By Sheri Alzeerah
They were wrong about 2010. The Toyota Prius doesn’t quite live up to hoverboards, flying cars and time machines that filmmakers used in the 1960s-1980s to populate a chrome-plated future society.
Although engineers are working on new-fangled methods of everyday air travel, a time machine is not necessary to travel to the past. In fact, the University of Texas is packed with living history. Just take it from two Longhorns who have been dedicated to the University for a combined 115 years.
Photo by Jeff Heimsath
John Aielli, KUT DJ, senior host and producer of “Eklektikos”
For John Aielli, campus hasn’t lost any of its awe-striking appeal since he enrolled as an English major in 1966.
“Look at this,” he said with wide eyes sweeping the Littlefield Dormitory’s study lounge like a newborn discovering the world. “This is just fantastic. Feel this rug. You’re walking on luxurious carpet. Isn’t it something?”
It’s something all right, coming from a guy who has called the Forty Acres his home for generations, amassing the kind of knowledge that puts history textbooks to shame.
From aesthetic changes — a missing oak tree on the corner of Dean Keeton Street and Whitis Avenue (“When you’ve been here forever, you notice this stuff,” Aielli said.) — to lifestyle changes, Aielli has lived it all.
Aielli came to UT after working as an on-air announcer for a radio station in Killeen. By the time he continued his radio career at KUT, he was earning $1 an hour, a step up from his starting salary of 30 cents an hour. Meanwhile, television’s popularity boomed.
“Back when I came here to work in radio, radio was on the way out,” Aielli said between frequent breaks to praise Littlefield dorm’s reupholstered couches. “Television was everything. People did not believe radio was going to last at all.”
Fortunately for Aielli and throngs of his fans, people were mistaken.
“One of the things that you’ve got to remember about radio is that when you talk, you’re talking only to one person,” Aielli said. “It’s the most intimate medium there is in terms of communication because it’s a voice.”
When Aielli’s voice floated over Austin’s radio airwaves in college, he continued to find other ways to make statements with his classmates. While two distinct student cliques — what Aielli called “hippies” and “frat rats” — divided the campus, Longhorns came together about one thing — the Vietnam War.
Shortly after the Kent State shooting in 1970, UT students planned a protest. Marching across campus, to downtown, then back to the Forty Acres, thousands of students protested “in unison against the war,” Aielli said.
Frank Erwin, then-chairman of the UT System Board of Regents, couldn’t tolerate student opposition, Aielli said. To this day, evidence of Erwin’s tactics remains. The limestone walls surrounding campus were built specifically to prevent students from assembling in mass, Aielli said.
After the war, the Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium underwent a renovation that required the removal of several trees. Erwin had the tree-hugging students hauled from the trees’ branches to complete the project, Aielli said.
Despite protests and demonstrations, KUT reflected a softer side of the culture. The station only streamed classical music, Aielli said. Aielli’s music show, “Eklektikos” (meaning “selected from the best”), followed suit when it first aired in the late ’60s. Little by little though, Aielli spiced things up.
“The Beatles took the world by storm, and there were no exceptions,” he said. “To this day, I can put on a Beatles song, and it fits right in.”
Aside from the Fab Four, there is something else that UT hasn’t lost to the test of time — human goodness.
“The number one thing is honesty — complete and total, beyond any conception of presentation, honesty,” Aielli said.
Photo by Danielle Villasana
Tom Anderson, UT Tower carillonneur
To say Tom Anderson is dedicated is an understatement.
“I go to St. David’s Fitness Center and work out for an hour; on Thursdays, I’m a docent at the Texas Military Forces Museum in Camp Mabry; Austin Singers rehearsal is Monday night and church choir rehearsal is Wednesday night. [I’m] staying on the run,” Anderson said, listing his day-to-day activities apart from his 11:50 a.m. to noon shift three days a week at the carillon inside the Tower.
Although Anderson, soft-spoken and polite, is nearing 90 years of age, his creativity, energy and devotion to the University reach unthinkable heights. After all, Anderson has had a bird’s eye view of UT’s campus since he first played the carillon in 1952.
Born in 1923 in Nocona, Texas, Anderson enrolled at UT in 1939 to study engineering. After serving in the Navy from 1944 to 1946, he returned to UT in 1950, switched his major to music and joined the Longhorn Band.
“I started taking piano when I was seven and played clarinet in my high school band, so I’ve been in music all my life,” he said.
But with an Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association cap perched atop his head, a blue book entitled “National Anthems of the World” resting on his carillon and two thank-you letters written in crayon hanging on the wall by his keyboard, Anderson is more than a music man.
For one thing, he enjoys making people laugh. In 1953, Joseph Stalin died, and Anderson played Chopin’s funeral march, which led one San Antonio newspaper to write an angry letter to the dean.
“They got all hot and bothered, saying it’s like playing hymns to the devil in church,” Anderson said. “There’s a lack of sense of humor.”
Anderson’s perspective rang clear again during the University-wide protest following the 1970 Kent State shooting. Anderson’s son, a sophomore at the time, was involved with planning the march and asked his dad to play the bells during the protest.
“My son told me afterward that as the people were gathering, there was a lot of belligerent talk. I started playing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water,’ and he said everything quieted down and it became a sing-along,” Anderson said.
Only a few years before the protest, UT faced a potent tragedy when in 1966 Charles Whitman killed 14 people and wounded many others from the top of the Tower. The incident shocked the nation and “made people aware of how fragile they were,” Anderson said. The Tower, including the carillon, shut down for a year.
Anderson joined the National Guard that year then returned to begin his 23-year career with UT’s International Office. He also returned to his carillon — this time, with a third-floor electric keyboard that he uses to this day. Campus continued to expand.
“I guess it is true with [UT’s] slogan about what begins here changes the world,” Anderson said. “I’ve seen that in connection with the International Office, because a number of our ex-students have become leaders in
their country.”
Anderson’s international background plays a part in the carillon tunes today. A sticky note with country’s national days posted on his keyboard reminds Anderson when to play national anthems, making international students feel like they’re home.
If home is where the heart is, Anderson keeps the University’s pulse beating for 50,000 students from the Tower three times a week.
“As long as I can make the 85 steps, I’ll keep playing,” he said smiling.
And as long as Longhorns like Aielli and Anderson continue to make history, UT can get by without flying cars.