By Bob Woods
Bruce and I have known each other since we were in Ms. Duff’s 5th grade class. We were 10 years old. We were in Ms. Adams’ 6th grade class and Ms. Self’s 7th. We progressed through 8th grade and high school together. We rode the same school bus and were in the Scouts together. Both of us came from large families and our fathers were coal miners.
For all our similarities and common experiences, we had our differences. I was the oldest of 9 children and he was number 6 of 7. He was thoughtful and introverted and kept his powder dry until he chose to participate. I was outgoing, extremely extroverted and too often what came to my mind came to my lips. Bruce was built to be an engineer. I would have to adapt and learn how to inject personality into the equation.
In the first year at Virginia Tech we faced many of the same problems and the school assigned your freshman roommate. Both of us ended up with roommates from Richmond, VA who thought we were from some unknown high school in Appalachia, and they could not believe we could read and write. Little did those roommates understand that at the end of first year we were still studying engineering, and they had moved on to other things.
We became roommates in our sophomore year. Bruce loved to shop by catalog, obviously a man ahead of his time. He was made for Amazon. He liked to get packages, and I was jealous of him having them at the campus post offices. Oddly his favorite place to shop was out of Field and Stream magazine. He liked the idea of the outdoorsman, but he didn’t like living in a tent.
His experience with ordering electric socks comes to mind. Blacksburg winters were brutal in our days. We got over 30 inches of snow in one week and the school closed for only one day since the late 19th century. Bruce decided this was a way to beat the crossing of the drill field in the snow and wind. Trouble came when he was sitting in Physics class, and he smelled some-thing burning. It was he. End of story on electric socks.
In retrospect it was truly a different time and place. We were 150 miles from home. Most of our time in school we didn’t have a car. We hitchhiked everywhere. We could often get rides home with other students. Tech had a ridesharing board where you could connect. The driver was allowed to charge a penny a mile for passengers. That seems crazy now. Since our homes were only a mile apart, we dropped off and picked up things for each other and relayed any news of the other one to their families. We were not rich, but we were resourceful.
We lived in on campus dormitories through our junior year. We poked fun at each other’s engineering specialty. Bruce referred to me being an industrial engineer, an IE, as an imaginary engineer. I referred to his being a civil engineer as being a dirt engineer. CE’s like to move dirt around. They call it soils but I knew it was really dirt. Bruce was a dyed in the wool CE. His oldest brother, Max, was a graduate CE and worked in Washington, DC for the Federal High-way Administration.
For our senior year, we moved off campus in Blacksburg. For the first time Bruce became distracted. He was having relationship troubles with his girlfriend and the commute to class was more complicated than living on campus. As a result, he ended up on academic suspension. He left school temporarily and got a job at Radford Army Arsenal. Within 60 days he was drafted into the Army. Within the next 60 days he was sent to Vietnam. Meantime, I graduated and went to work for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command in Norfolk.
We corresponded regularly by mail. He was serving as a payroll clerk in Da Nang. Thirteen months later, he returned to school.
Bruce returned from Vietnam a changed man. The distractions were gone. He was now a dean’s list student and got both his undergraduate and master’s degrees. He was the engineer he was always meant to be. The bulk of his career. he rose through the ranks of a commercial construction firm in Columbia SC. He eventually retired as a senior vice president and now lives there splitting his time at a second home in Charleston SC.
Through the years we have kept up with each other through Virginia Tech football games, reunions and unfortunately, funerals. Bruce’s van with multiple TVs, Direct TV satellite service and a generator is legendary. It always draws a crowd of mostly guys to watch game of the week, past Tech games and whatever pleases the crowd. He never has to buy a drink. His nerdy ways and engineering approach are always on display. We have known each other now for 68 years. Three years as college roommates. Friends for life.
Listen to the audio version of “Ever the Engineer – My College Roommate.”
Reprinted with permission of “Our Neighborhoods,” Fall 2025 edition.