Forty years ago, with decidedly unhip short hair (the result of being caught between an overly enthusiastic barber and an edict from my summer employer, McDonalds; a friend wrote in my yearbook that he thought I was joining the Marines), decidedly unhip eyeglasses (all the cool kids wore wire rims; mine looked like tire rims) and clothes that were occasionally hip (I had a navy blue and purple long-sleeved T-shirt with a multicolored cloth butterfly in the middle of the chest, which I wore for a photo in the local newspaper of a handful of students who had high scores on a standardized test; not to mention a Stetson fedora, tie-dyed purple T-shirts on which I had stenciled things like “Eskimo Blue Day” on the front, and a white winter cloth coat with faux shearling collars the size of aircraft rudders), I began my college years.
My roommate had not arrived when I checked in, but when I opened the room for the first time, there was a piece of paper—a telephone service document, I think it was—on the first desk, and his name was on the paper:
Kwok Yin Chan.
The name may have had a hyphen; I can’t remember. But I recall thinking this could be cool; there were no kids named “Kwok” in my hometown. So I waited for him to show up. Later that first day? No. Second day? No. Third day? No. Never.
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