I came down home on the weekends and somebody
called me up around here or told me that they had a big
fire over there at College Park. And then when I went back
up there, the old barracks, that was a big, white building
-- looked kind of like a castle, you know -- well, it was
just about a shell up there, and all smoked up and everything
like that. And the school just grouped us together, I think
by classes, and got room and board for us down in Hyattsville...
... Somebody around here told me about it that heard
from it, see? Because I didn't think anything particular
about it and I had no reaction a whole lot as to what
would happen or anything like that. See, I was awful young
when I went up there, I guess, so fine for me, anything
like that.
And we went right on to classes. They had
it pretty well organized.
Of course when I came home for the weekend I packed
up right good, and I had everything like clothing and
things like that, but I certainly didn't remember... didn't
lose anything valuable because I didn't have anything
valuable. I didn't even have a watch or anything, but
I guess some did. I'm sure they did.
We, at one time, when we got into this
big, what is it -- this new building, Calvert Hall.
I had a nice room
there and I had a great big square trunk; and of course
we went up to school there in the fall and the hills
were
just full of apple orchards and things like that, and
a great many of them were experiments, carrying on and
everything, so I used to go out, and lots of others --
I'm not the only one, they were all there -- and loaded
up with apples and slip in later on and stow them away.
And I'd put mine in my big trunk. Well, anybody later
on could walk in that room, they could smell apples all
over the place, see? But they didn't fuss about it.
And
so it was all right, those apples. They just gradually
aged until they were almost cider, but they were apples.
And then I used to get into everything, 'pert near.
Like going up in the science hall one night. Before we
went up there we saw some beautiful apples there on big
tables at least this wide and maybe from here to the
window. They were specimen apples, they helped us teach
horticulture to fellows going to classes. So, one night
we decided that we ought to get over there and get some
of those apples and eat them. Boy, we got in there all
right, no trouble at all, it was practically open anyhow,
got in there, reached in to a beautiful, big apple, took
a bite in it -- wax! The whole thing was wax. But they
were well made, but there were things like that.
You remember the old chemistry building; well, right
along side of it was that brick building, gymnasium we
called it, and they had a few things like basketball cages
-- what is it?-- and all that; but we would run around
there, around and around and around this floor, you know,
and lifting our knees up and down. ~This account was recorded and transcribed from an oral history interview in 1973. Cite as Maryland Manuscript item 1202
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