Chapter 20: Academic Plans

And that’s how we spent the entire Christmas break. Some days I would go over to Jeana’s and we would fool around, other days I would pick her up, we’d goof off, and then go back to my apartment and fool around. Isn’t it just awful when you get in a rut like that? That first day at my apartment I told her what had happened at Christmas. Jeana was horrified, but for the first time really understood why I had to leave.

School started up again, though, and we had to cool it. It was back to no dates on weeknights, and only getting laid on weekends. Jeana’s birthday was in mid-January, so I made reservations for dinner and bought her a tennis bracelet to go with her necklace. That weekend her monthly visitor showed up again, so nothing much happened, but we still managed to fool around some.

Aunt Peg called me a few days after New Year’s. Suzie must have gotten her address, along with Aunt Nan’s. It was a bit curious, though. I think the two of them must have talked and decided that Aunt Peg, my godmother, would call me. First, she called Mom, which went over about as well as I expected. Then she called me. I didn’t go into too many details with her, but both she and Aunt Nan had witnessed Hamilton’s meltdown at Thanksgiving dinner.

She offered to let me move in with her, but I declined politely. They had a small three-bedroom bungalow, with all three bedrooms occupied. I would end up living in the basement of a house with a sump pump that ran 24/7, and when the power stopped, that basement got very damp. Once, during a hurricane, when the power was out for two days, they ended up with three feet of water down there! Besides, no way in the world did I want to move to Pikesville!

As promised, I went over to the Colosimo home the weekend after New Year’s and made Sunday dinner. I gave Jeana the ingredients list and her mother picked up what I needed. The fun was that I used Jeana as my galley slave and had her cook the meal, while I supervised. Jeana’s parents, especially her mother, found this hilarious. Coq au vin is simple to make. I cut the boneless chicken breasts in half, sliced up the ham and mushrooms, and measured out the spices and wine first, while I had Jeana get out all the skillets and pots and pans. Then I put Jeana to work. I had her dredge the chicken pieces in flour and sauté them, and then she added the ham, mushrooms, spices, and wine. We simmered that for about forty-five minutes, adding some water as needed to keep it from drying out and to make a nice gravy.

I also showed her how to make a Dijon sauce, and we had that over some steamed cauliflower. Add in some rolls and some rice to serve with the chicken. It’s all simple enough but requires the timing you only get through experience. Jeana was very proud to have made it, and her mother approved heartily, commenting that she couldn’t get her daughter to do anything in the kitchen! Jeana’s father was somewhat more suspicious of it all, or he was until I told him that the recipe was very similar to chicken saltimbocca, except the ham wasn’t prosciutto, and we left out the cheese. Once I told him there was an Italian version he quickly came around, which got smiles from both of the ladies. That must have been a recurring event.

The big doings in January occurred in school. I was college bound. As long as I was enrolled at Towson High and taking classes there, they would pay for me to go take classes over at Towson State. I signed up for a semester of calculus and a semester of physics. This proved tricky. I had my schedule from Towson High, and I would need to find classes which would fit into this schedule. Otherwise I would need to rearrange my high school schedule.

It was trickier than you might imagine. In the future, you would be able to schedule everything over the Internet. You could register, pick out classes, determine schedules, and so forth all by computer. Not in those days. You basically had to stand in long lines and do everything in person. I had already enrolled and pre-registered, and received a packet of information, but so had everybody else. I went over there early in the morning the day of registration, parked, and took my packet and found the line for A-B, and went to the end. By mid-morning I was at the head of the line. A registration person read over my paperwork and walked away to a massive table filled with boxes of computer punch cards. She fished out two punch cards, one for the physics section I wanted and another for the calculus section I wanted and handed them back to me. I was directed to another table and another line. In that line, I found that the physics section was already overbooked, and told to go back for another try. Supposedly they only issued enough punch cards for each class, but it always seemed that something went wrong.

That pretty much sucked, since I wanted to get both sections in the morning, along with the lectures, so I could do my other classes at Towson High in the afternoon. I argued a bit and was directed to a third table and yet another line. There was a higher-ranking professor type, who heard my story and nodded in understanding. He signed a slip giving me permission to take the class and sent me back to the second line again. It was after noon before I was out of there, and I considered myself lucky.

I also registered for the SAT test. I would take it in March. I had done well the last time around, and I expected to do even better this time.

What with college starting, high school continuing, and Jeana occupying all my free time, I decided to quit at Pot Springs Pizza. Yes, I was losing maybe $40 a week (minimum wage at the time was only $1.60 an hour) but I surprised myself in the stock market. 1972 was going to be the end of a great bull market. I was going to need to hire a tax accountant, for sure, and at the end of the year, sell almost everything and hunker down for a bit. My next major gambit was going to be when oil prices spiked next year, when the Arabs and Israelis went at it again, just like I told Dad once. As it was, if I didn’t get stupid, I would make enough in the market to pay for my independent lifestyle, make up what I had forked out, and still turn a tidy profit for the year.