In the previous episode, Mike Carr bugged out of our roommate agreement leaving me less than a week to find two roommates and off-campus housing for the following year.

Well, that didn’t take long!

Actually I don’t remember anything about searching for roommates after Mike Carr unceremoniously dumped me, but as I considered Carl Gruber a good friend (not sure if I thought of him as a best friend yet) and I got along perfectly well with his roommate Perry Harris, they were probably the first guys that I approached. Presumably they must have said yes right away as we didn’t have time to dilly-dally.

How we went about the search for an apartment—I don’t recall that either.

Did we simply check the apartment listings in the Daily Collegian and the Centre Daily Times or did we get a recommendation from someone?

Given that I had a car (well, I had access to my parents’ car) and Carl would have one as well the following year, and given that there were shuttle buses that took students back and forth to the more distant off-campus areas, location wasn’t much of a problem.

Having had experience with the Whitehall Apartments, which is where Ed Stutz and Tim Toward had lived, I probably wanted something a bit more modern. Perhaps we saw this ad.

The Southgate Apartments were about two miles from campus, which was about a ten minute drive.

I recall the conversation with the rental agent. She seemed to have lots of experience dealing with college students, whom she referred to as “boys”. I don’t recall how she referred to co-eds.

She showed us the sample unit for the townhouses, and we were hooked. Here is how the downstairs looked, just ignore the furniture.

There was a spacious living room, a dining room on the right in the rear, a powder room on the left as you walked into the kitchen, which had a dish washer, and a small laundry room at the back. The stairs led up to three bedrooms with a layout very close to the following:

Yes, there was one bathtub flanked by toilets on either side, and a large papa bear bedroom, a mama bear bedroom, and a baby bear bedroom. We didn’t have a balcony and the papa bear bedroom wasn’t quite that spacious.

We were sold!

We signed on the dotted line or wherever we had to sign.

There was only one problem.

The monthly rent was a bit higher than we had planned on. If I recall correctly, it was about $280 per month plus utilities. And of course we’d have to provide our own food from now on. Yes, that seems cheap by today’s standards, but remember, in 1970 $280 was roughly equivalent to $2400 today, according to the inflation calculator.

To keep the costs manageable, we’d really need a fourth. Carl and I could share the master bedroom and Perry would take the next smaller one. I think Perry was relieved that he wouldn’t be consigned to the baby bear bedroom.

But who could we get for the fourth?

Time was literally running out, as Perry’s finals were finished and he was about to leave, while Carl and I had a couple days to go yet.

We discussed whom to ask, and Perry only had one request. Well, it was more like an order. He didn’t want Terry Carroll. He didn’t give a reason.

As Perry was leaving, he reiterated that he didn’t want Terry for the fourth roommate, and Carl assured him that we would find someone else.

Once Perry was gone we asked around and the only person we found who was interested was, you guessed it, Terry Carroll.

So Terry became our fourth.

And Carl assured me that he would smooth it over with Perry.

I was certain that he would.