Room 109

I had a series of roommates over the semesters, none of which would stay the whole time.  Daria tried twice, but never made it a full semester.  Her seizures were too severe.  She collapsed on campus twice and ended up being put in the hospital, waking up each time in the Psych. Ward.  The Doctors did not know what to do with her.  She would call her parents and they would come and get her out.  I had a roommate who was recovering from Anorexia and had a psycho boyfriend.  She didn’t last long either.  My last semester my assigned roommate didn’t show up, again.  So I lived most of my time in room 109 there by myself.

My first semester there, I had been there about two weeks, when the homesickness, the loneliness, and the feeling of being abandoned just became overwhelming.  I went to see my dorm mother.  She asked me a question I pondered for most of my college years.  She said, “Why are you here?”  I couldn’t answer her.  I didn’t know.  I went to college, because that is what I was told to do.  I had no idea what I wanted in life, and no idea what would happened to me after I graduated.  I fumbled around in the dark, and finally found my way.  After understand the rigors of a life in the food industry and that I didn’t want to run my own restaurant or become a chef, I fell in love with Sociology, mainly because of my professor Dr. Sarah.  When she came in one class dragging an imaginary pink elephant, she had me hooked.  The moral of that story is that even if it not real, and I think it is, it has an effect on all those that interact with me.

It took a while, but I began to make friends.  Many who’s pictures I have, and don’t remember their names, Meg Landry from Abbeville, the girl at the front desk of my dorm from Africa, Debra Fowler and her friend David, and the immortal Gamboa brothers from Paraguay. 

Life on the halls was interesting.  We would all sit in the floor and drink, smoke, eat, and play Skipbo till 2 in the morning.  My neighbors became my friends.  I met my first Jewish person, who lived down the hall.  She converted to Druidry, that was the first time I ever heard the word.  I had nothing to do with that.  Some of the ladies were afraid of bugs and would call me to kill them for them.

Bancroft dorm had a twin, which sat just a hundred feet from it.  It was called Denbo.  I got to know the girls on the first floor there.  Many of them were blind, and several had guide dogs.  I fell in with the ladies.  One lady, Alison and I became pretty close.  She was in my math class, which I was of course failing.  Trying to explain Algebraic equations to a blind person is very hard, worse when you make a mistake.  Many times, if Alison did not have her cane, I would guide her.  She would put her hand on her shoulder and we would walk.

I would read the blind ladies textbooks to them, until they arrived on tape.  One of the ladies had a guide dog.  She had lost her eyes as a child, and had glass eyes.  Every now and again she would look at me and say, “Hey are my eyes straight?”  If they were not, she would knock herself in the side of her head until her eyes were centered.  Weird, but it worked.  She was an awesome crocheter.  One year she gave me a cross bookmark she had crocheted.  I have long since rid myself of all Bibles and Christian things in my house.  But I kept that bookmark, as a reminder of a friend who’s name I don’t even remember. 

When I first went to live in South Louisiana it is a bit of a culture shock.  I had to convince most of the young ladies from South Louisiana, that I was from Louisiana as well, even thought I was not Catholic, did not speak French, and talked funny.  One told me, “Oh you are from up in the hills.”  It never occurred to me that North Louisiana was hilly compared to the flat lands of South Louisiana.  I kept a map in my room of Louisiana and a blown up sections of where I was from.  So I could show people.  Most of them did not consider Shreveport to be part of Louisiana.  

I have talked before about my love for Jeff Foxworthy, who was just making it big about that time.  Jeff, bless him, took the power out of the word Redneck, by helping people laugh at it, we reclaimed it as ours.  This word, that had been used as a slur when I was growing up, and was not said in polite company.  I decided to become the “Redneck Ambassador” to USL.  I even printed up a sign and put it on my dorm room door.  I educated others, on the differences between our two cultures.  It was all very tongue and cheek. 

Now everyone in South Louisiana is Catholic.  Even if you are not Catholic, you are Catholic.  You learn to do all the little idiosyncratic things that Catholics do, from years of training, without even knowing it.  I was riding on the USL bus one day, going to the sports complex.  We passed by church and suddenly everyone, without saying a word to each other, crossed themselves.  It was the weirdest thing.  I had to ask and was later told that yes everyone crossed themselves going past a church, because that is where the Eucharist was held.  The part that is not used, is place in an ornate box.  Because it has already been transformed into the body of Jesus, it is considered holy or sacred.  When people pass by the church, they make the sign of the cross, in acknowledgement of the sacredness of this. 

Other Catholic things crept into my life.  My blind girl-friends in Denbo, taught me to say the Rosary.  Some of them prayed to a particular Saint that their sight would be restored.  When Palm Sunday came, you took a palm home, and kept it as good luck.  I learned to cross myself when I passed the church, so no one would know I was not Catholic and look at me funny.  There is a lot of discrimination there, if you are not, just like I encountered in Ebarb, many years later.  You crossed yourself when a funeral went past.  You took a knee before you got in the church pew.  You celebrated Mardi Gras, whether you were Catholic or not.  Then you gave up something during lent, and ate fish on Fridays.  I never noticed till I came home that most small restaurants that serve lunches,  serve fried fish on Fridays, whether it is Lent or not. 

Most people spoke a little French or their grandparents did.  Their parents would speak in French when they didn’t want them to know what they were talking about.  I learned quickly about the language, although I can’t speak it, except for a few things.  I noticed everyone kept calling me “Chei,” and “Boo.”  I remember calling my Dad and saying, “I don’t know why but everyone keeps calling me Cher and saying Boo, and it’s not Halloween yet.”  My father explained that they were love names.

I learned about Catholicism.  I also learned about the food.  All food in South Louisiana is hot, a holdover from the Spanish, who got it from the tribes.  Hot food makes you sweat, when you sweat you are cooler.  Something you needed before AC was so prevalent.  Even the pizza sauce was hot.  And you never said something was hot, NOOOO!  You always said it was, “Well seasoned.”  I came home with an accent and a taste for hot food. 

Part of the reason I was at USL was I had two aunts who could watch over me.  One was a great Aunt, I think I saw her a few times I was down there.  The other was my Aunt Cathy and Uncle Cliff.  Now follow me on this one.  Uncle Cliff had been college roommates with my biological father, Beau.  We kept in touch with Aunt Cathy and them, after my parents divorced.  They were originally going to be my Godparents.  Aunt Cathy and Uncle Cliff have 4 daughters all with C names.  It was Aunt Cathy and her family that helped take care of me while I was at USL.  You know took me to the grocery store, called to check on me, let me do laundry at her house.

Aunt Cathy’s youngest daughters are identical twins, Cattie and Callie.  They were about 3 my first year in college.  Oh I loved both of them so much, and they loved me!  They were the light of my life!  One of the worst things about leaving USL was leaving them.  I loved going to the store and people thought they were mine.  I got to pretend for just a minute.  They even helped me pick out the fabric for the curtains in my dorm rom.  I was still hurting from things that had happened my senior year, the Brett Incident and my friends not talking to me.  I will always feel that the twins helped heal me, with the immense amount of joy they gave me. 

In the Fall of 1994 I was told my Wesley group would be taking a trip to Saint Louis for an Ecumenical Christian gathering the week after Christmas.  I was asked if I wanted to go.  It was a lot of money and I was not sure.  I was spending the weekend with Alison in her home in Crowley.  We had gone to mass and we were sitting in church.  Now Alison could see light and shadows but nothing else.  I told her I was looking for a sign, to decide if I should go or not.  She said she saw light come from where the Eucharist is kept and it touched me.  That for me was sign enough. 

I left after Christmas and rode with my minister, and 4 of college buddies.  I was the only woman in the group.  It took us 16 hours to reach St. Louis.  I had a wonderful time at the conference.  I even went to the top of the arch.  It was at this conference that I met Mike. 

I tried to balance my relationship with Mike with school.  I had been failing, long before I got involved with Mike, and not for lack of studying or trying.  Although I had graduated High School with honors, I was not prepared for USL.  I would not know for many years that NSU had originally offered me a full ride to school there.  Because I was so dead set on USL, my guidance councilor never told me about it.

There is one more story I want to tell you about USL.  Mike was a music major and told me that most colleges have a choir that members of the local community can sing in.  I joined.  I loved it.  I practiced all semester to sing in one of the local cathedrals.  I missed two classes and was told I had to make it up in a private session with my professor.  It was then he learned my secret.  I can’t read music.  Still can’t.  Years later I tried to have Mike teach me and that failed miserably. 

Twice, my professor told me to hit a specific note, and played it on the piano.  I couldn’t do it.  He told me that he had always heard me something strange coming out of my alto section, but couldn’t figure out what it was.  Turns out it was me.  I sing with others by listening to them, to know what note I should be singing.  He told me I had two choices.  I could quit or I could lip sync our concert at the cathedral.  I chose to lip sync.  I could not let all that work go to waste.  He told me something that has stayed with me.  He said, “All people can sing.  Some shouldn’t.  Your one of them.” 

I lip sang ¾ of the concert, and the last quarter I just sang my little heart out.  What was he going to do, flunk me.  I was already failing and leaving to go to NSU after that semester.  What could he possibly do to me!

I have always thought if I ever made an album I would call it, “Shouldn’t sing.”  I’ve got my music playing while I have been writing this, and another Jimmy Buffett just load up.  Think I will crank this one and sing myself out.  Oh it’s one of my favorites, Bob Robert’s Society Band.

A lady dressed in purple started dancing all alone,

Then she sauntered oh so gently to the vacant microphone.

She sounded like she’s someone who never missed a beat,

By the time the number ended they were dancing in the street.

 

Ilsa

 

 

 

USL

I gradated Logansport High School in May of 1994, which I talked about in The healing power of music.  Within a few weeks I started working at the McDonald’s in Center, Texas.  My town had little work, and what jobs there were, were taken up by others in our town.  I drove almost 30 miles round trip to work there.  Let’s just say I learned a lot about working, and what was legal and what was not.  It was definitely interesting to say the least. 

One of the managers was having an affair with one of the cooks.  They like to make love on the washing machine, when it was going.  He was 18 or 19, she was married with small children.  At night the managers would make us clock out at midnight, then lock the door, and not let us leave until the place was clean, usually till 2 or 3 in the morning.  If you walked out, you lost your job.  The idea was that they were supposed to be done by midnight and the store was to be clean.  If corporate found out that it wasn’t, my managers would have been in trouble.  I had no idea until later that this practice was illegal.  I worked for McDonald’s until a few weeks before it was time for me to leave for USL.

I had an experience there that has stuck with me as I became Pagan.  My manager told me to trust my gut, that money and all things were replaceable, but we were not, to trust my instincts.  If I ever had a situations where we were afraid, to simply back up and get him.  I had a man come in one day, my guess is it was close to Summer Solstice.  He was dressed in a black robe, I think, and had a huge pentacle around his neck.  My immediate thought was “Satan worshiper!” even though his pentacle was pointed up and not down.  I didn’t know the difference back then.  I backed up, and got my manager.  Who served him beautifully. 

As I have become pagan I have thought of this man.  I have no idea who he was, and in 10 years of being in this community, I have never encountered him again.  But I want to apologize for what I did.  Now I see him as simply a Pagan man, trying to get something to eat.  I see myself as the ignorant and stupid one.  I am ashamed of my actions, and hope where ever he is, he would know how that one act still has an effect on me.

In late August of 1994 I prepared to leave for college.  The day I left, we boarded my little Schnauzer, Sugar, at the vet.  She had been acting weird for a few weeks.  To our surprise while we were gone, she delivered 7 puppies, 2 who lived.  We adopted one out and kept the other.  We named her Sissy, she would be part of my life for more than 10 years.  Six weeks after I went to college by beloved friend and dog Texas died.  He was about 10.  Now the vet said he died of Hepatitis C, which he guessed Texas got from eating something dead.  I still believe he died of a broken heart. 

I planned for weeks on what to bring, trying to decide on which books to bring was almost painful.  I took pictures of my family to hang on my wall when I got there.  One of my grandmothers, I don’t remember which one, bought me new linens for my bed.  One of them gave me a small old refrigerator to take me.  My parents drove me down to Lafayette.  My first dorm room was on the 5^th floor of Bancroft.  I put all my things on one side of the room, waiting for a roommate that never came.  When my parents left, and the door closed I had never felt so alone in my life.  I felt like a stranger in a strange land.  I decorated my room and took pictures.  The sound of the wind was very creepy, as was the sound of people I did not know talking in the rooms next to me, and going up and down the halls all hours of the night.  They had no respect for others.  I was there to work, not party.

We were met at my dorm by Rev. Don Ross who was the Campus Minister at the Wesley Foundation for USL.  Part of their ministry was to assist those moving in.  They brought dollies and strong backs.  Bancroft had elevators, because it was 7 stories tall.  I sure missed that elevator when I moved to NSU.  We had to carry everything by hand up stairs.  Not fun.  My father took me to the campus ministry after we finished unpacking and talked with Don a while.  He asked him to watch over me, and that is where they left me. 

I became very active in the Campus Ministry there, for a time, even running an Interfaith Campus Ministry.  I was just trying to get the Catholics, Methodist, and Assembly of God to work together.  It all fell apart when they built a Mosque just off of campus and the Muslims wanted to join our group.  It worked for a while, and then I resigned.  It didn’t last long after that. 

I stayed in my 5^th floor dorm room for a few weeks.  Then I met Daria.  She was from Parks, but she had family in Butte La Rose.  It took her 2 days to convince me she was not a French national.  She asked me to move down to her room on the first floor.  I had no idea that the first floor even had rooms.  But it did, about 9 of them.  They were designed for the physically handicapped students.  Daria had severe seizures.  She was allergic to the medications they had tried to treat her with.  One time she had 7 seizures in one day.  I had experience and knowledge dealing with seizures.  We decided we were a good fit.  So I moved down to room 109.  I would stay in that room for the next two years, until I left for NSU. 

Ilsa

 

*Bancroft and Denbo were demolished in the last few years to make way for a new student housing complex. 

Meeting Mike

On December 21^st, 1996 I married Michael Carl Liberto, in a back yard in Bossier City.  My mother walked me down the aisle and whispered in my ear, “You can still get out of this.  It’s easier to get in a marriage then get out of it.”  All that did was harden my resolve to prove her wrong and to fix him. 

Michael and I had met on December 31^st, 1994, New Years Eve, in Saint Louis, Missouri.  We were both attending an Ecumenical Campus Ministry conference.  There were several thousand in attendance. 

Now a Campus Ministry, for those of you who don’t know, is kind of a throwback to years past.  Campus Ministries are organizations that are usually located just outside the fiscal boundary of a university.  Most of the time a block or two over, within easy walking distance of the campus.  They are outposts of most large church denominations, Baptist, United Methodist, Catholic, Pentecostal, etc.  Hell, I hear Harvard even has an Atheist one now. These ministries care for students spiritual needs.  They provide activities, like movie night, bible studies, church services, a quiet place to study and usually a free meal at least once during the week.  Although Campus Ministry is dying and underfunded I most places, Mike and I were heavily involved in them. 

We had not met until the last night of the conference at the big dinner and New Years Eve dance.  The feller I was supposed to go with bailed on me.  I was there with a group from the University of South Louisiana (USL) in Lafayette, He with a group from Northwestern State University (NSU) in Natchitoches.  There was no room for me at the USL table so I went to sit with the people from NSU.  I was looking good and smelling fine.  I had just bought some new vanilla oil perfume that day.  I took a seat between Mike and his roommate.  Now his roommate was cute and I was chatting him up.  Whatever I would say Mike would interject something.  I was trying to explain to the table that my mom was attending NSU and when I said she looked just like me.  Mike says, “Then by god she must be beautiful.”  Well that got my attention.  He kept saying, “Where are the cookies?   I smell cookies.”  We finally figured out it was my perfume.  It got such a rise out of him, that I continued to wear it most of our marriage. 

I don’t remember a lot of what happened after that.  I know that Mike and I stood outside the ballroom and danced for a while.  He had a hard on for me.  That was the first time I had ever felt that on a guy.  That was the first time, that I know of, I had caused one in a man. 

Now I was raised under a rock.  I was 18 and still a virgin.  I was 180lb and believe I would never marry, because I was too fat and ugly.  I’d never seen an erect penis much less been the cause of one.  Now let’s be clear, Mike at least kept it in his pants, that night.  I spent the 16 hour van ride home to Louisiana asking the 4 fellows I had come with what that hard thing was in Mike’s pants and what did it mean.  Conclusion, he liked me.  I’d never had a guy like me back. 

The next part is hard for me to tell.  After all these years I am still ashamed of it, but I’ve promised to write the truth of my life and this is part of that truth.  Mike and I went and hid for the rest of the night, in a little alcove not far from the ball room.  I don’t know how many hours we were there.  We talked, and we could not keep our hands off each other.  The worst part is that Mike had told me he had a girlfriend, Charlie, back home, and I did it anyway.  I wanted the attention so bad, it was hard to resist.  It was something I had never had.  He even told me he loved me, that night, as friends though.  Agape he called it.  I would get disgusted with myself and want to leave, then he would touch me and I would just melt.  He had my number early on. 

The hot and heavy continued for a while, with him even asking if I want to sneak away and make love.  I decided that was not what I wanted for my first time.  I asked him to walk me back to my hotel, which he did.  We said goodbye and I spent the rest of the night talking to my roommate about this horrible thing I had done.  I knew better then to mess with another woman’s man.  I knew better.  I was not raised like that.  My roommate and I made the decision to swear him off and never to see him again.  That was the most logical thing to do. 

The next morning I was full of resolve and self hatred for all that had happened the night before.  I am coming up the escalator and my pastor, and the pastor of the NSU group are desperately trying to get my attention. 

“What’s going on?” I said.

“It’s ML.  He’s been talking about you and asking for you all night.  He’s desperate to see you!  We’ve never seen him like this!  Ilsa you have to go to him.”

“Who the hell is ML?” I ask.

“Mike? You were with him last night.”

“I wasn’t with a Mike last night” I said.

“Michael”

“Oh Michael,” I said.  For some reason it didn’t register in my head that way.   “I don’t want to see him.” 

“Please Ilsa!  Please.”  You know what it’s like when you have two pastors begging you.  They know best, right?

“Okay.  Where is he?”  I finally gave in.  My resolve did not last that long.

Mike was checking out at the front desk.  He embraced me and tried to kiss me.  I turned my head and refused to hug him back.  I was like a limp noodle.  I asked what he wanted.  Mostly he wanted to give me his contact info and asked if he could write me.

Now this was in the early days of the internet, so most people did not email and few people had cell phones back then.  And they sure didn’t text.  Long distance calling on dorm phones required calling cards and were hugely expensive.  Later in our relationship, Mike and I ran up a $500.00 bill on my father’s AT&T calling card. And we didn’t talk that much and we were in the same state!  So in the beginning Mike and I wrote letters to each other.  What harm could a letter do?         

Ilsa