CLAY BRANDOW
Here’s an historical anecdote. On a very dark and rainy night on January 17, 1973, I turned 21. I was feeling sorry for myself in your Dome #8. When a group of young women, including I think Paula Houy, Chris Krpan, and others, said will go out to a bar with you for a drink. So we went downtown and walked into a really rough bar called The Club on G St. As we walked in, there was a bunch of Hells Angel guys with knifes strapped to their thighs at the bar. They were looking back at my birthday entourage. It was creepy. We just kept on walking, and walked out the back door into the alley. My 21st birthday was a quite sober affair. If anyone wants to disavow any knowledge of this incident, I understand. I am a gentleman.
—Clay
PAT HANLON
As I sit here this morning in my Dome time machine, I asked myself, “Where the Domes ever inspected by any jurisdiction?” I recall men in Uni trucks for the underground utilities before live power was turned on. But I don’t recall anyone walking though looking at the Core Units before Jim and I hung our drywall. So much of my project strategy revolved around inspection but because I was not involved with it at The Domes, I have no memory of if or how it happened.
An interesting perspective is 50 years ago Luis and the Core Commandos did what the last company I worked for spent millions of dollars trying to commercialize and market. The Core Commando were more successful with less to work with. Key difference: Leadership and Spirit………………………….. well, and not alot of code scrutiny helps a bit
WILLIAM DRAPER
My electrical work was inspected by some one from the university. I think it was “Physical Plant”. How thorough it was, I don’t recall, They pointed out a few things and I made the corrections and that was it. The utility power connections were also inspected at a different time. Plus I had my brother, an IBEW electrician, as my consultant. Also the help of Chris Krpan, who help me slog through muddy trenches pulling the utility wire during that wet October. Thank you Chris.
Dan
RON SWENSON
Good question. The simple answer is “no” but there’s more to the story – as Paul Harvey used to say.
Since our Thursday get together, I’ve stayed up late — like 1 AM — for two nights in a row to organize the scanned photos (>8 GB, 900± files) that Mark sent me by Dropbox the other day, adding videos and a few other treasures to the lot. Mark had scanned the slides and black& white negatives I sent him 10-20 years ago. I found some B&W pictures of the contract signing ceremony with Campus Architect Lou Weiss on July 11 – at which point of course we were already well on our way. You can attribute that big smile to the fact that I had successfully side-stepped their usual requirement for a performance bond.
Subsequently we got our building permit on August 3rd. (Funny the trivial facts that stick with you. By then we had several domes on the ground as I recall.) Our submittal consisted of drawings by Dave (not a registered architect) and Sue (isometric drawings of the plumbing trees) – and maybe some structural calcs by a bonafide structural engineer. (I don’t recall that detail, but I _did_ have calcs done by San José State prof Bill Venuti when John and I built the Nelson House over the fall/winter of ‘71/’72 and I vaguely recall that Gabe Gabrielson –another CE prof at San José State – did some calcs for the domes.)
About that time John and I began pushing the university to pay up to add a fire-retardant cementitious coating over the foam, so we tracked down a pyromaniac professor from UC Berkeley who had a fire lab off
campus in Richmond. John made up some sample walls, we went there (does anyone remember going with us?) and spent quality time with the prof preparing a pile of wood, burning these samples with great enthusiasm, and drawing conclusions on the charred remains: namely, that these theatrics pressured the university to cook up a “change order” for the good of the order. In other words, we were far more knowledgeable and proactive about getting the specs right than they were.
I can speak to two events that might have a bearing on the question at hand. Once I had a 3-martini liquid lunch with the campus fire chief downtown to discuss the above. Well, to be more precise, _he_ had the martinis; I probably had a beer. Does that qualify as an inspection?
Then, second, last night I came across one photo that looks like visiting dignitaries “checking us out.” Does anyone recognize the people – other than Gary Van Camp and Dan of course – in this photo? I have no recollection of this, but do you s’pose it was in the _spirit _of an inspection at least?
More than that I cannot tell at this point. Maybe someone can jog my memory about other pertinent facts – or send over a Tardus so we can take a closer look.
Cheers,
Ron
Lew Persons – DOME START UP STORY
Winter of ‘72(?) Mike Nolan, my mentor at the Housing Office, introduced me to what became the Dome Project. Mike sold me on the basis that the long term goal was multiple coop living units of ~15 students. There was already a group of interested students, in fact they were on their second group of students, the first group having been discouraged by the university’s stalling. I was still general manager at the Tercero Coop when Mike took me to this meeting.
I was the new kid at my first (Jan) meeting of an established group of interested folks, so I hung back to try to understand the group, their project goal, and generally what was going on. (I had a gig at the Coop, and wasn’t thinking of joining the group.) I think(?) Dave Wheeler was at the meeting, Ron was answering questions re the what and how, and was basically trying to get the students fired up to push the admin to make a decision. His pitch was that he had already invested way too much energy in this, and they were going nowhere. Ron was going to withdraw and move on if they didn’t get approval to start this season. After listening to the back and forth, I chimed in with you (students) have to stop waiting for the university to do this for you. They have made it clear they don’t want student built housing, so they are doing the admin shuffle, stalling until the latest crop of problem students graduates or moves on. You are slaves waiting to be freed. Get off your butts and take charge. Although Ron and I had never met, we were singing from the same hymnal… go take your success, or you are done…
As the meeting broke up, a few folks turned on me, the outside agitator, for an actual plan to back up my rhetoric. “You need to get on their radar.” I suggested that a small group go over to Mrak Hall and ask for a meeting/hearing with Chancellor Meyer. The next morning I went with a group of 6 or 8 to the top floor of Mrak Hall. The top floor was set up with a conference room in the center, surrounded by administrative offices along the perimeter. Chancellor Meyer’s and vice-chancellor Elmer Learn’s shared secretary sat at a desk at the far narrow end of the hall in front of their adjoining offices. With our group milling around the secretary’s desk, we asked for a one hour sit down with Chancellor Meyer. The secretary was very friendly, and we were all chatting amiably, as she referred to the paper calendar propped up on her desk. I maneuvered over and read the calendar. A meeting was set up with Meyer for the following week. Mission accomplished.
As we departed, I pulled the group into the large conference room. We sat down, and I shared what I gleaned from the secretary’s calendar. Vice-Chancellor Elmer Learn had a meeting with potential donors for the proposed new UCD med school at 10 AM tomorrow, in this conference room. I proposed that we arrive at 9:30, lower the projector screen, set up our projector for a slide show, and ask for 10 minutes to explain our project. We would be very organized and respectful, as opposed to noisy rowdy protesters. Prepared to give our presentation, but expecting not to.
To say Elmer Learn and his group of high rollers was surprised would be an understatement. The dozen or so donors were amused and intrigued. Elmer was shaken but polite, thanked us for our time, and agreed to personally meet with us later that week to hear us out, but they didn’t have time for our presentation this morning… We thanked him, and were up and out in less than 2 minutes.
The purpose of the ambush wasn’t to show off our project. It was to let Elmer know we knew where he lived, we knew how to get through their defenses, that we were through being trifled with. Deal with us.
The next day we received a call that assistant-vice chancellor Ed Spafford (operations) would meet with us that morning for a “preliminary” meeting. We met with Ed, agreed on the sequence of admin hurdles we would need to overcome to get project approval. Then we unfolded stage 2 of the strategy. We told Ed we were there to help, so we would have someone sit in his outer office, who would personally courier docs to whomever the next wrung on the admin ladder was, and provide the same personal service to the next wrung until we were successful in our Quest. We weren’t going away…
By summer we were on the Regents agenda. As a married law student, Ellery was deemed the most presentable (non-threatening) representative we had. Plus, Ellery was passionate and articulate, if voluble. Success! Regents included our project as a line item on the budget, with one caveat. We had to agree that the domes could be torn down after 7 years to make room for the new UCD Med School. This became a real sticking point in the negotiations. My response was to laugh and say there was no way they would be able to tear down the domes. This wasn’t the old coffee house. There would be a community of students living in them…So we accepted the deal, believing they couldn’t enforce it.
Somewhere along this journey, I jumped the shark, becoming a Domie. I can’t remember who went with me to Mrak Hall, or the meeting with Spafford. Any body wanna fess up? Although I do have an image of Charlie’s face smiling at me that day. Don’t think Ellery was involved in this phase… He was our hero with the Regents.
lew
Pat Hanlon – THE SUMMER OF THE DOMES
My 1st steps into serendipity were passing conversations with Mike Kluk and Jim Chiles about some student project they were involved in and goading from Jim to the effect, “Come on Hanlon, we could use a big strapping guy. Just go to this meeting today at Mrak Hall on the top floor at 1:00 PM”. I guess showing up to embarrass Ed Spafford was good enough to get me on the alternate waiting list. I had no plans for the summer other than to find work in the area. I forgot about it until just as Spring quarter ended the phone rang. . . ”Are you still interested in the Domes?….”
In a time of hopeful youth and unlimited beginnings, I have the most poignant memory of the morning light, the early morning summer smells before others came alive, and, when it came, the wrapping wisps of morning delta breeze cool air. The experience was always a feeling of release from the unconditioned Tercerro Coop and the hot stuffy air of an upper floor that brought fitful sleep. The chance to step into the dawning morning always felt like a step into the future. And so it would be for more years than I could know then.
The bicycle ride from the Coop to the Dome site was always this corporeal symphony of sight, smell, and sound. Delivery truck to cafeterias, the sound of rumbling tomato trucks on 113 as they hit their air brakes before stopping for the Russel Blvd stop light, the delta breeze delivering waves of hints of dry grass, Dixon Hay dryer, Cafeteria frying grease, dry earth all as a back drop to the sometimes-crystal view of Berryessa Gap. It was the light off the flat ground against the distant Berryessa GAP just after dawn when the air was scrubbed clean by the delta breeze that just made art come to life in pedal by pedal making a way to the Dome site. The symphony ended at 10:00 AM when the cool on the air gave way to heat radiating from the earth and catalyzing fiberglass resin.
In 1972, there was next to nothing west of LaRue drive but planted field of something being studied. Often there was time for a climb to the top of the shade scaffolding over the mold to soak in a view before the sweat began, before old Rich from Central Coating Company would lumber out of his Dodge truck bellowing that daylight is burning and there is glass to spray. He’s got to get back to Madera cause John Nolan’s got wine tanks to finish….. The whine and the whirl of the chopper gun would start over the thumper rumble of the Ingersoll Rand air compressor belching diesel fumes curdling together with polyester resin bringing industry into the marriage of fiber and resin to make a dome, to make hippie housing. Chris Gerry and I didn’t smell this because we already had a sweat going inside our respirators as we rolled the resin and chopped glass together. The sweat creating the seal to keep the fumes out and last night’s hangover in. But even with the din and the smell, there was Rich, spraying away, always singing to himself, always taking pride in the work he did, always wanting to have a laugh, always giving instruction, always appreciative of what he had. He would be the 1st of such people I would know in 42 years as a constructor that started with the Summer of Not Knowing What to Do.
End of day would bring a quieter pause still punctuated by air brakes and tire rumble on 113, Russel Blvd traffic background noise. The sky had a filter of dust in it by 3:00 PM muting the Berryessa Gap view making it look worn like most of us felt. I hung around the site because going back to the unconditioned COOP meant more sweat and stuffy air but the early evening breeze would evaporate the day’s wetness into a crust, and sometimes, there would be beer. Sometimes that Dome Site beer led to a trip to El Charro’s Mexican Resturant in Dixon. Pedal quick to the stuffy COOP for a shower because riding with six others in the back of Mike Kluk’s Chevy van required some social graces. Although the Hay Dryer and the burning weed in the back of the van could give chase to any evil armpit spirits. Walking into El Charro’s after our days’ work always felt like walking into Heaven’s gold mine. My memory of memory says a 32 oz pitcher of beer and a dinner could be had for $5.00. Eight people and eight 32 oz pitchers of beer could make work harder the next day but none the less joyous. That is what youth tendered: testing and surviving unknow and unplanned limits, learning how to make something no one had made before.
Patrick Hanlon – Dropout Class of 1974
Ellory Sorkin: THE DOMES BEGIN
Early 1970s – I was a married law student at UCDavis, believing there had to be a better alternative to living in the Anderson Place Garden Apartments: perhaps a fantasized “Walden Puddle” (based on “Doonesbury”) on farmland near campus. I put a notice in the school’s newspaper seeking like-minded students.
Over forty arrived and immediately rejected living off-campus. Their ideas ranged from “rehabbed” run-down buildings to potential firetraps of a giant fiberglass dome (with separate sleeping bubbles accessed by ladders from within). Lists of names and contacts were kept to “grandfather” in those first attendees continuing to support and build what became Dome Utopia.
Preliminary contacts with the administration were ignored; we resolved to demonstrate our fervor by holding an impromptu “sit-in” at the office of the Chancellor. He returned from lunch with donors he planned to hit up for other projects and found us – with plans, drawings, and a slide show of a PVC pipe and burlap dome being built near Santa Cruz. Embarrassed as hell, the Chancellor told his secretary, “Whatever they want, within reason, but get them out of here.” That was good enough for us, so we left.
During actual summer dome construction, I usually went over plans and documents and drew up our model student lease. One day, I was told by Ed Spafford we couldn’t proceed further without a written estimate of future demolition costs. I contacted an unusual West Sacramento import-export firm I’d met through the Law/Med Food Co-op. The manager was happy to jot down (approximately): “twelve workers, construction boots, Sawzalls, sledgehammers, and beer, to demolish fourteen student hippie buildings at UCD for easy transport to County waste sites: $875.00.” Mr. Spafford was apoplectic at any plan that hired “Italian gangsters” to demolish the Domes and told me he never wanted to see me in his office again.
During 1972-1973, smoke alarms constantly went off for any and no reasons. The Fire Department soon learned to telephone the law student (me) to ask: “Is it just Dome XYZ smoking pot, or do we need to send a fire truck?” I’d check and call them back. Dome Utopia never needed any emergency vehicles that year.
Abigail Marshall – Things I remember from Dome Building/ Living (1972-1973)
• Weeks (months?) in the fall of 1972 without a water hookup or electricity. Electrical limits resolved by running a huge extension cord across the road to draw power from the Orchard Park apartments.
• A hypersensitive and LOUD smoke alarm system, that would go off in response to any form of cooking that produced smoke (such as burnt toast) – that is, pretty much all the time. Once set off, the alarm could not be disabled except by the fire department coming out to access the locked switch box. This issue was also resolved by somehow purloining the key to the switch box, and then professing ignorance every time the fire department showed up thereafter in response to the alarm, only to find the alarm already shut off.
• Once we were finally settled in with things operating fairly smoothly toward the end of fall quarter, being notified that we were required to vacate the domes over winter break in order to allow for plastering of the interior. We had been told that the internal polyurethane foam sprayed onto the inside of the domes was a great insulating material. Turned out that the stuff is also highly flammable and emits toxic fumes – hence the plaster job.
A Dome Memory from Anne Nicksic
In fall 1972 I transferred from UC Riverside to UC Davis, and began a work study job at the Botany Greenhouses. As I bicycled to work, I rode past the new domes: igloo-shaped structures on bare land. I couldn’t decide if they were industrial or residential. Students with towels around their necks wandered through doorways. I stopped by the mailboxes near the Baggin’s End sign and asked.
Student housing…and how can I apply? Contact Lynn Marchand at the housing office. So I did, and moved in the next summer, living there for the next three years. What a great, formative time. I remember domies quietly gathering on the mound to watch the sunset over the broad expanse of western hills and sky. I took an entomology class and learned to live peaceably with the many insects from the nearby fields that took up lodging on my window screens…although I wasn’t happy when Brooke showed me a cockroach she’d brought from class and accidentally dropped it on my floor, barely capturing it before it scurried under the fridge.
The people who moved among the domes were my community. We were all immersed in our separate lives and classes, but had a willingness and commitment to share our unique living space.
Ron Swenson – Godfather of the Domes
Yes, the housing office wanted every dome to have a kitchen and bath. I proposed sternos and outhouses 😉 to keep costs down but they decided for “all mod cons” (all modern conveniences). The final cost that I saw was $108k. The plaster-like coating and painting may have been the difference. That wasn’t in my contract.
Thomas Goldenberg
Interesting, We went from 15 X$2000 = $30,000, to $125,00 for the final project.
Tom
Tim Underwood – Post-Dome Life
With my Behavioral Physiology degree in hand, I moved to Encinitas to raise tropical fish with a fledgling company, Solar Aquafarms. In 1976, after nearly a year of bare-sustenance living, and a month-long desert trip with Sandy, I moved back to Northern California. Sandy and I got a flat in Sacramento within walking distance from her job at the Capitol. I worked as a groundskeeper for Los Rios Community College District, then for U.C. Davis, and then Cal Expo. After all these changes, I decided to start my own landscape business, which we ran for 5 years, with Sandy also getting her Masters in Social Work. During those years, we had a son, Tyson, and Sandy was in a major accident with a drunk driver. These family challenges plus the difficulties inherent in supervising sometimes unreliable employees culminated in me deciding to return to school. I earned a Masters Degree in Plant Protection and Pest management in 1988, while also becoming a father again to our daughter, Maya.
Sandy worked as a medical social worker and retired in 2012. I worked for U.C. Extension for 2 years, then began working with Monsanto, which at that time enabled me to work with farmers on integrated pest management. After 27 years, and many company changes, I gladly retired in 2016.
Both our kids are happily married, and we have 5 grandchildren, all of whom we see often. Sandy and I traveled extensively until I had a bizarre accident in 2020. Stepping in a 2+ foot deep, leaf-covered hole abraded my spinal cord and herniated multiple discs, resulting in two major surgeries, from both of which I’m still recovering.
Our passion for plants, gardening, and the outdoors has been continuous, and has spilled over to our children.
DOME 2 -CHARLIE HOUY’S LIFE ON A PAGE
In September, 1974 I graduated and reluctantly moved out of dome #2. The dome community had become such an all-encompassing part of my life, I was a tad bit lost. A few months later, after falling in love and taking a backpacking trip to Europe with a couple old friends, I returned to Davis with no prospects except new love. When that didn’t work out, I was once again lost.
So, I toiled for three years in Davis’s restaurants before concluding I needed to do something different with my life, maybe in international affairs. I was on my way to law school when my Mom told me I might be better off at the tiny Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies (MIFS) which claimed to prepare students for a career in the State Department’s Foreign Service. Well, that was a bit of an overstatement, but off to Monterey I went. After three years, including the last writing my Master’s thesis on the beach, I graduated. By that time I was keenly aware that a degree from MIFS wasn’t going to get me the kind of job I was seeking in Washington, DC.
On the advice of an academic advisor, and after defending my thesis on a Friday afternoon, new love Sharon Obley and I packed up our belongings in her AMC Gremlin trekked five days across the country to Syracuse University so that I could start a second Master’s the next week at its prestigious school of public administration. A year later I graduated and was selected as a Presidential Management Intern (PMI) which would put me on a fast track for a career in the federal government. We headed off to Washington. After being turned down by a couple agencies, I landed a job at the Navy for my two years of short term PMI assignments in DC.
1983 saw two life changing events. Sharon and I got married and I began my last short term PMI assignment with the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee. Sharon and I eventually adopted and raised a beautiful daughter, Cassie, who excelled as a coxswain in high school and at San Diego State. Cassie’s now finishing her Master’s at Georgetown and is a management trainee at the Theater Lab in DC. Sharon spent more than twenty years in the Defense Department, rising to become the chief of staff of her agency.
That six month PMI posting with the Senate turned into a thirty year career. I began as the analyst for military personnel spending and retired after serving my last four years as Committee staff director. It was long hours and stressful, but I loved it — figuring out how to cut the defense budget and managing the staff first on the defense subcommittee and later on the full Committee. I travelled extensively, met Kings, Presidents, and dictators. I thrived.
After retiring in 2013, I finished my first novel, about political corruption, the media, and world affairs: (Vigilante Politics, 2017). I’ve now completed two more novels about the Senate, appropriations, national defense, and spies from a staffer’s vantage: (Senate Intelligence, 2019) and (Shoot the Staff, 2020). I’m nearing completion of my fourth: (The 101st Senator).
In the fall of 2017 Sharon and I, along with two old dogs, moved back to Pacific Grove, CA near where we first met. I now spend my days walking, writing, drinking wine, and sitting on the porch watching golfers on the local PG course with beautiful Monterey Bay in the background.
Joan Geoff
I stumbled on the Dome project at the end of my freshman year. The woman I was supposed to room with bailed on me and I had no idea where to live. Chris Gerrie & Mark Herman were going to build domes & live in them and said I should apply. I did and was soon living at Tercero for the summer with some of the other students, taking a class, surviving without air conditioning.
I worked in the “office” ordering supplies where I had to contend with salesmen asking to “let me speak to the guy in charge, sweetie”. They couldn’t believe I knew what to order. Ron would get on the phone and tell them to listen to me. I got Dome #9 and met Peggy when she arrived after her summer job was over. I had never done anything besides paint a wall and was very frustrated with sheet rock taping. But I learned a lot. Peggy taught me a lot: gardening, cooking, talking, listening…. It was a real education to me.
I met Dan, my husband, that summer and after a whirlwind romance of 7 years, we married. One of the biggest takeaways from that summer was that there wasn’t much I couldn’t do, if I didn’t know how, I could learn, or fumble my way through. I guess that is why we remodeled our house ourselves.