Razing Memories

They tore it down today. I am so incredibly bummed it’s just silly. The air condition-less (at that time) dorm I mentioned in a previous post is no more. That old limestone monument to college days gone by is now just a pile of rubble. According to the experts it was decrepit & had to go – make room for the new style of housing the spoiled children need these days. I feel old. Well, I suppose to them I am old. I would’ve thought I was old if I saw me when I was in college.

Now it’s all about suites – adjoining rooms and a shared bathroom for too few students. How the heck are they supposed to get any character building done like that? We crammed clothes, shoes, pictures, makeup, hair products, cassette tapes (yes, cassette tapes), boom box, micro fan, illegal hot pot, overpriced school books, stuffed animals, ruffled bedspread, and high school memorabilia all into a room the size of your parents' bathroom. Plus - two twin beds, two creaky wooden desks, two creaky wooden chairs and a wall phone (no cell phones, no free long distance). I think there was a dresser too, but I’m not sure. There must’ve been because I don’t know where else we’d have kept our underwear. Funny how I can’t remember where I stored underwear in college. Anyway - You learned to live in cramped quarters and compromise without driving each other nuts. An excellent life lesson.

For two years my college buddies & I lived on the lowest level, otherwise known as “The Ghetto” and we were proud of it. Our doors were usually open & we’d wander in & out of rooms – staying to do homework, yak about boys/partying, or watch soap operas. It was usually necessary to leave your door open if you left to visit a Ghetto neighbor. This was so you could smell if the water boiled away in your illegal hot pot and the egg you were making started burning (or blew up).

You can end on that odoriferous note or read this one last mushy memory. Many evenings I ran up the stairs across from our room to the locked side door where my boyfriend (now husband) was banging on the door. Off we’d go in his illegally parked blue Grand Prix. The steps are gone. The heavy door is gone. So sad.

Photo by owner of illegally parked Grand Prix
(my dorm was behind him)