I couldn’t wait to move out of my parents’ house after high school. I had decided to take what is now referred to as a “gap year,” and got no end of flak from my parents about it. I went searching for a job so I could make the first and last months’ rent for the apartment I would share with my sister and two other young women, just blocks from the UC Berkeley campus. Once I landed my only option for employment as a telephone operator in San Francisco, I packed up my stuff and moved. If I recall correctly, my share of the rent amounted to $57.50 per month. Or maybe that was the quarterly tuition I paid when I went back to college after my full-time work experiment ended. Either way: ridiculously cheap.

For the first time in several years, I once again shared a bedroom with my older sister. Our two twin beds barely fit into the small room. How did we ever share a closet again? The other bedroom was occupied by a succession of young  women over the short 18 months or so I lived in the apartment. One woman used our address as more or less a mail drop as she lived almost full time with her boyfriend. She was “never home” when her parents called on the landline. The first time I met her: in the morning on New Year’s Day, shortly after I moved in. She came out of her room wrapped in a sheet as we both ran to answer the phone at the same time. Quite an introduction!

When my boyfriend came to visit, we would move my mattress into the living room for “privacy.” He wasn’t the only gentleman caller I had in those days. One unwelcome visitor: an ex-boyfriend I really didn’t want to see. I left a “drop dead” note taped to the door and refused to let him in. A guy I’d really liked one summer came to visit and walked in on us while my boyfriend and I were in bed. I did the “pull  the sheet up” thing women do in the movies as he draped himself in the doorway with a big grin on his face. Unfazed, he stood there and shot the breeze for a few minutes. Awkward?

Though I have tried while writing this, I cannot recall the everydayness of that time: where did we shop, who cooked, when did I leave and come home each day–things that fell into a routine. I have no pictures of the apartment either. The two I have here I found on Zillow! That tiny kitchen with its electric stove! I do remember that my sister and I went on the then-popular “grapefruit diet” for a couple of weeks. I wonder if anyone else tried this one:

Examples of the meals include:

• Breakfast: two boiled eggs, two slices of bacon, and 1/2 grapefruit or 8 ounces of grapefruit juice
• Lunch: salad with dressing, any meat in any amount, and 1/2 grapefruit or 8 ounces of grapefruit juice
• Dinner: any kind of meat prepared any way, salad or red and green vegetables, coffee or tea, and 1/2 grapefruit or 8 ounces of grapefruit juice
• Bedtime snack: 8 ounces of skim milk

• 

       Where the magic happened

Neither one of us could look at a hard boiled egg for quite some time. My daily on-the-way-to-work custard danish, those bags of M&Ms during my breaks, and the delicious cafeteria cherry pie were to blame for the extra pounds. My sister, always the skinny one, must have gone on the diet with me to offer moral support. But happily, I did lose weight–if only temporarily.

One of our roommates happened to be a true flower child. She kept pot plants on our back patio and had several mysterious containers scattered in the fridge with “DO NOT TOUCH!” notes taped to them. When there was a rumored raid in the building one day, another roommate dumped the contents of these containers down the sink. We locked up and left the building and ran into several other tenants around the block while we waited for the narcs to leave. The containers may have held homemade yogurt, but we could not confirm this.

The building had a dark, dank laundry room down in the garage. Someone began stealing our underwear out of the dryers. We never found out who it was.

One of our roommates worked at the local Copper Penny restaurant. She would go off to work in her unflattering brown uniform, returning in the evening to spend time doing her side hustle of tutoring a stream of international male students. She told us that her mother had been a contestant on the old “Queen for a Day” show–and won! What she’d asked for was a pair of artificial limbs for her younger daughter. Our roommate’s sister came over for a small gathering, and became so comfortable on the couch that she took them off and stashed them under the couch, with toes pointing up Wicked Witch under the house style. An unforgettable moment, for sure.

Another roommate, a few years older than I, seemed way more grown up. Organized and neat, she had a personal maintenance schedule that really impressed me: laundry, haircuts, shopping, personal grooming–all done right on time with no last minute scrambling– my trademark in those days.

I may be leaving one or two roommates out. There really was a revolving door in the other bedroom. We all had guys come over and I believe there were a few dinners or parties. I recall that one of us made a chocolate cake so rich, my roommate suggested that the best time to eat the rest of it could only be in the morning, with coffee. This was a valuable tip.

We made it all work: sharing a small space with people we wouldn’t have met otherwise, learning some limits, setting some boundaries, sharing one tiny bathroom with three other people and visitors, keeping the space relatively neat and clean, and having some fun in the process.But eventually the time came for me to move out. My next step? Sharing a one-bedroom apartment with a friend who had started dating my ex. That’s a whole other chapter…

The building at 2725 Haste is still there, probably full of students holding down part-time jobs like we did back in the day. I hope no one steals their underwear.

Don’t try to brush aside a death in the family. It won’t work.
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The epitome of grace, class, and intelligence, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was, from the time I was very young, my idol. She married John F. Kennedy when I was a baby and she set about having babies too. She was married to JFK a mere 10 years and was pregnant five times, resulting in only 3 live births and two children who lived beyond a few days. Those children were her priority and, by all accounts, she did a marvelous job raising them.

As a person to whom culture and dignity have always mattered, Jackie exemplified those for me. She spoke French fluently and brought culture into the White House. She loved history and set about a historic restoration of our nation’s house, setting up a commission to find the period antiques that had once graced the rooms and went to Congress to pass a law to preserve the work she accomplished. In 1962, she led a nationally broadcast tour of the White House to show the country the work she had done. It was awarded a special Emmy Award, the only one ever awarded a First Lady. That award and the rose-colored suit she wore can be viewed at the Kennedy Library today.

She invited the great artists of the day to perform at the White House, making it a cultural hub. France even lent the “Mona Lisa” to the US. It has never been out on loan since. The national orchestra and ballerinas from my camp performed there in the summer of 1962. It was written up in the Life Magazine issue with Marilyn Monroe on the cover, as she died that week. Though naturally shy, she was a huge political asset to JFK, who asked her to come along on the campaign trail whenever she could, but with her high-risk pregnancies, this was not always possible. She was known to be cheerful and people, even before they were in the White House, were drawn to her. She helped JFK with his speeches, often adding historical references or context.

So she went with him to Dallas in November, 1963. How she retained her dignity and sanity after having her husband’s brains blown out in her lap I will never understand. She then led our nation through four days of mourning, keeping her head up and shoulders back, while caring for her own children. She will forever have my admiration for that; deciding to echo Lincoln’s funeral observances, looking up historical details. How she expressed her grief in private, she kept private; to the end of her life. Aside from the one interview with Theodore White in which she cemented the “Camelot” myth, she never again spoke to the press. She valued her privacy and dignity.

She remained close to her in-laws, while raising her own children as she wished. She leaned on Bobby for support and after he died, she felt she had to leave the US and find privacy and peace elsewhere. She did what she needed to do, always keeping her apartment on 5th Ave in New York City. She remained a New Yorker in her soul.

We caught glimpses of her jetting around the world, wearing couture. Who could blame her? She still was there for her children, always. When the Greek adventure ended, she stood up to Onassis’s heir and got the money that was her due. She bought a large spread on Martha’s Vineyard, at the far end of the island, but, by all accounts, was a good neighbor and would go to the local coffee shop to have a bite of food.

She went to work as an executive editor at a publishing house (then a different one, after the first published a work of fiction in which a figure closely resembling Ted Kennedy is shot) and worked for causes she believed in in New York City. She published some good books. I have the Gelsey Kirkland autobiography, a talented ballerina of the ’70s and ’80s who faltered with eating disorders and private demons. She rode to the hounds, she had a new beau. She enjoyed her children and eventually, her grandchildren, who called her “Grand Jackie”. She was always there for Teddy when he needed her.

Then, in early 1994, a press release said she was being treated for non-Hodgkins’ Lymphoma. The world waited; a photo of her on a park bench, rail thin, clearly wearing a wig, with Maurice Templesman emerged. Could she beat this set-back too? She died on May 19, 1994 at the age of 64, two years younger than I am now.

I didn’t know what to do with my grief. I went to the JFK Library, which she helped to build. She picked I M Pei as the architect, just as he designed the Arlington gravesite where she would be buried beside the president in a few days. I have been a member for close to three decades. I arrived early the day after her death and walked through the familiar exhibits. A memorial book was now open in the lobby when I emerged from the exhibits. I was the first to sign it. The press had arrived, taping people lined up to sign the book. I filled up with tears, wandered out into the sunshine of the parking lot. A local news person put a microphone in my face, asked for my reaction. I couldn’t speak. My grief was profound.

I never saw Jackie in person, though I have encountered each of her children at some point in my life and found them pleasant. But just knowing that I would never have the chance to run into her, perhaps on Martha’s Vineyard, or around the Boston area…well, a light has gone out of the world for me.