Random Ramblings #18

It's that time again - time to clear out the hard drive of my brain and make room for more data. Hence, the Random Ramblings.

Fall (or autumn, as Linds pointed out is a better word - why DO we call it fall, when autumn is such a superior word?) has come to our area. I LOVE the crisp mornings and evenings. Even 86 degrees doesn't seem as hot as it does in summer. Why is that?? Saturday DC and I are taking the senior group from our church (to which we will soon belong) on a fall color tour in the mountains.

I am sadly behind in expressing my appreciation to Angela for the "You Make Me Smile" award. Thank you so much, Angela! You make me smile, too, and I'm glad we "met."

I have a new blog friend that I'd like to introduce you to. Her name is Nancygrayce and I've enjoyed getting acquainted with her. She wrote a wonderful poem today - check it out!

I have to give credit where credit is due - as usual, my new look is thanks to Kristen, my techno hero! She has taught me everything I know, and has designed all of my fanciness. Thanks to all of you for your prayers for her and Feisty and the twins. Feisty also got a clean bill of health from the children's hospital - we don't know why she keeps getting UTIs, but at least we know it's nothing that requires surgery. Praise the Lord!

Feisty is changing every day. She gets much more time with me now that her brother and sister are in school, and she is blossoming every day. I love holding conversations with her. She makes me laugh every day. Her smile lights up my world, and her tears break my heart. What fun to watch her develop.

Anakin is in 4th grade already. That is the grade I used to teach, but he doesn't really trust me to help him with his homework. He told me yesterday that he got a nice compliment from his music teacher - she told him he had "great vocals." I reminded him that I'd been telling him the same thing (well, not the exact same words) since he was a little boy. It's true - the kid can really sing! He said, "I know, Grandma, but when a music teacher says it . . . " Oh, well!

Care Bear is loving school - unfortunately, kindergarteners do not have art class, but she continues to create at home. The other day she made this collage out of all sorts of textures:

She cut up ribbon, gathered leaves and flower petals from the yard, and the fuzzy stuff on the left is snipped from a couple of her stuffed animals - that girl is dangerous with a pair of scissors! Remember this episode a few months ago?

Today she picked out a couple of books at the library about little fairies - one had her name and it was spelled the same. She sat down at the kitchen table, pulled out her paper and marker, and copied pictures of the fairies from the back of the book (did you notice the little pair of scissors at the end of the long hair on the middle bottom fairy?!) I thought Pea would especially enjoy seeing this picture!

I went in to H*bby L*bby last Saturday. I haven't been in there much since the weddings 6 years ago, when I spent a lot of time and money there. I avoid it, because it is too inviting! But I realized I really love that store - I felt like I was in the presence of the Lord - the music they play glorifies God. And the sign on their door "Closed on Sundays so that our employees may enjoy family and worship" made me want to go there more often and support them. What a blessing to have a company that honors the Sabbath (as does Chick Fil Ā).

I have made a huge decision. I announced to my faculty last week that this is my last year with them - I'll be retiring at the end of August next year (yes, it's early - I'm not retirement age yet, but things are working out). It is exciting. It is also kind of sad. Students always tell me, "You can't leave until I graduate." Since that will never happen, and a class will always be in the middle of the process, I have to leave some class before they finish. That is the sad part. I am mentally making lists of the things that have been sadly neglected for the last 14 years.

I love this devotional by Max Lucado:

God's Mighty Hand

Colossians 1:16 - Through His power all things were made - things in heaven and on earth, things seen and unseen.

"With one decision, history began. Existence became measurable.

Out of nothing came light.

Out of light came day.

Then came sky . . . and earth.

And on this earth? A mighty hand went to work.

Canyons were carved. Oceans were dug. Mountains erupted out of flatlands. Stars were flung. A universe sparkled.

Look to the canyons to see the Creator's splendor. Touch the flowers and see his delicacy. Listen to the thunder and hear his power. . .

Today you will encounter God's creation. When you see the beauty around you, let each detail remind you to lift your head in praise. Express your appreciation for God's creation. Encourage others to see the beauty of His creation." from In the Eye of the Storm.

The sky is changing as summer ends. The sunset is farther south. It has a different look. It is, of course, much earlier. It is awesome.

Wordless Wednesday - First Fishing Trip

Welcome to My Neighborhood!

Thanks to Kathleen for this great idea of visiting everyone's neighborhoods. I hope you enjoy your visit! Having been in a parsonage growing up, I lived in many towns and many abodes. But I have lived in this location for over 35 years. We won't go into how much the town has grown in those 35+ years, nor the controversy over having 2 super Wal-Marts, a Sam's, a Home Depot and Lowe's, Target, and tons of new growth in every direction. Does any town need a new bank every week? Or yet another liquor store?? But it's a great place to live and I'll show you only the good parts!

Our 35th anniversary is coming up in December. This was our first apartment - a nice brick duplex, with a very quiet single lady next door, so we didn't have to worry about getting frustrated with noise. The tree that you see behind the house was a small sapling when we moved in. (Double click on any pictures if you want more detail).

When we began our family, we bought a small, new house - 900 square feet, but it was ours. We landscaped and fenced, and lived there for almost 4 years.

When we had two kids and no room to move, we bought our second house, where we still live. It is at the end of a culdesac, and it was great fun raising our family here, with up to 32 children on the street at one time.

Now we'll take a little tour of town and some of my favorite spots. We are driving down the main street toward the library . . . looks like they need to replace that poor tree on the left!

On the right is one of my favorites stores - Probasco's. This is a family-owned Bible and Christian book store, which also specializes in wigs. Frieda add the wig shop when she realized how many women in town needed that service during chemotherapy. They have provided a great service in so many areas and are wonderful people.

We're at the library now, and enjoying the sculptures and the fountain. . .

In the same area as the library is the first school in this town. The sign says "Washington School 1905. It sat in a falling down condition for years until someone decided to refurbish it and turn it into the city government building. I am so glad they did this instead of tearing it down. They did a wonderful job of restoring the brick , the marble, the brass. Then they built a "twin" building and connected the two with a glass walkway. It was a stunning addition to this part of town.

On the way back from the library, we like to stop and visit the classic old Dairy Queen. It has been on this extremely busy corner for over 50 years. My youngest brother used to work here when he lived here and was in high school.

We're not quite ready to go home yet, and it's a beautiful pre-fall day, so we headed west down the highway toward the lake, then across the street to one of the really nice parks in town. We call this one the "Cannon Park," though it's really named in honor of the first young man from our town to die during World War II. We call it that to differentiate it from "the train park", where the kids can ride a child-sized train for 75 cents.

This town has turned into quite the art mecca. We have quite a few bronze casting foundries. In August, we have an influx of artists who come to show and sell their lovely products. They take over this park for the week-end. But the rest of the year it is one of the favorite places to take your company for "show and tell." There are many varieties of sculptures - I prefer the realistic ones to the abstract, but those who seem to think they know keep telling me "art is in the eye of the beholder."

I especially love this section named especially for the children:

Here's a shot of the place I don't get to often enough - the gym!

On Sunday, and often several other times in the week, we go down the street about a mile to our church. We consider this body of believers our extended family. They are very important to us.

On week-days, we head in different directions. The kiddoes go here:

I don't have any pictures of DC's place of employment, but here is my view to the east as I head north to work.

This is the entrance to my office building.

Our evening bike rides give us this beautiful view.

Come and visit sometime! We'll check out all these fun things and lots more.

Saga of the Jobs - Part 4

I survived that summer in the deep freeze, not too much the worse for wear - and with a bit of money. As I mentioned, I spent the boring hours of the job planning my dorm room's decor. I found the most beautiful blue bedspread, curtains, rugs, and "doo-dads." Imagine, if you will, everything in that room in this color - and I'm still using this piece in my bedroom.

Things were much better for me financially at school that year. I had the position back in my freshman dorm as the RA (resident assistant) even on the same floor, Third South. The Second South RA and I developed a wonderful friendship - we would stand on the steps between our two floors, long after the girls had been "checked in" and talk - we called each other "roommates." That was the first year of the experiment - requiring freshman girls to be in their rooms from 8-10 p.m. for "study hours." Now, the guys didn't have to be in, but the theory was that if the girls were in, the boys would be, too. HA!! It essentially ruined my social life, because I was in the dorm at 8:00 as well, with no time to be "circulating." But I sure got good grades! Then from 10-11, they were free to roam, do their night-time rituals, with lights out at 11:00. Oh, my goodness, what a challenge it was to get them to settle back down after that hour of "freedom."

Besides that position, which again covered my room and half board (which meant meals), I was able to obtain a spot in the Registrar's Office. I really enjoyed working there. What a civilized job that was. It was there I discovered that my freshman boyfriend, who had since dropped out, had 31 hours of F on his transcript. I could never have stayed with anyone who cared that little about his grades! I still wonder whatever happened to him - he went into the service and probably ended up in Viet Nam, but nobody knows where he landed. If he survived.

That summer when I went home, it was to a place where I had never lived before. My folks had taken a new church and moved from Nebraska to Colorado. I had visited at Spring Break, but never spent much time in the "new house." I was short a few credits to be able to graduate the next year, so I took 3 English classes at Colorado State University, little dreaming that someday it would become my place of employment. I was totally intimidated by the huge campus, compared to my small intimate Christian school. I was also horrified by some of the class discussions, after my wonderful Christian professors. But it was a good eye-opening experience, and I spent every non-working moment reading, because all of the courses were literature. I landed a job at a grocery store down the street from our house. It wasn't a great job, by any means, but it brought in a bit of money, and was workable around the school schedule. Believe it or not, we had to wear pink uniforms to check out groceries in those days. And - we had to memorize the produce prices every day.

There was another young guy working there that summer, and he and I became friends. I actually went on one date with him. Years later, I worked in the school where his kids attended - oh, my goodness, he had changed drastically - and NOT for the better. I was very happy that one date didn't go any further! (As a matter of fact, as I look back, I had 3 guys I was interested in at one time or another who all grew to immense proportions as they aged - I am blessed to have a husband who takes such good care of himself!)

During my senior year I was really unable to carry a job - my class load was large and very full of time-intensive projects as an elementary ed. major. Second semester I went into student teaching, which extended into the summer. I was chosen for an honor, which didn't turn out so well for me after all. There were 30 of us from the state of Oklahoma (3 from my school) who were put into an experimental program called CUTE (Cooperative Urban Teacher Education). We spent quite a bit of time in sessions with psychologists, sociologists, and other "experts" who were to help us learn to work in the inner city with economically and educationally disadvantaged children. We had to present lessons in front of a camera, to critique ourselves and attempt to improve. Not fun!

Unfortunately, I was assigned to a young teacher who had somehow managed to have 3 student teachers by her second year of teaching - not only unwise, but against the rules. I don't know how she managed it, but she didn't have to spend much time teaching. Consequently, she did not do a good job of supervising or teaching me. I was so frustrated that I changed placements with only 5 weeks left of school. This teacher was very old and ready for retirement. She was not about to turn over her classroom to a novice for the last few days of school!

Besides teaching in these run down buildings, working with kids who had great needs, we had to volunteer at their youth centers in the evenings. We never had time to have a decent dinner, had to eat lunch with them in the school cafeteria, and were generally run ragged and exhausted. On top of it all, it extended into the summer, so I graduated on a Sunday and had to go back to teaching the next day while everyone else packed up and went home.

The miracles that came about in my life during that last year of school are the stuff of family legends. I found a scrapbook recently which had my school bill from sophomore year glued in. The note below says, "The financial situation is alleviated! By the time I left school, the school owed me $.19!" This was accomplished by lots of hard work, some scholarships, the National Student Defense Loan (which was given to those preparing to teach - one year was forgiven for each year you taught, up to 5 years, so you only had to pay back half), and some grants.

My entire college experience was one of depending on the Lord for day to day needs. Mom and Dad couldn't help us - as much as they could they'd get us needed supplies when we were home on breaks. But we were on our own - with the Lord's help. And that was what we needed! The daily needs were met by babysitting, which I mentioned before I did not like. Those jobs were announced over the P.A. system in the dorm - if you were free that evening and wanted the job, you'd answer the phone call and get the job. One night, the guy brought me back to the dorm in a less than sober condition - I was scared to death. I would get a somewhat regular job, and if I couldn't do it one night I'd send my sister instead. I never got the job back, because she was a really good babysitter - she liked playing with the kids, while I wanted them to go to bed so I could study or read a good book!

I also typed assignments for people - mostly guys. I had a portable, elite font, Smith Corona manual typewriter. One of the guys I typed for would loan me his portable electric, pica font typewriter sometimes. The pica was larger, so their papers looked longer when typed on this machine. I developed the reputation for being able to "stretch" their papers! I would help the preacher boys in their writing by correcting some of their errors and editing a bit, but their English papers were left as they wrote them - good, bad, or indifferent. I made lots of good friends that way! And a bit of spending money. One guy became a pastor here in Colorado and I'd see him and his wife often for years. One night he brought me his paper in bits and pieces all night long - in fact, I had to go over to the upper class dorm, which was connected to our freshman dorm, to get his "pieces" - the last pages were turned over to me at 6:30 or so, out the back door, to be ready for a 7:30 class. A few days later, he met me on campus with a big grin on his face and said, "We got a B!" He still tells people that I typed his papers in college because his girlfriend (who became his wife and a good friend of mine), wouldn't do it for him! Hilarious.

That one typing class I took my sophomore year in high school was probably the most valuable class I ever took, in terms of how much it has helped me get through life. More on that to come.

NEXT UP: BEYOND GRADUATION

Woman to Woman - Attitude of Gratitude

Today's topic seemed simple on the first look. Then I began to think of the word "gratitude." Is it the same as being thankful? Should I recycle my Thanksgiving Thirteen from last year? Surely I can be more creative than that. Right now I am having a hard time thinking of thankfulness, because once again we are in a family crisis situation, which I will not go into today (please see Kristen's post). I am in a state of wondering "why us?" at this moment. But I know that I must think of God's blessings instead of Satan's darts. So I will.

I went to thesaurus.com for a definition - to see if there's a difference between gratitude and thankfulness. There really isn't:

Gratitude

Part of Speech:
noun

Definition:
appreciation

Synonyms:

acknowledgment, appreciativeness, grace, gratefulness, honor, indebtedness, obligation, praise, recognition, requital, response, responsiveness, thankfulness, thanks, thanksgiving

Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)Copyright © 2007 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Ironically, as I was thinking of this topic this week, I ran across this quote from Henri Nouwen on Lyric's site - I hope she doesn't mind if I borrow it. But it fit my needs so well that I copied it and want to share it today:

"To be grateful for the good things that
happen in our lives is easy,

but to be grateful for all of our lives -

the good as well as the bad,

the moments of joy as well as the
moments of sorrow,

the successes as well as the failures,

the rewards as well as the rejections -

that requires hard spiritual work.

Still, we are only grateful people

when we can say thank you to all

that has brought us to the present moment.

As long as we keep dividing our lives

between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget,

we cannot claim the fullness of our beings

as a gift of God to be grateful for.

Let's not be afraid to look at everything

that has brought us to where we are now

and trust that we will soon see in it

the guiding hand of a loving God."

1. I am grateful to have been born into a Christian family (especially my sister, my best friend, whose birthday is today, now the infamous 9/11). I often have wished that I had a defining moment to point to when God changed my life dramatically. Then I realize what a blessing it is to have been spared from a dramatic life, but was privileged to be a child of the King from an early age, and He has protected me.
   
2. I acknowledge God's leading in my life, as I have been sharing in my "job saga." Each of those horrible jobs that I've written about so far taught me about sticking with something, though unpleasant
   
3. I appreciate God's directing my path, keeping me from wrong choices, until I found my life partner. He is such a godly man, a gentle man and a gentleman, my friend and my greatest cheerleader.
   
4. I am thankful for my church, my other family. Though we have been through tough times and Satan has done his best to destroy this body, we are still a light on that corner in our town. It is housed in the building my dad built, it is where I was married, where my children were dedicated, my children were married, and my grandchildren have been dedicated.
   
5. I praise God for bringing my little family through so much in the last few years. He protected my children from destruction which Satan tried to accomplish. The family I was born into, the family that I joined in marriage, and my church family have all held us up in prayer during these difficult years.
   
6. I am grateful for the gift of sight. The beautiful things that God has created have come more alive to me than ever since I have been looking at everything as a potential picture to share and enjoy.
   
7. I thank God for seasons. This one in particular, as we head into fall, is my favorite - the early morning crispness in the air, the geese honking overhead, the clear blue skies, the changing leaves, the relief from the heat of the summer all give me a feeling of renewal, even though it is a time of rest for God's creation.
   
8. I am so grateful for all of the soul mates that I have met through this blogging adventure. Just today when I read of Amy Wilhoite's homegoing, the tears flowed as if I knew her personally. I will miss her and her spirit - she taught me much in the year that I "knew" her - such a young saint. I can only imagine how wonderful it is for her to be done with pain - but I feel for her family and the pain they are feeling.
   
9. I thank God that He has given us doctors and medicine. Even though I don't like to have as much contact with them as we have lately as a family, I am glad they are there for us.
   
10. I am so grateful for music, for those who have written such wonderful words and for those who have the gift of composition. So many times songs come to me as such comfort and inspiration. I don't know what I would do without music.
    
11. Finally,I am grateful for my country, as flawed as it is.

In the Interim. . .

We interrupt the scheduled "Job Saga" series for the following announcement:

Please remember Kristen on Tuesday, September 11, when she goes to the specialist for the amniocentesis to determine if there are any chromosomal abnormalities with either of the twins, or both. Her appointment is at 2:00 Mountain Standard Time. We appreciate all of your concern and prayer. Please pop over there and assure her of your prayers. Thanks!!

It's Sunday afternoon, the Broncos just pulled it out of the fire and won by a point, so all is well with my husband's and son's world. Check out Sema's (my daughter-in-law) latest post to get a Kenyan's point of views of our national pasttime. Also check out the previous one, if you want to catch a bit of her heart.

It is a fall day in my part of the world - 45 degrees when we got up, and only up to 54 at 3:00 in the afternoon. No sunshine at all. Kind of a nice change, but I know we'll be griping about the cold all too soon!

Thank you so much for your interest in my series on the jobs I had getting through college, and for your kind comments. There are a couple more of those to come, and then I'm trying to decide whether I should continue to modern times, or leave it at college days. What do you think?

I spent 36 hours in bed with a fast-moving, disgusting flu bug that hit during the night Thursday nght and kept me down until midday yesterday. I don't know what I'd do if I had to stay in bed for an extended time, because my back was killing me and my head ached from lying down so long. I have great empathy for anyone who has to be bedridden, and also for Kristen, who has had such a bad bout with nausea during this pregnancy.

I'm off to celebrate my SIL and BIL's 40th anniversary. Hard to believe - and we're coming up behind them with 35 very soon. How could we have possibly known each other for that long?

I'll see you Tuesday with Woman to Woman and my thoughts on Gratitude.

Have a great Monday!

Saga of the Jobs - Part 3

I left school that sophomore year in a somewhat better financial condition than when I got there. But there were two more years to go, and one of those semesters would include student teaching, during which it's pretty hard to hold down a job.

It was always great to go home at the end of the school year, but the pressure was on to find a summer job. That summer had my whole church praying for my employment. We found an ad in the paper for openings at Campbell Soup Company. They had a plant in downtown Omaha, something I had never known before. I got a spot on the night shift - 4:00-12:30 - not my favorite idea!

The first night, Dad took me downtown. He didn't think it would be safe for me to drive home by myself from that part of town after midnight. That first 8 hour shifted lasted at least 4 days, I am sure.

Campbell's Soup Company in Omaha did not make soup. They made Swanson frozen dinners. The fact that Swanson was my maiden name did not make this job any less horrible! The first night saw me sent into exile - in the potato peeling room! I could not believe my eyes - a couple of dozen women were standing around this high table, taking the eyes out of thousands of potatoes! If you were fast enough and dug enough eyes out of enough potatoes in a certain amount of time, you got a stool!

Well, I could not believe my fate. It was an endless night. I decided that I was not going to look at the clock for an hour, because I seemed to be looking at it every two minutes. I was sure it was an hour the first time I looked after making this decision - it was 15 minutes! The only thing that kept me sane that night was reliving the enjoyment of my college days. I started back at the first day of freshman year and tried to remember every good thing. Thank the Lord there were a lot of good memories, because they kept me going through that long shift. Obviously, I never merited a stool!

When my dad picked me up, I told him I was NEVER going back to that place. EVER. He informed me that I couldn't quit. First of all, he didn't raise quitters, and second, everyone in church had prayed for me to get a job, I had a job, and I had to keep it.

I prayed a lot that next day for grace and endurance. God answered that prayer - and put me in a different place that next night. It wasn't a good place, but it was far better than the potato room.

The job was in the shipping area of the frozen food division. They created small, individual-sized portions of frozen entrees for sale to hospitals, nursing homes, schools, etc. We packaged them in plastic bags, a dozen entrees per bag, if I recall correctly. Then the bag was sealed, put in a box, and sent to the freezer. Needless to say, it was very nippy in that big room. Again, I had to engage my memory and imagination to keep myself going during those long hours. I was making fairly decent money, and I spent a lot of time planning how I was going to decorate my new dorm room, and actually had the money to be able to buy the supplies. At least there were a couple of other college students there to help the time pass more quickly and enjoyably. There was a Peyton Place scenario going on with two of the supervisors that was pretty disgusting. But I can tell you for sure that if you want to motivate your child to stay in college and get a good job someday, forcing them to stay at such a job will do the trick!

About halfway through the summer, I developed a terrible case of tonsillitis - I blamed it on the fact that I working in a freezer, and they didn't even supply the jackets they were supposed to.

The memory that stands out the most of the entire summer - it was one of the nights we had packaged stuffed green peppers. Picture trying to package such an unwieldy entree, first of all. At the end of the shift, everyone had to gather in the steam room, where the little plastic containers went through the dishwasher for the next day's entree. Imagine the green pepper smell steamed into your pores. Then imagine my dad, who HATES green peppers, coming to drive me home. All the way through Omaha, my dad driving with his head out the window, was one of my most embarrassing moments. The good news is that it was past midnight, so not too many people were out on the streets. He assured me that he would throw up if he had to smell peppers all the way home.

My sister was working for Kellogg's that summer, and her job was in the lab measuring vitamins for the cereals. We made quite a pair as we came home from our late shifts and our various odiferous clothing hit the floor as we hit the beds.

That was a tough summer for all of us - everyone in my large family was going different directions to earn enough money to keep going - there were 3 of us in college that fall and two younger ones left at home.

I really hated that job, but Dad was right. He didn't raise a quitter, and I realized I could endure just about anything if the goal was important enough. And there is no more apropos verse in scripture than Philippians 4:13 (New International Version) "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

TO BE CONTINUED

Wordless Wednesday - It's up in the air, it's a ???

Saga of the Jobs - Part 2

Where was I? Oh, yes, at the Dairy Queen, gaining much more than the Freshman Fifteen by the end of the summer of that first year of college. With a significant school bill hanging over my head. If you missed Part 1, go HERE.

Going to a private Christian college was cost prohibitive to folks of our means - impoverished preachers! They didn't have much in the way of financial gain to call them to the ministry - it had to be a deep-seated conviction that it was where God wanted them to be - raising 5 kids in a parsonage that did not belong to them, on a salary that would be laughable if it were not so sad. But God never ever let us go hungry - or unclothed!

But trying to send kids to college was a challenge, to say the least. But I was convinced that I was where God wanted me to be. At the end of that freshman year summer and holding down two awful jobs, I didn't know if I was going to be able to return to school. I desperately wanted to. I loved it there.

In God's incredible timing, an amazing phone call came just in the nick of time. My dorm mom, whom I had not particularly liked (she was pretty cranky and old), realized how much I needed help. She had a heart that she hid pretty well under that gruff exterior. There were so many more girls coming to school as freshmen that year that there was not enough housing. The old war vintage boys' dorm that was targeted for demolition that year was brought back into active duty, even though it had been condemned! The college was asking me to be the resident assistant (RA) for the girls on the second floor of this antiquated dorm. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of living in old Fanning Hall, but I could not turn down this gift - room and 1/2 board paid, plus a cash job as receptionist at the front desk that fit into my schedule.

I think I had approximately 20 girls in my care that semester. We really bonded in a unique way, because of our less-than-desirable living conditions. I keep reiterating the same thing, but this was really a terrible place to live. If it weren't for the good memories I have of the girls, I would have no good memories of that semester. I had broken up with my boyfriend, I had no classes that I really enjoyed. I was away from my good friends from the year before, because I was in a freshman dorm and they'd gone on to bigger and better places to live.

So what was so bad about this place? For starters, it was a boys' dorm - it seems that boys don't mind showering all together in one huge, gross shower room. Add the fact that the drains didn't work well - are you getting the picture? Suffice it to say, I was physically and mentally incapable of showering with 20 girls. I chose to come back in the quiet of the afternoon, when they were in class, to gamble on showering alone.

The good news was that I had a nice large room to myself - my first room alone in my life. I had always roomed with my sister. I love my sister, but still craved solitude. The bad news - I had a bit too much solitude that year. I slept through my 7:30 class often, because nobody was there to make noise and wake me up. (I made the only C of my college career that semester because I missed that 7:30 World History class so often).

This old dorm didn't have a central heating system (and of course, no air conditiong). Each room had its own space heater. Each night I had to do a room check to be sure everyone was there and safely tucked in. The girl next door to me (who also had no roommate) was even more modest than I. There was no evidence that she ever availed herself of the community shower room - with or without company. And there was sufficient evidence that she did not - when she opened her door a crack each night to assure me she was there, the "aroma" coming through that crack was overwhelming - she must have been really cold-blooded, because she kept that heater going at full blast, and it was not a good combination with lack of cleanliness!

Those girls and I grew to know each other very well. I have notes from them that I discovered this summer in my old scrap book. Looking at the autographs in the yearbook for that year have also brought back great memories. It also brought back some less-than-fun happenings.

There were several unused rooms on our floor. Somehow someone planted cherry bombs, wrapped in girls' underwear, in an unoccupied room down the hall from me. They somehow lit them and escaped before they exploded. It was terrifying. All of us were concerned about the bizarre packaging and frightened that boys were breaking in and planting the devices. There was much discussion of "panty raids." There was great suspicion that the girls were helping the boys. There were all sorts of rumors rampant on the campus. One week-end the entire second floor was "grounded", or what was called "campused" in that setting. More punishment for me than for them! The other name for RA in those days was "floor monitor." My girls liked to call me "monster" instead at this time in our history together.

We eventually suspected an inside job, though nobody ever confessed and nobody was ever "convicted" of the crime. The case was never solved, but it certainly caused us to bond as partners in fear and trembling. I still wonder who did it!

The picture from my 1967 yearbook shows old Fanning Hall as it appeared before demolition. At the end of the first semester, enough girls had dropped out of their freshman year to open up spaces in the other dorms. I had moved into an upper class dorm. It was a strange sensation one day as I was walking by the old place and saw the door to my Room 127, still standing tall, as rubble lay all around it.

I only stayed in the new dorm for a few weeks before a similar RA job opened up in the dorm I lived in as a freshman. I moved onto the first floor and was able to continue paying my school bill. I have to say it was a much calmer second semester than the first had been. Almost to the point of boredom.

NEXT: ANOTHER DELIGHTFUL SUMMER JOB