1971
Living with Bill

Bill we were both quiet, introverts and got along well.  While Bill worked eight to five and often on Saturday mornings, I was going to the University and working part time at the university computing center so was also out most of the day.  On days Bill worked he would be gone by the time I got up which was good for I’m not much of a morning person.  I usually would get home late afternoon while Bill wouldn’t get home until six. 

I started cooking mostly for myself as we seldom ate together.  I had always liked to hang out in the kitchen with Mom when she was cooking and learned the basics and would call her about how to make something.  I had a few basic things I made like meatloaf with baked beans.  In ’71 Hamburger Helper came out and was a godsend. Take a pound of hamburger, brown in a pan, mix Hamburger Helper mix, water and cook.  It came in five flavors – Beef Noodle, Potato Stroganoff, Hash, Rice Oriental and Chili Tomato with the Beef Noodle and Potato Stroganoff my favorites.  I could make up a pan and it would last for several days. I would always offer what I made to Bill, but he seldom ate anything I made. Bill liked his food plain, very plain. I remember the first time I made spaghetti, the sauce was very plain, hamburger, tomato sauce, with some Italian seasoning.  When it came time to eat Bill tells me he will have his spaghetti “in the nude”, I ask him what that meant, and he replies that he just wanted the noodles, no sauce.  Sometimes for dinner Bill would just eat a half loaf of white Sunbeam bread.  Not surprising, both Bill and I were skinny, me at 6’ 2” and 175 pounds, while Bill a few inches shorter probably didn’t weigh 150 pounds.

Bill and I always paid our rent in cash which we personally delivered to our landlord Mrs. Bruall which neither Bill nor I liked to do so we would alternate months.  It wasn’t that Mrs. Bruall wasn’t nice, actually quite the opposite, she was too nice.  While I was happy to just hand her the envelope with the money and leave, she would always invite me into her house where we would sit at her kitchen table where she offer me iced tea and cookies and she would want to talk.  This was usually during the day, so her husband was away, and I sometimes suspected she wanted more than just talk.  After a year or so I would just leave the envelope in her mailbox