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| Muskogee Central High School |
I did not keep a diary or as they are now known, a journal in high school. If I was not a pack rat, a neat pack rat, I would have trouble remembering all this. Lucky for me some Birthday or Christmas prior to high school I got a huge scrapbook called a Date Data. How stupid that sounds now but it was a big deal then.
The Date Data had pages where you could write down who you dated, when you dated them, where you went, an evaluation of the fellow and an endless amount of other information. It also had pages for pressed corsages, cards, notes and anything else I could not bear to throw away. Some how I have managed to move that around since high school - maybe 26 or 27 moves. It is a treasure trove of information while being rather funny at the same time. I know I went to sixteen dances in my sophomore year and somehow I managed to date the same boy at Christmas time for all three years. Pretty amazing that I did that but more amazing is that I still have two of the presents he gave me.
Moving out to the suburbs, Grandview, by name created a problem that school was too far to walk. I did ride the bus to school and home part of the time. How could I give up Carnation Ice Cream everyday? But the neighborhood was filled with a lot of my classmates so it was fun. The move plus Paul's marriage created another change. Paul got a before school job delivering newspaper bundles, Mom went to work for the paper and Kenny and I ended up with newspaper routes. I never have included my being the first newspaper girl in my resume although I was actually proud of it. Kenny and I had all of Grandview - he rode his bike and I walked the route carefully putting the papers on the porch or somewhere that they did not get hit with rain or snow.
Of course the BIG deal for the month of June was my birthday - my 16th birthday. As I remember Mom and Dad rushed off to work that day with only a Happy Birthday wish for me. Just where were all the fireworks and the brass bands? No cards, no presents, swell. I would show them so I rode my bike to the little neighborhood store and came home and baked my own birthday cake.
Dad showed up at home around noon which was unusual and announced that he was taking me to get my Driver's license. Ah....He had only taken me out once to let me practice driving during which he taught me to drive with one foot on the gas and one on the brake. Not a good thing! But who could pass up attempting to get a driver's license. So off we went. Surprise to me - I passed. Dad went back to work and my girlfriend and her Mom showed up with a birthday card and a cake. Things were looking up a bit - I was now in possession of a card, two cakes and a driver's license.
Mom arrived home about 5:00 with another birthday cake. It was beginning to look like a bakery. At 6:00 my Dad arrived home but not in his 1960 Studebaker Golden Hawk that he left in. He drove up in a 1954 red Chevrolet Belaire CONVERTIBLE!! Can't say it had shiny red paint or that it was perfect but to me it was the most beautiful thing in the world. I can honestly say that I was never again so in love with a car as that one. I had hoped that a car would arrive that day but there sure were no hints given. Paul had gotten a car, a 1952 Willis that he hated, for his birthday and fourteen year old Kenny already had the 1934 Ford with no seats and a rope throttle. Needless to say, my parents never had a thought of letting any of us drive their cars but it had began to look bleak for me.
So began the great adventure of being able to run around in your own car. One of the best stories occurred about a week after I started driving. I was headed into town one beautiful morning, top down, short blonde hair flying and suddenly see flashing lights and heard a siren. My heart was pounding as I pulled off of the road as I couldn't imagine what I had done. A Highway Patrolman approached the car and said that I did not slow down by five miles an hour when crossing some railroad tracks on Hwy 69. That was not one of the laws I remembered from the driver's test. As he leaned over the driver's door I happen to see his name tag. He was the same patrolman who had stopped my very pretty Mother as well as a lot of other women for "unwritten laws". I took off my sunglasses and said "Hi, Mr. ______. It's me, Donna, your newspaper girl". As he rushed back to his patrol car he did tell me to take it easy. He also never sat on his front porch any more in his pajamas at 5:30 in the morning waiting for his newspaper.
I never thought to ask where my Dad came up with the car. About 25 years later I got to be friends with a girl who was a classmate but we did not really hang out much together. She told me one day that she always hated me in high school. I could not imagine why until she told me that the red convertible had been her sixteenth birthday present but her dad got mad at her and sold it to my dad. We have laughed about it for many years and I did give her a picture of it with the caption "our car".
So began a summer of 1960's era fun, Hootenannies, cruising town, dances at the memorable Meadowbrook Country Club, fun with Paul and adventures with his wife, Mitzi and all too often getting caught at places where you were not allowed to be. There were too many times the red convertible was too easy to spot.
Many more adventures that summer to read about next week.
Memories of Carnation Ice Cream
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