Roommates

I think I'm on safe ground here, since I am in touch with only two (if you count my spouse) of my roommates through the years, and I don't believe any others have found this blog. One, I believe, is deceased. Donny, I apologize right now.

I grew up an only child. Still am, and since my parents are gone, I think I'm safe there. I had two cousins that lived within hailing distance for awhile, and two more that I saw some summers, and six more that I met when I was ten (give or take Peggy's birth year), but I was quite used to having my own room and not so much used to having others around who were on my level. I used to, when I was six or seven, have an occasional overnight with Joellen Peters, or with Ron Quimby. You could hit a golf ball through their windows from my house, and our parents were friends.

I went to Boy Scout Camp, Gardner Dam in north central Wisconsin, and our troop went on campouts to that site and others, and our DeMolay chapter took a couple road trips. But I seldom had to deal with anyone else's needs or stuff in my room - or tent - for more than a week until I went off to college (two miles from home). A sleepover, camping trip or the like was a treat, a special event, with late night conversations, fart contests in the dark, and other markers of something beyond the normal.

My first roommate in the true sense was Larry Nowlin, in our freshman year at Lawrence University. Larry was from Minneapolis. We went through an alcohol adjustment; Wisconsin served beer to 18 year olds in beer bars, and I had turned 18 during my senior year of high school. Minnesota didn't serve legally until 21, so Larry's experience was from house parties.
The first weekend, he blew chow in our wastebasket, and I cleaned it up. The second weekend, he blew chow in our wastebasket, and I left it for him. It didn't happen again.

We never really bonded, but we got along. Each of us tried to back off of our worst traits, and we each tried to enjoy something about the other. Larry liked my wall of Playboy foldouts, and we made up a scoring system for the darts we threw at that wall. We did have some plaster repair to do at the end of the year.

I've not seen or heard from, or of, Larry since then, but he left me with a particularly rude but high compliment which may be said of an especially lovely lady. I will answer individual inquiries, or I may just do a list of rude sayings to get them out of the moustache. Not tonight.

For the sophomore year, I moved into the Phi Kappa Tau house with Pete Aschoff, a friend from down the hall in the freshman year. Our room was about 9'x9', with two desks and two dressers. We began the year by trying to sleep in bunks on the "cold porch," which was just that, a room of six or seven bunk beds with no heat. By late October, we were on quilts on the floor of our tiny room. This wasn't bad, except for the night Pete brought back his girlfriend: I woke up folded neatly between the legs of my desk. For reasons related more to money and grades than to room issues, I moved home at Christmas.

While between colleges, I took an apartment with my childhood friend Bob Verhage. We got along all right, except for money and boundaries. I piled up his car at a drive-in; we subtracted the repair from what he owed me and it still took his girlfriend two years to goad him into paying off the debt of six months. After asking him to keep out of my stuff, I came home one day to find him wearing my best shirt and my only cufflinks (interesting fashion era), I went over the coffee table after him, perhaps my worst act of violence ever. Money and stuff... I moved home again.

My first lodging at UW-Milwaukee was in a rooming house. I had my own bedroom, and the several tenants shared a bath on the second floor and a kitchen in the basement. I almost never saw the other tenants, and only occasionally saw the resident landlord family, the Chuppas.

I stumbled across the ad seeking a roommate. Don Lee was looking for a fourth to move into a two-bedroom apartment in a large building on Milwaukee's East Side, not too far from campus. This turned out well. Mike Rockel and John Kiedrowski had one room; Don and I had the other. Mike and John kind of went their own ways, although we had some good group drunks. Don and I found our way into a friendship that is now at 36 years and counting. He stood up at our wedding, I stood up at his a few years later, and he and Helen, with their son Mark, joined us for dinner last Friday. I don't see him as often as I might like, but when we get together, there's not much need to fill in the gaps.

It was while I was in the apartment with Don that I met Wendy. After awhile, I had what amounted to two roommates at two addresses, and after a bit longer, things took their course and I found my long-term roommate.

So, to sum up, I've had two decent roommate experiences, one that went south for the usual; reasons, and two that have stuck. I guess that's a pretty good track record.