Eugene Oregon Take One

Eugene Oregon Take One

The winter of 1973/74 I packed up my stuff and went up to Watervliet to say goodbye to Dottie. A friend of mine, Joe, was going to ride with me out to Ypsilanti, Michigan. His girlfriend was attending East Michigan State there. I still had my Saab 96 so I was limited as to how much I could pack. The Saab 96 is not much larger than a Volkswagen Bug. I was not going to be able to get everything in the Saab so I organized all my stuff and packed things in priority order. That meant I packed my stereo equipment first and then all my records. I had about 100 albums, so after those items there was not much space left. I packed a few more things and then, in order to make the best use of the space left, I packed all my clothes loose. I stuck them into every nook and cranny filling all the space I had left. I held out a small gym bag that was just large enough to carry some toiletries and additional clothes I would need for the trip. I carefully closed the back hatch against the back of the pile of loose clothes. Joe had a small bag and I can't remember what we did with it, it may have just sat on his lap. We headed out west on the N. Y. thru-way heading towards Buffalo. At Buffalo we decided to cut through Canada. We entered Canada no problem, they just waved us through. We drove to Windsor where we attempted to cross back to the US. Well the American customs agent stopped us and wanted to search the car. It was raining at this point. I proceeded to explain how the car was packed and the high probability that once they opened the back hatch loose clothes would fall out. The agent seemed undeterred and had me open the hatch. Immediately some clothes, mostly underwear and socks came tumbling out. He picked them up and tried to put them back in which only resulted in other articles of clothing falling out. He tried a few more times with similar results. It looked like something out of a Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin movie. I should have been worried that my clothes were getting wet and dirty but it was all Joe and I could do to keep from laughing. The agent shortly gave up trying to search the car and somehow managed to get all the loose clothing back in the car and, with the help of another agent, get the hatch closed again. He then looked straight at me, giving me a hard look, for a few moments and said in a brusque and rather agitated fashion, “Just go!”. I still laugh at the incident when I think of it today.

We got to Ypsilanti where Joe's girlfriend was renting a house with others just off campus. I parked on the street but the next morning when I went out to my car there was a big ticket on it. I was going to be leaving the next day so I decided to rip it up figuring that I would not be back to Ypsilanti any time soon and I was right. I have yet to return to Ypsilanti. From there I took off for Eugene stopping only for gas and food and sleep. I got to Eugene two days later. (For more on my arrival as well as talking my way into getting accepted to the U of O see my blog post “What is it you actually do?” from July 2017).

The next day I found a place to live a few blocks from the University on Patterson Street. The building had been designed and built by a U of O alum who had majored in Architecture. It was designed like a quad dorm. There were four rooms that each had their own entrances from the outside. Each room had a bathroom. Each room also had another door that opened to a common area that contained a kitchen and eating area that was shared by all four rooms. So I had three roommates but we each had our own private secure spaces where we generally spent most of our time. One of my roommates almost never used the common area. I don't remember anything about him. The other two were Scott and Rich. Scott was a bit of a strange character who also largely kept to himself but enjoyed smoking pot with Rich and I so he frequently came into the common area to join us since Rich and I frequently were smoking pot together. Rich was in graduate school for speech. He was a voracious reader. He always had a couple of stacks of books. One was the books he was about to read and the other was a stack of books he'd just finished. He was from Kansas and had been a high school drop out. After he dropped out he turned to heroine. He had since kicked the addiction. He found his way into college, graduating with honors, and was now on scholarship at Oregon working on his masters. Rich still smoked pot regularly but no longer did any other drugs. He talked like a country hick but he was one of the brightest and most well read people I have ever met.

I managed to get myself accepted to the University of Oregon shortly after my arrival and planned to enroll in the next term but ran up against another problem. My VA records got lost, not by me but by the VA. How did they do that? Without those I no longer could apply for the GI Bill benefits and hence now did not have enough money to pay tuition and could not enroll. Although not a student yet, I did find a way to get into a U of O vs. UCLA basketball game at Mac Court. UCLA had Bill Walton, Marques Johnson, Jamaal Wilkes, and Richard Washington, four future NBA players. They were the number one ranked team in the nation. However, Oregon was very good as well. They beat UCLA and made the cover of Sports Illustrated. The game was at Mac Court.  It was an old arena and the seats were very close to the court.  I managed to get a first row seat on the floor under the basket. I was no more than 4 feet from the baseline. Mac Court was packed and very loud but I was close enough so that I could hear the players talking to each other and they could hear me yelling at them.

I was missing Dottie a bit. I had met a few people but the women I met just did not seem to interest me, I was still emotionally tied to Dottie. One woman I met was on the University tennis team. She was fun but was mostly interested in playing and practicing tennis. I was not much of a tennis player. In fact the only time I remember playing tennis was when I was trying to meet a girl I liked who used to play tennis at my high school. My new female friend in Eugene would talk me into going over to the courts where she would basically pummel me with serves and shots that I mostly flailed at. I probably returned less than 50%, some successfully. The problem was if the returns were actually in she would just slam another one by me. It was mostly she'd hit the ball and I'd go chase it. She was very complimentary about my efforts but the truth was I was beginning to think I was a labrador retriever playing fetch with his owner. I soon realized that I did not really like this girl enough to continue to spend time chasing her tennis balls. If I wasn't missing Dottie enough, I certainly was now...

I needed money so I started looking for a job. There was not much available and nothing full time. I had been writing Dottie telling her I missed her. She had been writing back saying the same. With no source of money and little job potential I decided I should return to NY until the fall. The person from the U of O student services at the University who had guided me in getting accepted suggested that I get a P.O. Box while I was gone and continue to use Oregon as my primary residence while I was back in New York. That way when I returned I would qualify as an Oregon resident when I enrolled in the fall. Great suggestion! I did and ended up saving myself lots of money. I wrote Dottie about coming back to Watervliet with her. She was very enthusiastic, as was I.

I packed up and drove back to Watervliet. I moved back in with Dottie and it was quite the joyous reunion. I guess I cared more for her than I had realized. It seemed that things were back to where we were prior to the engagement fiasco, but things are not always what they seem.

After a few weeks Dottie came home from work telling me she had just missed being in a big accident and saw her life pass before her eyes. This helped her to realize that she really loved someone else, someone she had been seeing for some time. She said she needed to move out and move in with him right away. This took me by complete surprise and consequently did not go down too smoothly. But what was I gonna do? She said the other guy would help move her stuff out of the apartment that weekend and it would probably be best if I was not there at the time. I reluctantly agreed and told her I would leave early Saturday morning with some friends and not return until later in the afternoon. When I returned all Dottie's stuff was gone and so was Dottie. Although at the time it hurt it was actually for the best. As much as I cared for Dottie, I realized later that I really did not love her as she deserved to be loved. The fact was, I was still not completely over Donna. That morning was the last time I saw Dottie.

                            My Last Picture of Dottie - maybe that look should have been a clue

For more info on my getting to Eugene see my blog post “What is it you actually do?” from last July (2017) –

This post follows “Fall of 73 – Selecting a College and People of Color”