So, I get back from Miami to Syracuse October 1980 with my tail tucked between my legs. I sold my high school gold ring to help pay for the gas to get back. Oddly I don't remember staying anywhere along the way, I must have. Eh?
I left feeling good that I broke the dysfunctional relationship I was in yet I really felt like a failure that it didn't last; takes two to tango... LH was really hot, but there is more to a woman than looks. I felt used. She got what she wanted - established in Miami, I was no longer needed. Yeah, we had a really good time the first 6 months but the last 10 months were milk-toast and eventually purgatory.
I Recently did some Google searches and tracked her down and found a photo of LH where she works. Still looks very hot, aging has been very kind to her, she has a killer smile. I'll never contact her though as there would be no need and I see it as rude to interrupt her life - she does have 2 divorces under her belt, I have none...Doesn't make me a better person though, I just know I wasn't the only one left in her wake.
I like being in a relationship. I like the closeness. I like being together and doing stuff. I like having someone at home to be with. I also like knowing she wants to be with me. I'm not clingy. Independence and identity is important as is trust in your partner will always be there and want to be there for you. At the end, LH wasn't any of the above. I'm sure I had something to do with it, right?
When I got back to Syracuse I looked for work, couldn't find anything. I went back to SU in January 1981 to wrap-up my degree. I was able to land a job at GE (thanks to my father who had been at GE for 30 years) as a computer operator running production reports on a Honeywell mainframe, sorting paper reports and getting them to their proper mailboxes during 2nd shift. This was good as I could attend classes during the day and work nights. I took computer engineering and comp sci classes to build up my computer credits, and GE paid for tuition and books as long as I got B grades, which I did. I eventually took some masters classes too.
I dated a little bit with a couple girls I knew pre-Miami. Nothing serious. Within 6 months I started working in GE's military electronics groups as a computer manager working with PDP-11s and VAX/VMS (Google DEC and VAX and PDP-11 - amazing computers that changed the way information technology moved from mainframe computers to mini-computer timesharing computers, DEC changed the computer industry). My days now started at 5AM doing backups, and I was done by 2PM and off to classes at SU. I was getting my head straight. I lived at home from late 1980 to August 1982. While at home, I paid my parents $350 rent as I felt it was up to me to carry my own weight.
In August 1982 I moved to a 3-room apartment near campus. $350/month, all utilities included, I paid for the phone. It was a good starter apartment in the basement of a house with an exterior private entrance for a college student, for me it was good independence. Again, as long as I had good grades, GE paid for tuition and books - sweet.
Moving was also important as I had started an odd part-time roommate relationship in early May 1982 with a Junior undergrad CompSci girl (JM) who was incredibly beautiful. It was true serendipity.
I was in Machinery Hall (at SU this was the main computer building) doing a homework project, and JM was doing a class assignment in PL/I (pronounced PL One - Program Language One, IBM mainframe language developed in the mid-1960s) for a library card catalog project. I had taken that class a sesmester before and was able to help her. At SU, you took a class to learn the subject matter, and the computer language was just the tool.
OK, so I'll stop here and pick-up in my next post. JM was one of my most amazing, and very odd, relationships.
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