Recently I visited with a friend, Mel, who had lived across
the hall from me in Stangel Hall at Texas Tech University 41 years ago. I was working at the museum when she walked
in. I was transported back to those long
ago innocent days in a moment. It was
like no time had passed.
Jan and Mel
Mel was the life of our hallway. She was always laughing and playing pranks on
all of us. And right when you thought
you had her figured out she came up with something else. She was tall with long blonde hair, and enough confidence for three people. Never intimidated..…ever. I envied her confidence.
We lived in all girl's dorm and by that I mean, men were not allowed on the hall at anytime. Mel would walk down the hall with her hair in curlers, in baby doll PJs, her cigarette in a cigarette holder calling us for us to go to the Pancake House at 4 a.m. or something else equally outrageous.
When the top on her Mustang convertible would
not come up she told us to just use umbrellas and hold them down low so the
wind wouldn’t blow them…didn’t work…but we all ended up laughing until we
cried.
Mel and Stephanie never closed and locked their dorm
room, consequently when a stray dog wandered on to the 2nd floor it went in their room. He obviously had some kind of intestinal distress because when they came back from class he had pooped all over their room, beds, desks and all. Everyone on the hall heard the shrieks when they returned.
room, consequently when a stray dog wandered on to the 2nd floor it went in their room. He obviously had some kind of intestinal distress because when they came back from class he had pooped all over their room, beds, desks and all. Everyone on the hall heard the shrieks when they returned.
We had to wait in line in the dorm cafeteria for every meal. Mel had nicknames for all the people we saw everyday in line. There was a very hunky guy who always wore plaid flannel shirts and when she saw him in the line she would burst into the Campbell soup commercial song, "How do you handle a hungry man," who also wore plaid flannel shirts. The funniest was the couple who were always making out in the line, Mel could never resist and would say under her breath, "Kissssssssy kissy kissy kissy, huggggggy huggy huggy huggy," which made everyone around us either giggle or roll their eyes.
There were about 4 or five of us who loved to
ski. We would pool our funds and figure
out how to make a trip to Ruidoso on whatever amount of money we had. On this
particular weekend Melanie had a sorority sister who parents had a cabin at
Ruidoso. She and her family were going
up and she offered Mel and our hall mates the use of their attic, which was a bunk
room. It was strictly a place to sleep
with a bathroom…we would have to eat out, which worked perfectly.
It snowed a lot that week and Mel was not sure she could
drive the treacherous 12 miles up the mountain on ice. Two
guys she knew were going to hitchhike to Ruidoso. They said to meet
us at the service station where we had chains put on. They would drive the car up. However…there were two of them and 5 of
us. Her new Cutlass was a 5 passenger car.
We met the guys and reshuffled our seating to accommodate
them. Phil sat in the back with Molly,
Stephanie and the other Melanie. Mel sat in the front with me in her lap and
Mike drove. The wind was howling, and the road was slippery. There was the occasional hold-up due to other
cars not being able to make it around the steep switchbacks and having to be
pushed. We had the heat and defroster on
high to keep the ice from building up on the windows. With the seating
arrangements, we were uncomfortable at best. About an hour into the trip, the most overwhelming fumes started to penetrate every inch of the inside of the car. Stephanie
screeches, “Molllllly!!!! What are you
doing???” She had taken out her
fingernail polish and begun painting her nails. Immediately, all the windows
went down. Phil reached over, grabbed the nail polish, and hurled it out the window. Now instead of being it cozy and warm we had a blizzard blowing
through the car.
After another hour we made it to the ski
area. The day of skiing was great, it snowed most of the day providing the rare
treat of powder in New Mexico. We all
met at the car when the lifts closed minus Molly, who had found her boyfriend
and decided to ride back with him.
When we got into town, we had dinner and headed to the lower
canyon to find the cabin where we were going to stay. Mike and Phil had met up with their friends
in town and took off on their own. Mel
had told them about the attic bunk room and how to get there.
The house was amazing. It was all cedar inside with a huge kitchen
and living area. The hosts were all
visiting, when we arrived, we said hi and all headed upstairs to go to bed. The room was huge with bunks on every wall, enough to sleep 15 people. In the middle
of the room were two double beds. On the
outside wall was a double bed, which had a twin bunk on top. The extra part of the double bed extended
into the eave of the roof with only a clearance of about two and half feet
and got smaller the closer you went to the wall, the twin bed on top also touched the sloped ceiling wall. The other walls had twin
bunks.
We were exhausted from leaving Lubbock at 4 am and skiing
all day. I grabbed one of the doubles,
Mel got the other one, Stephanie and Melanie took the twin bunk by the
stairs. Molly was still out with her
boyfriend and would be in later as would Mike and Phil. It wasn’t long until
Molly showed up making noise, turning on lights, laying her sleeping bag
out, picking out what she was wearing tomorrow, to which everyone told her to shut up, turn out the light and go to bed. She slipped into the double bed in the eave
of the house and zipped the sleeping bag up as loudly as she could. Several hours later Mike and Phil showed and
asked the snoring room, “Where can we sleep?” Sleepily Mel said, “Any bed that is empty.”
Early the next morning the hostess rang her bell and called
to us that breakfast was ready if we wanted to come down. Still drowsy from the long day before, we all
just sort of laid there trying to wake up when we heard Molly’s voice. “Who are You?!” Then we heard Phil’s voice,
“I believe we met yesterday. Who are you? and what are you doing in my bed?”.
“Your bed? Well
obviously I was here first since I am on the inside.”
“How do you expect me to have seen you in the total
darkness…and you rolled up in that sleeping bag? I thought that was a pillow. You didn’t tell me to leave when I got in!”
Molly unzipped her sleeping bag, whacked her head on the sloped ceiling as she got on her knees, then started to stomp out of the bed stepping on top of Phil, dragging the sleeping bag across Phil's head, with him flailing his arms trying not to get trapped by it. Then she headed down the stairs stomping like an elephant.
The rest of us, now wide, awake, were rolling around, laughing hysterically.
Jan
We didn't see Molly skiing that day. We heard she rode home with her boyfriend. I still laugh every time I think of that ski
trip......
New Skis
