I drove down to Wilmington today. On the way down I stopped in Dublin, NC and bought some peanut brittle at Houstons. I transferred to UNC-W in 1975 after going to school at Campbell College for a “recovery” year. My grades weren’t that wonderful from having attended UNC-Chapel Hill for two years ( starting in 1972 ).

Not always, but several times through the years, whenever I pass through Dublin, NC, I think of a cute blond UNC-W student that was in Wilmington at the same time as I was, and who also lived in the apartment complex, University Arms Apartments ( a short distance from the UNC-W campus ). As I recall, she was “tallish” ( but not 6′ ), with short blond (platinum ) hair, very curvey and an attractive face. I never met her, or talked to her, or even knew her name… but I had a roommate and he did talk to her and told me that she was from Dublin, NC. So, that is why after all these years, I still think of the good looking college co-ed from Dublin.

So I continued on through Elizabethtown, and on to Wilmington and even Wrightsville Beach, and back to Wilmington. And then I put in the Google Map to find how to get to Newton Grove, NC ( so I could eat at Smithfield’s there ). The directions led me around and back to College Street, down Randall Parkway and I realized that I was passing by where I had lived when I attended UNC-W, but I quickly realized that nothing seemed familiar.

Once you get on College St., you stay on it, out of town and it becomes I40.

So tonight, I got out my Google Timeline to retrace my steps and I saw an aerial view of University Arms Apartments. Enough to realize that is where I had lived, but I didn’t exactly remember which apartment I had lived in.

But, here was the kicker… when I went to another Google Map to view the area I realized that my old apartment complex had been replaced with a new one. I found that the new complex was called the Lighthouse. Very modern apartments. I would guess that some of the old apartments might have suffered hurricane damage, because nearby apartments were showing blue tarps on many of their roof tops.

After looking at the old apartments, I think that I would have lived in one of the apartments on the same row as the swimming pool and probably two or three units from the pool. Part of determining this was that my roommate had put a couple of his marijuana plants ( in little pots ) out at the end of the unit, next to our trash cans, in relatively high grass, where few would see them.

The funny thing about my roommate’s marijuana plants was that the day that my mother and cousin, Yvonne, and Aunt Sis had come down to help me move out of my unit, my mother took out some trash, and came back in carrying two small pots with the marijuana plants. I quickly told her to return them because they were someone else’s.

Now Yvonne had children, and she was a little more street wise and knew that the plants were marijuana, but she said nothing to my mom or aunt. But as we walked out of the apartment for the last time, my mom and aunt walking side by side, behind Yvonne and me, Yvonne whispered to me, “Aren’t you going to take your marijuana plants.” Yes, I had a moment of complete surprise followed by a large laugh. I whispered back to Yvonne that they weren’t mine. But, my mom piped up and asked us both what we were laughing about. We didn’t fill her in then.

I think I told my mother about this some time later.

ADDENDUM (tangential): A word to the wise… beware of Greeks bearing gifts. I think it was one Halloween night, my second year at Carolina (UNC-Chapel Hill), when my then roommate (from TN I think) and I decided to go out bar-hopping. We never did this, together, but we went out to the little bar (hole in the wall) which was in back, and down the stairs from the Ratskeller Restaurant. This would have been diagonally across the street from where the Top of the Hill is now located. I don’t recall the bar’s name, but it was small, dark and it had a side room that had at least one video game… the only video game at the time, I think, called “Pong”. Pong was a simplistic, two or four player game (teams of two) and I was pretty good at defending the little dot of light from getting past me.

I am a cheap drunk, so whenever I ordered beer, and you could order a pitcher, I would order a pitcher and then drink it really fast. That way the alcoholic stupor would come on me quickly and I wouldn’t spend a bunch of money getting drunk. “Stick” Mann, an upper-classman neighbor from 3rd floor of Aycock Dorm had a girlfriend that could get really drunk off of about a quarter cup of beer. Amazing, but what a cheap date;-) Well, my roommate and I finished drinking at the little bar and walked outside. It was still early and we didn’t want to go home, but not much else to do.

As we walked up the alleyway to street level, we met someone, neither of us knew. I think his name was Steven. He suggested we go across the street to another bar. There he offered to buy the beer. I’m not sure when we met his “partner in crime” Larry G. Nunn, but after drinking at the bar Steven suggested we go back to our dorm room and he even offered to buy a case of beer. *I by this time, had surveyed the situation… not really the situation, or I wouldn’t have let them come back to our dorm room. But I wasn’t comfortable with Steven and Larry… they seemed “queerish” to me and that was before queerish was not a problem. So, these two offered to drive back to our dorm, but I bowed out and the two of them along with my roommate left. Oh, the stated reason for not riding back, was that we were all drunk and I didn’t want to ride with a drunk driver.

I wasn’t happy with the thought of returning to my dorm room while Larry and Steven were there, so I stopped off at Hector’s which had really tasty egg rolls. I would get a couple of their egg rolls and eat them with hot mustard and duck sauce. Delicious!

I then crossed the street and walked past “Silent Sam” the Civil War Memorial statue. This was back when he had no negative racial symbolism. At least to a “white boy” from coastal NC. The only joke about Silent Sam was that he was silent (the statue was of a Confederate Soldier carrying a rifle) because his gun only went off when a virgin passed by him… and needless to say, where could you find a virgin on campus.

I walked across campus and made it to Aycock Dorm, but I still thought it might be too early to return to my room, so I walked down to the TV Room which was located at the middle of the building, on the first floor. The TV room was a large room with a color TV in the corner (an analog, floor console, square screen) and there were several small sofas and chairs filling the room. *I was still pretty drunk, even after having eaten two egg rolls from Hectors.

There were a couple of people watching TV when I came in. The TV had a movie on, “Who Slew Aunty Roo,” which I wasn’t interested in, and so I laid down on a love seat and went off to drunken sleep. The next think I recall, and I am not sure how long I had slept, was waking up to a dark room and hearing the double doors to the room being quietly shut as the last person(s) left. The TV was off. I then realized that someone had taken thick white cord (which was being used outside, along the sidewalk, to keep people from walking on the grass) and had wrapped me, in Gulliverish fashion, tying me to the loveseat. Even “the still drunk version of me” thought this funny… but, I quickly realized that I needed to get up to “take a piss” and this added a sense of urgency to the situation. I was pretty well tied down, not too tightly, not to the point of cutting off my circulation, but wrapped about so many times and in the dark, not being able to find the knot at the end where I might begin to untie myself quickly. The white cord was thicker than tobacco twine and wasn’t able to be broken with bare hands. It then came to me to see if I could get to my keys in my pocket. I managed to get a hand in my pocket and fish my keys out. I then began to use one of the keys, as if it were a small saw, and in a relatively short time had extricated myself. I freed myself and got up and went to the bathroom.

So, it was now late, not sure of the time, but I went upstairs and went into my dorm room. My roommate was already in bed, but managed to open his eyes briefly and then lay back down to sleep. I went about going to bed.

So, the next morning I and my roommate went off to our separate classes. It may be that he left first, or I left first, but neither of us had a chance to talk before we left for class. I may have had an Accounting class, and that is why I needed my $100 Texas Instruments calculator to do homework. You’ve got to understand that this calculator was the best, if not only, electronic calculator that money could buy at the time. And it did the four functions, add, subtract, multiply and divide, and one other function, provide a percentage. *Thankfully, I never had to learn how to use a slide rule, although I had purchased one.

I returned from class, probably about 10 am that morning. My roommate wasn’t back yet, and I went over to start my homework in Accounting. Sitting at my desk, I open my book, and at some point I look and realize that my calculator isn’t there. The recharging cable is still plugged into the wall outlet, but no calculator. This is a minor irritation, at the time, because there was at least one “big dude” from down the hall that had borrowed my calculator on various occasions to do his homework. So, I am thinking that one of the guys on the hall had borrowed my calculator. And, I wait for my roommate to return, and one by one I ask the other hallmates if they had my calculator… and then it dawns on me. Either Steven or Larry G. Nunn had absconded with my calculator… and what a deal, a $100 calculator for a case of beer. What a coup.

We ended up tracking down the phone number of Larry G. Nunn and called him and tried to strongly convince him to return my calculator, but he denied it, and our strong armed phone tactics meant nothing to him.

I then came up with a plan to replace the TI calculator with something cheaper. By now, I think there was a cheaper competitor that cost about $49 and I managed to order this along with a “Christmas” present for my mother. I’m thinking that mom paid for both of these, without me explaining what had actually happened. I did eventually explain what had happened to her.

I use the story in this addendum as a “precautionary tale for those who go down the cul-de-sac trail” beware of things that appear too good to be true. A case of beer isn’t worth having your calculator stolen, and no telling how expensive this story has become now. Today’s apartments are so much nicer than my dorm room, and no telling what a nefarious individua-l might abscond with, leaving you to hold the proverbial bag, or as in my case “the recharging cable”.

ADDENDUM-ADDENDUM: I do not remember the manufacturer of the portable typewriter that I had at Carolina. In looking at the typewriter cases of this time, the closest one, I think, is a Smith Corona. I think the typewriter was a light brown color and the case was shaped like a brief case, not squared off like a suitcase.