Campus Radio, 1978
My University had a Fine Arts requirement for all students. Like most non-arts majors. I decided to knock it off during the first semester of my Freshman year. Which class I took depended on scheduling it around my “real” classes. I wound up taking a course with a title I cannot recall, but it must have been something like “Intro to Theater Arts.” The teacher was one Helen Scourby.
As introverted and retiring as I am now, I was much more so back in 1975.
The curriculum, as I recall, consisted of individual exercises (I had to describe my watch to a person who had never seen a watch while the class in the seats shouted out watch questions) and staged readings (Flannery O’Conner’s “I Knock at the Door” was one). It was OK, and not a big time sink. Hardly any homework. I have no memory at all of my classmates. Except for this one guy.
As introverted and retiring as I am now, I was much more so back in 1975. Alan, on the other hand, simply would not, could not, shut up. A boisterous curly-haired Jewish guy from Newark, NJ, he kept up a constant patter of jokes, innuendos, double-entendres and comments. About everything and everyone. While he was never mean-spirited or insulting, I found him off-putting and exhausting. Introverts thrive on solitude or quiet conversation. Alan was the anti-me. My conclusion was that I really didn’t care for him all that much.
I got through the course OK, and through freshman year (barely). A commuter student, I decided that I needed to move onto campus, for the socializing, the parties, the women. So one day that summer, I drove up to the Rutherford campus to sign up for housing. Since I knew no one who would be living on campus, I specified no roommate preference.
On the way out of the building, I ran into Alan coming in. He struck up a conversation, because he could do nothing else. He’d been living off-campus, but it wasn’t working out for some reason, and so he was also signing up for on-campus housing. He then suggested that he and I share a dorm room.
This was unexpected. As I said, I didn’t DISlike Alan, but he wasn’t my favorite person on Earth by a long shot. But introverts do dislike surprises. Better the devil you know and all that. So I asked the one important question that I had: did he smoke?
He did not, which was good, because a smoking roommate would have been a hard no. And then he asked me his big question: did I mind that he was Jewish?
That one really stopped me cold. Not because I DID mind, but because no one had ever asked me that sort of question before. This was one of the first times that I was called upon to realize that being just an average christian white guy does confer certain societal advantages.
Anyway, we went in and signed up to be roommates for our sophomore year.
Friendship blossomed. Love grew. I had found a brother.
Honfleur, France, 2021
Dave VentreA hyper-annuated wannabee scientist with a lovely wife and a mountain biking problem.
Very nice outcome from that required Theater course outside your CompSci curriculum. Sometimes people truly can’t help their loquaciousness. They speak because they are nervous or don’t know any better, or for a variety of reasons. So happy to learn that you two got/get along so well!
What I ignorantly thought of as a character flaw is, I now believe, a true gift. Alan is simply the most social person I have ever known. I can’t begin to guess how many people are friends because Alan brought them together. My count is at least twenty.
And I was a Marine Bio major!
Nice story about how your Theater Arts course had an unexpected effect on your life, and how you are still friends with that guy you met almost 50 years ago. But based on the caption for your featured image, I was expecting a story about how you became involved in campus radio, a quasi-theatrical endeavor. Can you tell us that story too?
I did DJ for our campus radio station for a while, as did Alan. The featured image is of Alan interviewing me on his show about my recent experiences at FDU’s marine lab on St. Croix, USVI, from which I had just returned. It’s the only picture I have of Alan and I in college.
I bet you are better at making friends with aquatic beings than Alan is!
This was an upbeat story (well needed after I just finished writing my own story of trauma). There weren’t a lot of details in your story but it stitched together well as a coherent whole. And it actually triggered a few memories of my own that may help me develop a response to the “theatre” prompt. Thanks.
Too many old war stories of how we bonded would have taken it too far from the prompt, with which it has an already somewhat tenuous relationship!
Wonderful story Dave, I was afraid I’d hear growing contention between you, but how good to hear the opposite!
What a good friend Alan turned out to be after that theater arts class.
None better.
I liked Alan from the minute he arrived in the story. Perhaps because I too am a bit of a recluse, I tend to admire the opposite. Friends, especially close friends sometimes begin with story. So happy for both of you. FDU, “a March Madness Fairytale” written by the NYT. Are you proud?
If I were a basketball fan, I would be. Alan is and is bustin’!
Love the picture from college years–you both look like kids! Oh, I guess you were. But the best part is how opposites can attract and friendship can last. And we never know what seemingly minor event in our lives and turn into something good and important.
What a sweet story, Dave. I love that you opposites were able to form a lifelong friendship.
Dave, I enjoyed reading about your flirtation with theater arts, and about your adventure with Alan. Your good story prompted me to remember a similar fine arts class I had in college, and a potluck roomie with whom I did NOT become good friends. But he was unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. Thanks for sharing!