The Humble Abode

In 1985 I lived in the student ghetto across from the campus of the University of Florida - Gainesville where I was an undergraduate. The song "Take On Me" by a-ha reminds me of living with two guys in a terribly cheap and disgusting place we called the "Humble Abode". I'm still best friends with the guys, but as for the house, it's best remembered through the song (watch the cool video below).

The student ghetto was a dense set of blocks where a lot of die hard hippies and musicians lived who were also somehow connected with the university - often appealing to students interested in some not so legal chemical recreation. It was conveniently located behind the main strip of campus so everything was a short ride on my green three-speed motor beacon granny bike with a white wire basket rusting out the handle bars.

Here's what we got for $210 per month - well ok, I mean $70 a person. The Humble Abode was built on stilts - there was no foundation. It kind of had 2 bedrooms, a small mostly non-working kitchen and a bite sized living room/dining room. Its best feature was a large screened front porch where we tied up hammocks for sleeping during humid nights in Gator country.

There were roaches the size of mice, mice the size of rats, rats the size of cats and so on... Now if you killed the roaches, they released a scent much like almond oil, so to avoid such odd odors (I still can't eat anything almond flavored) we learned to catch them and put them in the freezer in a giant beer mug that read "I Bet You Can't".

The floor of the Humble Abode had several large holes. The biggest was in the bathroom under the tub where neighborhood cats would come through in search of scraps. One time we even found a litter of kittens in my closet, but I'll leave that for another memory. As for this one, I remember talking late into the night with my terrific roommates Curtiss and Brad while we swung in our hammocks on the porch. From there we enjoyed the breezes, sights and sounds of the ghetto. And A-ha's song Take On Me takes me back to all that.