UVa SAGA INTERLUDE....

Just a smidgeon more about year 2 at Randall Hall, before moving on to the next 5 years spent at #19 East Range.

Those rooms were also part of Mr. Jefferson’s Scholastic Village. Each opened directly to the outside. All had a Fire Place and in the fall everybody bought a chord of wood which was stacked outside the door. There was a steam heat radiator in every room as well as a sink with hot and cold water, but all bathroom facilities were in bathrooms in adjoining two blocks in the back and underneath one of the3 blocks.

Randall Hall was an old three-story building in which the lower two floors had been converted into a student dormitory. Randall’s room sizes varied; most were only narrow singles but connected to the adjoining singles. Joe Jaffe and I decided to take two adjacently rooms. We had gotten along well as roommates but our study and living habits differed so this would be a good compromise. However, most of the time the door between was open, thus we were still almost roommates. On each floor, there was one large community bathroom. The third floor had only two rooms, we seldom saw their occupants.

There was a large grassy space between Randal Hall and a side road. There, the residents used to play touch football. The building was also on a bank above the road that passed between it and McKim Hall, the student nurse's residence, which was at a lower level. Many an hour was spent on the edge of that bank watching the girls coming to and leaving the McKim Hall either for the “Corner” or down town. There were the usual catcalls and whistles. It goes without stating that, the” parade” was also a mutual satisfying exercise by all participants.

With the exception of the first-year dormitories, discipline or restrictions in the university was very relaxed. Women were constant visitors in the student rooms of this 98% percent male university. 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 so barely casual that I had no idea who she was, made no difference to her.

Sternkopf, my older role model image, had a steady student nurse girlfriend and everyone knew they were having active sex.( To those   who are or pretend to be scandalized; don't forget that Sternkopf was a late 20s year old Marine who had served in China. Also is that not why one has a private domain? And for the voyeurs; No I never had a girl in my room  in Randall;I was only 17/18 that year and still wet behind the ears) The beds were the cast iron type 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. They were married about a year later, and for a long time I dated one of Alma's classmates.

In the '30s, the school year at Virginia was divided into trimesters plus a split summer session. On Randal Hall's second floor, there was a large room, which served as a recreation room. During the first trimesters, we had a poker game every night. During the second trimesters there were only enough available for a bridge game. By the spring trimesters, only Marty and I felt that we were in good enough scholastic standing to have a new mission which I mentioned in the first segment.