I first became aware of my first college roommate a few weeks before I started school. I received a card from Eastern New Mexico University telling me who it was going to be. It listed his address and phone number, but I didn't feel a need to contact him.
As I mentioned before, I didn't meet him until the Monday before classes started. I came in late after an evening of running around. He was tall with a thin build. He had dark brown hair and a mustache.
We woke up the next morning and talked a little bit. I don't really remember a lot of details about him. I recall from his high school yearbook that he came from a graduating class of about 20 students. One of them was his girlfriend, who went to another college after they finished.
Tood was a "cowboy." I guess he thought that with my last name, I was also a "cowboy," so that's why he chose me as a roommate. We didn't really have a lot in common. I remember during the first week, he came an sat with me during breakfast, but I didn't really have much to talk about with him. After awhile, we hardly spoke to each other at all. He became friends with the two guys in the room next to us. They were also "cowboys." One of them remembered me from Boys State.
His girlfriend came to visit him one weekend. She seemed rather nice.
A few weeks later, his girlfriend called. Tood wasn't there at the time, so she said she would try to call back later. That afternoon, I came back to the room and all of his stuff was gone. I wondered what happened. I thought that since his girlfriend had called, he decided to up and leave school to go be with her. I went and tracked down the Head Resident Advisor at the dorm. He told me that one of the guys next door to us had moved out and Tood decided to switch roommates. I went back to my room. Eventually Tood came back and said he didn't have a problem with me, but he was friendlier with the other person and decided to make the change. However, he was planning to leave at the end of the semester and go to the school where his girlfriend was.
I spent the rest of the semester with a private room. I would get my next roommate in January after the Christmas break.
One day, I got called down to the lobby because a package had been delivered. When I got downstairs, I found that it was meant for Tood. It was a really big box, but it was slightly open, so I could tell what was inside. It was a saddle. I took it over to Tood when he got back to his room.
The next (and last) time I spent any time with Tood, I had heard him watching TV (through our very thin walls). The movie "Fiddler on the Roof" was starting. Since that was the Theatre Department's next production, I asked if I could watch it. He invited me in. He was working on his homework, but didn't seem to mind me being there.
I never saw him again. However, there was something interesting that involved him during the next semester. Early in the fall term, I and my other classmates in my English Composition class had been asked to handwrite this paragraph. We were not told what it was for. We turned in the papers and that was it. A few months later, a girl I knew from Student Senate had asked me to come into the office on campus where she was a graduate student. What she needed me to do was read that paragraph I had written as she recorded it. It was part of a study a professor was doing on how well students are able to write their own handwriting. I think they picked the students with the worst handwriting.
She showed me a list of some of the other students they were trying to get a hold of. I saw Tood's name on the list. I told her that he was no longer at ENMU. A few days later, she told me that she had actually gotten him to come in and record. I told her that wasn't possible. She had me come over and listen to the recording. I instantly recognized the voice. It was not Tood, but another student with the same name from the Theatre department. He was reading Tood's handwriting. On the recording, he was saying, "This is hard to read," which would have made for a very interesting finding in the professor's thesis. However, I told the girl that she would have to call that Tood back in and read his handwriting, which I guess she did, but I'm certain that would have resulted in a tainted subject as he had gotten to read the paragraph beforehand.
I was not able to track Tood down on the Internet. I have no idea where he is now. This would be true for a lot of my former college roommates.
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