Roommates 101: Lessons for Life

Picture this

My freshman roommate arrived first, and when I came later, our RA snapped a photo of the two of us practically before we’d even had a chance to say hi. That picture became a treasure because on both our faces you can see the fear of two freshmen who don’t know what to expect.

That was the beginning of a long-lasting friendship that endured living together for four years, three of them in the same room. We experienced each other’s joys and trials. Favorite memories are taking long walks and movie nights on the weekend. We took an interest in each other’s majors and shared what we were learning in our classes. We didn’t always get along, but we always worked through our disagreements, which is a great relationship skill to learn.

Sarah Hilkemann ’08
PLANO, TEXAS

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Pickled

Almost every night before she went to bed, my roommate had milk and pickles—straight out of the jar.

Emily (De Weerd ’10) Moret
ORANGE CITY, IOWA

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PB & J and other great combos

The summer before my freshman year, I was a little nervous about my roommate assignment. So my mom suggested that after I got my roommate match-up letter, we could contact her family and arrange to meet halfway before fall to get to know each other, talk about preferences, figure out who would bring an iron, blow-dryer, etc.—to avoid doubling up and that sort of thing.

Finally the letter arrived! I opened it, started to read and said, “Mom, remember your idea for meeting my roommate and her family in the middle? What’s halfway between here and Tokyo?!” Yep, I’d gotten matched with Sawa Sasaki ’98 from Japan.

That year I learned to live with someone by bridging cultural differences. I taught her how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and I learned to sleep through her early morning calls home to Tokyo. She taught me the best way to teach someone how to speak English is lovingly and gently.

Tara (Simmons ’98) Kluth
MANTORVILLE, MINN.

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Groovy

One of my roommates—who had an uncle who worked for Alcoa Aluminum—came back from a weekend at home with dozens of boxes of aluminum foil. So we wallpapered room 327 in Colenbrander Hall with foil and then painted pictures and words with black light paint (a ’70s thing) to create “atmosphere.” It was pretty cool!

Glenn Van Ekeren ’74
ELKHORN, NEB.

Roommate arrangements

First semester of my sophomore year, due to an increase in enrollment, eight of us lived in Fern Smith’s second-floor lounge. A row of wardrobes down the middle of the lounge separated two “rooms” with four beds each. It was a little hectic, so I spent that semester studying in the chapel sound booth, which I had access to because of my work-study job.

I spent the second semester on the island of Zamalek in Cairo, Egypt, with a roommate from a different college. We both were students in the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities’ Middle East Studies Program. I learned a lot from my roommate that semester, who was learning her fifth language while we were there!

During my junior year, my roommate and I rearranged our room about once a month, more as the year drew to an end. It was a standing joke on our floor; our wing mates would offer to call the fire marshal when we piled stuff in the hall so we could move the bigger furniture around.

My junior roommate and I were also friends with the same guy. We all went together on a Spring Service Project, during which she and he officially started dating. The year after we graduated, that guy married my roommate. Five years after that, I married his roommate.

Marla (Van Steenis ’98) Bruins
BELLFLOWER, CALIF.

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Angelic behavior

My roommate and I had a big plastic angel—left over from Christmas decorating—and late at night (when everything seems funnier), we’d tie a rope around it and let it down from our window to knock against the window of the room below ours. When our downstairs neighbors got over their “holy” fright, they’d open their window, and we’d let down a basket of goodies. (Maybe I should have submitted this anonymously—can we still get fined for removing our screens?)

Jackie (Rauch ’00) Swanson
DENISON, IOWA

Sweet cheeks

I introduced one of my roommates to wearing blush. She always thought it wouldn’t work with her ivory skin, but she just hadn’t found the right shade. She says she still thinks of me whenever she applies her blush to this day—which makes me smile.

Elizabeth Colbert ’08
SIOUX FALLS, S.D.

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Cracking up

One evening in October of 1983 during my junior year at Northwestern, my roommate Craig Pennings [’85] and I were studying in our dorm room. On my desk was a box of Ritz crackers I was munching on. I offered him some and he said, “No, thanks.”

I said, “What’s the matter? My crackers aren’t good enough for you?”

He said, “Hey, I’m not hungry.”

When he left the room, I put the box on his desk. Later, without a word, he put it back on mine. And so it went for a couple of days. Finally, when I got them back on my desk for the umpteenth time, I put them away.

But before going home for Christmas that December, I dug those crackers out, tied them up in their wax paper wrapping, and stuffed them inside a shoe in his closet. I scribbled a note that said something like, “Since you didn’t eat them in October, I thought you might be hungry by now.” Then I laughed and left. By the time I came back for second semester, I had forgotten all about it.

In May 1984 after final exams, I was packing up to go home for the summer and found the crackers stuffed in one of my shoes with a note from Craig saying he thought I should keep them.

I did keep them—for a whole year, until graduation the spring of 1985 when I went to his closet and stuffed them back in one of his shoes just before leaving the dorm for the last time. I attached a note that said, “Thought you better have these crackers since you wouldn’t eat them in October of ’83. You thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you?” I chuckled, thinking I was having the last laugh, and left.

In April of 1988, three years after we graduated from college, I got a package in the mail. Inside were the crackers, along with a note that said, “Remember these? I thought you might be hungry.”

This was entirely too much. Believing for three years that you’ve had the last laugh, only to realize you were, in fact, dealing with a very patient person is a real jolt. In 1991, I mailed them back to Craig with a note.

For my birthday in 1993, he mailed them back to me with a can of Cheez Whiz.

In May of 1996, I sent them back to him with a poem: “Roses are red, old buckets are rusty, after 13 years, these crackers are crusty.”

I got them back through the mail in 2000 as a belated birthday present.

While preparing a sermon on friendship in September of 2004, I realized I had the crackers in my closet. I thought it would be an appropriate occasion to send them back to my old roomie.

Just this past spring, about the same time the Classic was asking for roommate stories, I got a suspicious package from Craig.

These crackers, or more accurately cracker dust, get mailed back and forth every few years—always after the other guy has forgotten all about them, and always with a note stapled on top of all the other notes we’ve written. It’s been going on for more than 25 years. Craig knows that if he dies before I do and the cracker dust is in my possession, I will find a way to bury it with him. I know he will do the same for me.

To anyone else, that bag of Ritz cracker dust is worthy of a trash can. For Craig and me, our running joke is part of the legacy of our deep friendship. Craig has been there for me during the most difficult times in my life. He is an encourager with a caring heart and one of the one of the most loyal friends I’ve ever known.*

Todd Thompson ’85
LUBBOCK, TEXAS

*The story of Todd and Craig’s cracker exchange was first printed in March 2008 on Todd’s blog, ASliceOfLifeToGo.com.

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Meet the sister

My roommate, Tim Bishop [’94], definitely opened my eyes to something: his sister, Stacey, who also attended Northwestern. Thanks to Tim, I met my wife, and we’ve now been married for 18 years.

Anthony (T.J.) Roberts ’95
LELAND, IOWA

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Responsible in an emergency

I met my roommate, Melanie (Vigneron ’01) Safly, when we were freshmen in Northwestern’s athletic training program. Our love for Jesus and pranks made us fast friends. Because we shared the same major and internship requirements—and loved pulling pranks—we spent most of our time together.

During our senior year, one evening after a football game, we were in charge of bringing the ambulance golf cart back to its storage shed on the north side of campus. (No one thought it was a bad idea to entrust students with an ambulance golf cart because we were perceived to be very responsible; in fact, I was also an EMT at the time.)

In truth, the trip across campus took several detours, including through the Taco John’s drive-through and across the green around 11 p.m. with the lights flashing and sirens blaring.

We were caught by a fellow EMT, which put an end to our mischief with the golf cart—but didn’t end our mischievous ways. To this day, Melanie is still the person I call in a crisis, with exciting news, or if I have an opportunity for an ill-advised joyride.

Gina (Wenzel ’01) Greene
WATSEKA, ILL.

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Game on

I was a fan of the Philadelphia 76ers, Minnesota Twins and Southern rock. My roommate was a fan of the Boston Celtics, New York Yankees and Elvis. We roomed together for four years, proving you can get along with someone in spite of differences—a great life lesson.

Mark Davis ’77
ARLINGTON, MASS.

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Roommate redux

One of my college roommates, Nicole (Koenecke ’05) Forbes, graduated with a communications degree; I majored in marketing. We had different career goals and never expected to both end up in the Christian nonprofit marketing world.

After jobs with different organizations our first four years following college, we both landed on the same team at World Vision! I live near the World Vision headquarters in Seattle. Nicole lives and works out of Minneapolis but sometimes has to travel here for work, so over the past year, she’s spent a lot of time as my roommate again!

Amanda (De Boer ’05) Bowman
GIG HARBOR, WASH.

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Roommate déjà vu

My freshman year roommate and I didn’t get along. We were completely different in temperament and expectations—and probably both quite immature. It got so bad we couldn’t have a civil conversation, and by Thanksgiving, we’d agreed we both wanted someone else—anyone else!—as a roommate.

Nonetheless, imagine my surprise when I came back from Christmas break, opened the door to my room and found all my stuff gone! My roommate had gotten some friends to help him move my stuff into an empty room down the hall. Second semester, living in different rooms, we got along better, although neither of us would have said we were friends.

But the story doesn’t end there. My former roommate hailed from the same hometown as my eventual girlfriend; in fact, she had dated him in high school. When my girlfriend and I later married, my brother couldn’t attend at the last minute, so guess who my wife-to-be asked to step into our wedding party as a substitute? The guy I couldn’t live with as a freshman ended up in a number of my wedding pictures.

And it continued. Six months after graduation, my wife and I moved back to Orange City into an old Victorian just north of downtown. We lived downstairs, and guess who lived upstairs? My old roomie and his wife! Both older and a little wiser, we finally managed—with the help of our wives—to develop a cordial sense of community.

Phil Somsen ’73
FORT DODGE, IOWA

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Planning ahead

We first met when we woke up one August morning in the same dorm room (bed hair and sleepy eyes—what a great first impression!). We still refer to each other as “my roommate” and are the best of friends. In fact, we’ve made plans to be roommates again when we are old and widowed!

Deb Stralow-Dyson ’96
FORRESTON, ILL.

Midori Okawa-Ataka ’96
TORRANCE, CALIF.

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Breakfast burgers

Back when I went to Northwestern, in the mid ’60s, we used to change roommates a lot—even during the middle of the year. In my first two years, I had a different roommate every semester, which wasn’t unusual at the time. I lived all over Colenbrander: on first north, second west, third west, down in the Ghetto. As an athlete, sometimes I roomed with a teammate, sometimes an athlete in another sport, and sometimes a non-athlete.

I had one roommate who’d go over to where Subway is now—it used to be called Debos—where you could get four hamburgers for a buck. He’d go to Debos and buy eight hamburgers; he’d eat four before bed and put the other four in a drawer so he could eat them for breakfast.

Barry Brandt ’69
ORANGE CITY, IOWA

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Armed with friendship

My freshman roommate was Diane (Auman ’96) Te Grotenhuis. We couldn’t have had more in common and became fast friends. We shared everything and often stayed up too late talking and laughing. Diane was born without her right arm, but that didn’t stop her from accomplishing everything she set out to do. She was a great athlete, student, musician and friend. She inspired me and taught me anything is possible. She’s touched so many lives, and I’m grateful mine is one of them.

Kristen (Teigland ’96) Puttmann
ORANGE CITY, IOWA

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Friending without Facebook

Some of my best memories from college are of falling asleep at night, telling jokes and chatting with Steve, who bunked above me, and Bryan, who bunked below me.

Even in this Facebook age, I still advise college students to let the college assign you a roommate you don’t know. Then walk in with no expectations, and even if your roommate doesn’t become your BFF, you can learn so much from rooming with someone you didn’t choose. The roommate relationship is a microcosm of the most important life relationships. If you keep an open mind, you’ll find along the way—or in hindsight—that you learned a ton from rooming with a stranger. One of the lessons might be that anybody can become a friend.

Dean Van Farowe ’96
CLEVELAND, OHIO