Friday, January 21, 2005

The last Virginia gentlemen

This article from Christianity Today about the goings on at today's colleges begins:

"Nineteen sixty-six, the year in which Walker Percy's The Last Gentleman was published, is also the year I entered as a first-yearman at the University of Virginia. We did not stoop to the State U level of referring to ourselves as freshmen, sophomores, and such - not at 'The University.' We were all men at U.Va. - 'gentlemen,' we were told. Young women visited on weekends from Sweet Briar and Randolph-Macon, Mary Washington, and Hollins College. But they did not stay in the dormitory or the fraternity house. They stayed in college-approved housing, more often than not the home of a widow who had a few rooms to let and happily accepted a delegation from the colleges to assume the responsibilities of in loco parentis."

Somehow, that reminds me of the story of a Bristol lawyer who was late for a lunch date, and the date told the waitress she was "waiting on a gentleman." When he arrived, the waitress said, "well, shoot --."

You can guess the rest.

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