Becoming a Counselor. Samuel T. Gladding

Chapter 33 The Beers of My Senior Year

      I was somewhat naive and even a bit innocent in the ways of the world when I entered Wake Forest. I grew up in a teetotaling family (i.e., no one drank alcohol). My brother drank beer as a freshman when he went off to college because he joined a fraternity in which drinking was prevalent. However, because I was not a member of a fraternity and my brother had never offered to buy me anything alcoholic, I did not know how beer tasted or how much it would affect my behavior. My friends did though. On my 20th birthday, they decided to introduce me to beer. I immediately hated the taste but at their urging and at their expense—they were buying—I consumed a few cans hoping the taste would get better. It did not!

      When we arrived back on campus I was a little woozy. My friends suggested I just lay down for a few minutes. They found a nice place on the grass in front of the chapel where they laid me out spread eagle and left. I am not sure how long I was there. Eventually the night patrol officer came along and realized that where I lay was not my usual resting spot. He asked a few questions and then helped me to my dorm room. The next morning I had a headache the size of nearby Salem Lake but was none the worse for the wear except for wrinkled clothes. I had learned that there was no similarity between beer and sweet tea and that my friends were mischievous.

      The next beers of my senior year were not ones I drank but a number of beers I saw being consumed at a party the College Union was sponsoring. I was chair of the Small Socials Committee of the Union and planned off-campus dances for fellow deacons. Attendance was usually around 100. Besides planning the event, I paid the band, ordered refreshments, and acquired a chaperone—yes, off-campus parties had to be chaperoned in the 1960s! The venue for the December party was a downtown hotel, and I found a great band I knew would be a hit. For the chaperone, I persuaded what I thought was an introverted librarian in the college library to come. I figured he would bring a book and sit in a corner.

All went well for about the first hour or so. Then I noticed my reclusive chaperone seemed to be having the time of his life out with his wife on the dance floor. In each hand he had a can of beer. Some of my peers were out dancing with beers too and obviously enjoying more than the music. Uh-oh. I quickly found the source of the happiness: a bartender serving a variety of suds. Not thinking clearly, I wondered if maybe, just maybe, beer could be considered a light refreshment and allowable. To find out, I made a call to one of the deans of the university. When I popped the question, the answer came back an icy “Certainly not!” Double uh-oh!

      There was only one thing to do: stop the flow of liquid gold and try to hide the evidence that the party had gone off the rails. Stopping the flow was easy, although not popular. Paying for the damage so I would not be expelled from school was more challenging. First, my peers and the librarian had consumed hundreds of dollars’ worth of alcohol, much more than the price of refreshments in my budget. Second, the laws of North Carolina at the time required the hotel to report alcohol consumption by the bottle and can. I knew that what the hotel put on the bill would affect me. With a bit of pleading (actually groveling), I convinced the management to make out a separate Wake Forest tab for me with just three words: “Food and Beverage.” The official State of North Carolina information would not be a part of my paperwork.

      I have been grateful for many kind acts in my life, but the bill the hotel gave me that night is something for which I will always be thankful. Without it, I might never have graduated from college and likely would have become either a barista or a booking agent for bands.