My big goal from the time I was a kid was to go to college, get a degree and then a good job. Mom often told me, starting in my elementary school days, that to go to college, I would need to save my money. They had already put my older brother Frank through school, and their financial well was dry. So, I saved and saved, putting birthday gifts and money I began to earn as a teenager, into my Philadelphia Savings Fund Society account.
While in college, I kept working part-time, applied and received various grants and scholarships, and served as a student assistant. Somehow, I was able to cover tuition, room and board and other expenses. But it was tight. How tight? In my junior year at the University of South Florida, I was supposed to go with my then-girlfriend, let’s call her Linda, to spend the week of spring break 1976 with her family in her hometown about two hours south of Tampa. I had five dollars in my wallet.
A day after spring break started, Linda decided that it was over between us. Was it my nearly-empty wallet? Maybe. Her decision made it somewhat awkward since I was staying with her family. Luckily, a neighbor was headed to Tampa the next day, and I rode with him back to campus. Then began an excruciating six-day stretch.
The campus was empty, and the dorms were vacant except for me. There was no food service during the break. I had no transportation. Without a car, it was a multiple-mile walk to get to a store or Burger King or anything worthwhile. There was no food in my dorm room. And remember that I just had that one solitary Abe Lincoln in my wallet.
On top of it all, I was in bad shape about losing Linda. To sum it up, I was lonely, depressed, hungry and broke. I needed a plan, and I needed one quickly.
With my basic need for shelter covered by the dorm room, my next need was food. I had six days until the campus cafeterias reopened and my meal ticket would be valid again. So, I brainstormed about what I could buy that would keep me fed for six days and not cost more than five dollars. I came up with an answer and started the long walk in the warm April Florida sunshine to the University Square Mall.
Believe it or not, I blew most of the five bucks on a gigantic bag of malted milk balls. I think the package contained 500 of them. My thinking went something like this:
- I like malted milk balls.
- I can buy a lot of them for five dollars.
- I probably won’t get tired of eating them for six days straight.
So, I began my malted milk ball diet. I do not recommend it.
During those quiet days in the dorm, I spent my time creating a collage of movie images, which was something I had wanted to do. But there wasn’t much else to keep my mind away from Linda territory. One of the highlights of each day was checking my mailbox to see if anyone had written to me. I received nothing until the third day, when there was an envelope from my older brother Frank. Inside was a short note saying that he hoped I was well and telling me to enjoy the money he had enclosed. MONEY!!
It wasn’t cash, but a check written out in Frank’s neat printing/cursive style. My eyes went straight to the amount and saw that it was for five dollars. HOW FORTUITOUS!!
I was going to start walking immediately to the bank a couple of miles away to get it cashed. Then on the way back, I was going to stop at the Burger King and get some real food. I was salivating already. FRANK, YOU’RE THE BEST!!
Then I looked closer at the check and literally could not believe my eyes. On the date line, Frank had written May 5 instead of April 5 – a slip of mind for Frank and a crushing blow to Joe. I could not cash the check for another few weeks. In the meantime, it was back to the malted milk balls.
That week stands out as one of the loneliest of my life. Things did not start to improve until my roommate and friends in the dorm started filtering back in that weekend. They had cars, they had money, and they mercifully took me to get something normal to eat.
And what of Linda? I hesitate to write these lines. When she returned to campus, she said that she wanted to get back together. Despite the pain that she had put me through, I said yes. What a fool I was. No need to tell you that it didn’t last, and we were broken up for good by the end of the semester.
After that week, it was a long time until I could eat a malted milk ball again. All of the leftover balls, and there were a lot of them, went to the guys in the dorm. Today, though, I occasionally have a single malted milk ball, and it always takes me back to a time that I would rather forget.