Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 18, 1995 TAG: 9508180041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ADRIANNE BEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Thursday was a hard day to be a man. Or even a boy. At least at Virginia Tech, where students began cramming their possessions into Lilliputian dorm rooms to get ready for the start of a new school year.
Thursday was a hard day to be a dad. Or a mom. Or a little brother or sister. At least at Virginia Tech, where students began cramming their possessions into Lilliputian dorm rooms to get ready for the start of a new school year.
"I've resigned," said Bob Gore, who had just finished helping his daughter, Jennifer, move her life into a room on the 11th floor of Slusher Tower. "All I can think about is finding a nice, cold drink."
Tired, sweaty relatives covered the chaotic campus.
"Mom, why does Leigh have so many shoes?" Steven Wynne inquired as he dragged an imposing bag larger than himself up to Slusher, where his sister will live her first year at Tech.
Another disgruntled little brother, Adam Edwards, 12, followed his sister, Reagan, up the stairs outside Slusher. Asked if he wanted to go to college one day, he glared and shook his head back and forth in an unspoken "Are you kidding me?"
Reagan's parents, Wanda and Darwin Edwards, were first-timers. They struggled with a wheeled cart, trying to navigate up the stairs. The boxes piled high atop the cart spilled off and tumbled down a step or two.
Jack Tuttle, a veteran dad, glided by up the same stairs with a dolly filled with his daughter's belongings. "It's old hat," he explained without stopping. "If you can walk with me, I can talk to you." He had done this before, but found that the "second year, they come back with a lot more things."
One mom emerged from Deet's Place, the campus coffee shop, licking an ice cream cone, and explained her philosophy on the hard-working males. "That's what males are for," she said with a laugh. "You can quote me on that."
Camouflage-clad cadets nearby were going through their own initiation to college life. "Right now, I'm not seeing any military potential," an upperclassman screamed at a group of male and female freshmen. "Unless you start shaping up, you're not going to get any respect around here."
Three parents discussed the space-saving virtues of loft beds. Across campus, in Monteith Hall, Daisy Chang's dad admitted he assembled the bed ahead of time, a practice run just to make sure he knew what he was doing.
Down the corridor, Jeannine Hoch also was moving into pink- and purple-halled Monteith. She took a long look around and said, "It seems like the room was a lot bigger and nicer at orientation." Her dad, Eugene Hoch, put the finishing touches on her loft and said, "Does this look right? I think it's too high."
Mom, Kathy, looked at a hallway sign that read, "Male Visitors Must Have A Female Escort From 7 p.m. to 10 a.m."
"I was told there were no males in here after midnight," she said, concern in her voice. Jeannine and older sister Maureen, a Tech junior, rolled their eyes and tried to strike their mother's quote from the record. Sorry.
Monteith sits in the upper quad, next to the cadet dorms.
"It's the ghetto over there," said Matt Danza, a junior and former corps man who was moving into Payne.
Danza, who was No.1,319 on the waiting list for the new dorm for upperclassman, found a friend who was No.50 to move in with. "The best part is definitely the air conditioning," he said.
In a nearby parking lot, Inga Adams lifted a toaster oven out of her U-Haul. A mechanical engineering major from Long Island, N.Y., she wiped her brow and said, "I pay too much tuition to come here and have no air conditioning."
Speaking of luxuries, it was no BMW, but Rachel Farrell got to use a golf cart and trailer to transport her things right up to the front door of East Ambler-Johnston. There are certain advantages that come with having Eddie Farrell for your father. He's head trainer for the Tech football team and has access to the team's equipment.
Some parents got their cars blocked in. Some faculty members fumed that they had nowhere to park.
Some people made a profit. Eight hundred dollars, to be exact. Savvy businessmen Jason Deptula and William Smith, self-proclaimed "free enterprisers," sat outside an orange Volkswagen van with lofts, carpet, VCRs and answering machines to sell to needy newcomers. The items were found in trash bins after last semester.
It was a long, sweaty day of labor - and frequent trips to Wal-Mart.
As her family left Monteith, Kathy Hoch was asked how it felt to be putting her second daughter into college.
She responded with one word: "Broke."
by CNB