Dormitory Living

As my granddaughter approaches life as a college freshman, my brain vacillates between my own experiences as a college freshman, and drawing up lists of everything I think she'll need when away from home next year, IF everything pulls together for her.  I admit that I really, really want to be the person who tells her of something she will need that no one else has thought of, but I also have to admit that my college career started in 1965, and "things" have changed a bit since then.

*In 1965, there were no personal computers, cell phones, WiFi, or Internet. 

*No word processing.

*Credit cards were scarce (nonexistent in my family) and debit cards hadn't been invented yet.

*Dormitories were segregated by sex, and women were locked in by 10:30 on weeknights, and only a little bit later on the weekends.  (It always irritated me that the men could come and go as they pleased all night.)  Honest to God, Resident Assistants stood by the doors with stopwatches if you were late.  How late you were determined your punishment.  On the very first week of school, my roommate was late by a minute or two and was "grounded".  It was insane, but that's how it was in the 60s. 

*The dorm lounges were open to coed visitation and TV-watching, but PDA (public displays of affection) was forbidden, and the lounges were heavily supervised.  The unwritten rule was that there always had to be "three feet on the floor" in any coed visitation.  Visitation in the dorm rooms was limited to, maybe, one special day per semester.

*There were no facilities on any dorm floor for cooking.  Microwave ovens didn't exist, and there were no such things as dorm-sized refrigerators.
 
*There was ONE communal bathroom on each floor, with multiple toilet/shower stalls, and (of course) sinks and mirrors all along one wall.  There were also small lockers without locks.  Most of us kept our toiletries in our rooms to prevent them from being stolen, which meant that we had little buckets in which to take our toiletries and towels to shower or freshen up.  (My "roomie" and I called them Happy Buckets.)  If maintenance men had to be on the floor to repair something, they often came up the stairs instead of the elevator and had to shout "MAN ON THE FLOOR!" as a warning--sometimes too late before a young lady, straight out of the shower and wrapped only in a towel, could escape into her room.  I think the men got cheap thrills from sending them shrieking to their rooms!

*Clean linen exchange occurred every Saturday morning.  There was no such thing as fitted sheets.  We were issued two flat sheets and one pillowcase, but when it came time to exchange for clean ones, we could only turn in ONE sheet and one pillowcase.  (I had to ask my mom about that one.  She informed me--probably from Navy knowledge--that the sheets were to be rotated each week.  Bottom one washed while top one was put on the bottom and a clean one given for the top.

*The women's dorms--at least the one I was in--had Saturday inspection.  The RA's came around with a checklist to make sure your room was clean. That meant, among other things, that there couldn't be any trash in the wastebasket.  Wow...

When I accepted my university's admission approval, I was asked about housing.  My best friend down the street from me in Oak Park, IL, was also going to Illinois State, so we requested each other as roommates...and it happened.  Her name was Kristie Werner.  She and I had been tight all through high school.  I can't tell you how much easier it was to move into my new environment already knowing my roomie! 

On the weekend of the move-in, my parents drove me up to the dorm.  There were all kind of dollies being used to cart stuff up to the rooms (and lots of boys volunteering their help in order to get a good look at the fresh fish).  We had to wait a bit to find an unused dolly.  When we finally got all of my belongings and treasures to the 12th floor where my room was, Kristie had already come and gone with her parents but had left me a cute note.  Something like, "Hello, Roomie.  We are sooo happy to have you here." 

Kristie and I had already agreed who would bring what by way of amenities.  One of us brought a fan.  The other brought a record player.  Of course, we each had clock radios, etc....so...in short order, my family and I made a list of things I needed that we hadn't brought with us. An extension cord and multiple electrical outlets were high on the list.  The Happy Bucket that I needed.  An umbrella.  Some other things.  (That was 55 years ago.  Hard for me to remember it all!!)  We shopped, ate at a local popular smorgasbord...and then my parents departed back to the burbs of Chicago.  It was a strange feeling to know that I was suddenly in charge of myself.

My new family became my "sisters" on the 12th floor of Hamilton Hall at Illinois State University.  We had candlelight services to celebrate each person's milestones in their love lives.  Lavaliered.  Pinned.  Engaged.  Wow... 

I remember getting so tickled when Vicky Snyder, a neighbor in the next room over, (who also came from the town in which I was born), sat on the heater ledge looking down at South Campus, and said, dreamily, "So this is college."

I lived for two years with my homie roomie.  Junior year, I moved to another dorm--a more liberal dorm--just in time for the snow storm of the century to hit the Chicago area in 1967, when I was trying to go home for semester break.  I didn't do well with that roommate, so got another roommate the semester after that.  My senior year, I convinced my parents to let me move into an apartment with five other girls, all of whom would be doing student teaching sometime during the year.  We weren't allowed cars on campus without special dispensation, so it was a looong walk to classes! 

As I write this, I realize how very much times have changed since I was in college and how very out of touch I am.  What makes me think that I can begin to suggest things that my granddaughter will need in college when I have no clue what colleges even supply anymore?  I desperately want to be her hero, but I guess I will have to be simply satisfied that she is mine.  Maybe I can just help out along the way and hope she will know that I love her so very much.