Walton Hall

We are shaped by the environments around us - people, buildings, neighborhoods. As an example, one of the most impactful places in my life was the brief few years I spent in Walton Hall, at Texas A&M University.

College of course is already a transformative experience, but I was fortunate to land in a most peculiar zone. Walton was a melting pot, a stew of personalities, and a breeding ground for - dare we say - a cantankerous and nonconformist worldview.

Built in 1931, Walton is ideally located on the north side of campus. Caddy-corner to the legendary Sbisa Dining Hall, stumbling distance from the bars of Northgate, and a manageable walk to most major classroom buildings. The structure is a u-shaped collection of bricks organized into “ramps”, each ramp containing four dorm rooms on each floor, across four floors. There were no central hallways connecting things together. To visit another ramp, you had to exit yours and then re-enter the building at another ramp doorstep. Each ramp had a small concrete stoop that invited lounging about and “shooting the shit”.

That unique architectural arrangement was the key driver of community at Walton Hall. While the entire dorm had a powerful tribal aspect, each ramp formed a smaller, more accessible social network. 32 dudes in each ramp, and you got to know each other very well.

The other primary factor that made Walton stand out was that it was not air-conditioned. Consider that for a moment…

In Texas. In one of the most humid parts of Texas. No AC. In a 12×12 concrete box with two minor windows.

Because of this condition, Walton was one of the most affordable housing options in town, and thus attracted a much wider spectrum of socio-economic students. It certainly was more diverse than your average frat house or the honor student dorm (I’m looking at you Lechner Hall, or “Lech-Nerds!”)

It also forced us to mingle, hang out. By sheer necessity you had to open your windows and door, spend time in the hallway to catch a small breeze. Shutting yourself up in your room was simply not an option.

Small room, no AC, random people forced to interact. These were the ingredients that led to an outpouring of creativity and innovation unlike any other.

But the real power of Walton was in its people - the characters and personalities that gave the building life. Imagine the cantina scene from Star Wars, except only dudes in their 20’s, and you get the vibe.

I arrived in the Fall of 1989 and lived in the same room for four years. Across that time I was introduced to, influenced by, and shaped by an extraordinary cast of characters.

There was Pablo, a 6’ 4” Mexican with a cheery disposition and the build of a Marine. The first thing he said to me when I met him was “Have you ever received a swirly?” What happened next was predictable.

Pablo’s roommate was Jimmy the Redpot. We barely ever saw him, as he had one of the most prestigious and brutally hard jobs on campus…leading the construction of the Aggie Bonfire. Nearby roomed Tom Petty. That wasn’t his real name. We called him Tom Petty because he looked like Tom Petty. (College dudes can be quite literal sometimes). I don’t think many actually knew his real name…but he was a hoot, with a penchant for breaking out karate and kung fu moves for no apparent reason.

Handsome Matt lived downstairs. He had the looks of a Romance novel scoundrel…and he used those looks to his great advantage, if you know what I mean. But he was also an engineering student and quite sharp. His roommate Ty was an Aerospace Engineering student and generally regarded as the smartest person in the dorm.

Nacho, a Spaniard from the Canary Islands, brought an International flavor to the ramp. He was my first real exposure to a European mindset, and his disdain for many things American was instructive. There was Justin, the cowboy, and one of my roommates, Lance. Lance was a musician and free spirit, and would play his bongo drum at all hours of the day. He was perhaps the most empathetic person I have ever known.

Across the hall for a bit was Peter, a troubled fellow with awkward social skills and a skewed perspective on how to relate to women. He got in some trouble for stalking or harassing some females on campus, and we all felt like he was a ticking time bomb. Today, he’s probably a Republican state senator or something.

There was marijuana dude, the Rush Limbaugh guy, the agricultural science major who was determined to own his own cattle ranch one day, the computer geek, the pre-med dude with the psychotic girlfriend, and so many more.

Each year brought new characters and personalities into our orbit, and you never knew what would happen next.

Frisbee games and “un-runs” were regular semester milestones. “Gravity checks” a common way to dispel boredom. In case you were wondering, a “Gravity Check” meant simply screaming “Gravity Check!!!” out the window and throwing something off the third or fourth floor. Watermelons, TV sets, lamps, textbooks. It all had to be tested.

Handsome Matt owned a stereo system that probably cost in excess of $5,000 and was vastly overpowered for the small room he occupied. He had a regular habit of aiming his speakers out the window and playing Sinead O’Conner’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” at full blast. Apparently he thought the neighborhood needed some tunes. We loved it.

Parties and rule breaking were par for the course. I barely avoided getting kicked out of Walton due to a rather boisterous gathering we hosted one evening. A technical issue on the presence of alcohol in our ‘trash can punch’ was the only thing that saved my roommate and I.

Next door was Schumacher Hall, a sad balcony oriented dorm that was our natural nemesis. If you ever wanted to stir things up, you simply walked into the quadrangle that separated the two buildings and screamed “F*ck you Schumacher!” and let the games begin. Within minutes, you would have two-dozen people from both dorms hurling expletives at each other as a study break. During one particular episode late at night, the shouting and invective was suddenly interrupted when a dude from Walton strutted into the quad with his guitar and an amplifier. He nonchalantly cranked up the volume, and proceeded to shred a guitar solo that would make Jimmy Page or Eddie Van Halen weep. We were all suddenly silenced - in awe of the spectacle before us, and gave that dude a standing ovation as he disappeared back into his room. I never learned who he was.

Lance liked to go camping and sleep under the stars, and would grab a sleeping bag and head out to the campus golf course to spend the night. One night a buddy of his snuck out there and deposited a parking ticket on his sleeping bag.

In those halls and rooms we experienced history, watching the Dallas Cowboys win Super Bowls, the first season of the Simpsons, and the first Iraq War on a shared television. We went to football games, worked on Bonfire, and helped each other with studies when we could. We partied, drank beer, talked about girls, and hung out and took pleasure in making one another laugh.

Those people, from every imaginable life vector, gave me the greatest gift a young man can receive. They presented choices, new archetypes to consider. They brought experiences and life lessons to my eyes, new ways of thinking different from my own. I could learn from them and take what attributes I wanted - as well as learn what I didn’t want - to incorporate into my emerging personhood. They showed me what was possible.

I am fortunate to have landed in that unique pile of bricks with that crazy bunch of dudes, giving me a crash course in diversity, commonality, and potential life directions. I learned as much from those experiences as I did in class…and without hyperbole can say that Walton Hall changed me forever.

To this day, I find myself sometimes chanting the world famous “Walton Grode Yell”, a sort of performative white-dude ‘Haka’ that we would often shout at other students. The words are too offensive to repeat here, except for perhaps the last line:

“Walton’s the best dorm, all the others suck. Walton! Walton! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck!”

Parting Proclamation

Words, wit, and wisdom.

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Disclaimer:

All content and opinions are solely those of the author (Jack), and not representative of my employer, former employers, clients, anyone in Congress, my family, former college roommates, Baptists, the good citizens of Colorado, or my dog Mabel.