Chapter Twenty-Four- The College Try

Off to College

My days of virginal solitude behind me, I set out with Dad to my new digs down in Norfolk, VA at Old Dominion University. I thought it was really hilarious when the first sign I saw coming off the freeway directed us to "O.D. University". Now that's a party school!

To save some money on housing expenses, Dad had arranged for me to rent a room in an old townhouse about a mile from campus from a friend of my step-grandmother. The first time I set foot in the place I knew I was in trouble. It smelled like Old Lady and not one stick of furniture was younger than she was. There was no shower in the only bathroom, just a tub. I have never been a bath kind of guy. And we were far enough away from campus that I might as well have been on the moon. Then I met her son, a beer truck driver. His idea of a good time was to invite his redneck buddies over and get drunk in the kitchen on Southern Comfort. That stuff tasted like fermented cough syrup, and it still kills me how the only way they seem to be able to promote in nowadays is "SoCo and lime." That's it, no other way you can drink it. Just shut up and pour it in.

I was bored to tears.

Old Dominion had about 14,000 students when I went there in 1975-76. I was overwhelmed by the activity of it all and how really impersonal the whole experience was. The teachers never knew my name and I was lucky to talk to them for more than 15 minutes the whole time I was in their class. I knew nobody at all and was a bit shy about introducing myself outside of casual conversation in class. It sucked. And I certainly wasn't going to be inviting any female types to my de-luxe apartment at the geriatric ward. It looked pretty bleak until I got to talking with a guy named George Scott in the cafeteria. He belonged to a fraternity, and I saw that as a great way to meet new people. Not only that, but there was an opening at the frat house to rent a room and the rent was cheaper than I'd been paying Grandma Moses. I was out of there so fast the dust was still settling when I moved into the new place.

I Become a Frat Boy

George lived at the house and I became his roommate. The night I accepted my Associate Membership the guys all had this solemn little candlelit ceremony and put my pledge pin on me. I was now a pledge to Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. Then we all got drunk. Hmm. I'm noticing that that's the way a lot of these early experiences are marked. The room George and I shared became the "party room" for stoners in the Brotherhood. We would sit around listening to Pink Floyd, Robin Trower, Seventh Wave, Jethro Tull and other trippy music while infusing the room with cannabis incense. Our discussions ranged from the ridiculous to the sublimely ridiculous.

Being such an old house, our domicile had its share of other life forms creeping about the place. Chief among these were the roaches. But instead of being disgusted by sharing our space with them, we learned to incorporate them into our own heathen rituals. Using wooden skewers and toothpicks, we built altars and scaffolding on which we fastened the unwary Blattellidae to burn them alive. Suckers can really POP when they get heated up just right.

One night as we blathered on in our opium den a knock came on the door. I opened it to find a Norfolk City police officer standing there. I quickly stepped out and slammed the door, much to his amusement.

"Relax, pledge, I'm a Brother."

"Oh. Ah, yeah, cool. What's up?"

"I'm on night duty in an hour or so and I need to take a nap down in the living room, so nobody comes downstairs until I leave, OK?"

Seemed a little strange, but I went back in and told the guys. They gave each other sidelong glances and grinned at me.

"That means he's got a lady friend down there and wants some privacy" said George.

Oh. Well, as soon as my knees stop shaking and I get my breath back everything will be just fine. Seeing a cop again in that situation so soon after my last bust had freaked me right out.

Not long after I moved in I was exposed to the first of the Mysteries. Pledges in just about all fraternities have to go through classroom instruction and participate in what can only be described as "morality plays." Each of us was awakened late at night to bear witness to or participate in some small way with these plays. They were designed to awaken the mind to other possibilities and to teach enduring lessons. I thought it was way cool.

The Year in Review

My entire first year of college was an exercise in hedonism. While I did go to class fairly often, the freedom I had after two years of structure at SMA was more than I could control. It was so much easier to smoke another joint and walk around campus looking disaffected and tragic. For some reason this didn't get me laid much. It's often been said that the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. My grades suffered once again but I just didn't care. This was a vacation. One my folks were getting tired of funding. I hung out with my cousins Joe and Bob, their friends becoming my friends. I remember watching the first episode of Saturday Night Live in a buddy's basement and declaring it to be the funniest show ever. That was also the first time I ever saw Monty Python's Flying Circus. There were just so many better things to do than study.

In late Fall of '75 some frat brothers decided to go on a road trip out to Charlottesville. I tagged along with the idea that I'd visit Staunton while I was out there. It was cool to see the guys again, but it felt strange, like revisiting a dream. Boots was the new 'A' Company commander, the last one ever as it turned out. That's when I found out about my old nemesis, Captain Davis. During Alumni Weekend one of the younger alums was walking into South Barracks and Davis had asked him what he was doing there. The other man said it was none of his business and Davis had clocked him with a rifle. In short order the Senior Army Instructor was transferred out to parts unknown. I can only imagine him hunkered down in Fort Greely, Alaska, waiting for the Russkies to come storming across the Bering Strait.
Drinking, smoking, meeting the occasional young woman of loose morals who saw me as an acceptable last resort. And going to just enough classes to pull a low 'D' average. Those heady days. Toward the end of the year the only reason my fellow brothers voted to let me be initiated into full membership was due to low recruitment numbers. But it was a transcendent experience for me. Initiation in Lambda Chi Alpha is called The Ritual, and it was an all-night ceremony that left me shaken and believing a little more in the value of brotherhood.

So I went back to Alexandria with my tail between my legs, but in the long run it was an expensive lesson for Dad in listening to what I really needed. Maybe a little time with Mommy and Daddy wasn't such a bad thing after all.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Roach Coach Days