Not only did I not go to the Council meeting Monday night,
but Dawg and I fell asleep as soon as I turned on the basketball game and when
we awoke it was too late to write a blog
Instead of continuing the rest of my college/medical school
days I am reprinting some anecdotes from a bio that I have written about those
years.
By the end of my second year all required subjects including
those need to apply to medical school, with the exception, of biology had been
satisfied. Since I could not draw a straight line much less a good picture,
biology laboratory was a problem. Having
finished basic requirements including those for medical school, I became a
history major.
One of my greatest scholastic triumphs occurred during the
third year. The final examination in a course in 17th century European history
consisted of just three essay questions.
After the exam, during the usual student post mortem discussing our
answers everyone told me that not one of my essays agreed with what the
instructors had taught in the class. To
my amazement instead of a failure I received a grade of 100% plus. Apparently, my instructor either appreciated
my bull or place great value on original thought.
Sometimes silly situations arose. Once while in Randall, I was sitting on a
stall john when a girl came in and pushed open the shuttered door. She stopped
and looked at me then said, “Oh my God if I did not know you I would've been
embarrassed”. The fact that our
acquaintance was barely casual made no difference to her.
Sternkopf, my older role model image, had a steady
girlfriend and everyone knew they were having active sex. The beds were cast
iron with flat springs, whose side rails fit into slots in the head and foot
ends. Once, someone (Marty) tied cowbells to the bedsprings. Another time the side rails were loosened
from the slots so that the bed would collapse under them.
By the start of my third-year, I was living on the East
Range in a room that I returned to for the next four years. “Home on 14 East
Range” (1938-1943). Marty was still living in Randall Hall but later on moved
to a room in a private house. We were
dating student nurses as well as town girls. In 1938-9, Sternkopf had married
his Elma and was living in an “apartment”. They introduced me to one of her
student nurse friends and we dated for a long period.
The East Range rooms along with the Lawn rooms were part of
Jefferson's original “University Village”.
Each was for one student and opened directly to the outside covered
passageway, colonnades on the lawn, but brick arches on the ranges (East and
West). Because each room opened directly to the outside, the students living
there enjoyed a great deal of privacy.
Each room was large enough to contain any single bed with
space for an easy chair, usually one recycled from the secondhand furniture
store, and a desk in front of the window overlooking the back. Centered on
the other wall was a fireplace with two small curtained alcoves
on either side one, served as a clothes closet, the other contain a wash basin
with hot and cold running water and a
small shelf for toilet articles. A steam heat radiator heated the rooms.
Except for the wash basin, the bathroom facilities were in a
basement room entered from behind the end of alternating unit sections. The resident
had to go outside to use the toilets and showers. One bath facility served two
groups of rooms. In the wintertime, this
could be very cold. It is rumored that there were two types of lawn and range
residents; those that admitted they used the washbasin as a urinal and those
who denied their actions.
Students usually bought a cord of firewood in the fall,
which was stacked outside by the door. The fireplaces were functional and gave heat. We
all had radios and a favorite program for students studying at night was
Cincinnati’s WLWL’s mood organ music program, “Moon River”, from 11pm to sign
off time. This was also the era of the Big Bands, and at night, you could
listen for hours to one after another.
I remember tuning in on the Orson Well's broadcast of “The War of the
Worlds'. Since I had not listen from the
beginning I was amazed to learn the next morning about the publics' reaction.
Even today, the panic and terror seems unreal.
There was an active trade in “moonshine” from the countryside.
Some students were known to keep two kegs of “corn” in their rooms. One was
under the rocking chair, which was the obligatory seat for a visitor, to be
aged. A “cured” keg was available for drinking.
Except for Sloe Gin Fizzes which were popular in my first year
dormitory, the favorite spring time drink was the “Mint Julep” made in a mason
jar by crushing mint leaves and pouring in a pint of cheap whiskey, then
filling the jar with cracked ice, and after wrapping the jar in a towel shaking
it well to make a refreshing beverage good to the last watery diluted drop. One
of the students whose mother was president of the Norfolk WCTU chapter could
not bring his college year book home since it contained a large picture of him
drinking out of a mason jar at Lambeth Field.
No, I never was “drunk” in college. Alcohol was a minor part
of the “experience” although I seem to have focused. But it was at a party that
third year an event occurred that changed my life.
One spring day in 1939 a senior student, who was planning to
study for the Episcopalian ministry, had an open house farewell party in his
room on the Range. As I walked in with Marian, I saw sitting on the desk in
that smoke filled room a strawberry blond, the most beautiful girl I had ever
seen. I made my business to talk to her
and although she was the host's girlfriend, made a date with her for the next
afternoon.
Coincidently, Marian had been his previous girlfriend and. although
I was fond of her, we never dated again. The next afternoon Helen and
I spent walking around the lawn, talking and learning about each other. Towards the end of the day, I spontaneously dropped
to my knees to make a “proposition” which she always claimed was a “proposal”. She also claimed that the minute I had walked in she had asked someone who I was and wanted to meet me.
To
make a long story short that was the first date with my future wife of 68 years.
Although we dated steadily and almost daily after that, our
courtship of course was never always smooth. In 1941 we married.
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