My junior year...

After another summer at home, which was, I think, the year that we moved to Stavanger, in Norway, and Jeannie was visiting that summer too. She helped us move. I don't think my mother minded...but I don't know. She was a really big help. Moving is never fun, but it helped that Phillips moved all the big stuff for us, and all we had to do was pack our own stuff, and then be there to place all the stuff when it got there on the moving van. I had a good time with Jeannie there, and having the summer to do some more exploring around Norway and learning more about it. What a beautiful country! And Stavanger was a gorgeous place. Right on the sea....

My junior year at Baker was the year that I met Jack, who would later become my husband. I met him through a friend I had there at school. He lived in a town that was a couple hours from Baldwin. I am not sure what attracted me to him. Maybe it was the mistaken belief that since he was attracted to me, I coudn't do any better...that I'd better just hang on to him. But I do think there was something about him that I liked. He was tall, big, older, a biker, seemingly street smart, and he was good to me. We spent a lot of time going back and forth to see each other. He lived with his grandmother in another town, he was divorced - newly- and he had three small children by his first wife. Looking back, that should have been a major red flag for a young college student like I was. But I was blinded by love..or the idea of being in love. I'm not sure which. My friends, some of them, tried to tell me that he would never marry me...blah, blah, blah...but I wouldn't listen. I'm not sure marrying was what I had in mind anyway. We had great sex, too, and I thought that was a good sign.

In the fall of that year...I found out I was pregnant. Jack was the father, of course. I was devastated, but not surprised. We had talked about the fact that we weren't using protection. He even said - and I remember this clearly - "You don't know what you're asking me...to put that on!" He had also said he'd "take care of me" if anything happened. Well, I thought, the time is here for you to "take care of me!"

I'm not sure what his idea of taking care of me was, but our immediate reaction was to have an abortion. Which I had. And which I feel like was not what I would have chosen had I had the time to think it through. But who knows? My parents were in favor of it, the Dean of Students talked to me about it, and all my friends were all for it. After all, the Roe v. Wade law had just passed the year before, and we (women) were feeling quite liberated and empowered by it. So..why not? It was a given...an understood thing. So, I went through with it, and he helped pay for it. To this day, it's very, very hard for me to think about it, let alone talk about it. It took me many, many years to tell anyone, or to speak it out loud. Guilty? Yes.... I felt very guilty, even though it was legal. But, as my mother used to say, just because it's legal doesn't make it right. To this day, I have mixed feelings about abortion. I had such unbelievable emotional repercussions from it, I wouldn't wish it on anyone else. But that was just me. Who knows what someone else would feel.

Surprisingly, Jack stuck around after the abortion, stayed by my side, and continued to be my 'boyfriend'. It was a hard year, though, because of that, but we kept on seeing each other, and having a good time. We didn't have much money, so we hung around my dorm when he would come to see me. I met his kids and they were ....well, kids. Very small at that time. The youngest was not even 2 years old. His ex-wife, whom I didn't meet till later, was, by Jack's description, not a great mom. She had her own demons to deal with, and he didn't really want to be a part of it. It was unknown at the time whether or not he would be able to see his kids from one week to the next, let alone be a part of their lives. And all I knew was that I wanted to be with him...I didn't even think about having a 'ready-made family'!!

It was a volatile time around the country. Not only were women raising their voices about lots of issues, and wishing to be heard, there was the Vietnam issue, and race issues. It was a good time to be young and intelligent and aware. I finished out the year squeaking by with average grades and made plans to come back next year to live off-campus with three other girls. We were all going to be seniors, so it would be a good plan.