A SADDLE SHOES SUMMER [M, 7-8-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings and Memories of an Old Man—A COLLEGE TOWN SUMMER [M, 7-8-24]

 

I stayed in Bloomington the summer after my soph year at Indiana U. I probably could have made more money, living at home, working again at the Potter & Brumfield electrical relays factory in Princeton, but I was preaching on the Solsberry Circuit, which included Koleen and Mineral, and I needed to live close enough to do that.

Fortunately, I got a job with IU buildings and grounds [B&G], so that helped financially. On the other hand, I had to rent a room in a house near campus, and I had to eat out because my landlady forbade food in my room. I, of course, cheated, with fruit and such that did not need cooking, but I was careful not to leave evidence, like rinds or packages. Those I took with me when I left to go wash the windows of IU buildings.

That was not my only B&G job that summer. I went wherever the kindly George McClain, chief of maintenance, sent me, which was sometimes filling in for some building janitor who had a week’s vacation. But usually I washed windows, with a squeegee on the end of an aluminum pipe. The pipe was in sections. I could add more sections to get higher windows. There was also a water hose attached to the squeegee end. The host put water on the window, and I wiped it off with the rubber squeegee blade, careful not to leave streaks. Like washing the car windshield at a gas station.

Except it was difficult to maneuver because it was so heavy. Yes, aluminum was light, but by the time the pole was long enough to reach third floor windows, it was getting heavy, and unwieldy, and the hose was full of water. “Heavy water” is a technical term in physics, but the water in my window-washing hose also felt very heavy.

Mostly what I remember was that all the water cascaded down onto me. I was thoroughly soaked at the end of a window-washing day. There was a foreman guy with me, but he just stood out of reach of the water and criticized.

One night, just after it got dark, I was walking back to my room, across campus. I had finished a fill-in janitor shift at the music building. It was right beside the women’s quad.

There were four dorms, built around an open courtyard. I heard voices singing, so I went into the courtyard.

Several summer-school girls were sitting around, talking, occasionally breaking into song. It was the sort of scene I always dreamed of when I had yearned to go to college while a high schooler. I did not dream of going to classes and amassing knowledge. I dreamed about sitting around with girls in saddle shoes, the way college was portrayed in magazines.

I stopped and watched and listened. Connie Omoto invited me to sit with them.

Everyone knew Connie. It was a small college then, only 10 or 11 thousand students, so there were a few iconic students everyone recognized. Connie was very recognizable. She was exotic. From Hawaii. Very few IU students from so far away in those days. Too far to go home for the summer. She was too skinny to be glamorous, but she had smooth brown skin and that Polynesian look, so I was immediately in love.

When I joined in the singing, they decided it was better to just talk.

My love for Connie did not last long, for someone decided it was time to go in and study, and I never saw her again. I was so filled already with an enduring memory, though, that the next morning I eschewed the heel of my smuggled in loaf of Wonder Bread and went to Ladyman’s Café for breakfast.

I have always wondered about Connie. I hope she had a good life. I’m thankful that she helped me fulfill my fantasy about college.

But a couple of months later, I went to the Wesley Foundation one night as they were preparing for freshman orientation. Loyd Bates, the campus minister, asked me to fold program cards, sitting at a table with a pretty blond girl who was wearing saddle shoes…

John Robert McFarland