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Hello Eugene, I'm Home Photo by Andy I t was the fall of 1974 and I was back in Eugene. I had been dreaming and plotting to get here for what seemed like years. One of the main reasons I chose to attend the University of Oregon was I wanted to live in Eugene. This was going to be my home and in fact Eugene did become the first place other than my parents house that I thought of as home. Dottie was out of my system. Lisa certainly helped with that, but Donna was still with me. I still was holding on to my feelings for her. I still held our relationship up as the ideal with the thought that I would never have another like it again. I believed I was lucky to have experienced that kind of love once and the chances of it happening a second time were remote. I was now living in a house with four others on Hilyard street. (For those of you who are sensitive about these things – yes, I misspelled the street name it an earlier post,) . My roommates were Mary, the h...

The Facts of Life W hen I was young, like 9, my Mom, trying to be progressive, bought a book designed to teach children about the facts of life. This was in the 50's. My Mom had been brought up in a household that had Victorian type views on sex. The only sex advice my Mom received from her Mom was sex was something she had to submit to and endure as part of her wifely duties. It was in general a dirty, unpleasant, but necessary task. My Grandmother had never actually had sex herself. She was only repeating what she had been told. It had sounded so repulsive to her that she could never let herself engage in the act. She adopted two girls, one being my Mom. I can only imagine my Mom's surprise when she found out that sex was actually fun and pleasurable. After she was married my Grandmother asked my Mom what it was like and was appalled to find out my Mom actually enjoyed it. At this time I did not really know anything about sex. I had once overheard a fr...

Adjusting to College at Valparaiso Me at my desk with my Remington typewriter and the phonograph to the right that I once thought might be a typewriter (see blog post My Favorite Typewriter posted 5/29/17) - that's laundry drying in the foreground   I had graduated from Walt Whitman High School in June of 1967. At the time it was a highly rated school even if it was a public school. I expected college to be about the same as high school in difficulty. Much to my chagrin, I found that was not the case. College proved to be a bit eye-opening. On the academic side classes were difficult and came with high expectations. On the social front getting a decent date was even more difficult. E nglish was always one of me weaker subjects. Can't spell, not the greatest vocabulary, slow reader, etc. Once I got to Valparaiso I had to pass an English proficiency test; otherwise, I was going to have to take a class entitled Grammar 0. OK, it's bad enough you are ...

My Sister's Wedding, Connie's Vacation, and The Return to Eugene Babs giving the bridesmaid who missed rehearsal some of those 85 instructions 1974 is famous for two events. The Patty Hearst kidnapping that February and Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9th. His resignation was followed about a week later by an important event for our family, my sister's wedding. I was getting set to return to Eugene. I was busy the last couple of weeks visiting and saying goodbye to my friends in the Albany area. I had to be down on Long Island on Saturday in time to make the wedding. Right after the wedding I was going to head back out to Oregon. I stayed up late my last night in Watervliet and with just a few hours sleep drove down to Long Island early the next morning fully packed. Well it was early for me, but not as early as I had originally planned or had told my sister. When I arrived at the family home on Long Island my father and brother were...

Summer of 74 and Free Love I t was May, 1974 and I was back in Watervliet. I was still in the apartment but without Dottie. I found a job with Lathem Electric working in their warehouse. It paid pretty well although not as mush as Freihofer”s Bakery, but the bakery job would have been only for the summer and I needed a job right away. Lathem Electric was an electrical equipment wholesaler. It was a pleasant enough place and since it was working in a warehouse I could wear jeans and t-shirts to work, my favorite mode of dress. I am a total jeans and t-shirt kind of guy. I quickly became friends with one of the owner's sons who also worked in the warehouse. We would frequently have lunch in his van listening to Pink Floyd's “Dark Side of the Moon”. You likely can imagine what kind of lunch we were having... A fter Dottie left me my neighbor Angie, who lived in the apartment above me, hung out with me to commiserate and cheer me up. She had just recently ha...

Eugene Oregon Take One T he 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 cl...

Fall 1973 – Selecting a College and People of Color M y summer job at the bakery was over. At my previous Air Force Reserve weekend in August, my supervisors were asking me what school I would be going to in the fall. I explained that I really wanted to go to school out west but would have to wait a year till my reserve commitment was up. When they heard that, they told me that I could do the next years two weeks now and a few weekends in a row to complete my time. Then I could just go and they would handle all the paperwork. They would send me my release when my commitment was up. Wow! That was so nice. They actually liked me. They not only promoted me but they set it up so I could finish my commitment early. I suppose having to see me only two days a month helped. I am apparently more likable in small doses. It was too late for the Fall term but I could still apply for the coming Winter or Spring term depending on the school. I immediately applied to both UC Be...

Freihofer's Bakery: The Summer of 73 I t was the summer of 1973. Dottie was in our apartment in Watervliet but after the engagement episode I had moved out and was renting a place across the river in Troy. I graduated from Hudson Valley with an Associate in Arts degree. Most of my friends in the area were either schoolmates of Dottie's or non-students I had met in the area. I had made just two friends at Hudson Valley. One was Patty who I had met the first week of school. It was through her that I got a summer job at the Freihofer’s Bakery plant in Albany. Her connection was her Mother who was a full time employee there. In the summer the bakery's business would increase due to all the vacation spots in upstate New York, places like Lake George, Lake Champlain, the Finger Lakes, and Saratoga Springs. This was a union job so it paid very well. It started at $3.56 an hour. The minimum wage at the time was $1.85. Summer jobs generally did not pay much mor...

The Stock Market, Failure, and Forgiveness New York Stock Exchange Building close to where I ran into Donna's father I t was 1969 and I was back in New York after dropping out of school in Valparaiso and spending some time in Toronto looking into emigrating to Canada to avoid the draft. I had a job lined up there but I needed money to get across the border and attain legal status. I decided to get a job in New York. I found one with a company on the New York Stock Exchange. I was going to have to raise a minimum of five hundred dollars. I was hired by Asiel and Co, a stock and bond house with a seat on the NY Stock Market floor. They did more bonds than stocks. After a couple of weeks being a kind of gofer, I was promoted to a position titled “Buy-in Man” when the previous “Buy-in-Man” left for a job with another company. This position required me to match any bonds our clients or other companies called for (buy/sell) with bonds other NYC Stock Market compa...