THE LOFT
 
 
     Lofting was not only a way to achieve more living space
in a dorm room; it was a way to achieve more social prestige
as well.  It became the standardized practice of the 74-75
corridor on Lodge Hall, as well as of others across the
University campus, to construct these majesties of amateur
carpentry.  Each fall, the sound of circular saws blazed
in rooms where new generations of students where to erect
their bunk systems.  Lofts could be decorative furniture, as
well.  The appearance of descending timbers, some made of
purposefully aged lumber, created a good atmosphere for
creative relaxation.  Women's lofts were often painted
brightly and appliqued.  C T had a relatively low opinion of
the loft concept because he rarely entertained.  Tim, his
roommate, on the other hand, really thought it to be a good
idea.
 
     "C T, I think we should loft this room," he said one
Sunday afternoon two weeks after the State game.  "I know a
little about carpentry because my Dad is a real handyman,
from fixing things on our farm.  I could put it up for $40.00
and I'd only want $10.00 from you."  C T was collecting his
laundry from where it had been half-carefully tossed into the
corner of his side of the closet.  He was surprised he had
this much of a choice, he mused, in the instant he thought to
himself before responding.
 
     "Do you really have all the tools and everything," C T
asked.  He felt his divergence from engineering already as a
painful reminder that men like Tim, studying engineering,
would be his superior some day in the world of practical
technology.  They would build his instruments of inquiry.
 
     "All I need you for is to hold the tape and the plumb
bob string and other little jobs.  I'm going home next
weekend for my cousin's wedding.  Dad has a 300-millimeter 2
kilowatt saw with a delta blade and miter attachments.  He
also has plumb bobs, claw and ball peen hammers, a rotating-
angle drill, and a carpenter's square."  Wow, thought C T.
If Tim needs an area integrated or a density calculated, he
might be needed.
 
     "I wouldn't mind, then.  I think the dorm has some
regulations about what you can build..."  This was C T's
attempt at knowing something about construction engineering.
It was a stab.
 
     "...All they ask is no loading greater than 1 MPa, and I
have a design worked out with 100- x 100-millimeter timbers
that should keep it well below that.  You can look at my
drawing and check out the plan.  I hope you think it's good.
I really like some of the lofts I've seen on the corridor
this fall, and I want to put up one like it."
 
     C T unrolled the vellum on Tim's desk and gazed at the
fine pencil lines and dimensions.  He was trying to picture
the loft as it would stand and as he would have to sleep on
it.  While his industrial arts electives in high school had
given him plenty of experience with drafting and even some
intuitive design, his current trends, built largely from his
new ambition to become a physicist, made conceptualizations
rather difficult.  It scared him at first.  "It looks like
we'll have headroom up there.  It's no submarine cot, and
that's for sure."  Tim was nearly two meters tall, so that
gave C T some assurance the space above the loft would be
generous.
 
     "I can do it.  I built a lot of things like treehouses
and soapbox cars with my Dad.  He'll really be excited to see
it up."  Had Tim already told his father he would be building
it before it was cleared?  C T wondered about Tim's
forcefulness.  He was certain that Tim would become an
engineering manager soon after he graduated.  That kind of
initiative was what C T was hoping he'd develop in his next
three years at the University--it would help in getting
research grants.
 
     "I'd like it a lot, Tim, and I like building with wood,
too.  I hope you have an extra pair of gloves for me.  I hate
operating on myself when I get a splinter."
 
     "Don't worry.  I'm going to come back with my Dad in the
truck with everything we need.  I'm glad you're in with me."
Tim rolled the plans back up again and C T walked through the
meter-and-a-half wide corridor to the 74-75 laundry room.  He
wondered what kind of party a man like Timothy might hold in
the room.  Had he the kind of trends in his personal life
that might make the place unlivable?  In the time he knew his
roommate he found him to be a real gentleman.  His country
appeal was constantly a constant.  He knew he wouldn't find a
twelve-pack of beer cans half dumped into his bunk some night
when he returned on a Friday from the library.
 
     The next Sunday, Franklin and Robinson were awakened by
a strangely familiar din from the room next door.  The
blazing of a circular saw in C T and Tim's soon-to-be-lofted
room started at 11:00, when Tim and his father pulled into
the loading dock in their beat-up truck.  They made four
trips, carrying tool boxes, power tools, chalk strings, and
lumber.  It was a professional project from the start.
"First of all," Tim said, "we have to get all the old
furniture we don't need out to dormitory storage.  I checked
with them and they have a place.  We'll just put it in the
hall for now." As the work progressed, C T didn't have to
lift a hammer or a timber.  He only had, as Tim had promised,
to hold tapes and plumb strings.
 
     They swung the construction-grade wood beams and struts
in a majesty of the skilled carpenter's trade, although Tim's
father only did it as a necessary "hobby" in maintaining his
property.  C T wondered what kind of useful hobby he might
ever have.  Could mind wanderings ever build things other
than theories?  There's no end to the construction of
theories, he thought, and he had to act while he was young on
something real.  He enjoyed helping with the loft in a way,
because he was starting to adopt the project as something of
his own accomplishment.  The tapes were no problem for him to
read, but the real calculating and reckoning was the unusual
skill of Tim's father.  C T had built a model airplane when
he was young, but that was soft balsa and occasional 2-
millimeter plywood.  He had enough extra wood in a box back
home for another two whole planes.
 
     By 16:00, the mattresses were ready to be put in place.
A large crowd had been parading in and out of 7504 to watch
the miraculous construction.  Many of them had built lofts
and many had made mistakes, often over a period of three days
or more.  Franklin tapped Tim's shoulder as he was marking a
line with his carpenter's pencil.  "You'll have to kick out
Prime every Friday and Saturday from now on so that we can
move a keg in here.  Your loft really looks good."
 
     Tim didn't grow as angry as he might have with the
respect he held for C T.  He could easily have floored the
paunchy partying man, especially with a carpenter's level in
one hand and a hammer in the other.  "We're just going to
relax in this room.  If you want to come by and have a beer
with me from the cooler that's all right.  Isn't it, C T?"
 
     C T was in the other corner, struggling at one end of a
mattress.  "What's that?"
 
     "This is going to be a the same room it always was,
right, but with a little more elbow room, right?"
 
     "Right."  With an immense effort C T didn't know he
could exert, he placed his future mattress over his new
living area.
 
     "Good of you to help like this, son," Tim's father said.