goodbye Army...hello College

University of Illinois

       Things on the domestic front didn’t work out for Ruth and Me...and it was all my fault.  Three year old Kathy was marvelous and would be forever...but I just wasn’t ready for marriage.  I had just gone through two years of forced labor for my country and I needed some freedom...so we split.  I had the GI Bill for college so that beckoned.

      Ruth had a son Richard about nine months later and by that time I had moved on to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana.  Both Kate and Ric did well.  Not ever really knowing Richard has been the biggest disappointment of my life.

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        Talking about confinement...the University of Illinois is about as big as they come in “confining” thousands and thousands of students in the business of education

  I knew I would be leaving after the first semester as this just wasn’t for me.

     I walked into one class...French...and the instructor (just off the boat) opened with “there are 12 of you here...ten of you will fail!”

     Then as I rushed from the south end of campus to the far north end for my history class (ten minutes wasn’t enough time for that trek) a gentle old history professor announced the first day...no one will fail this course...most of you will get an “A” or “B”.

     And then...to make it a lock on getting out..in English most of our time would be spent on “spelling”.  Give me a break. this was a major university?  What a joke.

    So...I was there for one semester...just enough time to fall in love with the Homecoming Queen...brown hair and brown eyes (surprise!) and a knockout face to make her perfect: Sue Brunkow from Chicago.  Chicago girls have always gotten me!

   Alas...I had to admire her from afar...as I did with the Nun running the hospital in Chicago where I got my nose job...whose face was chiseled by God himself...and later with Julia, Meg, Sandra and Amber (but only as Joan of Arcadia.)

    I'm crazy about brunettes...but marry blondes.

    I remember my first crush. My cousin Jerry in St. Louis.  Mom and I visited her sister's family when I was in grade school and I've had a thing for Jerry my whole life.  

Brown hair, brown eyes.  She set the tone for my favorite girls and it's endured to this day.  

        She also gave me the cold shoulder the couple of times I saw her in later years.  Even at my Mother’s funeral in Paris, Illinois.  I don’t think she and her family liked my politics when they listened (infrequently I’m sure) to my nighttime talk show heard on WIL in St. Louis...that short time.

     Such is life.

my email:

stanmajor@aol.com