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| The Bunker - for rent; might leak a bit |
While visiting East Lansing this past weekend, I dropped by the residence I called home from 1988-1989; The Bunker. Don’t let that snazzy (insert sarcasm) paint job sway you. It was a dive. The basement bedrooms, especially the west end room Mark C. maintained, had a propensity to flood anytime it rained. The in-house washer and dryer, the big selling point on the house, rarely, if ever, worked. The carpet had to have been the original as it reverted back to its worn brown, dirty appearance usually a week or so after a cleaning.
With that, the way-back-machine today takes us back to the late 80’s when this scholar (cough, cough) was expanding his horizons. The story of college lodging; everybody has at least one story to share, good, bad or ugly.
We start in 1985 when young Tim headed up to Mt. Pleasant to learn about a future career in…..ummmm…..yeah, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life (still searching) but was going to live the fun life away from the parents for the first time. Having visited my siblings during their time in college, I had visions of the same kind of fun they had in their dorm experiences (read: parties). My dorm assignment was Carey Hall in The Towers; a co-ed dorm!!! On the surface, a co-ed dorm sounds like the deal of all deals. Girls living right next door! It was every adolescent kid’s dream; however, later you learn that girls can get quite ‘cattie’ with each other and where do they go when a roommate spat occurs? Yep, my room. Unless you want to talk about the football game over the weekend, I’m probably not your best person to vent. That and a splash of ADD and you might as well talk to the wall.
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| Carey Hall - CMU |
My roommate situation was interesting to say the least. I went in blind as while friends Al and Gus were also incoming Chippewas, I didn’t want to affect those friendships. I arrived that move-in day and found out my new roommate was a........ Resident Assistance?!?!? In other words, the Fun Police. Thankfully the RA was cool about the whole thing and I was able to move to a different room shortly thereafter. My first roommates were guitar player Pete from Warren, preppy boy Mike from Charlevoix with his chubby girlfriend Melissa (no silent loving for those two as she could squeak those bunk springs!!!) and 'average Joe‘ Joe from Owosso. Pete and Mike clashed a bit so Pete was soon replaced by Bill W. from Onekama. Bill and I shared the same addiction to sports. A good person and friend. I am sorry to report that while glancing at a newspaper about seven years ago, I came about an article from Traverse City regarding a crime of passion. Bill confronted his wife’s lover in a city parking lot, killed him, his wife and then took his own life. Sad news aside, the freshman year was great as we had a mix of sophomores on our floor showing us the ropes of beer soda pop smuggling. A lot of work getting that keg of beer soda pop up eight flights of stairs but when you are 17, you aren't thinking like that. You aren't thinking, period.
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| Western Islands (now named United Apts) |
My sophomore year up there was at the spacious (yep, more sarcasm) Western Island Apartments. The big sell on these were that you had your own bedroom. Granted the bedroom had just enough room for a twin bed and for the occupant to have just enough room to walk to the closet. As far as the kitchen, I've seen pop-up campers with larger areas. Frost free freezers I don't think existed as unless you had actual food to freeze, the incredible shrinking freezer resembled the north pole it had so much frost. The place served its purpose though. My roommates then were Ed from Belding, Todd from Burton and Mike from Sterling Heights; all of whom I met in Carey Hall. Good people. Some fun celebrations there; one of which had the landlord getting pretty mad at everyone. I am talking SERIOUS mad. He was a scary looking dude as I recall. He broke up that parking lot gathering quite quickly.
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| Hubbard Hall - MSU |
It was transition time my junior year as I had the silly idea of getting into the hotel/restaurant management field and East Lansing had one of the best programs in the country. That career vision didn’t last long, however, when I learned the previous summer on a working internship of how much weekend and holiday work it would entail. Bye bye hotel/restaurant, hello marketing/communications. My lodging that first year at State was back in the dorms in Hubbard Hall. As in Mt. Pleasant, I went in blind. No RA assignments this time but I wasn't expecting to be the mentor of my floor. Besides my roommate Steve, who had transferred in from a community college, my floor was all freshman. I was dubbed the 'Antichrist' by the young ones as I had my mullet raging back in '87 and was in my Iron Maiden/SERIOUS heavy metal phase. I went with it and watched about half of them drop out after the first semester due to having a little too much fun being away from Mom and Dad. I ended up on an upperclassman floor later in the semester when they heard I could play basketball pretty well and more or less recruited me to move to their floor. We came in second for the campus intramural championship.
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| summer of '88 place - Spartan Ave |
Because of my thirst for knowledge (and the fact I had to pick up some credits if I wanted to get out on time), I stayed in East Lansing for the summer. This lodging choice was probably the nicest of them all in my undergraduate tenure; surprisingly about three blocks down the street from the previously mentioned Bunker. Friends from Hubbard Hall rented it on a year lease, a room was available and I had one of the funnest summers I can recall. I got my GPA up, made some side money landscaping and had a great group of roommates. Roommate Mara had two mopeds that she let everyone use, no need to ask. They were a nice to have as I had more than my share of parking tickets near the Communication Arts Building. While technically residing on campus, the building could not have been further away from me on Spartan Ave. It was a solid 45 minute walk to get there. The mopeds were used for non-productivity as well. One night we had a pack of them going down Interstate 496 during the wee hours of the night/morning. Yep, we were stupid; but it was quite fun. Roommates John and Mary tried to take it up a notch the following week, taking the mopeds up to the Capitol in Lansing at night, saw an open door on the side, went in and.....got caught. Sleep it off behind bars kids! Lesson learned the hard way for those two.
After the summer of '88, it was down the street to The Bunker for the final push for the piece of paper, which I am happy to report I received. The Bunker wasn't pretty but it had character; and a smell of damp carpet. There is a 'for rent' sign on there right now but I'm going to pass this time.
Trail Head
If friend Slick ever recommends a band to see, go see that band. Last year it was Samantha Fish; last night it was Albert Cummings and there was no disappointment. Close your eyes and it was Stevie Ray Vaughn making that guitar cry. And that was Jim crying after learning that Raj locked Jim’s keys in his van……..”Thank you for calling AAA, how may we assist you today? Is that you Jim? Locked out again? We’ll be right there” All kidding aside, you can’t blame Jimmy “Keys” for this one and the fellas eventually got back in the van so all was well. I left after the first set as it was past this early riser’s bedtime but the guys tell me the second set was outstanding (of course it was better than the first; my luck, as always). 
