The last year...

The summer between my junior and senior years of college was different from any others. I was finally feeling like I was growing up..or at least it seemed that way. I think, if my memory is right, I spent that summer at Baker, taking summer classes, and living in the off-campus housing that I would live in during the next school year. It was an old house, not far from the campus, that untold numbers of others had lived in over the years. But me, and three other senior girls were going to live in it this year! There was a big living room, kitchen, bath and bedroom on the main floor. Then upstairs was another little kitchen, a big bathroom, and three bedrooms. I took one of the bedrooms upstairs, as did two of the other girls. One of the girls took the downstairs bedroom...which made her a little isolated from us. It all seemed to work out, as she liked it that way.

I may have gone home for a while that summer, but most of that summer was spent in the house in Baldwin. I remember the loneliness of the house, the quietness, the emptiness.

Jack had told me at the end of my junior year that he was taking off for Texas with a buddy and he didn't know when he'd be back. It broke my heart, but I really had no choice. I didn't like it at all. But I went on with my life the best I could...Oh, what a sad girl I was...with my man gone. I look back now, and I wonder how I could have been so stupid!! How could I have put all my emotions and my energies into a man and his whims??

That was the year that I met a freshman football player. I'm not sure how I met him, but I haven't forgotten him, even to this day. He isn't someone that I think I could have spent the rest of my life with, but I sure thought about it at the time. His name was Mike...he was from the east coast - Connecticut, I think - had long hair, and just seemed to be the epitome of a young man with lots of energy. We got along great, probably because I paid alot of attention to him, and fed his ego. But there was something redeeming about him, too. We had some great conversations, and he was very attentive to me as well. Plus, the fact that he was four years younger than me, and was on the football team didn't hurt!! I think he was a chauvinist...he said that was the way he was raised, but it didn't seem to come out much in our relationship. He was good in bed, and he was fun. But he didn't stay at Baker but one semester. He went back to Connecticut at mid-term, and that was the end of us. He was unforgettable, though.

Jack had been gone all that time, and I had not heard from him once! I remember praying for him every night. (I was attending a local Baptist church at the time....what can I say? I needed to 'belong' somewhere!) He had said he was going to write to me, but he never did. I really figured I'd never see him again. My roommates didn't think too highly of him because of that, and they advised me to forget about him....which I thought I was doing...but our minds play tricks on us sometimes! I did go out with other guys during that time, in my efforts to move on.

Along about that time, and I don't know if it was before Mike left or after, Jack came back. One night he just showed up on the doorstep, just like in the movies!! Of course I let him in. Of course, I forgave him. Stupid me...when I look back. I should have been furious with him for so many reasons! But of course I wasn't.

I guess I've always been a forgiving person, almost to the point of being a doormat. And I don't know that it was always the best way to be. When I look back now, I don't understand why I was that way, and I hate that I WAS that way. I am still a very peace-loving woman, but I am much more assertive now, and look at things from a very different point of view now. It's not ALWAYS about the other person now...I take my own feelings into consideration!

His explanation was not what I'd expected at all. He hadn't even BEEN in Texas all summer and fall, like he'd told me!! He had gone to Wyoming to see his kids, live there with them, and even try to get back with his ex-wife, for the sake of the kids. This all came out over the course of several days, and several conversations. I figured he was telling the truth. He said that he missed his kids terribly, felt guilty about not being around them, and just wanted to do what he thought was right. I could understand all that...even agree with him. I just didn't see the need for the lie that he told me at the beginning of the summer. He probably told me that he started out going to Texas. I don't know... Anyway, he said he left his kids in the middle of the night, crying all the way across Wyoming for them, because he couldn't stand living with his ex anymore, even for the kids. He said he came straight to me..

Well, that's all it took. Tell me you left your kids and drove all night to come to me!? Yep, he had me hooked. I guess he hung around with me for a while, then he went back to his grandmother's house in his home town a couple hours away. I felt whole again! He was back! I could breathe again!! My prayers had been answered...


I continued with school that year. My interterm project, though, took me back to Norway. I went home for that month, in January, and spent it working on an independent project on Salvador Dali. I just wanted to stay at home and not go anywhere for that month. I stayed in contact with Jack during that time...we talked by phone a few times, but mostly I wrote him letters and he wrote me too. That was our main way of staying in contact. I had a great time visiting with my parents, and hanging with my brother. Mom and dad did a lot of entertaining that year, cause dad had become quite the mucky-muck with Phillips by that time. I didn't realize it, but mom was really trying to get dad to slow down and relax, cause he was under a lot of stress. But I had a good time, and where we lived was gorgeous. I did some sewing, listened to music, walked around town, listened to the locals, and just generally spent time as a visitor in Norway.

Jack hung out with me that spring, and brought his friends with him...Buzz, Ed...Goober. They were all like him - bikers, and/or dopers. I'm sure they thought a campus full of girls was like a candy store to them!! Jack had a '49 Harley panhead bike that he had chopped out, and I rode on it plenty. He even did an accidental wheelie one time, and I just about got thrown off. I spent time with him in his home town, riding around, drinking, and doing whatever he wanted to do. Looking back, it was not the best kind of life, and certainly not the kind of life that a college girl sensibly should be involved in. "Sensibly"..that was the operative word. I thought I was in love...and I just didn't see the things I should have seen about him...the things that I WISH I'd seen about him.

He was a good man...just not the kind of man I should have fallen for.

I finished my senior year at college and graduated in June. It was a fun time, as all the girls in the house I lived in were graduating as well. We had a great time that spring, and it all culminated in graduation. We had sort of a party at our house afterwards. My parents were there, and so were my grandparents. Jack came on his motorcycle and my parents and grandparents hated him. They just didn't say anything. Not a word. I found out just a few years ago that my grandfather stayed in the car while the rest of them came in..just because he didn't like Jack. He was pouting...I wish they had said something now....I don't know that I would have listened to them at the time...but at least there would have been some seeds planted. As it was, I thought I knew what I was doing....I thought I loved him.