Posted on 02/19/2010 5:44:47 PM PST by Smokeyblue
I was Barack Obama ’83’s roommate at Columbia College in fall 1981. I met him in 1979, when we were freshmen at Occidental College (Oxy) in Los Angeles and our dorm rooms were directly opposite each other.
I came to college as a middle-class guy from Bethesda, Md., where I’d lived from fifth grade through high school. At Oxy, we attended some of the same social events and had late-night philosophical discussions related to our college reading or to current affairs. We attended rallies on campus where we were urged to “draft beer, not people,” and discussed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, apartheid in South Africa, the hostages in Iran and the Contras in Latin America. The crowd we hung out with included men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics and international students. Barack listened carefully to all points of view and he was funny, smart, thoughtful and well-liked. It was easy to sit down with him and have a fun conversation.
We both transferred from Oxy to Columbia in fall 1981. Barack had found an apartment on West 109th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus, and suggested that I room with him. Our sublet was a third-story walk-up in a so-so neighborhood; the unit next door was burned out and vacant. The doorbell didn’t work; to be let in when I first arrived I had to yell up to Barack from the street. It was a railroad apartment: From the kitchen, you walked into Barack’s room, then my room, and lastly the living room. We didn’t have a television or computers. In that apartment we hosted a number of visitors, mostly friends from Oxy who stayed overnight when they were passing through town. Barack was very generous to these visitors. As a host and roommate, he sometimes did the shopping and cooked
(Excerpt) Read more at college.columbia.edu ...
More photos and details here:
Recollections of Obama’s Ex-Roommate
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/recollections-of-obamas-ex-roommate/
Excerpt:
SUBLET AVAILABLE: Three-room railroad flat, third floor, West 109th Street. Near Columbia University. Ideal for roommates who do not need privacy, reliable heat or steady hot water. Kitchen modest, but take out available, including New York bagels for only a quarter.
Such were the accommodations that greeted the future president, Barack Obama, when he moved to New York in 1981 to pursue his undergraduate studies at Columbia, according to the recollections of Phil Boerner, his roommate for a semester. Both men were transfer students from Occidental College in Los Angeles, and as transfers were locked out of university housing at the time. Mr. Obama, 20, a junior, had spent two years at Occidental, where he had lived in the same dorm as Mr. Boerner.
Mr. Obama, who ultimately made Chicago, and now Washington, his home, enjoyed his New York years, Mr. Boerner recalls. Museums. Jogging in the park. Breakfasts at Tom’s on Broadway, not yet the celebrated hangout of Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza.
“I miss New York and the people in it,” he would write Mr. Boerner a few years after they graduated. “The subways, the feel of Manhattan streets, the view downtown from the Brooklyn Bridge.”
photoshopped?
He likely is a Native born U.S. Citizen, and has said so before, but a Native Born U.S. Citizen is not necessarily a natural born U.S. citizen, and that is the qualification required by our constitution to become president - “born in the country of citizen parents”. The definition is cited in numerous supreme court cases and has never been amended, though there have been twenty four attempts to do so, the latest in 2004 by Orrin Hatch. A fair name for this tactic is confidence job. Someone says have $500,000 from the death of so and so in North Dakota, but need to close probate before I can collect. I'll split the award with you if you'll put $10,000 into the family account in South Dakota bank. Just check the country records if you doubt me. The county records will of course confirm everything. You never really know the person making the offer, but can confirm what he has suggested that you check on. Obama, by concealing records has "hinted" that we check on his birth certificate, passport data, school records, etc. What he hs done is to distract from the real issue.
Both photos show live plants. I can’t imagine why young college guys would have live plants that must be cared for. Also, the plants look pretty healthy...being in an apartment that is so cold you have to drape yourself in blankets to keep warm. It is also strange that the other guy is cropped out of the photo with no mention of him in the story.
“...no computer at the time was odd...”
Didn’t the first “PCs” come out around ‘82 - ‘83? Weren’t they “Macs” or “Apples?”
I remember my Maintenance Officer in our Transportation Unit at MCAS, Cherry Point, NC had one... it was “the rave” at the time, even with the “dot matrix” type printer.
I don’t know when the very first ones came out, but we got our first one maybe in 1987 and we were one of a small handful of people I knew with them. Not that NO one had them, but they didn’t seem very common. I did have one friend with a Mac, I think. She had something that looked like Windows and I was doing DOS. LOL I recall I didnt’ want to change to Windows when we upgraded. Hard to believe now.
Snugglebunnies.
Thanks. Read Post #12 if this Thread. “Son of Dark Skies” is correct and helped me to remember. They were “Apple II E’s.” They were Disc Opertating Systema (DOS) with a dot matrix printer.
Sorry... “systems.”
Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the university’s main campus of Morningside Heights in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York.
Women were admitted to the college in 1983.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_College,_Columbia_University
Barack tried to find an apartment for both of us, but was only able to find a studio for himself.
Ew. This stroll down memory lane is creepy. Everything about Obama is creepy.
Seens to lack a lot of detail. I could have written that about anyone. I call bogus.
We both transferred from Oxy to Columbia in fall 1981. Barack had found an apartment on West 109th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus, and suggested that I room with him. Our sublet was a third-story walk-up in a so-so neighborhood; the unit next door was burned out and vacant. The doorbell didn’t work; to be let in when I first arrived I had to yell up to Barack from the street. It was a railroad apartment: From the kitchen, you walked into Barack’s room, then my room, and lastly the living room
My first computer (about 1982 or 83) was a Commodore 64.
I read it last year here on this site. So kinda old news.
“I read it last year here on this site. So kinda old news.”
I’m only a year late. I guess that means I’m improving. LOL.
You consider that “detail”?
Give me an example please of the kind of detail that you would expect in an article like this that was no provided. His phone number 30 years ago?
WE HAD COMPUTERS AT COLLEGE THEN. I WAS A SECRETARY. I DON’T KNOW IF STUDENTS DID. I MADE MONEY TYPING THEIR PAPERS.
WE HAD COMPUTERS AT COLLEGE THEN. I WAS A SECRETARY. I DON’T KNOW IF STUDENTS DID. I MADE MONEY TYPING THEIR PAPERS.
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