Dar

Throughout high school I just knew I'd graduate, attend college and become a teacher. 6 months before graduation all that changed. I completely changed my mind, and changed the course I had planned for my life. I am the 2nd of 5 kids and so far the only one to continue my education past high school at all. My parents weren't in any position financially to help me with my education. During my high school art class one day a representative from National Education Center in Arizona presented an alternative education plan that intrigued me. He told of a technical school where I could have my degree in 18 months and I'd have all hands-on training for much less than the cost of a 4-year college. I was hooked on the idea from the start. The representative met with my parents and filled us in on many more details. I decided this was what I wanted to do. My parents seemed disappointed but stood behind me and did what they could to help. I took on another job to begin saving money for the trip and necessary expenses for the move. I was ready for this adventure! (or so I thought at the time) 2 others I graduated with were also heading to the same school. The representative organized a picnic in Springfield (2 hours away) for all prospective NEC students in MO to meet. He had arranged room mates as well and this is where we could meet our room mates.

Here we are at the picnic the day I met Dar, who would be my room mate in Arizona. I don't have a clue who any of the other people in the photo are. Apparently they were all Arizona-bound as well, but I don't know that I ever saw any of them again.

In October of 1989 I moved to Arizona, leaving everything familiar behind. I told my family goodbye and threw all my belongings into the back of a friend's truck and spent the next 2 or 3 days riding in the hottest pickup ever, on the longest ride of my life. Dar and I met again when we arrived in Glendale, which is right outside of Phoenix. First stop: the school to register, pay fees, receive housing assignments, and take pictures for ID badges. Because neither Dar nor I brought our cars to Arizona we were assigned to an apartment complex closest to the main campus. We were excited to be on our own and setting up our apartment. My friend's mom took us shopping for stuff we didn't bring that we'd need for our apartment. So began our new life: flat broke, no car, no phone, no tv. But we were soooo excited! School was to begin in a week and we had until then to soak up the sun in the apartment's pool every day. Life was good! We soon got busy looking for jobs so we could work during the day and go to school at night. When we weren't doing one of those things we could always be found at the pool, which is where we met our first friends: Steve, Scott and Jose. I had a calling card so I could use the payphone to call home whenever I wanted, which was a lot! Mom always asked the same thing when I'd call and tell her how things were going. She'd always ask, "Don't you and Dar have any friends that are girls yet?" "No mom. Not yet. Girls aren't very friendly to us here." Job hunting was not going well and school wasn't what we thought it would be. Our class was very small and it turned out we were the only girls in the class at all. That wasn't too bad....until life drawing class. That was so uncomfortable! I think our teacher got a huge kick out of our reactions to that class. One night we skipped altogether. He sure got even with us. The next class the model was a young man. Our teacher Kip decided Dar and I needed to sit at the base of the stage and draw our assignment in a foreshortened view. Oh how the guys in class snickered at us over that one! We were so embarassed and NEVER skipped Kip's class again.

We were starting to become disheartened and very homesick. We worked at McDonald's for a while then switched to a local pizza joint. I was old enough to serve beer but Dar wasn't so she was trained to make pizzas. All I did was pour pitchers of beer and card customers. Period. It was awful. The manager begged us to go to the night shift and switch our school shift to days and he'd give us more hours. We refused. We liked going to school at night. He finallly decreased our hours so much that we quit and went on to other jobs. We decided it was time to figure out the bus system and headed to the mall to find jobs. I went to work at the San Fransico Music Box Co. as temporary help in the stock room until Christmas. I loved it. I unpacked boxes and retrieved merchandise for the sales people all day and never had to deal with customers.

Cruising Central Ave. in Phoenix with Steve, Scott and Jose. This is Scott and Jose.

Dar being goofy.

Neither of us had ever been away from home for the holidays and weren't going home until Christmas. We were depressed at the thought of spending Thanksgiving in Arizona. We discovered our new friends were also stuck in Arizona for Thanksgiving. Steve and Scott were also fellow Missourians and Jose was from Texas. Dar and I decided we could make a Thanksgiving meal and invite the guys over to share it with us. What began as a dreaded day, became one of the most memorable holidays we had. We decided to make the most of all being together, away from home and actually enjoyed the day like none other.

Steve carved our turkey.

After dinner everyone got in a food fight on our balcony, except me. I was too busy taking their goofy pictures. Then someone swiped my camera and the next thing I knew I got the whole cake shoved in my face. After that we hit the pool. We were in heaven...swimming on Thanksgiving! At that moment we loved Arizona again.

Dar and I went home to Missouri for Christmas which made us even more homesick when we returned to our apartment on New Year's Eve. We rang in the new year literally crying in our suitcases as we unpacked. Neither of us had wanted to go back to AZ but knew we needed to finish school. We'd cry and dream of ways we could raise enough money to rent a U-Haul and move back to Missouri...forget about school. 13 days later everything changed and I never talked about leaving Arizona again. We'd been informed by the apartment manager that we were invited to a birthday party in apartment 110, but she wouldn't tell us whose it was. We'd try to guess who the invitation came from. Some days we'd figure it was this creepy guy we'd see all over the complex and would try to avoid. Other days I'd imagine whether it was from this tall cute, blue-eyed guy I'd seen here and there but had never had the nerve to talk to. I even thought a couple of times I'd figure out where he lived. I saw him walking home one day when I got off the bus from a day at the mall. But, somehow in the several blocks to the apartment complex he got behind me and I never saw where he lived! Then one day I saw him again at the mail boxes when I went to get our mail. I thought....here's my chance to see where he lives. But, he motioned for me to go first so it turned out he saw what apartment number was on my mailbox instead of the other way around. Dar and I continued trying to figure out who the invitation was from but the apartment managers refused to tell us. We almost decided not to even go. What if it was the creep??? We decided we'd go, but we'd go 30 minutes later than they'd told us to be there and if it was the creep we'd leave very fast. We arrived 30 minutes late... and were still the first to arrive. We didn't recognize the 2 guys who lived in the apartment and soon after the "creep" showed up! We were ready to head back out the door.....when the tall cute guy I'd seen walked in! I whispered to Dar "that's HIM!" She rolled her eyes at me as if to say "now I'll never get her out of here!" You guessed it....the tall cute guy turned out to be Marty and he lived in the aparment upstairs from the birthday party. Apparently he and his friends had been watching us from his apartment whenever we'd hung out at the pool. And he worked at an outdoor outfitter store next to the bus stop where I caught the bus to the mall every day and he'd watch me come and go every day. I had only seen him a few times before that and still don't remember ever seeing him at the pool when we were there.

For a time Dar knew me better than anyone else. We became close friends and were very thankful that we didn't have a nightmare room mate situation as others did.

I haven't seen Dar in several years. After I moved to Texas, she lived nearby in Austin with her husband for a short while, then moved to California then recently moved to Michigan. She loved California and I only hope she will come to love Michigan just as much.

I adore Dar's husband JB. He makes her so happy!

Aren't they adorable together?!

Dar when I visited her after we'd both moved back to Missouri.

All of us the last time I saw her just before she moved to California.

I miss you Dar and will treasure your friendship always.