Skip to main content

Pocatello Part 2

 


Having decided the next phase of my college would be at Idaho State University, I had to say goodbye to my friends and move to Pocatello. I coordinated this move with my parents. I got rid of stuff including my car as I didn’t fancy the idea of driving around in the snow in my Datsun 1200, and I could use the money. What I did not get rid of but couldn’t take with my I stored at my parent’s house (thank you, parents). Then my parents agreed to drive me the twelve-hour trip from Eugene to Pocatello (thank you again). My parents got a hotel room for themselves, but I would be staying at the track coach’s house along with the other incoming track and field refugees.

My parent’s hotel was called Bidwell’s and it was just off campus. They noticed that the owners of the hotel also owned an adjacent building that had apartments that they rented out. They told me about it. We checked them out and decided to take one. I was able to get out of my coach’s house fairly quickly then, but my mom was pretty savvy about noticing what an imposition it was having all these track athletes crashing at the house. She bought some flowers to give to the coach’s wife. Later Coach Quiller told me that had helped a lot. The implication was that those flowers were good for his marriage.

I bought a bicycle to get around town (at least during the non-snow months). I moved my meager belongings into the new apartment and said goodbye to my parents. I was on my own. This was a big change for me, leaving the comfortable confines of Eugene and all my friends. Apart from the coach and his wife, I did not know anyone within a 400-mile radius. But that would change. I would surely get to know my fellow track athletes quickly and eventually my classmates.

One of the first things I unpacked was my stereo. If anything was going to get me through the loneliness, it was music. I had a nice component system: A Pioneer receiver, a Marantz turntable, a Teac tape deck, and two big ESS speakers. My stereo was probably the most valuable thing I owned. Hey, a person has to have priorities. As soon as the stereo was set up, I turned it on. I probably played my new Pat Benatar album. Sometime that afternoon, I heard a knock at the door. A pretty woman with long dark hair smiled and introduced herself. She lived in the apartment above. She was surprised to learn that the previous tenants had moved out. She requested that I keep the music down after 9:00 at night because she had to work early before going to class. She asked me what classes I was taking, and we exchanged a few pleasantries before she went back up to her room. Wow! I met a girl! Her name was Joyce. Eventually I wound up marrying her. So that all worked out.

Feast or Famine

Star Liner

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu

My first experience with cyberpunk as a genre of science fiction was Neuromancer by William Gibson. Neuromancer was one of the early works that defined the cyberpunk genre. It was insanely influential. It won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award. But for me, it just did not resonate. I had a hard time visualizing the concepts. It left a bad taste in my mouth for cyberpunk. I mostly avoided the genre. Then a couple of years ago I read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson which is cyberpunk (although some people say it is a parody of cyberpunk). Whatever, I liked it. I recently picked up All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu and it immediately became apparent to me that this was cyberpunk. Julia Z is the main character, and I think this is going to be the start of a series following her. She is a hacker (hence cyberpunk). She has got herself in trouble and so she lives on the margins, barely making it. Then a lawyer asks her for her help. His wife has been kidnapped. The ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Walls Don't Work

  At the peak of the Roman Empire, the empire stretched from the Persian Gulf to Brittain, from northern Africa to southern Germany. But the great conquering emperors like Trajan learned that conquering land was easy compared to holding on to it.   In fact, Trajan’s successor, Hadrian, was known for shrinking the empire and consolidating Trajan’s gains into a more defensible set of holdings. This made him not popular among his generals who wanted glory and spoils. But he understood if you stretch yourself too thin, you can wind up with nothing. To consolidate the Empire’s holdings in Brittain, he had a wall constructed from Solway Firth to the Tyne River. Construction began in the year 122 AD. The Empire had never been able to subdue the highland Scottish tribes, so this wall (Hadrian’s Wall) divided the “barbarians from the Romans.” It was a solid piece of engineering with forts and towers scattered along it to keep the “barbarians” out. Hadrian’s successor, Antonius Pius...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Linear Nature of Time

    Go Go back Go back to the time before Before you did it Before they did it Before it was done to you Before the toast fell on the floor Before the catastrophe Before the mistake Before time’s scars Before   Go Go back Redeem it Rework it Fix it Go back   No you cannot Go back Star Liner
Post a Comment
Read more