Meeting Funk, The First Four Months.
September 1977. Salem, West Virginia. Three weeks into my initial semester of college. The first time I ever laid eyes on Funk was in the school cafeteria. Funk was sitting with my new friend Bryan, so I walked over to Bryan’s table, said hello, and asked how he was doing. I wasn’t addressing Funk, but he responded anyway, and completely off topic, “Why did you stand me up last night?”
Bryan looked at me sheepishly.
The day before, Bryan had invited me to his house for dinner, which I didn’t attend because I’d forgotten about it—I mean, what 19-year-old kid makes dinner plans and knows enough not to break them? That said, I had no idea the purpose was for a blind date. With Funk. The cocky guy who’d just answered a question that wasn’t asked of him. The guy whom I mistook for the janitor because he was wearing his father’s work uniform. The dude who was privy to the “date” whereas I wasn’t.
I sat down and profusely apologized to Bryan for missing dinner and asked how it went.
Again, Funk replied instead of my friend. Before I knew it, Funk drew me into an unwanted conversation about how he’d had 6 beers last night and he wasn’t drunk, and that no matter how much he drinks, he never gets drunk.
Like, who cares about his drinking habits!
I found the guy super repugnant, but gratefully, he got up from the table saying he had to go teach his class. This is when Bryan told me that Funk was his good friend and also a sociology professor at our college. He added that he thought Funk and I would be a great match, but that he didn’t tell me about the date because he knew I wouldn’t have gone along with it.
Bryan was right. I wouldn’t have attended, because what hippie goes out on “dates?”
October 1977. My next encounter with Funk was in the college rec room. Once again, I was talking to someone else, this time about a dream I’d had the night before. From the other end of the table, Funk began interpreting it. He did a pretty good job. Still, since I wasn’t talking to him, I found his ways supremely arrogant.
Days later, Funk and I just happened to be at the same bar listening to live bluegrass music.
This isn’t surprising since Salem had a population of about 2,000 people and listening to music was the only thing to do in town. This time, Funk was less in-my-face so I agreed to him driving me back to my dorm in his brand-new truck. For some unknown reason, he dropped me off halfway up the hill to my building and then asked if he could kiss me goodnight.
Funk was so not what I was looking for.
He was nine years older than me. And while he had a bushy beard and wore flannel shirts, he was not the long-haired, guitar-playing hippie that I was searching for. Still, some sparks had developed, likely from him interpreting my dream, so I figured what the hell, and leaned over for a short kiss goodnight before hightailing it up the hill, all the while thinking, “Who asks if they can have a kiss, you just attempt it, and you either succeed or you don’t, right?”
Twenty minutes later, the only phone in the entire dorm was ringing.
It was 2:30 in the morning and somehow, I knew it was Funk calling on the pay phone. I ran down the hall to pick it up, and sure enough, it was the guy who’d just had his lips on mine. In a thick voice, he said he just wanted to say goodnight one more time because he couldn’t stop thinking about me. He explained in great detail about how he’d never met anyone like me before, and then began extolling my virtues. I thought the guy must’ve mistaken me for someone else.
Because no one, and I mean no one, had ever seen anything in me that he was describing.
In Funk’s eyes, I was unique, unconventional, had a steel core, was full of life and beautiful. Before hanging up, since I am a whore for a compliment, I accepted his offer to go on a real “date.” I was so embarrassed to be asked, much less to tell my friends about it. Hippies did not make official plans like this, especially when it was only to catch a movie.
Once again, I forgot the “date.”
Instead, I went to a bar with my college roommate. And while I wasn’t a drinker, I got drunk out of my mind, what with all the guys buying me drinks. Soon enough, I was starving, so my roommate and I drove to the college’s cafeteria for dinner since meals came with tuition.
It was later than I realized—the kitchen had closed two hours prior.
But there Funk was, sitting in the dimly lit cavernous room, shooting the breeze with a colleague, waiting for me to arrive. I was shocked. Most importantly, that dinner was over and I’d missed the meal given how crazy hungry I was. Next, that this dude would still be waiting on me—like how did he know I’d eventually show? Last, that he still wanted to drive to Morgantown to watch that movie.
I got in his truck and we drove 90-minutes to see Annie Hall.
It was a horribly boring movie and I fell asleep not too long into it, waking up shortly after the ending credits were rolling. After which, we went to a pizza parlor where I ordered a calzone. I was so hungry by this time that when I hurriedly cut into it, it shot like a missile from beneath my knife and twirled through the air, landing on the carpet with a whap. I casually got up from the table and retrieved it from the floor, and just to be safe, this time, I used my hands to bite into it.
Funk looked at me in total amazement.
And not because of how uncouth I was. He was enamored that I wasn’t too good to eat something I’d unintentionally thrown to the floor. I had been living on $40 a month. There was no way I was wasting money, even if it was someone else’s money. On the drive back to Salem, Funk became doubly smitten when I asked him to pull to off the highway so I could take a pee on the side of the road.
Who knew these were virtues?
November 1977. At a bar listening to music with my friends, without invitation, Funk sat down next to me in the booth. And taking unauthorized ownership, he put his hand on my thigh that was beneath the table where no one could see.
I had been saving doing the Nasty for Mr. Right. How wrong that was! Still, back then, I felt I was being virtuous. However, between his hand on my leg and raging teenage hormones, I said yes when, four hours later, he asked if I’d go home with him. The yes came with the condition that he shouldn’t expect anything. He said that he wouldn’t.
He lived in a cabin on a lake 5 miles from school.
We entered his home and he immediately fired up the only heat source in his rental, which was an old-fashioned gas stove in the living room. After which, he sat down on his couch and leaned back. I was still standing by the stove trying to warm up, but he wanted a better look, so he asked me to turn around.
It felt like it took me an hour to make a complete turn, that’s how self-conscious I was.
Not too long after, he showed me to his bed, which was just a piece of plywood with 2” foam on top masquerading as a mattress, the whole thing supported by cement blocks. Luckily, he went to the bathroom to do God knows what, and I quickly ripped off my clothes and got beneath the quilt so he couldn’t see my now almost naked body. No one had viewed that body since I’d left diapers.
When the deed was over, I started to cry, and only because I knew my world had just changed.
Somehow Funk sensed what was going on and started stroking my head and soon murmured an “I love you,” after which he shot up from the bed and said, “No I don’t! No I don’t!” That made me laugh so I said, “It’s okay, I don’t love you either.”
Apparently, neither of us was into lying.
December 1977. The semester ended and I drove to my parent’s house in Florida for Christmas break. During that month, Funk wrote me a bunch of letters, and they were romantic enough that I started falling for him. Since this was years before the internet, my mom was curious about the mail I was receiving every other day and asked what was going on. After I told her, she said, “What would a professor want with you?”
Yes, my darling mother who helped create the House of Torture that I grew up in said that. But I was so used to those types of remarks that I actually gave her question some thought.
January 1978. Because of the letters and having always hated Florida, I was thrilled to be driving my truck the 1,000 miles back to West Virginia, and not only to attend the philosophy and psych classes that I loved, but also to see Funk.
Arriving Salem, there was a good foot of snow on the ground. Turning on to my street, I pressed my foot on the accelerator as far as it would go to make it up the hill and parked in front of my dorm in the pitch black. Standing in the bed of my truck gathering my belongings, even though Funk had no clue what time I was due back, he came out of nowhere, grabbed me from the tailgate and gave me a bear hug.
I was disappointed to see him.
Somehow, I’d forgotten he wasn’t the long-haired, guitar-playing hippie that I’d been searching for.
Here’s to you! if your dreams don’t exactly match your reality. It has taken me 67 years to learn how to put my intentions into the world and to try to allow the Universe to dictate what the fulfillment of that looks like. Sometimes I still wonder what my life would be like if I’d found my Guitar-Man. But I can tell you one thing. Funk will soon be reading and editing this piece. Most men would be hurt by my words, but I know Funk will be proud of them. As I’ve said in other missives, I think I was placed on this planet to make sure that every other man alive is grateful they’re not married to me.
I’ll be back with the next installments of “Meeting Funk” in a few weeks. Until then, rest easy and dream big!
The Photo. Me in my dorm room at Faircove. The walls behind me are cinder blocks, with no insulation. The room was so tiny that my bed had to be shoved up against the wall. In wintertime, the outward facing interior wall stayed a sheet of ice. But who cared? I was having the time of my life!