I didn’t really have a plan when I graduated. I would stick around there until [my girlfriend] graduated. I used to go over to Gaudino’s house a fair amount just to hang out and eat ice cream and talk to whoever was around. And he just one day asked, would I be interested in staying there? He said other people at the college were not happy with him being alone, particularly at night in case he fell down or something happened. I think he wanted to pacify them, but he really was just being generous to me, since at that time I was wandering around Berkshire County looking for a job. I said, “Yeah, gosh, that’d be great.” So I moved in, in September maybe. Then I did get a job down in Pittsfield early in October. About the same time, I broke up with the girlfriend. But I still hung around for a while. I was in no great rush.

Well, he probably was caring for me emotionally in a sense that I was all distraught. But I definitely helped out around, cooking and cleaning and when little things needed fixing. I don’t remember doing grocery shopping—seems to me he liked to get meat from the supermarket, going down there and talking to those people. He was big on really good vanilla ice cream. He loved to sit there and eat a bowl of vanilla ice cream in the evening after dinner. I wasn’t there during the day and of course he was teaching, and when I would get home 6 o’clock from Pittsfield we’d have something to eat and maybe watch the news. I remember once some stupid show came on after the news and I thought, “Oh cool,” you know? And he just got up and turned the TV off. He had schoolwork to do at night.

Dick Slade '74