My last column briefly described my mother’s family’s connection to Charlottesville, VA, where I spent my freshman year in college, at the University of Virginia. This column is about some of my experiences there that year.

When I got back to campus after our Christmas break, late in the afternoon of January 1st, I discovered to my surprise that Charlottesville had had a major snowstorm, the day before Christmas, which dropped a foot and a half on the town, most of which was still there – at least on campus, since the students were all home for the holiday. I had never seen that much snow before!

Savannah had gotten light snowfalls, about once every ten years, when I was growing up, but it was never enough to last more than a few hours. So I was thrilled to see that much snow, for once in my young life!

My roommate at the time was an Italian from New York City (more on that shortly), who got in sometime in the middle of the night. When I woke up the next morning, I hurried over to his bed on the other side of our small dorm room, and tried to shake him awake.

“Al! Al! Wake up! There’s a foot and a half of snow outside! Let’s go play!”

He sleepily rolled over, and gave me the stinkeye.

“Aw, Semmes! New York City got five-anda- half feet on Christmas Day. Don’t wake me up for no foot and a half!” And with that, he promptly rolled over and went back to sleep.

Sheepishly, I turned on my coffeepot and waited for it to brew my morning coffee.

That was my introduction to “real” snow!

I should explain about my roommate. At that point, we had only been roommates for about a month, and didn’t really know each other very well yet. When I had gotten my acceptance letter from UVA, several months earlier, only one of my classmates at (“the Original”) Savannah High School had applied and been accepted to UVA. I didn’t know David very well, having only been at that school for two years, only that he was known for being one of the “really smart” guys. And that his mother happened to be my homeroom teacher my senior year.

There is always a bit of apprehension when one is first facing going off to a new school, and since most colleges back then had a requirement for freshmen (and sometimes sophomores) to live in on-campus housing, many incoming freshmen chose to room with someone they knew from their own high school, at least that first year. So that’s what David and I did.

UVA had an additional requirement, at that time: that all freshmen lived in a group of dorms that had no parking lots adjacent, as freshmen were also not allowed to have cars on campus that year. The University wanted us all to “get acclimated” to “campus life” before having too many opportunities to get crazy, I guess.

The problem for me was, David was far more politically aware than I was, at that point; I was really “green as grass “ and knew nothing, as far as he was concerned. So he made fun of my naivete a lot, which I understood, even though I did not appreciate it.

Well…. The two guys next door to us had an opposite problem. Al was an Italian from New York City, and Chris was a Polack from New Jersey. They understood each other very well, but traded ethnic jokes about “Wops” and “Polacks” until they got sick of each other – so we eventually wound up trading roommates, and that took care of things.

So my guy moved in with the Polack, and I got the Italian, and everybody was happy from that point on!

What a blessing for me that turned out to be. Al and I got to be very close friends, and have kept in contact, if infrequently, ever since. (I only had one other roommate, at UGA, that I was as close to – and very grateful for both.)

Rafe Semmes is a proud graduate of (“the original”) Savannah High School and the University of Georgia. He may be reached at rafe_semmes@yahoo.com.