Before the baby boomers came along, t-shirts were white and you wore them underneath other shirts. By the time we were kids in the 70's, t-shirts became much more: art, personal expression, souvenir. It seemed a shame to turn them into rags as they wore out or got too small.
Not certain who's idea it was, but quite some time ago, Gail started making t-shirts into quilts. Nothing fancy, just cut out the interesting bits of the shirt, sew them together, and use them as a casual throw. So we started saving shirts instead of turning them into rags.
Last summer, Gail started going into the 5 boxes of t-shirts, pruning them out, and making them into memories. There were enough of them, she started making them into different themes. This quilt documents some of our experiences at Tech, from band trips to Memphis in 1979, the Peach Bowl in 1981, Marching Virginians' Anniversaries, and other fond memories from when we were young.
I graduated from Virginia Tech with Bachelors of Science in Computer Science in 1982. My journey there from Wisconsin was unexpected to me.
When I graduated from High School, my father was the Vice Chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He made it clear to me that the selection of where to go to college was up to me, but his position did have an influence on where I looked. He had an unspoken perception of UWM compared to other universities in the state. Not wanting to offend him in any way, I decided to go to college out of state.
My father and I made a visit to Virginia Tech, and a few things stood out to me. First, the setting was wonderful. Blacksburg is located in the mountains, the campus was very open and architectually consistent, and they had all the programs that I was thinking about majoring in. But what really sold me was the band director.
One of our visits was with the director of the marching band. Dr. Heath
had come to Tech from Purdue, so he could give us a perspective about
how the school and region differed from the midwest. During our
discussion, the door opened, and a red warthog stuck its head into the
room. The student who was wearing the razorback helmet on his head
didn't realize we were in there and turned as red as the helmet as soon
as he saw Dr. Heath had guests. We all shared a laugh, and it occurred
to me that this is the kind of place that I would enjoy.
Many of my fond memories of college revolve around the marching band; the Marching Virginians. Nowadays, they like being called the Spirit of Tech because Virginians sounds too much like ....
The band started in 1974 and it took a few years for it to become successful. I had some influence into that success. In 1979, the band director, James Sochinski, arranged "We Will Rock You" by Queen and the Tuba section started playing around with a dance. He saw that and the following year, he arranged the Hokie Pokie and presented the Subculture (i.e., tuba players) with a challenge. Could we dance the Hokie Pokie?
Well, we got together as a section and did a bit of choreography. When we broke into the chorus line for the first time during a halftime show, we got the crowd's attention. The routine has changed little over the past few years, and it has become the signature song for the band, and to a certain extent, the university.
Every so often, they have an alumni weekend where old MV's are asked to return. The photograph above is from practice at the 30th anniversary in 2004. I'm the one after the gap in the line. I learned that dancing with a tuba 20+ years after graduation is not as easy as it was.
Just to give you an idea, the 2009 version of the alumni band is shown in the attached video. It's a bit jittery. The Hokie Pokie starts at about 3 minutes in. The chorus line is about a minute later.
Their official web site goes into more detail about the history of the band.
