Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself - PART XV

Coming off “Mount Olympus” (Flint Hall) and moving into Brewster-Boland Hall turned out to be a change for the better.  Those of us on “The Mount” were isolated from the rest of the Syracuse campus and separated by those notorious 187 very cold and icy stairs – a deterrent from straying too far from home base. 

Brewster-Boland was so much closer to “ground zero” of campus activities and from Marshall Street, where college life broke out each and every evening and on the weekends.  Envision a Main Street USA and that was what Marshall Street is/was to Syracuse University. Its reputation is almost legendary for students and
alumni.  It’s the place where all the stores, eateries and campus pubs are located for the student community.  It is still the place to go to be seen, meet people and party hard.

I loved living on Brewster 4.  We had a great group of fun loving guys that all got along so well.  They were even a better gang than those on Flint 1-A, who eventually went their separate ways after a couple of weeks of tight floor camaraderie. 

Yes, on Brewster 4 we had our share of wonderful and colorful characters, too.  In fact, this group really knew how to have fun and include everyone in the merriment and mayhem. There was plenty of that.  As a group, we managed to saran wrap all of the toilet seats in the men’s restrooms; empty all of the fire extinguishers in the building; paper-in and penny-in several guys on our floor; smoke bomb or flood (tilted garbage cans filled with water) several dorm rooms; and put naked freshman out on the window ledges of their rooms, several stories above the street.  Now, that was all fun stuff, especially when we were not on the receiving end of these stunts.  But, the reality was that we each took turns on those slippery ledges – me, too!

T. Brady (aka: “Brady”), a bear of an ROTC student, was in charge of the ledges.  If you resided on Brewster 4 you actually had a choice; you either got physically carried to the ledge or he opened the windows and you stepped out there without an argument.  It was your choice.  Brady’s roommate M. Beauchesne (aka: “Beauchesne”), another ROTC, assisted him in making the Ledge-dweller “selections.”

Atilla “Artie” K. (aka: “Spoon”) represented the voice of reason on our floor.  When one needed a dose of maturity you would see Artie.  He was called “Spoon,” for a reason.  Ever look at your reflection from the backside of a spoon?  Well…that was Arty.

Our floor “attorney” was K. Sweeney (aka: Sween).  Always so serious in a very funny - and sometimes self-mocking way - poor “Sween” took our insults and abuses in a good natured way.  Because we all loved him, we tortured him with great caring and respect.  Fans of the Fox series “House,” can get a sense of what “Sween” was like by following the quirky relationship between House and Wilson.  “Sween” was definitely our Wilson.

Jim K. and J. Aponte roomed together and became fast friends of mine.  Jim was what we SU students called a “Stumpy.”  Stumpy’s didn’t actually attend Syracuse University, but rather the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environment and Forestry, which shared the Syracuse University campus.  What a great deal.  For the price of a state school, these students shared all of the same amenities that the higher paying, private university students had.

Jose A. was an ROTC student at Syracuse.  Fans of the film “Animal House” can consider Jose to have been our “D-Day.”  The guy was as South Bronx as you could get.  I’m not even sure if he ever went to class. He drilled with the ROTC and slept in the rest of the time.

Jim and I immediately hit it off well.  He was a fun sort of guy that loved pranks
and partying.  Jim had a charisma that united the whole floor and “inspired” us all to create mischief.  He was our pyrotechnics expert and was the most likely to smoke bomb a dorm room before retiring to his room to play Walt Disney records.  He was also obsessed with “Star Wars” and loved to channel the sounds of R2D2 and C3PO.  He was a very unique personality.

The stuff we did when Jim motivated us.  I’ll never forget when we found an old toilet on a street near our dorm and placed it in the middle of a busy street.  Seated on the toilet with his pants dropped was none other than John B., a well respected Architectural Photographer, these days.  John was a dead ringer for Frank Sivero, the actor who appeared in “Godfather II” and “Goodfellows.”   Well,
he certainly stopped traffic with that stunt and gave us all a hearty laugh. We
had a great floor and did many fun things.

When Betsy (Elizabeth Evin) moved into Brewster’s sister dorm, Boland Hall, she joined our group in enjoyment of the zany things we were responsible for.  She became one of the guys and often proved it by serving her own time on a Brewster IV window ledge.  “Brady” did not discriminate.  Regardless of sex, everybody got put out on the ledge, several floors above the ground.  How dangerous.  How fun.

Betsy was a good friend, but not a girlfriend.  I couldn’t tell you why.  I can only equate our relationship – at that point – to what was had by Harry (Billy Crystal) and Meg Ryan (Sally) in the film “When Harry Met Sally.”  That movie could have been written about us.  Together, we laughed, cried and dated each other’s friends.  Sometimes, you have to be good friends, before you can be even better lovers.  33 years later, I suppose it worked out well as a proving ground for what would come later.

By the end of sophomore year, one thing was certain – Jim and I were destined to be roommates for the remainder of college and friends for many years after graduation.  We got along famously and Jim made going to Syracuse a truly memorable experience.

Sometimes I thank God for that terrific second semester of freshman year.  I was free of the heavy handed controversy that ensued during that first semester in Flint Hall.  As a result, my grades improved; I was off probation; and headed in the right direction, academically.  Things were going very well for me at Syracuse University.

During the carryover from first to second semester, Betsy came to visit me at home on Taylors Mills Road in Manalapan.  She took the bus from New York City to the Freehold Bus Terminal, where I picked her up in mom’s car.  It was a weekend, so the plans were to have her come along to Englishtown Auction Sales; take her out with the family for dinner; and show her the area I lived in.  She was totally unfamiliar with this part of New Jersey, never having explored any further south than Bergen County, where her aunt, uncle and cousins lived.

Watching Betsy experience Englishtown Auction for the first time was quite funny.  Here she was the consummate New York cosmopolitan dressed in a beige overcoat (complete with a mouton collar) and high heeled dress shoes confronted by the muck and meyer of a filthy dirty country flea market. Prim and proper; she reminded us of a babe in the woods.  

That night, the family had reservations at Vans in Freehold, which was probably the most upscale restaurant in the area at the time.  Dressed in a bright yellow short dress with black stockings, I have to admit that she looked extremely hot that night.  Still, I could not yet conceive of her as a girlfriend. I do not know why.

In any case, Desly and Harvey were planning a wedding in July at the American Hotel, also in Freehold. I wanted Betsy there, but not as my date.  Instead, I decided to ask “pen pal” girlfriend Marian Taylor, who I had met during a weekend at Host Farms in Lancaster, Pennsylvania a couple of years, earlier. I paired Betsy us with one of my best friends Marty Anton.

At the wedding, Betsy looked terrific in a red and white gingham dress.  Marian had changed and wasn’t how I remembered her at all, though she was a nice girl and I liked her.  But, my eyes were on Betsy for most of the night.  My Aunt Phyllis noticed Betsy and asked my mother who the “stunning girl” was.

That was a fun summer – the summer of 1975.  Betsy came to visit us at home quite a lot and we had fun going out with my friends to a variety of places on the Jersey Shore.  Again, she was one of the guys and we talked liked guys around her.  I was dating other girls, but no one that I can really say was special.  Betsy was filling a need that I was not yet ready to realize or, perhaps, admit to at the
time.  Not yet, anyway.

First semester sophomore year continued the fun as Betsy and the Brewster 4 gang bonded further. Betsy introduced me to a friend who I dated for a long while, as I tried to fix her up with my other friends.  To be continued….