Dorm Life: part 2

We had a laundry room where everyone had their own cubby. There was one African man who's job was to do laundry every day, all day. This was with an old fashioned wringer washer and hanging everything on the line. When it was dry, he'd bring it in, fold it in stacks and then someone's dorm job was to put the clothes in the right box. Oh, and we had to sew name tags on EVERY piece of clothing before coming to school. BTW, my mom made us sew on our own name tags.

To make our dorm function, we all had dorm jobs. These would be switched up every two weeks or so. Some of the jobs included putting the clothes in the cubbies, distributing sheets to everyone on sheet day, watering the plants, feeding any animals, etc. My least favorite was taking care of this weird kind of cat. I don't remember what it was called, but it was real slow and slinky and lived in a cage in our dorm. I had to open his cage, take out his litter box, rake out the poop,throw it away and then put the box back in. You may think that's not a big deal, but that cat was weird, it hissed at me. So I would dread doing my dorm job!

We had a Rec room on the lower floor of our dorm. The rafters were exposed and so our dorm father hooked up a thick rope that we could swing on. We also had a balance beam and lots of mats, so we often tried to do gymnastics. There was a ping pong table and a Fooze-ball table. We played all sorts of games down there. We even climbed the rafters sometimes-that was a big "no, no."

We had a TV in our dorm living room, but we couldn't watch it hardly ever. Sometimes we would watch "Happy Days" and John Wayne westerns translated into French. It was quite comical, actually. On Sunday afternoons when I was real young, we would watch a Western. When I got older and VHS was invented we could watch an ICA-approved movie. Some of my personal favs: Savannah Smiles, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Pete's Dragon, Sound of Music, Annie and Mary Poppins.

We had one piano in the living area, as well. My mom made me take lessons. I hated it! Not because I didn't like playing the piano, I actually caught on pretty well. But I HATED practicing because not only could our dorm hear every note, but you could hear it almost all the way down to the Dining Hall. My dorm mom made everyone come to the piano recital that I had to play in. I looked out to see all the bored faces of my peers and especially the older boys I had crushes on---horrific! I wanted to crawl inside the piano and not come out. My piece was so basic, fortunately it was short, so I rushed through it.

Every day we were expected to make our beds and clean our rooms. Our rooms were graded. If we failed, then we would be grounded until it was cleaned up and checked out by a dorm parent. I never failed, but sometimes I got a lower grade because of my room mates. This is why I don't make my children make their beds and it took me years in college and after to be able to make myself make my bed. I usually make it everyday now, for me, not a grade.

Speaking of roommates, I've had hundreds. At the end of each trimester we would pack up everything in our room into footlockers and suitcases. We would pack a suitcase for vacation. We would store what we were leaving behind in the attic. We would usually switch rooms and roommates each trimester. Sometimes that was not very good for friendships. For girls, anyway. It was always a drama fest the last few weeks of school.