Quote for the day:

I often put boiling water in the freezer. Then whenever I need boiling water, I simply defrost it.
—Gracie Allen

A little over ten years ago when I was getting ready to move out of the house in the Wissahickon area to an apartment in Center City, I was pruning back my belongings because I knew I’d have a lot less room. I came across a folder with some old tax returns and check books that I had been lugging around for who knows how long and I thought, “Why would I ever need these? I should just toss them out.” So I did.

Now I wish I had those checkbooks, because they’d help answer some questions and pinpoint some dates that I can’t recall without them. I still have a few old checkbooks, and they tend to run out or start up at just the critical times. One of those is the time that Ed Stutz asked to borrow money.

We’re back in my second year at Penn State, winter term, and I’m in Mifflin Hall. This is right after that party that I described where I gave Nan a ride home to my everlasting shame.

It was right after that party that Ed moved out of the apartment that he had been sharing with Tim Toward and into the apartment with Debbie, his new girlfriend. The apartments were in the same building so it wasn’t much of a move, but it did mean that I was now going to Ed and Debbie’s parties rather than Ed and Tim’s. I don’t recall Debbie’s last name, but I remember going over to their place fairly often, and not just on weekends.

I got along great with Debbie, and as far as I could see things were working out fine between the two of them.

Anyway, one day and I’m not sure just when this was, but it was probably sometime into spring term, Ed showed up at my dorm room and asked to borrow a hundred dollars. At least I think that was the amount. Whatever it was it was a substantial amount but not so substantial that I couldn’t afford to lend it. A hundred sounds right. This is where it would be helpful to have that checkbook to verify the date and the amount.

He said he needed it to help pay Debbie’s rent.

Now I considered Ed one of my two closest friends at Penn State. The other being Mike Carr. A hundred dollars was a lot of money in those days and I had never lent that much to anyone ever before. I don’t think I would have even considered lending it to anyone other than Ed or Mike. 

But I could afford it and I felt I could trust Ed, so I wrote the check.

I don’t know how much time passed. Probably not much more than a week. I really don’t know. But I got a call from Tim. He and Debbie were down on the ground floor of the dorm and wanted to see me. That sounded serious.

When I got downstairs, both Tim and Debbie looked extremely serious. They wanted to know if I had heard from Ed. 

Why yes, he had been here a little while ago and borrowed a hundred dollars.

Debbie and Tim exchanged looks.

“What did he want it for?” Debbie asked.

“He said he wanted it to pay your rent.” 

Debbie looked shocked.

Now I was getting worried. That hundred dollars was a significant amount to me. I needed it to be paid back.

The two of them filled me in. Ed had been letting his academic work slide for some time, and now he had either dropped out or flunked out. I don’t recall which. They weren’t sure where he was. Neither had seen him in over a week.

This came as a shock to me. Ed was a history major, and he really knew his history. He was always talking about the French Revolution and how it had repercussions right down to the present day or pointing out something ridiculous that someone or other had said. And yet— In all the time that I had known Tim and Ed, if I thought back to the previous year when we lived in Pinchot Hall, I would often stop in their room and see Tim hitting his books, but I wasn’t sure that I ever remembered seeing Ed doing any studying. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been shocked. But why hadn’t Tim ever said anything?

In any case Tim assured me that I’d get my money back.

I did get my money back, though I don’t recall who brought it to me, whether it was Tim or Debbie. I don’t think it was Ed. In any case this was Tim’s fourth year and he would have been graduating at the end of that term, so I never saw him again after that.

Meanwhile, Ed got drafted. Just before he was shipped off to Vietnam, I was able to pay him a brief visit at his home in New Philadelphia, which I wrote about in my series about my stint as an encyclopedia salesman.

I hadn’t thought about it before writing this, but in an odd way, Ed’s trajectory at Penn State foreshadows mine, in that I also flunked out during my fourth year and shortly thereafter received my induction notice. The difference being that when I went for my physical, I was declared 4-F, as I wrote about here.