NICK LEITCH

                                               December 31, 1996
                                                 Mame Warren,
                                                   interviewer

Warren: This is Mame Warren. Today is December 31, 1996, and I'm celebrating
New Year's Eve with Nick Leitch in Roanoke, Virginia.

         So you were just telling me you arrived in Lexington from Covington.
Leitch: Yes. I was born and raised in Covington, Virginia, about a forty-five minute
drive west of Lexington on 64.
Warren: So did you know Lexington before you came to school?
Leitch: Yeah. My mother loved the town. My father's uncle, Tommy Kingloving
[phonetic], was an alumnus. He graduated from W&L in the late fifties, I think, and
taught school for a while in Vesuvius, and then was diagnosed with tuberculosis,
and he relocated to Arizona, but died fairly young. Anyway, there was a family
connection to the school. I liked it. I had been an admirer of Robert E. Lee for ever
since I was a kid. I was a member of the Children of the Confederacy, which was a
historical group that struggled to teach the truths of history, as it says. They say in
the children's creed, let's see, one of which was that "The War Between the States
was not a rebellion, nor was its underlying cause to sustain slavery." That was in
the creed that you had to read before every meeting.

         I've sort of quibbled with some of the definitions now, but one of the state
conventions for the Children of the Confederacy when I was the state chaplain took
place on the campus at Washington and Lee, and that was my first experience on the

                                                                                                                   1
campus. That probably happened in 1976 or '77, something like that, and we got a
tour of the Colonnade and the chapel, which I thought was fabulous.

         Valentine's recumbent statue was there, but, more importantly, Miss Emily
Pearse was there, and she was phenomenal. She sat down, she talked about the Lee
family and she knew a lot of sort of interesting anecdotal history. In fact, she used to
joke, and she said one time she was doing her spiel, and a kid asked her if she knew
General Lee. She certainly talked the talk. She played the piano, too. It was
incredible. She sat down at the piano after she finished her talk and played the
Swing. It sounded like she had sprouted two additional hands. It was one of the
most amazing things I've heard. That really started my serious interest, I guess.
Warren: Did you know it was the Swing?
Leitch: She said what it was, it was the school's fight song, and she said it had been
copied a lot of times, and a lot of people used it. She talked about when it was
originally composed. I'd heard it before, but I'd never really known that it was the
Swing.
Warren: Same here. When I started this job and Frank Parsons started talking
about the Swing, I said, "What is this? What are you talking about, the Swing?" He
said, "When you hear it, you'll know." I said, "I've never heard this. I don't know
what you're talking about." When I heard it, I went, "That's the W&L Swing." And
now I hear it everywhere all the time.
Leitch: Yeah, it's pervasive. W&L was the only school-I applied early decision,
and was accepted, so I can say that I never applied to any university other than
Washington and Lee University. Same thing for law school, too.
Warren: Can you remember your first impressions when you first saw the campus?
Leitch: As a kid or as a-
Warren: Whenever.

                                                                                                                                2
Leitch: Yeah. The first time I saw it, I guess, I was a sophomore. No, that's not true.
I had seen the campus from just driving by and just thought it looked like this
magical place. I know it sounds hokey, but it really looked-I don't know, it looked
other-worldly. Once you've seen Covington, perhaps everything looks palatial and
other-worldly. But this place really did.

         The first time I was on the campus was, I guess, a sophomore in high school.
I remember the bricks. I remember the bricks that have the impressed patterns in
them. That stood out, I don't know why, because I was sure no aficionado of
architectural style or anything like that. But I remember thinking the structure
looked so old. That's probably what it was. And all these guys walking around
learning stuff. That's how it hit me really, it just seemed-I guess it really had an
effect. And the Colonnade. The group of us were sort of ushered up and down the
Colonnade a couple of times and then down the long walkway to the chapel. It's the
age of it, I guess, was one of the things that really struck me.
Warren: You're the first person to mention the bricks, and I love those bricks.
Leitch: Oh, really? They're so irregular and they're so-Professor Stevenson, who
was in the German department, used to live in the barn behind Col Alto. You know
where Col Alto, the big residence on Nelson Street that the university had, but
couldn't use, so let go? He used to live in the barn for years and years, and he had
gotten his hands on a whole stockpile of bricks, and had buried them out at the barn,
and he dug them up. When he had to move, he dug them up and gave them away.
I sort of kick myself now that I didn't just grab a couple of them, but I didn't. The
bricks were one of the first things I noticed. They really were.
Warren: So you arrived as a student. What was your experience then?
Leitch: I was pretty, I don't know, daunted, I guess, is the right word.
Warren: This is 1980?

                                                                                                                         3
Leitch: Yes. The part of it, I guess, was just the natural being away from home and
that kind of junk. Dad and I unloaded my stuff. I lived in the Davis dorm up on
the third floor. I remember when we were unloading stuff, there was this other tall
guy who walked behind me and said, "Hi, Nick," and I said, "Hey," and kept on
walking. I saw him a couple more times and thought he sort of looked familiar, but
I had no idea who he was. Dad had heard him say, "Hey, Nick," too. Dad said,
"Well, maybe there's a face book or something like that and he knows your face
from the face book." "Gee, I don't know." It turned out when I started talking to the
guy, his name is David Miller. He's from Selma, Virginia, which is ten miles away
from Covington, and he dated a girl that I knew from back home, and I just didn't
recognize him. I'd met him maybe once before and didn't recognize him. He
turned out to become one of my best friends. It was really kind of weird, sort of
paranoid, thinking, "Oh, gosh, there's a face book and people already know who I
am."

         I had a friend, Jeff Wells, during orientation. He was going for a walk down
by the Doremus Gym, and there was a dollar bill just lying on the path that he was
walking on, and he saw it and he stopped. He thought about picking it up and then
he thought, "Well, no. Maybe this is an Honor Code test or something and I'm
being watched." [Laughter] So he left it on the ground and went on walking.

         You did feel like, I guess, during orientation in the first few weeks of class, I
did kind of feel like sort of a fish out of water trying to fit into the new
environment, but not really sure of the right things or wrong things to do. It was
kind of weird. Which is why it was a stupid time to have fraternity Rush. I think it
was really-because you got rushed like crazy during orientation and during the
first few months of school. I think they took that off now and they don't do it until
the winter term.
Warren: This is the first year.

                                                                                                                                  4
Leitch: It makes a lot of sense to me, frankly. I don't know if it will make the
fraternity census go down. That's probably what the houses were afraid of, but, I
mean, it's such an adjustment, I think, to begin with, to be on your own, nobody's
going to wake you up and get you to class, nobody's going to make you prepare your
assignments. Not that may parents made me do everything, far from it, but it was a
real-such an environmental change, and I think it makes sense to put things off a
little bit as far as the frats were concerned.
Warren: You talked about four things I want to pursue here. First let's talk about,
was there still Freshman Camp when you arrived? You were mentioning
orientation.
Leitch: There was a week, I don't recall the phrase "Freshman Camp" being used,
but I remember getting there like on a Sunday, and then Monday there was, I think,
a dinner in the dining hall Sunday night, then there was, I remember, meetings in
the chapel classwide. There were various tests you had to take-placement tests. I
had taken three years of French in high school, was not interested. I wanted to take
a language, but I was not interested in taking French. That sort of felt "been there,
done that." But they went ahead and made me take the French placement test,
which I thought was kind of dumb, but I did it and I placed in the intermediate
French, which was nice, I guess, but it was kind of like, "Well, thank you very
much, but I want to take Russian," and so I signed up for Russian instead.

         But there was a whole week of tests, and you met with your advisor, and each
student was assigned a faculty advisor to kind of help shepherd him, so to speak,
through the initial phases of signing up for classes and thinking about the various
distribution requirements that applied. You had to have X numbers of credits from
different groups, like math and science, which was the bane of my existence, and
then language, which was the joy, that kind of stuff. There was a whole week where
you had all of that stuff, and fraternity, representatives from the Interfraternity

                                                                                                                       5
Council spoke to the class and we met with brothers from various houses. That all
happened during that first week, as I recall. I don't know if that's camp or not.
Warren: No. There was something in the earlier years, and I'm not sure when it
stopped, but they used to literally take them off to Natural Bridge. Before that, it was
somewhere else. They truly were in camp, like a summer camp for a week.
Leitch: Oh, before my time.
Warren: All that happened somewhere else, but I think that ended some years
before you got there.
Leitch: They took us out to Liberty Hall and looked at the ruins as part of the early
sort of historical, 1749, that was the year that was, and sort of talked you through it
from there. But, no, we didn't have a camp experience.
Warren: So obviously one of the things that was brought up very early on was the
Honor System. If this guy saw the dollar bill and thought he was being tested-
Leitch: Oh, yes. Day one.
Warren: Tell me about how you learned about that and what it meant to you.
Leitch: Well, to be real honest, you knew about it when you applied. I mean, the
Honor Code was one of the things, and I hope still is, one of the things that the
university pushed in terms of letting you know about Washington and Lee. I mean,
that always came up. That came up during interviews, when I had just applied and
went to school, went to campus for interviews, and I remember talking with Dean
Hartog, and I got to sit in on some classes, sat in on an English class, a philosophy
class. But the Honor Code came up even that early as being an integral part of the
university and of life on the university. If memory serves, we got a packet or
packets of materials when we arrived, and one of the things was the White Book. It
was treated as a big deal, but in a very appropriate way, I thought.

         I never locked my dorm door. I had a carrel stacked full of stuff that was
important to me, and I never gave it a second thought the whole time I was there,

                                                                                                                           6
because it was not something you had to worry about. That's why when there were
honor violations or public trials, it was just such a huge deal, because that kind of
thing just never happened. That was a real important part of orientation, especially
they talked about that, if memory serves, the first time we all got together as a class.
That was what we got together to talk about. So it was important. I hope that hasn't
changed.
Warren: No. No. In fact, I went to the session this year with the freshmen. I
pretended I was a freshman this year.
Leitch: Oh, good.
Warren: It was impressive. By the end of that evening, if they didn't understand
how serious it was, they didn't belong there.
Leitch: Right.
Warren: They did seem to take it pretty seriously. So the other thing that you
mentioned was Rush.
Leitch: Yes.
Warren: Tell me about Rush.
Leitch: You'll probably need to talk to somebody else to get an accurate picture. It
was not my thing.
Warren: That's why I'm asking you. I'm interested in the fact that it wasn't your
thing.
Leitch: Yes. Just the whole fraternity scene just really was not my thing, which is
not to say that I didn't like to have a good time and party and drink beer, etc., or
other things. The first party I remember going to was at SPE, well, Sig Ep, they call it,
the Sigma Phi Epsilon House, and I remember walking in the door, and there's this
bathtub sitting in the front hall, with fruit floating in it. That was my first
experience with grain punch. Just fruit floating in it and plastic cups stacked up the
side. You just kind of walked in, knocked yourself out, literally. I don't know how

                                                                                                                         7
to-I'm not knocking the system at all. I don't think that was a particularly good
time for the fraternities at W&L.
Warren: Talk to me about that.
Leitch: Just a whole lot of massive consumption of alcohol, just behavior-I don't
know what you'd call it-vandalism, breaking things just really for the sake of
breaking them. Loud, aggressive, just sort of the epitome of all the things that you
really don't like to see in people, is what I saw when I went from house to house
with all the other little doe-eyed freshmen, I guess. Just really wasn't my thing. You
had the mandatory attendance at parties. If you were a brother, you had to show up
at parties, and if you didn't show, you were fined. I just didn't need that. I wasn't
really interested in that.
Warren: How did it break down in your class? How many people did sign on and
how many people stayed independent? I'm not looking for exact numbers, I'm
looking for a feeling.
Leitch: Well, my recollection is that it was about sixty-forty. As I say, I'm not sure
that was the heyday really of the fraternity system. Maybe the proportion is higher
now. I don't know. That was the one thing about W&L that I thought was-and it
was perhaps symptomatic of the all-male nature of the institution, but I mean,
you've got guys walking around dirty, carrying spit cups and dipping Skoal, using
poor language. I think there's a place for those Saxon words and, frankly, I use them
myself with frightening regularity but, I mean, that was all there was. Some days it
seemed like you were kind of-I sound like such an effete snob by saying all this
stuff, but behavior was really coarse and pretty rough.

         I like to think coeducation has changed that, at least to some degree. I think
when you're surrounded by potential love objects, you're not going to behave quite
like that. That's phrasing it badly, but I think the behavior, or my thinking was that
the behavior would change some if there were women present. I was part of the

                                                                                                                 8
vocal minority that was kind of pro-coeducation during those years. I was real
happy when that decision was made.
Warren: Well, let's not quite skip to that yet, because I do certainly want to talk
about that. Were you attracted initially to the fact that the school was all male?
Leitch: No, that was one of the concerns my mother had about me going to W&L,
was that there weren't women there. I had grown up-I had several close friends I
had were female, and I guess, Dad to some extent said, "Well, gee, you're going to
have to travel. You're going to have to drive to Hollins to find a girlfriend." "Well,
that's okay." I didn't really see it as being-it was neither a plus nor a minus. It just
was sort of the way things were at W&L, and you kind of accepted that.

         Once there, though, and I've said this to Cathy before, too, if W&L had
remained single sex, and we had a son, I wouldn't have discouraged him from
going, but I'm not sure I would have actively encouraged my son to go to W&L, just
because I'm not sure-I mean, I feel like the education I got was excellent. I think
my world view was sufficiently set by the time that I arrived there, that the single-
sex environment wasn't going to alter it or skew it that much, but I'm not sure, at
least during that time I was there, that it was a really healthy-I'm not sure it was
a-some of the people who had some of their attitudes formed at W&L, I'm not
sure during that time it was a great place for those attitudes to be formed, and
basically just in dealing with women. I used to wonder, "Gosh, what's going to
happen when some of these guys leave college and they have careers somewhere,
and they've got to report to a woman? What are they going to do? How are they
going to deal with women in authority?" I would not have encouraged my son to
go, but if we have children, I think I'll definitely probably-well, not definitely
probably, I will definitely push W&L as a coed institution.
Warren: Do you think other people who went there were attracted because it was
single sex? At that point it was sort of a bastion; it was one of the last places. Was

                                                                                                                          9
that talked about? Was there an awareness that you were among the last? And was
coeducation an undercurrent while you were there?
Leitch: It was talked about that W&L was one of the last remaining male single-sex
institutions in the country, talked about fairly proudly. I really don't recall much
talk during my early years there. I would imagine it was going on. I was just
oblivious. I don't remember much talk.

         I remember when President [John] Wilson came, I guess, in the fall of '83, I
guess, is when he arrived. It started being talked about more. I think that probably
was one of his campaign planks, I guess, when he was being considered for the
position. I think he at least was mentioning the notion that they needed to consider
it, SAT scores and all that stuff, I guess. I don't know. I don't remember hearing
much about it in the earlier years.
Warren: So once he arrived, what was the reaction as it started being talked about?
Leitch: For the most part, negative. Among the student body, it was change. We
were going to mess up the boys' club. The frats were really against it. That was one
of the big selling points, I think, of the fraternity system, was, we're an all-male
school. The social focal points that would attract women are the fraternity houses
and the parties that get thrown there, so if you want to meet women, if you want to
be social, you really need to belong to a fraternity, and coeducation really jeopardized
that whole system. I don't think it represented the death knell, but I think it really
changed the way the fraternity system worked at Washington and Lee. So the frats
were, well, obviously, all against it.

         I don't know. A lot of my friends, a few of my friends, I guess, were pro like I
was, but you didn't talk about it too much, because you just would cause an
argument. I know the identity of one of the guys who climbed to the top of
Washington Hall and put a dress on the statue of George Washington on top, and
there was a banner, "No Marthas." I know one of the guys who did that. That sort

                                                                                                                 10
of represented the majority view, I think. "Don't change it. It will irrevocably
damage what Washington and Lee is." I think that was the notion. I disagreed
pretty violently with that notion, but that's what most people thought.
Warren: Did the T-shirts start up while you were there?
Leitch: Yeah, I believe so. I don't recall if they sold them in the co-op or not. I really
don't remember. I can't remember if they sold them on campus, if it was sanctioned
by the-back then, the bookstore and the co-op were two distinct entities. I worked
in the bookstore all four years, work/study. Sold Frances Lewis some bargain books,
too. That was my crowning achievement. She had these books that she wanted to
buy, and I didn't know who she was. I said, "Oh, no, the last edition of this-" It
was an art book or something. "You know, the last edition of this is not real
different and it's over in the remainder section. You can get it for about 25 percent."
So she said, "Oh, great." So she put it back, went over to the remainder section, got
that, and then wrote me a check. "Thank you very much." As I'm ringing it up and
putting the check in, I saw Sidney Lewis, Frances Lewis, and I went, "Oh, Jesus
Christ!" I just sold the Lewises bargain books." I told the bookstore manager, Betty
Munger, that and she just died laughing.

         I can't remember if they sold the "No Marthas," and the "Anti-coed" T-shirts
on campus on not but, yeah, they started making them around-
Warren: I somehow suspect Betty wouldn't have let that happen if she had
anything to do with it, but, of course, she was only in the book section, wasn't she?
Leitch: Right. She was pro-coeducation big time. So you're right, she probably
would-
Warren: She was pro-coeducation back in the forties.
Leitch: Well, you're not kidding. She told me the greatest story. She went to
Bennington, and she told me this story, which has nothing to do with W&L except
Betty Munger was there. One summer she and another girl from Bennington

                                                                                                                            11
worked for this family out on Long Island. No, that's not right. Well, the
geography doesn't make much difference. But in New England, worked for this
fairly wealthy New England family as sort of governesses, and there were a number
of children. She remembers one son being really attractive and she kind of had a
crush on, and blah, blah, blah, and playing tennis with him. One of her jobs was to
wake up every night at two and wake up little Teddy and take him to bed, or take
him to the bathroom so he wouldn't wet the bed. And it's the Kennedy family. She
took little Teddy to the potty in the wee hours. She had a bunch of neat stories.
Warren: I've never heard about it, and I know Betty very well.
Leitch: Yes. I remember that story. I kind of doubt you could have bought those T-
shirts in the bookstore, but they were there. They were there during probably my
last year on the undergrad side in '83-'84.
Warren: So did you have any T-shirts to the contrary, or did you try to stay pretty
under cover with your opinions?
Leitch: I didn't try to stay under cover. I mean, I was happy to talk about what I
thought, but I didn't have any T-shirts to the contrary, and I guess I wasn't a teeshirt
guy.
Warren: Was there an open discussion going on about coeducation? Was it an
ongoing thing? Was it in the dining hall? Where did the subject come up, and how
did it get talked about?
Leitch: As I recall, there were debates periodically on campus, you know, pros and
cons.
Warren: Real debates?
Leitch: Yeah. I seem to remember. I never went to any. I seem to remember sort of
a couple of formalized discussions, but I don't remember anything else about them
other than that they occurred. I didn't participate or attend. I don't think anybody
seriously thought it was going to happen. I mean, it was talked about and, privately,

                                                                                                                  12
little conversations occasionally might turn to the subject, but I don't think anybody
really seriously thought, at least nobody I knew, seriously thought things were going
to change. So it really was not-it was an issue and you'd talk about it, and it would
be like a hot point for a second or two, and then the other twenty-three hours and
fifty-nine minutes out of the day, it was not really an issue. It might have been in
the background. It wasn't a big thing.

         From my perspective, I don't know, the upcoming Glee Club concert, or the
English paper I was writing for Dr. [Sidney] Coulling was a lot more important, to be
honest, than the future direction of the university. I don't think anybody really saw
it as being something that was going to happen, certainly not as quickly as it did.
Warren: Was there any sense when John Wilson arrived that a real sea change was
happening?
Leitch: "Dacron John"? Yes.
Warren: Tell me what you mean by that.
Leitch: A lot of people made fun of his clothes. That's the Dacron reference. A guy
from Virginia Tech, the farm school down the road, he's coming to take the reigns
at Washington and Lee. Oh, my God, what happened here? I think the view was
that he was no real replacement for Bob Huntley, at least among the student body. I
don't know what the faculty thought. I really don't.

         The faculty members that I was close to on a personal basis were Dr. Spice and
Professor Stevenson. Those were the two faculty members that I felt like I knew
well. I think Spice was pretty happy, and Stevenson was not. He was not in favor of
coeducation. So he and I didn't talk about that all that much.

         Yes, there was a feeling that big change was coming. I don't think anybody
thought big change would have been something as fundamental as the
chromosomal and makeup of the student body, but it was. And quickly, too. I
mean, the announcement was made in the summer of 1985, at the C-School. I came

                                                                                                                 13
over. I was working that summer at the law school. There was going to be the big
announcement, so I came over for the news conference and was there when-
Warren: You were there? You are the first person I've talked to who wasn't a
participant.
Leitch: Yes. I was there.
Warren: Tell me that scene. Take me to that scene.
Leitch: It was in one of the big classrooms there in the C-School. There was a semi-
circular-shaped kind of classrooms. Media, TV cameras. WDBJ, Channel 7, your
hometown station, it was there. Reporters. I don't remember the substance at all,
but I just remember, "Wow, it's really going to happen." I think the buzz was that
that's what the decision was going to be. I don't think it was much of a surprise, but
just being there to hear the proclamation read, so to speak, was kind of-
Warren: What was the feeling in the room?
Leitch: Well, there was more than one. A lot of people were happy; a lot of people
were really profoundly unhappy. Professor Stevenson was despondent for weeks.
Futch was furious. There was just confidence that giving from alums was just going
to drop off to nothing because we were changing-I guess in all caps, we were
changing Washington and Lee. They probably did have a dip, I think, in giving.

         I think some people really-it's funny. My mom was not in favor of
coeducation, which I always thought was kind of interesting. But she said there
were so few single-sex schools left for men, and we ought to hang onto a few of
them. I was always like, if all an institution has to distinguish itself from other
institutions of higher learning is its single-sex student body, it's not much good. If
that's the big thing that recommends that college, you probably would be better
served going somewhere else.

         Anyway, there were lots of moods in the room. It feels so cheesy and so corny
to say you were there when, like Walter Cronkite, you were there when history was

                                                                                                                 14
being made. But you really did kind of feel like you were-the big decision had
already been made, but you were there for the formal announcement as it were,
what that decision was. It felt kind of weird. I was happy. I was already over in the
other environment at that point, and it was pretty big news over there, too. There
was some hope that the "underweenies" might become a little more civilized when
there were women there. It's so weird how distinct the two-you really cross more
than a ravine when you go over from the undergrad side to the law side. There
really are two completely distinct worlds.
Warren: I certainly understand your desire to be there when it happened, because
when the Supreme Court decision came down a few months ago, I was over at VMI
in five minutes.
Leitch: Where you?
Warren: I ran. I said, "I want to be there. I want to feel it."
Leitch: Again, not much surprise there from that proclamation.
Warren: No, but-boy.
Leitch: Same thing.
Warren: There was a lot of dread.
Leitch: Oh, yes.
Warren: There were no smiles except mine, but I tried to be gracious. I tried to be a
good neighbor.
Leitch: The logistics for them is going to be so much tougher, I think, than they
were for W&L. I mean, it was fairly easy to convert floors of dorms, or even whole
dorms into women's dorms. At VMI you really do have to change everything.
Warren: Just to try to continue the coeducation thing, you did graduate at the
undergraduate level, but you stayed in the vicinity, because you were at the law
school. So you saw those physical changes start happening to the campus. What did
you see? What did they have to do?

                                                                                                                 15
Leitch: I'm trying to remember, because, truly, I was over for the odd concert or two
on the undergrad side, and occasionally I'd come over to the co-op and grab lunch,
but I really wasn't on the undergrad campus that much. I know there was
construction, I know there was work on dorms.
Warren: So you weren't reading the Phi or anything.
Leitch: No, I really didn't. I've often wondered if there was something
fundamentally wrong with me that I sort of made, I won't call it a break, but then
my relationship with Stevenson suffered. I haven't really piled up that many
regrets in my life, but that was one of them that I kind of cut-well, not cut, really
frayed some ties to the undergrad side. I'm not sure why I did it other than you
were focusing so much on law.
Warren: That's consistent. You're not the only person who did that.
Leitch: Well, my new girlfriend, too, Cathy, she required some attention, too. That
was pretty much all I had time for. So I don't really remember that many structural,
fundamental changes going on. I just know that it was in the works. You would
see, even before the coeducation decision made, there were Hollins girls and girls
from other-girls, and I don't mean that disparagingly at all, but they can call us
boys, that's fine, I don't mind. But there were women from Hollins, or Sweet Briar,
or "Randy-Mac" who would be exchange students, or would be taking classes with
us periodically, so it wasn't unheard of to see women in class, but the notion that
there were going to be a lot more of them was really different.

         I don't really remember any structural changes other than I'd just have this
vague impression of construction going on somewhere.
Warren: Well, let's get back to the fact that you didn't join a fraternity. What is
one's social life if one does not belong to a fraternity?
Leitch: Pretty good, really. There are times when I felt like I was cheating, because
although I didn't belong to a house, a lot of my friends sort of scattered to the four

                                                                                                                  16
winds as far as houses were concerned, so I'd be over at SPE one weekend, and at Phi
Psi another, hanging out with the Kappa Sigs. My fraternity was the Glee Club.
That was the fraternal organization that I belonged to. Music has always been such
an important part of my life, and that was just amplified exponentially when I got to
W&L. The Glee Club was really the group that I socialized with.
Warren: Talk to me about that.
Leitch: What do you want to know?
Warren: I want to know all about being in the Glee Club.
Leitch: It was great. I had always sung all my life. I'd sung in choirs before, but I'd
never really sung four-part male voices. It's such a great sound. It's such a neat
sound, and that whole area of music was just terra nova for me, and I loved it. I just
thought it was so great. So many different things were opened up to me as a result
of being in the Glee Club-composers, styles. It was fun. We had a great time. Dr.
Spice was just a terrific, terrific conductor.

         Concerts were a lot of fun, parties after concerts were always fun. We'd work
up things in conjunction with the Hollins women or the Sweet Briar women and
the Randolph-Macon women, and perform mixed chorus stuff with them, either at
W&L or at their school, and then have great parties afterwards. Glee Club tours
were always fun, were always different.

         And the friendships that I made, all the friends that I keep track of from
college, with very exceptions, are Glee Club friendships. Todd Jones just died, and
we just had a memorial service for him. Gosh, December 7, I guess it was. We had
people come in from California, from Alabama, from North Carolina, from Indiana.
There were people from everywhere who came back to W&L for that service. That's
not only a testament to Todd, but I think it is indicative of the kind of friendships
that were formed in the Glee Club. You got to know everybody really well and we

                                                                                                                   17
were a real cohesive unit. Not all of them were limp-wristed effete singers. Most of
them were just like normal guys who liked to sing. It was fun.

         The first year we went on tour, gosh, we went up the East Coast. We went up
Baltimore, Manhattan, Long Island, and just sang for various alumni chapters. We
sang in the National Cathedral with Goucher College. I got to play the organ at the
National Cathedral. We were doing Benjamin Brittan's "Rejoice in the Lamb," and
I was the organist. That was something. They have a 128-foot pedal at the National
Cathedral. You don't really hear it, you just kind of feel it. There's kind of this odd
rumbling shaking when you use that [unclear]. And I got to play at St. Patrick's, too,
in New York, which was fun.

         Performing for alumni was great because, well, the bars were always well
stocked, and it was kind of fun to chat up somebody from the class of '55 or '60 and
talk about W&L and W&L experience. We used to do stuff for Mr. Whitehead, too.
Have you met Jim Whitehead?
Warren: Yes.
[Begin Tape 1, Side 2]
Leitch: -did back then at the corner of Sellers and-
Warren: Main Street?
Leitch: Main Street, yes. It's certainly kind of baroque rococo now. But we had this
huge party going on for these Texans, and he had staff in the kitchen, and Professor
Stevenson, as a matter of fact, was in the kitchen. He and Whitehead were big buds.
In fact, that was the first time I had met Stevenson was at that party. Southern
Comfort served as the waiters, and we would walk around with trays of champagne
and canapes and stuff like that, serving, and then periodically we'd put our trays
down, and we'd form up beside the piano, and we'd sing a few songs. Everybody'd
laugh and sing and clap, and then we'd go back to work, and we'd be waiters again
for a while.

                                                                                                                 18
Warren: Oh, how charming. Oh, my God.
Leitch: It was fun. Apparently it worked.
Warren: The checks must have been flowing.
Leitch: Well, Whitehead seemed pretty happy. And we did that-Mrs. Gottwald
and her family. He was schmoozing her in the Reeves Center, actually had a dinner
for her in the Reeves Center. We were making fairly inappropriate jokes about we
even had to go to the Reeves Center and sing for Mrs. "Gotrocks," because
Whitehead was-I don't know, wanted to be nice to her. So we went over and we
sang, and it sort of culminated with this, she seated in a chair, and we're kind of
surrounding her in a semi-circle. I've seen a photograph at school of that
somewhere. I don't remember when, fairly recently. You ought to talk to Spice.
But we sang, "Let me call you sweetheart," to Mrs. Gottwald. Apparently, that was
successful, too.
Warren: So you were also in Southern Comfort.
Leitch: Yes, I sure was.
Warren: I love Southern Comfort. I just think they are great. Tell me about that.
Leitch: That was great. That was the group that really got to travel and go to alumni
functions. We pretty much did it ourselves. I mean, Spice was sort of the
benevolent overseer. He'd sit in on some rehearsals and, I think, just made sure
that things didn't get too inappropriate. But we basically did what we wanted.
Warren: So it's student-directed pretty much?
Leitch: Oh, yes, it was.
Warren: That's funny, it seems to be.
Leitch: Yes. Todd Jones was sort of the, I don't know, the brains behind the
organization-he was a year behind me-by just oozing with show, theatrical talent.
He selected a lot of the repertoire. We did a lot of choreography. None of us-Todd
said it once, and it's true-he said, "I don't have a formal dancing background, and

                                                                                                                 19
I'm happy to say that it shows in our performances." It's really true. We did
"Officer Krupke" from "West Side Story," and we just used our bodies for
choreography, made desks and psychiatrist couches and lamps.

         The great thing for Comfort was going to the Greenbriar every Christmas, and
they still do it, too. I think we really tested them a few times we were there. But
what a gig. In exchange for singing one number at tea, at the end of tea, and for
singing for an hour and a half in the old White Club, we got to stay, and we got
breakfast and dinner. Just the modified American plan was ours just for singing
and bringing people in. What a gig. I mean, it still costs a fortune just in terms of
bar bills, but it was a lot of fun.

         We pushed them. We were fairly loud, there were complaints from time to
time with the parties that were going on in our rooms. We ran out of ice once, so
we stole the "G" ice sculpture that was out in front of the hotel, and put it in the
bathtub and chipped off pieces of that for our drinks. We were ice skating pretty
drunk, scaring the kids. But a lot of people came back just because we were there.

         One summer we went out to Indiana. Chris Schram lived out there. I drove
out with Anne Coulling, who was Dr. Coulling's daughter, who was dating Chris at
the time. We drove out, Todd came down, and we all went to Kings Island for a
day. There's this sort of haufbrau [phonetic] house, and the show going on, and we
had been drinking some beer, and we started heckling, and by the time we left that
day, we were on the little shuttle bus to the parking lot, we were in rare form.
Smurfs were really big back then at that time, and Todd told one kid on the bus that
Papa Smurf blew up. The kid was like, "Papa Smurf blew up!" The kid's father
looked at Todd and grinned and said, "You guys going to be back at the Greenbriar
this Christmas?" [Laughter] This guy knew who we were. It was scary. It was like,
"If you don't tell them about this episode, maybe. Sorry." We had great times, great
times in Southern Comfort.

                                                                                                                        20
Warren: So could you be in Southern Comfort just because you wanted to be? Or
did you have to-
Leitch: No, you had to audition.
Warren: So obviously not all members of the Glee Club are in Southern Comfort.
Leitch: No, when I was there, and I don't know how-my impression is things may
have changed some, but there were three and one alternate on a part. So a total of
sixteen guys. So it was a fairly small-
Warren: As this part of your rehearsals, do you have to sit and watch Fred Astair
movies to get that casual elegance? How does that happen?
Leitch: That's a little too structured. No, that just sort of-it was a Zen kind of
thing. It just sort of happened.
Warren: Those guys just crack me up. The Christmas concert, I just sit there and
wait, "Come on, come on, come on," for them to come out.
Leitch: They sang at Todd's service, which I thought was really nice. They did "Java
Jive," which was an old standard that we had done, and they sang "Mountain Dew,"
which we did for the first time, I guess, when we were there. So it was nice. It was, I
think, really appropriate to have them perform at Todd's service.
Warren: How far back does Southern Comfort go? Was it in existence when you
arrived?
Leitch: Yes.
Warren: Because looking at yearbooks, there was something called the Serazacs?
Leitch: Sazeracs.
Warren: Sazeracs?
Leitch: Yes. Mish was in the Sazeracs, and Mish graduated in '76, so Southern
Comfort, like Athena, I think, just sprang full grown from somebody's forehead
somewhere in between. It was already in existence and, my impression is, had been
in existence for more than just a year when I got there.

                                                                                                                      21
Warren: Because yearbooks are not real helpful after a point.
Leitch: No.
Warren: They're wonderful picture books, but they don't have a lot of information
in them after a while.
Leitch: Yes, I know. You can't trace much of a history from the Calyx, I don't think.
Warren: Up to a point you can. Up to a point they're very helpful, for older guys, I
just run to the Calyx, but you guys, other than getting a feel for the times, it's kind of
worthless. But I'm sure it's fun, still. How about Fancy Dress?
Leitch: How about Fancy Dress?
Warren: How about Fancy Dress?
Leitch: Well, you had to go. I mean, you had to go. Although the best time I ever
had at Fancy Dress was when my girlfriend and I had broken up just before it, and
my friend Eric Hindson [phonetic] and his date sort of fell through, so Eric and I
spent that Fancy Dress in my apartment. He was playing the guitar and we were just
kind of sitting around doing nothing. I know that's bad, but ...

         Fancy Dress was fun. Usually Lester Lannon and his orchestra was there.
You didn't want your date to wear anything long, though, because you'd be walking
around in beer usually about that deep once the evening wore on. But it was fun.

         Some of the dinners-we had a dinner, a bunch of us got together and cooked
a really good meal one night, I guess that was '83, before FD. A big part of it was the
whole weekend long. It was a huge deal for some people, and not as much of a deal
for others. I probably fell in the latter category, I guess. I don't know that my time
there was really the glory years of Fancy Dress. My impression is those were
probably earlier.
Warren: Well, I think it kind of comes and goes, but we're hoping in 1999 to go back
to full costume.
Leitch: Oh, that'd be great. And what an appropriate year to do that.

                                                                                                        22
Warren: Wouldn't that be cool?
Leitch: I might have to come back for that.
Warren: Oh, yes. We won't be able to move. I think everybody's going. I'm
inviting everybody, anyway. So were there any particular Fancy Dresses that you did
attend that stand out?
Leitch: The Diamond Jubilee. There was a seventy-fifth-I have posters from all of
them. They kind of blend together, which is perhaps more indicative of substance
abuse, I guess, than anything else. None stands out to me, anyway, as being a
quintessentially great thing. They all kind of blur for me. Cathy hated them. I took
her to one. Didn't like it, too loud, too much beer on the floor, can't move. So the
last one I went to was in '86.
Warren: You know, they don't serve beer at Fancy Dress anymore.
Leitch: No, I didn't know.
Warren: It's completely just sodas is all that's served at Fancy Dress.
Leitch: That's probably better.
Warren: Well, it was very civilized last year.
Leitch: Well, that's good. Yes, I guess with the age, it just gets so hard to try to
monitor your twenty-one-year-old.
Warren: Were you there in the time when the drinking age was eighteen?
Leitch: Oh, yes. You could buy beer when you're eighteen. That's why I'm as large
as I am now. I got to W&L and I weighed about 180 pounds. Those days are gone.
Warren: I have a friend who just graduated from W&L, and when he left, he was a
little on the heavy side. Well, I went and saw him when I was in Atlanta a couple
of months ago. He's like a whole different person.
Warren: Back to normal?
Leitch: Yes.

                                                                                                                             23
Warren: But not to me. To me, his roundness was normal. I was like, "Richard,
what happened to you?"
Leitch: Well, you know, you can buy a six-pack of Budweiser and drink that, and
then a case of "Natty Bo" for about the same that you paid for the six-pack of Bud.
Once you've had a six-pack of Bud, National Bohemian doesn't taste all that bad.
You buy a lot of beer economically, and once you were eighteen you could do it. In
high school we used to-Covington's about seventeen miles away from White
Sulphur Springs in West Virginia. You could buy liquor in West Virginia at age
eighteen. It would give new meaning to the words, "Go West, young man," because
you'd have your eighteen-year-old seniors who'd drive to West Virginia and make
your purchases for you. Has nothing to do with Washington and Lee, but it's the
background that I came from.
Warren: So you've used the term-it's your term, not mine-substance abuse.
Leitch: Yes.
Warren: Looking back from your wizened old age now, what do you think about
the amount of alcohol that's consumed by these undergraduates?
Leitch: Well, I can't point at anybody and damn them, because I'm the biggest
sinner myself. I drank a lot of beer, a lot of alcohol. I don't know that it was
institutional. We got into huge trouble. I think it was my freshman year, and the
Glee Club went to Charleston, West Virginia, to perform for the alumni, and they
had just built a new recital hall or something we were singing in, and the AO
Wiffenpoofs, which were like the be-all, end-all kind of male college ensemble, had
just been there a few weeks before and had been absolutely top drawer and fabulous.
Then we went, and for some reason, don't know why, for some reason, they threw
the cocktail party-it's funny, I say the cocktail party like it was the obligatory
cocktail party. They threw a cocktail party for us before the concert, and Spice, I

                                                                                                                         24
think, kind of saw the writing on the wall, and he said, "Okay, a two-drink limit.
Nobody drink any more than two drinks, because we've got to perform."

         I don't know that anybody drank just two drinks, and there were a number of
fairly inebriated singers, and the sound was not that good. The regular pianist could
not play one of the pieces that we were supposed to play. I had to play it. He
couldn't do it. Spice was furious. We were talking, but it's really funny, we were
talking about that after Todd's service, and we were talking about Spice and the one
time that virtually everybody could remember him as being visibly angry was that
time.

         But, yeah, there was a Jot of drinking going on. There was a lot of things
going on when I was there.
Warren: A lot of things?
Leitch: A lot of pot, cocaine. Cocaine got really big. Cocaine got big in the middle
eighties nationally, and it was coming on strong. But I mean, you're there
surrounded by a number of upper middle-class or upper-class, young white males
with a lot of disposable income. That was a breeding ground for that kind of stuff
anyway, I think. I was aware of it going on. I've smoked the occasional joint, I
suppose. I never got ambitious and did anything else other than that, but it was
certainly there and available if you wanted to.

         I hate to think, and I don't really think, that the university actively fostered
that kind of environment, but I think that kind of environment just sort of
naturally grew up there at the university. I don't think that either the
administration or the faculty or anybody was particularly permissive or lax or didn't
exhibit the proper kind of vigilance or concern, but just some things that are going
to develop in those kinds of settings, and that sure did.
Warren: Well, also it reflected what was going on in the rest of the world, too.

                                                                                                         25
Leitch: Yeah. I don't think you could expect W&L to be this little island, this
Brigadoon.
Warren: That's fine. A couple of people have described it as Brigadoon.
Leitch: In some ways it is. I think the Honor System kind of makes it a Brigadoon
of sorts, because you can really stop worrying a lot about those kinds of issues, about
cheating, about stealing, about dishonesty, and it still happens, but not to the degree
that it does in the real world. So in that sense, it kind of is, but in terms of some of
the sins of the flesh, I guess, that society as a whole was susceptible to, it's no
different than any other place, like you said.
Warren: One of the other uniquely Washington and Lee things, practically
uniquely, is Mock Convention.
Leitch: Yeah. Missed it.
Warren: You missed it?
Leitch: Missed it. Mock Convention was in 1984, and I was in Germany.
Warren: Well, you missed it. It occurs to me that it had to have been one of the
more boring Mock Conventions. It was all a foregone conclusion, I would think, in
1984.
Leitch: Pretty much. Yes. It was.
Warren: Who the sacrificial lamb was going to be.
Leitch: Oh, well. These things happen.
Warren: So you were in Germany.
Leitch: Yes. I did the spring term, spring semester abroad.
Warren: Of your senior year?
Leitch: Yes. Kind of silly.
Warren: That's extraordinary.
Leitch: Well, I don't know if it's extraordinary. I really wanted to do it. Glee Club
went on tour in Germany in 1982, in the winter of '82, and it was a profound

                                                                                                               26
experience for me. I had the best time. Really kind of became a Germanophile of
sorts at that point, and my friendship with Stevenson, too, had really, after I met
him at the Whitehead party, we got to be really good friends. In fact, my mother
kind of laughs that she got kind of jealous of Stevenson, because I used to go home
like once a month or so, and I stopped doing that. I just spent free time that I had
with him. Anyway, all of that sort of caused me to take German. I started taking
German junior year, and was good, modestly speaking. But you're good at the
things you love, I guess. So I really wanted to do the spring term in Germany, and
the only opportunity really to do that was my senior year. I decided I wanted to do
that more than just hang around and do the normal "seniorly" kinds of things, so I
went. I got back a couple of days before baccalaureate.
Warren: Oh, my gosh.
Leitch: Yeah. Twenty pounds heavier. No lie.
Warren: I believe it. I've been there.
Leitch: I've got the pictures to prove it.
Warren: I've been there. I know. It ain't "Natty Bo" over there.
Leitch: No. And I lived with a butcher, darn it. That was great. I got up at 5:30 with
his sons and went over to the shop and worked for the mornings. You'd work from
about 5:30 to 7:30, then you'd have coffee and cold cuts, or coffee and hard rolls or
something. Then noon you'd have the mid-day-they'd cook a fairly big meal, and
have a couple of beers. So begins my day, and I was off to the university for classes
in the afternoon.
Warren: After two beers. [Laughter]
Leitch: Yeah. And then frolicking in the evenings with my new German friends.
Warren: Well, Nick, you know what? We've been talking for at least an hour, and
we haven't mentioned the classroom at all.
Leitch: [Laughter] [unclear].

                                                                                                        27
Warren: Don't you think we ought to?
Leitch: Yeah. Let's pay lip service at least to what we were there for. What do you
want to know?
Warren: You've already mentioned Stevenson a lot.
Leitch: Oh, yeah.
Warren: He was a real important person.
Leitch: Yes, that really [unclear].
Warren: How was he in the classroom?
Leitch: He was great. My favorite Stevenson classroom story. He was explaining
German, different prepositions will take different cases, accusative, dative,
instrumental, that kind of stuff. He was explaining the German preposition "an,"
and it means if you would say that the picture hangs on the wall, you would use
that preposition. It doesn't mean "on" in terms of "the cup is sitting on the table,"
but you would use "on"-his line was-he had this nervous tic that he would,
when he was nervous, the ends of his sentences or words would be in kind of an
"uh" like that. It happened. I don't know why. But anyway, he was explaining
"an." He said, "Like a picture hangs up against, as in 'Up Against the Wall, Redneck
Mama'." [Laughter] I laughed so hard, I cried.

         He was a great teacher. He was just a great teacher. He taught me so much
about-he taught romance languages when he was there. He taught Russian. He
started the Concert Guild. He taught German, he taught art history. It was
incredible what he knew. He was married briefly in the seventies to a Swiss actress.
He married late. He was already, shoot, in the seventies, he was in his forties. And
the marriage lasted for only a few years, and then she moved back to Basel,
Switzerland.

         But you're right, classes, probably we should talk about them some. I started
out not really sure what I wanted to major in. I thought I should be practical, so I

                                                                                                        28
was taking classes in the C school, which I just loathed. Finally, I don't know how it
happened, but I started-English is what I loved, and just decided this is what I love,
and so what if it's not practical. I love it and that's what I'm going to do. So I
switched my major from politics to-how practical can you be?-to English and
things. Took a decidedly happier turn at that point.

         Survived calculus. Professor Vinson struggled valiantly to get me through
calculus. Did you ever hear the story about him? It was before my time. I don't
know-
Warren: I don't even know the name.
Leitch: Tom Vinson, V-I-N-S-0-N.
Warren: No.
Leitch: He's still there. I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but he used to-
classes were in Robinson Hall, and his classroom was on the first floor, and after
class, to avoid the crush in the hallways-he usually had a tennis match in the
afternoon, so he'd go over and just hop out the window and run on to his tennis
match. Well, one year they moved his class to the second floor. I don't know if it's
true or not. I've heard that story. You probably ought to ask him. But I heard that
he did it. So I don't know. It would have been seventies-I guess late seventies
sometime when that happened.
Warren: I haven't heard that. [Laughter]
Leitch: He's wacky. The first five minutes of every class with Tom Vinson, he
would discuss that day's Gil Thorp comic strip. It was a big thing. We'd talk about
what was going on in Gil's life and what the future looked like. Then we'd start
doing differential equations. For the first five minutes I was fine, but then we really
turned to substantive calculus, I started sucking.

         I spent most of my time in Payne Hall where the English Department was,
with Sid Coulling, who was just an incredible professor.

                                                                                                       29
Warren: Talk to me about him.
Leitch: Oh, boy. You come kind of close to idolatry with him. He's just sort of the
consummate W&L-just a complete gentleman, never seen him angry or raise his
voice, and he can get up and talk about Matthew Arnold until the cows come home,
and you just kind of listened in rapt attention. He taught a course on the romantic
poets, which I took, and the Victorian poetry course, which is just wonderful, just
wonderful.

         But you can kind of talk-all the English professors I had, I thought were just
fabulous, and I think English has been, at least, I don't know what it's like now, but
was one of the real strong powerhouses when I was there, in terms of the faculty.
Severn Duvall with American literature. Bob Huntley, he taught the British novel.
There were three courses that he taught, sort of a survey of the British novel, from
Moll Flanders to-what was the most recent? Graham Green, I guess was the most
recent author. I took all three British novel survey courses. Just great stuff.

         I'd be sitting back at the apartment, just kind of-I can proudly say that I read
every assignment that was made. I can proudly say I never used Cliff Notes or
anything like that. Thanks to taking typing in high school, I typed all my own
papers and didn't have to pay anybody to do that. Once I finally stumbled into the
English Department, it was a great two and one-half years, I guess.

         Took two years of Russian, and can't do much Russian anymore. My
German's still good, but my Russian-I can say, "[Russian phrase]," which means-
it's one of those important grammatical sentences. It means, "The new tablecloth is
a joy to the young housewife." [Laughter]
Warren: My transcriber is going to really appreciate that you said that.
Leitch: I'll write it out for you. Took a few music courses, romantic music class, to
Spice's opera seminar, which was fun. Took voice lessons from Spice. I had a
semester of piano lessons from Jay Cook. Took microeconomics from John

                                                                                                                30
Winkley, a dear man, but economics just sort of-I don't get it. It always hit me as
like small little men trying to put definitions on huge concepts that really can't be
defined.
Warren: [Coughing]
Leitch: Need something to drink? Need a glass of water or something? A tea?
Warren: No, I think I'm okay.
Leitch: Scotch? Bourbon?
Warren: [Laughter] No, I did not go to Washington and Lee.
Leitch: I'm a W&L man. Get you a beer?
Warren: No, no.
Leitch: Glass of wine?
Warren: No, I didn't go to W&L.
Leitch: Heroin?
Warren: [Laughter] No, thank you. You're very gracious.
Leitch: Thank you.
Warren: So how did an English major make a transition into the law school? How
did you make that decision to do that?
Leitch: Didn't want to leave Lexington.
Warren: Oh, I love that answer. Keep going. That's the right answer, Nick.
Leitch: Well, it's pretty much true. The options were teach somewhere at a private
school, teach English at a private school somewhere, which just wasn't what I
wanted to do; go on and get an advanced degree in English and perhaps teach at
another level, not what I wanted to do, I didn't think, and paying for it, more
importantly, would have been a problem. Law school, there was some scholarship
help. My family was not a family of means. In fact, next December I finish paying
off my guaranteed student loan, so I will have paid for my education next year.
Warren: Congratulations.

                                                                                                                   31
Leitch: Thank you very much. Law school interested me. A law degree opened up
some career avenues that otherwise would not have been open to me, and I got to
stay. I know that sounds dumb, but I got dug in pretty deep in four years, and loved
Lexington. In fact, when I graduated from law school, and even since then, I
thought real seriously a couple of times about trying to move back, because I just
love it. It's just such a great place. So W&L Law School was the only law school
that I applied to and I got in, so I went.
Warren: Why is Lexington such a great place?
Leitch: I visited lots of big cities, I mean, New York, San Francisco, London,
Munich, been there, seen 'em, love 'em for the short stretch, but would not want to
live there. Don't want to live on a farm, because I'd get bored too quickly. So by
definition, I've sort of restricted myself to a smaller town or a small city. Lexington
combined all the things that I found, and still for the most part find, to be desirable
in a place to live. It's small and fairly intimate, but the people there, by and large,
are intelligent, well educated, artistic, fun. I don't know, it just combines all of
those. The size is good, the kind of people who are there are interesting. What goes
on on both campuses, both at VMI and at W&L in terms of lectures, concerts,
exhibits, speakers, is all very interesting and challenging.
Warren: Talk to me about that. Were there any particular people who impressed
you in the time you were at Lexington?
Leitch: Impressed.
Warren: Yes, there are some fairly impressive people who come through that place.
Leitch: Yes. Let's see, some of the noteworthy ones. G. Gordon Liddy, he was
impressive for all of the wrong reasons. He spoke in the chapel. He scared the pee
out of me. He got ticked off while he was speaking, though, because Pete
Whitehead, who was in my class, had brought a rubber Nixon mask and put it on at

                                                                                                                            32
one point in Liddy's talk, and Liddy saw him, and said he knew a hundred ways to
kill a person with a pencil, and don't push him. [Laughter] He was like, "Okay."

         All kinds of-well, shoot. You remember Jeff McNelly, the political
cartoonist and he also drew "Shoe," that comic strip? He was different. He came.
He was showing some drawings, and they threw the floor open for questions, and
somebody asked him why he put shoes on his birds. "What took you there? Why
did you do that?"

         He said, "Well, thought it would be different and interesting, and I can't draw
birds' feet."

         "Okay, thank you very much." [Laughter]
         The Concert Guild brought through really good ensembles. The Audubon
Strings would come through. Leon Bates, a really good pianist, who's made more
and more of a name for himself as time has gone on. The first time I heard him was
there in Lee Chapel.
         I don't know. You're right. There is sort of an impressive array of people
coming through to speak. Roger Mudd was there, an alum. I don't know, there's
just lots to do in Lexington. A lot of people would complain, friends of mine would
complain about, "Yikes, small town, nothing to do." I was like, "Come on with me
to Covington, I'll show you nothing to do. We can go watch the paper mill."
Warren: Let's go back to the law school and teachers who made a big difference for
you there.
Leitch: Yes, there were great professors there. Uncus McThenia, a really, really good
professor, good man, too. I've gotten to know him since then some. We're both
Episcopalians. We disagreed fairly fundamentally about some of the stuff that went
on during the Pittston strike when he was so involved in the mineworkers' strike.
        There was Groot, Roger Groot. Scare you to death. He used the Socratic
method, and he would call on you, and he would stick with you until you died. I

                                                                                                                33
had classmates who got nauseous and had to leave the room. He'd always call on
the Vanderbilt person first, though, so you pretty much knew that first day, anyway,
that if there was anybody in your section from Vanderbilt, he or she was going to be
the one who got reamed out first.
Warren: Did they know it?
Leitch: Word sort of got around, so they would be prepared for whatever the
material was for the first class. He called on me finally. I'd had him for criminal
law. I will go to my grave knowing that larceny is the capture and asportation of the
personal property of another with the intent to permanently deprive him or her of
ownership. It's sort of etched into my brain. "Mr. Leitch, let's say you're over here
at Harris Teeter. And let's say you put a pizza in your cart. Is that capture?"

         "Yes, sir."
         "That asportation?"
         "Yes sir."
         "Is that larceny?"
         "Well, no, sir, I'm going to pay for it, so I don't have any intent."
         "That's right. That's good."
         He was scary. There was a veneer of frightening-a scary veneer to Groot,
and then once you kind of got past that, he's kind of a sweetheart. Lives over in
Buena Vista. Go figure. He used to say, "If you can't get it in Buena, you don't need
it." [Laughter] I was like, "Okay. I'll take your word for it."
         And [Edward O.] Henneman. I just love Henneman. He taught all the trusts
and estates classes, which I really dug in law school. Since then I have written
maybe a half a dozen wills. I mean, that's just not my practice. I litigate. I'm in the
courtroom. But in law school, I really liked that subject matter, and he used to say-
they weren't really one-liners, but usually every lecture, one thing he said I thought
was just memorable and noteworthy, so I carried a notebook with me, and I would

                                                                                                               34
record his little Hennemanisms. In fact, I posted them on the bulletin board one
year at the end of the semester. One of them was, and I still remember, "Joint
tenancies are wonderful things. They give the surviving spouse a place to sleep
after the funeral." I swear, my father died in '87, like ten days before I graduated
from law school, and one of the things I remember thinking at the graveside was-I
got tickled a little bit-was, "Well, joint tenancies are wonderful things. We've got
a place to go." He was a really good professor and has turned into a good friend.

         That was one of the good things, I thought, about W&L in general on both
sides of the ravine, and I hope it never changes, the student-faculty ratio was such
that you really were a name. I mean, my professors knew me and knew who I was.
They knew what I did. It wasn't just because I was something special or important.
I mean, they knew who their students were; they knew what their parents did; they
knew what their backgrounds were; they knew what their interests were; and they
were there. You didn't even have to take a class from them.

         I got to know Dr. [Nancy A.] Margand. She's in the Psych Department. Never
took a psychology course, never ever, but I just knew who she was. In fact, I saw her
when I was up for Todd's service, just kind of bumped into her, big hug and "Hi,"
and, "How you doing, Dr. Margand? Nice to see you."

         It was a really good environment for developing meaningful relationships, I
think, with faculty. Stevenson, obviously, was the big one for me, and Spice.
K__ was a friend. Henneman and Uncus McThenia on the law side are good
friends. Joan Shaughnessy. Just all the people I've rattled off were at my wedding.
They came. I got married in Covington and they came. It was really weird.

        It was a wonderful place. It was a great place to learn, it really was. Warts and
all, all of the problems that I sort of associated with the uni-gender kind of
education, and the bad things that kind of flow from that, that even couldn't really

                                                                                                                  35
blot out what a great place it was to put new things in your head. It really was great.
If money were no object, I could just go back and probably stay forever.
Warren: Well, that's a wonderful way to end. This thing is beeping at me. I could
pop in another tape if you have other things you want to talk about.
Leitch: No, better not, actually. Thank you.
Warren: That was a wonderful ending line, though. Thank you, Nick. Thank you,
Rob, for sending me here.
Leitch: Well, I wondered. I was laying awake trying to think of anecdotes, the past
few days, because I really didn't-I kind of worried about this, to be honest. I wasn't
sure what I had to say that was noteworthy.
Warren: You've done just fine.
Leitch: Well, thank you.
[End of interview]

                                                                                                                36