Ben Oostdam's
Autobiography:

1960-1963


page 9 		second semester at
Scripps, 1961
My second semester social life was rather hectic : After the departure of Georgina before Christmas, Joan Soutar introduced me to some friends of hers, a couple who had provided a home to Heather Hislop, a Scottish divorcee who had just given up her first child for adoption. Heather and I hit it off so well - again, on visits to Tijuana and Baja -that the couple transferred her away to save her from a second disaster and never let me know her address. I was very sad, but HH kept track of me and every 7 years or so sent me a note, till sometime in the 1980's we met again and ....that's another story!
To help me over the initial trauma, I was introduced to a draughtsman, Janet Manley, really a nomen est omen misnomer , since she was a top-notched well-rounded woman who made us forget all kinds of things. Our roundness study ended timely in a few weeks when she substituted her roommate Ernestine, also a divorcee, a typical specimen of the 1960 California scene.

That took me all the way through March 18, when I attended a Pomona College Glee Clubs performance and fixed my desires upon a girl I referred to as X2, Y3, the coordinates on the photograph. I think I wrote to the Club to ask her name, but to my surprise I met her at the SIO beach some weeks later when curiosity had driven her to seek me out.
Barbara Parks dropped her boyfriend Don and switched over to me. We had a wonderful time, she was an excellent organ player and had a beautiful voice and a fine and hospitable family nearby San Diego. I visited her several times at Pomona and Bald Mountain, and here's what happened on one occasion. - - A less appetizing episode occurred after a hot day in the desert when I returned to her parents' home with a very painful heatrash in an embarrassing location. 'Washing up' before dinner I noticed a small dish with powder which I mistook for talcum (how could a geologist ever do that??) and applied generously to the afflicted parts. So sorry, it was laundry detergent! ..
BLO fecit 20020925/6 - Contents - next page