Every now and then life taps you on the shoulder and reminds you that the past is never quite as far away as it feels.
A couple of weeks ago, I was out walking on the trail here in Enid. It was a Sunday afternoon, hot, quiet, and not many people were out. I usually walk in the mornings, but that day I decided to head out later and get a little sun. I crossed the bridge near the Cleveland Trailhead, walked past the little exercise area near Meadow Point Apartments, and noticed a guy walking nearby.
As I got closer, I recognized him immediately.
Even though he had sunglasses on, I knew exactly who it was. Then he lifted them up, and that confirmed it. Standing there on the walking trail in Enid was my old dorm dad from Markley Hall at Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa — someone I had not seen in roughly 45 years.
His name is Bill Grudier, and back in the early 80s, he and his wife Diana were the dorm parents at Markley Hall. I lived there during my first year at Northern Oklahoma College, from the fall of 1981 into the spring of 1982. I had graduated from Enid High School in 1981 and, honestly, I wasn’t all that fired up about going to college. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, what kind of job I wanted, or what classes I should be taking. I probably would have been happy getting a job, making money, and buying a car.
But my mom had other plans. She said I was going to college.
My sister Connie had gone to Northern Oklahoma Junior College in Tonkawa, so that seemed like a good place to start. It was close to home, cheaper than a university, and a good fit for someone like me who still needed a couple of years to figure things out. My mom was a single parent, so the lower cost, grants, Pell Grants, and work-study opportunities made a big difference. I liked drawing and art, so I decided to major in art and work toward an Associate of Arts degree.
My friend Kyle, the drummer in our band, went with me and we roomed together. Somehow, we ended up in Markley Hall, an older dorm on the far northwest side of campus. It was a little off the beaten path from the other dorms, and we lucked into one of the larger upstairs rooms at the end of the hall. Most rooms had one window. Ours had two. That made us feel like we had the deluxe suite.
Tonkawa, especially back then, had a small-town junior college feel. To me, it was almost like high school plus. The campus was small, the classes were small, and everybody ate at the same cafeteria. You could see nearly everyone on campus during breakfast, lunch, or dinner if you hung around long enough. There were guys from Enid, Drummond, Ponca City, Newkirk, Pawhuska, Stillwater, Thackerville, Venezuela, Louisiana, and all over the place. It was small enough that you knew most people, but big enough that it still felt like you had left home and stepped into a different world.
That was part of the magic of junior college. You weren’t living under your parents’ roof anymore, but you also weren’t lost in the massive machinery of a big university. It was a transition. It gave you room to grow up a little, mess up a little, meet new people, and figure out who you were becoming.
I also came out of my shell a bit at Tonkawa. In high school, I wasn’t really shy, but I was probably more introverted. I didn’t play sports or get involved in a lot of activities. At Northern, though, I started joining in more. I met people, went places, and yes, got involved in a few shenanigans.
Markley Hall had its own personality. There were basketball players, wrestlers, guys from different towns, and smaller groups within the dorm. Our little group developed a reputation. If something weird happened on campus, we were usually suspects. Sometimes that reputation was deserved. Sometimes it probably wasn’t. Well, maybe once out of every ten times, it really wasn’t us.
We got used to receiving little notes slipped under our dorm room door telling us we needed to go see Dean Perks. Those notes came often enough that I started saving them. We’d go sit in his office while he questioned us about whatever had happened that week. Most of the time, we denied everything. That was pretty much the system.
The trouble was usually harmless, or at least not meant to be destructive. We’d hang things on campus statues, sneak around buildings, shake the vending machine until the snacks fell out, or do other dumb college-kid stuff. There was an older campus security guy we nicknamed Barney Fife, and occasionally his tires may have mysteriously lost air. Again, not saying that was us. Just saying these things happened.
Tonkawa was also the kind of place where you had to make your own fun. There wasn’t a movie theater. There weren’t many restaurants. There was a Sonic and a convenience store near our dorm, which was dangerous because it meant we had easy access to fried chicken, roasted potatoes, snacks, and beer. Back then, you could buy 3.2 beer in Oklahoma, but if you wanted stronger beer, you made a run across the Kansas line to Ark City.
Ponca City was where you went for dates, movies, food, or a night out. One of the big places was Norm’s, a country western bar where a lot of NOC students would gather. There were live bands sometimes, and I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that I may have seen Garth Brooks there before anyone knew who Garth Brooks was. His band was playing around that area during that era, and nobody at the time would have had any idea what he would become.
We also made trips to Stillwater, especially because the drinking age was still 18 in those days. The strip near Oklahoma State was full of bars, people, noise, and energy. It was a completely different world from Tonkawa. One night you could be on a tiny junior college campus where everyone knew everyone, and the next you could be walking through Stillwater surrounded by thousands of students.
After I graduated from Northern in 1983, I transferred to Oklahoma State, as did several other people from Tonkawa. Some of us even rented a house together near Boomer Lake. But OSU never felt the same to me. At Tonkawa, you knew people. You saw them every day. Teachers knew whether you showed up. At a university, you could walk the same path for a year and never really meet anyone. You could sit in a class with a hundred people and disappear.
That’s one reason I still recommend junior college to young people who don’t know what they want to do yet. It’s cheaper, smaller, and less overwhelming. You can knock out prerequisites, save money, and get a little life experience before stepping onto a huge university campus. You get a chance to be a big fish in a smaller pond before you become a small fish in a massive one.
The funny thing about junior college, though, is that you don’t have reunions the same way you do with high school. In high school, you’re with a lot of the same people for years. You graduate together. You have class reunions. With junior college, you may only know someone for one year, maybe two, and then everyone scatters. Some people you stay in touch with. Some you reconnect with on Facebook. Others become memories.
That’s what made running into Bill so strange.
He had been living in those apartments near the trail for several years, and I had walked past that area countless times. But on that hot Sunday afternoon, at that exact moment, we crossed paths. He was 81 years old and looked great. Still fit. Still sharp. Still moving like someone much younger. We talked for a bit, caught up on life, and I learned that he had ended up in Enid after his partner, who had Enid ties, became ill and later passed away. Diana had also passed away.
It was one of those conversations that felt impossible and perfectly timed at the same time.
Then, just a couple of days later, it happened again.
My voting location had recently moved from the church next to those apartments to Meadow Point Apartments. I could have voted early. I could have gone at any number of times that Tuesday. But I went right after lunch, walked in, voted, came back out, and sat in my Jeep taking a picture with my “I Voted” sticker.
Then I looked in the rearview mirror.
There was Bill again, walking behind my Jeep.
After not seeing him for 45 years, I saw him twice in the same week.
That’s the part that gets me. You can call it coincidence, timing, or whatever you want. I call it the universe winking at me. It put me right back in the path of someone from a very specific time in my life, someone connected to a whole pile of memories from Markley Hall, Northern Oklahoma College, and that strange little bridge between being a kid and becoming an adult.
So this episode is a shout out to Bill, to Diana, to Dean Perks, to Kyle, Brian, Donnie, Todd, Jose, Alex, Tyson, Brenda, Janene, Lori Beth, Monte, Bill, and all the other people who were part of those Tonkawa years. It’s a shout out to the guys from Markley Hall, the cafeteria crowd, the dorm troublemakers, the basketball players, the wrestlers, the small-town kids, the out-of-state kids, and everybody who made that little junior college campus feel like its own world.
Sometimes you don’t realize how special a season of life was until decades later, when you bump into someone who was there.
And sometimes, apparently, the universe gives you a second reminder just to make sure you were paying attention.
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