Thankful for college beaux who helped me discover what really mattered in a man!!  This young man was named Dee - and he was lots of fun.  But he was a bit troubled in some areas - I was young and romantic, so I didn't see the flaws right away.  But he wasn't happy for me when I had the opportunity to go to school in France for a semester - wanted me to stay in Utah where he was - and Harry, while on his mission - was so encouraging about my adventures.  

The contrast was telling!!

"Enter to learn, go forth to serve!"

So grateful that I was encouraged to attend college - and that I graduated when I did - so that later on, that diploma could serve me well!

Sunday Night Thoughts

Harry's new High Council calling has him in the role of the new Seminary principal!!  I told him I loved the idea of being married to a principal!

I hadn't been to a Seminary graduation for several years - probably not since Noah's.  It made me think of my Seminary years - I'm sure they had a graduation - because I have a Seminary diploma.  But I'm thinking they handed them to us in Sacrament meeting maybe.

And of course, thinking about graduating from Seminary made me think of graduating from high school.  And thinking about graduating from high school made me think of going to college.  And thinking of going to college reminded me of what a great experience it was to live with and come to love some wonderful women.  Women who still stay in touch - not as much as I'd like - but then few are correspondents like I am - but when we do get together, the years melt away!

I guess I need to plan a reunion or something!

(I am getting together with some high school friends this month - and looking forward to it - I will report!!)

Meanwhile I will go get a glass of milk to go with the cookie I gave the mouse!

"In your Easter bonnet . . ."

Easter, 1964, BYU Heritage Halls. The suit was blue, the hat was cream colored. I thought I was so very tres chic!

And a year later, the pink linen a-line skimmer and matching babushka was also the height of fashion for yours truly. (My mom made the outfit and sent it to me as a surprise - Joy always got new clothes in the mail from her mom and to say I was envious is an understatement. So I was doubly thrilled by this turn of events!!)

I'll but you're just dying to see what I wear this year. I will post a photo - I am excited about this little number. Esme helped me choose it. (I have to tell this funny story - there were two dresses and I couldn't decide. Esme said, "My mom would just get them both!")

An anniversary of sorts

48 years ago this month I headed off for BYU! This is an old BYU i.d. card.

So many things were different then - everything was done by hand - computers may have existed, but they didn't do the registration. We all pooled our money and cooked meals together in Heritage Halls. We walked everywhere we went. The Wilkinson Center (always the Y Center to me!!) did not exist. Women wore skirts - pants were not allowed. And we wore hose to school - and they weren't pantyhose either - we had girdles to hold them up!!

But I suspect some things were the same. The sense of fun and adventure and trying something new. Meeting new people. Having great experiences. Staying up late studying. Hanging out in the library. Making friends for life.

Meeting your one and only!!

Ah, trust me - time flies!!!

The Way We Were!

I never want to forget these wonderful young women who were my college roommates.

Front to back, Marlene, Joy, Marcia, Barb - I guess Pat took the photo - Fall, 1964, Heritage Halls stream.

And I hope we can continue to be in contact with one another. We had a round robin letter for over 15 years, but even that "bit the dust" to quote a somewhat hackneyed idiom. Supposedly we were going to email - we even started a blog - but the communication is sporadic now. (Actually, sometimes the "letter" took over a year to go around, so that is actually pretty sporadic I suppose!)

Pat, Marlene, Marcia, Barb, Joy - Summer 1991

But last Saturday I got an email from Marcia - she is smack in the middle of the group in the photo above - and her daughter is a fan of Kacy's blog, and she had guessed that the Barbara Terrill in Kacy's post called "Momness" was her mom's old roommate, so Marcia was forwarding that info on to me - thinking that maybe I hadn't seen it.

It's still a small world - I don't ever want to forget that!

Lost - and still lost!

I think I posted some months back about a boy I knew in college and how I was wondering whatever became of him. At the time I couldn't find the one photo of him that I knew I had. So of course I found it the other day - while looking for something else, of course!!

This shot is from BYU Homecoming 1963. We went to the game together - that's me with Janet and Joy, two of my roommates - and John Johnson, the mystery boy. Can you believe how we wore skirts and hose to a homecoming game? And to let you know what a non-conformist John was, his sweatshirt stood out - the other males were in button-down shirts - even some ties - and of course blazers!!

John was from somewhere in Virginia. He introduced me to Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and the "real" Bob Dylan. He introduced me to folk music, the civil rights movement, and the burgeoning anti-war movement. He seemed to be on the "cutting edge" culturally. And I not only knew nothing about it all, it took me years to realize just how "cutting edge" he was. I wish I had taken him more seriously.

John was a superb dancer - he taught me a lot about that too - dancing as in the kind that went on at the Cannon Center Saturday Night Stomps anyway!

He's also the one who was friends with a certain apostle - we all three had a history class together - we'd sit at the back and carry on our own discussions as the professor droned on - it was world history of some era.

He was also on the same dorm floor as one of Marlene's friends from her hometown of Los Alamitos - so we saw him often at our apartment and elsewhere.

After my sophomore year, I stayed home before going to France. I never saw him on the BYU campus after that. Curtis was pretty sure he had not gone on a mission. And no one has any idea about him.

And how do you do a Facebook search for someone named John Johnson?

The Choices We Make

Harry left on his mission in February of 1965. He had a girlfriend when I met him, and he still had a girlfriend when he left. The girlfriend lived in Southern California and did not attend BYU. Harry came by our dorm to see me before he left for California to get ready to leave on his mission. In fact, we were on his motorcycle, and he drove it right up to the door of the dorm. I was sure I would never see him again. I told my roommate Joy that very fact. She scoffed and said I'd being seeing him again for sure, that the girlfriend would not wait. I said, "Who wouldn't wait for Harry?"

Dee and I at the Horne Hall Invitational Dance on April 10, 1965.

I soon started dating a friend of my other roommate Marcia. I think he started out with a crush on Marcia, but Marcia's boyfriend, who was on a mission in Alaska, was from this boy's hometown, so I guess he figured he couldn't really put the moves on her with very much impunity! And somehow he was attracted to me.

We had a good time together - he had some "issues," but I was young and pretty much dismissed them. We went hiking, on picnics, to visit his mom and family in Lehi, which was very much just a small spot in the road in those days, and we spent lots of time driving around and talking. He had a severely disabled friend who was wheelchair bound and he went with us lots of times. He was actually a lot of fun to be around too.

When summer came and I went home, Dee wrote me often - more than once a week. In those days, people really didn't call long-distance all that often - it was pretty expensive. In the midst of all these letters, letters from Harry started arriving from Peru, and then Bolivia. Since both young men were not in my vicinity, I was enjoying all the "attention" and not thinking about any repercussions.

At this time I also got the info on the BYU Study Abroad program in Grenoble, France and became nearly obsessed with going. My parents were not very encouraging, mainly because it just looked like a lot of money to them. I had an "iffy" job and wondered how I could pull off saving for Grenoble. Fortunately, I was offered another job, one that would enable me to save for France. It meant skipping fall semester and staying in Granada Hills until I left for France in January, but it seemed a small sacrifice. (Although when I went with my mom and Alice to deposit her at the dorms for her first semester at BYU, I was a little forlorn and wishing that I could indeed "have it all!")

Dee was livid when I told him I would not be coming back fall semester. And even more upset that I'd be gone spring semester also.

Harry was very excited about my trip to France. In fact, he was "stoked" to use his words. He was always encouraging as the months of working and saving money dragged along.

I attended a missionary homecoming in Lehi when we went up to take Alice. Marcia asked me to go along with her since it was a friend of her boyfriend. Dee was there too - and wouldn't talk to me. (On a parenthetical note, the returning elder was Scott Zimmerman - and he was reporting from the same mission where Harry was serving - and he had worked with Harry and had nothing but high praise for him.)

Of course you all know the end of this story. But I was just thinking about my rather poor judgment about boyfriends before Harry came along.

Or maybe I just had the good sense to get out of the picture when a poor choice came along!

A Prelude to Valentine's Day!

This is the Y Center. It will always be the Y Center to me - I'm not sure why they insisted on calling it the Wilkinson Center - the Y Center sounds so much more collegiate!! But they didn't ask me!!

The way it looked then!

But I digress - as I am wont to do on occasion!! I came across this dedicatory program for the Y Center - April 3, 1965 - and thought about how Harry and I met at the Y Center Grand Opening in September of 1964.

It's a bit odd to think that when I started at BYU in 1963, the Y Center was under construction. We used to have a BYU Bookstore in the basement of the then Joseph Smith Building - a building which has been replaced, although it's still called the Joseph Smith Building. The Cougareat was in the basement there too. I remember going down there a time or two, but it wasn't really a campus hub or anything. Heaps 'O Pizza was more of a hub than any building on campus! (I think Heaps is now the Brick Oven.)

Dances were held every Saturday night at Cannon Center - and we went every Saturday night too - that's where I first heard the Beatles in fact!!

Joy and I in our dorm room with our favorite mannequin.

Back to the Y Center Grand Opening though. We all went on Friday night for the weekend event. Harry - whom I didn't know at the time - came up and asked me to dance. The now immortalized dialogue went something like this: "Hey, we match. We should dance." (I was wearing a red sweater and Harry had on a burgundy blazer!) He was cute and so I said yes and we danced a couple of times. I didn't even remember his name although I thought he was very personable.

Next night the big doings were at the Y Center, not Cannon Center, so we all headed there. I saw Harry again and he came up like we were old friends and asked me to dance. I remembered him, but not his name!! I coyly pulled his ID card from his pocket and looked at it - but saw "Harry" and thought, "No young person is named Harry!" (I had a grandpa and an uncle named Harry!)


Harry's mission program photo

But then everyone who walked by said, "Hi Harry," or "How ya doin' Harry," so I figured that was his name!! After dancing for awhile, he suggested we go to the new snack bar for something to eat. We were sitting there and my cousin Pat walked by and said, "Hi Harry, what are you doing here?" Then she saw me and said, "Hi Barbara, how do you know this guy?"

Turned out Harry had been the home teaching (then called ward teaching) companion to my cousin Pat and her family in Covina. It is indeed a small world. When I saw my cousin later at my Uncle George's funeral in SLC, she said she was surprised and didn't know Harry was at BYU.

Later it turned out that Harry and I had an Astronomy class together, and we passed each other every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as he was leaving his French class and I was heading to my English class. Also turned out that he had been at BYU the Spring semester before and had observed me in my French lab all semester!! I was always goofing around with my good friend Linda Bang, so I had not observed him at all. Since he married me, I guess the impression wasn't too negative!

Ah, young love!!

And a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet now wouldn't it? But I'm still going to say that we met at the Y Center!

The things you find!

Have you ever heard someone say, "In thousands of years, scientists will find all the pull tabs from soda cans as they sift through the remains of previous civilizations - and will probably conclude that they were money?"

I wonder what someone would think in a hundred years about the old plastic sleeve for my BYU ID card? Of course now they are like credit cards - everything is. But that is bound to change too. Putting them in a plastic sleeve with your photo was high tech in my era.

I found it in a box with old yearbooks, valentines, certificates, and newspaper clippings. I guess I thought it was worth saving.

I really need to catalog all my scattered memorabilia.

Just as soon as I gather it up!!

Do it now!

I had a roommate named Marlene, whose last name started with a C also, so we would tell people we were fraternal twins!! (Back then, everything at BYU was done alphabetically.)

We divided up the kitchen chores - we pooled our money and took turns buying groceries and fixing dinner. We also took turns doing dishes. Marlene was in the habit of sitting on a kitchen chair after dinner, when it was her night to wash dishes, and saying, "I really need to get started." She'd sit there for quite a while before she finally did get started. Usually one of us took pity and came and at least kept her company so she'd feel motivated to get going.

Marlene graduated with a teaching credential, married and had 9 children, and is now on a mission with her husband - who is not the guy in the photo by the way. It is apparent that she learned how to get motivated to get things done!

She told us once that she'd put her kids to bed and then sit on the floor in the hall and read to all of them at once. She also said that the only way to get things done was to get up and start doing them - and not worry about showering and getting dressed before you got started.

I'm sure there are many methods we all have for getting things done in a timely manner. I personally seem to need a deadline - that is almost the only thing that works for me - at least consistently.

But that doesn't mean that I'm planning to give up trying to get organized so I can get things done in a more timely manner.

You will note that I have managed to post daily this new year.

But then blogging is not the problem.

Hmmm??!!

The beginnings of sisterhood in my life - but not the familial kind

This is a photo from Horne Hall, December 1963. We all got up at 5:00 a.m. to exchange gifts before we headed home for the holidays. My roomies in order: Joy, Judy, Marlene, me, Pat, and Janet.

I was thinking about the gifts that Pat gave each of us. I certainly don't remember what I gave people on that occasion, but I have never forgotten how Pat had gotten little, tiny glass figurines that represented each one of us - and then she wrote a poem about each one of us. I don't have the figurine anymore - but I think maybe the poem is somewhere in my "stuff." But I remember the first line,

"Here's Barb, with her chic new "double-bubble,"

Marlene wore her hair in a "double-bubble" which means she teased the bottom into a bubble. Then she teased the top into another bubble on top of it. It was indeed chic. And for someone who'd spent the last several years looking like Mary Martin in Peter Pan, it was quite a change for me to adopt the hair style.

Pat was a wonderful roommate - she was a couple of years older than us - she was a junior in fact - and she was hard-working and serious and so kind and helpful. And she washed her hair with Tide. (I tried it a couple of times, but it was pretty harsh, so I gave it up.) And she is the reason I was an English major.

Pat: What is your major?
Me: I don't know, maybe math?
Pat: Math is hard.
Me: Maybe French?
Pat: Language majors take more time.
Me: Maybe English?
Pat: Good choice.

As I think about the role of sisterhood in the lives of LDS women, I realize that I came to love other women the way I loved my sisters as I lived with these girls for two years at BYU. I was really learning about the sisterhood that is Relief Society, but I didn't know that then. And I'm not sure that the church or BYU even realized the role this played in shaping our future interactions in the church.

Women can be each other's best friends - or worst enemies. And Relief Society provides a divine forum for learning to become one another's best friends.

I will always be grateful for those college years of living, loving, and learning to grow together as women. It was a good training ground!

I felt that our Women's Conference today was a beautiful testimony of growing and learning together as women of God. And it all started way back when!!