For my sophomore year at Lambuth College, I left the safety and security of Harris Hall, the freshman men’s dormitory, and moved to the first floor of Spangler Hall. The first floor of Spangler Hall was also known as the Spangler hotel Because people could come and go freely at all times of the day and night. All the dorms had policies About when men could be in the women’s dormitories and vice versa. In general, women were not allowed in men’s dorm rooms, could only enter through the main lobby doors and the doors were locked after 10 PM every night so access was limited. Spangler Hall was different from all the rest of the dorms because the main lobby door was on the second floor. There was another lobby on the first floor of Spangler, but no one monitored the comings and goings through this door. My room was the third door from the end on the ground floor if you were facing Spangler from the road. I was well behaved in comparison to most of the people on this floor, including my next-door neighbor, Jim.
When I first met Jim, he was roller skating down the hall. This was out of the norm for the kind of odd behavior you would normally see in Spangler. A few days later, my suitemate told me that he saw Jim roller skating down the 45 by-pass, one of the busiest roads in town. It was obvious that Jim marched to the beat of a different drummer.
Jim was also in my calculus class. He was often late, giving as an excuse that he had a stained-glass window class that overlapped with calculus. He would often bring pieces of glass and the window parts to prove that he wasn’t lying. I don’t think our instructor bought it, but she was amused by him and never did much to address it.
it was early in the semester when I discovered that Jim was a Stoner. This was obvious from the smell of weed that wafted through the wooden wall between our rooms. This didn’t happen every night, but happened most frequently on evenings when Jim had been out partying with his friends, came home late, and they continue to party in his dorm room. They would usually play live albums by the Rolling Stones while cheering and carrying on like they were at a concert.
When homecoming rolled around, Jim and his Stoner friends decided to paint Jim’s little Honda in psychedelic colors for the parade. In typical fashion for Jim, his car broke down just as the parade started. Fortunately, Jim and his friends were able to push the car to a parking spot outside of our dorm where it sat for the rest of the school year. People continued to decorate the car. Later they would vandalize it to the point where it became an eyesore. I believe that Jim abandoned the car at some point and the city hauled it away.
One of my best memories of dealing with Jim was that he had good taste in music. In addition to great Rolling Stones records, he listened to Neil Young. A lot of the time, he would play the album Comes A Time, which became one of my all-time favorite albums. Later in the year, Jim’s record player became annoying. It wasn’t because of his music selection or when he decided to play it. The problem was that during maintenance to his turntable and he oiled the belt. From that time on, the turntable struggled to turn at the proper 33 and a third rate. The music would drag, with the belt occasionally grabbing and momentarily playing the music at the right speed. But those moments were fleeting and soon Jim stereo would go silent.
During my second semester of my sophomore year, Jim spent more time away from the dorm and the campus. He wasn’t in my second semester calculus class. He was in the dorm enough two invite on a trip to see The Rolling Stones in New Orleans. It would be over spring break, which happened to be during Mardi Gras that year. This had the potential to be the most adventurous trip that I would ever take, but I passed on the opportunity, concerned for my well-being and safety.
it was also in the spring of that year that my suitemate and I decided to make a super 8 mm home movie. Jim needed to be in the movie because he would be an interesting character. We knew he was at home because we could smell weed in the hall. When we knocked on his door, there was no answer. We were persistent with our knocking because we knew he was in and we felt like he would eventually come to the door. We were standing in the hall waiting for him with a super 8 camera and a spotlight for good indoor shots. We heard him going through the bathroom to the other room in his suite. I guess he didn’t want to open the door to his room so we wouldn’t see what all was going on there. When he opened his suitemates door, I started filming with the spotlight blinding him. We yelled at him several times to wave at the camera. He finally did wave although he told us later that he was convinced it was a bust.
By the end of the year, Jim had moved out of the dorm and in with the guy that ran Buddy’s pool hall and bar downtown. He couldn’t convince the school to give him a refund on his room and board, so he stored his motorcycle in the room. He also started growing weed under growing lamps in the closet. On more than one occasion, I heard Jim start his motorcycle in his room, freaking out any visitor I might have in my room at the time.
I didn’t see Jim again until my senior year. I was walking out of the gymnasium with a girl that had been in the calculus class with me and Jim when we ran into him at the door. We were excited to see him. The girl commented that she liked the shirt he was wearing and ask where he got it. He replied that he had gotten it while he was in prison.