Thursday, March 22, 2007

Mother Twombley

We lived in a dorm room that was the largest in our house - four occupants. It became the most frequent gathering place because of its size. The dorm also housed some foreign students, a number of them from Panama.

One day some of the Panamanians brought a visitor to our room to introduce. The visitor, a South American, was in this country as a contender for the heavyweight prize fighting championship. I don’t remember his name but I think he went on to hold the title briefly. He was huge. When he held his hand out to shake, I could have butted my two mitts together and his would still have swallowed mine.

Our dorm’s housemother was a typical college overseer, mid-sixties and worried all the time about her charges. We called her Mother Twomley (she was a widow and I don’t think we even knew her first name) and that name describes her perfectly. One example stands out

A story was being circulated on campus that some students were being treated for venereal disease and Mother Twomley found some blue-stained underwear in the laundry room. She thought that was caused by a salve used as a remedy but she could not believe any her boys could be in jeopardy.

She began interviewing all the house members one at a time with her embarrassing questions until we figured out what was going on. A chemistry major in the house was a practical joker and during warm spring days he would sneak up on unsuspecting students who were cooling off on the dorm balcony in their jockey shorts. A snap of the elastic and he would dump some blue vegetable dye down their shorts, thus causing the stain. Mother Twomley was even more embarrassed when she found out but she was relieved none of the dorm members were at risk.

The same chemistry student used his knowledge to get back at a fellow dorm resident who regularly got cookies and other goodies from home but refused to share them. A package of his cookies was intercepted one day and the chem major injected them with red vegetable dye. The selfish classmate ate the cookies, went to the bathroom, and to his horror, thought he was urinating blood. The joke didn’t get us any future goodies but sometimes revenge is sweet enough.

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