The picture here from my Facebook friend The Idealist brought back some rather pleasant memories. In the past and to a much lesser degree even today I have often sat out on a starry night and talked to myself about life. These were often times where I was approaching meltdown due to having so many people around me. One of the main purposes was to be alone with my thoughts so, no, there was no one with me.
Many of those 2am nights were while I was attending college at Purdue University. It seems I was never along except for these times. I shared a room with Bob for four years and even though I really liked him I needed my alone time. So, about once a month you could find me at 2am along the railroad track out by the airport looking at the sky and dreaming about life. I often played a game where I tried to imagine what I would be doing 20, 30, or even 40 years in the future. On a tangent note, there just doesn’t seem to be as many stars in the sky as there were during those years. 🙂
When I was in college now fifty years ago one of the things that almost everyone, or at least those in the dormitories, complained about is how bad the food in the cafeteria is. Its kind of like hospital food I guess. You are not supposed to like it. But, as usual, I take a different stand. Without cafeteria food I would not have gotten a diploma from Purdue University. An so the story begins.
I spent a very enlightening part of my life between the years 1965 and 1970. Those were the years I was at Purdue University supposedly learning how to be an engineer. It was there that I was first exposed to the diversity of life. I met people who were very different from me. For the most part those experiences made me a better person. On this post I want to concentrate on a few of those I encountered during those years.
My first dormitory room-mate was a high school classmate. He got married at the end of the first semester and was replaced by Knute. Knute was a Norwegian and spoke broken english. He worked his way over to the U.S. from Oslo Norway on a freighter and that was impressive to me. I later learned that his father owned the freight lines but that only slightly stained the story. 🙂 Knute loved to party, I never actually saw him study much. He came over with a half-dozen or so buddies. They exposed me to people from other countries for the first time. After that final semester of 1965 Knute went over to live with his friends in a rented house. I don’t know if he ever graduated or just partied his way through college. Six of one half-dozen of the other I imagine.
Bob was my room-mate for the final four years. We got along very well. That was very important when you understand that unlike today we shared a 10 x 12 foot room so getting along with your room-mate was critical to your sanity. When we graduated a group of us vowed to get together five-year later on our graduation date but I didn’t make it there for whatever reason. I don’t know if any of them did or not? I lost track of Bob and have been unable to find him in the forty years since. I wished I had done a better job of keeping track of folks from those years. I would be interesting to discover what Bob made of his life and to just reminisce about the good old days at Fowler Courts residence hall and dorm kitchen where we both worked throughout those years.
Another very memorable person during those years was Ginny. I admired her on several different levels. She was the secret love of my life. I did date Ginny once, we went to a campfire/cookout with several friends. One of the main regrets of my life is that I never told her how I felt about her. I was just too shy around women and the emotions I felt for her were very new to me. Ginny also worked in the dormitory cafeteria where I became the head waiter. Ginny was a year or two behind me and when in my senior year it came time to recommend my replacement I chose her. But… there had never been a female head waiter there before and the management just didn’t see that as being the time for one. I often wonder how my life would have changed if I expressed my feelings towards her. Don’t tell my wife but I still think about her now and then.
When I stepped foot on the campus in the late summer of 1965 I was a skinny naive country boy who had never had a conversation with anyone much different than me. They simply didn’t exist in my world up until that time. I was never challenged to think outside my box that was already built around me. My progression to a guy who “questions everything” was a gradual thing that happened over the years but the five years I spent there was very enlightening.
