Tag: old friends

December 31, 1997. Brian was known for throwing amazing New Year parties. (#158)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 3 Comments

I packed my sleeping bag and pillow in the back of my Ford Bronco, along with a bag containing my toothbrush and toothpaste.  I had considered bringing the sweat pants I wore for pajamas and a full change of clothes, but realized I was overthinking.  I would only be staying long enough to sleep, so as not to have to drive home in the middle of the night, and leaving first thing in the morning.  I could handle sleeping in my clothes for one night.

I started the car and headed out of Jeromeville south on Highway 117, merging onto Highway 100 west toward Bay City two and a half miles down the road.  The weather was cool and cloudy but dry, typical for an afternoon in December.  It was only four-thirty in the afternoon, but the sun would already be setting soon, also typical for December.

This first part of the drive was extremely familiar to me, since it was the same drive I made every time I went back home to see my family.  I had just been this way yesterday morning in the opposite direction coming home from winter break.  I watched the fields and trees pass by as I continued heading southwest across the short dimension of the Valley at sixty-five miles per hour.  The cities of Silvey, Nueces, and Fairview passed by me as I passed slow trucks and reckless drivers passed me.  Just past Fairview, about thirty miles past Jeromeville, I started to merge into the right lane, to get on Highway 6 southbound toward San Tomas, when I realized that I was not going that way.  Almost every other time I had made this drive, I had taken 6 south, headed toward home, but today I was going somewhere else.

I took the next exit, Highway 212 west toward Silverado and Redwood Valley.  The rest of my drive would not be a straight shot down one road, and much of it would be on roads with one lane in each direction, winding through hills covered with vineyards and cow pastures.  It would be much more fun making this trip in the other direction tomorrow morning after the sun came back up, so I could actually see the beautiful countryside and the road ahead.

I crossed the Silverado River on a high bridge and followed the highway around a curve to the right, toward the city of Silverado, only to turn left at a stoplight and head away from the city on a road with just one lane in each direction.  I was trying not to drive too fast, since I had only been this way twice before and did not want to miss a turn in the dark.

I found the turn I was looking for, Highway 164 to Hillside, a few miles before Redwood Valley.  Highway 212 went directly to Valle Luna, but Brian’s directions said that there was a faster way to get from Jeromeville to Valle Luna.  I was not familiar with this area, so I took his word for it.  I had gone this way two years ago when I went to visit Renee Robertson at Valle Luna State, but the university was south of 212 so in that case it made sense to take 164 and not backtrack.

At around 5:50, I got to Hillside and turned onto Highway 11 northbound for another fifteen miles into Valle Luna, a good-sized city of about two hundred thousand residents.  Highway 212, which I had turned off of earlier, crossed Highway 11 right in the middle of Valle Luna.  I turned on 212 west and drove to what appeared to be the extreme western edge of the city, as fields opened up against the hills to the west that separated Valle Luna from the coast.  I turned right at a stoplight which took me back into residential neighborhoods, and about two miles north of 212, I turned into the Burrs’ neighborhood.

Brian Burr, one of my roommates from the previous school year, was two years older than me, having graduated from the University of Jeromeville in 1996.  His goal was to be a doctor, but he had not gotten into any medical schools.  He spent the 1996-97 school year working part time on staff with Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, where I had met him, and also retaking all the entrance exams and reapplying to medical school.  Last fall, he moved across the country to attend New York Medical College, just north of New York City in Westchester County.  He had just finished his first semester, and he was back at his parents’ house in Valle Luna for winter break, where apparently he was known for throwing amazing New Year parties.

Brian’s parents lived on a cul-de-sac just a little way off of the main road.  It was only 6:14, still hours before midnight, but I could already tell that parking on the cul-de-sac would fill up quickly.  I parked my car in one of the last remaining free spaces and knocked on the door.

“Hi,” a middle-aged man said.  “You’re looking for Brian, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You look familiar, but I don’t remember your name.”

“I’m Greg,” I said, shaking Mr. Burr’s hand.  I had only met Brian’s dad once before.  “Brian and I were roommates last year, at the apartment on Maple Drive.”

“Oh, yeah!  Is this your first New Year’s party here?”

“Yes.”

“Welcome to our house.  It’ll be a lot of fun.”

“That’s what I hear.”

“So Brian said you’re younger than him, right?  Are you still in school at Jeromeville?”

“Yeah.  I graduate this spring.”

“What are you studying?”

“Mathematics.”

“Greg!” I heard Brian’s familiar voice say.  “How you been, man?” he asked as he pulled me into an embrace.

“Good,” I said.  “How’s medical school?”

“It’s a lot of work.  But it’s good.  What about you?  You went away to Oregon or Washington or something for the summer to do research, right?”

“Yeah.  Grandvale, Oregon.  I’m glad I went, but the biggest thing I learned was that I don’t want to do math research as a career.”

A tall blond guy around Brian’s age walked into the room.  “Greg!” he said.  “What’s up?”

“Hey, Mike,” I said.  Mike Kozlovsky had graduated from UJ the same year as Brian.  He was also from Valle Luna, and he had moved back home after graduation.  “I was just talking about last summer,” I continued.  “I did a math research internship in Oregon, and I learned that I didn’t want to go into math research.”

“Aww, bummer,” Mike replied.

“Better to learn this now, rather than after I gave three years of my life to a Ph.D. program,” I said.

“That’s a really good point,” Brian said.

“Why didn’t you like it?” Mike asked.

“Math research is weird!” I explained.  “All the things being researched are so abstract and advanced that I can’t understand them even when I’m about to finish a degree.  It’s just not interesting.  And I also just didn’t really click with the others in the program.”

“So what do you want to do now?” Brian asked.

“I’m gonna be a teacher.  Probably for high school.”

“Will you be in the same program Shawn was in?”

“That’s the plan.  I’ve applied to that.  I also thought about applying to the program at Capital State, but it’s kind of confusing how theirs works, and it won’t really be any advantage for me to do that one.  I just want to get into a classroom as soon as I can at this point.”

“Hopefully you don’t end up with the same master teacher that Shawn hated.”

“Didn’t Shawn quit the program, or something?” Mike asked.

“He finished all the classes, but he didn’t apply for any teaching jobs,” Brian explained.  “He moved back to Ashwood and opened a running apparel store with one of his old running buddies back home.”

“That’s right.”

“Is Shawn coming tonight?” I asked Brian.

“No.  He really wanted to, but he’s too busy with the store.”

“I get that.”


I walked inside and sat next to a bowl of tortilla chips as Brian mingled with people I did not recognize.  A large amount of pizza arrived about an hour after I did, and I piled about five or six slices on my plate and began eating.

As I watched people trickle in, and waved and said hi to the ones I knew: Kristina Kasparian, Lars Ashford, Lorraine Mathews, John Harvey, and several others.  But I also realized that Brian had a lot of friends whom I did not know.  I met Brian two years ago through Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, when Brian was a senior and I was a sophomore, but I did not know him well until that next spring and summer when he and Shawn and I made plans to live together.  Brian had been at UJ for two years before I started there.  He had probably made friends with people who ran in different circles, or had graduated, by the time I met him.  Brian also was at his parents’ house, in Valle Luna, where he grew up, so some of these people whom I did not know were probably Brian’s childhood or high school friends.

Eddie Baker and Tabitha Sasaki had arrived separately, about half an hour apart, while I was eating chips and pizza. I had said hi to both of them, but we had not actually talked yet, so when I was done eating, I walked to where they were sitting.  “Greg!” Tabitha said, smiling and motioning to the empty couch seat on her left.  Eddie sat on her right.  “Come sit down!”

“Hey,” I said, a little louder than I would have liked since there was now music playing.  I did not recognize the song.  “What have you guys been up to?  How’s your break going?”

“Good,” Eddie said.  “Mostly just been hanging out with Tabitha.”  Eddie and Tabitha did not know each other before coming to UJ, but their families lived fairly close to each other in two neighboring suburbs of San Tomas.

“Did you go home to Plumdale?” Tabitha asked.

“Yeah,” I replied.  “My cousins who visit every Christmas were there.  And last weekend I made a silly movie with them, and my brother, and some of my brother’s friends.”

“That’s great,” Eddie said.  “Kind of like the Dog Crap and Vince movie you made with the kids from church?”

“Exactly!  My brother saw that when I brought it home for Thanksgiving, and he wanted to make a movie with me too.”

“How are things going as a youth leader anyway?”

“Good!  I’m going to Winter Camp in February.  That’ll be fun.”

“It will be!  Make sure you bring snow clothes.”

“I know.  I’m going to need to do some shopping.”

“What was your movie about?” Tabitha asked.

“We have this game we kind of made up called Moport.  It’s like a cross between soccer, football, and hockey.  In our movie, this bad Moport team accidentally drafts the wrong player, and he’s really weird, but they find ways to win.  And this other guy tries to sabotage the team.”

“That sounds silly.”

“Very silly,” I agreed.  


After I finished catching up with Eddie and Tabitha, I watched Brian and some others dancing to some song I did not know, with lyrics in Spanish.  Scott Madison and Amelia Dye were sitting in chairs next to the snack table.  I had not talked to them yet, so I sat down in another empty chair at the table.  “Hey,” I said.

“Hi, Greg!” Amelia said, smiling.

“Greg Dennison’s Chili,” Scott added, shaking my hand, using the nickname he had recently come up with for me.  I had had a few people over the years ask me if I was related to the people who made Dennison’s brand chili (I was not), but Scott was so far the first to use that as an actual nickname.

“How’s your break going so far?” I asked.

“Pretty good.  Just doing a lot of wedding planning stuff,” Scott explained.

“And working on med school applications,” Amelia added.

“When is the wedding?”

“June 27,” Amelia explained.  “We’ll be having the ceremony at J-Cov, then for the reception we’ll all caravan across the Drawbridge to the Capital City Downtown Ballroom.”

“Nice.”

“Hey, guys,” Brian said, joining us.  “What’s up?”

“Oh!  Brian!  Guess what I’m doing in three weeks?” Amelia said excitedly.  “I have an interview at New York Med!”

“Nice!” Brian said.  “That would be cool if you two ended up moving to New York with me.”

“Yeah!  We’d know someone already there.”

“How is medical school going?” I asked Brian.

“It’s good.  So far it’s just classroom work, so not that different from what I experienced at Jeromeville.  But it was hard to get back into the routine of being in school again, after taking last year off.”

“I bet,” I said.

“We had an end-of-semester social event for all the first-year med students a couple weeks ago.  It’s a little weird that they serve alcohol at school-sponsored socials.  They just assume everyone in med school is old enough to drink.”

“That makes sense,” I said.  “Because everyone is.  Amelia?  Where else have you applied?”  Amelia listed numerous other medical schools around the country.  Much like Brian had the previous year, Amelia really had applied all over, but apparently New York Med was one of her top choices.  That would be nice if Amelia and Brian ended up at the same school.


As the night went on, the party got louder.  A few people seemed a bit tipsy, and Brian had had a few drinks, but many of Brian’s friends from Jeromeville were Christians and did not drink to excess.  At one point, someone pulled out a karaoke machine, and Brian sang “Dancing Queen” by ABBA, one of his favorites.  I had been in University Chorus three times now, but I still did not like singing solo in front of people.

Later, after the karaoke machine had been put away but with music still playing, another ABBA song came on, “Take A Chance On Me.”  Brian jumped up and began dancing with his arms in the air.  One time when we lived together, I came home from class, and as soon as Brian saw that I was home, he put on Take A Chance On Me and started doing this same silly dance he was doing now.  

A few minutes after Take A Chance On Me finished, people started saying it was time, and someone turned off the music.  It took a few seconds for me to figure out what was going on; after I remembered the occasion of this evening, I looked at my watch surprised to see that it was already close to midnight.  The night went by fast.  Someone turned on the television to one of the major networks’ New Year broadcasts, and when the countdown to midnight displayed on the screen reached thirty seconds, everyone stared at the screen and began counting out loud.  Numbers that large were difficult to count down at a rate of one per second, so I did not join in the countdown until ten seconds were left.

“Ten!  Nine!  Eight!  Seven!  Six!”

By now, people were excited enough that the counting was no longer synchronized to the clock on the television, or to each other.  As much as it bothered me to be inaccurate, I tried to stay synchronized to the majority of the people counting.

“Five!  Four!  Three!  Two!  One!  Happy new year!”

I heard those loud little confetti poppers being popped across the room.  Someone handed me one; I pulled the string and watched a small amount of confetti explode upward away from me.  Those who had drinks in glasses clinked their glasses together; Scott and Amelia were closest to me, and I clinked my aluminum Coca-Cola can to their glasses, saying “Clink!” out loud since my can did not make a clinking noise.  Scott laughed.

I stayed up for at least another two hours, talking, watching people dance, and occasionally snacking.  This kind of thing happens to me every New Year’s Day, but I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it was 1998 already.  I was going to graduate in 1998.  That was only six short months away, and a few months after that, I would be student teaching in a high school math classroom somewhere.  As I got older, as the year number on the calendar kept going up, life just seemed to move faster and faster.

Around two in the morning, I walked out to my car and got my sleeping bag.  Brian had said to bring a sleeping bag, that we were all welcome to sleep on the floor and leave in the morning.  The party was starting to quiet down by then, since many of the locals had gone home.  It was still noisy enough that I was not expecting to fall asleep, but I was tired enough that I nodded in and out of consciousness for the next hour and a half.  I woke up having to use the bathroom at 3:30, and by then, the living room was dark, with several other people asleep in sleeping bags on the floor.

I woke up again at 7:42, and could not go back to sleep.  Everyone else was still asleep, and I did not want to wake anyone.  This kind of thing often happened to me when I was sleeping away from home in a group, where I was awake far earlier than everyone else, so I packed a book to read just in case, The Pelican Brief by John Grisham.  The lighting was not ideal for reading, since the sun had just come up and the drapes were closed, but I could see well enough.

A few people gradually woke up as I was reading; I waved hello and occasionally whispered when necessary.  I hated sleeping in a strange place with other people in the room, but I did not want to leave without saying goodbye to Brian.

Brian finally appeared around 9:15.  I stood up, still fully clothed from the night before, rolled my sleeping bag, and went to the bathroom, also brushing my teeth this time.  Then I walked toward Brian at the kitchen table.  “I’m going to head home now,” I said.

“Okay,” Brian replied.  “Thanks so much for coming.  It was good seeing you.”

“You too!  Thanks for inviting me!  Keep in touch.  Good luck with school.”

“Thanks.  And good luck with being a teacher.  I think you’d make a great teacher.”

“Wow.  Thank you.”

I said a quiet goodbye to everyone else who was still at the party and awake.  Some of them I would not see again for a long time.  Others who were still students at UJ I would see in a few days at most.

The drive home through the hills between Valle Luna and Silverado was, as I suspected, beautiful in the daylight.  It had rained enough over the last month that green grasses were growing in empty fields.  Many of the hillsides were planted with grapevines, which were bare this time of year, without leaves, but there was something calming about the parallel rows of grapevines and lattices covering the countryside.

As would often happen at the beginning of a year, I drove toward Jeromeville with a feeling of hope and promise.  This year had positive things in store.  In addition to graduation and starting a new phase of my education, I also had Winter Camp to look forward to.  And I was sure that the year would be full of unexpected surprises, some good, some bad.  Maybe this year would be full of new experiences.  Maybe the love of my life would be waiting just around the corner.  Who knows?

Readers: How do you usually celebrate the New Year? What’s your most memorable New Year story? Tell me about it in the comments.

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October 3-5, 1996. Often, one has no idea that something has just happened for the final time. (#103)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 5 Comments

“Greg?” Brian said, poking his head into my bedroom.  “Your friend is here.”

I walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs, smiling as I saw her standing in the entryway at the bottom.  “Hey!” I said.  “Good to see you!”

“Hi, Greg!” Rachel Copeland replied, pulling me in for a hug.  She looked a little different from how she did the last time I had seen her, over a year ago.  Her light brown hair had grown even longer, most of the way down her back.  Last year, Rachel’s freshman year at St. Elizabeth’s College, she seemed to have put on the proverbial fifteen pounds that many say inevitably appears during everyone’s freshman year.

“Rachel, this is my roommate Brian,” I said, gesturing toward Brian sitting on the couch watching television.  “And Shawn,” I added, pointing toward the kitchen where Shawn was making something on the stove.  “This is Rachel, my friend from high school.”  Brian and Shawn both said hello to Rachel.  “So what’s the plan?  I’m going to show you around, then we’ll find something to eat?”

“Yeah!” she said.  “Can I get a drink of water and use your bathroom first?  I’ve been in the car for an hour.”

After Rachel finished, we walked to the car.  “I like these apartments,” she said.  “They’re nice and spread out, with landscaping.  Do you like living off campus better than on campus?  You lived in a dorm when you were a freshman, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you like it?  Did you want to move off campus?”

“It wasn’t my choice, really,” I explained.  “Everyone is guaranteed a spot on campus their first year, but UJ has so little dorm space right now, they only have a small number of rooms left for returning students.  This year, the freshman class was bigger than expected, so there’s absolutely no room on campus for returning students, and they even have people in rooms that are supposed to be study rooms.”

“What?” Rachel asked as we got into my car.  I started the car and headed out of the parking lot, south on Maple Drive.

“Yeah.  We were filling out a new phone list this year for the church choir, and this one girl, Margaret, she’s a freshman, and she put her address as Room 101 Building M.  Those letter buildings, remember I was in Building C my freshman year, they’re all the same, and there is no room 101, they start at 112.  She said they put two beds and two cots in the study room.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.  The housing market in Jeromeville is all kinds of messed up.  The university keeps growing, but they haven’t built any new dorms in over a decade, and they even tore some down a couple years before I started here, because they weren’t up to code.  And the city wants to stay small and not become a sprawling suburb.”

“That doesn’t seem right.  Are they going to replace the buildings they tore down?”

“I think so, eventually, but it’s still just an empty field right now.”  At that point, we were passing by the Forest Drive Housing Area; I said, “At some point in the past, the University bought some apartment buildings in this neighborhood over here and turned them into dorms.  We’re not far from campus now.  But even if they do more of that, that also takes away from the total housing in the city and campus combined.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s been frustrating for me, because I’ve always had a hard time finding roommates.  You have to make plans early in the spring for the next fall.  This year worked out perfectly, though.  At Bible study, we were doing prayer requests, and I mentioned needing a roommate, and one of the group leaders said that he needed a place to live.  That was Shawn, who you just met.”

“Oh, wow.  That did work out.”

I turned left on Fifth Street and right on Andrews Road, entering campus by the North Residential Area.  I pointed out the basketball arena and the pool, with its landscaped berm popular with sunbathers which my dad had once nicknamed Thong Bikini Hill.  I turned left on Davis Drive and right into the South Residential Area, where we drove past Building C.  “This is where I lived freshman year,” I said.  Pointing at my window, I said, “That was my room.”

“Cool!  These buildings are smaller than the other ones we just drove by.”

“Yeah.  It was nice.  And, remember, I was in that program where everyone else in the program lived in the same building, so we all knew each other.”

“That’s cool.  I’ve just been paired with a random roommate both years.  Last year my roommate and I got along, but this year we aren’t very close.  It’s not that we don’t like each other, we’re just different.  You know.”

“Yeah.  There are definitely some people from Building C that I didn’t stay friends with.”

“Were those cows back there?” Rachel asked.

“Yeah.  The dairy was right across the street.  People in the dorms always made fun of the smell, but you get used to it after a while.”

“I guess that would make sense that Jeromeville would have a dairy, if it’s known for its agricultural programs.”

As I drove around the outer edge of campus, I pointed out other highlights: the Arboretum; Marks Hall, where the administrative offices were located; Krueger Hall, home of the offices for my part-time job as a math tutor; the odd-looking building nicknamed the Death Star, where I got lost playing Sardines; and the football stadium, which looked like a high school stadium, but a little bit bigger.  I pointed out that many of the academic buildings were to the west of us, in the part of campus closed to vehicular traffic.  I turned right on Fifth Street and pointed out the Newman Center.

“That’s a cute building,” she said.

“It was the original building for the main Catholic Church in Jeromeville.  But they moved into a bigger building eventually.”

“Are you ready to eat?” Rachel asked.

“Yes.  Do you know what you want?”

“Not really.”

“I’m terrible at picking food,” I said.  “I mostly just know fast food, and I haven’t found any local restaurants yet, except for another burger place.”

“What about if you just drive around and I’ll look for something that looks good?”

“That sounds perfect,” I said.  “We’re downtown, so there’s a ton of restaurants nearby.”

I began driving up and down the downtown grid on the streets named for low numbers and letters at the beginning of the alphabet.  As I passed the corner of G and Third Streets, Rachel pointed at the Jade Dragon Restaurant and asked, “Do you like Chinese food?”

“Sure,” I replied.  “I’ve never been there.  Let’s try it.”

A public parking lot ran the entire length of the block between F and G Streets.  I pulled into a parking place and walked with Rachel back to the restaurant.  After we sat down, I looked over the menu and said, “So it looks like if we get this dinner for two, we can each pick an entree to go with all of those sides?”

“That’s what I see.”

“Back home, the summer after I graduated, I went to that Chinese place on Valencia Road by McDonalds with Catherine and Melissa and Renee and Anthony and Kevin.  I was confused about how to order, and I got a little frustrated.”

“We can go somewhere else if you don’t like Chinese food.”

“No, I do,” I said.  “We just never went out to eat and sat down when I was a kid.  My brother and I always acted squirrelly whenever we went out to eat, you know, like little boys do, and as we grew up, Mom just assumed we were always going to misbehave in restaurants.  So we always got take-out.  As far as I knew, Chinese food came in little white boxes.”

“That’s kind of funny.”

After we ordered, I asked, “So who is it that you’re on your way to visit tonight? Is it someone I knew back home?”

“No,” Rachel explained.  “She was one of my friends at St. Elizabeth’s last year, but it wasn’t working out for her there, so she moved back home and transferred to Capital State.”

“It must be nice not having classes tomorrow.  That way you can do three-day weekend trips like this whenever you want.”

“It is nice.  This is the first time it’s worked out that way.”

“It seems like every math class at UJ is Monday-Wednesday-Friday.  So I’ll probably never have Fridays off.  And now that I’m doing University Chorus, their rehearsals are Monday-Wednesday-Friday too.”

“How is chorus going?  What kind of music are you doing?”

“I don’t know classical music well enough to describe it,” I said, chuckling.  “But we’re doing Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and some Christmas thing by Vaughan Williams.”

“I don’t know either of those.”

“I didn’t either until last week.”  Our food arrived, and we began eating.  “This is good,” I said.  “Good suggestion.”

“It is,” Rachel agreed after taking a bite.  “And thanks for the campus tour.  Jeromeville is so much bigger than St. Elizabeth’s.”

“I’ve never been to St. Elizabeth’s, but I would imagine it is.”

“Do you have a favorite part of the campus?”

“Hmm,” I replied, thinking.  “Maybe the Arboretum.  It’s peaceful, like you’re out in nature with all the trees nearby.  Or some of the roads on the rural side of campus, where they do agricultural research.  I ride my bike out there sometimes.”

“That sounds nice,” Rachel said.  “My favorite part of St. Elizabeth’s is this big cross.  Sometimes I just walk out there at night and watch the stars.  I’m not very religious, but it feels spiritual being out there.”

“Is it weird going to a Catholic school when you’re not Catholic?”

“Not really.  There are a lot of students who aren’t Catholic.”

“That’s true.  I’ve never been to Catholic school at any level, so I don’t know what it’s like.”

“What are you doing this weekend?” Rachel asked.

“Tomorrow is Jeromeville Christian Fellowship.  Then Saturday I’m going to the football game, against Capital State.  It’s our big rivalry game, the Drawbridge Classic.  The rest of the weekend I’ll just be doing homework.”

“That should be fun.  Do you go to a lot of games?”

“Some.  Not as many as I did freshman year when I lived right on campus.”

“I haven’t really followed sports at St. Elizabeth’s,” Rachel said.  “Apparently football and basketball are pretty big there.”

“I think they’re Division I,” I replied.  “That’s considered the top level of college sports.  Jeromeville is Division II.”

“Really.  It’s kind of funny that Jeromeville is so much bigger but St. Elizabeth’s is in a higher sports division.”

“I know.  I’m not really sure how all that works.  But there’s this local band that I’ve seen three times, called Lawsuit.  They’re playing at the pre-game show, so I definitely wanted to go to this one.”

“I think you’ve told me about Lawsuit before.  Were they the ones who were, like really different from anything you’d heard before?”

“Yeah.  Like rock with horns.”

“That should be fun!  I wonder if they ever play out my way?”

“I think so.  They play around Bay City a lot too.”

Rachel and I spent about another hour, long after we had finished our fortune cookies, talking about classes, college friends, campus activities, mutual friends, and what we had done over the summer.  Eventually, Rachel said, “I should go.  It’s getting dark, and I still have to drive to Capital City.”

“You don’t have too much farther to go,” I said.

“Yeah, but I don’t know where I’m going.  That makes it stressful.”

“True.”

We got back in my car and drove back to my apartment.  I parked and walked Rachel to her car.  “Thank you so much for visiting,” I said.  “It was so good to see you.”

“Yeah!” Rachel replied.  “You too!  It was good to see where you live, finally.”

“Drive safely, and have fun with your friend.”

“I will!”  Rachel put her arms around me, and we hugged, a long lingering hug that lasted about ten seconds.  “Good night, Greg.”

“Good night.”  I watched as Rachel exited the parking lot, then went back into the house.  Rachel may be on a three-day weekend, but it was still Thursday and I had numerical analysis homework due tomorrow.


The weather in early October in Jeromeville was basically Summer Junior, warm and sunny during the day, although not as hot as actual summer.  I rode my bike to the football stadium Saturday afternoon, arriving as Lawsuit was setting up their instruments and equipment on a temporary stage that had been erected for this pregame show.

This scene differed greatly from that of the last time I saw Lawsuit, at the benefit concert for the C.J. Davis Art Center.  For one thing, the show started at five o’clock, and it was not completely dark yet.  People were spread out over a much larger area on a practice sports field next to the stadium, with booths set up for snacks and drinks.  Not everyone was actively paying attention to the band.

Lawsuit played many of the same songs I had seen in the three other shows of theirs that I had been to.  They opened with the same song as the other times I had seen them, “Thank God You’re Doing Fine,” followed by “Useless Flowers.”  I had the two most recent of their five albums, so I recognized at least half the songs, but they played some that I did not know.  I was unsure if these were from older albums, or if they were new songs that were not released on albums yet.  Being that it was a shorter set and part of a football pregame show instead of just a Lawsuit concert, the show felt more like when they performed at Spring Picnics rather than the benefit concert at the Art Center.  They did not have as much banter or inside jokes between the band members as they did at the Art Center, which did not particularly bother me, since most of the inside jokes went over my head.

I made a mental note to go to more Lawsuit concerts this coming school year.  Their monthly flyers told their fans to bug radio stations to play them; maybe I should start doing that too.  I did not know how all of that worked, however.  I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of the pregame show tonight.

After Lawsuit finished, I walked into the football stadium, sitting with the Colt Crew, the free general admission section reserved for undergraduates.  A group of students led the Colt Crew in silly cheers all night, with plenty of giveaways during the night.  I got excited during a timeout in the third quarter, when the Colt Crew brought out one of their most random traditions, Tube Sock Madness.  All of the Colt Crew leaders dressed in silly costumes, tossing rolled-up tube socks into the crowd.  I caught tube socks once freshman year from a guy in a cow suit, but I came up empty at this game.  I did not know if the guy in the cow suit tonight was the same guy as two years ago, but I noticed that this cow suit had a nipple ring on the udder.

By now, I had been to enough University of Jeromeville Colts football games that I recognized the tunes of all of the marching band fight songs, and I even knew the words to a few of them.  I hummed along and sang quietly under my breath a few times, taking in the college football atmosphere and forgetting the stresses of studying for one night.  I was already on a high from the Lawsuit show, and the excitement of a good, close game made the night even better.  Unfortunately, the night ended on a disappointing note; with the score tied in the fourth quarter, Capital State marched down the field and kicked a field goal, which Jeromeville was unable to answer in their final remaining drive.  The Colts lost, 27 to 24.

All things come to an end, somehow, someday.  Often, one has no idea that something has just happened for the final time.  That early October Thursday evening was, as of now, the last time I saw Rachel in person.  Rachel’s emails would become less frequent as the year went on, and we gradually lost touch as life continued to get in the way.  However, early in the social media era, when Rachel and I were in our early thirties, she found me on Facebook, and we have been sporadically in contact ever since, occasionally liking and commenting on pictures and such.  She now lives in Mt. Lorenzo, a hippie beach town near where I grew up, working as a sex therapist.  As an unmarried man with conservative Christian values, I have little to no need for a sex therapist and no idea what her career is like.

That football game was also the last Drawbridge Classic I would attend for a decade.  The game was played in Capital City in odd-numbered years, and I did not want to watch it in front of a hostile crowd.  My remaining even-numbered years in Jeromeville, I was busy with other things and not following football as closely.  It was not until 2005 that I would begin attending Colt football games again, this time no longer as a resident of Jeromeville, and not until 2006 that I would see the Colts play Capital State at home

Finally, and perhaps most surprisingly, that night was also the last time I would ever see Lawsuit perform live.  But that is another story for another time.

Note to readers: What about you guys? When was a noteworthy time in your lives when you did something or saw someone for the last time, and didn’t realize it?

(April 2021. Interlude, part 4, and Year 2 recap.)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 5 Comments

If you’re new here, this is not a typical post, but this is the perfect post for you.  Don’t Let The Days Go By is an episodic continuing story about a university student figuring out life.  I am currently on hiatus after finishing writing about Year 2.  Sometime later this spring I will start writing and posting about Year 3.

This week I will be recapping and summarizing Year 2.  Last week, I did the same for Year 1.  Many of my current readers have not been with the story since the beginning, so this is an opportunity to catch up.  I will also include links to some, but not all, of the episodes, so you can read an abridged version of the story more detailed than this recap.  As always, you can start from the first episode (here) and keep clicking Next if you want to read the entire story, 88 episodes so far.  If this is your first time here, and you do not want to read all 88 episodes, you may want to read the recap of Year 1 first.

I went home to Plumdale for the summer and worked in a small bookstore.  I got the job through the connection that one of the two other employees was a family friend.  Mom volunteered me for the job without asking me, and while I hate when she does that, this time I did not mind because I needed something to do, and getting paid would be nice.  I thought at first that working in a bookstore would be fun, but the store was very slow, and not exactly my clientele.

June 22, 1995. The first day on the job.

I had lost touch with most of my high school friends, although I saw a few of them.  I watched a roller hockey game with Rachel, and I saw Catherine and Renee and some of Catherine’s friends from Austria in a choir and orchestra performance that she put together.  I kept in touch with a number of Jeromeville friends, mostly through writing letters, although a few of them had access to email during the summer.  My cousins Rick and Miranda came to visit for a week, and I went with them, my mother, and my brother Mark to Jeromeville for a day, to show everyone around.  I got to see Taylor and another guy from my freshman dorm on that day.

July 18, 1995. The day we went to Jeromeville with Rick and Miranda.

I turned 19 in August.  The lease for my apartment began September 1, and I moved back to Jeromeville the first weekend of September.  Classes did not start until the end of September, but I preferred being bored in Jeromeville to being bored in Plumdale.  I spent that September going on lots of bike rides and talking to lots of girls on Internet Relay Chat.  As the school year approached, I was encouraged as I started seeing familiar faces around campus and town.  Megan, the resident advisor from a nearby building whom I had gotten to know (and like) the previous year, was now an RA in a building in the North Area, and she invited me to have lunch with her at the dining commons.

September 26, 1995.  My lunch date with Megan.

I had plenty of new experiences that fall.  I got a job tutoring calculus for the tutoring center on campus.  Also, Danielle, my friend from last year who also went to Mass at the Newman Center, finally talked me into singing in the choir at church. Another student in the choir, Heather, lived near me, so we usually carpooled to choir practice and to Mass.

October 11, 1995. A busy day.

Liz, another friend from last year, had invited me a few times to Jeromeville Christian Fellowship.  I was hesitant , since I was Catholic and I knew that other Christians did things differently and sometimes looked down on Catholics.  I was not sure that JCF would be the first place for me.  But I finally decided to take her up on her invitation that fall; since I was living alone, I knew that I needed to do all I could to stay close with my friends.  I quickly decided that JCF was a wonderful place for me.  In addition to already having several friends who attended there, I started making new friends, and in addition to learning more about the Bible, I also started socializing with JCF people.

November 17, 1995. What’s a but stop?

I started a new creative project that fall: a novel, about an 18-year-old who is not ready for high school to be over.  He goes away to live with relatives and pretends to be younger so he can go through high school again and get a second chance at having a social life.  I got the idea because I felt that way sometimes.  As the winter went on, my classes continued, I worked on the novel, and the holidays came.  I spent Thanksgiving with my family visiting the relatives in Bidwell.  I spent Christmas back home in Plumdale with my family, where Mom volunteered me for something yet again without asking me.  We made a last minute trip to Disneyland for the New Year, and on that trip we decided on a whim to drive by the house of an infamous celebrity.

December 30, 1995 – January 1, 1996. A family vacation that did not involve boring relatives.

I had still never had a girlfriend, and things never seemed to work out for me.  It seemed like every girl I met always seemed to have a boyfriend.  I was disappointed when Megan, the older girl who was an RA, mentioned at one point that she was dating someone.  I found out something later that made me realize that Megan and I never would have worked out anyway.

January 19-20, 1996. A dangerous glance.

While many positive things had happened so far that year, I still got discouraged and had bad days sometimes.  One of those bad days happened on a Friday, the night that JCF met.  As everyone trickled out of the room, I sat alone by myself.  Two guys, Eddie and Xander, came over to talk to me and invited me to hang out with them afterward, along with Haley, Kristina, and Kelly, three girls who lived down the street from them. I made new friends that night, some of whom I am still friends with today.

January 26, 1996. Pieces falling into place.

The winter quarter was not easy academically.  My classes all had their midterms on the same day.  Then, a few days later, some jerk decided to steal my clothes out of the laundry.  Just when despair was starting to get to me, I saw one of the JCF staff on campus; she told me exactly what it means to follow Jesus, how he died for our sins to bring us eternal life with God. I made a decision that day to follow Jesus.

February 15-16, 1996. And hope does not disappoint us.

With this new outlook on life, I started attending Bible study.  I was learning more about my faith, really paying attention to God’s Word for the first time.  My friend Melissa from high school told me in an email that she went bowling and got a score of 178, her best ever. This was exactly the same as my best bowling score ever, from the fall when I took bowling class. Melissa and I agreed to meet over spring break to see who was truly the better bowler, and that one game was legendary.

March 28, 1996. At the bowling alley and coffee shop during spring break.

In April, the University of Jeromeville got a new ID card system.  We all had to take new pictures, and mine was the worst ID card picture I have ever taken in my life.  The following week, I got invited along on a road trip to Bay City with a mix of old friends, including Sarah and Caroline, and new friends, including Eddie, Xander, and Haley.  We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe, walked uphill to an amazing view, and then drove down the coast to Moonlight Cove and slept illegally on the beach.

April 12-13, 1996. The road trip to Bay City and Moonlight Cove.

Finding a place to live in Jeromeville is a very stressful endeavor.  I heard Pete and Charlie say that they needed a third roommate for next year, but Mike Knepper came along and took that spot just as I about ready to commit.  I asked for prayer about it at Bible study a couple weeks later. Shawn, the senior who co-led the study, almost immediately mentioned that he and his current roommate Brian were staying in Jeromeville another year with no place to live yet.  God answered the first part of my prayer pretty quickly, giving me roommates for next year.  I had trouble finding a house to rent, since we waited so long, but I found a nice apartment on the northern edge of Jeromeville, about two miles from the campus core.

May 1996. Looking for a place to live.

I went to the Spring Picnic again, and I saw the band Lawsuit play.  I also worked the Math Club table for a while, which took away from my time to wander around and have fun, so I learned that day never to volunteer during the Spring Picnic.  I saw the Olympic torch pass through Jeromeville on its way to Atlanta.  I saw Sarah and a few other students from JCF get baptized.  And Haley had become my newest love interest, so of course I had plenty of awkward moments in front of her, as well as in front of other girls.

May 11-16, 1996. A montage of awkward moments.

I was still doing very well in classes.  Being a math major, I was now taking two math classes every quarter, and  started taking upper division math classes in the middle of that year.  Dr. Gabby Thomas was my favorite math professor so far; she spoke clear English and felt like a normal human being more than many of my other professors.  As the year ended, I participated in the Man of Steel competition, a decade-old tradition among the men of JCF involving disc golf, a hamburger eating contest, and a game of poker.  I did not do too well.  Fortunately, my finals went better than the Man of Steel competition, and I ended the year on a positive note, at a huge graduation party hosted by my new friends who were graduating, Brian and Shawn.

June 15, 1996. The graduation party at the Valdez Street house.

Here is the playlist of songs I used in year 2. As always, please leave comments or suggestions or questions for me. I love hearing from all of you. I’m not sure what, if anything, I’ll be doing next week; I will continue the story into Year 3 soon, but in real life, things are going to be a little crazy over the next month or two, so I might need some more time off.

April 9, 1996. Friends all over campus and a new plan. (#77)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 10 Comments

Two years ago, when my university applications were being processed, I got invited to something called the Interdisciplinary Honors Program at the University of Jeromeville.  This was a program for around seventy high-achieving freshmen; among other things, we all lived in the same building, and we had to take one class every quarter specifically for IHP students, which counted toward general education requirements.  I was particularly attracted to the idea of being part of a relatively small group of students.  Jeromeville was a huge university, with around 25,000 students on a main campus that took up a square mile, adjacent to several more square miles of farmland used for research.  I found my high school of 1400 already far too big to know everyone, so a school this big seemed intimidating.  Being part of a small group of students who knew each other seemed attractive to me, and this was part of the reason I chose Jeromeville over Central Tech and Bidwell State.

Despite those numbers, however, UJ was starting to feel much smaller now that I had been around for a while.  I encountered people I knew more and more often around campus and around town.  In addition to my friends from the Interdisciplinary Honors Program, I had friends from classes, church, Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, the Math Club, people I knew through mutual friends, and people who I just saw around enough that I started to recognize them and say hi for no other reason.

As I got on the bus that morning, I wondered if I would see Tiffany Rollins.  Tiffany was a civil engineering major, and we had been in a few of the same mathematics and physics classes in the past.  We had finished all of the classes that her major had in common with my mathematics major, though, so we would probably be seeing less of each other as time went on, but last week I saw her on the bus both Tuesday and Thursday morning.  She lived in an apartment complex just down Alvarez Avenue from mine, at the bus stop just before my stop.  I boarded the bus, showed my ID card to the driver, and spotted Tiffany sitting near the back of the bus.

“Hey, Greg,” Tiffany said as I approached her and sat next to her.

“Hey,” I replied.  “How are you?”

“Not bad.  One of my classes is really hard already.  I was up late last night studying.”

“Yeah.  Mine aren’t too bad yet.  I’m just starting to stress over not knowing where I’m going to live next year.”

“You aren’t keeping your studio apartment?”

“I didn’t renew.  I was hoping to find friends to live with.  I almost had a plan, but it fell through.”

“I hope you find something!”

“Me too.  I’ve been asking around.”

“I can let you know if anyone I know is looking for a guy.”

“That would be nice,” I said, although I was really hoping not to have to do that.  I wanted to live with people I knew who would be fun to be around, not some strangers who happened to know Tiffany.  Granted, those strangers could end up becoming friends, but they could also end up being my worst nightmare.

I was still thinking about this all through weight training class.  Yesterday, when I got home from campus, I had a note in my mailbox at the apartment saying that I had a package to pick up.  When I went into the office to get my package, the woman at the desk had asked me how I was doing, and I explained that I was worried about not having a place to live for next year.

“I have a note here from the other front desk person that someone came in here earlier looking for a roommate,” she said.  She wrote “Alex Davidson” and a phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to me.  “I guess Alex renewed his lease but his roommate is moving out, so maybe you should give Alex a call.”

I gave some kind of noncommittal answer and returned to my apartment.  I would not be giving Alex a call.  Because Jeromeville was a small world and I knew a lot of people, I was familiar with the name Alex Davidson.  The front desk person had not spoken to Alex directly, so she did not realize that Alex was a girl.  I did not know her well, but she was in my Chemistry 2B class a year ago; I remembered seeing her write her name on something, and her name stood out to me because most people named Alex I knew were male.  I did not feel comfortable with a female roommate.  It would just feel weird, and also I ran with circles that would question the nature of the relationship of a single male and a single female living together.  Sure, Heather Escamilla from church lived with her boyfriend, but I also knew people that had the same judgmental attitude toward that arrangement.  I did not find Alex Davidson particularly attractive, though, so if somehow we did end up living together, we probably would not develop any kind of awkward sexual tension.

After weight training class, I walked across campus toward the Memorial Union.  I had been coughing and sniffling off and on for the last few weeks, not enough to feel sick and stay home from classes but enough to notice.  As I approached the Memorial Union, I saw a quiet short-haired girl sitting quietly on a bench reading.  It was Skeeter, a friend from the IHP who lived upstairs from me last year.  Just as I was about to say hi, I coughed, and Skeeter heard me and looked up.  “Hey, Greg,” she said.

“Hi.  How’s it going?”

“It’s funny.  I recognized your cough.”

“Wait, what?”

“I heard a cough, and I thought, ‘That sounds like Greg.’”

“Really,” I said.  “I didn’t know I had a distinct-sounding cough.”

“I’ve never thought about it before.  It’s really weird.”

“Yeah.  I would not have thought of that,”  I said.  Have a good rest of the day!”

“You too!”

Last night, I went grocery shopping, and I had to use my credit card to pay because I did not have enough cash and I forgot to bring my checkbook.  My bank had an ATM on the far side of the Memorial Union building, so I went there next.  After I withdrew cash, I turned toward the east entrance of the building near the campus store.  A guy at a table was enticing students to sign up for credit cards with free gifts.  I recognized Autumn, a freshman girl who went to Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, filling out an application on a clipboard.  I met Autumn a few months ago when I did a car rally with JCF; she got put in my group, and we failed miserably that night.

“Hey, Autumn,” I said.

Autumn looked up at me.  “Greg!” she said.  “How are you?”

“I’m good,” she said.  She finished filling out the application and handed it to the guy.  He gave her a baseball cap.  “Do you like my hat?” Autumn asked me.

“Yeah,” I said.  The cap was black, with the logo of one of the credit card companies that this man represented subtly stitched into the side.  No other writing or decoration was on the cap.

Autumn put on the cap, with her hair coming out of the hole in the back just above the strap to adjust the size; she tied her hair into a ponytail.  “I’ve never had a hat like this!” she said.  “I’m excited!”

“It looks good,” I said.  “I like it.”

“Free gifts!” the guy running the table called out to people walking by.  “This guy got two free gifts yesterday!” he said, pointing at me.

“You signed up for two credit cards yesterday?” Autumn asked.  “What free gifts did you get?

“The pen and the mug,” I said.  After I filled out those two applications yesterday, I wondered why I had done it.  I was never the type to spend money I did not own, so I did not need a credit card, although it would have been useful for an emergency, or for making large purchases without carrying around cash or a checkbook.  I had a credit card through my bank, the same one I had used at the grocery store last night, but it had a very small limit.  I had signed up for two more yesterday, but I stopped when the man with the applications, the same one who was here today, put a third application in my face.  The new cards would have much higher credit limits than the one from my bank.  In a fit of simplifying and downsizing, I canceled one of the cards about five years later, but I still have the other one, a Discover Card, today, and I use it as my primary credit card.  Also, I still pay it off every month; I know too much math to carry a balance and burden myself with impossibly high interest rates.

“So how are things?” I asked Autumn when she finished the credit card applications.

“Good,” she said.  “I like my schedule this quarter.  How about you?”

“I’m doing okay.  I’m kind of stressing over not having plans for where to live next year.”

“What are your roommates this year doing?” Autumn asked.

“I live alone.  I don’t want to live alone again.  I want to live with people.  Having roommates seems fun.  And it’s a lot less expensive.”

“Yeah.  Have you asked around JCF?”

“Yeah, but I haven’t heard anything for sure.  Pete Green and Charlie Watson were looking for a third person, but Mike Knepper got that spot before I told them for sure.”

“Bummer,” Autumn replied.  “Well, if I hear of any guys looking for a roommate, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks.  I appreciate it.  Do you know where you’re living next year?”

“Yeah.  I’ll be in south Jeromeville with Leah and two other girls she knows.”

“That’ll be nice.”

“I need to go, but it was good running into you.  I’ll see you Friday at JCF?”

“Yeah,” I said.  “Bye!”

I walked into the Memorial Union building, going all the way across it to the Coffee House on the other side.  I was done for the day, weight training was my only class on Tuesdays, but I usually stayed on campus until around lunch time, to get work done.  This was a busy time of day, when finding a place to sit in the Coffee House could be difficult.  But today, I just kept running into people I knew everywhere I went, and this would provide me with a place to sit.  I saw a dark-haired girl named Lizzie sitting by herself at a table of four, putting a notebook away in her backpack.

“Hi,” I said.  “May I sit with you?”

“Hey!” Lizzie replied.  “How are you?”

I met Lizzie in the fall through a mutual friend, a math major my year named Jack who had gone to the same high school as Lizzie.  She had a class in the same classroom as our class an hour before, and Jack would always say hi to Lizzie as she was leaving class.  She became a familiar enough face that I had started saying hi to her around campus.

“I’m good,” I said.  “I’m done for the day, I only have one class on Tuesdays, but I’m going to hang out here and work on stuff for a while.”

“That sounds good.  I actually was just getting up to leave.  But you can have my table.”

“Thanks.  Have a good rest of the day!”

“I will!”

I got out my textbook for Linear Algebra Applications with the intent of working on homework, but that did not happen right away.  I had a feeling I was not going to like this class.  The professor for this class seemed a little odd.  In addition to so far just repeating things out of the book instead of actually teaching, she had told us that the entire grade would be based on unannounced quizzes.  No midterm, no final, and homework was not graded.  Something about that did not seem right, although I felt pretty confident about how I did on the first such quiz yesterday.

I then made the classic overthinker move of replaying all of this morning’s conversations in my head.  I noticed that I had not mentioned my roommate search to Skeeter or Lizzie.  I did not know Lizzie well, and I did not know anything about the guys she would know, so if my goal was not to live with strangers, I would have had no reason to tell her about that.  And, although Skeeter’s nonconformity was part of why we were friends last year in Building C, I doubted that I would want to live with the kind of crowd she ran with.  Granted, one of her roommates this year was Danielle, who had been a close friend since our first week in Building C, but Danielle had told me some stories about Skeeter as a roommate that made me wary of associating too much with her crowd.

The rest of my day went smoothly without any surprises.  I came home in the early afternoon, took a nap, and wasted time on the computer chatting on IRC and reading Usenet groups.  I went to Bible study that night, and Lillian, one of the leaders, asked at the end if people wanted to share prayer requests.

“I still haven’t found roommates or a place to live yet,” I said.

“We can pray for that,” Lillian replied.  “Anyone else?”

The others shared their prayer requests: difficult classes, an upcoming summer mission trip to Mexico, a sick friend, a friend going through a difficult time.  We went around in a circle, each person praying for the prayer request of whomever was on the left.  After that, the group would normally end, and people would either leave or stick around for a while and socialize.  This week, while people were socializing, the other leader, Shawn, approached me.  “Hey, Greg?” he said.  “I might have an answer to your prayer.”

“Yes?”

“I’m graduating, but I’m staying in Jeromeville next year for the teacher training program.  I didn’t make housing plans either, because I was waiting for some of my roommates to decide what they were doing next year.  My roommate Brian applied to medical school, but he didn’t get in anywhere, and there is only one place he hasn’t heard from yet.  He’s heard that school usually sends acceptances early, so he thinks he probably didn’t get in.  He’s now planning to stay in Jeromeville next year, applying again and working part time on staff with JCF.”

“Okay,” I said.

“And Abby has a boyfriend who is moving to Jeromeville.  You know Abby Bartlett?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, her boyfriend, his name is Josh McGraw, and he commutes to Jeromeville from his parents’ house in Oak Heights.  He wants to move to Jeromeville and not have that long drive.  I want to save money, but Josh and Brian want their own rooms, so we were thinking if we got a three-bedroom place with a master bedroom, then I could share the big room with someone.  Are you interested?”

“Sure,” I said.  “Keep me posted.”

“Definitely!  We will!  It’s hard to get all four of us able to meet in the same place at the same time, Josh has a really weird schedule, but I’ll try to get a meeting set up in the next week or two so we can work out the details.”

“Sounds good.  Thanks!”

“I was going to ask you about this tonight, I remember you asking for prayer about that last week, but I didn’t get a chance yet.  Then you prayed about it again.  It’s cool how God works like that.”

“Yeah,” I said.  “It is.”

“Just so you know, there’s still an outside chance that Brian will get accepted to that one med school, so if that happens we might have to find someone at the last minute.”

“Right.  That’s okay.”

Sharing a bedroom did not feel like an ideal situation, but most people had to endure doing that with a complete stranger during freshman year, and I had had the good fortune to avoid that.  I thought I could handle it, though, especially with someone I already knew.  Shawn seemed like a decent guy.  I did not know Brian well, but he seemed very involved with JCF socially, and if he was going to be paid to work with the group next year, living with him sounded like a promising opportunity to make more social connections within JCF.  Josh was a bit of a wild card, I had never met him, and although his girlfriend Abby seemed nice, I did not know her well.  At this point, though, I would just have to take what I could get, and this situation seemed good enough.

I drove home a little later feeling much more at peace.  I still did not have a place to live, but I had roommates, and to me that meant that the hardest part was over.  This new plan was taking shape. I was no longer alone in my search for housing.  I was not the most social or popular student in my circles of friends.  I have a history of being a bit of an outcast and a loner.  But I was starting to open up, to make friends from many different walks of life, and that finally appeared to open a door to a new home for next year that would be much more fun than this lonely studio apartment.

March 28, 1996. At the bowling alley and coffee shop during spring break. (#75)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 10 Comments

All the cool kids in 1996 hung out in coffee shops  The characters in the popular TV show Friends hung out at a coffee shop, bringing coffee shop culture into the mainstream.  A coffee shop served as a communal meeting place, where people could interact or just hang out while enjoying a nice drink.  Artists and performers showcased their work at coffee shops.

Unfortunately, I felt left out of this coffee shop culture, because I did not drink coffee.  I had tried to drink coffee before, and I just could not stand the taste.  And I had never seen Friends; from what I had heard, the people on the show probably would not be friends with me.

When I moved to Jeromeville, it was full of unique locally owned coffee shops, each different from the others.  But soon after that, large corporate coffee shop chains began moving in, and many of the independent coffee shops closed.  By 2020, the city and university campus had a combined total of around 80,000 residents and eight Starbucks locations, with only a couple of the independent coffee shops from 1996 remaining.

Plumdale, where I grew up, was never cool enough to have a coffee shop, although Plumdale did get a Starbucks in the early 2000s.  But Gabilan, the nearby medium-sized city, had a coffee shop in its historic Old Town called the Red Bean that would go on to survive the onslaught of the corporate coffee shops.  On the Thursday afternoon of my 1996 spring break, I found myself at the Red Bean, waiting for someone, after what felt like one of the most legendary accomplishments of my life.

This all started a little over a week ago, when I had gotten an email from Melissa Holmes, a good friend from high school.

From: “Melissa Holmes” <m.l.holmes@sanangelo.edu>
To: “Gregory Dennison” <gjdennison@jeromeville.edu>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 19:23 -0800
Subject: Re: hi

Hi!  How are you?  Do you have finals this week too?  I had two today, and I have two more later this week.  I’ve been so busy studying, but I needed a little break today, so I’m actually checking my email for once.  How did your classes go this quarter?

Are you going to be home at all next week for spring break?  I’m doing something with my family down here on Sunday, but then I should be home Tuesday through Friday.  We should hang out and catch up.  Give me a call.  Maybe we could go bowling again.  I’ve been bowling a lot lately.  Some of us from the pre-med club went bowling a few weeks ago, and I bowled 178 – it was the best game of my life!  Hopefully I’ll see you soon!

The number 178 caught my eye.  I took a bowling class fall quarter, and the best game I bowled during that class was a score of 178.  By some bizarre coincidence, Melissa’s new personal best in bowling was exactly the same as mine.  I told this to Melissa in my reply email and said that I definitely wanted to go bowling when I was home for spring break.

Melissa told me to meet her at the bowling alley in Gabilan at one in the afternoon.  One game, to see who was really better.  One o’clock seemed like a strange time to me, but she was free then, and we were students on spring break with no schedules to work around.  I walked into the bowling alley; it was mostly empty at this time of day.  I saw someone with long brown hair sitting at a table looking away from me; I was pretty sure it was Melissa, and she turned her face toward me before I had to choose between awkwardly staring to make sure it was her or possibly embarrassing myself by taking to a stranger.

“Hey, Greg!” Melissa said, getting up to give me a side-hug.

“Hi,” I replied.  “How are you?”

“Good.  Enjoying your spring break?”

“I haven’t been doing much, but it’s been good.  What about you?”

“Same thing.  Just hanging out.  You ready?”

“Sure.”

We got our shoes and balls and went to our lane.  “So what kind of things did you learn in that bowling class?” Melissa asked.

“A lot of stuff.  Throwing technique, strategy for how to aim, a little bit about the history of the game.”

“That must have been fun!  I don’t know if we have a bowling class at San Angelo.”

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“Yes!  Are you?”

“Sure.”  Trying to be dramatic, I continued, “One game, just like we said.  You versus me.  One-seventy-eight versus one-seventy-eight.”

“Good luck!” Melissa said.

“You too!”

Although this game was strictly for fun, and nothing was actually riding on the game, I felt like this was the most important game I had ever bowled.  Melissa set the tone from the beginning, getting a strike in the first frame.  I hit eight pins with my first roll and converted the spare.  I tried to continue making conversation, but I realized quickly that this was the wrong environment for that.  When bowling with a big group, it is easy for the people waiting their turn to talk to each other, but with only two of us, talking would be too distracting to whomever was bowling at the time.  This game was too important to lose focus, and distracting Melissa on purpose was playing dirty.  I wanted to win this fairly.  Our words during the game were limited to comments like “nice shot” and “oooh, almost.”

Both of us were bowling our best that afternoon.  After five frames, Melissa had bowled three strikes and two spares.  I had a strike and two spares in my first four frames, but she was clearly bowling better at that point.  When my turn came in the fifth frame, though, I bowled a strike.  “This isn’t over yet,” I said, chuckling.  Melissa bowled her first open frame in the sixth, with seven pins on the first roll and two on the second.  With no strike or spare, the scoreboard showed her full score of 113 for the first six frames.  That was more like what I usually got for my final score.  I stepped forward for my sixth frame and rolled another strike.

“Wow,” Melissa said.  “You’re heating up!”

“Thanks,” I said.

Melissa bowled a strike in her seventh frame, and I answered with another strike of my own, my third in a row.  “Turkey!” I shouted.

“Huh?”

“Three strikes in a row.  They call that a turkey.”

“Oh yeah.”

In the eighth frame, both of us bowled spares.  Because the score after a strike or a spare depended on the next roll it was impossible to know the exact score after the eighth frame, but by doing some quick adding in my head, I could tell that this was going to be a very close game, and I said so.

“I know,” Melissa said.  “You’re doing really well.”

“So are you!  This is already a better total than I usually get, and we still have two frames left.”

“That bowling class really helped you.”

“I hope so.  All the practicing has helped you too.”

Melissa bowled another strike in the ninth frame, giving her a total of 153 for the eighth frame and a minimum of 163 now.  My hand slipped as I made the first roll of my ninth frame, and the ball only hit four pins.  I did not come anywhere close to converting the spare, only hitting three pins on the second roll and giving me a score of 160.  I still had a chance to win, but Melissa was clearly ahead now.  Even if I finished the game with two gutter balls, though, this would still be my third best game ever, and that was nothing to be ashamed of.

Melissa began her tenth frame with a 7-10 split, leaving the two pins in the back corners.  Her second roll hit nothing, passing between the two upright pins and just missing the one on the right.  “Field goal!  It’s good!” I said, raising both of my arms straight up as if signaling a score in a football game.

“Yeah,” Melissa said, chuckling.  “I don’t think bowling works that way.”

“Look,” I said, pointing at the scoreboard.  “It’s your best game ever.”  Melissa’s final score was 179, one better than either of us had ever bowled before.  “Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” Melissa replied.  “Now let’s see what you can do.”

I looked at the scoreboard.  Since the score for a strike or spare requires knowing the next roll, and there is no next roll after the tenth frame, rolling a strike or spare in the tenth frame results in bonus rolls to resolve the score.  I was down by 19, so I could still win this game and get a new personal best too.  But I would have to get a strike and a spare at the minimum.  I stepped up to the lane, rolled the ball, and knocked down nine pins, all but the number 10 pin in the back right corner.  I still had a hard time hitting that pin, after all the practice in bowling class.  I had no room for error remaining.  I picked up my ball, carefully rolled it toward the one remaining pin, and knocked it over.

“I’m still alive,” I said to Melissa.

“Pressure’s on,” she replied.

I began to feel nervous as I moved my hand over the fan.  I picked up my ball, hoping that my hand was sufficiently dry.  I brought the ball to my face, carefully aligning my body and the ball with the pins.  I thought of the time I was in bowling class, when the red pins appeared at the front of the lane, and I won everyone in the class a free game by bowling a strike.  If I could do that, I could do this.  I brought the ball high, began walking toward the lane as I swung the ball forward, and released the ball just before my feet reached the foul line.  The ball rolled down the lane to the right, curved slightly toward center, and hit the front pin hard just to its right.  I watched all ten pins fall, pumping my fist in the air.

“180!” I said as I watched my final score of 180 appear on the scoreboard just below Melissa’s final score of 179.  Melissa had beaten her previous personal best by one, and I had beaten my identical previous personal best by two.  I stared at the scoreboard for a while, grinning from ear to ear; I still could not believe that this perfect ending was happening.

“Wow,” Melissa said.  “Good game.”

“You too,” I replied.  “That was amazing.”

“It was.  I guess you really are the better bowler.”

“Don’t say that.  It was just one game.  We both did really well.”

“I kind of feel like I want a rematch, but we agreed, just one game.”

“Yeah, we did,” I said.  “You want to do something else?”

“Sure.  Red Bean?”

“Sounds good.  I’ll see you there.”

The Red Bean and the bowling alley were on the same street, about a mile apart.  I found a parking place across the street and walked into the building.  The 100-year-old buildings in this block of Old Town Gabilan touched each other, with no space in between, and parking either on the street or in the back.  The front wall of the Red Bean was mostly large windows, with tables and chairs visible inside; an older man sat inside next to one window reading the newspaper, while the table by the other window was empty.  The front door was recessed a few feet from the front windows.  I walked in and looked around.  Paintings hung on most of the walls, some with small signs stating the title and name of the artist.  Two women sat talking at a table toward the back of the room.  The counter was on the left; I was debating whether or not to order a hot chocolate when I saw Melissa walk in.

“Hey,” she said.  “What are you getting?”

“Hot chocolate.”

“You don’t drink coffee.  That’s right.”

“I’ve tried drinking coffee.  I just don’t like the taste.  I can’t.  I wish I could.  I feel like not drinking coffee stunts my social life.”

“How so?”

“Because if I’m hanging out in a fun place like this, I feel out of place not drinking coffee.  And it’s weird to think of asking a girl out for coffee if I’m not going to drink coffee.”

We got our drinks and sat at the empty table by the window.  Melissa looked at me and smiled slyly.  “So, who is this girl that you want to ask out for coffee?”

“What?”

“You mentioned wanting to ask a girl out for coffee.  Who is she?”

“Well,” I said, “I just meant in general.  There is a girl, but… I don’t know.”

“Does she know you?”

“Yeah.  She goes to Jeromeville Christian Fellowship.  But I just met her a couple months ago.  It’s probably too soon.  And I don’t know how to ask girls out.”

“You just ask her.  You’ll never know unless you try.”

“I suppose,” I said.  “So how’s school going for you?”

“My grades are still good.  And I’ve started to get involved with the pre-med club.”

“Good!  I remember you saying last year you felt kind of isolated because you lived off-campus with your grandma.  I’m glad you found a group to get involved with.

“Yeah!  It’s fun.  What about this new Christian group you’ve been talking about?  What denomination is it?”

“It’s part of a national organization called Intervarsity, but it’s nondenominational,” I explained.  “The weekly meetings have music, and a talk kind of like a sermon, and then there are small group Bible studies too.”

“Are you still going to Mass?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it weird that you’re hanging out with Protestants now?”

“I don’t think so, really.  It’s the same Jesus, and the things that Catholics and Protestants have in common are so much more important than the differences.”

“I guess.  That’s true.”

“And I’m learning a lot from reading and studying the Bible.”

“Good.”

“Oh, yeah.  A guy from my Bible study named Evan Lundgren said he knows you, and told me to tell you hi.”

“Evan!” Melissa exclaimed.  “I forgot he went to Jeromeville!  How’s he doing?”

“He seems to be doing well.  He’s a really nice guy.”

“Yeah, he is.”

“How do you know him anyway?”

“One summer, we both volunteered at the hospital,” Melissa explained.

“Oh, okay,” I said.  After a pause, I asked, “Do you still hear from a lot of people from high school?”

“I still see Deanna around campus pretty often,” Melissa said.  “I hear from Renee and Catherine occasionally too.  Anthony and Kevin haven’t written me in a long time.  Didn’t you go visit Renee in Valle Luna?”

“Yeah.  Back in the fall.  That was a fun trip.”

“Who else are you still in touch with?”

“Just you and Renee and Rachel Copeland.  I haven’t heard from Catherine in a while.  Tell her I said hi if you hear from her soon.”

“I will.  Where is Rachel now?”

“She’s at St. Elizabeth’s, in Los Nogales.”

“Is she Catholic?”

“I don’t think so.  She just said she liked the school.”

Melissa and I spent about an hour and a half catching up at the Red Bean.  I did not like the taste of coffee, and I was not exactly part of the Red Bean’s trendy clientele, but I appreciated the niche that places like this filled.  It was a perfect place to sit and catch up with an old friend.

In Jeromeville, where I lived during the school year, I followed the local news, and I knew that many residents of Jeromeville opposed corporate chain stores, wanting to keep Jeromeville a unique and quirky university town.  As one who generally supports a free market, I thought at first that those people were un-American.  If a corporation wants to open a new location in a new city, they should be allowed to, and if the people of the new city really do not want the corporation there, then they can vote with their pocketbooks and not patronize that business. I also came to realize over time that Jeromevillians were a bunch of hypocrites on this matter, only opposing corporate chain stores that they perceive as low-class.  They have never allowed Walmart in Jeromeville, but few people fought the arrival of Starbucks, Gap, or Trader Joe’s.

While I still lean toward less government regulation, I have come to appreciate what small businesses do for a community.  If corporate chains were to take over everything, then cities and towns and neighborhoods would be one step closer to all looking the same.  I now live about 30 miles from Jeromeville in a sprawling suburb on the other side of the Drawbridge, and while there is much about the culture and political climate in Jeromeville that has kept me from moving back, I do miss the uniqueness and quirkiness sometimes.  But no matter where I am, I can find local businesses to patronize, and I can do my part not to be exactly like everyone else.

November 10-12, 1995.  Creating a fantasy world. (#59)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 15 Comments

The first World War ended on November 11, 1918, and many of the countries involved now observe a holiday on November 11.  The holiday goes by different names around the world; in the United States, we call it Veterans Day.  Many government offices are closed on Veterans Day, and students are off school.  When November 11 falls on a weekend, as it did this year, schools close on the nearest Friday or Monday.

Except for the University of Jeromeville.  We got no day off.  Even last year, when November 11 was on an actual school day, we got no day off.  I never knew why.  I wondered if this was a legacy of universities traditionally being full of anti-war hippie types who did not want to celebrate our military.  But we did get a day off in May for Memorial Day, the holiday commemorating those who died serving our country.  And the building I was walking through right now was called the Memorial Union, or the “MU” for short, named to remember UJ students who died in military service.

It had been a typical Friday so far.  My day started waiting in the hallway of Wellington Hall for math class, because another class occupied the classroom immediately before our class.  Jack Chalmers from my class said hi to a girl named Lizzie as she left that class and we entered the room for ours, just as he did every day.  Math was easy.  I crossed the street to the MU at 10 and did homework for an hour.  I met some tutees in 102 Wellington, the tutoring room, at 11.  I just learned that word this quarter working for the Learning Skills Center: “tutee,” meaning one who is being tutored.  Tutee is a great word.  At 12, I walked down Colt Avenue to 199 Stone for chemistry, and then back to the MU to eat lunch.  I got up, went to the bathroom, and walked back through the MU on the way to my physics class in Ross Hall when I saw her.

When I see a familiar face in a setting that this person is not normally connected to, my brain always takes a few seconds to register what I am seeing.  At first all I saw was two young-looking girls walking toward me.  They were both a little on the short side.  One wore a dark red sweatshirt with a hood and a brand name logo unfamiliar to me, and the other wore a black jacket with white sleeves, and a large letter P on her left side.  I recognized that this was a Plumdale High School letter jacket.

What is a Plumdale High School letter jacket doing in Jeromeville?  Who is this person?  Do I know her?

Holy crap, it’s her.  What is she doing here?  What do I say?

Just before she walked past me, I said, “Annie?”

The two girls stopped.  Annie, the one in the Plumdale High jacket, looked at me, looking just as surprised as I was at first until recognition came over her face a second later.  “Hey, Greg!” she said.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.  “Visiting your brother?”

“My boyfriend goes here now too,” Annie replied.

There it is again.  The B word.  I wondered whether she was still with the same boyfriend as last year, or if this was some new guy.  Either way, though, Annie’s boyfriend was not me.

“It was good seeing you,” I said.  “Have a great weekend!”

“You too!” Annie replied.  The girl she was with waved at me; I recognized this girl’s face, she was from Plumdale High too, but I could not remember her name.

My mind raced as I walked away from them, toward my physics class.  Annie Gambrell was here, in Jeromeville.  I had a chance to talk to her, and I felt like I blew it.  Should I have said more?  She seemed busy, and she was not here to visit me.  She had a boyfriend; she was not coming here to meet guys.  But I did not know when, or if, I would ever see her again.  Maybe I should have talked more.  Or maybe she doesn’t really care about me, and all that nice stuff she wrote in my yearbook senior year was just for the sake of being polite and she didn’t really mean it.  Should I tell Annie’s brother next time I see him that I ran into her?  Does he think it’s weird that I have an unrequited crush on his unavailable little sister, even though I haven’t actually told him anything other than that I know her?

After physics class, I had another tutoring group back in the study room at 102 Wellington.  “Hi,” the tall blonde guy who was just finishing a tutoring group at the table next to me said as I walked in.   I knew from looking at the schedule of tutoring groups in this room that his name was Scott Madison.  He looked familiar for some reason, but maybe I was just used to seeing him here.

“Hi,” I replied to Scott.  I then turned to two of the three students in my group who were already waiting and asked, “Are you ready to get started?”

My tutoring group went as they usually do.  These students were in Short Calculus, Math 16A, for majors which do not require any math above calculus.  Their work focuses on finding and applying derivatives of functions without studying the theory and proofs behind derivatives.  I did not enjoy tutoring the Math 16 series as much as I did the 21 series, for mathematicians, scientists, and engineers, because it was difficult for me, as a math guy, to gloss over the theoretical stuff.  But I got paid to do so, and I did my best, hoping not to confuse the students too much.

At four o’clock, when the tutoring group was finished, I walked diagonally across the Quad to the Learning Skills Center in Krueger Hall to turn in my time sheet for tutoring, as I did every other Friday, then back along East Quad Avenue to catch a bus home from the MU.  A few hours later, after napping and eating, I returned to campus for Jeromeville Christian Fellowship.  I drove this time, because parking is easy to find and slightly less expensive in the evening.

Taylor Santiago, Charlie Watson, Sarah Winters, and Krista Curtis were standing around talking on the far side of the lecture hall where the group was held; I walked over to them and said hi.  The four of them all lived in the same apartment complex, the boys in one apartment and the girls in another, and all of us were in the same dorm last year.

“Hey, man,” Taylor said.  “How’s it goin’?”

“Pretty good,” I replied.

“How’s your day been?” Sarah asked.

“One of my friends from high school, she’s a senior this year, I saw her and her friend walking around campus today.  It was unexpected.”

“What was she doing here?” Krista asked.  “Touring the campus?”

“Her brother goes here.  I know him.  And she said her boyfriend goes here too.”

“So was she skipping school?” Taylor asked, adding sarcastically, “I don’t know anything at all about skipping classes…”

“She probably didn’t have school today,” I explained.  “Tomorrow is Veterans Day.  We always got that off in high school.”

“Oh yeah.  It’s a holiday.”

“Why don’t we get Veterans Day off?” Charlie asked rhetorically.  “It’s not fair.”

“It’s supposed to be a holiday?” I heard Jason Costello’s voice say behind me.

“Tomorrow is Veterans Day,” I explained, turning around.  Ramon Quintero and his girlfriend Liz Williams were with him; they were all in our dorm last year as well.  “I don’t know why Jeromeville doesn’t get it off, but I noticed that last year too.”

There had been no JCF the week before, because the group had been on a retreat with sister chapters of this organization at other colleges and universities in the region.  I had not attended the retreat, but most of my friends here did.  Taylor and Charlie were talking about something that happened to Pete Green, Taylor and Charlie’s third roommate, at the retreat.  “Where is Pete tonight anyway?” I asked.

“He’s in San Diego,” Taylor replied.

“Visiting his family there?”

“Yeah.”

I heard someone from the worship band welcoming us to JCF and saying that it was time to get started.  As the band played, and sang along to lyrics being displayed on an overhead projector, my eyes scanned the front of the room, watching the people on the worship team.  I saw the drummer and realized something: it was Scott Madison, the other tutor who had said hi to me this afternoon.  That was why he looked so familiar; this was my third time at JCF, and I had probably seen him play drums here before.  At the end of the night, I said hi to him and formally introduced myself; he seemed like a nice guy.  (A few years later, Scott would become the first non-relative to invite me to his wedding, and I still get Christmas cards from Scott and his family to this day.)

 

Although my Friday had ended on a good note, I woke up feeling down again on Saturday morning.  It was a cool and gloomy day, with gray skies that threatened rain.  Summer in Jeromeville is sunny and hot, and winter is relatively mild compared to much of the United States.  It only snows high in the mountains, snow here on the valley floor is very rare, but rain is fairly common in the winter.  And the transition period from summer to winter is very short, usually occurring around early November.  Winter had arrived earlier this week, and it was supposed to rain intermittently all weekend.  Rain made me sad and anxious.

I spent the morning doing homework and reading.  By mid-afternoon, some patches of blue sky had appeared, and the threat of rain had passed, so I went for a bike ride.  I started riding through the Greenbelts, then back down G Street toward downtown, but despite keeping myself busy, I kept thinking about my chance encounter with Annie yesterday.  Why hadn’t I asked for her address or phone number, so I could try keeping in touch?  I subconsciously knew that there was no point, though.  I had given her my address at Plumdale High’s Homecoming a year ago and never heard from her, and knowing that she had a boyfriend made it feel futile to pursue anything, although I would have been happy just being friends.

Two years ago, I was a senior at Plumdale High, and I felt like I grew a lot that year.  I finally had a social life, and I made new friends, including Annie.  But then I graduated, I moved away, many of my senior class friends moved away in different directions, and I lost touch with many of my friends.  There was no texting or social media in those days, and only a few of my friends used email, so it was difficult to keep in touch.  And despite all that, I still felt like I was on the outer fringes of the social circle in high school, not really one of them.

I wished that the events of my senior year had happened during sophomore or junior year instead.  That way, I might have had time to solidify some of those friendships before we scattered.  Maybe I would have learned how to actually ask a girl out.  Maybe Annie would have broken up with her boyfriend, and I would have been able to use those new skills.

What if I just ran away and pretended to be in high school again?  What would that be like?  What would it take?  A fake birth certificate would probably be hard to find.  Maybe I wouldn’t need one.  Maybe I would just need fake transcripts to show to the new school.  Being 19 and still in high school was unusual, but not exactly unheard of.  My birthday came right at the start of the school year, so I started kindergarten when I was barely 5.  Some parents would have chosen for me to start kindergarten the following year.  My parents did that with my brother Mark; with his birthday in October, they chose to wait until he was almost 6 to put him in kindergarten.  Mark would turn 18 in the fall of 1999, early in his senior year, and someone his age who had repeated a grade in elementary school would be a 19-year-old senior.

Could I do this?  Would it be possible to fake my identity and get a second try at my senior year of high school?  Probably not.  Lying on important documents like transcripts seemed too dishonest and illegal for me to be comfortable with it.  But, I thought, all of this seemed like a great premise for a work of fiction.

I had been writing again in my spare time recently.  Last year, I wrote a short novel called The Commencement, based on all the growing up I did as a senior in high school.  I had been revising and expanding it lately, and it was up to 62 pages.  I was running out of ideas for how to expand The Commencement, so maybe it was time to work on something new.

As I continued riding my bike that afternoon, along the entire length of the Arboretum and back up Andrews Road toward home, I kept thinking about faking my identity and going back to high school.  How would that be possible?  Maybe this story would take place at a different point in life; going back to high school now seemed like too much of a stretch, and none of my thoughts led to anything realistic.  Maybe my character would run away while he was a senior in high school, and go to a new school in a new town, pretending to be two years younger.  I would focus my writing on everything he dislikes about life, and all of his unfinished business, to make the desire to run away real.  But if he is not an adult, how can he just do this, and where would he go?  That was easy; I could make him turn 18 early in his senior year.  And I could give him divorced parents living far from each other, so he would have the option to go move in with the other parent.

When I got home from my bike ride, I showered and put a frozen dinner in the microwave.  I put on some music from high school, starting with Pearl Jam’s Ten album, and began writing.  I started my novel, which was still untitled at this point, by quoting a song lyric, as Stephen King often did with his novels, then proceeded to set the scene of a character who felt like he did not fit in with his friends.

“I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life”
—Pink Floyd

1

“Where were you this morning?” Ryan asked Sara.

“I was…” Sara paused.  “Sleeping in,” she said, with a mischievous grin on her face.

Sleeping in? Jon thought.

“You missed class?” Becky teased.

“He said we didn’t have to come today,” Sara said defensively.  “He was just doing a review for the test tomorrow.  I needed a break, and I feel prepared for the test.”  Jon began to feel somewhat angry after hearing this.

“How did you get out of band?” Kate asked.  “Does Mr. Jackson know you were gone?”

“He knows,” Sara said.  “He knows I had to see the dentist.”  Sara and the others laughed.  All except Jon.  Some people could just do whatever they wanted and not get caught.  But if Jon tried it, he would get stopped at the gate because ___ High School was a closed campus.  It wasn’t fair.

I left the name of the school blank.  I had not decided yet where Jon and his friends lived.  I usually wrote about places familiar to me, so they would have to live somewhere back home in Santa Lucia County, or Jeromeville, or maybe across the Drawbridge from Jeromeville in Capital City, or maybe Bidwell where my dad had family.  But it would make more sense to have Jon run away to one of those places familiar to me, and to have the story open somewhere else, somewhere more interesting.  I thought about different cities and states that had been on my mind recently and settled on San Diego, California, where my friend Pete had once lived and was currently visiting his family.  I could ask Pete next time I saw him to suggest a good name for a high school in San Diego.

I continued writing about Jon’s day.  Jon heard his friends talk about college applications, and about movies they liked that Jon had never seen, and movies they hated that Jon liked.  I wrote about Jon’s feelings of inferiority regarding a lack of extracurricular activities for college applications, and a conversation he had with the school counselor about this, and more laments in Jon’s head about not belonging and not feeling good enough.  I thought back to yesterday when I ran into Annie Gambrell and wrote this scene for the end of Jon’s school day.

“Jon! What are you doing?”  He looked up at Kelly ___, one of the few underclassmen he knew.  He met her last month while interviewing her for the yearbook, doing the page on the women’s’ JV cross-country team.  Sometimes Jon thought that the fact that women’s’ JV cross-country got two whole pages in the yearbook was just part of an international conspiracy that ensured that certain people, who were labeled “popular,” got in the yearbook at least twenty times every year whereas other people only got in once.  This was the same conspiracy that invented Homecoming Queens and the modern system of student government.  Jon had nothing against women’s sports, or unpopular sports; he just didn’t like being unpopular.

“Hi.”  Jon looked up and saw that she was with a friend.  He thought the friend’s name was Nicole, but he did not know her.

“What are you doing?  Waiting for someone?” Kelly asked.

“No.  Just…” he paused.  “Thinking.”

“Are you okay?” Kelly asked.

“I’m all right.  I just kind of had a rough day.”

“Don’t worry about it.  You’ll be fine.”

“Thanks,” Jon replied.  “See you later.” Jon really liked Kelly.  She seemed really nice, and she was pretty too.  She had a beautiful smile.  Unfortunately, she already had a boyfriend.  Jon got in his truck and drove home, thinking about what it would be like to have a relationship with Kelly.

I thought about making the last name for the Annie character something that sounded like Annie, or like Gambrell.  The only thing I could think of was “Aniston,” the last name of one of the actors on the TV show Friends.  There was no way I would name someone in my story after Friends, so I left it blank and moved on.

I spent most of the rest of that weekend writing, finishing chapter 1 and half of chapter 2, establishing the mood of Jon feeling out of place and wanting to start over, wanting more time to live the high school experience.  I also mentioned that Jon’s father lived five hundred miles away in Capital City, with a second wife who had two children of her own.

I never did see or hear from Annie again after that day.  I could have asked her brother to get in touch with her for me, I saw him at church the next day, but that just felt weird.  Annie was off limits because she had a boyfriend.  But I continued to work on this novel for the next several months.  I had no plans to act out the premise of this novel, to run away and go back to high school, nor did I have a realistic way of doing so.  I knew that that would never happen.   But it was interesting to think about, and fun to put these thoughts on paper.  If they could not happen in real life, I could create a fantasy world where these things happened, as long as I knew that it was just fantasy and did not let it consume my life.

Author’s note: Yes, these are actual excerpts from a novel I wrote in 1995-96.  More about that later.

Also, in real life it’s my birthday!  Well, yesterday was.

October 31 – November 9, 1995.  In a funk. (#58)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 15 Comments

I was in a funk.  I had been in a funk for a while by the time my physics lab got out.  My funk had stretched into its fourth day, and one of those days was an hour longer because of the end of daylight saving time.  One small consolation was that it was Halloween, and I had the pleasantly silly experience of seeing many full-grown college students come to campus in costume.  Earlier I saw a guy walking across the Quad in a very accurate costume of Jack from the Jack in the Box restaurant commercials, with a perfectly round clown head as from a child’s jack-in-the-box toy over a business suit.  I also saw at least three different Batmen walking around campus.

Batman… that reminded me of last Saturday, when this funk started.  I still was unhappy with myself about Saturday.

Friday night went okay.  I went to Jeromeville Christian Fellowship again, which was good, but I felt more like an outsider.  I talked to all my friends who were there, but I did not talk to anyone else, and everyone was talking about the Fall Conference next weekend, which I was not going to.  I woke up Saturday morning still feeling down, and that feeling worsened as the day dragged on.  I got some homework done, but I also moped around the apartment doing nothing quite a bit.

Saturday evening, I decided to go to campus, where second-run movies play on weekends in 199 Stone, the largest lecture hall on campus at the time.  Batman Forever was playing that night.  I had seen the movie once, and honestly I did not like it that well.  Jim Carrey, who at the time was building his career on annoying mindless movies where he made a lot of faces and funny loud noises, played the Riddler.  He played the character like the annoying people in his other movies, and I did not like it.  The movie did not help me get out of my funk, and I left about two-thirds of the way through.  That was the first time I ever went to a movie alone, and to this day, it remains the only time I have ever walked out of a movie that I paid for.  I went home, down two dollars and fifty cents and still in my funk.

Despite having won Best Costume my senior year at Plumdale High, I never got too excited about Halloween.  I outgrew trick-or-treating around fourth grade and spent the rest of my childhood staying home handing out candy.  The only reason I even dressed up at school that day two years ago was because Melissa asked me to.  She dressed as Mona Lisa, with a drawn replica of the painting and her face sticking through a hole in it, and asked me to be Leonardo painting her.  I had a big crush on Melissa at the time, so I probably would have dressed up as dog poop if she had asked me to.  The problem was that, during the one period that we were not in the same class, her costume worked by itself, but no one could tell what I was without her.  No, I am not Charlton Heston playing Moses.  No, I am not Father Time.  And during the costume contest at lunch, we were introduced as “Mona Lisa and Michelangelo,” which says something about the quality of education at Plumdale High School.

When I got home from my physics lab, I made sure the porch light was off.  Mom taught me as a kid that this tells trick-or-treaters not to come to your house, although many do not seem to know that rule.  I had no candy to give out tonight.  I did not know whether the local children of Jeromeville even went trick-or-treating in apartment complexes full of students.  (None did that night.)

I signed on to the university computer network after dinner that night, intending to get on Internet Relay Chat and find some girl to talk to.  But before I did that, I checked to see who else was signed on to the exact same server, as I occasionally did back then out of curiosity.  Every once in a while, I found someone I knew.  I looked through the thirty or so names and account numbers that scrolled past, and my pulse briefly quickened when I saw this:

stu042537 Megan McCauley

I typed “talk” and sent “hello :)” to account stu042537.  Megan replied about a minute later.

stu042537: Hi, Greg!  How have you been?  I haven’t seen you in a while!
stu049886: i’m doing ok, just busy with school.  it’s a lot of work but i’m doing pretty well in my classes.  what are you up to?
stu042537: Just the usual.  This chem class is kicking my butt!  But I knew chemical engineering would be a hard major.  Didn’t you say you were a tutor for the Learning Skills Center this quarter?
stu049886: yes!  that’s going well.  i’m working 10 hours a week with small groups of calculus and precalculus students.  i enjoy it.
stu042537: Good!
stu049886: how is your building this year?
stu042537: It’s definitely easier being an RA the second time around.  I have more of an idea of what to expect.  But, of course, my residents are full of surprises too.  I like this group so far.
stu049886: that’s good
stu042537: How is it being in your own apartment?
stu049886: it’s nice and quiet.  but i miss seeing my friends from last year.  some of them are involved with jeromeville christian fellowship, i’ve started going to that sometimes with them
stu042537: It’s important to find things you can be involved with.
stu049886: definitely!  any plans for halloween tonight?
stu042537: Not this year.  What about you?
stu049886: nothing.  halloween was never that big a deal to me.  i thought it was funny, though, i saw three people on campus today dressed as batman
stu042537: That’s great!  I should actually go in a few minutes.  I need to pick up the person I’m dating from the airport.  But it was good to hear from you!

I stared at that last message, heartbroken and crestfallen, typing my closing line in the conversation much more apathetically than I had typed earlier.

stu049886: you too, drive safely
stu042537: Bye!

I stared at those four words again before I closed the window… “the person I’m dating.”  Nothing can drain the last bit of hope from a crush more quickly than that.  I knew I probably had no shot with Megan anyway, but at least I could hope that maybe she liked me too.  Not anymore.  I could not compete with some cool guy who traveled on airplanes and knew how to talk to girls.

I turned on the television later that night.  It was Tuesday, so Home Improvement was on.   I liked that show, but Tim Allen’s stereotypical guy antics were not enough to lift me out of my funk.  I returned to the computer and signed on to the IRC chat channel I had wanted to go to earlier when I messaged Megan instead.  No one there was talking to me, and no one I knew I was on.  I halfheartedly replied to an email, but I needed to talk to someone in real time, not by email.  I could not get the image out of my head of Megan and some guy driving back from the airport in Capital City, across the Drawbridge and to his apartment, where he would probably invite her in and go to bed with her.  I wanted to be doing that, not whoever this jerk was.

I was tired of this.  I was tired of being alone, not knowing how to talk to girls.  I hated being different and not having grown up with all the experiences that the people around me had, like having friends and taking trips on airplanes and doing fun things on Halloween.  I wished I could quit life and start over again.  Or maybe go back to high school for another few years; I was finally starting to have some of those experiences or having friends senior year, but then everything else ended too soon, and I lost touch with everyone except Renee Robertson, Melissa Holmes, and Rachel Copeland, none of whom lived in the same place as me or as each other now.

Around 10:30 that night, desperate and with nowhere else to turn, I picked up the phone.  I had seen public service announcements for a suicide prevention hotline with a local phone number.  I was not sure if I was actually feeling suicidal, but at least these people could talk to me.  I dialed the number quickly.

“Suicide Prevention,” said the voice on the other end.  “This is Anna.  To whom am I speaking?”

“Greg,” I said.

“And how are you feeling tonight?” Anna asked.

“I need someone to talk to.”

“What’s going on?  Why do you say that?”

I told Anna the abbreviated version of my thoughts on feeling different, being alone, and not knowing how to talk to girls.  I explained that there was one girl I really liked who I did not have much of a chance with, and how I had found out tonight that she had a boyfriend (at the time, I did not understand that there was a distinction between the words “person I’m dating” and “boyfriend”).

“That is a lot weighing on your mind,” Anna said.  “Are you taking any medication for depression or anxiety, or other mental health medications?”

“No.

“Are you in any sort of therapy or treatment?”

“No.”

“How often do you use alcohol or drugs?”

“Never.”

“Are you thinking about ending your life or harming yourself?”

“I don’t know.  I know I shouldn’t give up like that, but I don’t want to go on like this either.”

“That is understandable.  Is your life in danger right now?”

“I’m sitting at home in my apartment.  So probably not.”

“Have these thoughts you’ve been having interfered with your day-to-day functioning?  Like your ability to work or attend class?”

“Not really.  I’m a student at UJ, and my grades are still good.”

“That’s good.”

“I guess.”

Anna asked me more questions about how I felt about things, as well as my day-to-day life and my history with mental health and medication.  After talking for another ten minutes, she said, “We are meant to be a one-time service, so I can give you names and phone numbers of some mental health professionals in your area, so you can call someone to set up an appointment and meet more regularly?  May I do that?”

“I guess.”

I got a pencil and paper and wrote down the names Anna gave me.  “So tomorrow, give one of those people a call, and set up an appointment.  Can you do that?”

“Maybe.”

“Are you going to be okay tonight?”

“I think so.  Thank you.”

“Thank you for calling.  I hope everything works out for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Good night!”

“Bye,” I said, hanging up the phone.  I did not feel great about this.  I was not looking forward to seeing a therapist, and I did not even know if that was what I wanted.  But I had calmed down to the point that I might be able to sleep now.

 

I arrived about five minutes before my appointment.  It had been a little more than a week since the night I called the Suicide Prevention number.  It was a cool, cloudy, depressing Thursday afternoon.  The address was in a small office building at the corner of Maple Lane and West Coventry Boulevard, less than half a mile from my apartment, behind a nondescript door with the names of two therapists on it.  The waiting room was small, about the size of my tiny dorm room from last year.  A few chairs were arranged around a table with outdated magazines on it, and two doors on the other side of the room led farther into the building.  I picked up a Time magazine from July with former U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell on the cover.  I started reading through the magazine in order until a man with graying brown hair, a mustache, glasses, and a button-up shirt emerged from one of the doors.

“Gregory?” he said.

“That’s me,” I replied.  “You can call me Greg.”

“Hi, Greg.  I’m Ron Kilbourne.”  Ron extended his hand for me to shake it.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand.  I followed him into his office and sat down.

“So tell me again what brings you here.”

“I feel down a lot,” I said.  “I feel alone, I don’t see my friends as often as I used to, I don’t have a girlfriend, and I don’t know how to talk to girls.”

“Okay,” Ron said, apparently waiting for me to say something.”

“I haven’t seen a therapist in a couple years.  I was in and out of therapy all my life, going back to second grade.  We saw a therapist as a family for a while, because I was getting teased a lot at school and having trouble behaving, and my dad was dealing with a lot being a newly recovering alcoholic.”

“And how old are you now?”

“19.”

“Okay.”  Ron scribbled some notes on a clipboard, then looked at me.

“What?”

“I’m waiting for you to tell me more.”

“I told you.  I don’t know what to do.”

“I can’t help you if you aren’t going to tell me anything.”

Who was this jerk?  Why am I paying him all this money just to sit there?  I did not know what to say to him.  I told him more about not having friends in school growing up, about how being in the dorm was good for me but I lived alone now, about never having had a girlfriend, and about what happened with Megan.

Ron kept writing on his clipboard.  “What else?” he said when he was done.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I said angrily through clenched teeth.

“Then I guess we’ll just sit here until you’re ready to talk,” Ron replied calmly.

“Fine.”  I sat in the chair and stared at Ron for almost ten minutes, saying nothing.  He just sat looking at me, occasionally writing on his clipboard.  “Why does anyone pay you all this money not to do anything?” I finally said.

“Why did you?” Ron asked.  “Why are you here?”

“I’m here because I’m depressed and alone and I don’t know how to make friends or have a girlfriend.”

“What else?”

“I need to know what to do.”

“What are you doing now?” Ron asked.

I told him about my friends from the dorm last year, and tutoring, and singing at Mass, and Jeromeville Christian Fellowship.  After he finished writing in his clipboard, Ron sat there looking at me, waiting for me to say more.  “And I don’t know what else to do.”  We stared at each other for another five minutes, saying nothing.  I clenched my fists, fighting every urge to punch this man in the face.

About forty minutes into the appointment, before the end of the hour-long session, I pulled out my checkbook and paid him for the session.  “This was a waste,” I said, walking toward the door.

“Greg,” Ron said in a flat tone.  “I can’t help you if you’re going to walk out.”

“And you can’t help me if I’m here either.  So what’s the point?”

“I don’t know.  You tell me.”

I left the check on his desk and walked out of the office, slamming the door and throwing the stack of old magazines against the wall on my way out.  I was still hot-headed and angry when I got back to the apartment.  I lay on the bed for about an hour, at which time I did homework for a while, and then ate dinner.  Was I really beyond help?  Was I so messed up that even going to a therapist could not help me?

I never saw Ron Kilbourne again.  I got a letter in the mail from him a few days later encouraging me to continue to seek therapy; I tore it into small pieces and threw it away.  I never did call any of the other names that I had gotten from Anna at Suicide Prevention; after my experience with Ron Kilbourne, I was convinced that there was no point to seeking therapy.

After Ron Kilbourne, I did not attempt to seek therapy again until 2002; by that time, I had long since graduated and moved from Jeromeville to Pleasant Creek.  I now know as an adult that I have had therapists who were good fits for me and others who were not; Ron Kilbourne was not, and I should have at least tried a different therapist at the time.  Although I have grown, and life has changed, many of the issues for which I sought therapy in the past are still struggles for me.  I have also learned that seeking therapy is far more complicated than just going through motions and having all of my problems fixed.  Therapy only works when the patient wants help, and to this day I feel like in some ways I do not want help.  I want the rest of the world to change around me, or to find a place where the world makes more sense than it does here.  This remains an ongoing issue for me.  On the day I walked out of Ron Kilbourne’s office, I knew that the only way I had left to deal with that funk was the way I have usually dealt with being in a funk all my adult life; just ride it out, put one foot in front of the other, and go through the motions, hoping that better days will come.

(Author’s note: I know that “talk” on a Unix-based system from 1995 did not format conversations the way my conversation with Megan was formatted in this story.  I changed it to make it easier to read.)

October 21, 1995. The day I went to visit Renee. (#57)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 29 Comments

I turned right into the parking lot.  The sign said that Chardonnay Village was somewhere among the cluster of nearby buildings.  The directions that Renee had emailed to me had been very clear; I had no trouble getting here, even though the second half of the trip had been anything but a straight shot, zigzagging over hills.  It was around 11:00 on a Saturday morning.  I left Jeromeville at 9:30.  For the first half of the trip, I drove straight down Highway 100 to Fairview, where it merges with Highway 212 for a few miles.  Where the two routes split again just south of Fairview, I took 212 over a hill to Silverado and followed many other two lane roads until I arrived at Valle Luna State University.  Renee said that one of her roommates knew that drive because she used to date a guy in Jeromeville, and that this was the fastest way.

This part of the state was known for growing grapes and making wine, which was why the dorms at Valle Luna State had names like Chardonnay.  I thought it was unusual for buildings on a university campus to be named after alcohol… to me, this seemed to send the wrong message.  Once I got to Silverado, the rest of the drive here passed through rolling hills covered with grapevines, with the occasional cow pasture.  The indigenous people of this area called it “moon valley,” the 18th century Spanish missionaries translated the name from that language into Spanish. Americans arrived in the middle of the 19th century and bastardized the pronunciation; “valle” in proper Spanish was pronounced more like “bah-yay,” but most Americans pronounced it like its English cognate “valley.”

As I walked up to Renee’s building, I saw her outside waiting for me.  I waved, and she waved back.  “Hey, Greg,” she said once I was in earshot.  She gave me a hug from the side.  She looked the same as I remembered her, short, with long red hair, blue eyes, and freckles, but I had just seen her two months ago, so that was to be expected.

“Hi,” I replied.  “It’s good to see you.”

“How was the drive?”

“Your directions were good.  I found everything just fine.”

“Good!”  Renee paused, then asked, “You wanna see my apartment?”

“Sure.”

I noticed Renee’s use of the word “apartment” instead of “dorm room.”  It fit, because Renee’s building was an on-campus apartment, with each room having an entrance directly outside instead of opening into a hallway.  When I walked inside, I saw a small living room and kitchen, with two bedrooms and a bathroom opening onto it, just like an actual apartment.

“Greg, this is Nicole,” Renee said, gesturing toward the dark-haired girl on the couch.  “Nicole is my roommate.  I mean, like, we share an actual room.  Nicole, this is Greg.”

“Hi, Greg,” Nicole said, looking up from the television.

“Hi,” I replied. 

Renee led me toward one of the bedrooms.  “This is my room and Nicole’s,” she said.  “Jenn and Marisol live in the other room.”

“Nice,” I said.  The bedroom had a window looking out on the grassy area between this building and the next one.  I noticed a bulletin board on the wall by one of the desks, with pictures of people on it; I knew this was Renee’s, because I recognized the people in some of the pictures.  One picture was of Renee and her boyfriend, Anthony; one was Anthony’s senior picture from two years ago; and one was of Renee and our mutual friend Melissa.

“The Where’s Waldo picture,” Renee said.

“Huh?”

“Melissa always thought she looked like Waldo in that picture.”

“Hah,” I laughed, seeing Melissa’s red and white striped shirt differently now.  “I can see it.”

As we walked back to the living room, where Nicole was still watching television, I asked,  “This is a nice place.  Are all the on-campus residential areas at Valle Luna more like apartments?”

“Not all of them,” Renee explained.  “I lived in a regular dorm last year, with one bathroom for the whole floor and stuff like that.  The regular dorms are for freshmen.  Older students get first priority for the on-campus apartments.”

“That’s cool,” I said.  “Jeromeville just doesn’t have enough on-campus housing for its student population.  The school took over some apartments just across the street from campus, and even then you only get housing on campus for one year.  So it’s pretty much all freshmen and incoming transfer students in the dorms.  I would have lived on campus another year if I could.”

“I remember that,” Nicole added.  “My ex-boyfriend goes to Jeromeville, and he lived in one of those apartment dorms last year.”

A tall girl with long blonde hair emerged from one of the bedrooms.  “Hey,” she said to Renee.  “Is this your friend?”

“Yeah,” Renee replied.  “Greg, this is Jenn.”

“Hi,” I said.  “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Jenn said.

“I was thinking we could start with a walk around campus.  Does that sound good?” Renee asked.

“Sure,” I replied.  “I’ve never been here before.”

“Great.  We’ll be back in a bit,” Renee told her rooommates.

The first thing I noticed about Valle Luna State University was that the campus was much smaller than that of the University of Jeromeville.  On the drive in, I noticed that the dorms and on-campus apartments at VLSU were on the west and south sides of the campus.  “This is my walk to class every morning,” Renee pointed out as we walked east toward the center of campus.  She pointed out the library and the buildings where most of her classes were.  The non-residential buildings were mostly in a gray concrete style of architecture, more uniform than the varied heterogeneous architecture of UJ but, in my opinion, less interesting.  We then turned south toward a building that she pointed out as the “student center.”  As we got closer, I took a closer look and saw a vast expanse of tables next to a few on-campus restaurants and ATM machines.

“I was just curious what this was,” I said.  “At Jeromeville, the building like this is called the Memorial Union.”

“Yeah.  I think every college has a building like this, but they’re all called something a little different.”

“Actually, UJ has two buildings like this, the Memorial Union and the Barn.”

“The Barn?”

“It used to be an actual barn, and there is a silo attached to it.  Because, you know, Jeromeville started out as a school of agriculture.”

“Yeah.  I’ve heard Jeromeville is pretty big.  That would make sense that there are two Student Centers.”

“It is.  The main part of campus is bigger than here, and there’s also a huge rural part of campus where they do actual agricultural research.”

“That’s interesting.  Like what kind of agricultural research?”

“I’m not sure exactly.”

Renee and I continued walking around campus.  She showed me the building where the department of psychology offices were located, since psych was her major.  She showed me the theater, the student recreation center, and the sports fields on the eastern edge of campus.  “We only have a few sports teams that compete against other schools,” she explained, “and we usually don’t get big-name athletes here.”

“So are you Division II?  Or Division III?  Something like that?” I asked.

“I’m not really sure.  I don’t really follow sports.  But I know they have student teams that play just for fun.”

“Intramurals?”

“Yeah.  Jenn does that for volleyball.”

“Do you and your roommates get along okay?” I asked.  “No conflict or anything?”

“We do.  It took a while to get used to each other, but everything is good now.”

“Did any of you guys know each other before this year?”

“No, we didn’t.  We were just picked randomly.  At first, we weren’t sure if we were going to get along, but it has worked out great.  Actually, didn’t you tell me you had some friends with a weird combination of religions in their apartment?”

I thought for a minute.  “Oh yeah,” I said.  “Danielle is very Catholic, Theresa is Methodist but not very active at church, and Bok and Skeeter are atheists.”

“That reminded me of our apartment.  Nicole went to Catholic school and goes to Mass every week.  Jenn is an atheist and will make a big deal of it if you try to push your beliefs on her, so we learned pretty fast not to talk about religion around her.  And Marisol and I each grew up going to church sometimes, but not every week.”

“It’s good that you found a way not to let that make conflict between you,” I said.

 

After heading back to the Student Center, where Renee and I had lunch at a sandwich shop, we went back to the apartment.  I did not have anything specific planned that I wanted to do.  Renee mentioned that she and Nicole and Jenn had been talking about going miniature golfing, and that there was a coffee shop they really liked, so that was our plan for the rest of the day.  VLSU was located right on the eastern edge of the suburban city of Valle Luna, with a rural area to the east and hills just a few miles beyond that.  We took Nicole’s car into town along a wide suburban boulevard and pulled into a shopping center.  I could see an overpass just beyond the shopping center, where this street intersected Highway 11.  This was the same Highway 11 that passed through my hometown of Plumdale, 150 miles to the south.

Hanging out at coffee shops was all the rage in 1995.  A year ago, a new television situation comedy called Friends had rapidly become popular.  The show featured six single adults living in New York City who often went to a coffee shop.  This quickly brought artsy hippie coffee shop culture into the mainstream.  As Renee, Nicole, Jenn, and I walked into the coffee shop, I looked around.  Some customers sat at tables, and some on couches and comfortable chairs.  Some were in couples and groups, talking, and some sat alone, reading.  Paintings covered the walls.  I wanted to be part of coffee shop culture like everyone else, but I could not for one important reason: I did not like coffee.  I could not stand the taste.

“You don’t like coffee?” Jenn repeated incredulously after I said this out loud.

“I want to like coffee.  I feel like not liking coffee stunts my social life,” I explained.  Jenn laughed.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” Renee asked.  “We don’t have to hang out here.  I just suggested it because we go here a lot.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Renee asked.

“You could get a mocha,” Jenn suggested.  “Have you ever had a mocha?  It’s like coffee with chocolate in it, so it doesn’t really taste like coffee.”

“I think I’ll do that,” I replied.

After we ordered and got our drinks, we sat at a round table with four chairs.  I took a sip of the mocha.  “Ouch,” I said.  “That’s really hot.”

“You might want to let it cool,” Renee said quietly.

“So you went to high school with Renee?” Nicole asked.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“So then you also know Anthony?”

“Yes.”

“Anthony,” Jenn said, slightly shaking her head.  “Did Renee tell you about last weekend when she spent four hours on the phone with Anthony?  I was waiting for someone to call me!  We only have one phone!”

“It was not four hours!” Renee exclaimed, turning red.  “It was more like three.”

“Still!  Three hours!”

“How are things with Anthony?” I asked.  “How’s he doing?”

“He’s good,” Renee explained.  “We’ve been together long enough that we’ve found how to make long distance work for us.”

“Good.”

“He’s really busy with school right now, though.  He’s taking some really hard classes.”

“Well tell him I said hi.”

“I will!”

I took another sip of the mocha, now that it was not quite so hot, and swallowed it.  Even with the overtones of chocolate and an added sugar packet, I could still taste the coffee.  As the four of us talked about school and life in general, I drank about half of it just to be polite, but as I had suspected, I really did not like this drink because I could still taste the coffee.  Oh well.  Live and learn.

We spent about an hour at the coffee shop, then we got back in Nicole’s car and headed north on 11 to the miniature golf place, off the next exit.  “I feel kind of bad that Marisol had to miss miniature golf,” Jenn said as we pulled into our parking place.  “She loves coming here.”

“Did she say when she was getting back?” Renee asked.

“Not until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Where is Marisol today?” I asked.

“She went home for the weekend,” Renee explained.  “She has a boyfriend back home, in San Tomas.  She goes home a lot of weekends.”

After we got our putters and balls, Renee handed me the scorecard and pencil.  “Here, you do this,” she said.  “You’re good at math.”

“Sure,” I replied.  Being good at math is what I am known for, after all.

The first two holes were fairly straightforward, just a few obstacles to putt around, but I got stuck in a corner on the second hole. It took eight strokes for me to get the ball in the hole.

“Aren’t you supposed to just move on after six?” Nicole asked as she saw me write 8 on the score card.

“Oh,” I said, quickly looking over the instructions.  “But I want to finish the hole.  It’s just who I am.”

On the next hole, Jenn went first, then Nicole.  “What are you up to the rest of the weekend?” I asked Renee as we waited for our turn.

“I have a big midterm in my psych class on Monday.  I’ll just be studying for that, after you leave tonight and all day tomorrow.”

“Good luck,” I said.  “Same with me, just studying.  I don’t have anything too big coming up, though, so I can wait to get started until after church tomorrow.”

A while later, we arrived at the sixth hole, which featured a ramp leading up to a small building.  The building had a door that opened and closed on a timer.  Hitting the ball through the door would put the ball next to the hole on the green beyond, possibly even in the hole if everything was just right.  Hitting the ball wide of the door would put the ball farther away on the green.  Jenn made it through on the first try and got a hole-in-one.  Renee’s ball went wide of the door and landed in the position farther away but still with a straight shot to the hole.  I hit the ball perfectly straight, only to have the door slam on the ball, knocking it back to the start.  On my second attempt, the same thing happened.  On the third attempt, the ball went wide and bounced down to the worst possible position on the green.

“Gaaaahhh!” I screamed.

“Are you okay?” Renee asked.

“Yeah.  Just frustrated.  You know how competitive I can get.”

“Just have fun.  It’s like at the graduation all-nighter, when you were Rollerblading and getting frustrated.  Remember?  Melissa and I told you to just have fun with it.”

“You’re not trying to win any competitions,” Nicole added after overhearing our conversation.

“You’re right,” I replied.  “I know.  I’ll try to let go and have fun.”

And I did let go and have fun.  I did not have the best score after we finished our 18 holes, but I enjoyed trying to hit that ball around all the silly obstacles.  The four of us shared more stories about fun college adventures on the drive back to the apartment and for a while in the living room after we got back.  By now, it was late afternoon.  “It’s probably about time for me to head home,” I said after a while.  “I know you wanted to study tonight too.”

“Yeah, I should get started soon,” Renee replied.  “But thanks so much for coming.”

“Thanks again for inviting me here.  It was good seeing you.”

“You too,” Renee replied, standing to give me a hug.  The top of her head only came up to my chin.  “Drive safely.”

“Take care.  And say hi to Anthony for me.”

“I will.”

“And it was nice meeting you guys,” I added, gesturing to Jenn and Nicole.  “Maybe I’ll see you again someday.”

“Yeah,” Jenn replied.

“You too,” Nicole said.

I had a good day, and I felt content as I made the drive back home to Jeromeville, following the directions Renee sent me in reverse.  But I never did see Jenn and Nicole again.  Renee and I stayed in touch off and on for the rest of sophomore year, but by junior year we started growing apart.  We didn’t argue or fight, we never had a falling out of any kind, but growing apart is just a natural part of the cycle of friendships.  I went through many changes sophomore year, changes in living situation and lifestyle and friendships, and many of my friends did too.  Renee and I still emailed off and on for about another year after my trip to Valle Luna, but I did not see her in person again until 2014, at our 20-year high school reunion.  We have been Facebook friends since then, but she does not post often.

It makes me sad how many people I have grown apart from over the years, for no apparent reason, but I have come to accept it as part of life.  We were meant to grow and change over the years, not stay stuck in the same life forever.  Even though I grew apart from some people that year, I also made many new lifelong friends.

 

October 11, 1995. A busy day. (#55)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 21 Comments

I locked my bike outside Wellington Hall and walked down the hall, joining about five other people waiting outside room 109 for the 9:00 Math 22A class.  Another class met in this room at 8:00, and I always arrived early enough that the other class had not been dismissed yet.  I learned the hard way on the first day of class not to open the door this early.

“Hey, Greg,” Jack Chalmers said.  I knew Jack from last year; we had had two classes together, and we lived in nearby dorms and ate at the same dining commons.

“Hi,” I said.

“Finding inverses of matrices is hard!” Jack exclaimed, speaking quickly and eliding syllables here and there, as he normally did, but I understood what he was saying.  “The homework took me forever!”

“I know.  It seems like there should be an easier way.  Maybe we’ll learn one later.”

As Jack continued, I became aware of the classroom emptying.  “I just hope every assignment in this class isn’t gonna be that long.  I’m already pretty busy this quarter.  Hey, Lizzie.”

“Hey, what happened last night?” a girl leaving the classroom asked Jack.  I recognized Lizzie, because I had seen Jack say hi to her before as we waited for her class to finish and ours to start.  Lizzie was fairly short, with brown eyes and dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail.

“I had so much homework!” Jack told Lizzie.

“That’s too bad,” Lizzie replied.  “Hopefully I’ll see you this weekend?”

“Yeah.”

Lizzie looked at me for a second before she turned to walk away.  “Bye,” I said, waving, even though I did not know Lizzie at all beyond always seeing her leave this class, and I had no idea what plans Jack had missed out on.

“Bye,” she replied, smiling.

I walked into the room along with Jack and the others waiting for our math class.  I spent the next hour listening to the instructor, a curly-haired man named Anton, explain properties of matrices and their inverses.  Anton demonstrated how to prove the invertibility of a matrix, in his usual broken English.  He told us to call him Anton; I was not sure if this was because his last name was difficult for English-speakers, or because calling professors by first name was the norm in his home country.  I never did figure out exactly which country this was.

As soon as math class finished, I crossed West Quad Avenue and walked to the far end of the Memorial Union building, near the campus bookstore, to a stairway leading down.  The basement of this building contained a game room with 16 lanes of bowling, along with pool tables, pinball machines, and coin-operated video games.  Here at the University of Jeromeville, students got two appointments to register for classes, three weeks apart, using an automated telephone system.  On the first appointment, students may only register for up to thirteen and one-half units, enough to be classified as a full time student, but limited so that not all classes fill up before everyone has had a chance to register.  I registered for bowling and weight training just to make sure I had enough classes, intending to drop these once I added chemistry on the second pass, but I ended up keeping bowling and only dropping weight training.

Today, the bowling coach, Frank White, demonstrated the proper release of the ball, with a flick of the wrist giving the ball a bit of spin.  We began learning this last time, on Monday, and I was terrible at it.  My mind began to wander, and I spent a few minutes starting at a plaque on the wall with names of everyone who bowled a perfect game on these lanes.  So far, there were eight perfect games.  This was the fourth time bowling class had met this year, and I had been bowling down here a few times last year, but today one of those names jumped out at me that I had never noticed before.

FRANK WHITE
4/29/89

Frank White was my instructor, the man standing here in front of me explaining how to release the ball.  Apparently he bowled a perfect game here six years ago.  That was quite an accomplishment.  I watched carefully, paying close attention to what he was doing.  By the end of class, though, it seemed like my technique was worse than ever.  I had not bowled this many gutter balls since I was a child.

I had an hour between bowling and chemistry lecture, which I used to work on the new math assignment due Friday.  After chemistry, I had another hour before physics lecture; I spent it sitting on the Quad, eating the lunch I packed and reading the campus newspaper, the Daily Colt.  After physics, I returned to Wellington, where my math class had been in the morning.  Room 102 was a large study room, with a row of comfortable chairs, and six cubicles each containing a table and a small chalkboard.  A few students sat quietly in the chairs, and two students worked together in one of the cubicles.  I noticed the cubicles had signs with numbers on them.  Four other signs placed in prominent places around the room announced that These cubicles may be reserved by the Learning Skills Center.

That was me.  This was my first day on the job for the Learning Skills Center.  I walked to table 3, where two students named Yesenia Fonseca and Kevin Dunnigan were assigned to meet me.  A short girl with olive skin and long brown hair most of the way down her back sat at the table.  I wondered if she was waiting for me, or if she just sat there not knowing that the table was reserved.

“Are you Yesenia?” I asked.

The girl’s face lit up.  “Yeah!” she exclaimed enthusiastically.  “You’re my tutor?”

“Yes.  I’m Greg.  Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too!  Is it just us or will there be a group?”

“There’s one other person signed up, a guy named Kevin Dunnigan.  Do you know him?”

“No,” she said.   “But he might be in my class.  It’s a huge class.”

“I think usually they put students together from the same class, so he probably is,” I explained.  Yesenia and Kevin were taking Math 21A, the beginning quarter of calculus.  Students who begin calculus fall quarter get a large lecture hall class..  I skipped a quarter since I had taken the Advanced Placement test in high school, so I started fall of my freshman year in 21B, and since fewer students take 21B in the fall compared to 21A, my classes were smaller.

“We can wait a few minutes to get started, see if Kevin comes,” I said.  “It’s early.”

“How does this work?”

“Honestly, I’m not really sure,” I said.  “This is my first time tutoring, ever.  I think I just answer any questions you have about anything you’ve been going over in class.  Or we can work on stuff from your homework.  You can do it while I’m here, so you can ask for help if you need to.”

“That sounds good.  So what year are you?”

“I’m a sophomore,” I said.

“I’m a freshman.”  Yesenia smiled apologetically, as if to say that she knew that freshmen were traditionally on the bottom rung of the social ladder.  I did not care that she was a freshman.

“How do you like Jeromeville so far?” I asked.

“I love it!  I’ve already made a lot of great friends in my dorm.”

“Good.  Which dorm?”

“South Area.  Building C.”

“Building C!” I exclaimed.  “I was in Building C last year!”

“The IHP!”

“Yes!  I loved it too!  I felt like the IHP gave me a smaller community within the large university.”

“That’s a great way of describing it.”

 A boy with dark hair and an athletic build approached our table, looking at a sheet of paper on which he had written something.  “Are you Greg?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied.  “Kevin?”

“Yeah.  You’re my tutor.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.  Kevin Dunnigan did not look like what I expected of someone with an Irish-sounding name; I wondered from his appearance if his mother was Asian.  “Do you two know each other?”

“No,” Kevin said.

“I’m Yesenia,” Yesenia said, extending her hand.  “I think I’ve seen you in class.  10:00 with Dr. Hong?”

“Yeah.”

I spent the next fifty minutes working with Yesenia and Kevin, talking about limits of functions and how to calculate them.  This was the class that I had skipped; I had not technically taken it before.  I was familiar with most of what they were doing, of course, but one question on their assignment involved the epsilon-delta proof of finding the limit of a function.  My calculus class at Plumdale High did not go that in depth.  However, I was able to figure it out; I had done enough similar problems in other classes since then.

“It’s about time to wrap up,” I said at the end of the session.  “Any other questions before we leave?”

“I’m starting to understand this a lot better,” Kevin replied.

“Me too,” Yesenia added.  “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” I replied.  “See you guys next week?”

“Yeah!

 

It was almost 4:30 by the time I finally got home.  I spent some time on the computer catching up on emails, and I put a frozen pot pie in the oven for dinner.  I still had to do my pre-lab for physics tomorrow.  But my night was not over yet, because it was Wednesday, and I had choir practice at church.  Last week was the first time I had ever sung at church, and one of the others in the group, Heather Escamilla, had mentioned carpooling since we were neighbors in the same apartment complex.  At 6:40 that night, after eating the pot pie and writing my pre-lab, I walked to Heather’s apartment and knocked on the door.

“Hey, Greg,” Heather said, opening the door.  I could see a guy with long brown hair inside the apartment, sitting at a computer typing; he looked up at me.  “This is my boyfriend, Gary,” Heather said.

“Hi,” I said.  “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Gary replied.

“You ready?” Heather asked.

“Yes.  Let’s go.”

Heather locked the door behind her, and I followed her to her car, a Jeep Cherokee.  The way Gary sat at the computer made me wonder if he and Heather lived together.  Being Catholic, there was all that stuff about fornication and adultery and things like that which suggested that it was wrong for boyfriends and girlfriends to live together.  Maybe they lived together in separate bedrooms.  It was none of my business, so I did not ask.  On the way to the church, I told Heather about my first day of tutoring, and she told me about the midterm she had in the morning that she would be up late studying for.

When we arrived, I noticed that Danielle was there with her sister, Carly, a freshman.  I had met Carly twice before, once at church this year and once last year when Danielle’s family came to visit her in the dorm.  I thought it was interesting that Carly was singing too.  Danielle had told me over the summer that Carly was coming to Jeromeville, and Danielle was a little bit upset that Carly had chosen the same major and was in one of the same classes as her.  And now Carly was following her big sister to choir at the Newman Center.  I hoped that there was no drama going on with them.

“Hi, Greg,” Danielle said.  “You remember my sister, Carly?”

“Yeah.  Good to see you again.”

“You too,” Carly replied.  Carly was a few inches taller and somewhat thinner than Danielle, with straight brown hair.  They did not look very much alike, but considering that my brother Mark does not look like me, I no longer found it surprising when siblings did not look alike.  For as much as Danielle was a good friend, I had to admit that Carly was better looking.  I wondered if, growing up, Carly got more attention from boys, and if this had been part of the reason Danielle felt uneasy about Carly being in the same major and one of Danielle’s classes.

A few minutes later, Claire, a junior who seemed somewhat to be in charge of things, gave us all a stack of papers.  It was an address and phone list of all of us doing music at 11:00 Mass.  I scanned the list to make sure that my information was correct; it was.  I read through the other names.  I recognized some of the names.  Danielle Coronado.  Carly Coronado.  Matt Jones.  Heather Escamilla.  Some of the last names were unfamiliar to me, because I had only met these people by first name last week.  Claire Seaver.  Sabrina Murpy.  That was an unusual last name; I wondered if it was a typo and her name was actually Murphy.  (It was, I would learn later.)  I continued reading.  Phil Gallo.  Ryan Gambrell.

A jolt of adrenaline shot through my body, and I did a double take and read the name again.  My brain made a flurry of connections between things said a year ago and things said last week.  Matt said last week that Ryan was his friend from high school.  Matt went to St. Luke’s High School in Gabilan, so Ryan also went to St. Luke’s.  Right near where I grew up.  I looked at Ryan, now seeing his mysteriously familiar toothy smile with new eyes.

“Ryan Gambrell,” I said.

“Yeah?” Ryan replied.

“You’re Annie’s brother.”

Ryan looked confused for a second, then surprised; clearly he was not expecting me to say that.  “Yes,” he said.  “How do you know my sister?”

“I went to Plumdale High.  A class I was in and a class she was in did a project together my senior year, her sophomore year.  And now I remember I told her I was going to Jeromeville, and she said her brother goes there.”

“How funny.  Small world.”

“Tell her I said hi.”  I wanted to tell Annie so much more than hi.  I wanted to tell her all about how I was doing here.  I wanted to know where she was applying to school, since she was a senior this year.  I wondered what to make of the fact that she was always so nice to me when I was a senior, and she wrote something really nice in the back of my yearbook, but she had not stayed in touch at all.  I wanted to tell her to come visit me if she ever came up here to visit Ryan or to tour the campus.  And I was curious if she and her boyfriend were still together, because as long as they were, all these feelings I had felt wrong and forbidden.

“I will,” Ryan said.

Choir practice continued uneventfully for the rest of the night.  One song I did not know well, but I figured it out fairly quickly and felt that I would be able to sing it with everyone else in front of the congregation on Sunday morning.  On the way home, in Heather’s Jeep, I mentioned to her about knowing Ryan’s sister from high school.

“Whoa,” Heather said.  “It’s weird how that kind of thing happens.”

“I know.”

“Gary told me once he was in Capital City, and he ran into this guy he knew from when he used to live in Arizona as a kid.”

“Wow.  That’s even crazier.”

I got home and listened to music while I opened an IRC chat on the computer; although I was messaging a girl on there, I could not stop thinking about Annie Gambrell.  I wondered if I would ever see her again.  Even though she had not written to me, I had a connection with her again, in that I knew her brother.  But I also felt that this crush was one I needed to keep secret, because the entire time I knew her in person, she had a boyfriend.  Annie’s boyfriend was one of the popular guys from the class a year older than her and a year younger than me.

In the time that I knew Ryan, I ended up not talking to him much about Annie.  Annie was off limits.  Most of the best girls were off limits.  It was not my place in life to be romantically involved with the popular girls.  The concept of high school popularity does not carry over to the culture of a large university, but still felt, deep down inside, that I probably did not have much of a shot with friendly and attractive girls here either.

 

 

October 3-8, 1995.  Trying something new. (#54)

~ Greg Dennison ~ 28 Comments

Every once in a while, an event leaves such an impression on the mind of those living through it that everyone remembers exactly where they were when it happened.  My first chemistry lab of fall quarter was one of those moments.  It was a Tuesday morning.  About an hour after class started, while we were busy measuring aqueous solutions in graduated cylinders and pouring them into Erlenmeyer flasks, Deb, the TA in charge of the lab section, announced that it was time to turn on the radio, because of the big announcement that was expected today.  A hush slowly settled over the twenty-four students in the lab as Deb turned on an AM news station broadcasting out of Capital City.  Reception was not great in the basement of the chemistry building, but it was audible.  After a few minutes of analysis and speculation, the broadcast switched to a live feed on location.

My class became even more hushed as a new voice began reciting the words that nearly everyone in the nation had been waiting sixteen months to hear: “We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant, Orenthal James Simpson, not guilty of the crime of murder…”

A few of my classmates gasped.  This was not what they expected to hear, nor was it what I expected.  O.J. Simpson was a retired football player, actor, and television personality who had been accused of murdering his second ex-wife and her male friend.  For well over a year, news related to the murder and trial had dominated the media, both as serious journalism and source material for comedy.  All the evidence suggested that O.J. was guilty, but apparently his team of celebrity lawyers created doubt in the minds of the jurors to get him acquitted.  To this day, no one else has ever been charged with the murders.

When my lab finished, I rode my bike north on Colt Avenue, turned right on Shelley Avenue, left on East Quad Avenue, and parked my bike by the campus bookstore, across from the Death Star building.  A meme from the 2010s depicted a man sitting at a table with a sign reading “I WILL ARGUE WITH ANYONE ABOUT ANYTHING,” and the first time I saw that meme, I recognized right away that the photograph was taken right here on the University of Jeromeville Quad.  A wide pedestrian sidewalk ran between the north edge of the Quad and the Memorial Union building, which contained the bookstore.  A series of tables, resembling picnic tables made of plastic coated metal mesh but with benches only on one side, lined this sidewalk.  Typically, student clubs and organizations would use these tables for information and recruiting; someone from the organization would sit on the bench, facing the Memorial Union and the walkway, with a sign advertising the group to students who walk by.

Unlike the man from the meme, I was not at this table to argue with anyone about anything.  Sister Mary Rose was sitting at the table, with the sign for the Newman Center, a stack of pamphlets, and a clipboard.  “Hi, Greg,” she said.  “Thanks for signing up to work today.”

“No problem,” I said.  “So what do I do?  Just tell people who we are and hand these out?”

“Yes.  Give these out to interested students,” she said, gesturing toward a stack of pamphlets.  “And have them write their contact information on this clipboard if they want us to contact them.”

“I can do that,” I said.  I looked through one of the pamphlets.  It explained briefly about the concept of the Newman Center’s ministry to Catholic students at secular universities, along with a three-sentence biography of our namesake, 19th-century British theologian and priest John Henry Newman.  The pamphlet listed the times of our Sunday Masses and other weekly activities.

A male student with bushy brown hair and a backpack walked past the table, slowing down and looking at the sign.  “Hi,” Sister Mary Rose said.  “Can I help you?”

“I was just wondering what this was,” he replied.

“We are the Newman Center.  We are a Catholic student community.  We have Mass every Sunday, and we have social activities too.”

I handed the student a flyer, and he looked through it.  I was curious what made him stop at our table.  Does he come from a Catholic background?  Is he just interested in Catholicism?  Was he just being friendly?  I did not ask.  I did not feel comfortable asking a personal question like that.

“Thanks,” the student said as he walked away.

“Is there anything I should be saying to people who come to the table?” I asked after the student was out of earshot.

“Not really,” Sister Mary Rose explained.  “Just be friendly, and answer any questions they might have, if you can.”

“Sounds good.”

“So are you done with class today?

“No.  I have physics lab at 2.  I had chemistry lab this morning.”

“Two labs on the same day.”

“Yeah.  That’s all I have today.  This morning in chem the TA stopped the class so we could all listen to the O.J. verdict.  I thought that was kind of funny.”

“I heard he was found not guilty.”

“Yeah.  I wasn’t expecting that.  Of course, I haven’t been following the trial too closely.  I’m just sick of hearing about it.”

“I know what you mean.”

Another student walked up to our table, a girl with dark hair.  “Hi,” I said, holding a pamphlet.  “Would you like information about the Newman Center?”

“Sure,” the girl replied, taking the pamphlet from me and flipping through the pages.  “Are you the only Catholic church in Jeromeville?”

“There is also St. John’s.  They are a more traditional Catholic parish.  The Newman Center is specifically geared toward students, although there are some adults who attend our Masses as well.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Would you like to sign up for our contact list?  We can send you more information.”

“Sure,” she said, writing her name, phone number, and email on the clipboard.

“Thanks,” I said.  “Have a great day.”

“You too!”

“That was good,” Sister Mary Rose told me as the girl walked off.  “Are you looking at getting more involved with the Newman Center in any other ways this year?”

“Well,” I said, “Danielle keeps trying to get me to sing.  I’m going to come to choir practice tomorrow and see what happens.”

“Good for you!  I think you’ll love it.”

“I’m kind of self-conscious about singing in front of people.  But a choir seems less difficult than singing solo.  And I need to get more involved in things.  I don’t see my friends as often now that I live alone.”

“Danielle Coronado invited you to practice?  You two know each other besides just church, right?”

“Yes.  She lived right down the hall from me in the dorm last year.”

“I think you’ll like it. I’ve noticed you have a pretty good voice.”

“Thank you.”

The next evening, after I finished my Hungry-Man Salisbury steak frozen dinner, I got in the car and drove south on Andrews Road.  I turned left on 15th Street and right on B Street toward downtown, then zigzagged the grid streets to the Newman Center, located in an old brick building on C Street between 5th and 6th.  I walked into the chapel, where a group of about ten people stood on the stage that had once been the altar before the chapel had been remodeled at some point.

“Greg!” Danielle called out.  “You made it!”

“I did,” I said.

“Welcome,” a girl with light brown hair said, in a strong voice that she projected in a way that made me think she probably had a background in music or theater.  I knew her to say hi to, her name was Claire, but I did not know her well.  “Danielle told me you would be coming.  We were just picking out what songs we’re going to sing this week.  Grab a songbook.”

I looked around the room as I picked up a copy of the same songbook we used in Mass.  I recognized a few faces here besides Danielle and Claire, but the only one I knew by name was Matt Jones.  He was a tall boy of mixed white and Asian heritage, and we had met before because our families knew each other back home.  He had graduated from St. Luke’s High School in Gabilan, the medium-sized city next to the rural community of Plumdale where I lived.

There was one other new person that night, a freshman named Phil with messy hair and stubble.  The others introduced themselves to Phil and me.  There was a cute little redhead girl whom I had noticed before; her name was Sabrina.  An olive-skinned girl named Heather.  A guy with dark hair and a toothy smile named Ryan; Matt said that he and Ryan went to high school together.  And a lot of other people who I did not remember at first, including two who looked too old to be students.  Something looked vaguely familiar about Ryan; I was not sure what it was, but if Ryan and Matt were friends in high school, then Ryan and I grew up near each other, so we may have crossed paths in the past.  Or maybe he just looked familiar because I had seen him around church last year.

Each week, we had to choose four songs: one for the opening, one during the offering, one during Communion, and one for the end of Mass.  Claire passed around a list of songs to choose from, songs that would go well with that week’s Scripture readings.  In addition to these four songs, we also sang a responsorial based on one of the Psalms, in which we would sing the verse and the congregation would sing the chorus together.  The Catholic Mass also included a number of other songs used for specific parts of the service.  When I was growing up, these would typically be the same from week to week, but twice a year or so the songs would change to a different set of music saying basically the same lyrics.  The Newman Center seemed to do things the same way.

The songs we chose for this coming week were all mostly familiar to me, as were the songs for the other Mass parts.  For the ones I did not know well, I could read music well enough that the tune and rhythm came back to me as we were singing.  Some of these songs I knew before I started attending Mass at Newman.  “I know this one really well,” I said to Danielle, who was next to me, when we started singing “Cry of the Poor.”  “We used to sing it at my church back home.”

“Mine too,” Danielle replied.  “We use a lot of the same music here as my family’s church.”

After we practiced all the songs, as practice was winding down, the girl who had earlier introduced herself as Heather approached me.  “Hey, Greg?” she asked.  “Danielle told me you live at Las Casas.  Is that right?”

“Yeah,” I said, not entirely sure where she was going with this.  Was she stalking me?  Did she know someone who needed a roommate, and she knew I lived alone, and now I was going to have to make a big decision?

“I do too.  Might you be interested in carpooling?”

“Sure,” I said, relieved that her proposal was nothing to be afraid of.  Driving to church with a neighbor was not scary. 

“Let me find a piece of paper, and I’ll write down my phone number.  And my apartment number.”

“Is this just for choir practice on Wednesdays?  Or do you want to carpool Sundays too?”

“Sure.  We can do Sundays too.”  Heather found a piece of paper, wrote her information, and gave it to me.  Her full name was Heather Escamilla, and she was in apartment number 239.  I tore off enough of the paper to write my own contact information, which I gave it to her.

“Can you carpool this Sunday?” I asked.  “Want me to drive?”

“Sure!”

The following Sunday morning, Heather knocked on my door a little after 10:30, in plenty of time to get to the church for 11:00 Mass.  I had to get there on time now, since I was actually part of the service, although I was not usually one to arrive late in the first place.

“Hey,” I said after opening the door.  “You ready?”

“Yes,” she replied.  “Which car is yours?”

“That one,” I said as I gestured to the red Ford Bronco parked outside my apartment.  “Well, technically not mine.  My parents own it.  You know.”

“Yeah.”  As we pulled out of the parking lot, Heather asked, “So where are you from?  Are your parents around here?”

“No.  Plumdale.  Near Gabilan and Santa Lucia.”

“Oh, okay.  How far is that from here?”

“I can get home in less than three hours if traffic is good.”

“That’s not bad.  I’m from down south, near San Angelo.  On a good day it takes six hours.”

“Sounds right.  What year are you, and what are you studying?”

“I’m a junior.  Psych major.  And you’re a sophomore?  Danielle said you and her were in the same dorm last year?”

“Yeah.  She lived one door down across the hall from me.  And I’m a math major.”

“Eww.  Math and I don’t get along.”

“That’s what a lot of people say.”

“I’m sure they do.  Did you have a good weekend?”

“Yeah, but it was boring.  Went for a bike ride yesterday.”  I did not tell her that I had almost cried Friday night because I was so lonely.

“That sounds nice,” Heather said.  “Mel and I were at a party on Friday.  It was, well, interesting.  You know.”

“Mel?”

“Melanie.  From choir.  You met her on Wednesday.”

“Oh, okay.  I still don’t know everyone.”

When we arrived at church, the building was mostly empty.  The early service had left already.  We walked to the other musicians; the guitarists were turning their guitars, the pianist was practicing, and the singers were looking through pages of sheet music.  Heather started talking to a thin girl with medium brown hair whom I remembered seeing on Wednesday; I thought this was probably Melanie.

“Hey, Greg,” Danielle said, noticing that I had arrived.  “You ready?”

“I guess. I’m a little nervous.”

“There’s no reason to be.  Just sing like you do when you’re at your seat.  You’ll be fine.”

Danielle was right.  I just sang, and it was fine.  We sounded good.  There were enough of us on stage that my voice did not stand out, so even though I was a little self-conscious, I had no need to be.  The entire Mass went over smoothly from the perspective of the choir: the opening song, the Kyrie and Gloria, the Alleluia before the Gospel reading, the song for the offering (this was Cry of the Poor), the short songs between the priest’s prayers while preparing the bread and wine, the Lamb of God, a song during Communion, and a closing song.  Even in my state of near-perpetual self-consciousness, I thought I sounded good, and all of us as a group sounded good as well.

“So are you going to keep coming back to choir?” Claire asked after Mass was over.

“I think so,” I replied.

“Great!  I’ll see you Wednesday then.”

“Sounds good!” Turning to Heather, I asked, “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.  Just a minute.”

I said goodbye to Danielle, Matt, Phil, Ryan, and the others while I waited for Heather.  She was talking to Melanie.  After a minute, Heather and I walked back to the car, and I drove us back to our apartment complex.

I was definitely planning to keep coming to choir practice indefinitely.  With me living alone this year, I would need to work harder to make friends and keep the friends I made last year.  That meant it was time to get involved in more activities.  With choir at Newman, I was already making new friends after just one week, in addition to staying in touch a good friend from last year.

After I got home, Heather walked back to her apartment, and I lay on my bed, humming Cry of the Poor.  Songs get stuck in my head easily.  The Lord hears the cry of the poor, the song says.  Although I knew many others had lives worse than mine, sometimes I felt poor, crying out to the Lord.  Maybe he finally heard me.  Maybe he gave me this opportunity to sing at church so I would be more connected both to the church community and to a group of friends.  And in the process, I was serving my community.  Maybe this was what I needed to get out of my lonely funk.