A picture of a beautiful girl. My college roommate during my second year at Carthage. I went home with her after my sophomore year, home to spend the summer, in Oak Park, Illinois. It was the beginning of my love affair with Chicago and the end of my love affair with my fiancee'. Because I didn't want to leave. I got a job and an apartment and started dating a man from college who lived in Chicago. He is my first husband and the father of my son. He is the man I married saying, "Let's do it quick, before I change my mind."

I blame none of this on Char - the roommate. She disapproved of it all. Being engaged herownself to a man she met at Carthage, and therefore all for the engagement, marriage, happily ever after bit. I wonder if she made it. We lost touch.

She used to have me double-date with her and her boyfriend while we were in school - I was still engaged, but would go out with her boyfriend's best friend. I couldn't stand the guy, and fended off all advances with a bottle of booze. "Whoops! I need another drink." I can still remember the scratch of his five-o'clock shadow when he would grab me and kiss me (Char and her boyfriend being out of sight in the front seat - this was all there was to do for entertainment at the old Carthage). Ugh. Some things I truly wish I had never done.