The Following - July 2002 Page 2

These talks are important to me, they represent for me what Mary Foust, as the intellectual heart of UNCG, is all about. But they were more important to me than you can imagine on that morning when I stumbled out into the hallway in my towel. That morning was Tuesday, September 11th.

Later that morning I'd just come back home when I looked outside to see people running down the street into their dorms and coming outside, sitting on curbs to cry. I came into the hallway to find people knocking on doors, hugging and sitting transfixed inside their rooms around their television sets.

Not owning a TV, I walked bewilderedly into my neighbors' room and sat down silently next to the roommates and their girlfriends. I watched in horror.

The rest of the day was a blur of news reports and phone calls. I had family and friends in Manhattan - just a few blocks from Ground Zero. I wouldn't hear from them until the next morning, when they would still be stranded there.

Instinctively we all gathered in The Ashby Parlor, holding each other on its cushioned chairs. By evening the shock had numbed us and we sat talking again - but this time none of us had answers or even ;;ear opinions - not yet. There were a lot of questions - and now they seemed so much more important than they had just hours before.

We are not a generation accustomed to War. Our heroes are rock and movie stars. Our great national tragedies are the cancellations of popular television shows. How were we supposed to deal with this? What was the right thing to say, to do, to think?

As they day wore on the answers didn't become any clearer - but what was clear was that we were dealing with this together as more than students living in the same building - as friends.

That night we all came together in the courtyard and lit candles - students and professors who had come to be with us, though classes were cancelled. We each said what we needed to say- but it wasn't about a discussion of the political climate or an empirical evaluation of the situation. It wasn't the patriotic or anti-war ranting of young Hawks and Doves. It was the typical "Ashby Chat" in that it was more than that - it was about us sitting and talking and learning from each other.

On that night I couldn't think of any better place to live, work and study. I've lived there for a year -

long enough to get some emotional distance from that morning - and today I feel the same way.

When I tell that story to friends of mine on campus they give me a strange look. Nothing like that happened where they live, they say. They all locked themselves in their rooms and watched television all night. No one even knocked on their doors. Where do I live again? Oh - Mary Foust. That's when the question comes: "Is it as strange over there as everyone says?"

Maybe it is.

First Annual Alumni Bowl-A-Rama

The first annual RC Alumni/Student Bowl-a-Rama was held on the afternoon of Sunday, February 24, at AMF Lanes (corner of Spring Garden and Holden Streets) in Greensboro, and everyone had a ball. Nearly 30 alumni and three current students signed up for the outing, but in the end, the numbers were reversed with only three alumni, 30 current students, and one fine alumni mother. Where were you guys?

Sporting sporty shoes, RCers bowled away the afternoon, hoping to head home with a trophy created by Light Hearted Designs, a.k.a. Ryan Harrison (1994). Two trophies were lovingly designed to honor the bowlers with the highest and lowest scores of the day. Ironically, the trophies were returned to the manufacturer after Ryan bowled close to 200 and wife Keefe racked up a small multiple of 3.

If you can spare the time, come and join us for the next Alumni Bowl-a-Rama. It's good interaction, good exercise, good fun, and --here's something that'll bowl you over-- it was FREE!