It’s late 1984 and I am holed up in the freshman dorm on the East Campus of Duke University slaving over some awful English Comp paper on my IBM Selectric II, oh that was one sweet typewriter let me tell you, envy of the floor. The girl down the hall, now a Federal Judge, is confidently relaxed cause she is way better prepared for exams then I will ever be. I take a quick break and attempt to iron the triple creases on my Navy ROTC shirt, nothing easy about this on one of those small table top style mini ironing boards, and yes they measured our creases with a ruler.

The hell with it I think, time to break out the Häagen-Daz Vanilla Swiss Almond, I deserve it after all that typing. No worries though morning PT will definitely take care of the indulgence. Across the hall the Texas soccer playboys are trying to learn how to match colors on their newly pressed outfits… its a bitch living without your personal valet. Duke is a different environment, the brilliant, the brilliant super rich, the foreign super rich, and the rest of us struggling to survive. Crank up the Tom Petty, a little air guitar, couple more bites of ice-cream, and back to it…

You know the funny thing is I still play a mean air guitar, love my Vanilla Swiss Almond and can iron like a MFer…  I miss that IBM – but typing on my wireless keyboard and watching the words appear on the screen in front of me – well that’s just magic…