I remember two things about moving in to the School of Science and Math in 1980. I remember walking around... a lot; and I remember meeting people... a lot of people.
We started meeting people the minute we set foot on campus. I have no idea who I met first. It could have been a member of the "Residential Life" staff... or maybe a teacher... or an administrator. It could have been my first residential advisor (RA), Branson Brown, wearing his baseball cap. It could have been another student, or a parent, carrying boxes from their car.
We were all pulled up on the already aging, chip-seal road; parking as close as we could get to the road's hard curb with its faded yellow paint; parking in front of the dorms or on the wide, looping circle in front of the 1908 building, with it's Mission style, taupe stucco walls and terracotta roofing tiles.
At some point, the parents went to the Parents' Orientation Meeting, and we were left to meet and greet people on our own. I imagine I was getting to know my first roommate, as we unpacked our stuff in the Wyche House dorm. I found out in due course that Gary was an avid bicycle rider, even competing in bicycle races. (We both had nice bikes, so it was a theme of mutual interest.) He told me he was a little pigeon-toed and that gave him a slight aerodynamic advantage when riding. I have no idea what personal disclosures I made about myself. I've forgotten the rest of our conversation; but I could tell right away that he was a good guy, forthright and honest.
It wasn't long before I was meeting people from all over the state. I had to get out a map of North Carolina to find all the places. There were people from places out west, like Mocksville, Statesville, Hickory, and Drexel - places I'd seen on road signs on Interstate 40, on the way to the mountains. There were people from the coast, like Manteo, Elizabeth City, and Wilmington - places on the way to the beach. There were people from the big cities, like Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, and Charlotte; and people from the cities in between, like Sanford, Pittsboro, and High Point. ...People from Scotland Neck, Bear Creek, Waxhaw, and Horseshoe. ...From Rose Hill, Maple Hill, and Chapel Hill. We all lived in North Carolina; but we spoke with slightly different regional accents.
Despite our differences in hometown, race, and heritage; we were all excited to be in Durham, at the School of Science and Math. We all had that in common. We were all a little bookish. It wasn't long before we began to realize just how nerdy we were. And we could talk like nerds, out in the open! We could do nerdy things without fear or stigma. We could sit and discuss math, robots, computers, and science (or science fiction). We could brandish a Rubik's cube in public; and we frequently did. (There was a bit of a Rubik's cube craze in the Fall of 1980. We spent time with each other to learn how to solve the puzzle; to learn the sequence of moves that could help us switch the colored corner pieces of the cube, so crucial to completing the challenge.)
During our first week on campus, orientation gave us ample opportunity to meet nearly every other member of the entering class. We met during RA floor meetings on day one; and while roaming the halls before curfew. We met during bus rides to Duke Homestead during our tour of Durham. We met at the Pig Pickin' and square dance on our first Saturday in town (after 3 days of class). We had to awkwardly pair up to "Dosey Doe" at the "Hoe Down".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When we weren't meeting one another in class or in orientation, we were walking. Only one day after arrival, we were on our feet. On that Monday morning we had a class schedule walk through, so that we could find our classrooms when classes began on Wednesday. We were walking back and forth, from our dorm rooms, to the the classrooms in the basement of Hill House, to the side entrance of the Main Building, and up to the classrooms on one of the upper floors. We were looking for the science classrooms, the American Studies classrooms, the mail room, the computer lab, the library, the art studio, maybe even the administrative wing. We were free to explore, within limits. You see, there were many "off limits" areas; places still under construction and unsafe to explore (which made them all the more tempting to see).
One of the places that wasn't ready was the cafeteria. In the first week of our stay, the cafeteria was not open. Some necessary equipment had not arrived. So, we had to walk to the cafeteria at E. K. Powe elementary school, two and a half blocks away. We walked up and down Ninth Street to the "Icky Poo" cafeteria, twice a day. With 149 students in transit, it was like a parade, passing Durham Fire Station number 2, morning and evening. Those firemen must have been greatly entertained. I think that most of us students were not; grumbling or muttering curses under our breath; or laughing at the absurdity of our situation. If the cafeteria seating had been just a bit bigger, that would have helped; but most of it was designed for the children. There were a limited number of adult sized tables and chairs.
In week two student life became so much better. Our cafeteria was ready for us, in the basement of the "brick addition". Now we had adult sized chairs and circular tables, practically at our fingertips. No more parades down Ninth street for grub.
But the school wasn't done testing our fitness. At some point early in our stay, the head of our physical education class (seemingly an afterthought in our school's plan of instruction) had us jog around the south parking lots. You see the school had no track... or field, for that matter. Instead of on a running track, our test run took place in a parking lot, beneath ancient oak trees, beside the former patient pavilions of Watts Hospital (which were waiting to be converted to additional dorms in the coming years).
When a soccer team formed, later in the fall, we did our "conditioning" by running a mile and a half down West Club Boulevard (past Northgate Mall) to another elementary school, which had an all-purpose field that we could use for training. There was no other way of getting to the training field, and so no way to avoid the conditioning runs that were required.
Not all walking and jogging was mandatory. As time went by, we made friends, and made excursions off campus with our friends... voluntary excursions. We went to Northgate Mall to play arcade games like Galaxian or Asteroids... and later, Centipede or Defender. We were warned to be vigilant when walking to Northgate Mall, because we were passing through Walltown, a neighborhood deemed somewhat unsafe by the School; but we were willing to take that risk, to get away from our homework for a while; to play classic arcade games, like Pacman, on a console with sturdy pushbuttons and a joy stick.
Alternatively, we might walk up Broad Street (which was considered somewhat safer), and get ourselves a nice sandwich at the Grinderswitch subway shop. This little business became so popular, that one time our dorm got together a group big enough to order and eat a 10-foot long sub. I don't know how we did it, or where we ate it, but we felt like we had accomplished a pretty magnificent feat; and Grinderswitch with their crazy group-sized sandwich promotion helped make it happen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Over time, we spent less time walking and talking. We met just about everyone on campus that there was to meet. We hooked up with a group, or with several groups of friends. We made close friends; boyfriends and girlfriends. We began to feel less lost, all the time. We came to know our way around campus. We no longer wandered around looking for the right door or breezeway.
Over time, we had less time for exploring and socializing. We had to go to class. We had to go to required labs. We had to do our homework; which kept coming, in a seemingly endless stream. We also worked on Saturday morning projects or independent study. We sat through dedication week speeches and seminars. We went to off-campus sites to perform community service, and went to on-campus sites to do our work service. We had tons of requirements and tons of expectations.
And yet, we still got involved in other activities. We immersed ourselves in music or art or sporting activities. We joined wind ensemble, chorus, or dance. We took photos and developed them in the darkroom, or created screen-printed posters and t-shirts. We played intramurals or table tennis or Ultimate frisbee. We began joining clubs and planning activities.
We were going to school and learning, and then going back to our dorm rooms and studying (or procrastinating). We were busy fulfilling academic expectations, or taking a break and burning off steam. Before that, during the first few weeks of school, we met everyone and we walked seemingly everywhere. But after those first few weeks, the days of walking all over tarnation... and meeting people from all over tarnation... had come to an end.
********************
No comments:
Post a Comment