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

Retired

  I retired this week. So, big lifestyle changes for me? Not so much. I retired on Thursday. My office had an amazing party for me on Wednesday, lots of food, lots of cards, lots of personal connections. Gifts too, I wish I had told them, no gifts. I really don’t need anything. But all this does make one feel appreciated. It also makes me feel appreciated that they want me to come back on a contractual basis every now and then to impart my institutional knowledge. It is always the case when someone retires, knowledge is lost to the organization. Things have to be relearned by the next generation. This is somewhat offset by the fact that the world is changing through advancing technology etc. So, the knowledge that the retiring person has might eventually become obsolete anyway. Better to go out while you are still on top. We have all seen professional athletes who stayed on well beyond their prime. It would have been better to go out while still on top. But it is a hard thing to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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

Darkness

  There was a moment when I discovered that l liked dark music. I do like dark music. I like minor keys and a haunting theme. I like other kinds of music too, but that darkness speaks to me in a special way. What does that say about me? Am I messed up? I don’t think so. Maybe I am just built that way that haunting tunes or lyrics imparts some inner truth to me. It resonates. I know precisely when I discovered this about myself. It was Summer of 1971. I was 12 years old. I was on a plane with my family heading to Illinois. Airplanes back then did not have much in the way of entertainment, but what they did have were headphones and music channels you could listen to. I was listening to a channel of popular current hits, and a song came on called “That’s the Way I Always Heard it Should Be” by Carly Simon. I had never heard of Carly Simon. This was before “Anticipation” and “You’re so Vain.” She was not yet famous. But this song came on and, I don’t know, it did something to me. It...
Post a Comment
Read more