Flashback Friday: Harold

Here's a picture of my college roommate, Harold. He was always a hoot!

No, we didn't share a dorm room. When I went to community college, my volleyball coach was looking for someone to live with his dad. He had senile dementia and was starting to wander off once in a while.

I needed a place to stay that was closer to the school, so I got a free room in exchange for keeping an eye on Harold.

I wasn't alone at first. There was another girl, Christi who also lived there. She didn't stay as long as I did though - maybe he scared her off?

The first night we moved in, Harold was upset. He could remember things from 50 years ago like they just happened, but he had no short-term memory. He had no idea why we were there - even though we kept explaining it to him.

We had the two bedrooms upstairs. There was a door leading to the staircase, but no lock. We were a bit scared to go to sleep that first night. I think it was Christi who tied a rope from the doorknob to the railing to keep the door shut. That was a good idea.

We were woken up in the middle of the night by Harold. He was upstairs, outside our bedrooms with a knife in his hand. Yes, he was a small guy and extremely old, but is that really how you want to wake up?

He didn't mean any harm though. He had the knife in his hand, because he had used it to cut the rope. He needed to talk to us because he couldn't understand why we were there. We convinced him to go back to sleep and the next day we made sure that there was a lock on the door.

The lock kept him out that second night, but he was even more perturbed that he couldn't get upstairs. That night, we woke up to the sound of the police banging on the door. Yes, he called the cops on us.

Things did eventually get better. He got used to having us there - although he never knew our names and he never understood why we were there.

His dementia ended up getting worse though. He started wandering down the street and not being able to find his way back home. I can't remember what happened - he either moved in to his son's home or else was put into a nursing home. He was a great old guy though!