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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“So how’s everyone doing today?” Taylor asked as I drove west beyond the Jeromeville city limits, where Fifth Street becomes Grant Road.
“I went grocery shopping,” Danielle said. “And I saw my abnormal professor in the store.”
“You saw who?” I asked.
“My professor for Abnormal Psych.”
“Oh,” I said. “Abnormal Psych. You said ‘my abnormal professor,’ and I didn’t know what that meant. I was gonna say I’m a math major, so all of my professors are abnormal.” The others groaned and chuckled.
Grant Road continues west in a near-perfectly straight line for about three miles after leaving the Jeromeville city limits, past an idyllic landscape of fields, pastures, and orchards. Beyond that, the road turns sharply; I was caught off guard by the coming right turn, so I pushed the brake pedal hard. Some of the others in the car reacted audibly to the sudden change in movement. “Sorry,” I said, as I turned sharply to the right, then to the left a short distance later. “I never understood why this road has all these curves in it. Everything is completely flat here.”
“To follow property lines, maybe?” Pete suggested.
“That could be it.”
“Have you been this way before?” Danielle asked.
“Once,” I said.
“You know where we’re going?”
“Yes.”
“Of course he knows where we’re going!” Taylor said. “Greg doesn’t get lost, remember?”
I had only been this way once, when I took a side trip on the way back from my parents’ house just to see what this part of Arroyo Verde County looked like, and I had never been west of the town of Summerfield. But a bunch of us had met in a parking lot in Jeromeville about ten minutes ago to carpool, and Cheryl of the Jeromeville Christian Fellowship staff had been there to hand out flyers, and the driving directions were very clear, just straight west on Grant Road for about twenty miles.
I had been hearing announcements at Jeromeville Christian Fellowship over the last few months about baptisms in the creek near Lake Montecito at the end of the school year. I had not expressed interest in being baptized. I had started to take my faith seriously this year through the nondenominational JCF, which was not affiliated with a specific church. The students in JCF attended a few different churches around Jeromeville, but very few of them were Catholic like me. I did not know enough about baptism at that point to know if I needed to be baptized again, and I did not want to turn my back on the Catholicism of my childhood and family without knowing the details of what I was doing.
However, I wanted to attend this baptism event. I knew most of the people in JCF on an acquaintance level, so I wanted to be there for the people being baptized. Also, one of those people was Sarah Winters, one of my close friends. I had known her since the first week of freshman year, and when I heard that she was getting baptized, I definitely wanted to be there for her.
In addition to friends from JCF, other friends and family of the people being baptized were attending this event. Danielle was not part of JCF; she was Catholic, and attended mass at the Newman Center with me. But all of us in my car were friends with Sarah from our freshman dorm, and all of them also lived in the same apartment complex as Sarah.
I continued west on Grant Road, through more occasional sharp turns and zigzags over the next few miles before the road straightened out again, now heading southwest. The midafternoon sun was still high enough that I did not have to put my visor down. “This may be a dumb question,” I asked, “but what exactly happens at a baptism in the creek? I’ve only seen Catholic baptisms, when you’re a baby, and they just sprinkle water on you in church.”
“I was going to ask the same thing,” Danielle said.
“You proclaim in public that you’re a follower of Jesus,” Charlie explained.
“And then you get dunked!” Taylor added.
“That’s pretty much it,” Charlie said.
“Why is it that Catholics baptize babies, and other Christians don’t?” I asked.
“Because if you get baptized as a baby, you’re not really making a conscious decision to identify as a Christian,” Pete said. “So if you wait until someone is old enough to make their own decision to be baptized, then it really comes from them, and it’s more meaningful than if parents just baptize a baby because you have to.”
“That makes sense,” I said.
“It’s not just Catholics versus Protestants, right?” Charlie added. “Aren’t there some Protestants who baptize babies?”
“Yeah,” Pete said. “I know Presbyterians do.”
We continued west past Summerfield. The road turned to run directly adjacent to the redundantly named Arroyo Verde Creek as the hills, which I could see from home off in the distance to the west, rose around me. Oaks dotted the hills, surrounded by grass that sprung up green and bright every year during the rainy season, but was now in late spring turning brown. The hills would remain golden brown, as they did every year, until around the following January, when the rains of November and December had sunk in.
Twenty miles west of Jeromeville, Arroyo Verde Creek once passed through a narrow canyon just downstream of a valley. This canyon was identified long ago as a perfect place for a dam, which was built in the 1950s. The relatively small dam across the canyon flooded the entire valley behind it, creating Lake Montecito and providing a reliable water supply to the vast agricultural areas to the east. We stopped at a public parking lot just downstream from the dam; I recognized a few JCF people standing around. “There they are,” Taylor said.
The five of us walked toward the crowd. People trickled in as we mingled among the crowd, saying hi to our friends, until about a hundred people stood among the rocks and sand on the bank of Arroyo Verde Creek. I could see the dam about half a mile upstream from where we were, towering three hundred feet above the creek and spanning the entire canyon.
Dave McAllen, who with his wife Janet were the head staff of JCF, waded a few feet into the creek and announced, “Welcome.” He stood in ankle-deep water, wearing a t-shirt with swimming shorts. “You have come to watch four of your friends make a public identification as part of the Body of Christ. Baptism is an outward and public sign that you have decided to follow Jesus. Baptism was commanded by Jesus himself, as part of the Great Commission, in Matthew 28: ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ In Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost, Luke writes that the people who heard Peter’s message were baptized.” Dave continued for another few minutes talking about the theology and history of baptism, about how being submerged in the water and resurfacing is symbolic of dying to your old life and being reborn in Christ. I wondered about my current situation, having been baptized as a baby in the Catholic Church, and whether or not that was acceptable to these people as a valid baptism. My question was answered as Dave said, “Before we begin our baptisms, Kieran would like to say something.”
Kieran, a freshman who had been in my group the previous weekend at the Man of Steel competition, stepped forward, not quite getting into the water. “Hi,” he said. “I’m not one of the people getting baptized today. I was baptized as a baby. But I didn’t really know Jesus until high school, when my friend brought me to youth group. Since I was already baptized, I don’t feel like it’s right to get baptized again, like it didn’t count the first time. But I just wanted to say in front of all of you that I am living for Jesus Christ.” People applauded as he finished that last sentence, and I joined in. I did not know if I would ever be brave enough to say that in front of the crowd, but Kieran’s proclamation suggested that I did not need to be baptized again.
Dave stepped aside as Janet, took his place in the water in front of the crowd. “First, I would like to welcome Sarah Winters. She’s a sophomore.” Janet gestured to Sarah to begin speaking.
“I didn’t really go to church growing up,” Sarah said. “I was a good student, I stayed out of trouble, but I also made some decisions that weren’t so great.” Sarah paused, clearly not wanting to talk about the suboptimal decisions. “But then I started going out with a guy right at the end of high school, and he was a Christian. They say missionary dating isn’t a good idea, but it brought me to Christ.” Laughs and chuckles spread throughout the crowd. I had never heard this term “missionary dating,” but I figured out from the context what she was saying. “He shared with me what it meant to really follow Jesus, and he lived it out in his life. We broke up on good terms last year, but it was for the best. And now I’m ready for whatever Jesus has for me.”
“Sarah?” Janet asked. “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior?”
“I do,” Sarah replied.
“Then I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Janet put one hand on Sarah’s back as she lowered Sarah backward into the water. After being fully submerged for a few seconds, she brought Sarah back up, and everyone cheered. Sarah smiled, dripping wet, as she climbed out of the creek and wrapped herself in a towel.
Three more people were baptized that day. Each had a different story, but all of their stories ended with finding Jesus and making a decision to follow him. I had a story like that now too, and it was humbling to know that this united me with so many millions of Christians throughout the centuries.
After the last baptism ended, I walked around looking for Sarah. Janet McAllen found me first. “Hey, Greg,” she said. “Wasn’t that good to hear everyone’s stories?”
“Yes. It’s always good to hear how God works in different people’s lives.”
“Have you been baptized?”
“I was baptized Catholic as a baby.”
“Oh, okay,” Janet said. “We usually don’t recommend you get baptized again if you were already baptized as a baby.”
“I had been wondering about that earlier today, and then when Kieran shared about that, it was perfect timing. Like he answered the question I didn’t even ask.”
“Yeah!”
“Do you know where Sarah went?”
“I think she’s over there,” Janet said, pointing to a cluster of people standing a little ways upstream.
“I’m going to go find her.”
“Sounds good. I’m glad you could make it here, Greg.”
“Me too.”
I walked in the direction that Janet had pointed and eventually found Sarah. The people I came with had found her first; they were all standing together, along with Sarah’s roommate Krista and a few others.
“Congratulations,” I said as Sarah noticed me approaching.
“Greg!” Sarah exclaimed. “Thank you so much for coming!”
“I’m glad I could be here,” I said. “It’s always so good to hear stories of how people came to know Jesus.”
“Yeah. God works in everyone differently. We all have a story.”
I stood around listening to people make small talk for a while. Later, I started walking around to talk to other people, and I congratulated the other three who had been baptized as well.
The crowd gradually thinned, and we left about half an hour after the last baptism. We returned the same way we came, along Grant Road. At one point, near the inexplicable sharp turns, Danielle excitedly exclaimed, “Look! Sheep! And they’re real!” She pointed out the car window to a flock of sheep grazing in a pasture.
“Did you say ‘they’re real?’” Pete asked.
“Yeah! Right there!”
“‘They’re real,’ you said? So do you normally drive past fields full of fake sheep?” Taylor added.
“What? No!” Danielle said. “You know what I mean!”
“I don’t,” I said.
“Never mind.”
I never did figure out why Danielle was so excited about the sheep being real. Sometimes things make sense in someone’s head but do not get explained properly. But, as we drove home, my mind was more on what Kieran had said, how he had been baptized as a baby and did not feel it was appropriate to get baptized again. Although I had not studied the issue in detail or prayed about it, that was my current position. I did not want to turn my back completely on the Catholicism of my family and generations of my mother’s ancestors. Jesus commands his followers to be baptized, but from what I had learned this year from really studying the Bible for the first time, the act of baptism itself is not what brings salvation or eternal life. Catholics consider baptism to be a sacrament, but I could not find anything directly in the Bible stating that baptism affected one’s eternal fate.
It was surprising to me, therefore, when a few years later JCF held another baptism event, and Kieran was one of the people getting baptized. He made no mention of having been baptized as a baby that time. I never asked him what made him change his mind. By that time, I had had enough encounters with Christians who disparaged and belittled Catholicism that my position had become further entrenched that I did not want to be baptized a second time. I did not want to acknowledge these people’s mischaracterization of Catholicism, and getting baptized a second time felt like taking their side.
However, I did change my mind eventually, in my early thirties. By that time, I was no longer attending Catholic Mass. I knew that many churches that do not baptize babies require baptism as a condition of becoming a full church member and being able to vote on the church budget and new pastoral appointments. I had made up my mind that this would not be a dealbreaker to being part of a church, that I would get baptized as an adult if I found a church requiring adult baptism that I was otherwise ready to commit to. In the first letter to the Corinthaians, Paul wrote that, as a follower of Christ, he is no longer under the Old Testament law, despite having a Jewish background. It is not necessary for Christians to follow the rituals and customs of the Jews. However, when ministering to Jewish communities, Paul would follow their customs anyway, in order to be part of their community and build the relationships necessary to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I felt the same way about baptism by this time; being baptized as an adult was not necessary, but if I was going to become part of a community that believed this, I would be willing to follow their customs. In 2007, the church I had attended for over a year called a new pastor, and I really liked this guy, so I was baptized and became a member in order to be able to vote in favor of this new pastor. And I know that my parents did not see my second baptism as an act of turning my back on my upbringing, because they were there on that day to support me, just as I was there to support Sarah on the day she was baptized.
“What will people think when they hear that I’m a Jesus freak?” the voice on the car stereo sang, followed by some other mumbling words and then guitars and more words. At least it sounded like those were the words, although it seemed like an odd choice of lyrics for a rock song. The song contained that exact line several more times.
“Who is this singing?” I asked Eddie.
“DC Talk,” he replied. “I made this mixtape of Christian music for when I’m in the car.”
I nodded. I had once seen another student at Jeromeville Christian Fellowship wearing a t-shirt that said DC Talk, but I had no idea what that meant. Apparently DC Talk was a band that sang Christian music. Other than stuff we sang in church, the only Christian music I was aware of was this Christian soft rock adult contemporary radio station back home in Santa Lucia County, which I never listened to. But this Jesus Freak song was awesome.
For the first forty minutes after we left Jeromeville, headed west on Highway 100, we passed orchards and pastures and fields interrupted by a few small and medium-sized cities, Silvey, Nueces, Fairview, and La Yegua. After Fairview, the flatlands of the Capital Valley gave way to grassy rolling hills dotted with oaks. Eddie had offered me the front seat, since I was the tallest of the five of us; Sarah, Caroline, and Raphael were in the back. Just past La Yegua, we crossed a bridge over the mouth of the Capital River where it empties into the Bay. “Hey,” Sarah said when we were halfway across the bridge. “There’s the other car.”
I looked to the left, in the direction Sarah was pointing. A small sport-utility vehicle passed us with Tabitha looking at us through the window in the back seat, grinning, and Xander making a funny face over her shoulder. Haley sat in the front seat, smiling and waving. Five of the ten people on this trip were neighbors on Baron Court, and the rest of us met there to carpool. I had hoped that I would end up in the same car as Haley, but I did not want to be too obvious about it. Since Eddie had invited me on this trip, it had seemed more natural to be in his car. Kristina drove the other car, and I could see a silhouette of John behind Xander in the back seat. I waved, although I was not sure anyone could see me from the front passenger seat.
We continued driving through the hills lining the shore of the Bay, through an industrial area, then through several cities and towns that all ran into each other. In Oaksville, Highways 100, 150, and 88 all met at the entrance to another large bridge. Eddie drove across the bridge as we saw the lights and buildings of Bay City approaching.
“This is such a great view,” Sarah said.
“Yes,” Raphael agreed. “One of the greatest cities in the world.”
“I’m not used to seeing it from this side,” I said. “When we came to Bay City, we always came up 11, and usually it was for Titans games on the other side of the city.”
“Have you never seen downtown Bay City before?” Eddie asked.
“Just twice.”
“It’s pretty awesome.”
We turned onto Highway 11 north, which became a city street, Van Winkle Avenue; the freeway was never completed across the city. About two miles up Van Winkle Avenue, Eddie pointed across the street and said “There it is.” I saw the sign for the Hard Rock Cafe, on a building on the corner. We found a nearby parking garage and walked to the entrance, where the group from the other car waited for us.
The Hard Rock Cafe was loud and crowded. The walls were covered with music memorabilia, and music played loudly over speakers. While we waited to get our seat, I read a sign on the wall telling the history of the Hard Rock Cafe. Two Americans living in London in 1971 started the first Hard Rock Cafe as a place to serve American food and listen to great music. Eric Clapton became a regular customer, and he hung a guitar on the wall above his favorite seat. The restaurant incorporated this into their decor and soon opened other locations in big cities and tourist traps worldwide, with music memorabilia on the walls of all of them.
I got up to use the bathroom and took my time getting back to my seat, admiring photographs, posters, guitars, and fancy costumes on display, each with a plaque explaining whom it belonged to and its significance. I also saw a sign saying “No Drugs or Nuclear Weapons Allowed.” I rolled my eyes… hippies. I could not find my friends in the lobby when I returned, so I walked around the restaurant, looking to see if they had been seated and admiring more rock memorabilia as I looked for them. When I found them, I smiled nervously at my good fortune; the seat that they had left open for me, coincidentally, was next to Haley.
“Hey,” Haley said when I sat down. “You found us.”
“Yeah. I was just looking at stuff on the wall. It’s really cool.”
“Have you been here before?”
“No. Have you?”
“Not this one. But I’ve been to one in Hawaii, on vacation with my family.”
“Nice. I’ve never been to Hawaii either.”
“I’ve only been once. It’s so beautiful!”
“I can imagine,” I said. “So how are your classes this quarter?”
“They’re definitely keeping me busy. I’m taking a lot.” Just then the server came and interrupted our conversation. I ordered a cheeseburger, nothing too adventurous.
All of us talked more about life and classes and things while we waited for the food to arrive. At one point, Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” came on; I thought this was the Hard Rock Cafe, not the Hard Rap Cafe, but I did not complain. Kristina started rapping along with Coolio. “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” she began.
“That’s in the Bible, you know,” Eddie said to no one in particular. I did not know the first time I heard the song, but I did now; it was from Psalm 23, one of the more famous passages in the Bible. The song was from the movie Dangerous Minds, and I still had a negative memory of that movie, because of what I saw a few rows in front of me when I watched it.
By the time the food arrived, I was starving. I ate my cheeseburger quickly. I looked around; Haley was eating a chicken salad, and John, on my other side, had the same cheeseburger I did. “How is it?” I asked Haley.
“It’s really good,” she said. “You must have liked yours. You ate it fast.”
“I did. And I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since noon. It’s after nine o’clock.”
“Yeah, we’re eating late. Do you know about this place we’re going next?”
“We’re going to sleep on the beach next, aren’t we?”
“Apparently we’re going somewhere else first,” Haley explained. “One of the guys’ other roommates told us we have to see this thing, but Eddie said it’s a surprise.”
“He didn’t tell me.”
Eddie jumped into our conversation. “Seriously, it’ll be worth it,” he said.
When the waiter brought our checks, he also gave us each a small button with the Hard Rock Cafe logo in flames. “1971-1996, 25 Years of Rock,” it said. Kristina pinned hers to the strap of her purse. I did not know what I would do with mine; stick in a box somewhere, maybe.
And then 25 more years will pass, and I’ll write about that trip and remember exactly where I put that button.
After we finished paying for the meal, we went back to our cars. Eddie worked his way southwest across the city, and at a red light he handed me an unfolded map. “I need someone to help me navigate; I have to watch the road. This is where we’re going,” he said, pointing at a green spot on the map labeled Bosque Hill Park. “Can you read maps?”
I grew up fascinated by maps, and up until that moment of my life, it had never occurred to me that some people could not read maps. “Yeah,” I said. It was a strange question to me. I was reminded of those first few days of freshman year in Building C, talking about my fascination with maps. I looked over my shoulder at Sarah in the back seat, grinning; she made eye contact with me and started laughing loudly. I laughed too. She was thinking of the same thing.
“What’s so funny?” Eddie asked.
“At the start of freshman year, the day I met Greg,” Sarah explained, “someone told me that he loved maps. So he made me tell Greg the highways near my house, to see if Greg could guess where I was from. And he was right, and Greg and I have been friends ever since.”
“Good job!” Eddie said.
We arrived at Bosque Hill and parked on the street. Street parking is usually scarce in Bay City, and when Raphael saw another spot open, he suggested we stand there and save the spot for Kristina’s car. I wondered what was so special about Bosque Hill. I had seen it on a map, and I had read that it was the highest natural elevation in Bay City, around 1000 feet. I guessed that the surprise would be a spectacular view of the city lights at night.
After the other car arrived, we began climbing the hill on a well-worn dirt path. A few people carried flashlights. The path was surrounded by trees and brush on both sides, and the chirps and buzzes of bugs intertwined with the distant dull roar of the city. A few times, I could see sweeping views of city lights below, but that was not the surprise Eddie was showing us.
The path turned a corner, and I could see the top of the hill, where a giant cross stood, towering over us, taller than the six-story building where my mathematics professors’ offices were. What was this? Why was it here? I walked closer and read a plaque, identifying this cross as a memorial to pioneers who came from around the world and settled the area. I looked up and saw that all my friends had adopted postures of prayer, so I did the same. I looked up at the cross and prayed silently. Jesus Christ, I thank you for this reminder that you died on the cross to save me from my sins and bring eternal life. I thank you for the beauty of your creation, even here in the middle of the city. I thank you that these friends, these brothers and sisters in Christ, invited me on this trip, and I pray that we will have safe travels. No one spoke for about ten minutes. I wondered how long we were going to stay here, but I did not want to interrupt everyone’s prayers, so I just kept praying until I saw people start to walk downhill.
“That was pretty cool,” I said when we were back in the car. Eddie was driving toward the coast on the west side of the city, along the open ocean. “I had no idea it was there.”
“I was thinking on the way down,” Caroline said. “When we’re all standing there praying to a cross, couldn’t that be considered idolatry?”
“Hmm,” Eddie replied, thinking.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily idolatry,” I answered. “We’re not praying to the cross. We’re praying to Jesus, and the cross is a symbol reminding us of him.”
“That makes sense,” Eddie said.
“Good point, Greg,” Sarah added.
“Thanks,” I replied.
The coast south of Bay City was rugged and hilly, and we drove along the road that hugs the shore for about half an hour, to a town called Moonlight Cove. I had never been this way before. The town must have been named on a day unlike today, because tonight it was cloudy and no moon was visible. “How does this work?” I asked, being completely unfamiliar with the concept of sleeping outside. “Do we just put down our sleeping bags and sleep on the beach?”
“Pretty much.”
Kristina’s car had beaten us here by a few minutes this time, and we parked next to them. “Look,” I said as we were unloading. “That sign over there says ‘No Camping.’ Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“Yeah, but they never check,” Eddie explained. “My friends and I in high school came here and slept on this beach a few times.”
“My family lives just over those hills,” Caroline added, “and we came to this beach all the time. We never spent the night, but I don’t remember anyone patrolling the area or anything.”
“If you say so,” I said, still dreading the fact that we were doing something illegal. After staying up talking for a bit more, someone pointed out that it was almost midnight, and we decided to go to sleep.
Today, as an adult, I recognize the value of experiences, and I have stayed up all night enough times to know that doing so will not kill me. But in 1996, I felt like I desperately had to sleep, so when people kept talking as others drifted off to sleep, I felt a need to move somewhere out of earshot. I quietly told them so, and I dragged my sleeping bag inland about a hundred feet to a slightly more secluded spot near some large rocks. If the police caught us camping and hauled us off to jail, maybe they would not see me.
Even in my new spot, though, sleep eluded me. I always had a hard time falling asleep in an unfamiliar place, and I was uncomfortable sleeping on sand with the ocean roaring nearby and the wind blowing. After tossing and turning for a long time, I realized that I had to pee, but there was no bathroom. I carefully walked behind the rocks, relieved myself, and returned to the sleeping bag. I looked at my watch; it was 1:29. I tossed and turned as my mind raced. I felt somehow inferior to the others since I could not sleep outside, and since my life did not include sleeping outside in any childhood experiences. I also had homework to do at home. I tried to think happy thoughts. Eddie inviting me on this trip. Sitting next to Haley at the Hard Rock Cafe. Driving places I had never seen before. Haley’s pretty blue eyes. Hiking to the top of Bosque Hill. The way Haley’s whole face lights up when she smiles. I got up to use the rocks again at 2:11, then I began praying like I did at the top of Bosque Hill. I thanked Jesus Christ for all he had done for me and tried to listen to see if he was speaking to me. I closed my eyes.
The next thing I knew, it was light out. My watch said 7:02. I had slept for almost five hours, and given the circumstances, that was probably as good as it would get. As I returned from using the rocks as my toilet again, I noticed that no one else seemed awake. I lay in my sleeping bag, enjoying the view, for about forty-five minutes, until I saw Eddie clearly moving around. I walked back out of sight of the others and changed into the other clothes I had brought, then rolled up my sleeping bag and walked to the others.
“Hey, Greg,” Eddie whispered. “You sleep well?”
“Eventually, but it took a long time to fall asleep. I never sleep well in unfamiliar places.”
“But you did sleep.”
“I did.”
“Hey, guys,” John whispered, joining the conversation.
Everyone else woke up over the next fifteen minutes as we spoke in whispers. Once everyone was awake and speaking at a normal volume, Sarah asked, “What’s for breakfast?”
“I was thinking we could go into town and just pick up a few things at Safeway,” Kristina suggested. “Anyone want to come with me?”
“Sure,” Haley said, getting out of her sleeping bag.
This was my chance. “I’ll come,” I said.
“Great!” Kristina said. “Ready?”
As I walked with Kristina and Haley to the parking lot, I realized that I had not showered or brushed my teeth or put on deodorant. This may not be the best time to be talking to Haley. But, then again, she probably had not done any of that stuff either.
“I was thinking, get some bagels, and fruit, and juice. And we need cups for the juice. Does that work for you guys?” Kristina asked.
“Sure,” Haley said. I nodded.
We arrived at the store, took a cart, and walked through the aisles together. After Kristina walked forward to look at different kinds of bagels, Haley asked me, “So did you ever figure out where you’re going to live next year?”
“Oh, wow. Older guys. Isn’t Brian applying to medical school right now?”
“Shawn said he didn’t get in.”
“Really.”
“He’s on a waitlist at one place, so plans might change if he does get in, but right now he’s planning to live in Jeromeville another year. And there’s a fourth guy, Josh McGraw, he’s Abby Bartlett’s boyfriend, and he commutes to Jeromeville now and wants to move into town.”
“You’re living with Shawn Yang and Brian Burr next year?” Kristina said, putting bagels in the cart. “Awesome! Where?”
“We don’t have a place yet. We’re going to get together sometime soon to make plans.”
“That’s cool!”
We returned to the beach with the food a few minutes later. This was not my usual routine of cereal in milk for breakfast, but it was food and that was the important thing. After we finished eating, Xander walked to the parking lot and returned with a guitar. “I’ve been learning some worship songs,” he said. He started playing some of the songs we sang at JCF large group, as well as a few that I did not think I had heard before. Tabitha asked for a turn with Xander’s guitar, and she played and sang a few songs too. We all just sat there for over an hour, praising God through music and enjoying the beauty of his creation.
In the early afternoon, we packed everything up and got ready to head back to Jeromeville. “What are we doing for lunch?” Kristina asked.
“I know this great sandwich place where I used to go with my family when we would come here,” Caroline said. “Does that sound good?”
“Sure!”
We got back into the cars, and Caroline directed Eddie to the sandwich shop in Old Town Moonlight Cove, about two miles from the beach where we were. The others followed in Kristina’s car. This place was much smaller, quieter, and less flashy than the Hard Rock Cafe, unsurprisingly. I ordered a turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese; it was very, very good.
“I like this place,” I said to Caroline. “Good suggestion.”
“So what was your favorite part of the trip, Greg?” Eddie asked me. He had been asking everyone this.
“Probably the Hard Rock Cafe,” I said. “I liked all the music stuff on the wall.”
“Do you play an instrument or anything? You said you sing, right?”
“Yeah. I haven’t really listened to a lot of Christian pop and rock music.”
“You should. I think there’s some stuff out there that you’d like.”
After lunch, we got back in the cars and began the two hour drive back to Jeromeville. Eddie put on a different mixtape of Christian music. As we crossed back east over the Bay City Bridge, leaving the city, I heard familiar guitar chords coming from Eddie’s mixtape. “Rain, rain on my face, hasn’t stopped raining for days,” the voice sang.
“Hey, I know this song,” I said. “I’ve heard it on the radio before.”
“Jars of Clay,” Eddie replied. “I know, I’ve heard it on 100.3. It’s cool to hear Christian music get played on secular radio stations.”
“Yeah,” I said. I had not listened to the lyrics closely enough to recognize it as Christian music, but it all made sense now. “Lift me up when I’m falling. I need you to hold me.”
Somewhere around Nueces, Eddie’s mixtape ended, and he put on the first mixtape with Jesus Freak again. I was definitely going to look more into this Christian music. We arrived back at Eddie’s house in Jeromeville in the late afternoon. Kristina’s car arrived a minute later and parked nearby, and everyone who did not live on Baron Court began unloading and moving their things to their own cars.
“Thanks for driving, Eddie,” I said. “And thanks for inviting me.”
“Thanks for coming!” Eddie replied. “Have a great rest of the weekend!”
“I’m glad you could make it, Greg,” I heard Haley say. I turned to her and saw the smile I had been thinking of earlier. She stepped forward to hug me, and we embraced.
“I’m glad you went too,” I said. “Have a good rest of the weekend.”
After everyone said their goodbyes, I drove back to my apartment in north Jeromeville. This was the best weekend I had had in a long time. Once I got inside with the car radio off, that Jesus Freak song started going through my head again. This was my life now. I was a Jesus Freak. The despair of the past was behind me, and I was following Jesus with a supportive group of brothers and sisters in Christ.
I knew that the point of following Jesus was not about being part of the in-crowd, but it still felt good that the in-crowd was including me. I had a group of friends who genuinely cared about me, something that I had not had for most of my life, and I was going to be living with cool older guys next year. Of course, God had a lot to show me about how life really works over the coming years, but for now, life was good.
Back in 1996, only rich people had mobile phones, because they were large and expensive. If I wanted to call someone in another city, I had to make a long distance call from my landline telephone, and I would get billed for the call by the minute. The University of Jeromeville got some kind of deal with MCI, a major company in the telephone industry at the time until they were acquired by Verizon in the early 2000s. MCI provided new state-of-the-art student identification cards to all of us students, and in exchange, we got to use MCI to make long distance calls at a slightly discounted rate. I had no plans to use this service; I already had long distance service on my phone with another company, and I did not make long distance calls very often except to my parents. But because we were getting new ID cards, all students had to get our pictures taken again at some point during the first week of spring quarter.
“You said it looked bad!” Danielle was saying as I walked into the Newman Center chapel Wednesday night for choir practice. I looked up to see what was going on; Danielle was holding one of the new student ID cards. “I think this is a good picture.”
“No I don’t!” Danielle’s sister Carly exclaimed, trying to take the card away as Danielle held it away from her.
“Greg!” Danielle called out as I approached the others. “Isn’t this a good picture of Carly?” Danielle asked as she tossed Carly’s ID card to me.
I caught the card and looked at it as Carly said, “Eww! Give it back!” In the picture, Carly was smiling, and her straight brown hair looked neatly groomed.
“Here,” I said, handing the card back to Carly. “I think you look just fine.”
“I should have taken my glasses off,” Carly said. “But, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I smiled.
“Can I see your new picture?” Danielle asked me. “Did you get it yet?”
“I didn’t. I’m probably going to go tomorrow.”
Phil Gallo turned toward us. “I heard that people are upset because apparently MCI has all of our personal information now.”
“Hmm,” I replied. That sounded a bit unsettling, but there was not much I could do about it at this point, except possibly boycott MCI and not use their service.
“How’d your week go, Greg? What classes are you taking this quarter?” Danielle asked.
“Two math classes, Computer Science 30, and Anthro 2.”
“Is that the same Anthro class that Claire’s taking?”
“Yes. I saw her in class today.”
“What?” Claire said, turning toward us. “I heard my name.” Claire Seaver was a junior with a background in music, and although there was no formal leadership structure in our church choir, she performed many leader-like activities for the group.
“You’re in my Anthro 2 class,” I said.
“Yeah! And we have to miss it on Friday because we’re singing here for the Good Friday Mass.”
“I know. I hope we don’t miss too much.”
“Do either of you guys know someone who you can ask to take notes?” Danielle asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “Tabitha Sasaki is in that class too; I already asked her today if I could copy her notes for Friday. I’ll ask her if I can make an extra copy for Claire. Danielle, do you know Tabitha? She goes to JCF, and she lived in Building B last year?”
“Oh yeah. I remember her.”
“Okay, everyone, we need to get started,” Claire called out. “We have a lot of new music to practice this week, because we have Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter.”
Choir practice that week took much longer than usual, over two hours. We had more music to practice for the upcoming Holy Week services, as well as songs specific to Easter Sunday. By the time I got home, it was nine-thirty, and I was too tired to do any more homework.
Fortunately, the next day was Thursday, my lightest day of the week that quarter. I was done with lower division mathematics, so for this quarter I signed up for Combinatorics and Linear Algebra Applications, two upper-division classes for which I had taken the prerequisites. The mathematics major also required one of two possible lower division computer science courses, and being one who liked to play around with computers, I was excited for that class, Introduction to Programming. I completed my academic schedule with Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. This would satisfy a general education requirement, and I already knew the professor, Dr. Dick Small. He taught a class I took last year for the Interdisciplinary Honors Program that I was in, about the literature and culture of South Africa. I always thought that Dr. Dick Small was one of the most hilariously unfortunate names that one could possibly have.
When I was signing up for classes this quarter, I noticed that all four classes that I took were only offered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And, without realizing it, I noticed after the fact that I had left my Tuesdays and Thursdays completely empty, having chosen an anthro discussion on Wednesday and a computer science discussion on Monday. Since I had also decided to take the quarter off from my part-time job tutoring at the Learning Skills Center, I had no reason to get out of bed on a Tuesday until Bible study in the evening, and no reason to get out of bed on a Thursday at all. Some of my friends had told me that they would be perfectly happy with a schedule like that, but I did not think it would be good to be that lazy and antisocial. The UJ physical education department offered a number of half-unit classes twice a week, and I decided to take weight training this quarter just to give me something healthy to do on these days. I had taken bowling in the fall, for a similar reason.
The sky was mostly blue with a few clouds that Thursday morning, so I rode my bike to campus instead of taking the bus. I parked outside of the Recreation Pavilion, where the weight room was. Those first few classes the first couple weeks of the quarter, we learned a little bit about technique, and the rest of the hour we just lifted weights. After class, I changed into normal clothes. I also put on the jacket I had bought a couple months ago when a theft in the laundry room had forced me to buy new clothes; I had worn the jacket on my bike but taken it off for weight training. This jacket had a black torso made from the same material as athletic wear and lined with something warm, but the sleeves were gray, made out of the same material as sweatshirts. The jacket also had a dark green hood, but I did not put the hood on that morning.
I got back on my bike and decided to try something new today. I rode east across campus, past the Memorial Union and the Death Star building, on the path that became Third Street. I crossed A Street, which marked the border between the university and the city, and parked my bike about a hundred feet past A Street. Next to this bike rack was a coffee shop called Espresso Roma. I walked in and continued to the counter, where one person was in line in front of me.
I did not drink coffee, but at that time I had a bit of a curious fascination with coffee shops. It seemed like hanging out in coffee shops was the cool thing to do, and I wished I could experience that, despite the fact that I did not like coffee. The Coffee House on campus at the Memorial Union was more like a student union than an actual coffee shop. I had seen Espresso Roma before, to my knowledge it was the closest coffee shop to campus, so I figured I would give it a try.
“May I help you?” the cashier asked.
“Hot chocolate, please,” I said.
“Whipped cream?”
“Yes.” The hot chocolate at the Coffee House on campus did not come with whipped cream, so this place was better in that sense. I found a table and took off my jacket, placing it on the back of the chair. I got out my backpack and combinatorics textbook, and looked around. Last week, I was back home in Santa Lucia County on spring break, and I went to a coffee shop in Gabilan called the Red Bean with my friend Melissa. Espresso Roma did not look much like the Red Bean. Although in an old neighborhood like the Red Bean, Espresso Roma was in a much more modern-looking building. The interior had a concrete floor with electrical conduits and air ducts visible in the ceiling above. Floor-to-ceiling windows, with wood borders around the glass making them look more like doors, faced Third Street; one of them actually was a door, leading to outdoor tables.
I got my hot chocolate a couple minutes later and sat back down. I had plenty more to do after I finished my combinatorics homework, since I got nothing done after choir practice last night. I spent almost two hours in Espresso Roma reading and studying and doing homework. I went back there several more times over the next couple years for hot chocolate and a different place to study other than the Coffee House in the Memorial Union and the library.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays that quarter, my only class was the weight training class. I could go back home any time I wanted. But today, I had one more important thing to do before I left campus: I had not yet taken my photo for the new student ID card. The photographers had set up in the Recreation Pavilion on the basketball court; I had seen them on the way to weight class this morning. When I unlocked my bike, I noticed that the sky had turned gray; it had mostly been blue when I arrived at Espresso Roma two hours ago. I felt what seemed to be raindrops on my head; that was not a good sign. By the time I rode past the Death Star building a minute later, the rain had become much more steady. I pulled my hood on, hoping that wearing my hood would not make my hair look funny for my picture.
It only took five minutes to get to the Recreation Pavilion by bicycle, but in that five minutes the rain quickly became a heavy downpour. By the time I walked into the building, I was drenched. My jacket had kept my torso sufficiently dry, but the sleeves, not being waterproof, had soaked through to the long sleeves I was wearing underneath
“Your old card, please?” a woman asked as I walked inside. I handed over my old card, and the woman who took my card pointed at a line for me to stand in. I could have come back tomorrow when it might be dry, but by giving her my old card, I had made my decision. I would be looking a little bit wet in my new student ID photo. It was no big deal.
A few minutes later, I set my jacket and backpack down when I got to the front of the line to get my picture taken. “Looks like you got a little wet today,” the photographer asked. “Is it raining?”
No, I thought, I was wading in the creek and I dropped something, so I had to reach in with both arms and get it. But somehow my torso stayed miraculously dry. “Yeah,” I said out loud. “It just started coming down hard all of a sudden while I was on my way here.”
“You sure you want to take your picture like that?” he asked.
“It’s ok. It won’t really show.”
I stood and looked where he told me to. In every ID card and school picture I had taken, I always tried my best to smile, and I hated the way I looked in every one of these pictures. So I deliberately did not smile. I kept my face in as much as a natural position as possible, and not smiling was natural for me. I stared at the spot that the photographer had told me to until I heard the click and saw the flash. “Thank you,” the photographer said. “Go over there, and they’ll have your card ready in about ten minutes.”
A while later, I heard someone call my name from the table with the card printer on it. A guy sitting there handed me my new card, along with a sticker to put on it to show that I was registered as a student this quarter. Whatever look I was going for, being wet and disheveled and not smiling, it did not work at all. My face appeared angry and unstable, my hair was messy, and my wet arms were visible on the sides of the picture. Smiling for school pictures did not work, and apparently not smiling did not work either. The photos on ID cards just did not look good, and this was something I would have to come to accept. And as if to drive home the point that I was just cursed with bad luck when it came to ID card photos, the weather was dry by the time I left the Recreation Pavilion, and it stayed dry for the rest of the night.
(Author’s note: This is a reconstruction, made with the help of Bitmoji. I still have the original card, but the photo is smeared and scratched after having been put in and taken out of my pocket for years, and the original card has personal information on it that I do not wish to copy here.)
The rest of the week went as planned. I sang at both the Holy Thursday and Good Friday Masses. Friday night I went to Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, hoping that Tabitha would be there and that she had remembered to bring her notes from anthropology class. I noticed a few of the regulars were missing, probably because it was the weekend of Easter and some people had gone home to be with their families for the weekend. Tabitha was there, and after the last worship song, I walked over toward her. She was talking with Eddie, Haley, Kristina, and a guy whom I had seen around but had not met yet. I walked up, not saying anything, not wanting to interrupt.
Eddie acknowledged me first. “Hey, Greg,” he said. “Did you get your new student ID yet? We were just talking about that.”
I pulled my new ID card out of my pocket. “I look like a deranged serial killer,” I said sheepishly as I handed Eddie the card.
“Why is there a shadow on your arms?” he asked.
“My arms were wet,” I said, explaining the sudden downpour and my jacket.
“I want to see the deranged serial killer!” Kristina shouted.
“Is it ok to show the others?” Eddie asked me.
“Sure,” I replied. Eddie passed the card to Kristina; Haley and Tabitha also looked at the card.
“You’re not smiling,” Haley pointed out. “How come?”
“I smiled for my driver’s license, and all my high school yearbook pictures, and my old student ID, and I never liked the way those looked,” I explained. “So I tried something different. That didn’t work either, apparently.”
“It’s not bad. But I think you would look better if you smiled.”
“Thanks,” I said, making my best attempt at a smile. Then, turning to Tabitha, I asked, “Tabitha? Do you have your notes from anthro today?”
“Yeah,” she said, reaching down under her chair and picking up a notebook, which she handed to me. “I think I got all the important things Dr. Small said.”
“Can I give this back to you Monday in class? Or do you need it sooner?”
“Monday is fine.”
“Greg,” Eddie said. “I was going to ask you tonight. Are you busy next weekend?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“We’re planning a sophomore class trip. We’re going to go to Bay City on Friday night, eat at the Hard Rock Cafe, then find a place to sleep on the beach. We’ll be home Saturday night so everyone can go to church Sunday.”
This invitation came as a surprise to me, I had never done anything like this, but I was intrigued. “Who all is going?” I asked.
“All of us,” Eddie said, gesturing at himself and the others I had been talking to. “I’m going to invite a few more people, but I don’t know yet who is going for sure.”
This was not my usual reality. I had never been to a Hard Rock Cafe, I had never slept outdoors, and taking a trip like this was not something I normally would do on short notice. But I learned the hard way recently that hesitating on a big decision had consequences. Also, this trip would be a chance to spend time with friends; my 19-year-old boy mind was specifically excited about the thought of spending time with Haley. “Sure, I’m in,” I replied. “I should bring a sleeping bag?”
“Yeah. I’ll call you in a few days with more details.”
“Sounds good! May I have my ID card back?”
“Oh yeah,” Kristina said, handing me the card.
I really was okay with the fact that I was stuck with this horrible picture on my ID card for the next few years. Everyone seemed to have a bad student ID or driver’s license picture at some point in their lives, and now I had one with a good story behind it. I had learned two important lessons that day. First, my jacket was not completely waterproof, and second, I may as well smile in pictures because I did not look better not smiling. Smiling still did not feel natural to me, but maybe I could just make myself think happy thoughts when I was posing for a picture. And now Eddie had included me in this upcoming trip, and Haley was going to be on the trip too, and all of that certainly gave me a reason to smile.
I stood outside 109 Wellington waiting for my math class, as I did every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Another class met in that room right before mine, and about a minute after I arrived, those students began leaving. Jack Chalmers from my class always said hi to Lizzie, a girl from that class whom he had known back home, as she passed by, but Jack was not here now. I saw Lizzie walk past, and I made eye contact and attempted to smile.
Lizzie noticed me making eye contact. She was fair-skinned with dark brown hair and eyes, and she wore a dark red sweatshirt. “Hey,” she said.
I did not expect her to actually say hi to me, considering that the few words she had said to me had all happened on days when I had been talking to Jack as her class left. Trying to think of something to say, I blurted out, “Jack’s not here.”
“Yeah. He was going to leave early this morning for Thanksgiving. He has a long drive, you know.”
“That makes sense.”
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Lizzie asked me.
“We always go visit my dad’s relatives in Bidwell. Mom and Dad are picking me up tomorrow morning on their way.”
“Where are they coming from?”
“Plumdale. That’s where I grew up. Near Gabilan and Santa Lucia.”
“That sounds like fun! I’m flying home tonight. I could have carpooled with Jack, but I have a midterm I can’t miss later today.”
“Good luck on your midterm! And have a great Thanksgiving!”
“You too!”
One of the best parts of being a university student was being surrounded by other people around my age at the same point in their lives as me. That makes it so much easier to make friends, compared to adult life with its compartmentalized and isolated experiences. And sometimes my friends would have other friends, and my friends’ friends would become my friends. This seemed to be happening with Lizzie, now that we had had an actual conversation without Jack being there.
This Wednesday felt more like a Friday, with tomorrow being Thanksgiving. But I was annoyed that the University of Jeromeville and its sister schools only take two days off, plus a weekend, for Thanksgiving. This was the same as I always got in elementary school, but in high school, I had gotten three days off, and in the 21st century I know many schools that take the entire week off. It was disappointing, not having more time off for Thanksgiving, but many real life jobs only have one day off, so it could be worse.
During math class, as Anton lectured about eigenvalues and eigenvectors, I thought about the rest of my day. Bowling class, two more lectures, and two hours of tutoring, and I would be done for the week. ready to go see family and stuff my face with food.
I had two tutoring groups on Wednesdays after my classes. Calculus with Yesenia and Kevin went as it always did. But in the precalculus group after that, I sat at the table for ten minutes waiting for the four students in the group to show up. If I waited fifteen minutes, and no one showed up, I was allowed to leave and still get paid for the fifteen minutes. One of the students, Jennifer, arrived just as I was getting ready to go home.
“I didn’t think anyone was going to come,” I said.
“We just got a midterm back, and I have a lot of questions,” Jennifer replied.
“I wonder if everyone else left early because it’s Thanksgiving?” I wondered aloud, remembering what Lizzie had said about Jack.
“Probably.”
“Are you going anywhere for Thanksgiving?”
“Yeah. Just back home, to Pleasant Creek. My dad is coming to pick me up tonight.”
“I’m going to visit my dad’s relatives in Bidwell. That’ll be fun.”
Jennifer and I got a lot of work done. We talked about every problem she missed on the midterm as well as today’s lecture, and she really did seem to understand better by the end of the hour. After we finished, I walked to the Barn and caught the bus home, then proceeded to waste the rest of the night playing around on the computer and reading. Before I went to bed, I threw a few changes of clothes and my personal bathroom items in a bag for the trip.
Mom and Dad and my brother Mark arrived to pick me up around 10:00 Thursday morning. After everyone used my bathroom for their mid-trip pit stop, we left, turning north onto Highway 117. “We made good time,” Mom said as we left Jeromeville and our surroundings abruptly changed to fields and pastures. “We left right at 7:30, like we wanted to. And we’ll still get to Bidwell in plenty of time to check into the motel before we eat.”
“Sounds good.”
“Oh. You’ll like this. We were on the phone with Aunt Carol earlier this week, talking about that time years ago when you brought your Game Boy to Bidwell and we played Tetris. I told her I always liked Dr. Mario, and she said she didn’t know that game, but it sounded fun. So we brought the Super Nintendo, so we can play Tetris and Dr. Mario with Aunt Carol.”
“That’ll be fun,” I said. Tetris & Dr. Mario was a cartridge for the Super Nintendo that included both games, which had been on separate cartridges for the earlier Nintendo Entertainment System. We had lost our Dr. Mario game when someone borrowed it and never returned it; last summer Mom had wanted to play Dr. Mario, so we got the Super Nintendo Tetris & Dr. Mario as a replacement.
The trip from Jeromeville to Bidwell took just under two hours, north on Highway 117 to where it ends, then north on Highway 9. In most of the towns between Jeromeville and Bidwell, the highway becomes a city street, which slows the drive down a little but gives a more close-up view of life in those towns than freeway travel would. Fields and orchards covered the land between the towns.
My great-grandmother Christine Dennison used to host Thanksgiving at her house in the hills on the outskirts of Bidwell. Her son, my great-uncle Ted, was a cattle rancher; he had sold the land around her house some time ago but kept the house for his mother to live in. We used to stay at her house when we came to Bidwell, and I always had so much fun exploring the old ranch land, going on long walks, even in the last few years of her life when the new owners of the land began building a country club and golf course there.
Christine had been my last great-grandparent, and this was our second Thanksgiving since she passed. Last year, in the absence of anyone wanting to take over the cooking and hosting duties, someone had decided to hold the Dennison extended family Thanksgiving at HomeTown Buffet. I thought that was a bit tacky at first, but having so many choices of food last year was kind of nice, so I was looking forward to it this year.
We checked into the motel and rested a bit before heading to HomeTown Buffet in mid-afternoon. “Hey, you guys,” Aunt Carol said as we approached the group of Dennison relatives waiting outside. Her husband, Uncle Chuck, Dad’s next-youngest brother, said hi and shook all of our hands. “Did you bring the game?” Aunt Carol asked.
“Yes, we did. Greg is waiting to play with you guys.”
“Oh, good.”
“Greg,” an elderly bald man said, patting me on the shoulder. “How’re you doing? How’s Jeromeville?”
“Hi, Grandpa Harold,” I said. “I’m doing well. Classes are good this quarter. And I’m working part time as a math tutor.”
“A math tutor? That sounds perfect for you.”
“It is.”
I looked around to see who else was here. Grandpa Harold’s wife, Grandma Nancy, saw me and waved. I knew her as my grandmother, but she was not biologically related to me. Grandpa Harold had been married three times, and my dad, Harold Dennison, Jr., came from the second wife, who lived out of state and died when I was in high school. I only met Dad’s real mother twice. My dad’s cousin Tina, whose father had had the cattle ranch, and her four daughters stood at the end of the line. I made a note to say hi to them next. The oldest girl was 18 and the youngest 12; they used to play with Mark and me at Great-Grandma Christine’s house when we would visit. When Mark was around 10, he went through a phase of fascination with amphibians and reptiles, and we used to catch tadpoles in Bidwell Creek in the summer with the girls. I overheard Tina say that her parents would not be joining us, since they were having Thanksgiving with her brother’s family.
Uncle Glen, Dad’s older half-brother from Grandpa Harold’s first wife, showed up about ten minutes later, and we all went inside after that. Dad had one other brother, Uncle Jimmy, whom I never met; he died in a motorcycle accident in his 20s while Mom was pregnant with me, and I got my middle name of James from him. Grandpa Harold had three daughters with Grandma Nancy, but they all lived out of state and did not often come for Thanksgiving.
I stuffed my face so full that day. I ate three whole plates of actual food: turkey, ham, stuffing, fried chicken, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and all sorts of bread. Then I went back for dessert, returning with a giant ice cream sundae in a soup bowl, since the ice cream bowls were small, and two different slices of pie. “Are you going to be able to move the rest of the night?” Mom asked when I returned to the table with dessert.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” I replied, laughing. While we ate, we all caught up, sharing everything going on in our lives. A number of people asked me how school was, and I repeated the same thing I told Grandpa Harold outside. Mark just kind of grunted and shrugged when they asked him that question. I did not have the long walks around the old ranch to look forward to this year, but this was still going to be a fun holiday.
Today, many Americans associate the day after Thanksgiving with shopping. In the 1960s, police officers fed up with rioting crowds of shoppers beginning their Christmas shopping referred to this miserable phenomenon as “Black Friday.” By the early 2000s, stores began encouraging these rioting crowds, offering deep discounts, completely unrelated to buying gifts for others, only available early in the morning. The retail industry even fabricated a story about the term “Black Friday” referring to profits being in the black rather than rioting and vandalism.
Black Friday was never a big deal to me, not today and certainly not in 1995. While the rest of the world went shopping that morning, we ate a nice hotel breakfast, then went to visit Tina and the girls. We set up the Super Nintendo to play with them while the adults talked about adult things. After that, we stopped to see Grandpa Harold and Grandma Nancy for a while. I always found their house boring when I was a kid, and this year was no exception to that, except that Grandma Nancy had homemade pumpkin pie.
In the early afternoon, we drove about 20 miles south to a town called Rio Bonito. A few years earlier, Uncle Chuck and Aunt Carol had driven past a large old house in Rio Bonito that was painted a bright yellow color. The house had a For Sale sign outside, and Aunt Carol said that she wanted to live in that Damn Yellow House. So they sold their house in Bidwell and bought the Damn Yellow House. Everyone in that town of 1500 people knew the Damn Yellow House. Someone once even sent them mail addressed to “Chuck & Carol Dennison, The Damn Yellow House, Rio Bonito,” with no street name or address, and it was delivered correctly.
We parked next to the Damn Yellow House and walked inside; I carried the Super Nintendo. “Hello,” Aunt Carol said as we approached. “Oh, good, you brought that game.”
“Yes. Should I go set it up now?” I asked.
“We’re not going to play right now,” Mom said.
“That’s okay,” Aunt Carol said. “He can go plug it into the TV now, and it’ll be ready when we’re ready to play later.”
I connected the Super Nintendo to the TV while the adults caught up and talked about boring adult stuff. Most of the family vacations I remember involve the adults sitting around talking about boring adult stuff while I had to entertain myself. The 1989 invention of the Game Boy, Nintendo’s hand-held video game console, was a lifesaver for me on these trips, although I did not bring it this year.
After dinner, it was time to teach Aunt Carol to play Dr. Mario. I turned the game on and started a single-player game. “So there are three different colors of viruses,” I explained as I played the game. “You line up the pills, and whenever you get four of the same color in a row, they disappear. So you want to make a set of four that includes a virus. Like, watch those red ones on the left side.” I dropped a pill on the red virus, making a set of four; the red virus disappears.
“I see,” Aunt Carol replied. As I dropped another pill, she asked, “What happened there? You made a set of four that didn’t have a virus in it?”
“Yeah. That still makes the pills disappear. It clears space on the board. There’s also a two-player game where you compete to see who clears the viruses first. And whenever you get more than one set of 4 with a single pill, it drops garbage on the other player’s board.”
“That sounds like fun. Can we do that?”
“Sure.”
I started a two-player game, putting Aunt Carol on an easier level than me since she was a beginner. The two-player game lasts until someone wins three rounds; I won the first two rounds, but Aunt Carol had gotten the hang of it enough to win the next round.
“This is fun!” Aunt Carol said.
We spent the rest of the night taking turns playing two-player Dr. Mario. Mom played against Aunt Carol, I played against Mom, Aunt Carol played against Uncle Chuck. Mark did not join in; he preferred sports and fighting games to puzzle games, so he sat in the corner listening to gangsta rap on a Walkman and occasionally making sarcastic comments.
“I want to try the one-player game for a while,” Aunt Carol said after a couple hours of multiplayer games. “Is that okay?”
“Sure,” I replied.
We spent some more time just talking and catching up while Aunt Carol was playing. Eventually Mom looked at a clock. “Oh, my gosh, it’s already 10:00,” Mom said. “We need to get back to the motel.”
“Are you gonna take my game away?” Aunt Carol asked.
“We don’t have to,” I suggested. “If Aunt Carol is still playing, we can leave the Super Nintendo here and pick it up tomorrow morning on our way out of town.”
“Oh, could you? That would be so nice.”
“Does that work, Mom?”
“Sure, if you’re okay leaving it here. Mark, is that okay with you?”
“What?” Mark asked, taking off his headphones.
“Aunt Carol wants us to leave the Super Nintendo here so she can play until we go home tomorrow.”
“I don’t care,” Mark said indignantly.
“You don’t have to get snippy. It’s your Super Nintendo too.”
“Have you heard me talk about the Super Nintendo once on this trip?”
“Well, it’s polite to ask.”
“I said I don’t care!”
We said our goodbyes and drove back north to the motel in Bidwell. “Aunt Carol sure got into Dr. Mario,” Mom commented.
“I know. That was fun.”
“It was nice of you to offer to let her borrow the Super Nintendo.”
“We’re leaving in the morning. I wasn’t going to play any more.”
“Still, that was nice of you.”
“Thank you.”
“What are we doing in the morning?” Mom paused, waiting for someone to answer. “Harry? What are we doing in the morning?”
“Sorry,” Dad replied. “I didn’t know you were asking me. I figured we’d stop by my dad’s on the way out of town.”
“What time do you want to be on the road?”
“I was thinking around 10 or 11.”
“Does that work for you guys?” Mom asked. I nodded. Mark, still listening to music on headphones, said nothing.
Dad had a nice visit with Grandpa Harold and Grandma Nancy in the morning, and by “nice” I mean that it was short enough that I did not get bored. We left their house around 10:30 and got to the Damn Yellow House to pick up the Super Nintendo a little before 11. I was the first one to the door, so I knocked.
Aunt Carol opened the door. “I suppose it’s time to give you your game back,” she said. We followed her into the living room, and I noticed that she looked disheveled and unkempt. The game was on, paused. “I was wondering if that special screen that shows up after levels 5, 10, 15, and 20 shows up again at 25.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never gotten that high.”
“The best I got to last night was level 23. But I had started that game at level 20. That’s the highest you can start at, I guess.”
“Yeah, “I replied, thinking that was still very impressive for a beginner
“This was a lot of fun. I might have to get this game.”
“You should.”
Mom and Dad said their goodbyes to Aunt Carol and Uncle Chuck as I disconnected the Super Nintendo. I joined them in saying goodbye, and we went back to the car and continued driving south on Highway 9.
“She stayed up all night playing,” Mom said. “Did you notice? She was still wearing the same clothes as when we left last night.”
“I was wondering that,” Dad replied.
“I didn’t notice, but now that you mention it, you’re right.”
To this day, whenever the topic of Dr. Mario comes up, Mom always brings up the time Aunt Carol stayed up all night. Aunt Carol passed away in late 2014; I did not attend the funeral, since she and Uncle Chuck had moved 500 miles away by then, but if I had, I would have shared the Dr. Mario story. In 2016, my cousin Pam, Aunt Carol’s daughter, commented on a Facebook picture I had shared of me and my friends playing retro Nintendo games. Pam said that they had an Atari when she was a kid, but her mother would always hog the controller. I told her about the time we brought Dr. Mario for Thanksgiving and her mother stayed up all night playing, and Pam replied, “So that’s how her addiction to that game started! She played that for years until the controllers broke.”
As a child, I loved visiting the Bidwell relatives and wanted those trips to last forever. This trip seemed short, only two and a half days, but I was growing up, as were my cousins, and life was changing. Uncle Chuck and Aunt Carol’s children were grown and did not live with them in the Damn Yellow House anymore. Mark had outgrown his tadpole-catching phase. And we didn’t have Great-Grandma Christine’s house to explore anymore; the old ranch was a gated country club now. Life moves on, but family stays family, even when those family relationships change over the years.
In 2013, I followed someone through the gate to see what the old ranch looked like now. Notice the golf course down below.
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.
One of the major annual events in Santa Lucia County was the Gabilan Rodeo, a legacy of the cattle ranching in the area’s past, which had mostly given way over the years to various fruit and vegetable crops. I was never a big fan of rodeo, but my mom’s sister had married into a family that was very involved with the Gabilan Rodeo. So, for me, the arrival of the rodeo every July meant getting to see my cousins Rick and Miranda. They were in between me and my brother Mark in age; Rick would soon begin his last year of high school, and Miranda was just starting high school.
Last week, Mom had been thinking of things we could do when Rick and Miranda were here. She asked me if I wanted to take a day trip to Jeromeville, so that Rick and Miranda could see where I was going to school. I enthusiastically approved of that idea. So, on the morning of the day before the rodeo started, Mom had been driving north for the last two and a half hours, I was in the passenger seat, and Rick, Miranda, and Mark were in the back. Mark had been listening to music on headphones, and Rick had been showing off a fancy money clip that his dad had gotten him recently. Dad stayed home; he had to work.
“Greg?” Mom said as we approached the exit for Highway 117. “Tell me where to go. Do I take 117?”
“Where are we going to park the car?”
“I don’t know. You’re the one who lives here.”
“Are we going to start from the MU? Or from where I lived last year?”
“Let’s do that. Start from your dorm.”
“Turn here, then,” I said just in time for Mom to move over a lane and exit on Highway 117 north. I guided Mom to the Davis Drive exit, and then to the parking lot next to the South Residential Area.
“Where do I go?” she asked.
“There’s a little yellow machine where you can buy a parking permit.”
“Do I do that?”
“Yes, Mom. That’s how parking at places like this work. You buy a parking permit, you put it on your windshield, and then you park. The permit tells the parking police that you paid.”
“I know that!” Mom shouted as she bought a parking permit from the machine.
“Then why did you ask?”
“I don’t know!”
“Sometimes you don’t make sense,” I said, suddenly feeling tense over the way that something simple like parking the car had to become a major ordeal.
“Well, sorry.”
We stepped out of the car. “It’s hot!” Mark exclaimed, the first thing he had said in quite some time.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what it’s like here in the summer.”
We walked north on Dairy Road toward the South Residential Area, across the street from the dairy, which was exceptionally aromatic today. I stopped in front of Building C. Pointing to my window on the second floor, I said, “This is where I lived last year. And that was my room.”
“Nice,” Miranda said.
“It was a tiny room,” Mom said.
“Yeah, it was, but I was by myself, so it was all right,” I added.
“You got your own room?” Rick asked. “No roommate?”
“Yeah. It just happened. I didn’t ask for it. There were only six single rooms in the whole building.”
I pointed out the dining commons as we continued across the South Residential Area. We continued walking as I pointed out campus buildings and narrated anything interesting I had to say about them. We walked past the engineering buildings and the buildings where my chemistry and physics classes were. Heading toward the Quad, I pointed out Wellington Hall, where many of my classes had been held, and Kerry Hall, the location of the mathematics department offices. We passed the tall cork oaks lining the Quad, where I pointed out the Coffee House and the Memorial Union and the campus store. We walked around the corner at the campus store, where I pointed out the gray, oddly-angled building on the other side of the street.
“They call that building the Death Star,” I said, “because of all the steep concrete and metal canyons. One time, a bunch of us from my building played Sardines there at night.”
“What’s Sardines?” Mom asked.
“Isn’t it kind of like hide-and-seek?” Miranda asked.
“Yes,” I explained, ”except when you find the person hiding, you hide with him and cram in there like sardines. Taylor was hiding, and I wandered around this crazy building for over an hour looking for him. I hardly saw anyone the whole time. I thought everyone else was probably wondering what took me so long. And then when I finally found Taylor, I was the first one there.”
“Oh my gosh,” Mom said. “No one else had found him? After an hour?”
“I know.”
“College sounds fun,” Miranda said.
We continued walking toward A Street, which divides the campus from downtown. I pointed out the field where I had learned to play Ultimate Frisbee and the small, unimpressive football stadium. “I can see where all the parties are,” Rick said.
“Huh?” I asked.
“All those frat houses.” Rick pointed across the street from the football stadium.
“Oh, yeah. And there are a bunch more around the corner on Fifth Street.”
“Do you ever go to fraternity parties?” Miranda asked.
“No,” I replied. “I don’t hang out with that crowd.”
“Rick!” Mom said. “Put that away! Someone’ll steal it.”
“They’re not gonna steal it!” Rick argued, playing with his money clip and the large wad of cash it held. I decided to stay out of this argument.
We turned around and walked south on A Street. I led the group back toward the Quad, past the brown buildings with shingle exteriors which were the oldest buildings on campus. I pointed out the library as we headed around the corner back to Davis Drive.
“What in the heck is that?” Rick exclaimed loudly.
“What?” I asked.
“That!” Rick pointed to a large metal pipe, suspended about a foot above a concrete slab in the ground. The pipe curved a few times, ending in a section pointing about ten feet upward, like a chimney. On one of the pieces of metal attaching the pipe to the ground, ominous letters proclaimed YOU’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE.
“It’s art,” I said.
“What the heck kind of art is that? It looks like scrap metal!”
“You know how it is. Anything can be art. It’s a university. There’s weird stuff here.”
We got back to the car about ten minutes later and drove all the way across town to McDonald’s. Mark was a very picky eater, and I had not explored the Jeromeville culinary scene (other than the dining commons) enough to recommend anything, so we went with something familiar. After we finished eating, I stepped outside to find a pay phone. I stared at the phone for a minute, trying to compose in my head what I would say. I took a deep breath, knowing that I was being ridiculous and that there was no reason for me to be nervous. It was not like I was going to get rejected or anything. I was calling a guy. I quickly dialed the number.
“Hello?” a familiar voice said on the other end of the line.
“Taylor?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“This is Greg.”
“Hey, man! You’re here?”
“Yeah. Is this a good time to stop by?”
“Sure! I’m just hanging out, and Jonathan is studying.”
“655 Andrews Road?” I said, repeating the address I had written down.
“Yep! That’s it!”
“I’ll be there in probably around 15 minutes.”
“Sounds good! See you then!”
“Bye!”
After we all got back in the car, Mom asked, “Where are we going? I directed her toward the house where Taylor and Jonathan were living, going a different way than we went before, crossing over Highway 100 and working our way to Fifth Street. “And who are you going to visit?” Mom asked.
“Taylor Santiago, from the IHP last year. The one who hid in the Death Star building. And Jonathan, who was also in the program, is living there too. I didn’t really know him as well.”
“Weren’t you going to try to visit someone else today too?”
“Megan McCauley. But she emailed me back late last night and said she was busy today. She had a midterm this morning, and then she was going to do something with her family tonight.”
“Does her family live in Jeromeville?”
“Oak Heights. Just past Capital City. About half an hour away.”
“Which one is she? Didn’t you say she did something funny with her hair last year?”
“You have too many friends,” Mom said. “I can’t keep track of all these people.”
“I don’t know.”
“No, that’s a good thing. Remember how in high school you always felt like you wanted to have more friends and a social life?”
“I guess.” Mom was right, but it felt embarrassing to talk about this with her, especially in front of Mark, Rick, and Miranda.
As we approached Taylor’s house, Mom asked, “So we’ll leave you alone to hang out with Taylor, and we’ll be back in an hour. Did you say there was a park somewhere around here where we can go sit and walk around?”
“Yeah.” I gave Mom directions to get to Maple Drive Park, about a quarter mile away. As the rest of my family drove off, I walked up to Taylor’s door and knocked. I waited nervously on the porch, even though I knew Taylor well and had nothing to be afraid of.
“Hey, man!” Taylor said. “Come on in!”
I walked into the living room and looked around. I sat on the couch. Jonathan was sitting in a recliner with a textbook, which he put aside to say hi to me. Taylor sat on the other side of the couch where I sat. “So whose house is this?” I asked.
“A guy I know from church. He’s away working at a summer camp.”
“That’s cool. How are your classes going?”
“Pretty good. I just got a midterm back. I didn’t do as badly as I thought.”
“That’s good.”
“How’s your summer? How’s life back in Plumdale?”
“Pretty boring, honestly. I’m working at an old lady bookstore. My mom knows someone who works there, so I didn’t have to go out and find the job or anything, but business is kind of slow.”
“When you say old lady bookstore, do you mean they sell books for old ladies?”
“Oh, no. It’s just a bookstore. But the owner is an older woman who listens to classical music, and not a lot of people our age come to the store.”
“That makes sense. Are you hanging out with your friends a lot?”
“Not really,” I said. “Plumdale is so spread out, I don’t really have neighbors, and most of my school friends aren’t near me. I’ve really only seen two of them. Some of them didn’t come home for the summer. I’ve been going to San Tomas Mountain Lions roller hockey games, though. That’s been fun. I went to two with my family and one with a friend.”
“I haven’t been to one of those yet. My sister and a bunch of her friends went to one. She said they kept showing her on the camera and made her Fan of the Game.”
“I saw that!” I exclaimed. “I was at that game!”
“Really? That’s funny!”
“Jonathan? What about you?” I asked. “How’s your summer going?”
“Good,” he said. “Just studying. Trying to get some more classes in.”
“You came here with your family, right?” Taylor asked. “Where are they now?”
“They didn’t want to get in the way while I was visiting you guys. They wanted to go find a park and hang out for a while. So I pointed them toward Maple Drive Park. They’ll be back to pick me up at 2:30.”
“That’s cool. Are they having fun? You said someone else was here too?”
“My cousins Rick and Miranda. They’re visiting this whole week.”
“Where do they live?”
“In the middle of nowhere. A little town about four hours north of here. But both of their sets of grandparents live in Gabilan, so I get to see them a few times a year.”
“That’s cool.”
Taylor and I spent the rest of the time talking about his classes, our plans for next year, things he had been doing with Jeromeville friends during the week and friends back home over the weekend, and friends from our dorm whom we had heard from over the summer. Jonathan talked a little as well, but eventually went to study in his bedroom. Taylor told me that Bok and her family went on a camping trip to the Pacific Northwest, and Caroline was visiting her relatives in Australia. (Both girls would send me postcards from their trips eventually.)
At 2:30, I looked outside the front window and saw the rest of my family sitting in the car waiting for me. “I need to go,” I said. “My ride’s here.”
“It was good seeing you,” Taylor replied, standing up and walking to the front door, which he opened for me. “Let me know when you move back up for the fall. Or if you’re up here again.”
“Definitely. I’ll see you then.” I raised my voice and called toward the back of the house, “Bye, Jonathan!”
“Bye, Greg!” Jonathan’s muffled voice called out from his room. “Good seeing you!”
“You too!”
After I got back in the car, Mom asked, “How are Taylor and the other guy?”
“Jonathan. They’re doing well. Just studying. And Taylor goes home on weekends.”
“Where’s he from?”
“El Arcángel. North of Bay City.”
“Oh, okay. So what are we doing next? Looking at your new apartment for next year?”
“Sure. Head that way,” I said, pointing north and continuing to direct my mother to Las Casas Apartments. When we got there, we got out and began walking around.
“This is where you’re gonna live next year, Greg?” Miranda asked
“Yeah,” I said. “Apartment 124. Right over there.”
Miranda looked where I was pointing. “This looks nice.”
“I like it.”
“Can we walk around a little?” Mom asked.
“Sure,” I said, I turned the corner of the building where my apartment was. I pointed out the path that led to the Greenbelts. “That’s a great place to take a walk or go for a bike ride,” I said. “Like a trail connecting a long park area.”
“That’s cool,” Miranda said. I pointed out the swimming pool and the laundry room. Miranda seemed the most interested; Rick was playing with his money clip again, and Mark was quietly listening to music with headphones.
After walking around for a while and returning to where we parked, Mom said, “Well, we’ve done everything we were going to do here. Is there anything else we’re doing here? Or is it time to go back home?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I could not think of anything else we were going to do, and I knew we still had a long drive ahead. But I enjoyed being in Jeromeville again, even if only for a day, and I was kind of sad to see the trip coming to a close. “I guess.”
We stopped for gas and got back on the freeway. About ten minutes later, we were approaching Nueces, the next town to the west, when Rick exclaimed, “I lost my money clip!”
“Oh no,” I said.
“I told you not to keep getting it out,” Mom said, sounding slightly exasperated.
“So what are we going to do?” I asked.
“Do you know where you lost it?” Mom asked Rick as she exited and pulled over.
“I remember seeing it at Las Casas Apartments,” I said. “So either he lost it there, or at the gas station, or in the car.
“It’s not in the car,” Rick insisted. “I’ve been looking.”
“Do you want to go back and look at the apartment and the gas station?”
“Well, yeah, if we can. Duh.”
Mom turned back onto Highway 100 east, the way we came. She took 117 north to the Coventry Boulevard exit and remembered on her own how to get back to Las Casas. We parked in the same part of the parking lot where we were before and began looking around. I could tell that Rick was upset, and that Mom was annoyed.
After walking around for about two minutes, I saw a glint of metal in the parking lot. I walked closer and saw a $20 bill with other bills folded behind it, held together by a metal clip. “Rick!” I called. “Isn’t this it?”
Rick came running over. “Yes!” he shouted. “Found it!”
“Good,” Mom said. “Mark! Miranda! We found it!”
“Can we go home now?” Mark asked, sounding like he would rather be anywhere else than here.
On the drive home, Rick played for us a CD of his new favorite comedian, someone named Jeff Foxworthy who made jokes about the South and rednecks. I thought he was somewhat amusing. Mom told me later that she thought Jeff Foxworthy was stupid.
After having been in the car so much that day, I felt a little relieved to be home, knowing that I would be sleeping in my own bed that night. But I also felt disappointed. It was disappointing that I did not get to see Megan. But, more generally, today I had had a taste of what it was like to be back in Jeromeville, and I was ready for more. My life in Plumdale really was going nowhere. I was more ready than ever to return to Jeromeville. I had been there for a year (YOU’VE BEEN THERE BEFORE, I thought, like that weird sculpture), and I would be back someday. My friends were there. I had new people to meet there. And I felt so much more free there, not having to wonder if my family would question my every move. This boring time in Plumdale working at Books & More would pass, and six weeks from now I would be free to continue living my new life in Jeromeville.
Author’s note: I apologize to whomever took the photograph of YOU’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE. I stole it from a Jeromeville local wiki site. As soon as the COVID-19 lockdown is over, I’ll go to Jeromeville and take this picture myself and replace this with my own picture.
Thanks to Mom and Taylor for helping me out with a few details relevant to this day.
This episode kind of feels like one of those TV shows where they keep showing clips from previous episodes. I told tons of stories about the previous year in Jeromeville and linked to all of them, for the benefit of new readers who might have missed those.
And, I doubt that she will ever see this, but from one writer to another, happy 104th birthday today to Beverly Cleary. I often forget about her when I think of my favorite authors, since she writes children’s books and I haven’t read anything of hers since elementary school. But I loved the Ramona books and the Henry Huggins books as a kid, and somewhere back at my parents’ house in Plumdale I have an autographed first edition copy of Ramona Forever. From what I have read about her as an adult, and what I remember of her books, she really did a great job of capturing what life is like for an ordinary child, and as someone who doesn’t always relate well to popular works of fiction, that’s important to me. And besides all that, just living for so long is pretty awesome in itself.
Today was one of those days where I had to turn the windshield wipers on and off multiple times. I wish the weather would just make up its mind sometimes. It rained hard enough for a few minutes that I needed to have the wipers on all the way, then the rain tapered off into showers requiring only intermittent wipers. Then it was dry for a few minutes, and when the wipers started making an irritating squeaky noise, I remembered to turn them off. Then, a few minutes later, it would start raining again, and I would start the whole cycle again. Of course, the trip from Plumdale to Jeromeville involved driving over hills and across valleys, which also accounts for part of the reason the weather changed so much.
This was now my fifth time making this trip since beginning classes at UJ. I was learning these roads enough to know where I was and what was coming next. Highway 11 north from Plumdale north to San Tomas. That usually took about 45 minutes. Then north on Highway 6, through East San Tomas and Irving, and over a big hill. The highway winds east through the hills, and then north through the outer suburbs of San Tomas and Bay City. After a city called Marquez, Highway 6 passes through an industrial area on the shore of the Capital River. The river at this point is over a mile wide, and the bridge is very high, because of bluffs on either side of the river and ships passing underneath. The bridge is narrow, just barely wide enough for three lanes in each direction, with no shoulder and a narrow concrete barrier in the middle. It was built in 1962 when traffic was much lighter.
Across the bridge is an industrial area on the outskirts of the town of North Marquez. The highway continues north for another ten miles, with hills on the left and a marshy grassland on the right, before merging with eastbound Highway 100. Somewhere around there, I heard a song on the radio that I had never heard before. At first I thought it sounded like Pearl Jam, but I quickly realized that the singer, although having some similar vocal mannerisms to Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, clearly was not him. This guy had more of a soulful bluesy sound, and the melody wasn’t dark and angsty like a Pearl Jam song. It was more like folksy pop-rock, but with still a little bit of an Eddie Vedder sound to the vocals. Kind of like a Pearl Jam of the South, if such a thing could exist. “And if the sun comes up tomorrow, let her be,” the singer who was not Eddie Vedder sang. That line stuck out in my mind all day. I would have to find out what this Pearl Jam of the South was called.
I drove northeast through Fairview and Nueces, but took a little side trip instead of continuing straight to Jeromeville. A sign on the east side of Nueces says “TRAFFIC ALERT AM 1610,” with flashing yellow lights on top, and for the first time I saw the flashing lights on. I tried turning my radio to AM 1610 to hear the TRAFFIC ALERT, but there were power lines nearby, and the radio was mostly picking up static. I panicked, wanting to avoid this TRAFFIC ALERT at all costs, so I could hurry up and get back to Building C and, more importantly, pee. I was getting to the point where I couldn’t hold it much longer, and I didn’t want to stay stuck in traffic.
Because I liked to read maps, I was pretty sure I could get back to UJ on back roads from here. So I turned onto Pittman Road and then east on Grant Road, through nut tree orchards and cow pastures and tomato fields. Grant Road eventually became West Fifth Street on the outskirts of Jeromeville, and I headed back to Building C the usual way from there.
What I did not realize at the time is that those TRAFFIC ALERT signs are not alerting me to any traffic in or near Jeromeville. About 40 miles east of Jeromeville, Highway 100 begins climbing into some very high mountains, and this time of year, snow often affects driving conditions. Each of these TRAFFIC ALERT signs is attached to a low-power radio station, the one I tried to turn on but couldn’t get clearly, and the radio stations play a recorded message about winter driving conditions in the mountains. Carry chains in case of changing weather conditions. Chains required from such-and-such point to such-and-such point. Highway closed. Stuff like that. In the 21st century, there are electronic message boards that serve this purpose, but this technology had not yet implemented by the state Department of Transportation in 1995. It doesn’t snow anywhere near Plumdale, and I didn’t grow up taking trips to the snow, so I had no concept that the TRAFFIC ALERT was about this and not a giant traffic jam approaching Jeromeville. I figured I would rather take about 10 minutes longer to get home than risk getting stuck in traffic.
I called Mom as soon as I got home. “Hi, it’s me,” I said. “I’m home. It took a little longer because I took a side trip to avoid traffic–”
“You’re home?” Mom said, interrupting me.
“Yes–”
“And you’re safe?” Mom sounded like she had been crying.
“Yes… what’s going on?”
“You weren’t in an accident on the bridge?”
“What? Bridge? What are you talking about?”
“I was listening to the traffic report on the Bay City news station, to see if you were going to hit any traffic on your trip home, and I heard there was a really bad accident on the Marquez Bridge–”
“Really, Mom? You hear there’s an accident, and you just assume it’s me?”
“I just knew it was you,” Mom replied, clearly in tears. “I’ve been terrified this whole time. They said a car almost went over the bridge. It ran into a truck. And there was a big pile-up behind it. You didn’t see or hear about any of this?”
“It must have been right behind me. I didn’t have any traffic at all crossing the bridge.”
“I’m so glad you’re safe. I need to call Grandma and tell her you’re ok.”
“Seriously, though. Thousands of people cross that bridge every day. You hear about one accident, and you just know it was me? You don’t have a lot of faith in my driving skills.”
“I worry about you. You know that.”
“I do. But I also wish you would treat me as an adult.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said. “It’s just what I do.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s your first class? You start tomorrow, right?”
“Math, at 8 in the morning. Again.”
“Do you know anyone who is in your class?”
“I haven’t asked.”
“Well, I’m glad you got home safely. Enjoy your first day of classes tomorrow. Just think; you’ve been through one quarter of college classes already, so you know what to expect.”
“True.”
“I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
“Bye.”
I hung up the phone and went to get lunch… or, more accurately, Sunday brunch. On Saturdays and Sundays, the dining commons was not open for breakfast, and during lunch time, they served “brunch” instead. Students often stayed up late on Friday and Saturday nights and did not eat breakfast the following mornings; at least that was my guess as to why the schedule was different on weekends. I didn’t see many familiar faces at brunch. For that matter, I didn’t see many faces at all. The dining commons was mostly empty. Most students were probably waiting until the last minute to return to the dorms.
I spent my afternoon being lazy. I wrote some emails to a few girls I had been talking to online. I read some Usenet newsgroups and got on an IRC chat for a while. I took a nap. I played Tetris and Sim City, during which I heard footsteps and voices outside. More people were returning from the holidays.
The dining commons was open normally for dinner on Sundays, and it was much more full than it had been at brunch earlier in the day. I chose a chicken patty sandwich and got French fries to go with it. I looked around and saw Taylor, Pete, Sarah, and Liz at a table with a few empty seats, so I sat with them.
“Hey, Greg,” Sarah said.
“How was your break?” Taylor asked. “Did you do anything special?”
“The usual, pretty much,” I replied. “I was with my family for Christmas. My aunt and her family were visiting. I spent New Year’s with some friends from high school. It was good to see them.”
“I bet it was,” Liz said.
“What did you guys do?” I asked.
“I went to see my grandparents in Washington,” Pete said. “That was a lot of time in the car, but it was fun.”
“I was back home in Ralstonville,” Sarah said. “And my boyfriend and I broke up.”
“Aww.” Liz looked at Sarah, her face conveying serious concern. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. It was hard, but it needed to happen. It’s the best for both of us. He was definitely getting in the way of my relationship with God.”
I had never heard anyone give that reason for breaking up. What exactly did that mean? Maybe it has something to do with that Jeromeville Christian Fellowship that everyone else at this table was part of. If Sarah said that her boyfriend was getting in the way of her relationship with God, that sounded to me like she was saying he was a bad influence on her in some way. If that was the case, then this breakup was probably a good thing in the long run, even if it was difficult now. I did not say any of these thoughts out loud, though, because relationships and breakups weren’t anything I had ever experienced personally, so I didn’t know what I was talking about.
“So apparently there was an accident on the Marquez Bridge this morning,” I said.
“I heard about that!” Liz said. “It was on the news. A car hit a truck and almost fell off the bridge! Did you see it happen?”
“No. It happened right after I drove across, apparently. I didn’t see anything unusual on the bridge But when I got back to the dorm, I called my mom, and apparently she had heard about the accident and just assumed it was me. It’s like she has no faith in my driving abilities; she hears of an accident in the vague area where I am, and she just knows I was in it.”
“That’s kind of sweet of her to care like that, though,” Sarah reminded me.
“But she doesn’t respect me as an adult. She worries about me too much.”
“Yeah. But that’s what moms do. You shouldn’t get mad at her. Just let her be.”
“I guess.”
Just let her be, I thought. Like it says in that song by Pearl Jam of the South. Yes, it was true that Mom could be a little annoying in the way that she worries about me and doesn’t let me be independent. That was the reason I never considered applying to Mom’s alma mater, San Tomas State. I was worried that, with Mom less than an hour away, she wouldn’t give me a chance to grow up on my own. But, as Sarah said, this was all perfectly normal behavior for a mother. Mothers, at least the good ones, worry about their children because they love their children and want them to be safe. And I knew that I should be thankful to have parents who cared enough about me to send me to the University of Jeromeville, and to help pay for what my academic scholarship didn’t cover. Not everyone gets opportunities like that.
After a few more hours of playing around on the computer, I went to sleep, thinking about how fortunate I was to be in this position, and hoping to find a balance between getting to be independent but still having a healthy relationship with my parents. And that song by Pearl Jam of the South was stuck in my head, with that one line repeating over and over again since I didn’t know the rest of the song very well. And if the sun comes up tomorrow, let her be.
Don't Let The Days Go By 