Farewell Pullman!

Now that the dust has settled and the bins holding the contents of another college apartment are stacked throughout our house on this side of the state, I’ll say my official farewell to Pullman, WA. On May 4, 2013, our daughter Sarah graduated Summa Cum Laude (GPA over 3.9) from Washington State University with a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance.

Sarah Stark, WSU Class of 2013

Sarah followed in her brother’s footsteps and became a cougar in August 2009. Even though my husband John has been a professor at WSU since 1990, I had never visited the main campus in Pullman until we took Johnny, our oldest, to WSU while shopping for a college in the spring of 2006.

For seven years our two cougars migrated back and forth across the state, spending most of their time in the small college town named Pullman. They both put in a lot of class and practice hours in one particular campus building, Kimbrough, the music building.

Over the years I got in the WSU rhythm as well: buying books before fall semester, helping them pack up to return to college, sending them Puyallup fair scones, football season, dad’s weekend, finals, winter break, buying books for spring semester, spring break, mom’s weekend, finals and moving their stuff from dorms to apartments and back home.

Johnny and Sarah both knew that if I came to visit, it was mandatory that I get a milk shake at Ferdinand’s. If we didn’t get to Ferdinand’s while it was open, they figured out where else I could get my fix of the famous WSU creamery’s ice cream and a tin of Cougar Gold cheddar cheese. 

We had our favorite restaurants in Pullman: Tam’s or McDonald’s for breakfast, Black Cypress, South Fork, or Fireside Grill for dinner, and Rico’s for beer and popcorn.

While John met with his colleagues, I’d take the kids to Wal-Mart or Safeway and stock them up with groceries. Near Sarah’s apartment on College Hill, we knew where the best hunting was for parking spaces.We were there when the new Cub opened and missed Dupus Boomers when it closed. 

Mom's weekend 2011 at Dupus Boomers restaurant.

We had fun rolling some balls down the alley at Zeppos when Johnny was taking bowling. I slept in Stephenson dormitory at freshman orientation and one mom’s weekend, and we knew our best bet was to camp out in the kids’ apartments because hotel rooms were scarce during mom’s weekends and graduation.

Special thanks go to the WSU Health center. They took care of Johnny when he broke his wrist, and got the gravel out of Sarah’s palms when she fell one cold winter the day before her piano juries. Both of my cougars managed to dodge the swine flu outbreak of 2009, but I knew that the health center was there if they did. More thanks go out to the mechanics at Les Schwab who repaired Johnny’s Honda when his front wheel and bearing fell off in his apartment parking lot, and to the reputable shop that re-flashed the electrical system of Sarah’s Audi when her friend jumped her battery the wrong way. Thank you also to AAA for towing these cars for us—one time 72 miles from Othello to Ellensburg.

Although the scenery can be beautiful, I will not miss the five and a half hour drive across 300 miles of Washington, listening for reports on whether Snoqualmie pass was open or passing on two-lane Highway 26. We knew where the speed traps were along the way, and a short cut that bypassed Colfax. My heart always lifted when I spotted the spud shack that farmer Orman Johnson spent $5000 on to have special crimson siding cut to spell “Go Cougs” in letters so large we could see it for miles. It meant we were about an hour and a half out of Pullman.  

Moving Sarah back home was a piecemeal trek divided into three parts. On mom’s weekend in April John and I drove over in his truck. I would drive her car back home. After enjoying some mom’s weekend activities, we loaded the furniture that Sarah wasn’t passing on to friends (my childhood dresser and desk, etc.) into the back of his pickup, and crammed smaller things into the Audi.  

Just past the halfway point of Ellensburg, I noticed the road condition sign flashing. 

I was following John and saw that a semi had blocked his view of the sign. I couldn’t figure her radio out so I called Sarah and told her to get online to check the pass, then call John with the results. He called me and said that Sarah found out that the pass was closed. We pulled off at the next exit and consulted, deciding to double back to E-burg and get a hotel room.

We pulled into the Holiday Inn Express, and hustled inside to the front desk where the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. The check-in clerk asked if I’d mind if she took another call. I told her only if she guaranteed us the next available room. She nodded agreement as she answered the phone.

The next call was from a sports team that needed eleven rooms because the pass was closed! We’d made it just before she switched the “No Vacancy” sign on! Sarah said that as she checked the pass conditions, they closed seven exits because of heavy snowfall and multiple accidents including a semi.

Sarah Stark and Dr. Keri McCarthy

Part two of the moving Sarah home odyssey was during graduation weekend, the first weekend in May. Friday night we were at a special dinner celebrating her graduation from the Honors College. She made a speech to honor Keri McCarthy, associate professor of music, who guided her through her Honors dissertation.

  

Saturday morning, while the “kids” slept in, John and I went to McDonald’s to pick up breakfast. As we left, the lady handed me the bagful of sausage biscuits and hash browns and said, “See you next time.” I’d held it together through the Honors college graduation, but those four words, “See you next time,” caught me off guard and made me unexpectedly tear up. There probably wasn’t going to be a next time. How had seven years gone by so fast?

Sarah with the class of 2013.

That afternoon we sat in Beasley Coliseum and watched Sarah shake President Floyd’s hand after they called her name, the culmination of four years of hard work. The Cougar Class of 2013 stood and sang their fight song while crimson and gray confetti and streamers rained down on them. Afterwards, we hiked all over campus to Sarah’s favorite spots to take pictures of her wearing the leis her Hawaii grandparents had sent.  

John, Sarah, and Laura Stark ouside Martin Stadium, WSU.

Johnny and Sarah spent their cougar cash eating lunch here.

This time Johnny had come with us. He enjoyed being in Pullman again, seeing his sister graduate, talking to music professors he’d had classes with, and visiting old haunts. He helped Sarah’s friends move furniture out of her apartment and into their vehicles.

It didn’t take long for us to realize that we wouldn’t be able to fit the rest of her apartment in our vehicles. It was going to take yet another trip. We loaded as much as we could, covered the full truck bed with a tarp and headed west. John would follow the three of us home in the Camry the next day after meetings with his department.

Part three: John and I returned two weekends later. Sarah couldn’t go because she was going to a wedding. Campus was empty other than a few stragglers like us still moving, so it was easy to park the truck close to her apartment.

I was confident that we could fit the last of it in the truck. I stayed up late Friday night packing. I was also confident that we’d be able to clean the apartment and leave by noon. That night we slept on air mattresses on the floor. I hadn’t brought a sleeping bag because I was confident that it would be too hot.

Well, it got down into the forties that night and I had left the windows open, so I didn’t sleep well. We almost couldn’t fit everything in the truck and called one of Sarah’s friends who was staying in Pullman to ask if we could leave some things with her. But after throwing even more away, and donating some more  to a charity, it did all fit. I changed my “confident” estimated departure time from noon to 2:00. We left the key to Sarah’s apartment on top of the defrosted refrigerator at 5:00 and closed the door to her Pullman apartment for the last time.

Sarah's WSU home for three years.

John tightens the tarp before we leave.

On our way out of town, exhausted physically and mentally, we stopped at McDonald’s to get a dipped cone for John and a hot fudge sundae for me as a little reward for all our hard moving work and for successfully getting two kids through college. We sat down in a booth at Mickey D’s and ate our ice cream.

      We were quiet driving through town for the last time. I remembered crying tears across the Palouse when we left each of our kids for their first time at college. This was a different feeling--a wistful finality.

Rolling hills of the Palouse

About ten miles out of town, I decided to text Sarah and Johnny and tell them we were on our way. I looked for my phone which was in my purse. But where was my purse? Panic set in. John was quizzing me, was it in the back seat? No, there was no room in the back seat, and even in the front of the cab, I had shoe horned myself in straddling some of Sarah’s stuff for the next five and a half hours. The only room left in that truck for my purse was on my lap and my purse was not on it.

John hung a u-turn, carefully so the over-the-top load wouldn’t shift, and went back to McDonald’s. I ran inside and checked the hook on the back of the bathroom stall door. No purse. I fast-walked to the booth we’d sat in. No purse. I went up to the counter and explained the situation to the clean cut, young man waiting to take orders. Before I could finish describing, “It’s turquoise leather . . .” he cut me off.

“Oh yeah. We’ve got it!” He ran into the back and came out with my purse. He said that he’d spotted it when he went to wipe the table we’d sat at.  

I thanked him and told him I was just so tired from moving my daughter. He nodded sympathetically. I walked back to the truck patting my purse triumphantly. John, ever the New Yorker, urged me to check the contents, but I already knew everything would be in it. After all, we were in Pullman.

Washington State University, Pullman, Washington

Laura Keolanui Stark smiled when she got an email reminding her of freshman orientation at WSU. She is helping Sarah sort through the bins to get ready to pursue a master’s degree in Musicology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Laura can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.