The First Week At Stephens

Just so no one feels bad and thinks all this comes from memories I will confess that some of it comes from little notes written on the Activity Calendar. I kept a pretty good record of events, activities and dates on the calendar that helps me remember a lot of this.  It is interesting how a little note like "date with Skip" can cause you to remember a lot more.
As you read the stories always remember this was 1964.  Things were a lot different then than they are now but in thinking back - not all bad.

After a very long and slightly calamitous day arriving at Stephens College sleep was a welcome relief.  I can imagine that before my eyelids closed I tried to remember the names of our suite mates and all the other girls I had met in the last few hours. Did that girl, Cathie, sleeping in the nearby bed with a giant teddy bear really put her hair up in a rubber band on top of her head while I carefully put rollers in my hair? I really hated her the next morning when she popped out of bed and brushed her hair into a beautiful flip.  Did she actually open her suitcase, grab an armload of clothes and stuff it in the dresser drawers?  What did she think when I carefully unpacked with neatly folded clothes being placed in the dresser drawers in some sort of order?

We had arrived at Stephens at 2:30 in the afternoon and the 6:00 dinner hour came rather quickly.  There was actually a twelve page booklet on the do's and don'ts of eating in the Dining Hall.  The big requirement was that you had to wear hose and heels to dinner. There were tables that seated eight covered in crisp, white table cloths.  One girl, designated by where you sat, was the Hostess who presided over the meal.  Proper etiquette filled several pages of the book and I often wondered how many or if any girls struggled with any of the rules.  The one great thing was that the food was outstanding and it became very evident through the year that one could easily gain weight eating three meals a day in the Dining Hall.

                                 Interesting Dress Code Just To Eat

                                   Even though we arrived on campus a week before classes started there was not a lot of free time.  The second day consisted of a Hall Meeting for everyone in the dorm.  At this meeting the Hall Mother, a very stern looking woman who looked to be ninety, laid out the rules for the dorm. There was to be "room check" every week to make sure we had good housekeeping practices, when leaving the dorm in the evening we had to sign out on a card stating where we were going and with whom and sign in upon our return.  Of course, she would be standing there as we signed in and out to make sure we were properly dressed and sober upon arrival back. If you were late the door would be locked and you had to ring the doorbell for her to let you in. The rule was that you had to be in by 10:00 on the weekdays and 12:00 on Friday and Saturday.  Any infraction would be swiftly dealt with by the Hall Council made up of girls living in the dorm.

For some reason I was picked as the South Hall representative on the Junior Class Steering Committee.  I could not imagine then, nor to this day, how I was bestowed with this honor.  Did I really appear as a sweet little goody-two-shoes?  Would I really set an example of a Stephens Susie who was perfect in every way?  It was obvious on that day that the Hall Mother felt I could do no wrong but she would be in for some big surprises as the year progressed. Do I really remember her as always wearing a black dress and matronly shoes?

Stephens College had an interesting way of looking at your college education in that your first couple of years should be spent exploring curriculum you were interested in.  They required that a student take seventeen hours with a max of nineteen per semester.  This was only eight hours of required courses and the rest of the classes devoted to art, dance, science etc.  Girls were also required to have Saturday classes.  Would you believe a physical education class in Equestrian Riding?  Yes, Stephens had a stable out by their lake and girls did bring their horses to school.

That first week there were two days of Placement Tests?  Never have figured that one out.  Then there were welcoming shows, teas, registration for local, on-campus sororities, and a many other things we were required to attend.  The important meeting of the week was with your advisor. I had put on my application that I wanted to major in Drama with an interest in Television Radio and Film Production. The Professor I got for an advisor was in charge of of the Television classes and he helped me pick classes in Drama to enroll in.  Later I would find out how involved he was in my life at Stephens.

With all of the events of that week we still had time to explore the campus, realize that downtown Columbia was one block west from the campus and the University of Missouri started one block south of our dorm. There were four of five clubs in town that had bands on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights so lots of chances to meet boys and dance. The clubs also offered free pitchers of beer to Stephens Susie's on Sunday afternoon.  I found that interesting as legally no one at Stephens was old enough to drink and if you got caught drinking it was an automatic trip home the next day. Even more interesting was that these clubs were packed with Stephens girls and University of Missouri boys every Sunday.

I really feel that Mother missed the boat when she thought she was sending me to a girls college and that there would be no boys around.  What a surprise to her if she had known that boys were on campus all the time.  The very first Saturday night I was at Stephens the college had a mixer with boys invited to attend from the University of Missouri, Kemper Military Academy and Westminster College. It was surprise to me to find out that four boys from Muskogee were attending Westminster including Barry Bayless and John Cable from my class. That was a fun evening dancing to a local orchestra from Columbia using all our proper manners.

It was also the week that the group of eight girls at the west end of South Hall got to know each other and form a friendship that would last the year for some of us or a lifetime for some.  There were Pam and Paula both from California, Woody from Memphis and Sally from Montgomery, Erin from Lansing, Mi and Mary from Hudson, Ohio and Cathie and I from Texas and Oklahoma. It was a very diverse group logistically and socially but we all managed to bond together quite well. The number eight worked out perfectly for the dinner table in our heels and hose, maybe without all the correct manners.

It was during that first week living with Cathie I came to realize that she was always late, never met a stranger, would do or say anything to anyone, would break any rule and filled our room with laughter morning, noon and night. There would be ups and downs through the year but the differences never lasted more than a few minutes.  Besides she had the Kingmen's album with Louie, Louie on it so how could I stay mad at her. 

The adventure was only just beginning.

Heading Off To College

The Summer of 64 seemed to pass very quickly at times and drag endlessly at others.  It was a learning experience having my first real job and one that I did well enough at that my boss asked me to return the next summer. The knowledge that I was leaving everyone and everything I knew for the first time in eighteen years was a mixture of excitement and apprehension or perhaps sheer terror would be a more apt explanation.

Shortly after my acceptance letter came in the mail from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri a book arrived in the mail that was a guideline for all students. There was also a letter that told me who my roommate was as the college picked those on the basis of the home visit done by the college representative done during my senior year. Mother got in contact with my new roommate's mother and took charge of decorating the room since we had visited the college during the summer. She immersed herself in "With In The Ivy" and gleamed over all the rules and regulations.  The worst part was that she shopped for clothes for me.  I tried to match the clothes she bought to my stacks of Seventeen magazines and wondered what style books she was looking at.  Ah, but there was no arguing with Mother.


While Mother is planning my life at Stephens, Dad had a different idea.  He thought it would be nice if I just stayed home and went to college at Northeastern State University. It was a short commute and he would buy me a  Corvette or even a 1953 MGTD, which was my choice.  It was tempting.  Looking back now I realize that I probably knew what was going on with both parents but did not have the courage to just tell them they needed to stop the tug of war over me.  Mother wanted the prestige of sending her daughter off to a private girl's college.  Dad wanted his only daughter, his only buffer between he and my Mother, not to leave. Although Dad and I never talked about it we both knew what I had to do as neither of us was able to say no to Mother. It was a good thing I worked six days a week, spent as little time at home as possible and tried very hard not to think about any of it.

Back in 1964 there were a lot more rules for female students to live by. Stephens was no exception but perhaps due to the history of the college,  a little more strict.  In 1833 the Columbia Female College was established to provide a higher education for the girls in town. In 1857 the Columbia Female Academy was incorporated into the Baptist Female College.  Finally in 1870 an endowment fund saw the name of the institution changed to Stephens College and in 1911 was reorganized to provide emphasis on the education of women in the first two years of college.  By the mid-sixties it became a full four year college.

Stephens had hours that girls had to be in their dorms unlike the University of Missouri a few blocks away.  Sunday through Thursday you had to be in by 10:00 and 12:00 on the weekends.  You signed in and out of the dorm stating where you were going on the weekend nights and the dorm Mother was always there when you signed in.  If you broke one of the three cardinal rules which were (1) No Drinking of alcoholic beverages (2) Do not enter a man's living quarters (3) Do not leave the county limits during the day or the city limits at night.  Failure to heed these rules was an immediate plane ticket home.  Sounded great to parents. I guess I figured those were going to be pretty simple to follow.  Right?

Finally departure day arrived. Stephens had made plane reservations for all of the incoming freshmen.  I was to fly from Tulsa to Kansas City to meet up with all the girls from the western part of the country.    At the same time planes landed in St. Louis with all the girls from the east.
Chartered buses were to meet us at the airport and we would then be off to Columbia. I had never flown before, I was going off to college, I had luggage for the first time in my life all of which should have been very exciting.  Upon landing in Kansas City all the girls were put into a large group while waiting for more planes to land.  

A plane ticket from Tulsa to Kansas City was $40.25 in 1964

It was one of those times when all the insecurities and shyness seemed to overwhelmed me.  I looked around at all the others girls giggling and laughing dressed in their Seventeen Magazine outfits with blonde hair and I wanted to hide in a corner and have a good cry.  Mother had made me get my blonde hair dyed back to it's natural brown color so I looked wholesome.  To make the day really perfect she had decided I should wear a brown dotted swiss dress with awful shoes that hurt my feet. Brown is not my color and had there been zombie movies at the time I would have been cast in an instance. But the worst was not over yet.

No one told me, nor was it mentioned in the book Mother studied so intently, that upon arrival at Stephens College the streets would be lined with boys from the University of Missouri.  It was a tradition that the boys came by what seemed to be the hundreds to check out the new crop of Stephens Susie's as we were called.  As I shuffled, yes shuffled, because my feet would no longer bend in those shoes I was wondering what I was doing in this place. I could only slide my feet along the pavement or pick them up and put them down flat much like a horse tromping down the street.  Getting to my dorm room on the fourth floor I passed through more giggling girls finding out where everyone was from.  I heard New York City, Los Angeles, Hawaii and on and on. How could I tell anyone I was from Muskogee, Oklahoma?  Who ever heard of anyone from Muskogee?  How many actually knew where Oklahoma was on the map?  The bright spot had to be that Merle Haggard had  not yet recorded that song as somehow it does not compare to 'New York, New York',  'San Fransisco Here I Come' or 'Chicago Is My Kind Of Town'.

South Hall at Stephens College

The dorm room was stacked with boxes that had been shipped ahead of time. The rooms were set up so that two rooms shared a bathroom with a shower, sink and toilet. There was not much I could do until my roommate should up so I sort of hid in the room.  Girls came in and out, introductions were made and names and hometowns swirled around me in a blur.  Where could the mysterious roommate be?  Surely she arrived in Kansas City and on the stream of buses about the same time I did.  Maybe she wasn't coming?  Maybe I could just hide in that room all by myself. Why did I ever let myself get talked into coming to this place?

About the time I was ready to break down and have a good cry a girl walks into the room.  She said "Hi, I'm Cathie.  You have to be my roomie".  Every  insecurity I ever had and maybe some new ones cut through me like a knife that moment she walked in the door.  She had the most brilliant blue eyes I had ever seen, beautiful blonde hair and she filled any room with her presence.  She would always remind me how my mouth dropped open when she appeared in the room. Needless to say it was a very rocky start for me at that moment to believe I would like her or that I could get along with her.

Cathie

At least she was from Midland, Texas and not a glamorous place. That first day with Cathie was interesting to say the least especially when she went searching for one particular box that she had to find.  Upon opening it, out came a very well worn four foot tall teddy bear named Jex.  Jex slept with her every night.  Even though I seriously wondered how out of eighteen hundred girls and seven boys attending Stephens College that fall I ended up with Cathie I would soon learn everyday was an adventure.  I would also learn a lot about myself.

My Sunburned, Stock Car Summer Part 2

                                        Muskogee's First 15 cent Hamburger Stand

Back to the story of the summer after high school graduation.  When I visited Muskogee last week for the Class 70th Birthday Party I got a chance to visit with my nephew, Don, and his son Brett.  By a stroke of luck Brett is quite the champion stock car driver and Joan, Don's mom, used to write all the stories about the races for the local paper back in the late sixties.  Don had a book of all her newspaper stories with pictures that brought back lots of memories.  So on with my story where I left off.

A powder Puff Derby at the stock car races was one where females drove the cars.  Since a couple of my classmates had built a car they thought it would be great if I drove it for them in the Powder Puff race. I thought that was pretty brave of them - what if I wrecked it?  They did not seem to be worried about that and I proceeded to see what I needed to do to drive it.  Hmm....all I needed as far as the race track was concerned was permission and a release form signed by my parents since I was underage.  No big deal.  

Wrong.  When I approached the subject my Dad kept his hand over his mouth so Mother did not see him laughing as she started gasping for breath.  I wasn't sure whether she was having a heart attack or she was so upset she could not breathe. When she was able to breath again it was the upset part that I was so stupid to think there was anything cool about driving a stock car. If you ever had a parent who started sentences with the phrase "I did not raise you to....etc.etc." you can imagine the discussion.  Later when I said something to Dad about it I got the usual phrase "You know how your Mother is."  I think he would have liked to have seen me drive the stock car.

But somehow in all the stock car driving talk in our hot rod hangout garage a boy a few years older than I, Danny Borovitz, asked me if I would like to go to the stock races on a Friday night.  He crewed on a car and said the wives and girlfriends of the driver and the other crew members would pick me up at 6:30 that Friday night. 

Good Old Rollers

Now that did present a few problems.  On the rare occasion I had a date and did not get done at the swimming pool until 6:00 there was a problem with my hair.  If you look back at pictures of the mid-sixties you will notice the very bouffant hairstyles.  My lifelong horrible hair required washing, rolling on big rollers, sitting under a hairdryer for thirty minutes and then backcombing and lots of spray.  This did not happen getting off work at 6:00 and going out at 6:30.  The only answer was to fix my hair as usual in the morning, pray the wind did not blow at thirty miles an hour, chase all the children out of the pool by 5:30 and hope no one decided to try to drown in water deeper than four feet. If all went well I was good to go out on a date.

Danny crewed on Tom Laster's stock car and Tom's wife, Judy picked me up each Friday night.  The grandstand was filled with thousands of people every Friday night.  We sat in a boxed area of the grandstands right in the center of the track cheering Tom on.  Back in the day Tom Laster was one of the best driver's with one of the fastest cars.  After the races we would meet the guys at the beer distributorship where they kept the car.  The guys would have a beer or two (I did not drink - then), rehash the races and then Danny would take me home. Of course Mother was not happy with me hanging out at Thunderbird Speedway and gave me a lecture every Friday night when I got home. Oh well, nothing new.  Thinking back now I don't remember ever going out with Danny except to the races but became great friends.

Thunderbird Speedway as it is today

Last weekend when we were home Marshell and I went out to the Fairgrounds where Thunderbird Speedway is/was.  Muskogee no longer has a fair and all the old buildings sit vacant except for a couple the city is using. The Speedway closed in 2003 when it was condemned and although a couple of people have purchased it and tried to revive it they have not been successful.  I could almost hear the roar of the engines and the crowd as I walked around and took pictures of it as it stands today.  Being a preservation person I wanted to cry as it meant so much to the town back in it's day.

We also drove out to what was Meadowbrook Country Club, now Eagle Crest Golf Course.  Fifty years have wiped out all of what was once there.  The pool is gone and the clubhouse both of which held a lot of memories of my first real job.  Muskogee was a great town to grow up in. Every town has it's good and bad, ups and downs but Muskogee had a lot of things to do, very,very good schools, great people and I am glad that I got to spend my first nineteen years there. Through my life I have lived a lot of different places but Muskogee, no matter how much it changes will always be home.

                            Meadowbrook Pool Used To Be Here 

Mother spent most of the summer pouring over the Stephens College Handbook with all the rules and regulations. She and I drove up to Columbia, Missouri one Monday on my day off and took a tour of the college.  The campus was beautiful with old buildings covered in ivy but the rule book made it sound like I was going off to a nunnery. She was glowing with the prospect of very strict hours and all the do's and don'ts.  I tried very hard not to think about the end of the summer and leaving home.

The Birthday Bash

Class of 64



The very last thing I need to be doing today or even this week is to be taking the time to write a story.  If I did have the time to write it should be the second part to my story about the summer after graduation but we came home last night from a weekend that can best be described as spending three days in a big warm hug. Maybe if I put the weekend down on paper I can move on to doing what I should be doing this week.

This weekend my Senior Class had a birthday party since this is the year we all turned seventy.  Sounds rather silly but we started the birthday party thing when we all turned fifty.  One of our class mates had been having his annual fortieth birthday party for ten years and on what he called his tenth annual fortieth birthday party, we all decided to join in with him. Even with class reunions every five years it seemed like sixty-five was a milestone and another party ensued.  Turning seventy sounded like another great excuse for party time. If there is one thing the Muskogee High School Class of 1964 knows how to do it is how to have a great time.

Arriving at the La Quinta Inn and Suites, headquarters for everything, we were greeted by the night manager who told us no we could not plug in our electric car which we had done on previous visits. There were a few moments of silence, Marshell was looking grim and then the manager laughed and told us he was only kidding.  So the laughter began instantly.  The party planners had a conference room filled with the green and white high school colors and enough snacks to feed an army.
Naturally there were drinks to go along with that.

Classmates arrived, even some that had moved away during the school years and graduated in other locations.  They decided not to make name tags since no one is ever sure who will actually show up and many tags were left from the last reunion.  It is really fun to have people walk into the room that you have not seen for years and try to guess who they are.  Regular reunion attendees are easy but those who come for the first time in years or the first time ever make for a real challenge.  After all these years there are a times a voice you hear or the way someone moves that instantly tells you who they are. If all else fails, just go introduce yourself and find out.

A funny part of Friday evening when it was rather late and a lot of people had slipped off to bed.  Ten of us were sitting around and a wife of a classmate picked up a yearbook and started reading what everyone wrote under their Senior picture.  She did not attend school with us and inquired about some of the activities that people had listed under their Senior picture.  Lots of laughter about many of the things that people had posted in the yearbook that they did not even know what it was or that they even participated in them. Did some people just put down anything on those ten lines to fill in?  Did those with nothing under their picture just not care or were absent that day? Funny how things that seemed so important then, like having lots of activities under your picture in the yearbook, don't matter now.

Saturday morning after free breakfast in the hotel that lasted a couple of hours it was off to beautiful Honor Heights Park for a picnic. The park, all 132 acres of it, is more beautiful now than it ever has been since it was established in 1909.  It was the sight of school and company picnics, family reunions, the place to drive through night or day on it's hilly winding road.  It was famous for it's rose gardens and now azaleas and spectacular Christmas lights. It was the place to go swim or to see if a Volkswagon could really float in one of the five ponds. The park is as much a part of our growing up as school was.

Saturday night we were picked up by a trolley and whisked off to a sport's bar/restaurant in town.  More classmates we had not seen showed up to make the weekend more special.  There was a band in one room playing music that we did not relate to and recorded music for the dance floor which tended to be for country two-steppers.  Didn't take long to flood the floor with good old swing dancers and the music changed to the Twist. Too bad the trolley came to pick up the old folks when we were just getting started.

Back at the motel we were informed by the organizing committee that we had to play some games because they had door prizes to give away. No details will be given on the Plunger Game. All I will say is that most seventy year old people would not have participated but we are no normal seventy year old people.  Chair volleyball was exciting with the ball bouncing off the walls and lights.  Good thing the night manager was off duty to help oversee the game.  Actually I think he was one of the ball servers.  Like he said, his job was to make sure we had a good time.

Chair Volleyball

The very best part of the weekend was the group of classmates. At breakfast Saturday morning one of the girls said to me that she enjoyed reading my stories but that they made her sad. That was a surprise as I work very hard to make them entertaining - where did she get sad?  She said she was jealous because I had so much fun in high school and she did not.  I was really just a little surprised as she was one of those girls that I wished I was like.  She was popular and had lots of friends. I told her she was one of those people that I looked up to and wished I could be like her.  That my stories may seem funny and lots of fun but that they are just my way of masking all the insecurities and shyness that I lived with. Might be better to say, the insecurities and shyness we all had. 

Another girl said no one even knew or remembered her from high school.  Wrong - I remember her as being very cute and shy.  A boy told a story about his childhood that was pretty unbelievable that none of us ever knew.  There was a discussion about just who had the most dysfunctional family and mine did not seem nearly as bad as I thought. Another boy said how much in love he was with me and another girl but always thought he was too poor to ask either of us out. Thank heavens we have reached a stage in life where we can actually admit to our feelings to each other about the hardest years of growing up.  

One of the most important things I have learned in the fifty-two years since we graduated is that the classmates that I spent twelve years of my life with and many reunions have become family.  I did not ever meet many of my relatives for whatever reason and family dinners at holidays after growing up usually did not go well.  Moving around in my adult life I made a lot of friends but soon lost track of them without bring there to share current happenings with them.  How can they not be family when you grew up with them, spent eight hours a day for nine months of every year with them and shared all the memories of activities and events.

One of the funny moments of the weekend I shared with Robert who has always been the glue that holds the class together.  He and some other people were watching football at the hotel on Saturday afternoon.  One of the couples proudly announced that their fiftieth wedding anniversary was coming up.  I looked at Robert and asked him if he and I added up all our own marriages could we come up with fifty years. It no longer matters whether you are rich or poor, many times married, if you were a cheerleader or played football (well, maybe that still matters), fat or thin or whether your life is going well or badly.  We can get together and make everyone feel better because we are family.

My Sunburned Stock Car Summer

Favorite Lifeguard Bathing Suit

After graduation from Muskogee Central High School in May of 1964 it was time to start my first "real job".  Getting up at four o'clock in the morning for the past two years to throw newspapers just did not seem to qualify as a "real job", more like something kids did.  Being all grown-up with a high school diploma it was time to get serious.  The chance to be a Lifeguard and getting paid a dollar an hour sure seemed like a move up in the working world. On the first Tuesday after Labor Day I drove to Meadowbrook Country Club with my newly acquired Senior Lifesaving Card and more than a little apprehension.

Looking back now I realized that the only things I knew about Meadowbrook County Club was that I had played golf on their nine-hole course many times in the previous two years usually at the crack of dawn all by myself.  Growing up in Muskogee every teenager attended the dances in the huge old building with the rent-a-cop sitting by the door. I knew my bosses name was Bob and that I was the only lifeguard for the pool behind the Pro Shop.  As far as being a lifeguard was concerned I only knew how to jump in the water and save a potential drowning person and that lifeguards sat up on high platforms getting a beautiful tan. Wow! Was I in for a learning experience!

When something is called a Country Club you might have visions of a pristine golf course, a beautiful dining area with white table cloths, a pro-shop filled with all sorts of golf equipment and a beautiful pool. Meadowbrook was the public country club in town and quite different from the  "membership only" one across town. Thinking back about it now, being more of a history buff, I wondered just when it was built. There doesn't seem to be any facts on the Internet but I did find that Bob Peerson ran Meadowbrook from 1950 to 1963 even though he was still there in 1964 and 1965.

Evidently in it's heyday there was a restaurant and bar called the Topaz Room adjacent to a large area that could sit 400 people with a stage for dinner and dancing. Ah, the answer as to what the large building was where the teen dances were held.  The Pro-Shop was a small building by Tee #1 big enough for a couple of tables.  I can imagine golf equipment being sold from the glass cases that in 1964 held a few golf balls and snacks.  Soft drinks and beer were available from the cooler.

The pool was built up on the ground almost like they dug the hole and then piled the dirt up on the sides then poured the concrete.  It was surrounded by a chain-link fence with the only trees far in the distance. Instead of a lifeguard stand there was a park bench.  Meadowbrook had been there for several decades and no doubt was on the decline.  None of that was noticeable to me then.  Being my first job I loved every inch of the place.

The pool hours were 10:00 to 12:00 and 1:00 to 7:00 Tuesday through Sunday. Not only was I to keep anyone from drowning but it was my
 job twice a day to check and make sure all the chemicals were right. Never can learn enough important tasks. When it rained the pool was not open and if I needed to take a break to go to the bathroom I had to get everyone out of the pool until I returned. So, I arrived my first day at work in my bathing suit, with a whistle around my neck and a towel. The learning experience began and trust me, there was a lot that I learned that summer.

The morning session from 10:00 to 12:00 was usually very quiet - quiet as there were hardly ever any swimmers there except for an occasional mother with a little child or two.  It made for a very long morning so my Dad bought me a portable radio.  Listening to music and the DJ chatter from KLIF out of Tulsa was entertaining.  You have to love my Dad who loved to shop.  He did not just buy me a little plastic radio, he bought one in a leather case with a pretty good sized speaker. They could probably hear the music in the clubhouse.

                               1960's Leather Covered Radio

The afternoon was a whole other story.  I could have anywhere from five or six children to as many as forty in the pool at the same time. Rarely was there ever a parent who stayed at the pool with their little ones.  They played golf, sat in the clubhouse or just left.  Ages of the children ranged from four to fourteen. Actually they were pretty well behaved but it was difficult to keep an eye on all of them at the same. time.

The first week of sitting in the sun all day with no shade what so ever proved to be interesting.  Those were the days before mammoth amounts of sunscreen.  Those were the days of Coppertone and Baby Oil with Iodine so you could get the California Beach Blanket/Surfer look.  Instead of turning into the next Gidget, I turned into a charbroiled lobster.  Mother would not have had to worry if I had gone out on a date since a boy's hand two inches from my body would have caused screams of pain from the sunburn.  The first week the only way I could sleep was sitting on the floor in the living room with my head on a pillow on the coffee table.  After the first or second layer of my skin peeled off things were much better and finally the California girl look set in with the tan and sun bleached hair.  The exception was my nose which did require several applications of good old white zinc oxide a day.

About the same time I started my job a couple of the boys I graduated with had built a stock car.  Muskogee was pretty famous for their Thunderbird Speedway stock car track at the Muskogee Fairgrounds. Built in 1907 as a horse racing track it was converted to stock cars in 1955.  No one in my family ever went to the stock car races but they were broadcast live on the local radio station plus you could hear the roar of the engines over half the town on any Friday night. Stock cars were almost as popular as football on a Friday night.

The boys came to see Kenny one night for technical advice or parts or something and the subject of a Powder Puff Derby came up.  There was to be one in a week or so.  Everyone thought it would be a great idea if I drove the car in the Powder Puff Derby.  Wow!  Sounded like a really cool idea to me.  Certainly it would not be any more dangerous than me jumping on a surf board like Gidget soaring over the waves. If in Oklahoma you have to do what the locals do which was jumping in a car and racing around a dirt track as fast as you could go.

Since I want to keep you in suspense as to what happens next you are going to have to look for part two next week.  What did happen with the stock car adventure and did anyone drown that summer?

My Sort of Secret Life

In order to fully tell the tale of the summer of 1964 after high school graduation I need to regress a few years.  I grew up with a father who only drove Studebaker's until they went out of business.  A father who wiped his car off with a chamois every night and only knew where to put gas in the car. This did not fit too well with children who liked car parts covered in oil spread all over the garage. Stuck in between my brothers, Paul and Kenny, I was doomed to be just a little car crazy myself.

I must have been in the seventh or eighth grade when Johnny Tiger would show up at the house in his cream and red '55 Chevy. Johnny was very good looking but I would sit and stare out the window at his car. Then there was the all white '56 Ford Victoria with the side pipes that almost touched the ground that belonged to Mel Rounds. Needless to say I probably thought I was the luckiest little girl in the world the day Mel took me for a ride in that car.  Then as Paul got closer to driving age a '34 Ford Three Window Coupe showed up in the front yard.  It was rusty, had no seats and did not run but to me at the age of thirteen it was the Coolest!

Paul, who later became very good at restoring old cars, did not have much patience with trying to get the '34 to run.  Kenny at the age of eleven or twelve sat in the house reading Hot Rod Magazine and would make suggestions to Paul as to what to do.  Well, no macho big brother wants a little brother telling him what to do and Paul ended up giving Kenny the car. No doubt there was some statement to the effect that if Kenny was so smart he could just fix it.

Kenny tinkered away, conned Dad out of some car parts and got the car running.  I remember the first test run very well.  The car had no seats but orange crates were a good replacement and a rope for a throttle. Mother had to be the test driver since neither Kenny or I were old enough to drive.  It was a little scary when she almost ran off the road into Sallee Park but then we flew around the rest of the neighborhood.  

Long before Kenny or I were old enough to drive there were occasions when we talked Dad into taking us to Tulsa to the old North Airport to watch the drag races.  Poor Dad would sit in his '56 Studebaker Golden Hawk in his suit, tie and hat while we stood by the edge of the runway cheering the cars on.  Back in those days the drags had to be on hold every once in awhile for a small plane to land.  Later, Paul's friends would talk him into taking me along to the drags with them since I knew all about pistons, rods and camshafts.  

The trip to the drag races that stands out the most in my mind was the summer after the ninth grade.  Paul and his friends were going to Tulsa and somehow I got to go even though Paul never wanted to be seen with his little sister.  I was squished in the back seat of George Highfil's "Christine" type car - the one with the push button shift on the dash and pretty cool looking fins.  It must have been quite a sight for other people to see.  Here were five really cool (at least they thought that) almost Senior guys followed by this kid with overly permed hair and braces covering her teeth tagging along after them. Little did I know that I would learn a vocabulary consisting of elapsed time, quarter-mile, rail-job and mile per hour that would follow me the rest of my life.

Things got much more serious when we moved to a larger house when I was in the tenth grade. Kenny's car building took place on the back patio of the old house as it only had a single car garage.  Mom and Dad bought a house with a two-car garage but it was still not allowed to be used for car restoration.  So Dad had a second car garage built on the back of the lot for Kenny and I.  At the age of fourteen Kenny had become the go-to-guy for all things car related. The garage was like a huge magnet that attracted every wanna-be hot rodder in town.  On any given evening or weekend you could hear the rumble of a car or two coming down the street. Needless to say I would casually stroll out to see what was going on if I was not already in the garage helping Kenny work on the '34.

To be really truthful I did not have many close girl friends. It was always difficult for me to spend much time playing with dolls as running up and down the street in cowgirl clothes or jumping out of bushes dressed in army surplus attire attacking the neighborhood boys was much more fun.  By the time I got to drive my '54 Chevy convertible around town I knew where every salvage yard with in twenty-five miles was. Kenny and I would spend Saturdays scouring car parts from places most girls did not even know existed.  One of the things I never did do was to go on a "mid-night" salvage where you climbed over a salvage yard fence way after dark, carefully avoiding the man-eating dogs and retrieved the car parts you needed having located them during the day. Not going to claim that my brothers never did that.

Even though the duck-tailed, t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up era for guys was just about gone there were still many around.  In Muskogee there were three drive-in eating establishments that the youth cruised through.  One was Chet's where you could for the most part find the football, band, cheerleader types.  Then there was the Corral.  Even though the days of duck-tails and rolled up T-shirt sleeves were a few years back there were still a lot of those to be seen at the Corral.  It was the real place for most of the hot-rodders to hang out.  Last was Russ's which had a pretty good combination of both.  The kind of place you drove through looking straight ahead so everyone thought you were really cool and not interested in who was there.  Guess the idea was to be see and not to notice anyone else.  My Mother would always wonder how I knew a twenty-something guy with a duck-tail who would say hi in a store. Little did she know that Kenny and I had discussed engine and transmission combinations with him the night before at the Corral.

I had to tell this story before I could write the story of the Summer of 1964.  The girl who had just graduated from high school with a scholarship to an all-girl private college was the same girl who was perfectly happy laying under a car covered in grease and oil.  There was both excitement and fear in thinking about how my life would change come September. Best thing to do was to not think about it and charge on into my Sunburned, Stock Car Summer.

Senior Week II

This may come as a surprise to many but I have no recollection of the Baccalaureate.  The only memory I have of that day is that my aunt passed away.  Was there family kerflubawoozie?* Did I not go?  Did I go and my little mind was elsewhere?  There is also a blank when it comes to Senior Night.  I can think of a lot of things that could have happened during  Senior Night with the Class of 64 that I would not put down in print.  If anyone remembers anything about Senior Night, please feel free to fill in my blanks.

Much to my dismay the Class Day remains as a vivid memory.  That was the day we all sat in the high school gym with parents in the bleachers while all the awards and scholarships were given out.  Back in those days schools were not air conditioned especially ones that were verging on being sixty years old.  It was going to be a warm afternoon in the high school gym.

Ah - the days of madras.  I have noticed in the stores lately that it is making a return to popularity.  I wonder if it still fades with the least amount of dampness?  Since it was going to be a warm day and we had to wear our cap and gown I decided to wear my cool madras shorts. Even the thought of wearing shorts to school was forbidden, but who would know under the graduation robe?  Everything would have been just fine if they had not called my name to come up to the stage and receive a certificate for my scholarship to Stephens College. Naturally there was a circle of many colors on the back of the robe almost an early tie-dye look. A quick exit from the gym after the program and a heavy foot on the car gas pedal prevented any teacher from catching me.  By the next time I appeared in the graduation robe again I could bat my eyelashes when asked about the strange color from the day before and say "what?".  It only took every cleaning agent my Mother could find and an evening of scrubbing (and the usual"what were you thinking" from her) to be rid of all of the strange color.



One event that was not listed on the Senior Week schedule was the Senior assembly which consisted of the program This Is Your Life B.L.Wertz.  Mr. Wertz was our principal at Muskogee Central High School and was retiring with the graduation of our class.  Hopefully he was retiring because he had been the principle since 1947 and not because he could not face another year with students like us.  I wrote a story about Mr. Wertz and all of the great things he brought to our high school.  You can read it by going to Senior Year II dated June 1st.  It is well worth a look back to see what an outstanding job he did.  At this assembly people who had graduated under his tutelage came back to visit and applaud him.  It was one of the nicest things our class ever did.

Our Graduation took place at Indian Bowl, site of all the sports activities back then and is still used to this day.  It took place on a beautiful evening with all of the stands filled.  There were five hundred and two names on the insert in the program with the disclaimer that the list did not indicate all requirements of the students had been met for graduation. I think the talk was that four hundred and ninety nine actually did graduate.  We had reached what we thought was the summit in learning and in growing up. Square graduation hats thrown in the air marked the freedom of twelve years of having to be in a certain place at a certain time and doing what we were told to do. Little did we know when we all thought we knew so much.

The big production number at the conclusion of the movie Grease is the song, We Will Always Be Together.  I am not sure that  was  the thought of many of the new graduates. Some wanted to get as far away from Muskogee as they could. For others there was the excitement of going off to college or getting that first job.  The boys had the threat of the draft hanging over their head.  We had basically one summer to still be all together before we fanned out all over the country.

There was actually something very special about those twelve years that has taken me a lot of years to really understand. I have written a lot about high school in the last few weeks and fully realize that everyone does not remember those days with a lot of pleasant thoughts. 

Growing up in the fifties and sixties was a lot more innocent than in later generations. Fun was hanging out at the local hamburger or hot dog place, sneaking people into the drive-in, the football games and the dances all under the supervision of parents who kept a watchful eye over us.  But underneath all the laughter and the shenanigans there were all the insecurities, the desire to be liked and to fit in with all of our peers.  

The great part of growing up in a pretty neat town, even though I cringed when that song about it first came out, is that ability to talk with my classmates after all these years as if a day had never passed since we all went our separate ways.  There are not too many friends you make through out your life that you have so many shared memories with.  


*Mary Poppins made up Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious so I made up kerflubawoozie. Mine is easier to spell!

Senior Week

It has been over a year since I started my stories about growing up in the 50's and 60's.  There have been lots of comments about how I should write a book.  In a way I guess I am with just little stories about how much fun it was and still is growing up as a so-called baby boomer.
There are a couple of more stories about high school and then on to the serious but silly attempts at gaining some maturity.

Quite by accident while looking for something important this week I came across a school newspaper from May of 1964. It had a little block at the top of the front page that gave activities for Senior Week.  Now I know when the Prom was but there are some events left out. One of the days during Senior Week was the day set aside for students to work at the school to off set their Office E's.  Anyone but me remember those?

Maybe Muskogee was the only school to award Office E's.  You won them by doing something stupid.  The offense was not great enough to get suspended but still not acceptable. Wonder if the participants in the Secret Clubs got Office E's?  With three or more you had to show up on the designated day to "work off"  the E's or there was the threat of not graduating. Working meant picking up trash around the school and helping teachers with things they needed to do.   I was lucky, I had three, so I got to attend the work day.  All three of the E's were for really silly stuff that the Dean of Girl's thought was serious.  It wasn't such a bad day until you remembered that most of the nice, well behaved class members were doing something fun that day.

Needless to say with five hundred students in my Senior class there was no Senior Trip like smaller schools had.  What teacher or parent in their right mind would have wanted to chaperone five hundred kids?  Instead we had a Senior class Picnic.  Everyone met early that morning at Spaulding Park since there was enough room to line up all the cars. Equipped with numbers on the cars we drove maybe twenty miles to Greenleaf State Park for the day. If "number police" were along the road to make sure we did not get out of line I didn't see them. There must have been rules such as no sneaking off into the woods to look for wild flowers or bringing any type of beverages. If anyone broke the rules I missed out on it for a change. A road race back to Muskogee would have been fun but somehow they lined the cars back up in order mainly to make sure no one had gotten lost or snuck off.

                         Can't believe that I really still have this.

The next evening was the Senior Banquet.  I had made a really cute dress for the occasion.  It was just a simple yellow sleeveless dress made out of a pretty lace.  Since friends decided to go spend the day at Lake Tenkiller jumping off of the cliffs, I joined them.  I look at those cliffs now and wonder what I was thinking but the day was fun with no one drowning or knocking themselves out.  The only thing that did happen was that I did get a horrible sunburn.  If you have never had the opportunity to combine a sunburn with a scratchy lace dress you have really missed out. For decades I have wondered how I managed to eat and give a speech holding that dress up off of my shoulders. 

Next week I will finish the stories of Senior Week but when I was looking through the old school newspaper I noticed an interesting story.  Muskogee was the pilot city for President Kennedy's Physical Fitness Program.  There are actual videos on YouTube.  During the month of May there were tests to gather data on the program.  The requirements for the girl's in the 17 year age range were, 42 sit-ups, 45 pull-ups, running the 600 yard dash in 2:30 and the 50 yard dash in 7:30. It didn't say the whether the times were seconds or minutes but I would hope for hours.  Perhaps on "some" Tuesday of some month I will see if I can pass the test now.

I enjoyed all the comments I received about the Senior Prom story.  No matter what high school you attended I am sure there are some great stories.  Please feel free to share them in the comment section at the bottom, via email or Facebook.