Main Street, Hanover, New Hampshire

It was hardly a city. When I was attending Dartmouth College between 1962 and 1966, there were no traffic lights at any of the intersections. There were a few thousand people, most of whom were directly or indirectly connected with the college.

When my parents drove back to Cleveland, I found myself alone for the first time in my life. Actually, it didn’t bother me as I thought it would. It was probably because my father and mother were going through a rough patch in their marriage, and I didn’t want to be back home for that. And I wasn’t really alone, because my roommate Frank Opaskar was a classmate from my high school.

In the end, we didn’t get along too well—for a strange reason. He slathered Noxzema on his face every night before going to bed, and I had the top bunk over him. Every night I drifted off to sleep in a noisome chemical fog. After two years, we parted company and I got a solo room.

Winters in Hanover were long and cold. The snow, once it fell, lasted all winter. (I wonder if it still does, what with global warming.) By the time March came along, you could see where every dog in Hanover had urinated. Spring was the worst time, because all that snow turned to slush. It was not until May that we could walk on the grass without our shoes making a sucking sound.

The town itself had a much loved grocery store called Tanzi’s and a number of restaurants. Early on, I gave up on the college dining hall and patronized only the restaurants. Farther down the street were the Dartmouth Bookstore and the Nugget Movie Theater, where I spent great gobs of time.

I remember the meatballs and spaghetti at Lou’s Restaurant, those few times he offered it as a special. And I had a lot of pizzas at Minichiello’s. I remember the Mom and Pop cooks there trying to get me to give their cute but clearly wild daughter sage advice about life, when what I really wanted was to be wild with her. Nothing came of it because, alas, I had not yet reached the age of puberty because my pituitary gland was being eaten up by a tumor which was operated on three months after I graduated.