PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF - PART XVI

The transition from sophomore to junior year of college was a major one.  Going from underclassman to the upperclassman status in college is so much more than just moving from one year to the next.  It involves leaving the silliness of dorm life behind and taking on a more serious attitude about declaring a major; successfully completing the required curriculum; and graduating from college on schedule.  The light at the end of the tunnel has shown itself by the junior year and those of us with fourteen long years of schooling behind us realize that the end is rapidly approaching.  A world of paid employment opportunity and self-sufficiency awaits us and, though we are somewhat apprehensive about all of the uncertainty, we look forward to eventually calling our own shots in the real world.

The summer of 1976 went by quickly. I was dating Sue Brown. She and I sold used record albums at Englishtown Auction to make some extra money for good times.  During that summer, I also took a few classes at nearby Monmouth University in West Long Branch (NJ) to get some college credits out of the way before the upcoming Syracuse semester.  The courses I enrolled in were Spanish II, Anthropology and Holocaust history, which I very much enjoyed.  In fact, in the Holocaust history class were Andy Schick, who attended Ranney School with me, and his sister Becky.  Becky was dating E-Street drummer Max Weinberg during that summer.  Today, she is his wife of more than thirty years.

In September, Mom and Dad helped me load a U-haul trailer and we brought up a ton of stuff to Syracuse to furnish my apartment on Standart Street.  I needed a mattress and bedroom furniture, a desk and chair, a large rug, pots and pans and many other household items.  My apartment was on the second floor of this old, rickety wood-frame house.  My room had three red walls and a black one.  The apartment had a large kitchen, a living room and two other bedrooms in addition to one ancient looking bathroom – tub on legs and all.

Jim Keehn and I were rooming with another friend of his, Phil Herzog.  What we didn’t know at the time was that Phil was bringing his girlfriend Laurel along, too.  Like Jim, Phil was a “Stumpy” at SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry and he very much looked the part.  He had long red hair and a long red beard.
Phil came from Elmira, NY and his father was a Doctor.  Phil chose a career future that would normally include manning a lookout tower in some national forest.  He presented a woodsy image, as did Jim.  Phil was a quiet guy, who pretty much kept to himself and spent most of his time with his live-in girlfriend.

The one quirk Phil had was holding onto his own money and eating other people’s food.  It seemed that everything Jim and I bought to eat literally disappeared overnight.  Cheeses…gone.  Cold cuts…gone.  Cookies…gone!  It got so bad that we decided to play a little trick on old Phil.  We baked some delicious brownies and embedded them with Ex-Lax.  We didn’t offer Phil any and left the brownies on the counter in plain sight.  That evening, Jim and I laughed out loud while hearing non-stop toilet flushing into the wee hours of the morning.  That next morning Phil came out of his room and shared, “I was so sick last night.  It must have been something I ate.”  Jim and I looked at him and remarked, “Yeah, it must have been something you ate.”  We could barely keep straight faces with him in the room and knowing what we did.

It was nice living in an apartment off campus.  We came and went as we pleased and, by the way, I brought my old Chevy Nomad station wagon up from New Jersey to get around with.  I also went out and got a dog, a Siberian Husky named “Little Wolf.”  Her owners were giving her away.  She was a beautiful dog.  She was copper color with two blue eyes.  She was also very lovable, but she had one slight problem – a digestive disorder.  We were forever cleaning up diarrhea, despite the local vet prescribing special food that she often ate AFTER finishing the garbage that she turned over in the kitchen, daily.  The dog was like a “Play Dough” factory.

Betsy spent a lot of time over at the apartment.  She was still living at Boland Hall and sharing a split double with a roommate, who was almost never around.  We enjoyed spending time with one another, but we still remained friends. I think Betsy wanted something more by then, but I somehow overlooked that while in search of other relationships.  That was all about to change, soon.

On campus I had another close female friend, who I met through a male friend that had ties to the Freehold area.  Brian Barlem was a pretty cool dude, whose
brother still lives in Freehold and is a very well respected teacher in our local schools.  I met Brian by chance and learned who his family was.  It’s a small world. 

In any case, Cindy Wasserman was a friend of Brian’s on campus.  She was fun and had a magnetic personality.  It also turned out that she and I were both in the same Astronomy class, so we often studied together. She was much brighter than me and explained things well. Soon, Betsy became friendly with Cindy, too.

Cindy and her roommates lived at Sky Top apartments at the far end of the campus.  These were little apartments owned by the University.  Graduate and married students often lived at Sky Top.  I would often visit the apartment to study with Cindy. We’d also spend lots of time talking about “stuff.”  One late night, we were sitting on her bed and she got up and shut the door.  I couldn’t imagine what was going to happen.  Was she going to put a move on me?  She was very pretty.  But, no. She was about to read me the riot act about failing to realize that Betsy and I made a great couple and that we belonged together. “What are you looking for?” Cindy asked.  She was very convincing with her argument.  She was so convincing that after I drove back to Standart Street at around midnight, I parked my car and ran all the way to Boland Hall to see Betsy, who was already in a deep sleep.

When I got to her room, I woke her up and told her that I wanted to be with her.  She looked shocked and didn’t quite know what to say.  We ended up cuddling in her narrow dorm room bed and falling asleep in each other’s arms.

When we awoke in the morning, there was still that puzzled look in Betsy’s eyes as if to say, “What just happened?”  After all, I got to her room late the night
before and after she had been in a deep sleep. We didn’t talk much and fell right
asleep.  So, in the morning she still had questions left over from the past night. My response to her was that “I thought” I wanted to be with her.  I suppose I
wasn’t too firm in my commitment.  To this day, I don’t know why I answered as I did.

For the next several weeks, I remained unsure about a relationship with Betsy. Frankly, I drove her crazy because I didn’t seem to know what I wanted.  We called this our “on again and off again” period.  First, I would tell her I loved her and later, I would say that I didn’t really know if I did.  She was often hurt by this and I feel terrible about this, but I was still young and immature. Fortunately, she stuck with me throughout my indecisiveness and we made it through.

My grades really improved during junior year.  I switched my major from Radio/TV to Industrial Psychology, which I discovered a love for after taking related courses.  In fact, during junior year I was taking mostly graduate level classes and doing well because I was interested in the materials.  Betsy and I took a few courses together too, which was fun. We took “Art History” (Betsy was an Art History major), “Marriage and Family” and the famous course that everyone on campus was compelled to take, Human Sexuality with Dr. Sol Gordon (author of "Sex in a Brown Paper Bag"), the Dr. Ruth of the 1970’s.

As junior year continued, Betsy and I saw more and more of each other.  This continued during our winter and spring breaks and the following summer. We were finally an item.

Senior year at Syracuse was more than the end of my college education.  It was the beginning of a period of commitment that included an engagement and wedding planning.  The college year went smoothly and graduation day was one of the most memorable days of my life. The job market was on my horizon and the days of being under the thumb of parents and educators were nearing its end. To be continued…