.

“This ain’t no time for jokes.”

Indeed it’s not. This might be part of a play, “Skin of Our Teeth.” Either way, engage your core.

“This is the way to twirl girls.”

Sleeveless shirts were in that year, it seems.

We don’t have a lot of context here, either. The Schlitz sign was a big national campaign, so that doesn’t help. Searches for Sizzling Steaks aren’t terribly productive. There’s a loans sign in the background, and an indecipherable street sign.

It looks like it might be chilly, though. Late in the fall? Let’s say it’s back in Birmingham as the holidays approached, like that marching band photo. Probably, then, this was a part of the same party on wheels, before the Iron Bowl. (Auburn lost.)

All of these photos will wind up in the Glomerata section, of course. You can see others, here. Or maybe you’d like to click through to see all of the covers. The university hosts their collection here.

We get in our time machines and travel back 70 years, to a world strange, yet familiar. But perhaps mostly strange? Here are a few more photos from my alma mater’s yearbook, the Glomerata, which I collect. If my grandparents had gone to school there, they’d be somewhere in this book. They’re not, their peers are. I wonder if they knew any of the people inside.

This is the fourth installment of our glance through 1954. Part one is here, and you can find part two here. We saw part three last week. All of them will wind up in the Glomerata section (eventually). You can see others, here. Or maybe you’d like to click through to see all the covers. I wouldn’t blame you. They’re quite handsome. The university hosts their collection here.

This is 1954.

We left off last week with the Army ROTC. All able-bodied male students served a compulsory two-year stint. Some of them, of course, would stay on. Even in ’54, as we’ve been seeing, quite a few of these young men were changing from their civilian clothes to a cap and gown to a uniform, at least for a while. And it wasn’t just the Army ROTC. This is Col. James W. Townsend, professor of air science and tactics.

He graduated from Purdue in 1937. He joined up in 41, and during the war, Townsend was a captain in the 416th Bombardment Group, at least while they were stateside in Oklahoma. The 416th flew medium bombers for the Ninth Air Force in Western Europe. They were awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation in France, bombing out infrastructure that hampered the German retreat. In 1951 Townsend was high up the command chart at Continental Air Command at Mitchel Air Base in New York. After a brief stint in Germany, he was at Auburn from 1952 through 1956, and he and his family were a popular part of town. They packed up their two kids and shipped out to the Philippines. He finally retired from the service in 1961 and went to work in his native Indiana as the assistant chief for the division of land acquisition for the Indiana Highway Department, a job he held until he died in 1971, aged 63. He and his wife had a son and daughter.

The Air ROTC unit had a good pitch. Why sign up with the Army, when you can go over to the air base and pose up a storm with some of the bombers?

And spare a thought for that staff sergeant, who is probably three or four years into his Air Force career, and now he’s having to walk around these college kids.

Sometimes, you got to pose in the bomber.

Do we know anything about that plane? Yes, we do. That’s the serial number there and the world wide web still has plenty of wonders.

The B-25J-25-NC (serial number 44-30748) rolled off the line in Kansas City in February of 1945. It was listed as surplus right away and was finally put into service in 1948 as a trainer, bouncing around a few stops in those roles in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Illinois, later, Texas. Those cadets met the plane in Mobile, where it was getting some upgrades. In 1958 it went into storage and was later sold into civilian life. At least one owner used it as a crop sprayer. Then, in 1969 this plane was sold to a Hollywood company and the plane would appear in the classic, “Catch 22.”

Sometime in the next two decades it was restored and deemed airworthy again. On April 21, 1992, this plane was the first of two B-25s that launched off the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ranger to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid. (In 2011 I wrote about one of the Doolittle pilots.)

You can see some beautiful archival shots of this bomber. Or see it today! It’s still flying, out of Oregon. And yes, there’s video.

But we don’t know the name of the cadet in the bird, so I can’t look him up.

This is Col. George E. Bell, of Artesia, California, a professor of naval science and tactics, and a Marine.

He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1936, and earned a silver star with the 6th Marine Division on Okinawa as a lieutenant colonel, commanding the First Battalion, Fourth Marines, 6th Marine Division. It was June of 1945, and Bell realized his entire battalion was suddenly at risk when the left side of his assault stalled. So, he moved up, found the location of the enemy fire, got wounded and coordinated the attack until the Japanese threat was reduced, allowing his Marines to seize the ridge.

The First Battalion had fought at both Guam and Okinawa, some of the most bitter fighting in the Pacific. So that’s who the Midshipmen were learning from, before settling into their three-year hitches. It says here that 16 percent of the Middies were going into the Corps.

Bell married twice, but it looks like he was single here. And this was his last year on campus. What comes next for him is an open mystery, but it appears he might have also been assigned to the Philippines sometime soon after. If I have the right guy, he made it to the 21st century, and died at 90.

I wonder if that was an invasion of the beach at Lake Martin.

This is Arthur Moore Jr., from Pell City, and president of the student body.

He was an Eagle Scout, he served as an Air Force navigator for three years after graduation. He married his college sweetheart, Elizabeth, and went to work with Alcoa Aluminum for 41 years. He became a masterful horticulturist, and president of the American Orchid Society. He worked closely with his church’s missions and was a big supporter of the arts. All the local kids got to see The Nutcracker, and whether they understood it or not, or knew it or not, Moore was the man behind it. When he died in 2017 at 84, he and his wife of 61 years had two daughters, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

This is Suzanne Morgan, president of the women’s student government association, because there was one of those back then. She was a popular classmate in high school in Wetumpka, Alabama. And she was popular in college, too. She was voted a campus favorite, which is a yearbook photo honor, worked with the WSGA, and was also on the homecoming court. Somewhere along the way her parents moved to Texas, while she was studying education.

Right after graduation she married Ensign Albert Dilthey, who was working on his MBA degree at AU. He sailed on submarines for the U.S. Navy, became an exec at the Miami Herald worked with his local chamber of commerce, and various other civic groups. He died in 2011. She’s still with us, in North Carolina.

George Uthlaut was a senior from Orlando in this photograph, taking time from his studies as a chemical engineering major and being one of those people who are somehow involved in nine different busy body things on campus. But his life has been full of activity. So much so that in 2011 the Ginn School of Engineering inducted him into their Hall of Fame.

Uthlaut went into the gas game, and he got good at oil and gas exploration and production over three decades with Exxon, working from Florida to Alaska. When he left there, as managing director, he went over to Enron Oil and Gas and basically had a second career. Along the way, he and his wife, Dot, have been heavily involved in many philanthropic adventures.

Maybe my favorite is this, Prayers Of the People, from which Dot retired in 2016. These people volunteered for so long and so hard they had to retire from it. They visited patients in hospitals, weekly, for 35 years. And somehow baked into that they set up a parking program for families visiting various hospitals.

They’ve also given donated generously to the engineering school and have a computer lab there named after them. They still live happily in Texas.

This is Royce Jones, and Royce Jones’ reflection. He’s from the small south Georgia town of Tifton, which counted fewer than 7,000 people when this photo was artfully taken. Jones left to go to college, and then did a brief stint in the military, but after that, he went right back home, and right back to the family business. Over his career, he took over Jones Construction, and also owned concrete and paint companies.

The best part of the 2007 news copy I’m reading here is that it was written by someone who understood him. An old friend got in a great quote, and the reporter at the local paper knew that was the one, “He worked hard behind the scenes to make this a better community and asked for no credit. He was a man of character and integrity …”

Jones Construction did, and does, a lot of big business, he built stuff for the University of Georgia, prominent local farms, banks, and the local hospital. He not only added on to that hospital, but he made some significant donations to it. too. The man was the proverbial pillar.

Two of his sons are running the construction firm today, so it’s at least a three-generation company. And those two guys also followed their dad to Auburn. They were there just a few years before I was, in fact.

All of these photos will wind up in the Glomerata section, of course. You can see others, here. Or maybe you’d like to click through to see all of the covers. The university hosts their collection here.