Remembering David Mason ’58

I was surprised to read about the passing of David Mason ’58. Many years before entering Reed, I began my college education at Western Washington State College, now Western Washington University, in 1966. (FYI: Tuition was $75 a quarter!)  That was a very good year for many things, but not for the beginning of my post-high school education in responsibility.  I went in as an honors student, which created many opportunities to pursue adventures outside of my curriculum.  

One of them was hanging out at the house of a popular hippie biology prof. The house was located at the end of a dirt road off Chuckanut Drive, across from a secluded beach on Bellingham Bay, many miles south of town. The owner was associated with the fledgling environmental programs at Western, known as Fairhaven from the fact that they were first located in the Fairhaven women’s dorm on campus.  As environmental awareness was very important to many of the young students, Dr Mason’s house was very popular, for both its intellectual and recreational opportunities. While others were pulling all-nighters in their rooms, his parties were raging into the sunrise almost every Friday night.

I went back many years later, about 1992, in a fit of nostalgia for those days because I lived and worked in the nearby San Juan islands, and all I could find was a huge pile of blackberry brambles in what I think was the same location. I briefly doubted that those days ever happened, seeing as how far off center I was back then.

—Bob Querry ’88

Nipomo, California