University of Mississippi - Ole Miss Yearbook (Oxford, MS)

Page 32 text:

The silence of a room in which boys are studying is broken only by the clatter of a typewriter. This is the sort of thing that breaks up roommates and causes life-long enemies. TWO STUDENTS PER ROOM, PLUS oNE The walls of the girls ' dormitories hide many mysteries, the secrets of which the men are better off not knowing—as this picture so vividly shows.

Page 31 text:

FORMED THE NUCLEUS From Fall registration to spring finals, campus life re- volved around the dormitories. From rooms always too hot or too cold, students made their way to the cafeteria for endless varieties of hamburger, and then to classes or to the library. At night the dormitories were scenes of painstaking preparation for big dates and later for post-date comparison and criticism. The rooms may have been crowded, and the vending machines may have worked only at times; but the dormitories were lived in, and they are remembered. Pack upon pack of cigarettes are smoked each day as boys discuss the problems of the world in their daily bull sessions. The soft music played by the new music system that has been stalled has a very good effect, but even good music is not enough to soothe one after the effects of a Mexican Meat Stick. The selection of which pastry with which to finish the meal and stave off indigestion is a serious matter.

Page 33 text:

When a girl accepts a boy ' s fraternity pin, she makes a big cision, and many new and exciting things happen to her; not the least of which is her clothed trip to the showers. Behind the dorms on sunny days many boys were found sprucing up their cars for the big weekend that was always ahead. The rooms were too small and crowded. There was too little closet space. The halls were noisy. The Coca-Cola ma- chines worked only sporadically. The housemothers were strict ... There were many complaints and little praise. But in the dormitories many students were their own masters for the first time. There, old prejudices against national and religious groups were forgotten. And in the dormitories friendships were made that were to last far longer than the years at Ole Miss. Burning the midnight oil was only bearable when there was a lighted cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee within reach. All the males wonder where the cinderellas get their fancy gowns, but the boys would never think of such an unromantic place as the attic of the dorm.