15 College in Atlanta
College in Atlanta
I applied at both Vanderbilt (where Ted, my boy cousin went the next year) in Nashville TN, and to Emory in Atlanta GA, and was accepted by both schools. I was offered a small scholarship for all four years, and chose to enroll at Emory. In fall 1960 my mother drove me and my stuff there from Chattanooga, and kindly stayed with me through matriculation, class assignment and book purchase, paying all costs, bless her! Once there, I was put in first year university housing on-campus and found some new friends, including the roommate in my two-man room who taught me Republican conservatism and care of my nails. For a week each spring Emory featured “Dooley”, the school’s mascot “spirit”; selected students dressed in Dooley skeleton costumes appeared at various places around campus, and everybody had lots of fun.
Emory had no interscholastic sports program like that at Baylor or at other colleges, so the social life seemed to revolve around the fraternities (male) and sororities (female). At Emory the fraternities were all on a loop-shaped road called “Fraternity Row” on a hillside above the gymnasium and athletic fields (the college had intramural sports and a soccer team). Most had large houses, where members lived in rooms, a large kitchen and dining room where meals were served, and a housemother (older, single) to keep order (as she could). Soon after my arrival I was caught up in “Greek rush”, and became a “pledge” at Chi Phi, known for its parties. We usually had a party on week-ends in the basement of the frat house or off-campus if it was special, and often on Wednesdays an “over the hump” party always with a band either home-grown (some of the members played instruments) or imported. When there wasn’t a party, there was always drinking at the bar in the basement. Members, especially those living in the house, typically had poor or mediocre academic grades, as studying was impeded. I was ultimately “black balled” at the Chi Phi chapter as a “poor fit”, and consoled myself outside Emory’s Candler estate, Lullwater, home of the university’s president
My freshman classes contained about 60 students and taught basic introductory college and pre-medical subjects; the professors were typically untenured, with graduate student aides. At the frat parties I began to drink; I bought a bottle of bourbon “George Dickel Tennessee Drinking Whiskey”. At the bar in the basement of the Chi Phi house, I fell on my face, and put an incisor through my upper lip, chipping the tooth, and got broken glass in my forehead, which was still surfacing months later. I was taken to the school’s hospital, where I was sewed up by the (no doubt disgusted) staff there; but I didn’t feel any pain, being well anesthetized. Apparently I learned nothing from this humiliating experience, except I was embarrassed by my scarred lip, and later hid it behind a moustache, which I began to grow near the end of my Navy tour. One week-end I went to a party at the Chi Phi house in Athens GA, home of the state university (about 70 miles from Emory), and then dropped out of the Greek life altogether, realizing we had nothing in common. To begin my sophomore year, I was driven to Emory by a St Andrew’s couple with their daughter, a girl in our youth group, who also was in college there. I found new friends among the non-frat “independents”; one was from Birmingham AL, and played tenor saxophone well; he admired my Triumph motorcycle, and I took him for rides on the Candler estate, which Emory students could use for recreational purposes. We were both surprised on one of the dirt roads with my friend on back by a “wheelie”. My escapades there led to my appearance before the “traffic court” that Emory had its law school run (my charge of reckless driving was dismissed).
Though no longer a fraternity pledge, I still had several friends from those days; notable among them were two Chi Phi’s from rural Thomaston GA. I spent the summer of my sophomore year at one’s farm home (my mother took me there); he lived with his parents and two younger brothers; their father was an insurance salesman. There my friend drove us to the Blue Bird bus company factory in nearby Forsyth GA, 20 miles south, and to the fruit cannery in Thomaston where his mother worked, and he had worked summers in high school. Our chief occupation at their farmhouse was playing horseshoes, and I became very good at it; one night, pitching beyond dark with a flashlight to tell the results, throwing by experience and sound alone, we threw four “ringers” in one turn before finally going inside. Some week-ends there was a public dance at a playground in town, and once I took the younger sister of my other frat friend, driving my host’s family car.
At that time I admired the current movie “The Hustler”, and cockily “prepared” for a Chemistry final exam by playing all day at a pool hall in downtown Atlanta; the sound and visual effects kept me awake all that night, and I feared flunking the test; I was so surprised to receive an “A”! (I wouldn’t recommend that way of studying for tests.)
Emory held periodic dances/concerts by big-name entertainers; I recall Ray Charles, Dave Brubeck, and Cannonball Adderly.
I remember organic chemistry; it seemed relevant and practical for biology, which I liked; there was also English poetry, taught by an ancient professor whose name (English) matched his job; we studied Wordsworth and Coleridge.
The college required three credits in a foreign language, and I chose French, thinking I would try something new. I received an “A” the first year, but then it started getting harder as we moved on to oral comprehension and expression, and I received a “C” the second year. Not liking where this series would lead, I changed to Greek in my junior year, as this would complete the requirement, since I‘d had five years of Latin already in high school. I liked my teacher of Greek cosmogony, so we went out drinking in Atlanta, and I had him visit in my home for a day or so (he was from the northeast).
My second and third years at Emory I lived off-campus in a basement apartment in “Emory Village”; at first I had two roommates, but they wouldn’t cook or clean up, preferring to let me do all; they soon moved out, and I had the apartment alone, which suited me fine. My usual fare was a can of navy beans and tuna fish heated together, and apple jelly (very cheap) and bread with peanut butter; my landlady occasionally invited me upstairs to dinner in her house, which I liked a lot. Out back over her garage were two other students, both Jewish men, with whom I became friends. There was a large drainage ditch behind her house, and once during a flash flood caused by rain her basement (where I lived alone) was deluged; I saved most of my belongings by moving them to the stairs below her house, but one of the men’s VW car was floated down the ditch, and my motorcycle beside the garage was mostly submerged. After I salvaged it by draining the water, it started and eventually ran OK. My neighbor, with the adjoining basement apartment, was a homosexual predator and taught piano. One week-end he took me rabbit hunting at his house in the country; not liking where this might lead, I didn’t sleep at all while there, and avoided further contact with him.
I fancied that I was a motorcycle racer, so my mother accommodated me one Saturday afternoon by driving me and my 650cc Triumph to a hill climb local to Chattanooga, and waited patiently while I made a fool of myself. One time while riding in north Georgia, I was invited to dinner at the farmhouse of an old couple who lived along the highway out in the country. Another time I rode the bike to Athens GA, and had a flat rear tire about half-way there from Chattanooga; after unsuccessfully attempting to repair it at a (conveniently nearby) tire shop, we ran out of daylight, and I huddled under the still-warm engine of an earth-mover while my mom drove down, we wrestled my bike into her car, and we drove back home – she endured a lot on my account!
I made friends with the Triumph dealer downtown and bought a booklet by Taylor & Moody of TN, in which I learned modifications for the Triumph engine to make it faster; with a hand grinder and my physics machinist’s shop, we did these, and my bike did run a little stronger. At the same time I also made friends with another rider (who rode me double 75mph on his 650cc Triumph through the highways of Atlanta); this man raced his bike on the scrambles dirt tracks, and was very reckless (which was why he often won); he influenced me to race my bike a few times, but I gave it up before I crashed or got hurt.
In my junior year, I made friends with a graduate of Emory College (the university’s older self) at nearby Oxford, who was a student in the dental college; he reminded me that dentists are real doctors; their study was on cadavers, not ca-divers; and they did dis-section, not di-section. Once we rode in his VW “bug” to Dalton (about 60 miles north of Emory) to be dinner guests in the home of my banker girlfriend; on our return trip I had an urgent need to find a restroom, but not in time; our friendship ended. One winter, walking in Atlanta near Grady Memorial Hospital, the 15 degree temperature and wind made me realize that was the coldest I had ever been. In those days I was a fan of jazz music, so as I was egalitarian, I listened to a funky radio program and frequented the host’s night club in a downtown neighborhood that could be dangerous for pale-skinned people. When I left Atlanta, I outgrew this phase.
My grandmother died from stomach cancer about spring 1963; I remember hearing her suffering, on my visits to her home, when she cried, hoping that her life would end. Eventually God granted her wish; after her funeral at St Andrew’s, she was buried with her husband.
About the same time I reconnected with a man a year ahead: there was a student at Emory who was the son of Baylor’s junior military staff officer, who was also taught math there. Nicknamed “Cubby”, this son taught me to play golf (hooky); we rented clubs (I pilfered mine, an old set featuring Walter Hagen, but I think nobody cared); our forearms were sore next day, from our unaccustomed exercise. I thought of him as an idler, but at the same time liked him. We also played “mumblety-peg” on the grassy hill above the school’s athletic track, with my ubiquitous pocket knife.
The same spring I became friends with a graduate student in the Methodist seminary, who was a sprinter; we ran the 100 yard dash, and I thought my 10 second time was fast; this was before I went with this same friend to see a running exhibition starring the great Bob Hayes, the famous football player and sprinting world champion then at 9.1 seconds. Many evenings I read in the seminary’s library, and sometimes went out socially with this man, who also briefly dated my girlfriend’s roommate June.
My senior year at Emory I became friends with another student in the physics department who often came to my apartment to hang out, saying he was “psyched out” and didn’t feel like studying. The same year, having put off for as long as possible the (Methodist background) university’s requirement to take a course in religion, I signed up for “comparative religion” and did my term paper on religious implications of The Catcher in the Rye, since I liked that book, banned for its themes of sexuality and rebellion. This angered my professor, who thought I was making a mockery of his class; only by pleading did I prevail on him to give me a “D” rather than flunk me. This allowed me to graduate; other than that, my lowest mark was “B”.
After the disappointing experience with my Baylor friend’s father, I changed my major and graduated with a dual degree from Emory: a BS in physics and chemistry. I was one of few who completed college in the prescribed four years; many who started with me dropped out or delayed for some reason or another.
In fall 1964 I matriculated at the Georgia Institute of Technology in their new school of Information Science (computers); my mother heard of this emergent field through her library work; again I had a small scholarship, and Mom paid the bills. There I took part in preparing a “Ramblin’ Wreck” car for the annual fall race at Georgia Tech, went to a heavily attended “Yellow Jackets” football game and a couple of basketball games, and a few parties. Most in my classes were older, with several years’ experience in business, and were sent by their high-tech companies to not miss the wave of the computer revolution; I was clearly over my head, for the first time in my life. During those days (nights) I heard, on a phonograph in the school library, the recordings of Frank Sinatra and his predecessor Billie Holiday singing “Love For Sale” and “I’m a Fool to Love You”. I foundered for two quarters, and then dropped out; my mother must have been bitterly disappointed, but never said a word.
After that I joined the Navy, and was no longer a drain on my mother’s modest finances, since I was gainfully employed, and all my needs (and more) were provided.