Chapter 4
Drake University
College
was a whole new world from high school, a much better one. With my new car I no longer took the
streetcar and relished the freedom to come and go, and college schedules, with
classes meeting two or three times a week, encouraged that.
While I
was in a relative minority, being younger than most of the veterans now
flooding colleges under the GI program, this proved no problem. I was accepted and even admired by most of
them, and quickly gained some close friends that continued all through college
and beyond.
I had
learned to organize time to maximize my effectiveness. My writing led me to be top in my classes
with essay exams and term papers. And I
had developed a ferocious use of cramming before exams, sometimes hardly doing
any reading until near exam time, and then smashing the exam. (To whoever might read this, I don't
recommend leaving all studying to the end.
I would not do this were I to do it over. Certainly in my graduate classes years later
I organized myself much better and any last- minute studying would be reviewing
previous material. And I went to bed at the usual time before exams .) The courses that took the most time, with the
most homework, were accounting courses, and these could not be neglected to
exam time. Three or four of us would
often work together on doing the homework cases.
I had
almost all "A's" and was on the Dean's list every semester. By the time I was a junior I was grading
papers for several professors, of whom one, Professor Lovejoy, became my
mentor.
Sororities
and fraternities were an integral part of social life in most universities in
those years. Their popularity was to
diminish as more and more veterans dominated
campuses, but still they offered status and social benefits to their
members, and could be quite selective in whom they admitted as pledges. They were fairly costly to belong to, and in
my first several years seemed out of reach.
Indeed, I wasn't even sure a fraternity would have me since my social
skills were so abysmal. By the start of
my third year Dad decided he could afford to pay for me to belong to a
fraternity, especially since he'd had to pay no tuition.
So I
participated in Rush Week, whereby candidates visited various fraternity houses
to see which would give invitations to join and which seemed most desirable
perhaps because of status or good rapport with members. I remember that I attracted little interest,
unlike the big men on campus and the athletes who fraternities drooled
over. One fraternity, Tau Kappa Epsilon
(TKE), needed a nerd like me to help bring up their academic average that was
low compared to other fraternities. So
they offered me an invitation and I accepted.
I can't
say I was enthralled with fraternity life.
Perhaps if I were an out-of-town student and able to live at the
fraternity house I would have gotten more out of it. I certainly would have if I were a wild
extrovert and liked partying. And I'm
sure I would have if I were eager to speak up at meetings and be more of a
leader. But I didn't even like to speak
up in classes if I could help it. About
my only positive quality, except for the scholarship thing, which only brought
acceptance and not status, was that I could handle my liquor as well or better
than most of my fraternity brothers.
My
experiences with booze.—In those days, and to some extent still today,
fraternities led the campus community in drinking—often having beer by the keg
for any social occasion, and to a lesser extent the hard stuff. For young men facing their first freedom and
experience in drinking, drunkenness was common.
Since my car was only a three-passenger coupe, it was not often used in
fraternity functions. It is a wonder how
I as a passenger ever escaped perishing in some terrible car crash. I remember one occasion when the president of
the chapter was practically falling down drunk when he got in his car to drive
a half dozen of us from a ballroom where several sororities had put on a
party. We asked him if he really felt he
could drive.
"Oh,
I drive when I'm drunk all the time. But
it's perfectly safe, men. I always drive
slower when I've had a lot to drink."
I didn't think he was driving very slowly as we weaved from side to
side. In those days there was no MADD,
nor were cops eager to cite drunken drivers.
Actually, there was very little attention given to DUIs.
On
another occasion one of the brothers was so drunk he passed out across the
railroad tracks in back of a night club.
Those of us more sober had to drag his 200-pound body off the tracks and
into a car. I remember being enlisted a
number of times to drive somebody's car when everyone else was too far gone to
drive. I was glad I'd done the
experiment in drinking before I came to college, for at least I knew my
capacity.
I saw
enough drinking to excess in the fraternity to resolve never to become falling
down drunk, never to let myself become stuporous, and never to lose
control. I don't think I ever have in my
life, and I like to carefully monitor how much I'm drinking.
The New
Year's Eve Event. -- My finest moment
with drinking was New Year's Eve of my first year in the fraternity. I had become chummy with a fellow pledge, Wes
Sampson, and we planned to go out on the town as long as our money held out. He somehow had gotten hold of an old car, a
Model T, and we drove it downtown in search of adventure. It was not long in coming.
For
some reason, our first stop was at the lounge of one of the best hotels in Des
Moines. It was dark and rather quiet and
we thought we'd have one drink and then move on to more raucous drinking
holes. An older man with a cowboy hat
was sitting at the bar morosely sipping a cocktail of some kind. I knew little about cocktails at that point,
but was soon to learn a lot more.
We
struck up a conversation with him. His
name was Steve Martin; he was an Arizona rancher in town on business and facing
a New Year's Eve alone. Suddenly he
said, "Boys, would you join me tonight?
I'd like some company, you can show me around, and everything's on
me. My treat. Will you do it?"
Wes and
I looked at each other. This wasn't
quite what we'd planned. We really
wanted to pick up some girls. Before we
could come to a decision, Steve said, "Why don't we all have a
boilermaker, while you decide."
I'd never heard of a boilermaker; I'm not sure
Wes had either, although he pretended to know.
"Okay," we said, wondering what we were getting into. The name made it sound like a powerful drink. But I was an experienced drinker, and knew my
capacity, didn't I?
The
boilermaker turned out to be a double shot of bourbon with a glass of beer as a
chaser to sooth the harshness of the whiskey as it went down our throats. Steve told us we needed to drink boilermakers
fast so as not to irritate our throats too much. "Bottoms up," Steve said, and we followed
suit and I could feel my face blushing and the top of my skull lifting. "That a way, boys," he said. "Now excuse me a minute while I visit
the little boy's room. This will give
you time to decide about tonight.
Remember, everything's on me, I have plenty of money, and it'll be an
experience you'll never forget."
"What
do you think?" I asked Wes as he left.
"I
think we could do a lot worse," he said.
"Me
too," I said, wondering if my resolve to never get drunk was going to be
shattered tonight, for it was only a little after ten, and I could already feel
lightheaded from the boilermaker. Wes
stumbled a little as we followed Steve out to the street.
We went
to a few other bars downtown, and then took taxis to more distant
nightclubs. Over the course of the
evening I had the chance to sample all kinds of mixed drinks. There was no more beer that night, only the
exotic stuff. Steve held his drinks
well, although he was beginning to slur his words a bit. But then he had had a head start before we
ever joined him. Wes was practically out
of it. I wasn't quite sure how I
felt: I certainly wasn't out of it, but
was sure I'd far exceeded the number of ounces of my early experiment, and was
in unknown terrain.
Now
Steve suggested we go to a fancy nightclub with a live band, and have something
to eat before midnight, and maybe find a few women to join us. "It's not good to drink too much on an
empty stomach, boys," he told us. A
little late for that, I was thinking.
"So let's get some food in you before you pass out on me."
He
inquired of a taxi driver where the best action was tonight, and we piled into
the back of a cab for a twenty-minute ride.
I had to wake Wes when we got there, but we made it inside without
mishap. The place was smoky and crowded,
but Steve, he flashed two twenties at the headwaiter and we soon had a table
for six in a far corner close to the dance floor. "Boys," he said, "Before we
order any food, let me see if I can get a couple of gals to join us. I'll tempt 'em with charm, and food." he
said, winking at us.
So we
had women to keep us company, and I had the finest steak I had had in my young
life. Well, it was just about the first
real steak I had ever had. It really
sobered me up, too. The woman next to me
was probably in her thirties, but nice.
Among other things I told her that I was sampling as many different
kinds of cocktails as I could, so she soon advised me of more exotic ones. We all were quite happy by now, just in time
to bring in the New Year. Steve was
getting rather amorous with his woman, but Wes was having trouble conversing
with his; he seemed vacant eyed.
After
the ringing in of the New Year was done, Steve and his woman got up to dance,
and I asked mine too. (I don't have the
foggiest idea what her name was.) As we
swayed to the music she said, "Bob, you're the only sober one here, I
think. It's nice to meet up with
somebody like you."
Well,
over the next two hours, she and I had some deep conversations. I don't remember what she told me or what I
said to her, but I know it was a most satisfactory evening. Finally, Steve got two taxis, one for the
women and one for himself and us. I'm
surprised we remembered where we had parked the Model T, but I was certainly
the only one able to drive. Steve
embraced us as we left the taxi.
"Boys, thanks for a great night.
If you're ever out west, look me up.
My ranch is just south of Tucson."
On the
drive home, Wes and I speculated how much Steve had spent that night. It could have been close to a thousand bucks,
we thought. Now, as I look back on it,
it was probably less than that, but still a sizable amount in those days before
inflation. I left Wes at his apartment
and drove the Model T to my place. The
next day we arranged to get the Model T back where it belonged.
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