Having graduated from high school in May of 1952, I’d spent that summer working in the garden with Mother and helping her with the canning, working two or three afternoons at my part-time job at the Penney’s Store and helping with the miniature golf course in the evenings. All too soon, the summer was nearing its end and, one September morning, I helped pack my belongings into the family car for the trip to Iowa City and my new life as a college student.
Dad drove, of course, and Mother rode along. I had no idea where Iowa City was. I had never been farther east than Oskaloosa and had a lifelong history of being carsick when traveling more than forty miles from home. On that trip, however, I was too full of nervous anticipation for the dreaded carsickness to intrude on this new adventure.
We arrived at mid-morning, located Clinton Street and, after exploring a few blocks in the wrong direction, eventually located sorority houses, a dormitory and college girls swarming into a huge brick building – my home-to-be for the next four years. We were given a room key, directed to an elevator, and followed directions to Room 224 South, where the key was not necessary because the door was wide open and, inside was a dark-haired girl sitting on one of the beds and smoking a cigarette. “Hi,” she said, stubbing out the cigarette. “I’m Pat. You must be my roomie.”
After awkward introductions, we’d established that we were both freshmen, that I was from Knoxville and she from Nevada (pronounced Ne-vay-da,) a town I’d never heard of. Her mother ran a restaurant there and Dad said we were about to go find a restaurant in downtown Iowa City. Would she like to go with us? She declined and we found Reich’s, a family-style place with old wooden booths and rib-sticking German food – just the sort of hearty noon meal my dad approved of. After lunch, we went to one of the downtown banks and Dad deposited fifty dollars in a new checking account for me, then handed me a twenty-dollar bill, “Cigarette money,” he joked, probably because he was aware of, and a little uneasy about, the fact that I would be living with a girl who smoked, though he never dreamed that I might.
That afternoon after my parents had left and I’d unpacked and taken inventory of things I’d neglected to bring with me, I wandered downtown, found a drugstore where I bought soap, tissues and toothpaste and discovered they had a postal sub-station where I could buy stamps and cash checks. I’d been warned that the dorm wasn’t serving meals until the next day, so I wandered about the neighborhood on my way back to Currier Hall and discovered a hamburger place where I treated myself to what I considered an over-priced hamburger, but decided it was worth the extra cost. I later learned that Hamburg Inn was reputed to have the best burgers in town – maybe in the state.
We were required to be in our rooms at 10:30 each weekday night for bed-check (a requirement my parents had been relieved to learn about.) I spent most of that first evening alone, puttering at my desk and expecting Pat to put in an appearance. but I didn’t see her again until just minutes before bed-check. We lay awake until the gray arrival of dawn, talking in the dark and, eventually falling asleep – on our way to becoming life-long friends.
Before we knew the risks of smoking, Pat influenced me to try her unfiltered Pall Malls and I liked smoking. I discovered my carsickness had been caused by Dad smoking in the car, and after I began smoking, I was never again carsick. That spring, Pat’s fiance, Dave, came home from the Navy directly to Iowa City and, because Pat had a test she couldn’t miss, I was to meet him and show him to her classroom. He was a tall, handsome blond hunk – a dead ringer for a schoolmate of mine who turned out out to be his cousin. They were married that summer and a former high school classmate would soon become my new roommate and best friend.