Rumors of broken bones.

"When I was a student I vividly remember the Physics experiments conducted by Dr. Weber and Dr. Hadley in the engineering auditorium, which was then brand new, in the fall of 1957. They had several fascinating experiments – spinning students on a piano stool, hitting the end of a line of students and watching momentum affect the one on the other end, matching the fall of a plate with the trajectory of a projectile from a blowgun, and similar others. We heard rumors of broken bones and other injuries. I also came very close to getting shot in the head with a 0.22 caliber bullet when we measured the velocity in the student lab class. A block of wood was placed over the muzzle of the rifle, which was then shot vertically. A student would stand alongside and read the height the block reached on a survey rod on the other side of the gun. We would measure the block without and with the bullet and compute the velocity of the bullet. In my case, the block tipped just as the gun discharged, and the bullet went out of the side of the block and into the ceiling. The path was just above the level of my head as we later judged it.

"The professor I remember most is Max Parshall, who taught us surveying and a water testing laboratory. He filled the blackboards in the room with the derivations of the celestial observation formulas. He also assisted me and one of classmates in determining the alcohol content of some of our home brew, and invited us into his home to sample several of his homemade wines. He would drink perhaps one glass a year with Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. We never came close to matching his talents and eventually destroyed our efforts, as our containers begin to explode. We did not do an adequate job of decanting them. The taste also fell fall short of expectations."