This staff photo was originally published in The Triangle of May 31, 1968. The eye-patched professor is faculty advisor Raymond Lorantas.
Former staff members of The Triangle shared their experiences at Alumni Weekend. We had a table at the Young Alumni Beer Hall May 17 and hosted an open house May 18.
News editor Craig Eisenberger (class of 2008) staffed the table and set aside his beer to give a thorough critique of the past two issues, marking up the papers with sharpie as he went. Other alumni who checked in were Anthony Mariano (managing editor ’18) and Anthony Silvestri (IT director ’18), as well as yours truly (co-chief copy editor ’18). The table was arranged by Marc Blumberg (business manager ’04), who could, however, not attend.
Special appearances at the open house were former editor-in-chief Rich Lampert and editorial board member Alys Lippman, both “Golden Dragons” from the class of 1969. Lampert was a chemical engineer by education, whose experiences at The Triangle led him into the publishing industry instead. Lipman, now the proprietor of Alys’ Restaurant in La Veta, Colorado recalled she took in a stray who became the office dog. Together, they waxed nostalgic about a time when advertisers were plentiful, the layout was done by hand and the ground floor of Creese had windows.
A piece of advice Lampert offered was to increase one-on-one engagement with people and to turn critics of the newspaper into contributors. In his time, the paper’s editorial stance was strongly anti-war — described in “Drexel’s Vietnam War,” a chapter by Drexel history professor Jonson Miller in the 125-year anniversary book “Building Drexel” — but Lampert nevertheless recruited an ROTC student to the news team.
The office was also visited by Alex Jones (editor-in-chief ’18) and Joseph Kavanagh (distribution manager ’16). With myself included, this brought the event to five attendees, an improvement over last year’s zero. The difference might be attributed to the ongoing efforts to organize a Triangle Alumni Association, which already has a website and mailing list.
Prominent in their absence, though, were several alumni known to live in Philadelphia and even work at Drexel. Further events will aim to bring more former staff members into the fold and keep them actively engaged.
Lippman provided a staff photo from 1968, which was originally published with a fanciful prayer:
… Loving amulets of touching, seeing, groping, hearing and loving, we call upon the powers of the cosmos to protect our ceremonies in the name of Zeus, in the name of Annubis, god of the Dead, in the name of all those killed for causes they do not comprehend, in the name of the lives of the dead soldiers in Vietnam who were killed because of a bad Kharma; in the name of the Seaborne Aphrodite; in the name of the Magna Mater Deum Medea, Buddha, Vishnu, Rizzo, Siva, The Watcher, Prometheus, and Henry Ford; in the name of Dionysius, Zagreus, Jesus, Jahweh, the Unnamables, the Quintessent Finality, the Zorastrian Fire; in the name of Hermes, Thor, Mars, Galactas, Karl Marx, Kahili, Baal, Moloch; in the name of the Beak of Salt; in the name of the Scarab; In The Name… in the name of the Tyrone-Power-Pound-Cake Society in the Sky, in the name of Ra, Osiris, Horus, Neptus, Isis, Hippocrates, Eros; in the name of the flowing, living universe we raise our voices upon high and beseech… gods bless the Triangle.
Amen!