Going to college

I remember when I graduated from high school my cousin Lavonne, from Lynden, was visiting. She'd hitchiked to California and then to Phoenix to visit me. I can remember her saying to me that she couldn't believe I wasn't more excited about graduation. I was kind of surprised myself, but I kept thinking how weird it was that it felt more like a beginning than an ending. Instead of being excited and happy about ending high school all I could think of was that I'd be going to Calvin soon.

It was nice that Beth and I were going together. It made it a little less scary to fly out there than if I'd been all on my own. That flight to college was my first airplane ride. When we got to Calvin I was impressed that the RAs (Resident Assistants) knew our names right when we walked in the door. I learned later that they all studied photos of the girls on their dorms so they'd know us right away. Pretty nice.

My first semester I worked hard to get good grades and hung out quite a bit with a girl named Susan. I was quite homesick and even talked to my mom and dad about not wanting to go back at Christmas. But when I went back for second semester I decided to have a little more fun and worry less about getting an A. Specifically I decided that B's were fine. And I also became friends with a girl down the hall named Gayle. Gayle was a very fun-loving girl and I thought if we became friends I'd have a lot of fun, and we did. We roomed together for the next 2 years.

Gayle was also very cute and attractive to guys. She always had guys asking her out. I had a date or two but not very much until I started going with Randy. It's funny how some girls get so many dates. Sometimes I'd look at those girls and wonder what it was -- and what they had that I didn't. I often blamed it on how tall it was, and I think that was definitely a factor, but there is more to it than that. Being cute and funny like Gayle was is certainly a part of it but I had another friend who was actually quite quiet, very soft-spoken, and she, too, had guys asking her out left and right. It's a mystery to me, really.

But anyway Gayle and I had great times. Once we walked all the way to IHops and ordered 3 desserts for dinner. We'd encourage each other to attend the campus church services by saying, "Fire up for church! Fire up for church!" We were silly.

In our sophomore year we roomed together and Sally B, the RA, was our suite mate. Sally was a ton of fun, too. She'd do anything for a laugh. Once there was a costume contest at Halloween and Sally wore her Dad's suit and one of those masks that covers your whole head. The mask was of a bum with a cigar in his mouth. When she was dressed up you absolutely had no idea who it was. She went to the contest and no one knew who she was. They did a thing kind of like walking a runway to judge the contestants and she walked the runway, then scratched her crotch. She won hands down.

I had a lot of good times with Cindy B in my college years, too. She came to Calvin halfway through my sophomore year. When I started living off-campus I lived with Cindy. We were good roommates, able to tolerate each others' habits and stuff, which isn't always easy. For a while I lived with Cindy and two other girls and did not get along well at all with one of them. But once Cindy and I found a place with just the two of us, it was good. We "froved" each other. That's what we'd say -- a combination of "friend" and "love". Once Cindy's brother heard us saying that and said, "Lesbe..friends." We'd often talk about our lack of dates and joke that we'd start a CRC Nunnery.