Issue link: http://ihouse.uberflip.com/i/703833
28 Dorelee [Landon] Castello E ven though I never lived at I-House, the I-House played a very important role in my life. I met my husband, Elliott, there, and many of our good friends were from I-House. Even before I met Elliott, I used to stop there, at the cafe, on my way home. Students, everyone who lived on the hill – in the dorms, or the sororities, or so forth – would stop at the I-House cafe for a little bite to eat on the way home. For me, it was a place to stop and visit various friends in the Great Hall. Those conversations were a window on the world. All of us came from small towns and had never been exposed to the wider world. Whom did we meet there? Usually, it was people from Southeast Asia and India – India had a large contingent. Most of the time, we were trying to find out what their life was like before they came to I-House. Of course, they were very interested in our culture too – it was a chance to learn about the world. However, they knew a lot more about our culture than we did about theirs. With the exception of the Christian Science Monitor, there was very little about foreign affairs in our newspapers. They were, I wouldn't say appalled – although they might have been – but at least surprised that we knew so little about them and their culture. I can't imagine what I-House would have been like without Joan [Obidine] Rush. She was such a key part of it. She was larger than life. She would say, "We're all going to Vernetti's!" It was kind of a no-count bar, but it had dancing. It was not the kind of thing that Mr. Blaisdell would have liked – he was a Congregational minister – but it was a way to get out of the I-House. Really, it was the dancing which was the big attraction. Joan was a great dancer. She was someone who sparked activity. She was in charge of one of the Spring Festivals, and someone said, "Oh, that festival was really great – Joan was out there painting all these things writ large." Taken from an interview by Jeanine Castello-Lin in September of 2009