SEPTEMBER... On into the Fall... (Part 27a)

I had dreamed of qualifying for the Championships right from when I first started racing. Even with that in mind I headed for Ohio with mixed feelings. As hard as it was to qualify I didn’t want to give up my spot and to stay home to be with Elle. Because of the limited time we’d had together after the operation I didn’t really know her inner feelings. As it turned out it was quite an experience and I actually did very well under some very trying conditions. When the races were over I had to head for college. I was actually supposed to sign in on that Friday but I was still racing. My father had contacted the school and got an exemption for me. As a Sophomore I was not allowed to have a car at school but I’d also been given a week’s exemption with the provision that I was not to drive the car while it was there except to take it home. On my way back to school from the championships I had briefly given some thought to stopping by Elle’s school to see her. But I’d experienced car problems the whole trip back. I was afraid that if I broke down between her school and mine I, with the boat in tow, I would have really been in trouble as the roads were narrow and were lightly traveled. I made it back to school on Sunday afternoon and was faced with a problem right away.

As I’d previously written, my roommate, Bob, and I had drawn a short straw as far as being able to have a room at the fraternity. We’d arranged to get a room downtown at the home of one of the college’s professors. When I pulled up in front of the house I realized that they didn’t have any place for me to park the car let alone the boat. After conversations with the professor and his wife they were able to arrange for me to take them both to the farm of a friend. It was almost dark when I arrived and was greeted by some really nice people. They showed me where to park and then invited me in for a bite to eat. I never expected something like that. I knew they were going to drive me back to town but this was special. Besides the food being good, (it was my first homecooked meal in almost a week) there was one other thing... the daughter.

I really didn’t find out much about her that night. Most of the conversation, unfortunately, revolved about me. I did find out that her name was Joanne and she was the youngest of three girls. She seemed to be exceptionally shy and rarely spoke. But it was hard for me to take my eyes off her. She was the stereotypical “farmers daughter” with long blonde hair (tied back into a pony tail), good looks and very well “developed“. On the trip back to town I couldn’t get my mind off her.

Bob had already settled in to our room so, while I was taking the car to the farm, carried all my things upstairs. It was another unexpected treat. As I unpacked he brought me up to date on the fraternity and what we, as ”pledges“, were expected to do. He warned me that we were going to be, for all intents and purposes, slaves to the brothers. He endured an indoctrination on Saturday and warned me that they were lying in wait for me for missing it. He told me of some the hazing that the pledges had suffered through and all I could think of was that it was going to be worse for me. Little did I know!

My ”punishment“ for not being there for that first Saturday was having to be there at the fraternity house the next weekend doing all kinds of menial tasks for the brothers. That was the weekend I had expected to drive the car and boat home. All pledges were assigned a ”Big Brother“. Some were real bastards and looked at their pledge as their own personal servant and worse. I got lucky in that mine was pretty laid back and, because he had a girlfriend at a school within driving distance, spent most of his weekend time there. I did have a lot of ”chores“ to do for him on Saturday and had to put up with a lot of crap from the other brothers who were around the house while I was there. But, he gave me a reprieve for Sunday. Since Bob and I lived downtown it was a case of ”out of sight, out of mind“ when it came to the rest of the brothers. My Big Brother had given me the heads up not to come to the house on Sunday unless I wanted a lot more of the crap I’d had to go through on Saturday. Lying in bed that Sunday morning I hatched the idea of driving over to see Elle. I walked the two plus miles out to the farm and retrieved the keys from Mrs T., the farmers wife. I figured that there was no way the school authorities would know. I hoped that I would get to see the daughter but she was nowhere in sight. I can tell you that I was praying the whole way to Elle’s college that the car didn’t give me too big a problem... and it didn’t.

Trying to catch up with Elle at her sorority had proved to be difficult all week long as the house only had one phone and it was a pay phone, just like at the fraternity. Since she was a pledge she ranked lowest on the totem pole as far as phone use was concerned. I quickly learned that it was far cheaper to call person to person rather than have someone answer the phone and then, while someone was supposedly looking for Elle, hang the receiver up on me. When I did get though the sisters would only let the pledges talk for three minutes if any one of the sisters wanted to use the phone. Because of that I really didn’t know how Elle was doing. I didn’t bother to call to tell her I was coming figuring that I probably wouldn’t get though to her anyway.

To be continued...