Old Friends

In 1978, Toby and I moved to San Marcos, TX, to go to college at SWTSU. We lived in the married housing near the river – across from the campus. The married housing was made up of individual cellblocks of eight apartments each. We called them cellblocks because they were made of cinder block. They were actually old officer’s barracks from somewhere. There were four apartments on the bottom and four on the top of each unit. We lived in F building. It should have been called E for ethnic house. When we first moved in, there was a couple living upstairs who were Iranian and Colombian. They were never friendly and thought Americans were stupid (so why were they going to school in America?). The couple next door was from Taiwan. The couple behind us was a Hispanic guy from Del Rio and a Philippine girl. Then there was Alice and Tyrone Borelli. He was a German/Italian from the California. Alice had grown up in South Africa, but gone to school in Holland. There was also a black couple in the cellblock and one other Caucasian couple. It was an interesting time in our life.

When the Iranian/Colombian couple moved out at mid-term (I always wondered how she liked moving to Iran) Mike and Carolyn moved in. Mike was an Air Force brat and Carolyn was a good-ole girl from East Texas. The Ethnic House was a great place to live. We shared food, air-conditioners, TVs, and whatever else someone had that someone else needed. We had a great air conditioner. M and C had a great TV with cable. We often gathered in our air-conditioned apartment and then ran their cable connection out the window and into our house with their TV. Tyrone taught us to make Italian food. His wife could drink beer like I could drink water. The Mexican/Philippine couple also cooked some great meals. It was like our own little community.

We pretty much lost track of the whole bunch except for Carolyn. She and Mike divorced, but we have stayed in touch all of these years. Our children are grown, and we have both been to lots of places in our life, but our friendship has remained. Carolyn came to see us this weekend, and it was like old times. Pretty special!