Part 9 — The Adventure Begins
Sunday, June 18, 1972
Paul helped Mom and me put away my things. He pointed out some of the furniture’s idiosyncrasies, making it easier to organize my things. “Is this an original Carry-Corder?” he asked as he took my cassette tape recorder out of one of the boxes.
“I think it’s like the third model Norelco made,” I replied. “The first one came out in 1963, just after Philips introduced the compact cassette. I got this one three years ago. It set us back fifty bucks, but I really wanted one.” Lowering my voice I added, “Mom didn’t think I needed it, but my dad died on Christmas Eve, and she got it for me for my birthday to help cheer me up.”
“Damn, I’m sorry to hear about your father. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose one of my parents or even one of my siblings.”
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?” I asked.
“One of each,” Paul answered, “a brother who’s quite a bit older than me, and a younger sister.”
Taking out an external speaker, Paul asked, “This go with the Carry-Corder?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I wanted a Norelco because it sounded way better than all the cheap Japanese imports, and it’s built to last, but music still sounds like crap with the built-in speaker. It sounds way better with headphones…”
“You mean these?” Paul asked, taking my headphones out of the box.
“Yeah, but it’s not always convenient to wear them. Listing to music with headphones while moving around means carrying the tape recorder with you, so I got the speaker for times like that. It doesn’t play the music in stereo and there’s still a lot of hiss, but at least the music sounds decent.”
“You know they have Dolby now. It gets rid of the hiss,” Paul pointed out.
“Yeah, and it gets rid of the music,” I countered. “We bought a tape deck for our stereo during the after-Christmas sales last year. Not that we could afford to spend much, but with a tape deck, you can record music to take on the go. The RadioShack in Glendale has an amazing selection of high-end stuff, and they have a room where you can try it all out in different combinations. I listened to several tape decks and chose the top model from Sony…”
“The one with auto-reverse?” Paul asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” I replied. “It sounded way better than any of the other models with Dolby, even with the hiss. It turns out it has the same signal-to-noise ratio, but it doesn’t distort the music. The salesman said Dolby’s working on something called Double Dolby, or Dolby C, that’s supposed to be much better, but I didn’t want to wait for it.”
“I only see three cassettes in here,” Paul noted as he took them out of the box, each one labeled by hand. “Do you have more in another box?”
“I’d planned to record my entire record collection. I’ve been buying a record a month for the last couple of years out of my allowance. I had a busy schedule and I ran outta time.”
“Carole King’s Tapestry,” he read aloud. “That’s a great one. The Carpenters? I can live with that. But what in crap is Jesus Christ Superstar?”
“It’s a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. This is the original version from London, but it’s on Broadway now. It’s not usually my kind of music, but I was in the choir in ninth grade, and we did a medley of songs from it for our spring concert.”
“That’s cool,” Paul responded. “I’ll look forward to listening to it.”
“Boys,” Mom interrupted. “I could use some help unloading this stuff.”
“Sorry. Mom,” I replied.
We made quick work of putting everything else away. By the time I finished, it was nearly 7:00 and I was starving. Echoing my thoughts, Mom asked, “It’s getting late; Paul, would you like to join Jeff and me for dinner?”
“Wouldn’t the two of you like to spend the time alone on your last night together?” Paul asked. “Jeff and I are gonna be together for the next six weeks.”
“But you still have to go out to eat,” I pointed out. “Is anything near here even open?” I asked.
“There’s the hospital cafeteria,” he related. “Everything else is on the other side of the river. I can go out with some of the other guys.”
“Nonsense,” Mom countered. “Everyone else has probably already left for dinner. You’ve helped us out. The least we can do is take you out for dinner.”
“Well when you put it that way,” Paul replied with a grin. Man, did he have the cutest dimples, but since when did I think a boy’s dimples were cute? There was no denying it though. Paul was adorable. Very masculine, but adorable.
“I guess I’d better change into something more presentable,” Paul said as he pulled off his shirt. The sight of him shirtless nearly took my breath away. I felt my heart flutter in my chest. I’d never felt that way before, but why?
“I’d better give you boys some privacy,” Mom decided. “I’ll use the ladies’ room downstairs and meet you in the lobby.”
After she left, Paul dropped his cutoffs, leaving him only in his tighty-whities. I guess he noticed I was staring, as he got an even bigger grin on his face and actually giggled.
Dropping my eyes, I said, “I better hit the restroom before we leave.”
“Give me a sec and I’ll show you where it is,” Paul replied as he pulled on a dark green polo that really accentuated the color of his eyes. Donning a pair of black socks, khakis and a belt, he pulled on a pair of white sneakers. As he was dressed similarly to me, I decided there was no need to change to a pair of dress shoes.
Walking out of the room together, Paul took out a key and locked the door behind us. Following him halfway down the hallway, we came to a pair of open doorways on one side with right-angle turns that obscured the view inside. Both were labeled ‘Men’.
“I guess most of the floors are co-ed,” Paul explained, “so there are two restrooms on every floor. The one on the left has only stalls. The one on the right has only a few stalls and mostly urinals. I think maybe the reason the SSTP girls are across the river is ’cause they can’t use the urinals,” he added with a laugh.
“And I thought it was ’cause they were afraid we’d have sex,” I replied with a laugh of my own.
“That would happen regardless, if it’s gonna happen,” Paul responded. “They might have let us have co-ed floors, but our parents would’ve objected.”
“Beyond a doubt,” I agreed.
Following Paul into the door on the right, there was a row of urinals along one wall with a few stalls at the end. A partial wall in the center had sinks on both sides, and on the opposite wall was a series of shower stalls. Each shower was divided from the others and there was a curtain in front of each, with enough room for dressing and undressing. I was glad to see that the showers weren’t communal.
Paul walked up to one of the urinals, and I took the one next to his, but then I had a problem, especially after he unzipped and pulled his dick out. Noticing I had yet to unzip as he finished his business, he laughed and said, “Don’t worry about it. Boners happen, even in older guys like you.”
“Older my ass,” I replied.
Flushing, he said, “Take your time. I’ll wait for you outside.” He washed his hands at one of the sinks and then left. I had no trouble going after that.
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Paul and I learned a lot about each other at dinner as my mom did her best to grill our guest. I leaned that Paul lived with his parents and little sister in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Council Bluffs, which was directly across the Missouri River from Omaha. His mother was an attorney and his father was a science teacher in the Lewis Central School District, which explained a lot about Paul’s interests.
“Thanks again for dinner,” Paul exclaimed as Mom dropped us off in front of the dorm. Mom had taken us to the restaurant at the Howard Johnson, where she was staying. Getting out of the car as well, Mom hugged me tightly before releasing me. She then embarrassed me by saying, “Don’t forget to hand in the tuition payment.”
“I won’t, Mom,” I promised.
“And don’t forget to take your allergy serum to Student Health. Do it tomorrow morning if you can. Remember, it has to be refrigerated by Wednesday at the latest.”
“Yes, I know that, Mom. I won’t forget,” I assured her.
“And don’t forget to sign up for phone service,” Mom added. “It doesn’t cost that much, and I’ll reimburse you for it.”
“We’ll split the cost,” Paul chimed in. “I already promised my parents I’d get it too.”
“Call me collect tomorrow night,” Mom went on. “I want to hear from you at least once a week.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I promised. “The long-distance rates for me to call you are half as much, ’cause the university uses a third-party carrier, so there’s no need to call collect so you can call me back. You can pay me back later.”
“Be sure to call me every week,” Mom reiterated.
“I will, I promise,” I related.
Finally, Mom got back in my car and drove off.
“This your first time away from home?” Paul asked.
“Is it that obvious?” I asked in return.
“Only from your mother’s reaction,” he replied. “I’ve been going away to camp every summer since I was eight, so my parents are used to it by now. Let’s go inside and see what’s happening.”
Paul pushed the elevator button for the fourth floor, and so I said, “We’re on three.”
“I know, but I’ve made some friends on the fourth floor. I’d like to introduce you.”
We got off the elevator and walked almost all the way down the hall. As we got near the end of the hall, where the lounge with the TV was located, I realized the music I’d been hearing was coming from one of the rooms and not from the lounge. We walked right into the room from which the music came. Inside were four boys, all of whom looked to be sixteen or seventeen.
“Hey guys,” Paul began. “I’d like you to meet my roommate, Jeff.
“Jeff, this is Larry…” A boy with shaggy blond hair, wearing jeans and a ratty t-shirt stepped forward and said, “Hey,” and shook my hand.
“…and Kyle…” A boy with short black hair stepped forward and shook my hand without saying anything. He was dressed in a button-up shirt and khakis.
“…and Gary…” An overweight boy with medium-length, wavy hair not unlike my own, and wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt stepped forward, smiled and said, “Hi,” and shook my hand.
“…Gary’s one of the residents of this room,” Paul went on, “and the guy in the corner and purveyor of music is Greg.”
Greg was in the corner by the window, where a complete stereo system was set up. He was in the process of changing the record, so I just waved at him and said, “Hi Greg.”
“Hey,” he said as he lowered the tonearm of his record player onto a record. Soon blaring horns sounded as a melody that sounded familiar filled the room. As Greg put the album cover away, I noted a sort of criss-cross blue design on the cover with the name “Tommy” in big bold capital letters at the top and in lower case letters, ‘the who’ just below it.
I really liked the music and could remember hearing it before on the radio, but as a song with words. The music was loud enough to make talking difficult, but not loud enough to disturb others. However, apparently it was loud enough to draw the attention of the floor supervisor. There was a knock on the door and standing there was a youngish man — maybe about thirty — and he didn’t look happy.
“Boys, it’s time to pack it in for the night. As you’ve undoubtedly read in the handbook that came with your packet,” he said with a hint of sarcasm, “there’s a strict curfew at 10:00, Sunday through Thursday nights. It’s now Sunday night and the time according to the International Bureau of Standards,” he added as he held up his watch, “is 10:27. You’re restricted to your own rooms and the restrooms only. You can read in your own rooms, but I’d strongly advise getting some sleep.
“As you’ve undoubtedly noted from the schedule included with your packets, there’s a mandatory meeting of all SSTP participants in Schaeffer Hall at 7:30 sharp. That’s a fifteen to twenty-minute, brisk walk from here, and you need to get your breakfast first unless you want to go without it. I suggest you get to breakfast no later than 6:30 if you want to have more than five minutes to eat it. There’s a tunnel that connects the ground floor of this building with that of Rienow I and the Quadrangle. Breakfast is served in the Quadrangle cafeteria.
“I’ll see all of you tomorrow at 7:30 in Schaeffer Hall,” he concluded before departing.
Greg took the tonearm off the record, stopped the record and put it away. In the meantime, Larry said, “Catch you guys in the AM at 6:20 downstairs?”
“For sure,” Gary said.
“Count on it,” Paul chimed in.
With that, Larry and Kyle headed down the hall and Paul and I took the stairs to the third floor.
When we got inside our room, Paul said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely not a morning person.”
“Me either,” I agreed. “Not by a long shot.”
“I’m gonna take my shower now, so I can get up at 6:10, throw on my clothes and brush my teeth before heading to breakfast.
“I usually shower at night too,” I related, “but I need a bit more time in the morning. I hafta shave and unlike you, I need to fix my hair, so I’ll get up at 6:00.”
“It’ll be a while before I need to shave,” Paul responded. “Maybe not until I graduate from college, he added with a laugh. “And as for my hair, no matter how much I brush, comb or style it, it still comes out looking like this,” he said with his adorable grin.
Then without any hesitation, he stripped off his shirt, toed off his shoes, pulled off his belt, dropped his pants, pulled off his socks and dropped his tighty-whities, leaving him completely in the nude, although I only saw his back side. He dropped his socks and underwear into a laundry bag and put his shirt, khakis, sneakers and belt away. Grabbing a robe and a towel from his closet and some soap, shampoo, conditioner and deodorant from a shelf, he turned around and asked, “Aren’t you gonna shower?”
Laughing, I replied, “I’m not used to sharing a room with anyone else. I was a bit surprised by how casually you undressed in front of me.”
“When you go to summer camp, you’re in a cabin with maybe a dozen other boys, and you can’t help but see it all. In fact, you get used to going nude outdoors to walk to the showers. It’s no big deal. You might as well get used to it, Jeff. We’re probably gonna see each other in the altogether a lot over the next six weeks.”
“What do you usually wear to bed?” I asked.
“I brought pajamas with me, just like you did, but I only brought them in case I got stuck with a prude for a roommate. I hope that’s not you. At home, I sleep in the nude.”
“Same here,” I replied, and that’s fine with me,” I replied. “We might want to keep that to ourselves, though.”
“Definitely,” Paul agreed. “Wouldn’t want to start any rumors, now would we?”
“For sure,” I chimed in.
“I’m heading to the shower,” Paul said and then left the room.
I wasted no time in stripping out of my clothes and putting them away. Donning my robe and grabbing my things, I headed to the restrooms, where I heard a few of the showers running. There was one that wasn’t running but had the curtain closed and as I passed it, the curtain was suddenly pulled open to reveal Paul, in the nude, toweling his hair dry. He grinned at me as he sprayed on his deodorant and then he donned his robe and left.
I grabbed one of the other open shower stalls and quickly shampooed my hair, washed and dried myself. After applying my deodorant, I donned my robe and only then did I open the shower curtain. When I returned to the room, Paul was in bed, facing the door and reading a book by the light of the bedside lamp. His torso was clearly bare, as I presumed was the rest of him.
For the first time in my life, I did something I’d never done before outside of gym class. I removed my robe and was naked in front of another boy. I hung up my robe, got under the covers, set my alarm clock and turned out the light. “Good night, Paul, I said.”
“Good night, Jeff,” Paul said before he closed and put aside his book and turned out his light.
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Monday, June 19, 1972
The alarm clock sounded way too early, but then I’d often gotten by on less than seven hours of sleep on school nights. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day. Seriously, I read that NASA had done experiments studying the effects of prolonged spaceflight. There is no day and night in space, so they put volunteers in complete isolation and let them establish their own circadian rhythm, free of external clues. After a while, most participants assumed a 26-hour day.
I plodded over to the sink, still in the nude, washed my face, then lathered up and shaved. I applied an acne cream that helped keep the zits away, wet my hair, applied the styling gel I liked, plugged in my blow-dryer and brushed my hair while I dried it.
“What a fuckin’ awful way to be woken up,” Paul mumbled as he walked up to the sink.
Switching off the blow dryer, I said in fake surprise, “You said fuck!”
“Who the fuck’s gonna stop me?” Paul asked, and then we both giggled.
It was then that I noticed we were both hard. Seeing where I was looking, Paul said, “Hey, like I said yesterday, boners happen. Even when I was eight at camp, we all had morning wood. We had communal urinals that were more like a trough, and we had sword fights with our piss.”
“Please don’t mention pissing,” I responded. “I really hafta go!”
“Me too,” Paul chimed in. “Let’s hurry up and get dressed so we can!”
We brushed our teeth side by side at the sink. Fortunately, Paul was left-handed, and I was right-handed, so we didn’t bang elbows with each other. We quickly got dressed. Because I was meeting my mentor for the first time, I donned a dressy button-up shirt, grey slacks and black dress shoes. Paul dressed similarly. After making our beds and stopping in the restroom, we each grabbed our admission packets and ran down the stairs meeting our four friends as they got off the elevator.
How strange it was to have friends, and so soon after getting here. I was painfully shy when it came to meeting strangers. It was only because of Paul’s outgoing nature that I met these guys. We said good morning to each other and headed into the tunnel, emerging on the ground floor of our sister tower, Rienow I, where we merged into a stream of students, most of them older than us. We continued on to the Quadrangle Hall cafeteria. Noticing that everyone was picking up a skimpy newspaper from a stack of them, we did likewise.
The paper was called The Daily Iowan, and the byline stated it was ‘The Independent Newspaper of the University of Iowa Community Since 1868’. It was cool that the newspaper was free to us, or perhaps it was included as part of our room and board. In either case, it was nice to know I’d be able to keep up with the news.
We only had to show our student ID cards to gain entrance to the cafeteria line. I guess one of the symbols on the front of the card indicated we were entitled to breakfast. There was a large selection of breakfast items with no limit on what we could take. I grabbed a bowl of oatmeal, some scrambled eggs and bacon. Paul took a bowl of oatmeal and a toasted bagel with cream cheese.
I was surprised when Paul reached for a teabag of Earl Grey at the same time I did. Not many people I knew even had an idea what Earl Grey tea was, let alone had a preference for it. The rest of our group all got coffee. Finding an open table for six, we set our trays down and began to eat.
“So what’s in this paper?” Larry asked.
“It seems to be a real daily newspaper,” Gary said. “There’s local and national news, along with university news.”
“The front page is mostly about the Democratic presidential primaries and the upcoming convention,” Paul noted. My friends were actually reading the paper. This wasn’t conversation typical for a group of my peers, but then I guess we weren’t a typical group of teens. That we were all interested in current events boded well for our friendship. Paul had befriended a great group of guys.
“It looks like McGovern will have the nomination all sewn up by tomorrow,” Paul continued. “’Course it won’t be official before Miami.”
“I have mixed feelings about that,” I responded. “No doubt about it — the war needs to end, but saying you’re gonna go to Hanoi to beg forgiveness doesn’t exactly sound like a good negotiating strategy. My fear is that choosing McGovern will just about ensure Nixon’s reelection.”
“Other than the war, that’s not entirely a bad thing,” Greg countered. “Around here, Nixon’s very popular.”
“In Indiana too,” I chimed in.
“In the entire Midwest and the South,” Kyle agreed.
“The fact is that other than the war in Vietnam, Nixon hasn’t done a bad job. He opened China. He tackled inflation…”
“Most economists would disagree with that,” Kyle interrupted. “They say you can’t legislate the size of the economy. Once wage and price controls are removed, they’ll both rebound. Inflation will only get worse.”
“Guys, did you see this article on the Watergate break-in?” Paul asked.
“What’s a watergate?” I asked.
“Where have you been?” Gary exclaimed.
“Um, driving here with my mom from Indianapolis via Michigan, Ontario and Wisconsin,” I explained.
“Okay, I guess we can forgive you then,” Paul replied. “There was a break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel in the early morning of June 17. A security guard noticed pieces of tape on several doors leading from the parking garage in the Watergate Complex to the group of offices where the DNC headquarters were located. The tape kept the doors from latching shut and locking. Thinking nothing of it, he removed the tape, only to find it had been reapplied when he went back later. Realizing something was up, he called the D.C. police.
“The police sent an unmarked car with plain-clothed officers, who apprehended four burglars inside the DNC office suite. The burglars were caught in the process of installing bugs and photographing documents. In short, it wasn’t a typical burglary.”
“According to this article, the police found an entry in the address book of one of the burglars for an E. Howard Hunt, who has mysterious government credentials, possibly with the CIA,” Kyle added.
“Guys, any kind of espionage in the offices of a political party must be suspect,” Paul exclaimed. “For a CIA operative to be involved in something like this on American soil? That could only happen at the behest of the White House.”
“Somehow, that didn’t sound right coming from someone who could be my kid brother,” Larry exclaimed.
“And you’re upset because your kid brother’s smarter than you?” Kyle chided his friend.
“Not at all,” Larry replied.
“Age isn’t important at all,” I chimed in. “Let’s face it, we’re all ahead of the curve. Paul’s just operating on a whole other curve is all.”
“Why thank you, Jeff,” Paul responded with his adorable grin.
“Guys, we need to get a move-on,” Greg said, noting the time.
We quickly finished our breakfasts, disposed of our trays and headed outside to find our way to Schaeffer Hall.
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Schaeffer Hall was one of the five buildings in the Pentangle, which made up the original Capitol complex. Located on the southeast corner of the Capitol grounds, it was directly across the street from the Engineering building, which apparently was where I’d be spending the bulk of my time.
We were meeting in a lecture hall that looked more like a small theater, complete with small ashtrays built into the seats in front of us. You sure wouldn’t find that in the lecture halls in North Central High School, nor would the seats have such comfortable cushions. They wouldn’t have any cushions. I wasn’t sure if smoking was permitted, but thankfully, none of us was smoking.
In the front of the hall, where one would find a movie screen in a theater, there was a large stage with a pair of lecterns — one on each side — and a multi-tiered blackboard in the center. There was what appeared to be a projection booth in the back of the room, so I supposed there was a drop-down screen in front.
The meeting began precisely at 7:30, even as students were still arriving and taking their seats. I was somewhat surprised by the number of participants. An older man who looked to be at least in his forties took center stage. He seemed way too old for the brown shoulder-length hair he wore.
“Good morning,” he began as he paced about the stage, eschewing the use of a microphone, but speaking loudly enough for all to hear. “Welcome to the SSTP. I’m Dr. Charles Ratcliffe, the director of the program. I’m also the supervisor of the Research Track. You are a very select group of high school students. Most of you are in the top percentile of your class. You are evenly split between upcoming juniors and seniors. 43 of you are seventeen years old, 72 are sixteen, 24 are fifteen and we have one thirteen-year-old.” I smiled as I looked toward Paul, who was sitting next to me.
“I’d like to say there’s an even split between boys and girls, but our participant numbers reflect the dearth of women entering the sciences. We have 82 boys and 58 girls. There are 52 participants each in the Physics Track and in the Biology and Medicine track, and 36 in the Research Track. Except for those in the research track, you’ll have classroom instruction similar to what you might experience during your freshman year in a university. Much of your time, however, will be spent in the laboratory, where you’ll have the opportunity to apply what you’ve learned in class.
“In addition to your formal classroom education, we’ve arranged for a series of seminars as well as social activities to help keep you occupied. There will be weekly seminars in this room every Wednesday evening, from 7:00 PM until 9:00 PM. Those will involve formal presentations by prominent scientists. There will be weekly symposia, also in this room, on Saturday mornings from 9:00 AM to noon. Those will involve informal panel discussions of pertinent topics by experts drawn from the university community. The schedule of the seminars and symposia is in your packet.
“July Fourth is two weeks away. There will be a Fourth of July barbecue with fireworks on the afternoon of Saturday, July First in City Park, located to the north of the campus. There will be games and a softball tournament with prizes. On Sunday, July 16, we’re offering a trip to Amana to see and experience authentic Amish life. Seats are limited and there’s a $25 fee to cover the cost of the bus and dinner. You can sign up for the trip with your resident floor supervisor.
“Other activities are being planned. Details will be sent by mail, once available. The mail, from the university and from the post office, will be slid under your dorm room doors every weekday afternoon There will be a weekly SSTP newsletter. Anyone interested in participating should contact me directly.
“By the way, Ms. Parker,” he continued, nodding in a petite woman’s direction, “is here from the bursar’s office. She’ll be collecting your tuition payments as you leave the room.” It was a good thing I brought my payment with me. “I’d now like to introduce our course leaders.”
I was embarrassed to realize as the directors for the Physics Track and the Biology and Medicine Track were introduced that I had no idea which tracks my friends were in. I hadn’t even asked Paul, but then neither had Paul asked me. The subject just hadn’t come up. Now, I was finally finding out as the participants were asked to stand and gather in their respective tracks. Paul and Gary were in the Physics Track, Larry and Greg were in the Biology and Medicine Track, and Kyle and I were in the Research Track. It was funny we were so evenly divided.
Dr. Ratcliffe met with those of us in the Research Track. He explained about how, in addition to the sessions everyone else had to attend, we’d be spending our Fridays in a dedicated research forum. We’d start out with some basic lectures on how to ask a testable question, how to research the literature, how to design an experiment to test the question, how to collect data and how to analyze it.
A good part of the instruction would be on methods of statistics, but a lot of the instruction would involve reading and independent study so as to avoid taking us out of the labs to which we were assigned. Most of the time we’d be on our own.
Our research project proposals would be due the Friday after next, and we’d be expected to make a presentation in front of our peers. Formal presentations in front of all of the SSTP participants would take place at the end of the session. As Dr. Ratcliffe said, most research studies take years. Ours would have to be completed in just six weeks.
