Over the years, the joke has been that, at Hendrix (a small Methodist college for small Methodists) the turbulent Sixties were only a rumor.
Indeed, in those days, modesty required the school's "ladies" to wear skirts and dresses when venturing out into the campus, no jeans, shorts, or pants, but no code for guys. Smoking was a widespread affectation, but only tobacco. And no alcohol. Ever.
But Hendrix did have its own form of organized chaos, known as Orientation, a deceptively benign appellation, and an exercise nominally intended to help integrate freshmen into campus life by "shaping them up."
In practice, it amounted to hazing. All freshmen were required to wear green beanies with a red "H" when outdoors, and nametags. When told to by an upperclassman, boys "hit a brace," an exaggerated attention, and girls "buttoned," a deep curtsy. Both were followed by shouting your full name, hometown, and so forth. No one ever made it across campus without doing that, even if they were late to class.
At least once a week, male freshmen gathered in the gym, in groups of six or eight, for the educational part of the process, learning the alma mater (straight and to the tune of "Yankee Doodle"), location of campus landmarks, and so on. All under the watchful eye of Orientation leader Hollis Williams (a buttoned-down drill instructor, later an Episcopal priest). Freshmen might be harassed at these sessions about their love lives, their study habits and their personal hygiene. Some members required extra shaping up: On one occasion, Roger Lee Harrison and Rick Rockwood, both possessed of profoundly foul mouths, were made to brush other's teeth with Ivory soap. Silly, but serious. You get the idea.
At least one freshman seemed to enjoy one Orientation event, a field day on the lawn of the science building. He found himself embracing a pin oak tree, surrounded by upper classmen, and serenading that tree to the tune of "Waltzing Matilda," to lyrics composed on the spot: "Once a jolly freshman sat beneath a pin oak tree, all to the upperclassman's glee ..." and so on.
For some reason our class seemed to have been significantly overfilled, including a surprising number of guys not totally happy to be there at all or amenable to shaping up. They strained classrooms, dorms, and other school facilities. They jostled each other, physically and otherwise, and they chaffed at restrictions such as being confined to the county for the duration of Orientation.
To deal with an unexpectedly large class, the college had to reopen an elderly dorm over a block from campus, across railroad tracks, which contributed to a sense of isolation.
The freshmen were tasked with organizing and decorating for the first dance of the year, the Freshman Frolic. Traditionally after the dance, the guys sprinted back to their rooms, doffed their pants and put on their beanies. (Some guys thought to bring loud boxer shorts with them.) Then they strolled as a group to perform the Shirttail Serenade at each girls' dorm. Maybe that was and is the sort of thing that prompted the school's current president (a known Godzilla maven) to characterize the school as being "quirky."
In any event, a small group of upper-classmen did not want to leave it at that. They herded the entire group to the cinder track at the stadium, told everyone to take off their shoes and socks, and then ran them around the stadium. A number of the guys just grabbed their shoes and walked off. Hollis Williams was aghast at the clear breach of Orientation's rule against physical abuse.
There was prolonged grumbling in the men's dorms that night and it looked as if Orientation would crash and burn then and there. I really did not think our class wanted to tote having destroyed a Hendrix tradition, but it was a tense situation. The grumbling was especially loud and belligerent in that old, decrepit dormitory where the bulk of the extra freshmen ended up.
I persuaded the core of our freshmen group, plus Hollis and Bob Meriwether, the dean of students, to meet the next afternoon to blow off steam and discuss what went wrong and what needed to happen to save Orientation. Meriwether was astute enough to accept a few tongue lashes without becoming defensive or combative.
After a heated beginning the meeting settled down to heartfelt apologies and a resolve to hold on to Orientation for at least another two weeks (shaped up or not).
When it was indeed over, someone produced a gigantic innertube and everyone--freshmen and Orientation leaders--threw each other into the water in a free-for-all, a fitting finale for a narrow escape. To cap it all off, a group of sophomore girls helped smooth any remaining troubled waters by borrowing shirttails and providing the guys in that old dorm with the very first and only serenade given by women students to lowly Hendrix freshmen.
Orientation eventuated into a more purposeful and useful exercise in team-building and transition, but to do so it had to rise from the ashes of that cinder track.
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Chris Barrier is a Little Rock lawyer.
Editorial on 06/11/2018