By Harriet Dawson
It was a terrible thing to do, especially to your best friend.
Genie and I were employed to do summer work in Asheville, NC that would fulfill internships for our college degrees. It was the summer of 1974, the summer before our final year of college, and Genie was employed by the Asheville Parks and Recreation Department, and her work fit the requirements of the NC State internship program for her degree. I worked for the Internal Revenue Service which did the same for my degree at UNC Greensboro.
We rented a cute little apartment at the home of friends of Genie’s family…it was perfect! One bedroom, one bath, one tiny little kitchen, and a living area big enough to do nightly exercises. We worked during the day and played during the evening hours. It was fun being roommates! It was a great life.
It was so great, we invited eight of our closest friends from our hometown (about three hours away) to come spend the weekend with us and go white water rafting on the French Broad River. Sure! We had plenty of room…lots of floor space for sleeping bags or blankets. No problem!
The night before our white-water rafting trip, Genie was ill. I mean ILL!!! You know, the kind of ILL you do not want to be with an apartment full of people…and one was her boyfriend! She was so ill the next morning, she had to be taken to the hospital. One of our landlords took her while the rest of us stayed at the apartment getting ready for our trip. We just knew she would make it back in time…she was GENIE!
Genie was an amazing athlete, credited with starting the NC State women’s basketball program. She scored the first field goal in Reynolds Coliseum for the new team in December 1974. We loved every sport even though very little, other than basketball, was offered to us during our high school years. But there was water skiing, snow skiing, neighborhood softball, horseback riding, bicycling, and hiking to fill up our days.
We’d never been white-water rafting. But I was sure a little old stomach bug would not keep “Magic Genie” down! As time approached to leave for our new adventure, we were so torn and so upset, but we had planned this trip for weeks.
Should we cancel the trip? Should we continue to hope Genie would come back from the hospital? It’s such a perfect day for white-water rafting! Should one of us stay with her?
Genie didn’t get back from the hospital in time. She didn’t have a stomach bug; she had food poisoning and had to be connected to multiple IV’s for the entire day just to feel better. We wanted to be with her. But it was such a beautiful day, and those guys really did look great in those swimsuits.
I knew she would want us to go after our friends had traveled so far. We decided, “She’ll under-stand. Our landlady is with her…she was happy to stay with her. It is a beautiful day…I think the guys are already getting tans. I’m sure we’ll all do it again another day after she is well. I hope she’ll understand.”
She didn’t. It was a long rest of the summer. And it was a terrible thing to do but we had so much fun! Just can’t fight the water, guys with tans in swimsuits, and a beautiful day…and the sweet days of youth. Plus, who knew that little frozen eggroll things could make you that sick?
P.S. Genie and I continue to do plenty of other crazy things and remain best friends to this very day.
Listen to the audio version of “Who Knew.”
Reprinted with permission of “Our Neighborhoods,” Fall 2025 edition.