I lived in Faith Hall, a square building on the village’s main road, across from most of the college campus, with a central courtyard, useful for sunbathing. The dorm was divided into Old Faith and New Faith, based on the age of the buildings. One entered the front door and, ignoring the front lounge, which boasted a television, had a choice of left or right; rooms first encountered were part of New Faith, which was not terribly new by the time I arrived, but newer than the back half, which was composed of retrofitted Army barracks. (There was a two-story men’s dorm constructed entirely of Army barracks; I have no idea how that happened.) Young men were allowed to visit in the front lounge, but could go no further. The back lounge also had a television and snack machines, which I visited regularly when working on papers, mostly for Mountain Dew, which fueled late nights. The washers and dryers were back there, too. Embarrassed, I had to ask a sophomore how to do laundry, because my mother always did mine, and it never occurred to either of us that I needed to learn. Each hall had a phone, coin-operated for long distance, mounted on the wall, shared by all sixteen girls. Calling a guy in a dorm across campus might mean that whoever answered would go find him, or, as I was told, might just stand there with his hand over the receiver and wait awhile, then say, “He’s not in his room.” We were supervised by a married couple who lived in the resident advisor’s apartment near the front of the dorm. The apartment had a Dutch door, which was sometimes left open so the RA could hear the action in the lounge. Occasionally we had all-dorm meetings, but usually our halls met separately under the supervision of the personnel assistant, or P.A. The P.A. was there to give counsel, dispense decrees, check our rooms for cleanliness, and do the never-announced-in-advance bed checks during chapel or on Sunday mornings. (Some student claimed to be attending Bedside Baptist with Pastor Sheets.) Most of the other dorms were newer, with larger rooms, but as a word-lover and budding mystic (also a believer in osmosis), I wanted to be in Faith Hall. I never wavered in my Faith, despite its thin carpeting and too-small-for-two closets. Every year I moved closer to the front; bunk beds gave way to pull-out sofa beds, but the closets remained too small. All rooms had a window that could be opened or closed. When I lived in the rooms faced the courtyard, the windowsill doubled as a refrigerator. We put milk or cider out there to stay cool. Cooking was done exclusively by popcorn popper; microwaves weren’t yet common. I heard some of the guys were adept at grilled cheese sandwiches made on an iron, but my wildest culinary adventures were heating soup or La Choy in the popper.
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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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