Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself - PART XIII

Yes, Flint 1-A was rich with colorful characters.  In addition to those already mentioned, there were several others whose quirky personalities and unique idiosyncrasies have left their indelible impressions on my fond memories of college life.  Those early weeks on campus created a level playing field for a group of late teenage “rubberneckers,” mutually engaged in the exploration of a new and exciting experience far away from home.  Thrown together to discover and stake out personal space in our new world, we temporarily set aside our individual differences to participate - as a single unit - in a wonderful journey through the world of intense partying, near reckless fun-seeking and inevitable self-discovery.

So, who were the participants in this youthful exploration?  Ian Graham was one. Ian was a big fellow with a great deal of facial hair.  Not only did he resemble a “werewolf,” but lived up to that description by prowling the hallways late at night and howling at the moon.

Today, Nick H. is a high profile New York City attorney.  He is sometimes interviewed by the media about noteworthy criminal cases.  Back in the day, Nick ran a high stakes poker game in the Flint Hall elevators.  Some of his winnings were “re-invested” in his pursuit of better grades.  For an “A,” he’d pay a bogus test taker $100.  A “B” would earn that fellow student as much as $75.  Yes, Nick H. was quite the con artist.

Alan B. built a Heathkit stereo system that rivaled any store-bought brand.  He was very proud of his creation, which in later years we referred to as the “Alan Barson Project”.  To make new friends in our dorm, Alan introduced each and every one of us to his “baby” with a private listening session that always featured the 70’s pop classic, “Beach Baby” by First Class.  In fact, all night long the hallways were treated to non-stop repeats of that one song. It seemed very odd that someone would build a high end sound system like Alan’s just to play a single, mediocre pop song like “Beach Baby,” over and over again.  Well, he did to our dismay and often to our displeasure.  The music finally stopped after that Thanksgiving.  Alan had done such a wonderful job of advertising his impressive stereo equipment to the whole dorm that the whole set up was stolen from his dorm room during the holiday break.

Pete J. went on to produce ABC’s “Good Morning America” after college.  During college he was a joker and prankster along with his roommate Dan R., who came from the same New Hampshire college town that my son eventually went to college in and now lives right next to.  Pete and Dan both hung out with another noteworthy Flint 1-A resident, eventual big time music producer Phil Quarteraro.  Phil was a great guy and loved by all, back then.  He was a dwarf that more than compensated for his height disadvantage with talent, brains and dynamic charisma.

We had quite a floor and on it we had some great times, especially the first couple of weeks before many of our floor mates found their own way around campus and made other friends with similar interests.

Our dorm was co-ed, by the way.  It was divided in half with a huge lobby
between the two living sections, which mirrored each other.  The girl’s side was identical to the boy’s side.  Whatever amenities we had on Flint 1-A, they had on the reverse side on Flint 1-C, including the telephone booths.  That is why it seemed a little odd that on the third day in school, two girls came over to the boy’s side of Flint to use our pay phone, which was opposite Bruce’s and my dorm room.  Obviously, they came over to our side of the dorm to check out more than just where our phone booth was located. They were checking out the boys on our floor.

One of the girls using the pay phone was tiny (well under 5’), very cute and quite petite with light brown hair and a super nice makeup job.  Call her glamorous, if you will.  The other girl had “Jew fro” of dark hair.  She was about 5’2” and slightly chunky.  I had my eye on the tiny one with the makeup overload.

There I stood in the hallway, emaciated me (130 lbs wet) in my bare feet trying hard to make eye-contact with these girls, particularly the little, cute one.  She was on the telephone and wasn’t paying much attention to me or anyone else.  It seems that her mother was lecturing and admonishing her about class registration, over the phone.  The other girl was free of distractions and noticed me standing outside my dorm room looking on. She seemed very friendly
and smiled at me.  She soon began talking to me and I could immediately tell that she was a pleasant girl.  She introduced herself as Betsy.  She was an Art major in the School of Visual and Performing Arts at SU

Bruce noticed me talking to Betsy and joined in the conversation.  Soon after, the other girl approached us and said her name was Fran.  She seemed very nice, too and she was also very animated with a great sense of humor.  I liked her.  We all talked some more, in my room.  Before leaving, they gave us their room number on Flint 1-C.   I asked Fran if I could come by and see her.  She said “sure” and we left it like that.

I don’t think I waited very long before attempting my first “journey” over to Fran and Betsy’s room.  In fact, when I made it over there, I wasn’t sure if I was in the right place.  The nameplate on the door said “Elizabeth Evin and Francine Zamelsky”.  Hmmm… Francine and Fran.  Yeah, that made sense.  Was Betsy short for Elizabeth?

I knocked on the door and “Elizabeth” answered the door.  Yes, Betsy was Elizabeth for short.  It turned out that Betsy was alone in her room while Fran was studying at the Bird library.  Betsy invited me in and we both sat down on
her bed.  We talked for a long while. I surmised one thing, quickly.  Betsy was
definitely the girl most likely to be in her robe and slippers, while the other girls were out hard partying.  But, she was very warm, sensible and very easy to talk to.  So, we talked the night away.  Most of what we ended up talking about was my struggling relationship with Mona, back home. Betsy was very caring and
insightful.  I appreciated that.  She shared stories of her own past relationships, so we had some youthful heartaches in common.

It was late and I went back to my room.  Bruce asked me about my visit to see Fran and I told him it was with Betsy I spent time with, not Fran. He and I also talked somewhat about Mona, since he was close to the situation from back home.  Some of her more recent letters alluded to her wanting to break up with me and suggested that we go our own separate ways. I had a hard time accepting that advice.  In fact, I refused to.  My problem was that I wore my heart on my sleeve too much about Mona and I don’t blame Bruce and the other guys on our floor for getting tired hearing about her so much.  Some of them also left their girlfriends behind and were happy to be free of commitment.  Others, were still in good shape with their hometown sweethearts and were looking forward to them visiting them on campus.  They didn’t even want to hear of the possibility that things could go bad for the, as they had with me.

One day I got a very disturbing letter from Mona, which hurt me, badly.  In the letter, she said some things I wasn’t quite ready to read.  I let my emotions go public and some of the guys jumped on Mona’s bandwagon, which made me feel even worse.  So, who did I find solace with – Betsy Evin.  When I needed someone to talk to, she was there for me.

Soon after Mona’s letter arrived, I learned that she didn’t write it at all.  It was a ruse that Bruce, Pete J. and Dan R. were all in on.  Mona was a left-handed writer and so was Pete J.  It turned out that Pete wrote the letter and Bruce mailed it from Marlboro (NJ) when he returned home to visit his family, one weekend.  I was very angry, especially with Bruce, who I knew Mona was playing with.  This situation ended up causing a rift between Bruce and I that didn’t heal for nearly fifteen years (today, we are like brothers again).  Why?  Because, Bruce went even further to make my life miserable in our dorm room.  Things
became so bad between us that my parents came up to school; moved me out of our room; and entirely out of Flint Hall prior to the second semester of freshman
year.  Bruce’s dad was right. We should never have roomed together in the first place.

I was going to live at Brewster-Boland Hall.  This was a more modern co-ed dorm on the other side of campus. It was a beautiful dorm and I would be very happy
there.  My roommate was to be a fellow named Terry Costich.  He and his older
brother Bernie attended Syracuse. They were from the Buffalo area.  Nice guys, but rather quiet.  Terry was just the kind of roommate I needed after the hell that I had gone through those past few weeks at Flint Hall.  That hell actually affected my grades and earned me a semester of academic probation.

Aside from the first few weeks of intense fun at Flint Hall, the only other bright spot was meeting Betsy and Fran.  Oh yes, Fran and I got to spend some time
together – usually at the library studying together. But, it was Betsy that became a much closer friend – a soul mate.  In fact, when mom and dad came up for parent’s weekend, while I was still living in Flint Hall, I asked them to include Betsy in our dining plans.  When Betsy came to down to the lobby to meet them, mom looked over at me and said, “She’s sweet looking.”  Mom and dad “liked” Betsy immediately, though I stressed that we were only just friends.  I guess I wanted them to realize that Mona was still my committed girlfriend.

Funny story about a visit to Betsy’s room…  One night she was showing me her high school yearbook from Newtown High School in Jackson Heights, Queens (NY).  I came upon a photo of a fellow named “Mark Levine” and started to chuckle.  Betsy thought I was laughing because our names were similar.  I was chuckling because I actually knew Mark Levine from our camping days at Bergerville.  He and his family were close friends with me and my family from
Bergerville.  What a small world.

Moving to Brewster-Boland Hall separated Betsy from me by a fair distance. Fortunately, we both had phones installed in our rooms by then and we’d be on the phone almost all of the time.  Betsy was my best audience and my jokes would make her laugh so hard that she would tell me to stop because her “stomach hurt.”  Each night when we spoke, Betsy would ask me some stupid question that only a little kid might think of.  You know…what makes the sky appear as blue?  I called her silly inquisitiveness “the question of the night.”  Usually, I made up an outlandish answer to deliberately deceive her.  She was so gullible and took the bait every time.  In fact, I once told her that I was born a woman and became a man.  She believed that one for months.

In any case, it wasn’t long before Betsy followed me over to Brewster-Boland Hall.  It was just before Christmas break that I officially broke off with Mona.  

As freshman year continued, I made some new lifelong friends and began getting better grades.  Back at home, Desly and Harvey announced they were getting married in the summer and grandma’s Alzheimer’s became a real drag on mom’s and dad’s life together.  To be continued….