On Visiting My Old Apartment

The construction company and our maintenance people have been working on the left side (187) of the double-block where I used to live, up to a year ago when I moved across the street to here. Every so often, I drop in and see how they are doing; the place was pretty much a mess and they are fixing it up nicely. It will be home, however temporary, for some sports interns who are currently living on the right side (185). Most of our buildings are known by their street numbers – so, for example, I moved from 187 across the street to 190.

I lived in 187 twice; once recently, in the first floor front and, many years ago as a student, on the third floor middle. I had also lived, my first student year, at 149, a classroom and office building; I was on the sixth floor, rear, overlooking the inside of the place. One room was 11x11 with no bath; that was down the hall. I was the last student to live in 149, what had been, years earlier, a dorm -- I was also the only student living in the building now. As an older student, I was not going to live with the "just out of high school" crowd in the real dorm.

Much later, when I was working here, I lived at 133, the main dorm. Three years as a Resident Counselor on the 7th floor and 20 years up in a real small private "apartment" (ha ha) above the dorm floors in room 1103 or 1106, depending on the years.

That's seven difference places in what is a rather small college campus where most of the buildings are almost literally within throwing distance of each other.

Over the years, I've lived in a good many buildings of various types (including two barns in Massachusetts and an old estate manor house on the side of a mountain in Vermont). I've done radio in the Exide Battery building, the basement of an abandoned theater, a radio station at a dump, one in a bank and another that wasn't even on a street -- they invented a name for the sidewalk to use as an FCC address.

So I visited my old apartment at 187, without much feeling one way or the other. Been there for three years; four, if you count my student time on the third floor. Took my Donald Duck faceplate off the light switch in what had been my room and put the original plate back on; wished them a good day and came back here to 190.

That duck faceplate has been with me through several apartments. Where I go, it goes.