Naples grandfather takes up dorm life

Roger Kramer occasionally has to ask his neighbors to turn down the rock music.

These aren’t his neighbors in Naples, but at North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene, where the 58-year-old former long-haul trucker lives in the dorm.

“I just yell over to them,” Kramer said when his fellow students crank up the likes of AC/DC or Metallica.

An accident that left Kramer with crushed vertebrae and fractured discs in his back made it impossible to continue trucking, so he gave up his career of 32 years.

Too young to retire, Kramer enrolled in the 10-month outdoor power equipment program at NIC. Upon completion, he will be trained to rebuild motors on snow-blowers, all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles.

When Kramer started at NIC last fall, gasoline was more than $3.50 a gallon. Commuting with his Chrysler would cost $40 a day.

“I couldn’t find an apartment I could afford, and they wanted first and last month’s rent and a security deposit,” he said. “For a short 10-month course, that’s a lot of money to lay out and I didn’t really have it.”

So he moved into the only on-campus dorm at NIC. It’s co-ed.

His wife believes it was a smart move.

“It was definitely better for him to be down there,” said Vicky Kramer, a rehabilitation technician for Panhandle Special Needs in Sandpoint. “If he had to drive the two hours back and forth, he wouldn’t have studying time.”

Roger Kramer shares a dorm room with one other person. Each has their own sleeping quarters, and they share a common area and bathroom.

“I knew I would be out of place with some of those younger people . . . it’s tough. Believe me,” he said. “I’m by the far the oldest.”

Kramer claims he didn’t have the neatest roommate the first semester.

“I don’t consider myself a neat freak, but he left food containers for a week at a time around his desk,” he said. “It took me almost a month to get the pizza sauce off the floor.”

Kramer also has a part-time job on campus. He works in the recreational sports area, where students can play pool, Ping-Pong and video games.

He also has a meal ticket for the cafeteria.