My College Roommate

Jerry on the left at my wedding

I had several college roommates. The first one looked like John Denver ("far out!"). Then there was Johnny Cook who eventually (secretly) quit going to classes to start working at a gas station. He'd leave dirty greasy fingerprints all over the walls and light fixtures.

But my favorite college roommate was Jerry who I'm still friends with, but rarely see (probably for good reason; the last time I invited him to go to a brewery, he nearly got thrown out for his usual "Jerryatrics."). But he was a good friend, my best friend in college.

There was a downside to palling around with Jerry, however. He was morbidly handsome. Everywhere we went, girls swooned over him. I never stood a chance. "You look like Mark Harmon," I heard all the time. Eventually I had to start hanging out with uglier guys to even the playing field.

But Jerry showed me the ropes at KU (i.e., the bars) as he had a prior year experience and we had many great times. So I tried to repay him in different ways. Once I gave him an old English paper of mine (I had got an "A") to which he copied word for word. Somehow the professor gave him a "D+." Weird. But Jerry being Jerry, he showed the professor my paper and demanded a regrade (apparently he wasn't worried about plagiarism). Eventually his dad got involved and all hell broke loose. I believe he flunked the course but stayed in school.

Another time, I came home for lunch and found Jerry panicking on another paper on a book he had read. I asked him what it was about and what he wanted to say about it. So I knocked it out for him over my lunch hour. This time he got a "B+". Not bad considering I'd not read the book.

Soon Jerry and I and our various comrades began taking spring break vacations to Florida and other notorious party spots. On one particular drunken night, the eight of us retired to our 12th floor room, bodies strewn everywhere. Jerry fell asleep out on the deck. When he awakened, he looked into the room and spotted me laying at a strange angle. Immediately he freaked out and thought someone had cut my head off. He started screaming at people down in the street to get help because someone cut my head off. Soon hotel security came with cops and another friend answered the door. They weren't happy. Mercifully, I retained my head and managed to sleep through the entire ordeal.

But the good times with Jerry outweighed the bad. And we were inseparable for years. Time and kids catch up to all of us as does the worst inevitable offender: adult responsibility.

Jerry Nowadays

As far as roommates went, Jerry was the best and I could definitely have done worse. Take my poor suffering brother, for instance. His first roommate at K-State was a guy with the unfortunate moniker of Spencer Pickle. They had stacked their beds bunk-bed style and Spencer kept my brother awake every night by shaking the bed while pursuing..um...self-pleasure. He'd yell "Spencer, cut it out!" Spencer did but would inevitably start whittling on his bed post. My bro had to go sleep in the break room on more than one occasion. Then there's my nephew. He got stuck with a crazy guy who doesn't talk, is rarely spotted, and goes to his room and cries out strange noises.

Nope, I was lucky to be roomed up with Jerry.

Speaking of Jerry, I co-opted his tragedy from high school for my book Tex, the Witch Boy. The character that's based on Jerry was run over in the school parking lot intentionally by a bully. Several of his fingers became detached and he had to have his hand wired up in the air for a long time, thus fooling many teachers into believing he was asking a question. All of this and more is detailed in my book, Tex the Witch Boy available here!