Evans “Buddy” King
Columnist
I was reminded recently of how people and relationships and experiences can be so meaningful and real in their day and then over time become distant and faded, but wonderful memories. A stark reminder for me came when Christiansburg resident Paul Barnett passed away a couple of weeks ago.
Longtime real estate and family lawyer in town, solid citizen, married to the lovely Debbie Gerberich, a girl one year ahead of me at CHS, Paul was my fraternity brother at UVA several lifetimes ago. I never knew him as “Paul” – he was “Doc” to us at Delta Sig, for reasons I’ll explain. Always Doc.
Doc was two years ahead of me at the U. And like me, he was a bit of an anomaly – a public-school kid from southwest Virginia. We were both top students in our high school classes, wannabe football stars, student leaders in high school, Doc at Andrew Lewis in Salem, me at Christiansburg High. The type of kids UVA was seeking at the time to counterbalance a huge population of NOVA students and prep and parochial school graduates from the Northeast with college board scores off the charts. We were essentially the University’s version of affirmative action in that era. Public school kids “from the rest of the state”.
When I first met Doc, I called him the “Wolverine”, to impress him with my knowledge of his Andrew Lewis roots (they were the Wolverines) and to embrace our shared southwest Virginia heritage.
Through serendipity for me, perhaps not as much so for Doc, we met when I joined his fraternity at Virginia – Delta Sigma Phi. We were called “$1.65” because we were “low rent”. We were not exactly the richest guys on Grounds and our house at 517 Rugby Road was not exactly a mansion. It should have been condemned. We were a hodgepodge of kids from Pennsylvania (a heavy “yinzer” influence from Pittsburgh) and New York and New Jersey and Connecticut, with a liberal dousing of Tidewater and NOVA and Richmond guys.
I knew little about fraternities in the fall of my first year – I knew my Cousin Joe had been a brother at Sigma Nu in the early 60’s, the jock frat at the time, and my Dad had been in a fraternity at Emory & Henry in his college days, where I envision they gathered in a hall somewhere on campus to sing songs and wear beanies (look them up)and plan their next good deeds. But I was not prepared for “Rush” at Virginia, with 37 houses opening their doors and their kegs for the entering “first years” as we were known. I was given the “Flounder treatment” at several houses before I realized all guys in rush were not created equal.
The frats at UVA at the time were essentially beyond the reach of the University’s administration – it was the way of the world. To say we were unsupervised is a gross understatement. We owned our own houses, we hosted our own parties, we sank or swam on our own financially. In 4 years I never met our faculty advisor. Organized chaos, without the organized part. When the movie Animal House came out in the 80’s, we joked that we thought it was a documentary. We had the road trips and the band parties and the academic “shortcomings” of the frat in the movie. We were even put on “double secret probation” for dumping a trash can full of mud on the Dean of Student Affairs one Easter’s Weekend when he was out of touch enough to drive down Rugby Road in his convertible with the top down. Double Secret Probation at the time meant “no Sunday parties.” Harsh.
In the midst of this chaos and rank immaturity was “Doc.” He was two years ahead of me at the U. – probably the height of leadership and influence in a frat. Second year brothers were still “sophomoric” and fourth years were actually getting serious about looking for jobs or being accepted into graduate schools. So, by default, younger guys looked up to the third years. This was where Doc was in his life when I met him.
I have always called Doc the “sage” of Delta Sigma Phi and of my college years. He was the voice of reason and calm, he dispensed advice and wisdom without even seeming to realize he was doing so. Whether it was trouble with a class or your parents or your girlfriend, Doc was the great listener. I believe it is how he went from “Paul” to “Doc” during his college years. He was a psychology major who looked like Sigmon Freud, with dark beard, and a flowing mane. He looked 45 instead of 21 and his manner was the same – worldly, calm, reasoned, wise, kind.
And the voice! Doc’s voice could only be described by one word – soothing. Regardless of your personal level of angst or despair or desperation, Doc’s voice remained the same. You seriously could not help but feel a little better, a little more at ease, after hearing his voice.
The “voice” was vividly brought home to me about 25 years after I had graduated from Virginia, the year my dad had died. I was in the courthouse in Christiansburg, dealing with some aspect of the estate. There was a man in a business suit with his back to me, on the telephone in the clerk’s office, obviously a lawyer on a call to his office. And I heard “the voice!” It could only have been one person in the world with that voice. When he hung up I yelled, “Doc,” and the guy on the phone turned around. There was no beard, no long hair. There was classy suit and tie and a clean-shaven face. But it was Doc, and he told me how wonderful it was to be called “Doc” again. We embraced.
All of this is not to say that Doc didn’t have his vices – to paraphrase Tim Matheson’s character from Animal House, “we all did.” But he always seemed in control – a voice of kindness and compassion and gentleness, in a sea of rowdiness and debauchery and chaos. While others were falling off the porch at 517 Rugby Road, Doc stood steady. I am sure he remained that way his entire life.
