In 1976 my girlfriend was attending Southern Maine Vocational Technical College and I was attending Saint Francis College. I met her in December of 1976, and moved in with her the following February.

Her parents lived in Key West Florida so there was little chance of them finding out she was living with a man. This is key to this story. Her parents were tight ass conservatives somewhere to the right of Rush Limbaugh. Her father was a Master Chief in the Navy with over 35 years of service.

Everything was cool. We lived in a building with six apartment all full of college kids. There was a rolling party that ran from apartment to apartment. Our own apartment included me, my girlfriend, another female roommate, and her three year old daughter. My sister lived upstairs with another couple. The weed supply was in the coal cellar in the basement.

And then she realized that her mother was coming to visit to see her only daughter graduate and would expect to stay in her apartment.

At first she tried to get me to move out. I refused. Then she made a tearful call to her mother to explain that their "virgin" daughter was shacked up with a man.

The graduation weekend is one I will never forget. Have the occupants of the building were graduating and we turned out a hell of a party to see them off. Our roommate got drunk and seduced the teacher she had been lusting after all semester. We had a bonfire in the back yard and my mother was down there drinking with the rest of the crowd. In the middle of it her mother arrived. Her first words to me are burned into my brain, hardwired into ROM. "If you get my daughter pregnant I'll shoot you with my shotgun!"

Our relationship went downhill from there!