If the first week of college was about learning patience through standing in lines, the second week was about learning our place in the hierarchy. We were freshmen at the bottom of the heap, no longer seniors glorying in our status and superior rank.
This lowliness of place was enforced by the sophomores, who by tradition had the privilege of making our lives miserable in small ways throughout the week. We were issued felt beanies in the school colors—lacking only a propeller to make them supremely ugly—which we were to wear at all times. Then each day brought some new indignity: wear mismatched clothes, such as plaids with stripes; women, wear a man’s tie; and so forth. Violations were tracked and to be punished as pleased the kangaroo court held in the gym the following weekend. I did not respond well to this nonsense, and though I dared not rebel in any visible way, I pushed the boundaries. I didn’t wear a man’s tie, too shy to ask a boy to borrow one and unable to tie one. I tied a cloth belt around my neck and brazened out the disobedience, following the spirit if not the letter of the law. I determined that the following year I would have no part in terrorizing the incoming students, and with one exception, I kept that resolve. But my lasting humiliation came through the command to perform any task a sophomore assigned. We needed a certain number of signatures on a small signboard we were to wear; only sophomore signatures were valid. One day at lunch I approached a table of students not wearing beanies, hoping to score multiple John Hancocks. “Sing for us,” commanded one of them. “Sing ‘You Are My Sunshine.’” I was mortified, but I sang a verse and reached to remove my signboard. “That’s okay,” said one of the guys, grinning. “We’re not sophomores.”
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As new college students, we were required to come a week early to settle in before the other students returned. Part of our settling took place with our roommate. In those quaint days, we may have talked to a roommate before moving in, but there was no Zoom or Facetime, no discussion about who was bringing what to enhance the room, what colors we preferred. We were simply thrown into the deep end and expected to make the best of it.
I did well in the roomie department, courtesy of someone sitting in an office and matching people. My roommate was also a pre-seminary Bible major, with the same last name, and a similar complex family dynamic. She lived within an hour’s drive, and had a job, so was permitted the luxury of having a car, which was verboten for nearly all first-year students. Orientation put us in small groups to discuss the four books we’d been sent to read over the summer. I was astonished to learn that some of my fellow students hadn’t bothered to read all or sometimes any of them. I found Escape From Reason by Francis Schaeffer a slog, yes, and I remember almost nothing about it. Being in the discussion group taught me one important lesson: autonomous was not pronounced as I’d been saying it in my head while reading Schaeffer. I think one of the other books was Tim LaHaye’s on understanding the four temperaments, no doubt to try to help us make sense of our classmates. Much of the week was spent standing in lines. Registration was done by hand, of course, and we were to meet first with our academic advisors to make a plan. My advisor didn’t know quite what to do with me. “Are you sure you’re not a Christian Education major?” he asked. I was positive about my choice. I wanted to take Greek; pre-sem majors had fewer general requirements in Bible to make room for two or three years of Greek. I signed up for several classes, all with Introduction or Foundations in their names. After registering, the bookstore, located in a small section of a building, gave us another opportunity to stand in line. Three times a day there were lines for meals and the agony of finding someone with whom to sit, or sitting alone, trying to be invisible. My shyness was no help during those first weeks. Well, honestly, it’s never been much help. Jerry was the first person I knew who refused to sing a hymn based on its lyrics. He’d scan a hymn for the words, then be quiet if he disagreed. I knew this, not only because he told me why he wouldn’t sing, but also because all of the teens sat together in church, so we knew one another’s oddities.
Dissent was not something I was comfortable poking at, so I never discussed with Jerry what he did believe. Not until college did I begin to learn apologetics, a defense for the faith. I didn’t have much use for it, swimming in that evangelical world, nor was I—as a peace-loving, shy girl— especially interested in being on God’s legal team. Another problem I had with Jerry was that he sounded so definite and logical and right about things. Before crossing a busy four-lane highway, he once said, “Walk out in front of them. They’ll stop.” And because he had a hard-working guardian angel, no car’s brakes failed, and we dashed across Waterloo Road safely. Jerry was one-third of the group of guys who were two years my junior; not until I was halfway through my time in youth group were we in the group together. I cared about all three of them; even then I was prone to interfering with others’ spiritual lives, for their own good. One night the three of them came in late to youth group and silly to a disruptive degree. After the hour ended, I lectured them about both flaws, trying to point out their stupidity. “Come on, guys, use your noodle,” I begged. And that sent Jerry off into more laughter. “Yeah, guys, use your noodle!” he encouraged. Ever naïve, it would be years before I figured out that the three of them knew more slang for male anatomy than I did and that they had been drinking before showing up late. Youth for Christ International is an evangelical organization, with an emphasis on evangelism, Scripture, and prayer, among other values. The group typically works within the structure of a local church, but [at least when I was in high school] they had clubs through schools as well. Meetings weren’t held at the school, but those of us who were members could quietly advertise.
We wore buttons made out of construction paper with the letters YFC and 7:11 on them to school on the day of the meeting (Thursday?). Living in Florida years later, I would discover Seven Eleven convenience stores; then, it was simply an easily remembered time slot. We’d meet at 7:11 at someone’s house—Carrie’s or Penny’s most likely. It wasn’t the cheerleader/football player crowd, but still a social step up from where I was, with the brainy girls, the newspaper staff, the theater crowd. We had snacks, I remember that clearly, and probably prayer and Bible study. I don’t recall why I didn’t stick with YFC, but the reason might have been as practical as my dad refusing to cart me back and forth. We lived out in the township, as did my classmates; there was no public transportation service. Besides, church filled my weeks with prayer and Bible study as well as my need for social interaction with other Christian teens. I just didn’t have it at school, because my church friends went to different high schools. |
Baptist GirlI was a conservative Baptist girl who grew up to become a career Christian, working first in a Baptist school and then in a Baptist college. For about three decades, it was very good until it wasn’t, and I had to leave. But the Baptists formed me. This is my homage to the good times and good people of the world I left, finally, at forty-three, when I became an Episcopalian. These are my memories; others might disagree with my recollections. So be it. Archives
January 2024
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