In the fall of 1975 I left home as a new college graduate from California State University at Long Beach. My first destination was Washington State University in Pullman Washington where I began, initially, a Masters program. Eventually I converted to a combined Masters and PhD program only to have that plan fail miserably when the PhD program was canceled. Although I had been there for two years and had completed all but two courses for the PhD, I had not filed a PhD program because I had not yet completed the Masters. As a result, when the Dean said that he would stay only committed to PhD students who had a filed program, I found myself out of work, without a Masters degree.

The work that I had been doing was as a graduate teaching assistant, taking two classes and teaching two classes each term. The following year I was lucky enough to obtain full-time teaching at the University of Idaho, 8 miles across the border in Moscow Idaho, as last-minute replacement for a teacher who had a heart attack over the summer. When that assignment ended, I spent two years working in a restaurant/bar/disco, P.W. Hoseapple’s. Starting first as the Thursday night disc jockey, I worked my way up from waiter, to assistant manager, and finally general manager while moving from Thursday nights to the featured Friday and Saturday night spinner.

In preparation for being out of a primary job when the teaching job at UI ended, I began managing an apartment building for the price of rent and a small monthly stipend. Combined with the Hoseapple’s gig, I made what seemed like a LOT of money at the time. $1,000 a month at P.W.’s, free rent and $250.00 a month at the apartments. Single guy. Late nights. What a blast!

After counting profits for Hoseapple’s owner for a year and a half (I did the daily books),

and meeting (‘‘picked her up at the disco’’) and courting Cheryl (including a trip to San Francisco to meet mom and dad), I decided to return to school complete the Masters degree and continue in academics. A semester later I completed the MA. At my urging, Cheryl, who was selling jewelry at a local store when we met, went back to the University of Idaho and finished up the last couple of classes for her BS degree.

I found the MA graduation to be one of the most unfulfilling milestones in my life. First, when one is going on to the Ph.D, the masters degree is somewhat anti-climatic. The thesis was a lot of work—one doesn’t collect the degree just for showing up. I was satisfied that I’d finally finished the degree, even though it took 4 years for a 2-year program.

Additionally, the week before the graduation ceremony, Mount St. Helens blew it’s lid for the first time in over a century and a half and left us with dark skies, volcanic ash inches deep everywhere and feet deep in piles, unsure, for weeks, as to the degree that our health was at risk.

For a time, we didn’t know if it was safe to operate cars, so Cheryl was stuck in Moscow because I didn’t want to risk driving my car over from Pullman to get her. The ceremony was moved to a location on campus that wasn’t as covered in ash as was the original site. My parents cancelled their plans to drive up from Long Beach. In all, a most unsatisfying end to a far-too-drawn out degree.

I spent the next year living in Seattle, sitting in on classes at the University of Washington and managing an apartment building. I was unable to gain admission to UW (the chairman of the Communication Department there had a strong bias against graduate students from Washington State University), so applied to other schools. I received offers (admission and graduate teaching assistantship) from the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Oregon. So a year after I finished the MA, Cheryl and I were married and headed for four years of graduate school at the University of Oregon. While in the PhD program there, I taught classes each term, once again on the ‘‘teach two, take two’’ format.

After completing the PhD in 1985, I took a job as Basic Speech course director at Bradley University. We began, in Peoria, renting from my cousin Tim, the house owned by Aunt Corrine and Uncle Dave where I had visited during my post-high school adventure in 1971. Soon, there were 2 babies and a move to our first stab at home ownership, in West Peoria on the corner of Alice and St. Anthony. Soon enough, another 2 babies followed and precipitated a move to our second home purchase, head of the cul-de-sac on Newman Parkway in Peoria. Finally, just prior to 9-11, we moved to our current West Peoria digs on Dixon Ave.

When I retire in 6 years, I will have taught in University classrooms for over 43 years.

Over that time, I have maintained a relatively consistent approach to interactions with students. I try to be friendly while retaining a degree of professorial authority. Over the decades I have developed strong and lasting friendships with a large number of former students, now our alums. But generally, those relations are much less intense while the students are taking classes at Bradley. I have, over the years, had a number of students as academic advisees but I strongly resist serving in personal counseling functions for which I am not trained. I'm happy to provide career counseling for students about jobs in my fields of specialty.

I make a point to remain aloof from the personal lives of my students. From time to time, situations come up that find students seeking my advice over some aspect of their personal lives. When they come to me I am as helpful as possible. However, when they are interacting with each other I keep as great a distance as possible as, literally, ‘‘I do not want to know.’’

 

Now despite usually making every effort to ignore things that students say to each other, this saying caught my attention. In fact, I suspect that my head actually snapped back and to the side on hearing this comment. I knew the Kirsten and Kiley were fast friends who spent a lot of time together both on campus and off. Also, Kiley and I had joked around with each other a bit in a previous class; I knew her to be a particularly jovial person and I had served as her academic advisor. So I was somewhat more comfortable making a comment to her than I would be to some other students.

I looked at her and asked ‘‘what did you say?’’

Kiley got a somewhat sheepish look on her face, not totally taken aback but just a little nonplussed, and in a somewhat more quiet voice repeated ‘‘I've got her boyfriend’s shoes?’’

I shook my head, and said ‘‘I have to write that one down.’’ I made a quick note and then went back to preparing for class as the other students filed in. Kirsten and Kiley giggled a little and then went on chatting with each other as they settled into their seats and prepared for class. Nothing further was said that day.

We hold IM 350 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This exchange took place on a Tuesday. The next class day, Thursday, I returned to with a very rough recording of a new song, Give Back My Boyfriend’s Shoes. Although my treatment of it has evolved (and I hope improved vastly, as that first recording was miserable), the words and music are as I composed them after going home from class that Tuesday.

The voice in the song speaks as if it belongs to Kirsten but let’s be clear: The real Kirsten would never say these things, especially not to her good friend Kiley. And it was obvious in the context that Kiley was not announcing that she’d captured Kirsten’s boyfriend along with his shoes. Still, my less-than-kind interpretation of what happened next attributes these words to a woman in Kirsten’s place:

Give Back My Boyfriend’s Shoes: