My Dear Maxine,

        The sad thoughts of my yesterday's thinking, continued:

       What I was reflecting upon was the incredible sense of everything 
alive with possibility; U.B. was being billed as the "Berkeley of the 
East," not only because we'd just had our student riots, replete with 
riot squads firing rifles, but too because of some hotshot-Berkeley 
honcho who'd taken a high-up administrative job at U.B....One class 
comes to mind: a "mick" or guaranteed B+, A with minimum work, in which 
the prof. limited enrollment to 20 or so and announced that If you knew 
whay the class was about( "history of drug consciousness") fine, if not, 
well, there's the door, along with, The final of which you've heard is 
still the same (at which point he pulled out a bag of fine-swellling pot 
and rolled a fat number, lit and passed--you took a puff, you got an 
A...don't remember my grade, have to check those transcripts)

        I'd been nicknamed "T.C." by one Steve Hallock, of Syracuse; 
along with his roommate, Leigh Zoloto, and Andy Stein (a Queens Jew like 
my roommate, Richie "Call Me Krebs" Klein), we had a powerhouse 
basketball intramural squad and did everything together--dorm meals, 
hoop, flag football intramurals (again, we dominated; I played "rover" 
linebacker, wide receiver and sometimes Q.B., all very well, thank you), 
"pitch" (a card game of "High Low, Jack, Game") all night, etc.  Best 
was our barhopping--because of course we were too cool for the scene, 
commenting to one another about how we were so above it all...

      As U.B. became nicknamed "the Eunuch Colony," we of course 
searched for greener pastures.  Seeking to avoid what any and all termed 
"the Jewish American Princess" syndrome (though if you were non-Jew, a 
very touchy subject best left unmentioned), in which a fast-talking 
female sized you up in  a millisecond and found you wanting of her 
precious attention if she'd not found that you were, A, from "the City," 
like her, B, pre-med, C, guaranteed to get into an Ivy League medical 
school, we went seeking for "local girls," like in Cheek-ta-wahggah, 
where a strip of nightclubs drew crowds nightly--one, "Uncle Sam's," had 
a completely panel-lighted  red, white and blue dance floor that rolled 
across the big warehouse.  These shrewdly-assessing working-class and 
wise beyond their age females had A,B,C's, too (A became B, C was B with 
the guarantee that you d be making $50,000 your first year out 
of the playpen, and C was required possession of a hot, ( muscle,  
preferably) 
late-model  car outside in the parking lot 

          So, I was comparing, so to speak: very few  complete  
encounters at  U.B. with the half-dozen very  deep  love affairs that 
I ve had with  Berkeley/S.F. females 

         One woman, the best of U.B., stands out in my mind as the 
precursor of  times to come.  I met her in a  downtown  bar, almost all 
the way down Main  St. to the dangerous center of Buffalo.  The place 
was a dive down some stairs,  low ceiling, incredibly smoking, basic 
live bar bands, etc., but just a coupla  blocks from the Bryant School 
of Business.  The women were  lookers,  in other words; the one that I 
saw a few times was fair-skinned, beautiful-eyed  and bright.  
Well-bosomed, too, with softness to her hips and thighs that spoke  of 
 new heaven, new earth.   Unfortunately, her boyfriend was an ignorant  
Canuck who starred on U.B. s hockey team.  She was trying to dump him, 
but   the usual  jockocracy problems kept plaguing her.  The couple of 
times that I  saw her (happening into the place by myself)  we d talk 
quite a bit, then I d  walk her home she said she had a new roommate 
that she told to never let  her bring a man home, so we d kiss outside 
and say goodnight.  

       One night in particular she was very much distressed; the punk 
showed up and tried to grab her and I, of course, intervened.  She 
screamed not to, but I made him back down and go he of course tossing of 
that, Doesn t matter, I m through with you, bee-itch! (then telling me, 
She really like doing my whole  team, you re getting quite a whore, 
before schmirking off).  

       I never saw her again; her roommate said she d moved back home 
(some little town like Lockport).

        The other sweet woman was from the  Inn-Between  at Buffalo 
State (called  Muff State  by our male expedition, as the teachers and 
nursing college had a 5 or 6 females to 1 male ratio).  Tuesday and 
Thursday night was  Ladies Night,  in which obscene specials were 
offered: for men, two tall draft beers for a quarter, for Ladies, free 
drinks from 8 to 10 P.M.  Like the other  feast or famine  situations 
that came to define those two years at U.B., this one offered much for 
us to cooly comment on being above: as Steve coached, the  accidental  
elbow, called, I think,  copping a tit  (obvious lack of sensation 
notwithstanding we all made our attempts), the hand on the butt (with 
instructions that, if you didn t get smacked for being rude, ask her if 
she was ready to leave), etc.  Most enthusiastic for these excursions 
was our wheelman, Paul  Call Me  Lude,  from Long Guy-land and a 
 Stayin  Alive  wannabe (he was a Phys Ed major, too, honest to God, the 
only one I think I ever met).  Paul had a 63 or 64 Chevy Impalla 
convertible (mighty cold during those winters) and would pop two  or 
three Quaaludes prior to our beginning to drink to counter his constant 
commenting about everything 

       You most likely can discern that no matter how cool we thought we 
were being our luck ran cold as the winters 

       Except for one night, a bit magical, when I met an absolute fox 
who wanted to go back to her Buff State dorm room just fifteen minutes 
into a very stimulating conversation (I d adopted the witty 
existentialist routine, complete with the Ah, if only we all could be 
more natural, and she was my first  taker ); I told Paul et al to give 
me till midnight, our usual departure time, as it was winter and some 4 
or 5 miles back to U.B.

        We couldn t go to her dorm room, as she had a roommate (suites 
of four, like ours), but we made love on the couch of her darkened floor 
lounge.  
Believe said matter or not, I was a virgin, and came as soon as I 
entered her, 
the feeling was just too glorious for conception But, having read all 
the 
amnuals and discussed much the man s duty of pleasing his female, I 
found 
that I ve the talent of staying hard after ejaculation and kept going 
until she had 
several orgasms and begged me to stop (when I asked her if she d come, 
she 
giggled and said, yes, many times, couldn t you tell?).  She did seem 
rather 
flushed with delight, so after lazily dressing I walked her to her door, 
she stood 
on her toes and kissed me and made me promise to call her 

        Back at the bar, of course Paul et al had left in a fit of 
grumpiness, even 
though I still had at least fifteen minutes before midnight A long walk 
through quiet streets back to my dorm room perhaps the best, as I was 
filled 
with wondrous glory and awe 

          Having to tell the men What happened, I wouldn t go into 
details 
(protecting her as well as practical reasons with this crew of 
bird-doggers), but 
made a Big Mistake by listening to their advice not to call her right 
away, as a 
cool male never wants to give the impression to a bee-itch that he s 
taken with 
her (she might think that you re desperate or, Heaven forbid, it was 
your first 
time or something).  So, like a lunkhead ,I waited a couple of days, 
then called 
her on Friday.  First time a message, then the second time I got her 
roommate 
who for some reason gave me a hard time about   calling on a Friday and 
thinking that [ she s] going to be at your beck and call; why didn t you 
call her 
earlier in the week.   Not wanting to blow my  cool  cover, I mumbled 
something about having been  busy,  and she said,  Oh yeah? Well she s 
busy 
too!   Future phone calls were likewise intercepted and proved futile 

       Going back through the procession of  people s parties  I find 
little of 
note to remember; mostly they were a way of unwinding after some very 
hard 
and serious studying sex was out of the question, as everyone was way 
too 
 uptight  about one s body I used to get all kinds of flack for even 
working 
out at the gym, let alone doing the Varsity Basketball and Track.  The 
hotshot 
females, rather  along the lines of a  Hillary,  specialized 
simulataneously in 
belittling the men as nerdy incompetents (hopelessly hooked to whatever 
woman would tolerate each, of course) and the  oooogh!  distaste at the 
 Clint 
Eastwood  types maintaining one s fitness 

         I was a honcho in my dorm, along with my friend Gary Cohn, who 
later 
went to Boalt Law School; we were the student activists who knew 
everything, 
quoted like Gary was in the papers as  if I m ever in the future seen 
carrying a 
briefcase like the rigid compartmentalized males of the ruling class I 
hope 
somebody pulls out a machine gun (complete abstractions to ones like us) 
and 
shoots me down!  

      My speciality was arranging or preparing the music for our 
parties which 
lasted all night usually.  One all dorm bash I d hired a good blues band 
to play, 
and, when my dancing impressed the usually stony and sharp-tongued 
Robin, 
creme de la creme of the Queens J.A.P. s, I took her upstairs for some 
hot and 
heavy necking (she was built) until the band was due to finish, when I 
remembered that I had to hustle back downstairs to give them their 
check.  She 
laid back on my waterbed and promised to wait (As you might guess, she 
was 
gone when I returned; her friends had been looking for her as she 
allegedly was 
high on Quaaludes, a plausible explanation for her sudden warmth to 
anything 
male, and had put her to bed ) Another J.A.P. tale, of a tall, 
darkly-beautiful 
NYC er, is from when I had my cast on my right leg; we were on my 
waterbed, 
 69-ing,  and after she obviously had enjoyed herself fully, she rolled 
off me 
and said,  Thanks, God you are good,  and fell asleep.  When she 
startled 
herself awake she got dressed in a rush and left; upon seeing me again 
always 
slightly embarrassed and back to her superior than thou persona 

      Bringing the matter all up because when I finally had a chance to 
compare, so to speak, after I d transferred, I could see that I d grown 
while my friends had not ...

      After a wonderful mid-week with Amy at Columbia (must have been 
the fall of 1979) I looked up Steve and Lee in Hartford, Conn.  Some 
type of unspoken grudge still hung in the air, like bad blood between 
Steve and me (he'd broken up with his high school sweetheart at U.B., 
she was attending Syracuse U., I think, but wopuld visit or he would go 
every weekend; she'd taken to talking with me on her visits about why 
Steve wouldn't open up and one time let slip, If only he could be more 
like you, along with: Why don't you have a steady girl, and the unspoken 
implication that she wanted me).  On the hoop court with their work 
buddies, Sat. afternoon, I played really well, even better than I did at 
U.B. before I broke my leg (I was dunking two-handed and swatting away 
anything "in the paint," and, as Steve and I were guarding each other, 
he exploded and stormed off the court...

       We had a bit of history on that one, too; I'd gone out for the 
Varsity B-Ball team at U.B.--mostly on a dare from my buddies (the other 
gross "dare" business had to do with my consuming "anything" put into 
one standard milk glass entirely, for five bucks; after realizing that I 
had a "cast-iron stomach" the city kids finally figured they were being 
"slickered").  Though I made the "final cuts" down to fifteen, three 
scrimmage teams, from about sixty or seventy "walk-ons," the Coach had 
told me that, as a frreshman, third-team, I probably wouldn't get any 
playing time but he wanted me to work with the strength coach for "down 
the road" (saying, too, that I was the best natural defender he'd ever 
seen, a matter that "just can't be taught," and to work on my 
ballhandling skills to become the "utility"man capable of "all the 
numbers")...One day, as I was wolfing down the required 10,000 calories 
a day to gain weight, a jab from a buddy hurt: "Hey, there's Noonan, 
eating early--too good for us now, huh?" 

      As Andy told me that our star intramural team wasn't doing so well 
in my absence (Steve kep hogging the ball and forcing the drive), he'd 
asked me to still "Coach" (forbidden from playing because of the team), 
and I'd said, Sure, but was now getting razzed...

      So, of course I dropped the team to be with my friends; we had a 
lot of fun, and would have won the A championship if not for Andy and I 
taking "Vivarin" to counteract a mysterious "flu virus," and, too, Steve 
reverting to bad habits and driving the land, one against too many, and 
causing turnovers...

     My just playing that day apparently brought back the grudge and 
conflict of "the onus, the onus," as Lee explained later; plus, his new 
girlfriend, a disco bimbo, was a matter of which he complained 
constantly...(I'd been exulting about how wonderful Amy had been in 
Berkeley and at Columbia)

         Close of this tale--until I confere my Berkeley romances--was 
that I'm cetain Steve took my "Greyhound" bus ticket out of my 
belongings (my jacket pocket), so that when I arrived back in N.Y.C.and 
discovered the loss most "peculiar," I had to call  Amy--in the middle 
of a very intensive work period and cramming for a test--who then drove 
down and "bailed me out," adding that How could I? and I never want to 
see you again and You always do this to me (like the time I had my 
wallet lifted by the maitre d at a swank restaraunt, full of $80 with 
which I was to treat her for hard work in her classes...)...

love,
tom