Cyndi Loses Her Shirt and I Go Over a Waterfall

Cyndi Loses Her Shirt and I Go Over a Waterfall

Cyndi at the piano in the Villard house

I was the summer of 1975. Saigon had fallen that April and the movie “Jaws” had hit the movie theaters that June. Cyndi and I had returned from our cross country adventure. We all, the Barrington Gang and me moved out of the Fairmount house. One of us, it wasn't me, found a more normal sized 4 bedroom house close to campus.  It was a nice old house situated on the North-East corner of Villard and 19^th Street. The house had a fenced (white picket) yard, a full basement, and a ghost room. The ghost room had a window that looked to the front but there was no entry into the room. The wall above the stairway looked like it might have once had an opening in it and we were pretty sure there was a story involving a murder that goes with it but nobody seemed willing to say anything about it. We were never able to find out the details about that room. It's evidently a very well kept secret. I tried to Google it and came up empty! Could it have been a portal to “the upside down”? Very suspicious....

This was going to be our second year living together as a communal household and, perhaps surprisingly, we were still all getting along. Martha was going to be leaving us for Germany. Martha was the roommate I felt like I knew the least. I never got a good sense about who she was. She was almost always pleasant and she was curious, She always asked a lot of questions, but she did not reveal much about herself. One thing I remember about Martha was she always took small helpings of whatever food was being served that night. Initially we thought Martha, who was on the thin side, was a very light eater. It seemed she hardly ate anything. We usually ended up with leftovers from dinner but the next day whenever Cyndi and I looked for those leftovers they were no where to be found. Regardless of how many leftovers there had been they had somehow mysteriously disappeared. Finally we realized that while Martha took very small helpings during dinner, she continued to help herself to additional small helpings throughout the evening. She was eating the most of any of us. Anyway with Martha leaving we were five again: Valerie, Louanne, Maria, Cyndi and myself.

Valerie and Maria took the two downstairs bedrooms and Louanne, Cyndi and I took the two upstairs rooms.  Louanne, who I would affectionately call Louie, grew up in Pacifica, California. She was into the arts and theater. I liked theater and had attended numerous plays when I lived in New York and thanks to Louie I was going to shows in Eugene. At first I didn't know what to make of Louanne. She was a little like my sister in that she frequently was worrying about something and I was a little put off. But as I got to know her better I realized that I really liked her and it wasn't long before we became friends. We would be roommates again when I moved to San Francisco. We have stayed in touch and I have visited with her a few times over the years. She and Cyd (Cyndi would soon be called Cyd, a name she still goes by today) are the only two of the gang that I am still in touch with.

One sunny day Cyndi and I decided to inner-tube down the Willamette. We got a couple of truck sized inner-tubes and had someone drop us up river outside of town. We got into the water and proceeded to leisurely float back down to town. It was very warm on the river and it wasn't long before Cyndi decided to take off her shirt. We were in a rural area with no houses or buildings in site. I didn't even bring a shirt. We were relaxing drifting down the river on our inner-tubes when we came upon a man made barrier a portion of the river was flowing over. It had resulted in creating a small waterfall with about a 3 or 4 foot drop. Cyndi went around but I decided to try going over it. As I went over the man-made waterfall I got separated from my inner-tube. Once I plunged into the water below I was able to find and grab the inner-tube back. The water at the bottom of the waterfall was flowing back towards the barrier and was pushing me into it. It was sort of like a whirlpool. I got back on my inner-tube but was unable to paddle myself out. The current against me was just too strong. I tried multiple times with no success. Realizing I was not going to get free on the inner-tube I pushed it out to safety so that I could attempt to swim unencumbered by myself. I tried three or four times to swim out of it but failed to break through the water pushing against me each time. The current was too strong. Now I was worried and getting a little panicky. I began to regret throwing out the inner-tube as at least I could have easily stayed on that tube until I got some help. It was too late now though, I was stuck. I tried to calm myself down and take a little rest. I took some deep breaths while slowly treading water attempting to collect myself. I then made another effort giving it all I had. I got close but still couldn't manage to escape that darn current. Cyndi was by now a bit down river. She didn't even know I was stuck. I rested for a moment again.  Now pretty much in a state of panic I made another mad, sustained effort to free myself. I struggled for what seemed like many minutes (but was probably less than one) and I somehow managed to break free.

Relieved, I swam down to where my inner-tube had gotten to. I saw Cyndi a little ways up ahead and paddled forward to catch her. Still alive and hopefully a little wiser I continued floating down the river with Cyndi. As we approached town we were seeing people, houses, and other buildings. Cyndi, still topless, figured maybe she should put her t-shirt back on. Good idea but ut-oh, Houston we got a problem. Cyndi reached for her t-shirt and it was gone. Oops! Terrific, we were now in Eugene approaching our destination. No matter where we decided to get out we were going to have to walk a ways before we would find something to resolve Cyndi's condition. Alton Baker was our initial destination but it was on the other side of the river from where we and our friends lived. Plus it was a large and highly used family park. We opted to get out just before Skinner's Butte Park. It was on our side of the river and closer to cover. No one was around when we floated to shore and got to land but we were still going to have to walk into a residential and probably a commercial part of town as well. As I remember, I was more concerned about it than Cyndi seemed to be. In fact Cyndi didn't really seem to be too worried. I don't remember much about where we ended up going from there. Maybe we ran into somebody right away, maybe I just blotted it out of my mind and it will someday come out in therapy. In any case, we apparently didn't get stopped by the cops and we successfully got to safety. What I do remember is that what was supposed to be a nice relaxing afternoon on the river turned into a rather stressful experience. After all that I needed a beer or drugs or maybe both.

Later that summer Cyndi's parents came out for a visit. Cyndi had not informed them about our living arrangement so while they visited I moved into the basement. The basement, while not exactly finished, did have a bed, an end table with a couple of drawers, and some shelves that had probably once been used to store canned goods. Her parents had a few questions about me living in their cellar but, at least on the surface, they accepted the story. I'm pretty sure her parents knew we were going together. I recall that Cyd's father in particular, asked me lots of questions. Among other things he asked about what I was studying at Oregon and when I mentioned I was taking Computer Science classes he seemed impressed and mentioned what an up and coming field computer programming was and that there would be lots of employment opportunities. My response was something like “Wow, that's great” as I had no idea as to what kind of jobs were out there and had not even given much thought about what I was going to do once I was done with school. He gave me a puzzled look, which I realize now was appropriate. Any credibility I gained from being into computers was completely lost when he saw how clueless I was. Luckily they did not visit for long and I was able to move out of the basement and back into my room with Cyndi.

The fall term was starting up and while we were still all part of the same social circle and would continue to do things together. As the new school year progressed, we progressed as well finding new friends outside our inner circle.