- This topic has 5 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 11 months ago by
.
- Posts
Alís Valencia was my roommate in Harvey House. We shared a double room. She was petite, soft-spoken, quiet, beautiful, and I would find out wicked smart in Physical Anthropology. I was very tall with red hair, freckles, and too much stuff. She had set up her side of the room before I arrived. It looked great with muted earth tones and a sense of easy style. My side of the room was tidy but covered with music concert posters, a couple of bobbleheads, and too much stuff.
When I walked in the room with my pink and orange flowered bedspread complete with pink and orange sheets – hey this was 1967- my first thought was why had I bothered to complete the roommate compatibility survey! I was afraid she wouldn’t like me or my stuff. I knew no one on campus. I wanted my roommate to be my first friend. Guess what? We became friends, supported each other, and found that we had more in common than we thought. We remained roommates for two years until she got married and I became and RA (resident assistant.) I carry those memories of early days in the dorms with me still….can you see me smiling? How about you?I will never forget the day I met my first roommate, Marcella Laddon, in those days known as Marcie. As soon as my parents said goodbye and walked down the hall, my new life began. I was nervous—looking back now, I realize I’d had a very protected childhood. Marcie opened my eyes to the possibilities of the ‘60s. Leather skirts, Janis Joplin, grass, sex, adventure, hitchhiking, and fearlessness. Marcy was way ahead of me. After two quarters, I moved into a single room down the hall.
Fast forward, we live a few miles apart in Santa Cruz where our lives regularly intersect. Marcie is cheerful, helpful, caring, and loyal. She sends me cheerful holiday cards and, of late, condolence cards upon the deaths of my brother, David, and mother, Judy. She’s helped me with projects for Crown College. I have regrets…I wish I’d been more ready for Marcie when I was 17. But I’m ready now.
Su, you certainly have a better memory than I! Yes, we became friends. Remember hitching to Carmel to see a British movie (I can’t remember the title, but I think it had a live birth scene) and the scary ride back to Santa Cruz with the guy who suggested that we might want to keep on going with him? (And our escape down the ivied side of the highway?) Then there was Petula Clark, Dionne Warwick and the soundtracks for Dr. Zhivago and A Man and a Woman. And the trip to the Stanford library (with Mike) for our research for an archaeology course, where I had no idea what we were doing. And a lot more….
My freshman & sophomore roommate at Crown was Geoff Wong. We are perhaps amongst very-few who knew each other before USCS and succesfully arranged to be roommates. Both years were at Gauss, but I think they moved our room and floor (3rd to 2nd?!) the second year. Geoff and I both attended Skyline High in Oakland CA and were in the Science Club. We both liked Chemistry, but Geoff far-outshown me: The American Chemical Society awarded him for experimentally-isolating(purifying) many elements as a senior. By contrast, my chem teacher, Mrs. Ballou, told me I “couldn’t see the forest for the trees” …nonetheless I got an ‘A’. Geoff & I got-along fine due to his tolerant spirit, but we were “The Odd Couple”. He was VERY neat (“sharp pencil, sharp mind”) …whereas I was(am) not. He arose early each morning … but my body-mind said “stay up late”. He smiled-bemusedly but didn’t scold me when the beer that I was fermenting in a big glass container (below my clothes hanging-above in the closet) exploded at 6am one morning …Of course I had to mop-up the mess and try to defumigate the room. After UCSC, Geoff and remained friends over the decades. I will write a separate “In Memoriam” for Geoff.
My junior year, Judy Totman & I represented UCSC on The Education Abroad Program in Lund Sweden, where I had my own room in a high-rise.
My senior year was in Leonardo with me and zany Steve Vincent in adjacent single-rooms with a common door. Adding to the conviviality was Pat McCormick across the narrow hallway. (Pat outdid me in his ability to sleep-in-late.)
–end.Over the course of four years in the dorms I had three roommates:
Initially, I was paired with John Jackson in Gauss #216, a match not made in heaven.
He was, shall we say, more socially advanced than his naive 17-year-old roommate (me),
and I remember one day coming back to the room where he was making out with someone,
as her infant sat on the bed as a bystander. On another occasion, with the ‘aroma’ of pot rife in the room (which I had to ask what it was), I decided a change was in order. He had made friends with someone more amenable to his lifestyle, and I switched with that guy, and moved in with Russ Regnery in room #203. We were opposite Jack Engstom and Geoff Wong in #204 (they moved to #303 the following year). Russ was much more studious and quiet and we got along well. Later in the year, Russ got a single room, and I was left with the double to myself.Second year, I moved to Maxwell House (3rd floor) and roomed with Mike Miller, whom I had met through Pat McCormick (who then lived opposite us) and some vague family connection, the details of which I don’t recall. Part way through the year, he too, departed, for off-campus housing, and once again I had a solo double room.
Junior and senior years, I had single rooms on Maxwell first floor.
The various dorms certainly had their own personalities – my experiences in Gauss and Maxwell could hardly have been more different.
Hi Toby,
Good to see your ‘meeting-my-roommate’ post. And thanks for the correction (Jack Engstom and Geoff Wong in #204 moved to #303 the following year) to my post (?3rd-to-2nd? floor the second year). Hope you are well. I’m fine in Danville CA at johnsengstrom@gmail.com & (925) 735-8878.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.