With Josh away in the dorms, a gallon of milk lasts a few hours longer than it used to but still doesn't last a full day.

He has returned a time or two to pick up more essentials for his dorm room.

This is what I recall taking to college: enough clothing that I wouldn't have to do laundry for two weeks; a box of laundry detergent and a laundry basket; a few books and a dictionary; a loose-leaf binder and a package of three-hole paper, my Esterbrook fountain pen, a bottle of Quink ink, a ballpoint pen, and a mechanical pencil; two sets of sheets and pillowcases, a pillow, a blanket, and a bedspread; two or three towels; my baseball glove and one baseball; my tennis racquet and a tin can of new, white tennis balls; an AM-FM portable, transistor radio (monaural) and a wind-up alarm clock; a Smith-Corona manual portable and a ream of erasable bond paper; and a coffee cup and one of those curly little electric gizmos that heats a cup of water. At the last minute, Mom suggested I take a jar of beef bullion cubes, just in case I didn't get enough to eat at the dorm's cafeteria. Everything fit into the trunk of Dad's '64 Chrysler.

I'm sure that an inventory of Josh's dorm room would exhaust the world's supply of serif font, so I won't even attempt one.

The price of his computer alone is greater than the combined value of all I took with me. He escaped the house with my cherished AKG headphones. He almost got away with my vinyl original master recording of The Dark Side of the Moon. He doesn't yet appreciate Lowell George or Little Feat, so those albums were safe.

The move into his dorm room has required several trips with the pickup heavily loaded each time. At KSU, the students from western Kansas fill a shiny horse trailer with their belongings and tow it behind Mom's fully packed SUV or Dad's crewcab dually.

Josh stopped by the house yesterday to print a few copies of his resume for a job he has applied for. He could have done this on his own computer, but he evidently prefers to use our ink cartridges.

When I drive to work in the mornings, I must head the car toward the high school for a while. In the past, when driving toward the school, I would have been able to guess what class he was in, and I would have been able to place him in a particular room with a teacher who was known to me. I miss knowing where he is and what he's doing.

Since he left for the dorms, the telephone rings far less, and not at all after 9 PM.

After his quick visit yesterday to print his resume, he picked up the small refrigerator that had been down in his room here at home. I suspect he'll be back when he runs out of milk.

Reading? When?