UNIVERSITY YEARS

Eric and Jari and I moved to Eugene in the late summer of 1965.  We got a small apartment and I enrolled in the University of Oregon School of Architecture, a three year program after the two years I had already finished at the junior college in Bend.  It was difficult because I had two children in their teens dependent on me.

On one hand, I felt like Alice in Wonderland.  I discovered a whole magical new continent that I had never dreamed existed.  Except for my design talent, I had never thought that I might be good at anything–well other than sewing and dancing.  I couldn’t remember what I did in high school, except that I was lousy at typing, which seemed to be the all important thing for girls.  But from my first entering college in Bend, I got straight A’s in almost everything.  I found that I could write and did so well in English Composition that my first adviser wanted me to change my major to English.  He said there was no future for women in architecture.  When I got into the school of Architecture at the U of O, I continued to do well.  When I graduated, it was with a 3.45 grade point.  This was without any grade in design, an un-graded five hour course at which I actually excelled.  I was in a daze the whole time, because everything I did was so wonderfully exciting, so interesting, so compelling that I could hardly tear myself away.

But at home, I was the Wicked Witch.  I neglected my children.  I thought they were old enough to take care of themselves after school until I got home, but often I didn’t get home until late.  Time wise, architecture school is demanding.  If a student had only one set of equipment, and that set was at school, the student needed to be where the equipment was.  Since each student was provided with a large drafting table, it was practical to have one’s equipment at school and to work there.  Besides the drafting table, there were large work tables for drawing and making models.  I never even considered trying to cram these things into our tiny apartment.

About the middle of my first term Eric got tired of the Wicked Witch and went back to Metzger to live with his father.  Jari made friends with Stephanie Dole, the daughter of one of my professors, and they spent all their free time together.  This was fine until Jari stole Stephanie’s boy friend, Wayne.

No sooner had Eric left than Jari and Wayne decided to run away together.  They had been reading the bible.  They decided that if they really had faith, the universe would provide for them.  They started out on the afternoon of a very cold December day with nothing but the clothes on their backs, a bag of rice and a bible.  Their intent was to cross the Cascade Mountains in winter.  This was to “test their faith and make them strong.”  They would walk all the way, not accept any rides, and not travel on any main roads.  They spent the first night in a barn, where, in the early morning, the farmer found them and turned them over to the police.  Their faith had paid off.  The universe had provided for them.  I mean there were no barns at the top of the Cascade Range where the show was six feet deep and there were no back roads.

Meanwhile, back at the castle, the Wicked Witch came home to find that the princess had escaped from the tower.  She called Stephanie’s mother.  Stephanie was there, but extremely distraught.  She was no longer a friend of Jari’s because of Jari’s heinous betrayal of her by nabbing Wayne.  Stephanie was traumatized and heartbroken over losing both her boyfriend and her best friend.  The Wicked Witch called Wayne’s mother and any of Jari’s friends who’s telephone numbers she knew.  No one had seen Jari and Wayne.

Then the Wicked Witch CALLED THE POLICE.  They didn’t have any more to go on than she did. As the night progressed she became more and more frantic.  She wanted to go out searching the streets, but she was also afraid to leave the phone.  About three o’clock in the morning, after alternate bouts of crying and breath-stopping desperation, she suddenly realized that she was me.  I accepted the fact that I was the Wicked Witch and that Jari was probably dead.  For some weird reason when that thought came to me, I stopped crying and went to sleep.  Three hours later the police called.  Jari was in jail.  That was because she had lied to the police and told them she was eighteen.  I told them how old she was: fourteen.  They said I could come and get her.

From then until the end of that term was a continuing nightmare.  I had a huge presentation to get out: stacks of drawings and a model to finish.  Jari was permanently angry.  I had ruined her life by not letting her run away with Wayne.  When she would talk to me, her voice was heavily dripping with sarcasm and disdain.  I was getting severely tired.  I called the child help services, and Jari and I went there.  The woman counselor who saw us was not anything like me: conciliating, cajoling, threatening, guilty.  She was like a tiger.  She faced Jari and said, not kindly, “Alright, listen up!  You have two choices: ONE, you can behave yourself or TWO, you can be taken away from your mother and sent to a corrections school.  Take your pick.”  That was practically all she said.  After that, Jari almost never spoke to me, but she came home after school.  I was in a state of what seemed like permanent fatigue.  I stayed at school night after night until early in the morning getting my work done.

At the end of term I stayed up all night the night before my presentation, which was at nine in the morning.  This was normal for architecture students.  I gave my presentation; then I went home and went to bed.

My appointment for my end of term conference with my design professor, was the next morning: again at nine.  I knew I was not going to make it and I didn’t care.  I didn’t care if I had to take the whole term over again.  I cried myself to sleep from sheer exhaustion.

I slept all the rest of that day, got up, fixed dinner for Jari and me, went back to bed and slept all that night.  I awoke at about the same time I was due for my conference.  I felt very calm and rested and strangely solid and self contained.  I took a bath and fixed my hair.  I moved slowly.  I felt released.  I felt quietly happy.  I didn’t care if I missed my conference.  I didn’t feel threatened.  I got to school two hours late.  I walked into the architecture building.  There in the lobby was my presentation.  It was on display.  I walked into the conference room.  My design professor was Bill Kleinsasser.  He was in conference with a student, but he came over to talk with me.  He told me he was worried about me when I didn’t arrive on time.  He was even solicitous.  He said he could fit me in right then, if I would wait outside for just a minute.  He dismissed the other student, and even came out to escort me in.  It was a fairy tale conference.  I was queen for the day.  I didn’t try to explain why I hadn’t been at my appointment.  I was so quiet; I hardly said anything.  I could never remember being so relaxed–so completely complete.  Kleinsasser had nothing but good things to say about my work. I went home in a glow and slept all the rest of that day and the next night.

That was also the year I got a Dean’s Award for design.  I also got the Leon F. Culbertson Award.  It was a cash award.  My relationship with Eric and Jari had a happy ending too.  My college years were very hard on them, but I know of few families whose members are closer than ours are today.  We were made closer by the hard times we went through because we learned to talk about them and cry them through.