A spooky idea for Halloween…sitting through a college debate?

On Halloween night in 1975, a Friday night, most UW-L students probably wouldn’t be caught dead…or alive…attending a college debate between teams from La Crosse and Japan.  Especially a debate on the subject of whether the U.S. should withdraw all military forces from the Pacific basin.  That event took place at the Annett Recital Hall in the UW-L Fine Arts Building, and the admission was free.  Across the street, at Morris Hall, you could pay 50 cents to see a student production of the play “The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit.”  And at Cartwright Center, a Halloween double feature of “Psycho” and “The Birds” cost only 75 cents. 

If you stayed home handing out candy that Halloween night, you could have watched a TV movie about the Orson Welles “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast.  Other shows on the tube that night…”Sanford and Son,” “The Rockford Files,” “Barnaby Jones,” and “Hawaii Five-O.”

TelePrompTer Cable TV in La Crosse was offering a 60% discount on installation that fall…a saving of nearly $6.  Cable was offering special sports programs including the Peach Bowl, the Blue-Grey Bowl, North Stars hockey, and All Star Wrestling.  Forty-two years ago, 1975, yesterday in La Crosse.