Corner Room in Thompson Hall

Memories of school year friends is the Fun Monday topic for March 1. Our host is Wendy at Wendishness who comes across in her blog as a very good friend indeed. Wendy asks that we share some stories and photos of friends we had many years ago. Do we still keep in touch with them? I'll use some scrapbook pages to tell you about three college freshmen who shared the corner room in Thompson Hall women's dormitory at Morehead State University in 1964-65.

This is a photo of me at our shared desk looking out from our corner room. The scrapbook caption reads: "Faye reading a few lines from you know who or what."


They did not want me. Claude and Sharon had gone through elementary and high school together. They planned to set up this little cozy home away from home in Thompson Hall. They managed to snag a second floor corner room where they could supervise all the comings and goings in the front of the dormitory. Then they got the notice that one more person would be assigned to the room. I was the interloper, and an odd one at that, I'm sure. Claude and Sharon came from stable middle class families in a small town. I was country with country ways. They made a secret pact to make life miserable enough that I would move out.

In these photos Claude is the one on the far left. She always got up early to study in that fetching print robe and fluffy pink roller cap. Sharon is the pretty one hunting for Claude in the bathroom. I'm the Irish washerwoman in the bottom photo. Our rooms didn't have showers so I always got up early in the morning in order to have some bathing privacy down the hall.

In the scrapbook these photos are labeled "dorm life". Moving clockwise you see the vending machines, source of chocolate french pastry cakes that fueled our late night studies. In the next photo I'm asleep between classes in the top bunk. The outsider got that bunk. The sink was by this bed so every morning Claude threatened me with bodily harm for brushing my teeth too loudly. Moving on around there's our shared desk. Each of us had a shelf. We didn't share many classes since we each had different majors. I do remember having a folk and square dance class together though and helping each other avoid dancing with the nerdy guys--in the 60s you wanted to dance with the "tough" guys. The lower left photo was our neighbor's room across the hall. Ours was the same size and there were three of us to share. No wonder Claude and Sharon didn't want me in there.

I roomed with them for two semesters before deciding to move out of the dorm and live with a family to help with college expenses. By that time we were great friends. I loved spending weekends with Claude at her home. We circled Frisch's on Friday and Saturday nights with the local boys and went bowling. Claude's parents were strict Baptists so no matter how late we stayed out, on Sunday morning we had to be in Sunday school. We also tried to make one last circle of the boy haunts before heading back to campus on Sunday evening, but had to go to evening church first. We sat on the pews closest to the door so that we could be out of there at the last stanza of "On Jordan's Stormy Banks."

(Embiggen this image if you really want to read a page of freshman earnestness.) Only an overly dramatic college freshman would need to write an epilogue to friendship. This was in my going away scrapbook which they made for me when I left the dorm. As you can tell, we came to accept each others' little quirks and behaviors. They appreciated the extra room, I'm sure. I was happy to live with a rollicking young family in a nice home. But to quote Claude and Sharon, the sentiments may have been "trite" but they were sincere as well.

Claude got married before finishing college, but she went on to become a very shrewd businesswoman in her hometown and rear a lovely daughter. We still stay in touch after all these years. We don't talk or see each other very often, but when we do, it's easy. Sharon married her college boy friend and I lost touch with her. I couldn't ask for two better roommates to start college life with.

Now be sure to check Wendy's Fun Monday sign up to read all about all our old friends.

BTW, I'll host on March 15 if no one else planned to.