As the end of the school year approached, Carol and I, who
shared a room at Pineview, decided to look elsewhere for housing. I don’t
really know why. But in all our looking around, we found College Avenue. And
that was it, my life was never the same again. College Ave. was the best place
to live in all of Rexburg. Now, before you go thinking it was all fancy or
anything, let me clarify. The houses on College Ave., owned by the Davenports,
were probably the most run down, nasty houses available to college students. But
I didn’t really notice that. The current me would probably rather die than live
in a place like that, but back then, I thought it was the best thing in the
world to live in an actual house. And the whole time I was there, the slanted
back room with the ripped and rotted carpeting, the way outdated kitchen and crazy
old furniture never bothered me. Neither did sharing one bathroom with 7 other
girls. Don’t ask me how we did it. And don’t ask me how the Davenports got away
with it, because the rules are that once you have more than 6 people you have
to have another bathroom. Still, part of me is glad they got away with it,
because my life at College Ave. was the best college experience ever. I won’t
try to list all the roommates I had there, because I lived there for three
years, and three summers, and had a different set of roommates for each of
those. Later I’ll talk about some of the ones I remember and am still in
contact with, but I will leave that for now.
College Avenue was part of the Fabulous 46th Ward
on campus. Our bishop was Jack Clarke, who was the head of student employment
on campus. He deserves his own post as well.
We had a lot of fun with our super awesome porch, our fun
neighbors, and the guys who lived in the big Davenport men’s housing complex at
the end of the street. I have so many
memories of Family Home Evenings, parties, games, hanging out, group dates, dances, Christmas trees, taffy
pulling, bike rides, concerts, crushes, dates, boyfriends, heart breaks, etc.
When someone had a birthday we would make a cake and frost it right in the pan.
Then we would pass around the forks and everyone would just dig in. No plates
for us undignified people! There were
squabbles over when to wash dishes and keeping the house clean—admittedly, I
was just as much of a clean freak back then as I am now, and I didn’t
appreciate messes. And others didn’t appreciate that their messes bothered me.
I think that’s one of those things that every set of roommates goes
through—trying to make all the different personalities harmonize. Give a
little, take a little, and just hang in there until you can afford to get your
own place and be the queen of your castle—messy or clean, however you’re happy.
One summer, we had a family reunion in Idaho. My
grandparents came to get me so I could go. My grandpa looked around at my house,
and his memory sparked, and he told me that when he was at Ricks, all those
years ago, he used to go to that house and visit the girls that lived there. I
loved hearing that connection. (He even said the houses were super old even
back then. Ha ha!)
It was a great three years on College Ave.
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