Roommates '83

by Bob Aron

It’s the fall of 1982 and new residents begin to arrive at the SJSU International Center (as it was called in the early years!). I had already been living at the house for a year, and my current roommate Tim had been there 2 years already.

Remember that in 1982, the house was just starting it’s 5th year, but this annual tradition of new faces, new languages, a welcome dinner and the beginning of new friendships felt like a long standing tradition. This is the semester that my good friend Peter Dippery moved into the house.

To be honest, I had decided to live in the I-Center to be roommates with my high school friend and fellow music major. The international experience being offered was a secondary consideration for me……for about 2 weeks that is. After eating lunch and dinner with students from Bangladesh, Japan, Panama, Germany, Australia, etc. etc. etc., I really could not have imagined ever living anywhere else. The house had, and continues to have a profound effect on my life. In many ways, it might be because I wasn’t ‘looking’ for a cultural experience, that getting one had so much impact. I’ve always said that the American residents have the most to gain in the house, because we have the least experience with other cultures.

But I digress, back to that photo at the top of the page. It’s the room photo taken the following year (1983) when Peter Dippery (yellow sweatshirt), Kevin Howard (pipe) and I (trumpet) became roommates. I can hear some of you thinking, “how is it that 3 Americans are roommates at an international house?”. Well there was a higher percentage of Americans then, compared to 2022, and less effort was made to integrate residents form different countries. Peter, Kevin and I had simply become good friends, had a common love of music, and were all looking for new roommates at the end of the school year.

So a little more about these two fine gentlemen. Kevin Howard and I both moved into the house in the fall of ’81. I can still distinctly remember meeting him in the stairwell where he thought I was my roommate’s little brother helping him move in. I guess I did look pretty young at 18! but nevertheless, Kevin and I quickly became friends. He had a love of music and could play guitar, and I was a music major. He had just returned to the US from a stint in Germany, and as an army brat had spent time all over the globe. He definitely had the good stories about being in other countries as an American. Though my dad immigrated to the US from Germany before Hitler’s rise, he didn’t really pass on any of his German heritage. I hadn’t yet been outside the US when I started college, so talking about Germany was something I remember doing with Kevin. To this day, Kevin has always had the stories. His are so much better than mine, I unashamedly tell his stories instead of my own! We’ve been great friends since the day we met.

Peter Dippery and I also hit it off quickly with our musical connections. He had just spent a year touring around the globe as a drummer with an organization called Up With People. We had graduated high school the same year at schools 20 miles apart, north of San Jose. Both being in our school jazz bands, we had probably even shared the same stage at some jazz festival without even knowing it. He wasn’t a music major, but we both had an interest in song writing, Billy Joel and all sorts of music.

It seemed obvious at the end of of the spring semester in 1983, that the three of us would be roomies. Thanks to Peter, we had an electric piano and small studio setup for music. I brought the stereo system and music was always part of our time together.

Over the years, the three of us have stayed in touch. Peter and I would get together when our kids were young, we’d occasionally run into each other at Apple’s developer conference where I would be attending and he would be running media in the conference halls, and we even collaborated on a musical project back in the day. In more recent years though, I’m happy to see that Peter has not left his drums to memory, and he’s still performing. Kevin and I have gone a couple times see him play. As for Kevin, we see each other all the time.

Seriously, he still has the best stories, even after knowing him for 4 decades…..what? 4 decades?