4.2 TSCW

TSCW

            Pat enrolled at Texas State College for Women [TSCW], now Texas State Women's University, the "Sister School" of Texas A&M, shortly after I left for College Station.  Her parents could not afford the astronomical $30.00 per month cost of the "Regular System," so she lived in a "Co-op" where board and room was only $12.00 per month, and the students assisted in the cooking, serving and cleaning.  The food was terrible, and there wasn't much of it.  Pat lost a lot of weight the first semester and was hungry all the time.

After the restrictions of the early part of my freshman year were relaxed slightly, I hitchhiked to Denton to visit her every weekend I could get a "pass" [permission to leave the campus].  Wearing my Aggie uniform, I almost always beat the trains in time elapsed on the trip.  Money was a problem, but not an insurmountable one.  I needed at least twenty-five cents for the weekend.  Ten cents was necessary for bus fare through either Dallas or Fort Worth to the "Aggie Corner" (traditional hitchhiking location) each way and a nickel for a Powerhouse candy bar for dinner on the way back to College Station on Sunday night.  I usually saved it to eat around the bonfire at the Aggie Corner on the College Station side of Waco on Highway 6.

            Getting by in Denton was not a problem; I could stay without charge at the Falcon House on the North Texas State Teacher's College Campus on the opposite side of Denton from TSCW.  It was a sort of unofficial athletic dormitory where several friends with whom I had played high school football, including Bill Oglesby and Felton Whitlow, lived.     I could also stay in the home of one of Pat's professors, Prof" Jackson.  I had met his son, Bob, at one of the Aggie Corners

during one of my early treks to Denton.  He asked me where I was going, then where I planned to stay, and, finally, if I would like to stay at his father's house.  For some inexplicable reason, I was always afterward welcome to a spare bedroom whether Bob was there or not.  I even took Paul Kelly there a few times.

            Prof Jackson was a lovely man. He was rather short and round -- fat, I suppose.  His wife had died some years before, but with Bob off at Texas A&M, he was probably lonely and welcomed my company -- even the short time between Pat's "sign-in" time and bedtime.  He taught "Government" and was, of course, totally objective.  One of his favorite classroom truisms, according to Pat, was "it is better to vote for the worst Democrat on the ticket than the best Republican".  Although I sat in on several of his classes, I didn't hear that pearl of wisdom -- but it seems more reasonable as time goes by.