The Way We Were

Inland Empire Girl continues to keep us on track with Sibling Assignments. Her current assignment is this:

"Think of a movie theme song that stayed with you long after you saw the film. Share an experience about that movie or the theme." Here is Inland Empire's story, and Raymond Pert's is here.

Well, I think I am going about this a bit backward. I think I actually knew the theme song to the movie "The Way We Were" long before I actually saw the movie. Being a huge Barbra Streisand fan, I purchased many of her albums at a young age, and listened to this song quite a bit.

One memory this song conjures up is being in college at the University of Idaho with PKR. When I started as a freshman in college, PKR was attending college at Western Montana College in Dillon. The following summer we met, (officially, that is, but that is a whole other story), and at the end of the summer, I returned to Moscow to college, and he returned to Dillon. The next fall, he was enrolled at the University of Idaho.

My senior year, two of Paul's siblings, DR and LR were also enrolled as students at the University of Idaho. PKR, LR and I enrolled in a class together together called "Professional Presentation Techniques". We were a team most of the semester, and our assignment was to take a company and make three different types of presentations based on this company. We chose Hewlitt Packard, because my sister's best friend from college had worked there and had some connections.

I don't remember what our first product we presented was about, but I do remember we started out with PKR singing, "The Way We Were". Our next product we presented were HP defibrillators, and, believe it or not, back in 1984, HP was just coming out with the first laptop computer. And that was our final product we presented.





HP-110: HP’s first laptop computer, 1984
An industry breakthrough, the HP-110 weighed only 8.5 pounds and had a 16-bit IBM PC-compatible processor. With 384K ROM and 272K RAM, it had the largest amount of memory available in a portable computer at the time. Unlike previous machines, the computer was aimed at a less technical audience.

I remember we ended our presentation with LR having a briefcase, and opening it up, as if she was going to unveil this production, and she exclaimed, "Oh, it is so light, I must have forgotten it at home!" or something like that.

We were a great team, and got an A in that class.

So "The Way We Were" doesn't bring to mind Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand trying to make their relationship work in this film. Instead, it takes me back to those days at the University of Idaho when PKR and I were falling in love.

Fortunately, we have a much better relationship than Katie and Hubbell could ever manage to have in the movie.