The College Roommate

I was the first member of my family to have a college roommate, and I didn't know what to make of them in 1952. About four years ago I looked up one of those roommates on the 'net to find out what had happened to him. Jack, a political radical, had married the girl he'd been dating. The Yankees had offered him a pitching contract, but he hadn't signed. Then he'd become an alcoholic. Finally he'd become a professor at a university. (Nearly all my old friends, I found out, none of them bookish, had become professors, which was downright odd.) Anyway, Jack and I exchanged a few emails, and then he went silent about three years ago. That's often how it goes when you look up someone from your distant pass. But yesterday I looked him up again and found out that he hadn't gone silent. He'd died.

One of my roommates my freshman year was a kindly political refugee from El Salvador. I didn't know what to make of that and now do not remember his name. My third roommate, Pete, was a local guy and a friend of Jack. My fourth roommate only lasted three weeks, and I don't remember his name either, but I remember what happened to him. For some reason he would not use our shower. He was intelligent and friendly but smelled pretty ripe. Finally Pete proposed that we get some other guys in the dorm to help us give him a shower. Where he'd gotten that idea I don't know. We all had different ideas about what it was like to live in a dorm and what the rules were. I knew little but did tell Pete that pushing someone into a shower was a bad idea. I told him no. About a week later maybe four or five guys stormed into our room, grabbed the offending freshman and rammed him into the shower (first taking off his watch, I think). I had not participated, but I hadn't stopped it, either. The next day the victim packed his bags and left college. I tried to talk him out of it, but his mind was made up.