Between August of 1998 and May of 2001 –so almost three full years– I lived in the Boltwood apartment complex in Allendale, Michigan. Based on recent photos of the place that I looked up on the internet, it must be under new management, for it’s definitely changed a bit (what was I expecting after almost twenty years?).

Back in the old days, it wasn’t much to write home about.

Boltwood is an apartment complex on the northeast side of the Grand Valley State University campus, on the north side of Lake Michigan Drive, just a little bit east of 48th Avenue. Back in the day, it had a couple of things going for it; it was within walking distance of a pizzeria and a convenience store, so those were nice options to have nearby. It was also just on the outskirts of the campus proper, so it was close enough to be a quick commute.

I ended up in that place through an interesting set of circumstances. The first thing that happened was that I graduated from Notre Dame, earlier in 1998, without much of an idea as to what I was going to do. So, in short, I ended up following Jennie to Allendale; when she decided to enroll as a student at GVSU, so did I. But, whereas Jennie signed up to be a part of the campus housing scene, I went a different route.

I answered an ad, placed by a group of three guys, who were looking for a fourth person to share their four-person apartment lease, in light of the fact that their original fourth person had backed out of the agreement.

Talk about awkward.

I was signing up to live with three guys who knew each other and presumably liked each other (at least enough to enter into an agreement to live together), while I was a total stranger. I remember feeling anxious and odd when I moved into the apartment that August. But, the three of them were great, and very friendly toward me, and I never felt as if I was an outsider. We got to know each other, in the manner in which many great friendships often start… by obligation.

One thing that made things a little less awkward was the fact that I was significantly older than these three friends when I moved in with them. When you are a college graduate, who is continuing with some more education, that puts you in the twenty-one or twenty-two age range, while these three roommates that I moved in with were sophomores, in the nineteen or twenty age range. Of course, this means that the three of them gained –by gaining me– a ‘legal’ roommate. While I can neither confirm nor deny that I bought any alcohol during those years that may have been consumed by someone other than myself, I can say that they liked how old I was.

* * *

It’s hard for me to remember some of the details, but I recall four buildings with twelve apartments per building. When I first moved in with Rob, Bill, and Tim, the four of us were in a second story apartment in the most northeastern of the buildings at Boltwood. Our balcony overlooking our parking lot was cool, and it was where the smokers (two of us) went out to smoke, because the other two of us (non-smokers) had equal say in the matter. Eventually though, three of the four of us became smokers, and that activity was allowed to move in-doors, at least some of the time.

Near the end of our time as a foursome at Boltwood, my roommates and I managed to get a handicap accessible apartment (despite none of us being handicapped) in the building closest to the pizzeria. This was great, because it resulted in us having an apartment on the ground floor, with walk-out patio access to the lawn in front of our building. All of the other ‘ground-floor’ units actually involved stepping down into an apartment that was slightly below the ground level.

That ground-floor apartment was the apartment that I moved out of when I left in the Spring of 2001. I drove away in a blue Chevy Corsica. I’d arrived, almost three years previous, in a Dodge Daytona. Bill drove a Dodge Dakota pickup during those years, Tim drove a Plymouth Neon (part of the time), and Rob drove a Buick Century (if I remember correctly).

* * *

We had some fun neighbors during this time that we spent in Boltwood. I remember, during that first year, we had a neighbor above our apartment who was an aspiring rap artist. We would often hear the music that he was working on producing, and a lot of it was pretty decent. I wonder whatever happened to that kid.

We also had a neighbor, when we moved to our second building in the complex (the one with the handicap accessible apartment) who was a former military guy. He was fun to hang out with. His name was Bill, and so was our roommate, so we called our neighbor Big Bill (he was a decent spot bigger than our roommate), and we called ‘our Bill’, Little Bill. He was fun. Big Bill and I both enjoyed karaoke and grilled liver and onions, not at the same time, of course.

* * *

Your average college guy isn’t concerned with cleaning a lot. I would say that the three of us, on average, were below-average when it came to cleaning. We had a large garbage can in the corner of the kitchen where we threw all of the recyclable cans that we emptied –empty cans of pop and empty cans of other types of drinks– the floor around that garbage can got pretty sticky after a while. It was pretty nasty.

We did dishes as often as was required for us to continue to have dishes to eat off of

It wasn’t always the most pleasant place for a guy to bring his lady-friends, so cleaning became more of a necessity when we knew in advance that we were going to be having women over to the apartment. According to my wife, who was my girlfriend –and then my fiance– at the time, she said that the worst part of the apartment was the bathroom.

I don’t remember the place being that bad, of course.

* * *

Those two apartments, and those three roommates, are part of a pretty interesting time in my life. As I was trying to find my way into the future, I found the three of them and that apartment complex. It will forever be a part of who I am, for better and for worse.