LITTLE FISH IN A VERY BIG POND

There were other kids from my home stake that were going to be freshmen at Brigham University that fall.  But I had arrived a couple of weeks ahead of all of them.  Since I was living with Linda and barely knew my roommates, I was on my own for those few weeks...a little fish in a pond of 25,000 students and basically a nobody.  This was long before cell phones, email and texting.  I didn't know if I was ever going to connect with anyone from home. I clearly remember sitting on the steps of the Wilkinson Center one afternoon and seeing Kent Miller, a boy from home, walking towards the building.  Kent had dated a good friend of mine and we knew each other well.  I jumped up and ran toward him.  It was great to see a familiar face from home.  We spent a lot of time together during the first months of school.  He knew that I was "waiting" for a missionary who was his former girlfriend's brother.  We never officially date, but we did go to a lot of dances together especially the socials that were held in his dorm just off campus and down the street from where I lived.  I eventually connected with Norene.  But didn't see her often because her dorm was on the opposite side of campus from I lived.  I think that we may have had a Book of Mormon class together that first semester.

Thanks goodness for student wards.  They provided a way to meet people and have some connections in a smaller environment.  Most of the freshman classes were required courses and were huge.  Most of them were held in the large auditoriums through out campus.  They didn't provide much of an opportunity to meet people.

ROAD TRIP WEST

In late summer of 1964, I headed off to Provo, Utah and BYU.  I don't remember why the decision was made that I would make the trip west, by car, with my mother's adult, married, cousin, Bill Farnsworth.  I suppose it was a matter of expense and convenience.  Bill and I basically drove straight through from Virginia.  He would pull over to the side of the road when he was tired and sleep. It seems that we took Highway 40 most of the way because I remember being excited about coming in to Denver from the east.  I think that it was in Denver that he finally stopped and got a motel room for the night.

I got in to Provo several weeks before school started because I was on Bill's time schedule.  My sister, Linda, was already in Provo and had a place for me in her basement apartment.  I had originally planned to share a room in Helaman Halls with my friend, Norene Shurtleff.  But for reasons I can't remember, I ended up in an apartment with Linda.  I wasn't in that apartment long.  I came home one day to be met by Linda who told me that the apartment had flooded and she had found us a new place to live.  However, we wouldn't be together.  She could only find two openings in one apartment in the new complex for her and her roommate.  She got me a place in another unit in the same building.  I was thrown in with four complete strangers.  I did have my own room which was an improvement over the top bunk in a room shared with Linda and her roommate.

The apartment was two stories with a living room and kitchen on the main floor and three bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs. It was one of about six apartments in a building on 800 North, across the street from the Botony Pond.  The way to campus was up a flight of at least 100 stairs. Yes, that's one bathroom shared by five girls.  I had to figure out the roommate thing pretty quickly.  I only remember the names of three of my roommates,  Cathy, Clydene and Morag.  We all got along pretty well.  We shared the cooking and cleaning with pretty good success.