The "W"

(Sitting here typing and all of a sudden I dropped part of a reduced fat Wheat Thin in the keys of my keyboard. So if strange words pop up, you'll know what's going on.)

All that talk about perfume and Columbus brought back memories of college days gone by. I thought some of the younger followers would enjoy some of my college adventures and learn to appreciate what freedom they have! In 1967 I was ready to roar off to Ole Miss, when my daddy put the breaks on that dream. He didn't feel that I was ready for the "rowdiness" of the rebels and felt that the all girls' college (no, it wasn't a university yet) Ms. College For Women would be more my cup of tea....MSCW. Or as we southern ladies liked to call it...the "W".

Let me give you an overview... Freshman year: must take PA (Personal Appearance class)... and learn to walk and act like a lady. Every year: Curfew: 9 pm weeknights & 11 pm on weekends. Must take PE (aka PHYSICAL EDUCATION) (oh, no!!!) every year...I nearly failed tennis, did reasonably well in square dancing, and excelled in bowling. (I was told I had a natural curve ...hmmm.) I married my senior year so I could bypass the biggest and worst PE requirement of all...SWIMMING. (You were only excused if you were married...so that did it. Give me the ring, set a date....)

IF you smoked (and I did not), you must go to the smoking room, be seated and twirl your ashes off the end of the cigarette....no thumping! (I will admit that I tried to smoke for 2 days...yikes...can't believe I just admitted that...but I didn't care for the aftertaste so it was a NO GO for me.)

Your date waited in the lobby and they called you over the loud speaker and told you and all the world that "You had a guest in the lobby."

You signed out to go home. You signed out to walk uptown. You signed out to go on a date and heaven help the girl whose card was still turned over when the housemother "checked" all the signed out cards. You could be campused....for not being on time. Once I took too many "cuts" or absences from bowling and was campused for the whole weekend. I was banished to my room and could only come out long enough to eat in the dining hall and then go straight back to my room until Sunday night. (I was a wild and crazy thing.) I narrowly escaped campusment my freshman year because I wore a raincoat over my tennis uniform to English class. I had no car and had to sprint from the tennis court to the English hall and I just wasn't a great sprinter. My English professor told me if I EVER did such a thing as wear a raincoat over a tennis uniform again I'd be CAMPUSED!! Scared the begebbers out of me...I didn't even take the coat off, sat there buttoned up and writing like a madwoman for over an hour perspiring like a fullback...except at the "W" we called it "glowing."

You could not eat in any establishment that served beer or liquor. Once I had a date with a guy from State and he took me to a restaurant called the "Golden Horn"... when we walked in I saw they served beer and was almost comatose before the end of the meal, I was so scared that I would be spied at a "beer serving place" to eat...I NEVER dated that rascal again.

There were so many rules that we had dorm meetings every night at 11 pm for six weeks to go over them all. I was always so tired from PE that I was usually asleep by 9:30 and had to be waked up. Down the stairs with my hair rolled up I'd trudge. I could hardly listen I was so exhausted, but listen I did. I couldn't risk ruining the family name by breaking any of the 2 or 3 thousand rules that were present in our little rule book.

I will expound on some of the other exciting adventures at the all girl school in a later post, but if you know of anybody who actually attended the "W", ask them if what I am saying isn't the truth...back in the 60's and 70's it was the closest thing to a convent in the state....