Occupation, or Not

part three: The Blunder Years Go To College (campus jobs)

Blanding Hall U of Kentucky- front desk midnight shift

This was maybe the worst job I ever had—sit at the front desk of the dorm every Friday night from midnight to 8 a.m. I simply had to make sure that anybody who came past the desk lived in the dorm. Problem was, I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. I tried to read (the smart phone was thirty years away), but that just made it worse. I did wake up when the door swung open. There was one night however, that changed all our lives. I’m not sure what time it was, and I was for sure drifting off, but when a team of paramedics came hustling through the door, I was shocked awake. And then the shock turned to horror when they came back through the lobby, and on the gurney was my best friend, bloody gauze wrapped around his wrist. Our eyes met for the only split second possible, and then I was stuck there the rest of the night. In the coming hours, the rumors started to circulate. He slit his wrist. He came on to T.

T. freaked out. My friend tried to kill himself.

Nobody knew he was gay. Everybody thought he was weird. I knew he was gay, although he had never told me. I liked that he was weird. After all. I was was weird. He introduced me to music that would change the rest of my life. Velvet Underground. Iggy. Patti. I think I knew he was gay early on freshman year. I doubt I even knew what that was. After all, Charles Nelson Reilly and Paul Lynde were on game shows and just seemed cutting and witty. He seemed infatuated with T., a small-town Kentucky boy with dark, thick-lashed eyes and brown mustache. We all played cards together, watched season one of SNL every week on a tiny black and white t.v., went to UK basketball together. But, at Christmas break, they went to Louisville together to see Bruce Springsteen. They didn’t invite me they said, because I was in Chicago. Of course, they raved about the show. Bruce was skyrocketing to fame based on his amazing shows. I could never quite muster enthusiasm for him after that, even as Born to Run came out.

At the end of that first year, as we made plans to move into one of the Blanding dorms, my friend and T. made plans to room together. I was a bit hurt, this stacked on the Bruce thing, and I sensed they were closer, but I had no idea what that entailed. Things seemed the same. I had a crappy roommate first semester, but after the winter break I moved in with Fred, a guitar player who shared my love of Tangerine Dream, Todd Rundgren, and Monty Python. We could run whole skits together “It took me four hours to bury the cat.” “Four hours to bury the cat?!? We were both wide receivers on our dorm’s champion flag football team. I was enjoying myself and spending less time with my former best friend and T. And then that winter night.

He did worse than come on to T. He professed his love. T. did freak out. He raised bloody hell. He moved to another dorm. My friend had tried to kill himself. He now had no roommate and nobody in the dorm supported him. This was a time when gay people were harassed at UK (and beyond) and my friend never did come out of the closet. Everybody kept their distance. When my friend came back from the hospital I went to see him. He told me what happened. He gave me the truth. We wondered what would happen. Would he stay in the dorm? Would he be ostracized? And then, the most heroic thing ever happened. One of the guys in our friend group from freshman year, and my best friend’s roommate that year, volunteered to move from his dorm (the other Blanding) to be his new roommate. He had heard what happened and also knew the full story. Thing was, B. was the last person who you would think to do this. He was a classic jock, former high school basketball player from Louisville. The rest of the year carried on without incident. I ended up moving into an apartment with my friend and another guy he knew from western Ky., a guitar player who I joined as bass player (learning on the fly) to form The Pods. As for the job, I got some sleep in every Friday through the end of the year.

One semester. Retired.

U of Kentucky basketball referee

This will be the shortest entry. I got paid $5 a game to referee intramural basketball. Mind you that $5 bought a new record album back then. Aside from having to deal with asshole frat boys who didn’t like my offensive charge calls, the only thing I remember was a game that featured members of the Kentucky Wildcat football team. Art Still, who went on to star in the NFL as a defensive end with the Chiefs, threw down some fierce hang-on-the-rim dunks. Dunks were against the intramural rules, so I had to “T” him up. He just laughed—Art was always a happy guy. One semester. Retired.