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THE BATTALION
Thursday, August 25, 1955
Few Local Girls; You Have To Import Date
By KERSTIN EKFELT
Battalion Woman’s Editor
At a normal (i.e. coeducational)
college, a date is a pretty routine
affair, hardly different from a date
with your girl friend back home.
You ask a girl anywhere from a
month to an hour in advance; she
accepts (or, if she doesn’t, you ask
someone else) ; you pick her up at
the appointed time; you bring her
back by curfew. But at all-male
A&M the situation is slightly dif
ferent and desexves some attention.
Here’s the gruesome set-up:
The College Station-Bryan area
boasts an all-male military college
(that’s A&M) with more than 6,000
students, an air base with some
3.000 personnel and a military pi*ep
school with an enrollment of more
than 400.
But the two cities also have a
business college, numerous offices
and two high ^schools, and in these
places are GIRLS. The only prob
lem is to find a way (preferably a
respectable one) to meet them.
The easiest method is to go to
church. The local chui-chcs are just
loaded with young women who are
only too happy to extend a welcome
to a homeless Aggie. And nothing
surpasses this in respectability. The
girl can tell her mother, “He’s an
Aggie, but he must be nice. I met
him at church.”
Another good way to get a date
is to have a car. (Anything with
four wheels .and a means of pro
pulsion comes under this classifica
tion.)
Once your buddies find out that
you have a Means of Transporta
tion, you will be swamped with of
fers of blind dates. With no effort
at all on your part, you can have
a date any night of the week.
There are other good ways to
meet the fair females of the com
munity. Some of these ways are, in
brief, working on the various com
mittees of the Memorial Student
Center, visiting professors who have
daughters between the ages of 12
and 25, enrolling in the MSC danc
ing classes (this is a dandy, inci
dentally), attending community
functions, having a roommate who
dates a local girl who has friends,
hanging around the doors of the
high schools at 3:30 in the after
noon, and having friends or re
latives in Brazos County.
Once you’ve met a girl, you’ve
made it over the highest hurdle.
The actual date is as simple as
Simon. Any advice on the subject
can be found in an etiquette book,
or in an advice to the lovelorn
column.
So we shall move on to another
facet of the dating problem at
A&M. Let us suppose (a) that
there is a big weekend coming up
and (b) that all the girls you know
in College Station are booked up
—this frequently happens—and (c)
that you, therefore, are without
a date. Do not despair. You can im
port a girl from out-of-town. In
fact, you will discover that you
will import most of your dates for
big games and dances.
Now on this sort of date the pro
cedure is a little more complicated
and probably less familiar to you.
The first thing to do is, of course,
to invite the girl—at least three
weeks in advance. Your letter
should be casual, as if this really
weren’t a Big Deal. It won’t be the
last time you write to her about
the weekend, so save most of the
vital statistics.
Just be sure to mention what the
occagion is, when you expect her
to come, and how long you want
her to stay.
You wait. She won’t answer right
away because naturally she doesn’t
want you to think that this isn’t
old stuff to her.Finally after about
ten days you get a letter. Buried
on page three is a sentence to the
effect that she would love to come.
This delay doesn’t bother you, be
cause of course you made all the ar
rangements before you ever asked
her, knowing that she wasn’t your
only possibility.
Your next move is to write the
letter of information, a delicate
composition which must tell her
everything she needs to know with
out giving her the impression that
you doubt her sophistication.
In this letter be sure to say how
to get to A&M and when. Don’t
leave it up to her to look up the
train or bus schedules. It’s safer
to tell her what train to take out
of what station at what time arriv
ing where when. If she’s new at
this game (but for heaven’s sake,
don’t let her know what you think
she is!), it’s nice to find out which
of her friends or schoolmates are
coming down for the weekend, so
that she can tuck herself under a
Money Is a Problem
Even at Cheap A&M
Although A&M is one of the
least expensive schools in the
country, you’re going to have to
have some money, and money al
ways involves problems.
The best way to keep your
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money is to start a checking ac
count in one of the local banks,
in either Bryan or College Station.
This will keep your money safe,
and give you valuable training in
handling check stubs and bank
books.
When you come to the campus,
don’t bring all the money you will
need in one big check; it will be
too difficult to cash. Have a check
made out for about the cost of your
fees, as outlined in the college
bulletins, and have two or three
smaller checks made out for books,
uniform extras or other clothing.
Your books will run you from
$15 to $25 dollars, depending on
whether you get new or used ones.
If you will study engineering or
any other major where you will
need special tools, like slide rules
or drawing instruments, be sure
and include the cost of these in
your figuring.
If you are going to be in the
corps of cadets, you will need some
extra uniform items, besides what
you will be issued. Your company
commander will tell you exactly
what, but briefly, you will need a
couple of caps, brass and cloth
insignia, belts, a khaki shirt and
pants suit, and another pair of
winter uniform pants.
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wing if she needs one.
Make it plain how to find you
when she arrives. You’ll meet her
at the station if she comes by train
or bus. If she comes by car, ar
range a specific time and place for
the meeting (The MSC is a good
place—it’s easy to find and has
comfortable chairs to sit in while
you wait. You’ll probably have to
wait.)
Let her know what the two of
you will do right after she arrives.
This clues her about what to wear
for the trip. She’ll want to know
whether she’ll have a chance to
to change clothes or if she’ll go di
rectly to a party.
Be sure to tell her exactly where
she will stay. The move is to get
her a room in the MSC, but chances
are that alf rooms are booked solid
for the next five years. So if nei
ther of you has friends in College
Station or Bryan, you’ll either keep
her in one of the Bryan hotels or
else see the Housing Office for a
list of rooms for rent. These are in
the homes of local families and are
usually very inexpensive.
Be precise about the name, ad
dress and phone number of the spot
(emergency information), and also
tell her what kind of place it is.
Whether it’s an adjoining-bath or
a cold-dormitory type of stopover
spot makes a difference in her
packing.
Finally, give her a semi-detailed
sketch of plans for the weekend.
You don’t have to spell this out
quite as carefully as you planned
it; the idea is to coach hei* on what
to wear when and where. Be direct
only about the big events—whether
the dance is fortnal or informal and
if the picnic calls for jeans.
If you don’t tell her everything
she needs to know, she may try to
guess, and she’ll probably guess
Freshmen Eligible
For Singing Cadets
The Singing Cadets, A&M’s glee
club, is open to members of all
classes.
Rehearsals are held four times a
week, from 5 to 6 p. m. Monday
through Thursday, at the Music
Hall, which is near the South Area
dormitories.
Bill (Pop) Turner, director,
urges any interested student to
participate; music reading or ex
perience are not necessary, but
they will help.
The Singing Cadets give a con
cert on the campus each year, and
make a tour through the state each
spring, singing in different Texas
cities.
wrong. And if she turns out to be
the only girl at the dance not wear
ing a formal, she’s going to be
mighty uncomfortable. And so, my
friend, are you.
On the other hand, she might
just play it safe in a little “basic
black” that she can dress up or
down. And there are few garments
as unexciting as a “basic black.”
Make the plans for the weekend
with at least one other classmate,
becouse the secret of college week
ending is this: Stay with the crowd.
Unless you and she are exceptional
ly crazy about each other’s com
pany, you will find that to be alone
on a college weekend is to be lonely
and left out.
The way to avoid that is to plan
everything in advance with your
friends. Don’t leave anything at all
up to the girls. Nothing will dismay
them more than having to speak up
about what they want to do. They
will expect you to have made all
the plans, and if you haven’t,
your’re in for quite a bit of aimless
wandering.
As for expenses, they’re all on
you, from the moment your date ar
rives to the moment she leaves the
campus. You pay for her room—
usually in advance. If you have put
her up with local friends where
there is no question of paying for
the lodging, you give the hostess a
bread-and-butter present, and you
take your date out for her meals.
Expenses, by the way, can get
pretty expensive, especially if your
date is a high-toned lass who ex
pects ritzy living quarters, steak
for breakfast, and a black orchid for
every party. You’ll discover,
though, that most girls don’t have
such champagne tastes, and that
the amount of money spent on a
weekend is not necessarily a mea
surement of the pleasure derived.
There is only one thing that the
girl pays for: that is her trans
portation. If she brings a car and
turns it over to you, you might
fill the tank for excursions during
the weekend, but you wouldn’t pay
for her to-and-fro gas any more
than you’d send her railroad ticket.
To sum up the whole mess—your
career at A&M need not be a series
of stag parties. These are women
around. They’re harder to find than
at Denton, for instance, but they
do exist.
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