This story is known in my family as When I Fell and the Bible Man Picked Me Up.
I had the good fortune to be able to go to graduate school right after college (translation: there were no jobs for teachers in 1975 and I had to do something), and because Rutgers is a state university and was cheap, I also lived in the graduate students' dorm for the two semesters I was there full-time. I had a very narrow little world there: the dorm, the dining hall, the library, and the library school were all lined up next to each other in a row on the main drag of the campus. The only other place I ever went was to the parking lot three blocks away. There was no social life for me there, as Hubs and I had started dating the summer before, and he, attending Rutgers Law in Newark, commuted from home. So, every weekend, either I went home or he came to visit me. (See the completely unrelated, yet amusing, thing about this below.)
The only thing that would get in my way every day as I took my little walk from building A to B to C to D was that there were always a variety of religious fanatics posted along the way, trying to ensnare unwitting college students. I did once stop in the "Mitzvah Mobile" (I kid you not), where they offered to teach me to say the blessing over the Sabbath candles every Friday night, but this was not for me. Chanukah was approaching, and I was only in it for the free menorah. I had had my fill of the fanatics as an undergraduate, where one stopped by my dorm and argued with me for hours, worried that I would be going to hell if I did not find faith in Jesus. Which is perfectly fine for people who think that's perfectly fine, but it was not for me. She lost me when she insisted that my devout and holy Grandpa Sam was already burning in hell for not declaring for Jesus before he died. But I digress.
One of the other fanatics was a gentle, older man who walked up and down between the dorm and the dining hall, giving out little Bibles. He was not aggressive or pushy in any way. He was just giving away the Word. I really had no problem with that; I just wasn't interested.
I had a professor who was a whole lot like Professor Kingsfield from The Paper Chase: he knew everything, he was intimidating, he was not friendly, and everyone was terrified of him. Even though he looked like a munchkin, cute, about five feet tall. I believe his name was Benjamin Weinstein. If you went to the Rutgers Library School in the seventies, you know. He taught the course in Reference Materials, and was known for giving killer exams. But somehow, he never got around to the midterm until about three weeks before the end of the semester.
By that time, I was getting ready to start moving all my stuff home for the summer. I had an hour to kill before the 1:00 exam, so I parked my car -- illegally -- in front of the dorm, so I could work off the nervous energy by dragging boxes and cartons out of the dorm, trip after trip. (Foreshadowing.) I was going back and forth, back and forth, while mentally reviewing the 300 or so reference books I had looked at, so that when Weinstein asked on the exam "And where would you find ...?" I would know.
Each time I went in and out, the Bible Man wandered in my direction, hoping to catch my eye and share The Word. I had no time. I had no patience. I wasn't interested, couldn't he see that! I had boxes to move! I had an exam to fail!
I began to sprint past him as I re-entered the building each time. He would see, he would understand. I was smug. Perhaps I would not fail the exam after all.
I did, however, fail to see the raised edge of sidewalk that caught the front of my Frye boots and which sent me sprawling onto the three steps, the lovely decorative concrete steps about 20 feet wide that connected the dorm and the dining hall.
Everything went into slow motion. I was falling hard, and I could see that if I didn't shift my weight, I might fall hard on my face against the top step. I was falling at an angle. across the steps. My face did hit the top step, but the only damage was that my sunglasses were knocked off. I felt pain in my upper right arm as it hit the middle step. But my full weight was on my right leg, the thigh, and that hit the edge of the bottom step hard.
I was stunned. I was -- in a word -- humiliated, a public spectacle, the idiot who couldn't walk up a flight of steps. It was lunchtime and I was in front of the dining hall, so there were more than a few people there. Nobody moved.
Until The Bible Man put down his box of Bibles and was at my side, gently asking if I was okay. What could I say? "Yes, thank you, I'm an idiot and a fool and all I was really trying to do was avoid you, but I'm okay."? He helped me to my feet and I hobbled up to my room, where I sat down for a minute.
And then could not get up, could barely stand. I went to a friend's room and told her to tell Weinstein that I was not coming to the exam. They called the Campus Police, who tossed my car keys to the first person they could find and asked him to move my illegally parked car. (I later found out that he, an Australian exchahnge student, had never driven an automatic transmission before.) They stuffed me in the police car and took me to the health center. By this time, I had a swollen purple bruise from knee to hip, and they gave me crutches, but nothing was broken. I had the bruise for about six weeks.
Upshot: The friend went to class, said I couldn't take the exam because I had broken my leg, and Weinstein said, "Oh she didn't have to do that just to get out of my exam." He later said I didn't have to make it up, my final would just count for my whole grade. I saw the midterm; I would not have done well. The final was an oral, not written. I just had to go to his office and answer as many reference questions as he asked me until he was satisfied. By that time I could walk without the crutches, but I kept them, hoping for a sympathy grade. But it was okay; although I got the first question wrong, I got the next 15 right. (He had asked everyone else three or four questions.) After the exam, I talked to him for awhile and looked at pictures of his grandchildren. He really was a very nice man.
As was The Bible Man. He really didn't have to pick me up, after all. Or did he?
An unrelated, yet amusing, tidbit:
Hubs did come to visit me at Rutgers on the weekends, when my roommate usually went home. The first time he visited, Shirl casually asked where he would be staying. I explained that he had a law-school classmate (Harold) who lived on the main campus, where I was, and he would be staying there. She seemed to buy that, and said no more.
After we were married a few months, we threw a dinner party for friends, and I was telling my mother about the plans. She asked who was coming. I named names, this one, that one, Harold. "Harold?" she said. "Who's Harold?"
"You know," I said, "I told you about him. Hubs went to Law School with him but he lived on the main campus."
"Him?" she said. "You mean he was real?"
And that's why Shirl, nuts as she sometimes was, was also a cool mom.
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