I think that I will never forget the “night of the great ‘clean out!’” (A euphemism for a LOT of toilet sitting!) We were all used to a “full house” in the jakes after the cornbread breakfasts on Tuesdays and Saturdays, but this is about a night that made those times look like a walk in the park!
It was in March of 1966, a few days before Visiting Sunday, but also a few days after some 8th grade students had come by to visit, and to stay overnight, on the campus. I was up in the freshman dorm, aka “the Barn,” as a senior prefect, if memory serves me right; when right about midnight I began to hear the sound of running feet across the linoleum floor heading for the jakes! The distinct reverberation of the jake door, and the stalls inside, still echoes in my mind! And the flushing, oh my, the flushing! (Thank God for 'pressure valves!) Yes, it was a full-blown case of some bad food for dinner; and the ‘funny’ thing was, each class, starting with the freshmen, got hit with it moving almost perfectly up the ranks! About 12:30 AM the sophomores started trekking to their jakes, then around 1 AM, the juniors; and finally the seniors. It seems as though the upper classmen’s intestines ‘tolerated’ the whole situation better than the lower classmen’s!
That was indeed a night to remember and a night of a real intestine clean out! For the next day or so students drank ‘meals’ of 7up with a little bread; but Visiting Sunday was still held as everyone was pretty well recovered by then. The health department came out and tested the dishes the next day, because the dishes had been cleaned the day before with a special solution to have them ‘sparkling’ for visitors’ day; but the county determined that it was not the dishes, so they then turned to the kitchen. Apparently it turned out to be some bad food of some sort, but that night of everyone running for the jakes still remains vivid in my mind. Bob Reed 1966