Friday Five Dorm Edition

Mindful that many others are heading off to further schooling or delivering their loved ones to the institutions that provide it, here are five questions about dorm life.

1) What was the hardest thing to leave behind when you went away to school for the first time?
Actually I didn't head off to school. the hardest thing was that I lived at home and went to the local State University in Ohio. Living at home was truly hard at that age.

2) We live in the era of helicopter parents. How much fuss did your parents make when you first left home?
That would be five years later when I really left for good and I was a good deal older. My mother made a lot of fuss and sent care packages frequently.

3) Share a favorite memory of living with schoolmates, whether in a dorm or other shared housing.
During the 3 final years of colleges, I worked in summer stock in the summer and lived there. My usual room mate had animals and living with two big dog and a bird in a small apartment was...different. Once we were transporting her horse to NY when we had a flat tire on her van. We had to take the horse out of the van to change the tire. I was left holding the horse. What did I know from horses? The horse took off running down the highway. We eventually got it back. The there was the time...

4) What absolute necessity of college life in your day would seem hilariously out-of-date now?

An eight track?

5) What innovation of today do you wish had been part of your life in college?

An away college

Bonus question for those whose college days feel like a long time ago: Share a rule or regulation that will seem funny now. Did you really follow it then?

I was on the cusp of the great revolution, women's liberation, the summer of love, drugs, sex, rock and roll. I graduated from HS in 1967. I had picked out a swell wardrobe for college (as for HS I only wore uniforms.) But, I was an art major and shortly all of my clothing was stained with paint, and other stuff. Well I started wearing...slacks! Then jeans. I was called into the Dean of Women's office. Dean Painter, I'll never forget it! She said that she understood that I had been see wearing pants and jeans on campus! Oh no. This must have been 1968 or 69 by then. You remember? This was Youngstown State University as stones throw from Kent State University and we would also shortly have armed National Guard on OUR campus. I said, Yes, I've ruined all my clothes and I feel more comfortable in clothes that I don't have to worry about. That was the end of that.