AC_1965_Web

131 AN T I OC H CO L L E G E C L A S S O F 19 6 5 5 0 t h A N N I V E R S A R Y B O O K A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z R O B B I N S ROBBINS SONIA JAFFE FAMI LY 4 Husband, Jack 4 Daughter, Christie ADDRESS 4 395 Riverside Dr., #2F New York, NY 10025 CONTACT 212 749-6798 sjr1991@gmail.com A N T I O C H I S P R O B A B L Y the best college I could have gone to. It got me away from home, which was my primary goal, and it gave me work experience, which was useful when I dropped out the first time. The looming “Five Year Plan” to de- clare a major and make sure all the courses I would need would be available on my div was too much. I thought whatever I chose would be carved in stone and I just couldn’t commit. After two co-op jobs in the Washington,D.C., area, I stayed there for the next two years. I was fired after a month from the first job I found, but my next job, at the United World Federalists, invited me back af- ter I quit them to work for three psy- choanalysts.On my second go-round with UWF, I reconnected with Janet Oldt,who I’d known in our first year. Resurrecting the Student Federalists was Janet’s co-op job; she also moved into the communal house where I was living.And Janet persuaded me to come back to Antioch, which I did in the spring of 1964. That communal house is where I met Jack Robbins, an escapee from Kansas. He followed me to Yellow Springs for a few weeks, then moved on to New York, where I moved in with him for my next co-op job, copy girl at The New York Times .When my parents discovered I was liv- ing with Jack, it was easier to get married than to argue with them. Amazingly, Jack and I are still mar- ried 50 years later. After getting married I dropped out of Antioch again, going to work at Bantam Books in the educational sales department and the next year started taking night classes at City College. (Remember the song? “Save your money, honey,/ don’t put it in a sock,/ and when your kids grow up/ don’t send them here to Antioch./ Save your money, CCNY is free.”) In 1967, Jack passed his tryout as a reporter at Dorothy Schiff’s New York Post , and I went to City College fulltime, majoring in history and graduating in 1969. My next full-time job was as a secretary for an editor at Bobbs- Merrill. Within months, my boss (a co-founder of the Yippies) died of leukemia and I was promoted to as- sistant editor. At around the same time I discovered women’s libera- tion, joining what became New York Media Women, one of the or- ganizers for the sit-in at the Ladies’ Home Journal . Joining a CR group led me to reconsider the baby ques- tion. Women’s liberation revealed that the mother was not the sole person responsible for how a child turned out. In 1972, after many dis- cussions with Jack about equal shar- ing of childcare, Christie was born. I became a freelance copy editor, a job I had learned about as an editor. The Chicago Manual of Style became my textbook, and I learned while free- lancing for the next three years. Thus began one of my careers. I went to work at the Village Voice 1975.The next year Rupert Murdoch bought the Voice (as part of his deal to buy New York Magazine ) months af- ter buying the New York Post , where Jack still worked. In response, Voice staffers organized a union (with District 65) in probably the fastest and easiest unionization campaign in history. I was chosen one of the shop stewards before we were even recognized by management. I also started writing occasional pieces for the Voice . A year after our first contract, I became copy chief, a long and com- plicated story.The year before Jack had taken a buyout from the Post — working for Murdoch had become untenable—so when copy chief be- came more than a full-time job, Jack was ready and willing to become the full-time parent,which he did for the next four years. As copy chief, I was the liai- son between editorial and produc- tion, which put me in the perfect position when the Voice bought its