That was then...
Heck, I was still living at home with my parents.I had dutifully enrolled in the local community college and was pursuing a AS in Electrical technology. I passed two semester of physics, that was not easy stuff. But in my final semester, I would have to take calculus. I had put it off until last.
Around twenty, nearing it, several things changed. It all began with the use of marijuana and my sudden awareness that I needed to move away from home; that I didn't want a BS degree; that since age 8 I'd realized a dream, and I saw a way to make it a reality. At age 8 my aunt gave me Ray Bradbury's "R Is For Rocket". The short story it included called "Frost and Fire" had planted a seed in my mind that suddenly bloomed.
I became the evening custodian and the building I was assigned to was the Fine Arts Center. It was part of my plan based on "Frost and Fire". The Fine Arts building housed ceramics, photography, Painting, Drawing, English and Humanities. From 3 - 11 evenings, I kept the build going with one companion, a half and half Italian and Native American good-guy, joker, hard-worker, and watch-out! We split the building between us, where I had the top of three floors and half the basement - one and a half of the building.
Simultaneously I had moved in an apartment building just off-campus, the land-lord was an undertaker.I had my own apartment, shared the kitchen and bathroom per floor, all of two. My first plan was a woman named Debbie that I'd become close to. I remember bringing her there and then she was gone.
There was plenty of beer around as the drinking age was 18, and plenty of pot. So I was doing very well. Those were my times... as in my title.
Soon after I was at a party and I met this woman. It was a loud party and she was quite popular with the guys. In a few brief sentences we were friends and she said would give me a ride home. She did, dropped me off and drove away.
Once inside my apartment, it dawned on me, I knew her name and approximately where she lived, but I could have asked her for her phone number. Although today it might be considered "stalking", just as it was okay to drink at 18, it was okay to pick up the phone book and start calling. And eventually i got her number, and then I stopped. A week or more had passed, she wouldn't remember me, she didn't even know me, she just gave me a drive home.
And that's it... love doesn't happen (at least very successfully unless you're loaded) easily, but then it does, actually. We call it fate.
A friend, Kevin stopped over. A very good friend. I told him about how agonized I was - that I really felt something for her. But I couldn't do it.
He changed my mind with eight words, "if you don't call her, someone else will".
I called her. She invited me up for dinner with her parents. It was twenty miles and I didn't have a car. I had sold it, gave up driving, bought a ten-speed bike. Kevin said he could pick me up later but would not be able to bring me up there. So I walked.
I didn't hitch-hike, I walked the whole twenty miles, while a storm let loose overhead. It's a walk I'll never forget, around a lake. Rural and dark except with passing cars and headlights. I was twenty, walking twenty plus miles was nothing. Occasionally, that is.
I got there, we had dinner and that was our first date. Our second date we went out to dinner...
Sue was very good-looking, buxom, 5' 2', medium- long black hair, freckles and personality. She took courses at the college so was studying for a AA of Arts. She liked to paint, was great with ceramics, but she talked about Anthropology, and most interesting, she loved to fuck.
The rest is a blur - lovers in love... She lived at home so she had to be staying with me, but I don't remember. I could make something up but hey, it's true. Things didn't come into focus until we moved in together, rented our own house on a quiet street. We did our thing, I was working and as a benefit of the custodial job, tuition free. I ended up amassing 93 credits in those three years; to get an AA, AS I think it was around 50 credits. Most of the credits transferred when I got my BA, saved me a whole semester, done in a year and a half instead of two.
But back to Sue and me. We were in bliss for two really great years living there. Looking back, which I am, I'm 60, for the first time in my life (note to parents - not putting growing up with you down, it's simply just now I am in control) I felt happy, successful. For two years we fucked like rabbits. We were inseparable.
We had two problems. My mother and guys loved her, hit on her a lot. That's a lot of temptation. Regarding my mother, I can only be puzzled why I was never taught in school to stand on my own. My mother still had dominion over me and what I was doing to her was "playing house". Sue by the way is the only woman until then I'd brought home as a guest. It didn't go well. My mother was being abusive and it was affecting me; calls every 2 or three days. Guilt trips. Grow up!
It all fell apart... and pretty much that ends chapter one; something I've never been able to get past before now. That's hardly the end.
Heck, I was still living at home with my parents.I had dutifully enrolled in the local community college and was pursuing a AS in Electrical technology. I passed two semester of physics, that was not easy stuff. But in my final semester, I would have to take calculus. I had put it off until last.
Around twenty, nearing it, several things changed. It all began with the use of marijuana and my sudden awareness that I needed to move away from home; that I didn't want a BS degree; that since age 8 I'd realized a dream, and I saw a way to make it a reality. At age 8 my aunt gave me Ray Bradbury's "R Is For Rocket". The short story it included called "Frost and Fire" had planted a seed in my mind that suddenly bloomed.
I became the evening custodian and the building I was assigned to was the Fine Arts Center. It was part of my plan based on "Frost and Fire". The Fine Arts building housed ceramics, photography, Painting, Drawing, English and Humanities. From 3 - 11 evenings, I kept the build going with one companion, a half and half Italian and Native American good-guy, joker, hard-worker, and watch-out! We split the building between us, where I had the top of three floors and half the basement - one and a half of the building.
Simultaneously I had moved in an apartment building just off-campus, the land-lord was an undertaker.I had my own apartment, shared the kitchen and bathroom per floor, all of two. My first plan was a woman named Debbie that I'd become close to. I remember bringing her there and then she was gone.
There was plenty of beer around as the drinking age was 18, and plenty of pot. So I was doing very well. Those were my times... as in my title.
Soon after I was at a party and I met this woman. It was a loud party and she was quite popular with the guys. In a few brief sentences we were friends and she said would give me a ride home. She did, dropped me off and drove away.
Once inside my apartment, it dawned on me, I knew her name and approximately where she lived, but I could have asked her for her phone number. Although today it might be considered "stalking", just as it was okay to drink at 18, it was okay to pick up the phone book and start calling. And eventually i got her number, and then I stopped. A week or more had passed, she wouldn't remember me, she didn't even know me, she just gave me a drive home.
And that's it... love doesn't happen (at least very successfully unless you're loaded) easily, but then it does, actually. We call it fate.
A friend, Kevin stopped over. A very good friend. I told him about how agonized I was - that I really felt something for her. But I couldn't do it.
He changed my mind with eight words, "if you don't call her, someone else will".
I called her. She invited me up for dinner with her parents. It was twenty miles and I didn't have a car. I had sold it, gave up driving, bought a ten-speed bike. Kevin said he could pick me up later but would not be able to bring me up there. So I walked.
I didn't hitch-hike, I walked the whole twenty miles, while a storm let loose overhead. It's a walk I'll never forget, around a lake. Rural and dark except with passing cars and headlights. I was twenty, walking twenty plus miles was nothing. Occasionally, that is.
I got there, we had dinner and that was our first date. Our second date we went out to dinner...
Sue was very good-looking, buxom, 5' 2', medium- long black hair, freckles and personality. She took courses at the college so was studying for a AA of Arts. She liked to paint, was great with ceramics, but she talked about Anthropology, and most interesting, she loved to fuck.
The rest is a blur - lovers in love... She lived at home so she had to be staying with me, but I don't remember. I could make something up but hey, it's true. Things didn't come into focus until we moved in together, rented our own house on a quiet street. We did our thing, I was working and as a benefit of the custodial job, tuition free. I ended up amassing 93 credits in those three years; to get an AA, AS I think it was around 50 credits. Most of the credits transferred when I got my BA, saved me a whole semester, done in a year and a half instead of two.
But back to Sue and me. We were in bliss for two really great years living there. Looking back, which I am, I'm 60, for the first time in my life (note to parents - not putting growing up with you down, it's simply just now I am in control) I felt happy, successful. For two years we fucked like rabbits. We were inseparable.
We had two problems. My mother and guys loved her, hit on her a lot. That's a lot of temptation. Regarding my mother, I can only be puzzled why I was never taught in school to stand on my own. My mother still had dominion over me and what I was doing to her was "playing house". Sue by the way is the only woman until then I'd brought home as a guest. It didn't go well. My mother was being abusive and it was affecting me; calls every 2 or three days. Guilt trips. Grow up!
It all fell apart... and pretty much that ends chapter one; something I've never been able to get past before now. That's hardly the end.
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