Nearing the End 61-80

Thanks for the affirmation that I should complete what I started!

61. Mom and Dad took me to college in Oklahoma. It was the first time I'd been alone with them since I was 11 1/2 months old!

62. I loved dorm life from the first moment. I said good-bye to them that Sunday afternoon, then realized I should probably walk with them to the car - after all, they were leaving their firstborn behind. I realized that when my mom began crying.

63. I didn't get homesick until my birthday, when I finally turned 18.

64. I soon became known as "Mouth of Third South." I loved to go around to all the rooms and socialize as everyone was getting ready for bed - putting curlers in their hair, etc. Then I'd get back to my room and everything would be dark as I had to get ready for bed in the bathroom while my roommate and "bathmates" were already asleep!

65. I had some horrid jobs getting through college - I will post about them soon.

66. My first serious boyfriend was my freshman year - he was 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 125 pounds! Oh, yeah. (And I DID gain the freshman 15).

67. I broke up with him when I found out he went back to the dorm to goof off when I went back to study - I assumed he was doing the same. He ended up being drafted, and I have always wondered what happened to him.

68. Alot of my guy friends (including the above mentioned young man) declared religion as their major to stay out of Viet Nam. Unfortunately, if they flunked out (which he did), that free pass was taken away and they were eligible for the draft.

69. Every guy was talking about "his number" in those days - if you don't know what that means, you're young. (It's where they fell in the draft lottery).

70. My freshman antics came back to haunt me when I became RA (resident assistant) of Third South in my junior year.

71. The year before that I was RA in a dorm which had been condemned - it had been a boys' dorm which was re-opened when a glut of applications came in and they had to find room for an unusually large number of freshman girls - another whole post to come!

72. My future sister-in-law was one of the freshmen on my floor that year.

73. I thought I was going to have money when I became a teacher, so I fell for a waterless cookware sales pitch and signed up.

74. My roommate and I both made this mistake, and her father helped us out of it - that was when I learned the "three-day regret" law - thank goodness!

75. One of my favorite elementary education classes was "Children's Literature." We had to read 50 kids' books for an A. I read 82 - classics, Newberry winners, Caldecott winners - it was great fun.

76. My student teaching experience was a disaster. It might be why I only taught for 1.5 years.

77. When you graduate from a Christian college without a husband or a fiance, you start to panic! I thought God had made a colossal mistake.

78. Did you ever watch National Geographic Explorer? Several years ago, the host was named Boyd Matson. He was Butch Matson when we went to the same college at the same time - I had a crush on him, but he didn't know I existed.

79. I got a teaching job in southeast Kansas, as did my senior year roommate. We moved there together with our new cars - my 1969 Mustang and her 1969 Ford LTD. I taught 4th grade. She taught high school English. We thought we were set.

80. It turned out to be a very difficult year - lots of work, very little money. We rented the upstairs apartment of an old house for $60.00 a month! She went back to western Kansas the next year and left me there alone and very lonely.

TO BE CONTINUED. . .