I had a very interesting—
background let’s put it that way,
and yet I found head resident
at Shippensburg University
the most challenging one I ever had.
Because when I went up there
they did have, they had to be—
and this is for your benefit—
they had to be in at nine during the week
and eleven thirty, twelve o’clock—
this is the girls I’m talking about, of course—
then it wasn’t long—oh and then I went through
the—it was the Vietnam stage of the war
and the guys burnt their cards,
yeah it was a restless time.
And then after that short—
a little while after that in years
there was restlessness growing on campus
in regards to if the guys could have girls and all that
why couldn’t the girls?
So that provoked, of course the civil liberty union was in on that.
And then of course when I first went up there,
the alcohol scenes on campus.
Now this was a long while ago,
and anyhow that was it, the alcohol scenes,
so I was meeting all of these things.
Well I didn’t deal with the girl directly—
I had, as you would know, a senior resident,
and then but we had—and then after a while
we, under the guidance of the psychologist and everything,
which we had a lot of training
we had our own judge and jury in the dormitory—
that would be of interest to you—
and we had I’ll call them penalties for certain things
but at the very beginning the girls were expelled
or suspended for alcohol, use of alcohol
then the girls did get in to the dorm,
I mean the guys did get into the dormitory
but I didn’t stay up all night, you bet I wouldn’t ask
there was a guy sat on desk to open the front door
but you know as many got in that back door as the front door.
It was interesting in the respect that—
there was a break in with a stranger
and I never locked my door,
but I happened to see it was Christmastime,
excuse me near Christmas,
and we decorated our hallway door
and I had mine covered with dark blue
whatever you call that paper
no name on my door then
and this one night I was there
I had only a dim lamp on
and my door opened just this way
and I said who’s there
and the door goes in this way
so I knew something was amiss
and then I thought I can’t stay in here
but if I step out I might get conked on the head!
What do you do?
So I took a deep breath, said a prayer, and I opened the door
and fortunately across the hall was a girl’s door open
now this girl had been sick all day
it was a blessing so it gave me a chance to speak to her
and also turn around and come back and I could see,
but just as quickly as I got in my door
there was another person behind me
and it was a senior assistant and she said to me
Mrs. Hudson there’s a man in the house
I said I know it I saw his—
when I went out I saw his eyes peeking over the door
from the girl’s bathroom—
So my life was full of interesting things
that’s only one of them.
If you remember you tell one
now that you’re bringing back memories
they get all—I got so many! I can’t sort them out.
Joshua Keiter 