Road Trips

ast fall we invited readers to send us their college road-trip tales. Part adventure, part confession, the stories recount the perennial foolishness of youth, kindness of friends and thrill of bidding the ’Boro goodbye, if only for a few days.

Chasing Clarence
By Jacqueline Hinkey Visser ’91

My goal as I entered my first year at Glassboro in 1987, like most freshmen, was to keep a relatively low profile. I was an elementary education major but had a great love for music, so I tried out for the Concert Choir. I was delighted when asked to join this prestigious group.

I tried to “go with the flow” each rehearsal by coming in quietly, getting my folder and sitting up straight as I waited for direction from Professor Clarence Miller. I began to bond with the group around me.

Every year the Concert Choir goes on a spring break concert tour. That year, we were traveling to West Virginia to perform. The only hitch with this year’s trip was that the dorms were locked up on Friday and our tour bus didn’t leave until Saturday. Since my home was two hours away in north Jersey, I opted to stay with some friends that Friday night.

My suitcase was packed with all of the traveling essentials, as well as my performance clothes, jewelry and all of my other valuables. On Saturday morning my boyfriend, Kurt, threw my suitcase in the back of his Toyota pick-up truck and we headed 10 miles to campus to meet the GSC bus for my first spring break adventure. As we traveled from Deptford to Glassboro along Route 55, Kurt said to me, “You did close the hatch to the truck in the back, didn’t you?”

Thinking he was joking I answered, “No.” He pulled over and came back to my window with a panicked look. Neither of us had remembered to close the hatch. My suitcase was missing!

We had only been on Route 55 for about a mile, so I figured we’d just find it on the side of the road. However, after a half hour of retracing our tracks all of the way back to my friend’s home, my navy blue suitcase was nowhere to be found. I had two choices: to stay in Glassboro until I found my suitcase and miss the bus, or get on the bus and pray it would show up at some point.

Since so much of my important stuff was in this bag, I just couldn’t leave without it. Kurt offered to help me find it and then drive me to West Virginia to meet up with the gang. I rehearsed what I was going to say to Mr. Miller for the last 10 minutes of the drive. But somehow when I opened my mouth to tell him what had happened, I became a blubbering mess.

Clarence Miller is one of the most compassionate men you will ever meet. He put his arm around my shoulder and told me he would take me to a Wal-Mart in West Virginia and charge me a new wardrobe, just so I could go on the trip! I thanked him, but said I just couldn’t do it.

So I watched the bus with my 80 Concert Choir friends head out of the Wilson parking lot. I sucked up the tears and got into Kurt’s truck and we started looking. Finally, we stopped at the Mobil station in Almonesson, which was on a little bit of an incline from our previous route. There, we found the suitcase, which had fallen off when we had stopped at the stop sign at the corner. Since the nametag on the suitcase had my home address, the attendant was making calls to north Jersey. I thanked the man profusely and Kurt and I headed for West Virginia like Burt Reynolds and Sally Field.

I make the comparison with Smokey and the Bandit because as we were doing 95 mph on Interstate 95, I begin to think to myself, “How am I going to find this bus?” Miraculously, at the Maryland border, I begin to see a yellow and brown bus in the distance. As we pulled up closer, I saw the GSC logo. Kurt sped up and I began waving frantically. My friends, who were surprised and thrilled to see me, just waved back…that’s right—just waved back. I finally had to motion them to get the driver to pull the bus over.

So on Interstate 95, meek and mild freshman Jackie Hinkey pulled the GSC Concert Choir tour bus over! So much for being inconspicuous! I gave Kurt a hug and kiss and climbed aboard the bus to a standing ovation.

It was a great tour and an exciting year in the choir. At the end-of-the-year picnic at Mr. Miller’s home, the officers handed out mock prizes. I won the “Samsonite Luggage Award!”

Suitcases secure and no bus-chasing allowed, Jackie Hinkey Visser ’91 travels with her husband, Kurt, and their three sons: William, 7, and 5-year-old twins Timothy and Nicholas. Jackie earned a master’s degree from East Stroudsburg University and was an elementary school vice principal before deciding to stay home with the boys.

Sidewalk sleepover
By Karen A. Mammen ’99

Freedom invited me to Rowan. I could do as I pleased, so although I spent some weekends studying, others involved questionable choices. My friends and I should probably consider ourselves lucky to be alive.

Yes, we were Rent-heads, three 18-year-old girls that slept on the sidewalk of the Nederlander Theatre in New York City in 35° weather for tickets. The Rent soundtrack—we knew every word—inspired our road trip and our risky behavior. These weren’t just any tickets. The first two rows of the matinee performance were reserved for people who slept in line for their tickets—and to top it off, they only cost 20 bucks each.

It was important to get there early because only the first 15-30 people could sleep out for tickets. When Liz, Lisa, my roommate, and I arrived at the Nederlander Theatre at dusk in the freezing cold with only one sleeping bag for all three of us, we were blessed to find a guy named Joel already in line. If we thought we were obsessed with Rent, then we had just met the king of Rent-obsession. Joel had already slept out for tickets about 25 times by then. Since he was a pro at sleeping on sidewalks, Joel had cardboard, a tarp and several blankets. If it weren’t for him we may not have survived the night. He took pity on us and shared his “bed” with all three of us. It was a tight squeeze and quickly this stranger became our friend.

Surprisingly, we did get a little bit of shut-eye that night, in spite of the usual crazies walking down the street, high, drunk and yelling. Luckily no one tried to steal our backpacks, which happened to one Rent-head that night. Waking the next morning knowing that we were guaranteed tickets for the show starring Adam, Idina, Taye, Anthony and Daphne was priceless. (OK, it was 20 bucks.)

Waiting for the tickets in the morning was unnerving. It felt like time passed more and more slowly, as if the world would stop before 11 a.m. Finally, we had our tickets in hand. What joy! So now what? We had until 2 p.m. Since we had little money we opted for McDonalds for lunch. I don’t know what feels grosser: being dirty from sleeping on the street or eating McDonalds greasy fast food.

The time leading up to the show was exciting and unpredictable and then the show itself filled us with a plethora of emotions, energy and profound inspiration. Every aspect of the show was amazing. Sitting in the first row, we were able to make eye contact with the cast and, after the show, the actors appeared outside the theatre to sign autographs and to let people take photos. We were so enthused; you would have thought we were meeting Jesus!

I don’t think any of us will forget sleeping out for Rent tickets. Even though we were filthy and exhausted on the bus ride home, it was all worth it. Nothing can replace an experience or memory like that one.

Karen A. Mammen ’99, who has seen Rent six times, is the guidance director at Villa Victoria Academy. She and her husband, Shawn Mammen ’99, most recently traveled to Florida. The rollercoaster fanatics have ridden every coaster in Orlando.

Explaining OSU
By Rob Friedman ’78

Like any good road trip story, it’s all about following the girls.

Our story begins not in the ’Boro but in Fort Lauderdale during spring break 1977. Like any red-blooded American boys from the North (or South Jersey), Randy Kamin ’79 and I were girl-chasing on the beaches by day and the bars by night. Eventually we attached ourselves to a troupe from Columbus, Ohio, home of Ohio State University. As spring break came to a close we said our final farewells and made our way back to Glassboro. For most guys, this would be the end of the story but we couldn’t resist one final fling.

In the late ’70s, most students still vacated the campus during the weekends, leaving hard cores like us to find entertainment at the Rat or at fine local establishments. However, one April weekend we decided that we needed to experience some fresh country air. We made some calls (we actually got the correct numbers for our spring break friends!) and early that Friday morning, Randy and I packed up the yellow Toyota Wagon (a better choice than my Pinto) and headed out west, to Columbus, Ohio, that is.

Like any irresponsible young adults, we didn’t mention this to our folks for fear of having our cash supply cut off. But with a full gallon of gas and two cassette tapes (Supertramp and 10CC), we were off. Eight hours later we were on the campus of Ohio State and ready for action (though I still cringe every time I hear a Supertramp song).

My exact recollections of what we actually did on campus that weekend are somewhat fuzzy even though we were only able to drink 3.2 proof beers. But even if we didn’t score with the girls, we did the next best thing young men do—we went to a baseball game. Yes, the next day it was back in the car for a 2 1/2 hour trip southwest to Cincinnati to see the Big Red Machine.

Ten hours and two destroyed cassette tapes later, we were back in the ’Boro not too much worse for wear. When my mom asked what we did that weekend, I told her not much, but when a postcard from Cincinnati arrived at her house, I had a lot of explaining to do.

Rob Friedman ’78, who still travels to baseball stadiums, is a learning and development manager for Merrill Lynch in Hopewell. He and his wife, Caroline ’79, have four children: Ben, 18, Zack, 16, Samantha, 14, and Jake, 10. Pinto-free, Rob writes: “After driving a succession of Hondas for over 20 years, I must confess to driving a minivan. Ouch!”