This week there has been a longer patch of spring-like weather. The trees blossomed a few weeks ago but colder weather returned and made the blossoms on the trees disappear. It is funny how you can walk outside some mornings and suddenly be reminded of a day from the past. Springtime when I was in school was always pretty special as it brought all the end-of-school activities like prom, graduation and the nearing of summer vacation.
Several years ago I was reprinting some pictures from high school at a local store. There was a class reunion coming up and everyone was supposed to bring some. I was working on the one posted at the top of this article when a friend came by to see what I was doing. She made the remark that all the girls had waistlines! Guess it had not dawned on me that not only have clothing styles changed but also body shapes. Am I the only one that remembers that girls/women were supposed to have what was known as an hour-glass figure? Dresses were designed to show off a figure and no Prom outfit was complete without heels dyed to match the dress and hose.
The Prom picture was from the spring of 1963 and it was a pretty eventful one. Paul and Joan had been married for almost two years and their son Don was beginning to walk and become a lot of fun. It was probably a bigger challenge to all the family involved when kids in high school get married than I realized at the time. Actually I think Joan's family and ours blended together pretty well considering two children were the only thing they had in common in the beginning.
Another thing we need to remember is that was the day of no cell phones and no answering machines. The only phone we had was a wall phone situated on the wall between the kitchen and the living room. I suppose that their were some teenagers who had Princess phones in their rooms. Not in the Hansen house. I got to talk on the phone right in the middle of the whole family.
Muskogee had a beautiful country club. My parents were not members and I am quite sure that joining or participating in activities there ever entered their minds. I had attended dances at the club and snuck into the swimming pool "after-hours" with Joan but had no knowledge of golf at all. Joan, however, had grown up across the street from the club, her parents were very active members and to top it all off her sister, Beth, was a championship golfer. That spring the Ladies Professional Golf Association came to Muskogee for a tournament.
With my never ending quest to not miss out on anything I think I must have skipped a lot of school that week and spent the week hanging out at the golf course. If I was a pest to Beth and the other golfers no one ever told me to go jump in a water hazard. They were all actually very helpful in showing me how to hold a club and attempt to hit the ball. To
this day I have to laugh when I see golfers riding around in golf carts as I was told the best thing you can do is to carry the clubs across your shoulders as it builds up the right muscles and helps your posture. As I write this I now wonder if they were jacking with me? So began the golf phase of my life.
Joan's dad dug thru the garage and came up with some of Beth's old clubs and a bag. He must have been trying to get rid of a lot of clubs. Who carries five woods, fourteen irons and three putters? When I say carry, I did carry them as I was told to do. Then, because there was no way my parents were going to join the country club, I started playing at the public course, Meadowbrook.
Meadowbrook Golf Club has been mentioned in these posts before but not as a place to play golf. It consisted of a nine-hole golf course, a swimming pool and a huge building with a pro shop on the back, a bar and in past days, a restaurant and a huge but rather dingy space with a stage. It was in the huge open part with the stage where Muskogee teenagers danced to the rock and roll music of the Huff Band and other local groups.
The dances at Meadowbrook were probably one of the highlights of growing up in Muskogee during the fifties and sixties. I guess our parents thought they were chaperoned. I can remember the guy that ran the club might stick his head in from the bar on occasion and there was a three hundred pound rent-a-cop parked on a chair outside the door who collected money. I am sure that there was a lot of under-age drinking going on and a few fistfights in the parking lot but I actually never paid any attention to any of that. I went there to dance, listen to the music and have a great time.
The end of the school year arrived and with the start of summer I got to begin my chance to play golf. Still had my morning paper route so I sprang out of bed at 4:00 each morning, threw my papers and then off to play golf by 6:00. I usually beat the manager, Bob, out every morning but would go by the club house to pay when I was done. That may make me sound like some sort of a nut but I have always thought mornings were the best part of the day. Meadowbrook did not have the best of fairways but it was so beautiful every morning when all you could hear were the birds singing. Also helped that no one else was out that early to see my attempts to learn a pretty difficult game.
They say practise makes perfect. A lot of the facts hiding in that statement include if you know what you are doing in the first place, if there is any natural ability and how much practise you want to do to achieve your goal. Can't say there was any natural ability but I was pretty determined to learn well enough to go out and play with some of my friends. Bob would come out in his golf cart every once in awhile to make sure I was okay and to give me a few pointers which was a big help.
Summer was starting out to be lots of fun. Over the course of a lifetime I have come to realize that having a lot of fun can be great or it can be a serious omen of things to come.
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