Rolling in the Hay-Campus Hijinks from the Boomer “Heydays”

I harbor NO regrets from my rebel years

I’m a walking advertisement for my motto — “If I hadn’t done crazy, stupid, dangerous things when I was young, I’d have nothing to talk (or write) about in my old age.”

My Medium Table of Contents is filled with tales of youthful mishaps, teenage recklessness, and deliberate daring dos that have provided my readers with amusement as well as serious lessons learned.

I wasn’t sure about how to title this story because, in my dotage, I’m not up on 2023 slang. Of course, I Googled it, and the expression “roll in the hay” still seems to be in use today. For the uninformed, it means to have sex.

Setting the Scene:

It is October 1966. Barely two months into my exciting entrance as a college freshman at the University of Rhode Island.

There’s a crispness to the air during October in New England. Cool enough during the day to need a sweater. Cold enough at night to need a jacket, but not yet so cold that you can’t still enjoy outdoor activities.

During the day, those activities would include jumping into piles of newly fallen, crunchy leaves. If you think leaf jumping is only for children, you haven’t met a group of inebriated college students. Or been one yourself.

Evenings were for hayrides on tractor-drawn wagons through the dark woods. If you think those activities are for families huddling together and bonding over ghost stories and “haunted” Halloween woods enactments, you haven’t met a bunch of inebriated college students. Or been one yourself.

The flyer on my dormitory bulletin board advertised a hayride on Saturday night sponsored by one of the premier fraternities on campus.

Why did I think it would be fun to sit in a wagon full of hay with a bunch of fraternity boys? Because, as also reported in my other coming-of-age stories, I had rebellion choked out of me my entire life by a straight-laced mother. I was on my own for the first time in 18 years, and I wanted to experience everything, especially boys.

The impending hayride and all that it might entail was the only topic of dorm conversation that entire week. My naïve interpretation of “roll in the hay” was that it was a heavy “make-out” session.

What did I know? Not much, because as I discussed in detail in my story, Freshman Hickie Course 101, my mother’s idea of keeping me pure and innocent was to keep me ignorant and uninformed about sexual matters. You can read my opinion on the importance of sex education for young women in that article.

Unfortunately, when the big day arrived, it came with a massive downpour. We could pile into a hay wagon pulled by a tractor through the woods during a light sprinkle, but this was a monsoon.

What to do? Fraternity boys, not being ones to give up easily on a night of hayrides and hay “rolling” with eager coeds, came up with the idea of filling a giant room in the frat house basement with hay. Lots and lots of hay.

URI has a large, prestigious agriculture department. Looking back on it now, I have no idea how they managed to transport bales and barrels of hay from the agriculture department to the basement of the frat house, nor did it occur to me then to ask.

All I knew was at the time of the designated hayride, we were led to a closed, windowless room filled with hay. FILLED WITH DRY HAY. And fraternity boys. Lots of eager fraternity boys.

I’m not sure how, but little 5’ me, who barely weighed 115 lbs., ended up in the company of giant, muscular 6’ 2” Bart. (Can you believe I remember his name after all these years?)

So what do two college freshmen do all night in a room full of hay and kegs of beer? Roll around in the hay, drink, and make out, of course.

It was dark, and I couldn’t see very well, but based on the noise, I was pretty sure there was more than “making out” going on in the far corners. I wasn’t about to lose my virginity buried in the hay in front of a slew of other people, so “making out” was as far as Bart got with me. He was NOT a happy camper about that situation. I never did get a second date with him.

When the evening was over (We had midnight curfews in those days), we stumbled back to our dorms in various stages of undress and drunken stupors.

I didn’t feel too great. Besides feeling the effects of the alcohol, my throat hurt, and I was coughing, but considering the environment in which I had spent the evening, I didn’t think too much of it and went to bed.

The next morning not only was my throat so inflamed that I was barely able to talk, but I was also coughing excessively, having difficulty breathing, and burning with fever.

My roommate had to call the Campus Police to escort me to the Infirmary, where I was diagnosed and admitted with an acute case of Bacterial Pharyngitis. Apparently, there was a lot of bacteria in that hay that had a much easier time invading my body than Bart did.

That wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was………. The campus doctor called MY MOTHER.

Oh, God, I thought. If the pharyngitis doesn’t kill me, she will. Throughout high school, she was fanatic about keeping me away from boys, guarding my virginity like a sacred jewel, and she was not shy about displaying her displeasure with me if she thought I strayed from the straight and narrow.

How the Hell was I going to explain this to her?

She drove the hour from our home to the URI campus in record time, and before I had a chance to make up a good story, there was my mother, sitting by my bed with nothing but concern and worry on her face.

The campus doctor, who is probably an author on Medium today, writing his memoir of the campus shenanigans to which he was privy in the 1960s Baby Boomer Heydays, did not question my roommate’s “hayride” version of how I got so sick. He diplomatically relayed her story to my mother, assuring her that I would recover quite well after a course of heavy-duty antibiotics and a week of rest.

Medical degrees are not handed out to dummies. Dr. Campus not only knew about the massive rainstorm the previous night, but he had also heard about the disappearance of bales of hay from the agriculture department. Unless illegal drugs and life-threatening incidents were involved, it wasn’t his job to run interference between parents and the idiotic antics of naïve freshmen.

I don’t know what she actually believed, but my mother never questioned the hayride story or referenced it again. Between that night and my graduation three and a half years later, I gave her more than enough to question. I have written some of those stories ( Freshman Hickie Course 101 and My Dirty Dancing Summer )There are more to be written.

Every dumb-ass episode I got myself into that freshman year was a learning experience for me.

That weekend I learned:

· That I am “allergic” to hay or to whatever bacteria lurks within it. For the last 50+ years, I have avoided hayrides, barns, farms and anywhere else I may be exposed to the dreaded hay.

· That I preferred my “make-out” sessions to be held in private.

· That although I was anxious to get rid of the virginity that my mother held so sacred, I wasn’t giving it to just any frat boy who wanted it.

Yes, it is true. Had I not been so rebellious and adventurous, I would have no stories to tell. I need to get them written before my memory goes, so stay tuned for more.

©Joan Gershman 2023

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