Dress of the Day

One of the duties held by Batallion Staff was to determine the Dress of the Day. Their judgement is about as accurate as a meteorologist before they started using radar. I can still feel the cold, winter air ripping into my bare skin wondering why we weren’t wearing:

• long sleeves
• jackets
• hats
• gloves
• scarves

And, of course, we’d be standing at attention out in the cold waiting for them, trying to look (without moving our heads) over toward Batallion Staff to see if they were coming. We’d all have that same feeling you get while waiting for a city bus or train.

Shivering.

Watching them walk, seemingly as slow as possible, to the area in the center (sort of) of all the dorms, receive report, and – finally, mercifully – begin moving toward the Dining Hall.

There were rare occasions when it would be so cold or the snow falling so hard the C.O. (Charge of Quarters … see the 5th picture in M Company and only picture in Must I Go Home) would get the welcome call saying we should just march up without waiting.

I really hated “morning formation.” School wouldn’t start for two hours or more (I don’t remember exactly) but we were being dragged out of bed to stand in the cold and wait so we could then march up to the Dining Hall and then finally go to school after breakfast. My oldest daughter is 16 and has a similar difficulty getting out of bed. It’s pretty funny.

Sitting In the Seat of Honor

In the Major Merrit Dining Hall is an old, yellowed sign from, I don’t know … the Civil War or something … that displays students’ names when it’s their birthday.

As if the thrill of the entire student body knowing it was your birthday and seeing your name up in lights wasn’t enough – oh yes, there’s more – you got to sit with the superintendent at his table.

I spent plenty of time next to the Superintendent’s table because I was his waiter. That meant I stood just behind him at parade rest waiting for a plate to be emptied, a cup needing to be re-filled, or a request from an administrator or teacher who also sat there.

One of the coolest things about Colonel Thomas Merrit (son of Major Merrit – they were both superintendents) was that he liked cinammon toast. He had a little table in the corner with things like … a large salt shaker thing filled with sugar and cinnamon he mixed himself.

Those pictures on the wall are the same ones featured in Sieze the Day.

Sometimes the table next to his would be filled with VIPs as well, but the other major table you really didn’t want to be called to unless you sat there was the Batallion Staff table.

I am sure that friends and company leaders were called up there for various reasons but if a “regular” cadet was called up to that table, it was likely he or she was in trouble. You’d walk up there with a rock in stomach and your legs not quite as solid.

If the batallion commander wasn’t around (at a track meet or something), someone else from batallion staff would lead and sit at the head of that table. If none of them (there were only five or six) were around, then the next highest ranking cadet would be up there.

I sat there once.

It must have been an open weekend when everyone was gone and I was the only senior left on campus.

Besides leading the batallion in the march from the dorms to the dining hall, your job once you were there was to lead the student body in the traditional prayer before meals. Which … I … don’t remember.

Senior Circle

I have no idea whether or not this tradition still stands, but as of 1987, only seniors were allowed on “Senior Circle,” a round (hence the name “circle”) between the dorms. This made it pretty inconvenient if you were an underclassmen because you had to walk all the way around this thing to get from one dorm to another instead of just walking straight across.

At the end of every year, seniors had a schoolbook-burning bonfire on Senior Circle and paddled the junior class. If you didn’t get paddled, you weren’t allowed on Senior Circle – even in your senior year. During my junior year, all my friends were seniors and during my senior year, most of my friends were underclassmen. I wasn’t fond at all of  most of my class. I opted for the “no paddle” and “no senior circle” experience. I thought any manner of hazing or initiation like this – or the Varsity Club – was ridiculous. I saw no reason to do anything that would make me any more part of a group of people I really didn’t like.

During the winter of my senior year, me, my roommate and … probably “Dog,” the drummer of our really crappy heavy metal band, were walking back to Echo Company from somewhere and I said let’s just run across Senior Circle. It didn’t take any effort to convince these two … neither were what you’d call outstanding cadets.

As soon as we walked in the door, we were called up to Batallion Staff – a suite on the second floor of Echo Company reserved for the top few officers in the corps. I can’t remember what happened to us … maybe I blocked it out … but I do remember doing it was thrilling and getting caught was terrifying – especially because Theron Richardson (RIP), the cadet who saw us, really didn’t like me at all. Below is the view of Senior Circle from the Batallion Staff lounge window.