Chapter 31

At first glance Venable College hadn’t changed much in the over two years since we had last been on the campus, but on closer look, the place had changed a lot. It took us a while to recognize the changes, though.

One of the things that Cat and I had agreed on long before was that when we came back to the college we didn’t want to live in dorms and put up with all the hassles it involved. These included things like curfews, housemothers, restrictions, and the noise you get when you get a bunch of silly young teenage girls out from under the eyes of their families for the first time. We were over twenty-one, so we were adults now; in fact, we were both twenty-three and had a hugely wider store of experience than we’d had five years before. If we wanted to have wine with our dinner or an occasional beer to relax with, we didn’t want to have to have a big deal made over it. If we wanted to have a boyfriend over, not necessarily for sex but just to hang out with, we could, rather than have to deal with an absolute prohibition.

So even before we’d left to go to Vietnam we had decided that when we got back to Venable we would get an off-campus apartment. That plan hung in the background until early that spring, around the time we were planning on climbing the Matterhorn. It struck us then that we wouldn’t have much time to set things up if we stuck to our other plans, so we fell back on a reliable contact: Ed.

We had kept in loose contact with Ed and Sue for all the time we had been gone – they were friends, after all. They were among the few on campus who had known before we left that we were planning on going to Vietnam to work for the Red Cross. While the idea was strange to them, both Ed and Sue said that we’d be doing something unusual and possibly rewarding, rather than just spending a year shoveling burgers in some fast food place. So the logical thing for us to do was to send them a letter and get them to arrange for an apartment for us. We told them we didn’t want anything big or expensive, and that we were willing to live a little rough if we had to if we could save some money doing it.

Before we left Geneva, we got a letter from Ed saying that he’d arranged for an apartment for us and paid the deposit to hold it, so we had that issue under control. Still, we figured we ought to go up and see him as soon as we could, so we could make other arrangements, like furniture. We could sleep on the floor in our sleeping bags if we had to, but it would be nice to be a little more civilized.

The Karmann Ghia was long gone by that time, and I missed it. It would have been nice if I had told Dad to just hold onto it until I got back, but considering its age and condition it wasn’t the bright thing to do. So toward the end of our wandering in the summer, I wrote home and asked Dad to see what he could do about finding a car for me to take to school. It didn’t have to be a monster, just a good, reliable used car; I was perfectly willing to let him make the decision since I didn’t think I’d have it very long.

I think Dad did pretty well by me; he came up with a ’66 Chevelle that didn’t have a huge number of miles on it. I only heard about the car when we were on our way home from the airport, but when I saw it sitting in the driveway at home I knew it would work well. It was bigger than the Karmann Ghia, and more civilized. The thing that surprised me most about the car was that Dad hadn’t stuffed some huge monster of an engine under the hood; it was about as stock as a Chevy six could get. In a way, that was a relief after the Karmann Ghia, which could be fussy when maintenance was needed since there wasn’t a lot of spare room in the engine compartment.

After only a couple days of getting to know the folks and Joey again – he was still living at home, and working as a dock man at the truck terminal – I drove to Cat’s folks’ house to pick her up. We headed to Venable to get things prepared for the semester. We already had the address of the place, so as soon as we were in town we went there to check it out.

The apartment proved to be a converted basement of a smallish house not far from campus. The owners lived upstairs, and once we introduced ourselves they took us downstairs for a look. It appeared that it had been a student apartment for a long time and we were only the latest in a long line of renters.

It really wasn’t a bad apartment in a way, although it was a little on the rough and grubby side, considering that student renters weren’t exactly known for being very nice to their surroundings. The apartment was furnished, even though the furnishings weren’t anything fancy and were on the beat-up side, but that meant that Cat and I wouldn’t have to scrounge them up and move them. We would have to come up with things like bedding and kitchenware, but we figured that our parents’ attics would be able to provide much of what we needed.

The apartment wasn’t anything great, but we agreed that it would be a lot better than living in a hot, dusty hooch in Phan Loc. At worst, we would only be there for eight months, and we knew we could handle that. In at least one way it would be better than our apartment in Geneva, since it had central heat and we wouldn’t have to carry fuel oil, but the view out what windows we had was a lot less exciting.

With that out of the way, we went over to Ed and Sue’s house. Ed was at home, working on preparations for the next year’s classes. Of course, that came to a halt when we showed up, and we had to spend some time talking about the last two years and some of the adventures we’d had. We talked about Vietnam a little, but more about the time we’d spent in Europe and some of the climbs we had made.

It took us a while to get around to talking about coming back to college. “We really appreciate you tracking the apartment down for us,” I told Ed. “We lived on our own for the last year, and I really didn’t want to have to go back to living in a dorm and being locked out of it on Wednesday mornings for chapel.”

“Things have changed,” Ed smiled. “They quit doing that after you left.”

“What? I can’t believe you! Are you sure we’re talking about the same college?”

“In some ways it isn’t the same college you left,” he told us. “Were you here when the bell thing happened?”

“What bell thing?” I asked innocently.

“You didn’t hear about that? It seems someone got up into the steeple and took the clapper out of the bell so it wouldn’t ring.”

Cat and I looked at each other with evil smiles that I am sure Ed must have picked up on. “You don’t say,” I grinned tentatively. “Do you have any idea who did it?”

He looked at us trying to hold down a smile; I’m sure he must have now had a pretty good idea of who was involved, but he wasn’t going to say anything either. “There was a lot of speculation about that,” he said after what looked like a snicker. “Nothing was ever proved, but some frat rats from the Kappas were the prime suspects, at least from what the rumors going around campus said. It seems a couple of seniors had had some run-ins with the administration, and a lot of people figured they were trying to get back at some people. Nobody ever proved anything, though.”

“Some of those frat rats would do just about anything they could to cause trouble,” I agreed.

“I don’t think it was the Kappas,” Ed grinned. Yes, there was no doubt that he knew, or at least now had a pretty good suspicion. “The story was that they’d found a real long ladder to get up there, but I didn’t buy it, since the maintenance department couldn’t come up with a ladder long enough to get up and fix it, at least one that anyone would climb. They finally had to bring in a crane, and it really messed up the lawn in front of the chapel.”

“I’ll bet the administration didn’t like that,” I replied, trying to be a little evasive.

“No, they didn’t. Anyway, most everyone had their fingers pointing at the Kappas, who said they had no idea who did it. The president didn’t believe them and put them on restriction, so to get back at him they organized a demonstration over closing the campus up for chapel. A little surprisingly, virtually every student on campus joined the protest, and the administration was forced to knuckle under.”

“Wow, and the Kappas did that, of all people?” Cat laughed. “Since their house was off campus, it was about the only thing around that wasn’t locked up on Wednesday mornings.”

“I’m sure the president didn’t think that part of it through,” Ed snickered.

“Well,” I shook my head. “I hereby take back a lot of the things I’ve said about student protesters over the last two years.”

“It gets better. After that happened, the college board figured they’d better throw a bone to the students so they didn’t start to protest about anything important, so they cut way back on the dress code.”

“You’ve got to be kidding us,” Cat shook her head.

“Nope. You’re no longer required to wear skirts or dresses on campus. They’re recommended, but not required, but you don’t see them very often, either. No shorts and no jeans, though. They loosened the dress code, not threw it out.”

“I can live with that,” I said. “Cat, it looks like we’ve got some shopping to do.”

“We sure do, and I’m not going to mind doing it. It would be nice to wear jeans, but this is still a nice welcome back, anyway. I take it everything else is about the same?”

“Pretty much, but there have been some other changes here and there. Nothing terribly major by comparison. They loosened up the restrictions about upperclassmen having cars, too, although that won’t affect you since you’ll be living off campus anyway. They increased the size of the parking lot at the field house, and that’s the only parking open to students on campus.”

“So how’s the climbing club going?” I asked. “About the same as ever?”

“Well, no,” Ed shook his head. “It’s been sliding downhill ever since you left. There are some personality issues. I’ve been sort of hoping that the two of you coming back would help get them under control, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

“What kind of issues?”

“Mostly a couple of people who are not as good as they think they are. I’ve been hoping you’d put them in their place, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

Somehow the topic wandered off what was going with the club and onto more climbing and Europe stories, and we never got back to it.

We sat around talking with Ed and Sue for a couple more hours – they were our best friends among the faculty by far, and it was good to catch up with them.

Eventually Cat and I had to go or it was going to be late when both of us got home. We were out on the road in the Chevelle when she said, “It sure is going to be strange to be back here after all this time.”

“Yes, it is,” I agreed. “When we went to Europe the first time, and when we went out west, coming back here seemed like coming home. It doesn’t now. This is just another place, one where we’re going to have to spend eight months and go on to the next thing, whatever that is. That will probably be teaching somewhere unless we can think of something else.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know how to say it, but it seems to me like this year is really going to be an end of a pretty good era. Things won’t be the same after we leave here, and they’re already on the way to not being the same now.”

I thought about it for a while. “You could be right,” I agreed. “In fact, somehow it seems to me like the good times are already over with and we’re just trying to clean up the loose ends. I’m not sure I like the feeling.”

We drove on silently for a few miles, each thinking our own thoughts. It had been quite a five years, and we had seen and done many things in that period that girls didn’t often do in that day and age. It was going to be a tough act to follow – that was certain.

The thought eventually passed, although it left an uncomfortable taste in its wake. We turned to talking about what we would need for the apartment – not really a great deal – and where we would get it.

A few days later we were back at Venable. I had dropped off the things I’d brought from Simsville at the apartment, then drove up to pick up Cat and bring her stuff back. After some discussion, we’d agreed we wouldn’t do a lot of cooking at the apartment, just snacking and opening cans as necessary. The college had a snack bar in a different building from the dining hall, and that seemed preferable to doing our own cooking and cleaning up afterward. We were going to have a lot to do just to keep the apartment up, since we didn’t have a Chu Lin to keep the place neat and clean like we had at Phan Loc.

It didn’t take us long to settle into the new place, since we were pretty used to doing it by now. The most liberating thing was that we went to a nearby grocery store and brought home some beer and a couple bottles of wine to christen the new place, something we would not have dared in the dorm. I know it sounds like we drank a lot, especially in Geneva, but at Venable we really didn’t. A six-pack of beer might last us both a week, and between us we probably only went through a dozen bottles of wine in the next eight months.

The next day we went over to the campus to get our courses settled. We had already registered for them, but they needed to be confirmed. We had both essentially finished our history and French majors while in Geneva; despite its faults, the Université de Lancy-Paquis had been good for that. Now, we only had education courses and practice teaching to get through to tack down our secondary education minors and teaching certificates. We could get everything we needed in the next two terms, although the practice teaching would have to wait until the second semester.

We were each a little short of a full load, so rather than just goof off we decided to take something else to fill in the time; there was no point in my wasting my scholarship money, and Cat felt the same way about the money her father provided. While looking around at what was available, we came across a class, “Introduction to Computing.” It was the first year it was being offered at Venable, and it seemed a little strange for the place. Since we could take it as a pass/fail we were pretty sure of passing it if we showed up for class regularly, and it seemed to Cat as if it might be useful to know something about computers since it seemed like they would be the coming thing. Little could she dream that she would look back at it as being extremely primitive compared to what would come in the next few years, but she couldn’t see it coming then, even though I knew what was in store through my Joe memories. However, the knowledge of the absolute basics we learned proved to be useful from time to time in the years to come.

The following Monday we were back in class again. It had been a long time since we had classes spoken in English, so even that seemed strange; there was a certain amount of culture shock at being back to the same old thing we’d left behind over two years before.

Ed hadn’t said anything about our helping out with his Bouldering and Climbing class, which was just as well since it conflicted with the Introduction to Computing class. Sometime during the week we called him up – we actually had a phone in the apartment, a first for us – and asked him where the climbing club was going to be meeting that weekend. “We’re going to be at the quarry,” he sighed. “I suppose I’d better show up, just in case.”

That seemed strange; Ed had always been with us when we’d climbed in the past. The club was actually informal, just a bunch of friends; if it had been an official college function there would probably have been more restrictions.

So on Saturday morning we showed up at the quarry. No one else was there, so we got out of the car, limbered up a little, and started solo climbing up one of the easy pitches just to get loosened up, then attacked a somewhat harder one, still solo, but easy going for us.

We were partway up the third or fourth pitch when a car pulled in and three guys got out. “Hey, what the hell do you think you chicks are doing up there?” we heard a male voice yell. “You’re not supposed to be up there unless you’re roped up.”

“Who the hell are you to tell us what to do?” I yelled back down at him, continuing to climb. I was past the hardest move of the climb, which wasn’t very hard for me.

“Get the hell back down here,” the guy yelled. “I’m in charge of these climbs.”

“Well, screw you and while you’re at it, screw the horse you rode in on,” Cat yelled at him from a few feet away. “We’ve been going up these pitches for years.”

“The hell you have. You’re girls and I’ve never seen you here before. Who the hell told you that you could climb?”

“Cat?” I said conversationally. “I see what Ed meant.”

“Right,” she replied. “We don’t need this shit.”

Even though we were partway up the pitch, we clambered back down to where we could jump to the ground safely; it wasn’t a long descent by any means. The guy was right there, breathing fire. “Who the hell told you that you girls are climbers?”

“The guys back in Yosemite when we went up El Cap, maybe?” I sneered at the guy, who was a big football-player looking type, and frankly didn’t look like much of a climber to me. In fact, something told me he couldn’t have made it up the pitch we had just been on, but couldn’t stand to have anyone do anything better than he could.

“Or maybe the people we climbed the Matterhorn with?” Cat chimed in. “You’ve heard of the Matterhorn, haven’t you? In the Alps?”

“Bullshit you’ve done anything like that,” he huffed. “If you’re going to climb with the climbing club, then you’ve got to do what I say. Chicks are for screwing, not climbing.”

“Then I guess we’re not going to be climbing with the climbing club,” I said. “There are other places we can get a little exercise where we don’t have to put up with an asshole like you.”

“Right,” Cat agreed. “Jo, let’s get out of here.”

Fortunately we hadn’t really broken out any climbing gear – we hadn’t needed any, except for the boots we already wore – so in seconds we were in the Chevelle, heading out of the quarry. “I see what Ed meant,” I said, still fuming.

“Yeah, no wonder the climbing club has gone to hell.”

As we were going up the road out of the pit, we met Ed coming the other way, so we stopped to talk. “I see you met Brian and his buddies,” he said through his open car window.

“Unfortunately,” I sighed. “Who the hell put him in charge?”

“No one. He’s the kind of person who thinks he has to take charge of anything he gets involved with. He has those buddies who suck up to him mostly because they like to think they’re hanging out with a big shot. His mouth and his attitude pretty much wrecked the climbing club, and his buddies are the only ones who will climb with him. I don’t even like to hang around with him.”

“That’s understandable. What are the chances he’s on a student deferment?”

“Just about perfect,” Ed agreed. “He doesn’t like the idea of someone else telling him what to do.”

“Figures,” I shook my head. “Can he actually climb anything?”

“I don’t think anything much higher than a bar stool.”

“Hey, Ed.” I said after a moment. “Would you be nice and tell us where the club is supposed to be after this?”

“Why? So you can be somewhere else?”

“Yes. We don’t have to put up with that shit. We’ve gotten it from experts.”

“I’d tell you to go over to the railroad bridge, but if I did they might show up there to throw their weight around. There’s another bridge down south of here a ways that I don’t think he knows about. We never used to go there before, mostly because it’s a longer trip and everyone used to have to be stuffed into my car.”

“Lead the way, Ed.”

The other bridge proved to be a little bit more of a challenge, which was good. The only problem was that it was on a track where trains ran frequently, rather than almost never like they did at the old one. When you heard a train coming it was a good idea to rappel off the bridge until it passed or you were in for a Grade 5 shaking up.

Ed knew of another quarry that was also usable, although the rock was different and made it something more of a challenge. We went there on occasion, often with Ed. After a while, a couple of people that Brian had run off the year before began to join us, most notably Brad, who had climbed with us when he had been a freshman. It was back to being a good group of friends climbing together, but we went out of the way to not let Brian and his buddies know about where we were going.

To have to climb in semi-secret took a lot of fun out of it, so as the weather began to slide into winter we just quit doing it. As climbers Cat and I had gotten well past railroad bridges and quarries, so we were only doing it for fun and exercise, not because it was challenging.

We never got back to it in the spring. Our hearts weren’t in the local climbing any more, and Cat had other things on her mind.