How Lucky I Am To Be A Boomer - The Beginning of the Senior Year

It is interesting to look back on that year of school you waited for for eleven years.  I had to really search the depths of my brain to try to piece it all back together. Needless to say it has been awhile since I ran up the steps of Muskogee Central High School for that much anticipated year.

There were many urban legends about previous senior classes and some of the shenanigans that went on.  I have always felt that the Class of 64 had set a path way back in junior high to have many really brilliant students but also was a very mischievous group. One of my memories at the start of school occurred after an assembly of all the five hundred seniors. What the assembly was about doesn't come to mind but when it was over and time to head off to our classes for some reason we en mass ran out the doors of the auditorium, across the hall and out the front door of the school. Why? I never knew or who started it was never certain.  Someone started it and the entire class followed.  Then we all stood on the steps bent over in laughter until some teacher came out and told us to get to class.  In a previous post I mentioned Office E's awarded for bad behavior....I think it took someone in the school office a long time to record all those for the entire class.

At the very beginning of the school year our class managed to set the stage for a year of "break-the-rule" behavior.  When it came time to elect the Senior class officers there were a couple of the good student/athlete/good guys running for President.  There was also the class leader in mischievous behavior which maybe a nice way to put it. Do you need to guess who won?  His first order of business was to walk into the office of the Dean of Boys, take out a pair of scissors and cut off his necktie.  That was not the only time during the year that happened. we had chosen a good person to keep things in an uproar for the year.

The fall was always filled with football and all the activities surrounding the games. Muskogee had an all-boy Marching Band and a seventy member all-girl marching unit called the Crack Squad.  They practiced most of the summer and at 7:00 in the morning all through the season. I have been to many high school football games through the years and can't really think of better half-time shows than Central's. The football season that year was not one of best for the team but the games were always fun at attend.

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On Football Friday's there was always a pep rally in the gym first thing in the morning. The entire school was in attendance along with the team, cheerleaders, crack squad. pep squad and band.  There was the usual pep talk and cheers for the team but there was always some sort skit about the upcoming game.  The skits were funny and the participants dressed in silly outfits.  Much to my dismay, although no one else probably noticed or understood, someone would yell into the microphone "Why wasn't ___________ invited to Donna Hansen's party?".  Ah, one of those moments when I wanted to be invisible but never seemed to be.

Besides the morning pep rallies, on occasion, there was a parade downtown on the night before the game.  This was followed by a un-sanctioned pep rally and bonfire on the sandbar of the Arkansas River. 
On one of these evenings someone had the brilliant idea to burn a dummy of the school principal during the sandbar rally.  Looking back it was a pretty stupid idea since our principle was a very well respected and loved educator. Kids!  We all had our moments of lack of judgement.  Of course the dummy got to ride on the back of my convertible in the parade. Who would notice it on my car?  Oh, boy!  Another one of those Office E's come Monday morning.  

Football season that year was memorable for me not only because of the Muskogee Roughers. Chris, my friend from from first grade, who had moved to Tulsa and showed up on my doorstep played for Cascia Hall. Their games were on Saturday afternoon. That fall there were a couple of Saturday afternoons that my girlfriend and I would feel the need to go to the library to study.  We must have had a lot of homework for all those hours we spent at the library.  Actually we jumped in my car, drove the forty-five miles on the two lane highway to Tulsa to go the the Cascia Hall football game.  As soon as the game was over and a fast hello to Chris and his friends we would speed back home.

On one of these adventures my car would not start after the game. I probably had a severe panic attack trying to figure how I was going to get home without getting caught.  Luckily Chris's Dad came to the rescue.  The generator - one of those things cars used to have to keep the battery charged - must have died.  He jump started my car and told me not to stop until I got home.  That was a pretty fast and maybe a little scary trip home.  We made it with no problem.  The next morning with big innocent eyes I told my Dad something was wrong with the car. I could not imagine why it wouldn't start and of course there was no mention of the trip to Tulsa.  Dad to the rescue.

There were a lot of fun times with Chris that year.  He would call and see what was going on in Muskogee on some Saturday. Cascia Hall was a Catholic boarding school with boys from all over the country. They really didn't have the opportunity to meet many girls so Chris would bring three or four of his friends to Muskogee with him. I found dates for his friends and we would go to a dance, have a picnic in the park, take in a movie or just enjoy the day.  Since I wasn't allowed to drive to Tulsa my parents would take me over to go to dances or some event at his school.  Can't say that we were really ever boyfriend/girlfriend but just great friends who had a lot of laughter and fun together.

On the subject of dating.  I think all of us Baby Boomers really had a lot of fun dating.  There was something special about getting dressed up to go to a dance or the movies. Can't imagine how many times I talked my Dad into letting me go to Hunts, Calhoun's or Susman's on Friday afternoon to find something new to wear and then to the beauty shop to have my hair done. Girl's had to wear dresses or skirts of a certain length and boys had to have their shirts tucked in at school and dating attire was pretty much the same. It is still hard for me to not "dress up" even in the casual world we have now.

                                 Skirts, Dresses and Loafers

Wheat Jeans, Tucked in shirts and Loafers

It did seem like calamities struck on a lot of my dates.  When the movie, Tom Jones, opened in Tulsa there were three couples that got approval from our parents go see it.  The boy driving had a beautiful black flip-top Ford.  Somehow we missed getting to Tulsa in time for the early movie and decided to stay for the second one. My mother always said for me to call if I was going to be late so I called and said we would be late. It was not met well with her and I was not in good standing when I arrived home at one o'clock in the morning.  Another time I went to the drive-in movie instead of the one playing downtown.  Since I wasn't allowed to go to the drive-in I at least knew the name of the one playing downtown.  T he next morning mother asked me about the movie and I made up an awesome script for John Wayne's In Harms Way. I was pretty proud of myself until mother announced that she and Dad had gone to see it.  Guess I was pretty good at getting myself into trouble and not very good at getting away with anything.

The year started off well for our class with ties of the Dean of Boys getting cut off, pretty rowdy behavior and the dummy of our principal. 
What would we think of next?

How Lucky I am To Be A Baby Boomer - Home From New Mexico

Pat Mackey's parents, Bert and Lorraine, arrived at White Sands to take us home at the end of July.  It was hard to believe the month had flown by so fast or that we had so much fun. It was years later before I fully realized how much I had grown up in that month. Lessons we learn through our lives usually don't dawn on us for a long time.

It was nice that we did not drive at break-neck speed to get home.  We stopped and toured Carlsbad Cavern which was the first cave I ever had seen. Then there was a stop for a day or two in Hobbs, New Mexico. Pat had moved from there to Muskogee and had many friends. I can remember staying with a girl friend of hers while her parents visited other friends.
Not having gone to but one slumber party before then I can remember the fun of talking with the other girls way into the night.  The only drawback to the trip home was IHOP Restaurants. Back in those days IHOP only served pancakes.  Pat's Dad must have never gotten pancakes at home as I swear that is the only restaurant we stopped at for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Back in those days IHOP only served pancakes and I can eat them for any meal - not every meal for five hundred miles.

It was in a way, nice to be home but after a month of being surrounded by lots of other teenagers it seemed a little quiet.  I still threw newspapers at dawn and played golf at eight o'clock before it got too hot. I can't remember dating anyone but spent a lot of time with Joan and little Don who was a year old that summer. I was, of course, still banned from dating the boy I was sent out of town for.  That relationship had begun to seem pretty silly after the fun I had in New Mexico. With several weeks before my big Senior year there had to be something fun to do.

Remember the cartoons where the characters would have a big light bulb appear above their heads?   Well I had one of those moments, one of those brilliant ideas!  I would have a party.  Now just to be sure you understand the Hansen household....we did not have parties except for little children's birthdays.  We did not have people over for dinner. Anything like that caused a mother to have panic attacks because she had no clue as to how to entertain, the house could never be clean enough, the food good enough or even as outgoing as she was away from home what would she talk about when company came over. Knowing all this I dug up the courage to ask if I could have a few friends over, in the backyard of course, for a little Senior party.

After several questions about how many friends and what to serve we agreed on some rules.  The party would be for about ten to fifteen friends, chips and pop sounded fine and of course the one person who could not set foot on the lawn was the forbidden boy. That sounded okay - I could abide by those rules.  Pat and I started planning the guest list together.  It was a little over the number of classmates agreed on but it was after all summer and some of them may be on vacation or some may not have wanted to come. So Pat and I went down our list and invited our friends.

The day of the party came, the record player was set up on the patio, lawn chairs were gathered together and pop and chips purchased. At the appointed time kids started arriving.  Then more arrived and more still showed up. My Dad came out and asked if he should go to the store and purchase more pop and off he went.  As the crowd got larger I could look into the patio doors and see my mother's lips getting thinner and thinner.  I knew not to venture into the house for any reason especially when there was a faint hint of smoke emitting from here ears.

                                Dad probably dashed to the store
                                    dressed in his usual attire.


All in all, my Dad made three trips to the store for more pop and chips. The yard and street was filled with God knows how many of my classmates. I think they had a great time and no one seemed to be in any hurry to leave until quite late. What I had not planned on was the people Pat and I invited invited more people and soon the word was all over town that their was a party at my house. Granted it was not like one of THOSE parties where the parents weren't home or everyone demolished the house.  This was just hanging out in the back yard, listening to music and talking. I was just happy that everyone had a good time and did not rush to leave.

The next morning there  was a note from my mother when I returned from my paper route. Sometime after two o'clock in the morning I was awakened by the screeching of tires. Evidently the uninvited boy backed into our driveway, thru out a whole bunch of beer cans and laid rubber down the length of the driveway. Hmmm, not a good way to make friends and influence people.  The instructions in the note were to get the yard cleaned up and the rubber off the driveway.  This also meant that I would not get yelled at or lectured - it would be the sound of silence for a few days and then never mentioned again. Interesting feat to get rubber off the driveway. There was a song in Bye,Bye Birdie with the lyrics "What did I ever see in him"  that sort of ran thru my mind that hot summer day scrubbing the drive.

One other interesting event happened that month before my Senior year.  When I was in the first grade there was a red-haired boy in my neighborhood. His name was Chris and we were buddies along with Larry Wright. Walking together to and from school made the walk seem short and fun. The boys catching crawdads from Cootie creek while I stayed far away on the swing set was one of our big adventures.  The summer after the first grade he came over one day to tell me that he was moving to Tulsa.  Before he left that day, on the foundation of the playhouse my Dad was building for me, he kissed me good bye. I wish I had a picture of that.  Two six year old children  standing on the floor of a yet to be constructed playhouse having a quick, sweet kiss good bye had to be cute.

One day that Senior-to-be summer my doorbell rang.  Larry Wright and some boy I did not know were standing on my porch.  Larry asked if I knew who his friend was.  Now there is a tough question.  Of course I had no idea who he was but it is one of those questions you hate to answer because you know that you are going to give the wrong answer. After several minutes of rolling my eyes around trying to figure out how to answer the boy finally said "I'm Chris".  Silence. "Chris, Chris Archer" he finally said. Let me tell you, that was a huge surprise. We had written a couple of seven year old three sentence letters on Big Chief Tablet paper to each other a for year or so after he moved but then for some reason we stopped.  Now, eleven years later he is standing on my front porch. You have to wait for more on this story.

Ever wonder how much time was spent in brush rollers? Must
been something special happening that night.

School started the day after Labor Day in 1963. It was not just the start of another year of school.  This was my friends' and mine Senior year. It was without a doubt the most difficult, most educational, most fun, busiest and happiest year of my life.  I have a feeling that all my classmates and the majority of the Baby Boomers feel the same.

How Lucky I Am To Be A Baby Boomer - Summer of 1963

Last week I had trouble getting my thoughts together on the summer after my junior year in high school.  Not that I forgot any of the events but more from how to start the story.  It was easier to write about current events when you have a "brain cloud" on how to tell those teenage events that seemed so important at the time.

Of all of the silly ways to begin the story I read some thoughts of Willie Nelson's on his 83rd birthday.  There were lots of really good ones but the one that helped to unlock the writer's block was "Ninety per cent of the worlds lovers are not with their first love.  That's what makes the jukebox play." First, think about the subject that a lot, if not most, of the popular songs were about lost loves.  It seems like the baby boomer generation grew up listening and dancing to far too many of those.  In the growing up process we all went thru those times when we thought we were in love even though we were just learning about it.  Even now you can here a certain song and it will remind you of some special person. At sixteen or seventeen you knew you were really in love regardless of how bad the relationship was.

So began my summer of 1963. Sometime back in the spring I had begun dating a fellow classmate. Now I dated a lot of really nice boys.  My only bad experiences were the couple of times I went out with my brother's friends.  This boy was not that popular, perhaps one of the worst academically in the class and my Mother could not stand the sight of him. Maybe at that particular time the fact that my Mother hated him made him seem more attractive.  When she forbid me to see him it only made matters worse.

This is beginning to sound like one of those love songs.  I went out and played lots of golf every morning and spent the rest of the day thinking of ways to sneak around and see him. There was even talk between us about running off and getting married.  After all lots of kids did that, even my brother Paul. Did it really seem so romantic to get married and live in some cute garage apartment?  Just how intelligent was it to throw away your dreams of going to college?  Funny how stupid it sounds now.

Fellow classmate, Pat Mackey lived next door to me.  That summer she was going to spend a month with her brother who was stationed at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Our Mothers got their heads together and the first thing I knew I was put on a bus with Pat the last week in June and shipped off to New Mexico.  It was a long bus trip through the barren land of west Texas and more than a little scary for two seventeen year old girls. I had only been on one terrible vacation with my family so travelling and the thought of going somewhere for a month with people I didn't know except for Pat was also a little scary.

It was well after dark before Pat's brother Bill picked us up in El Paso and we drove to White Sands. Bill was an officer so he, his wife and their child had a nice house with a spare room for Pat and I.  Even with all the uncertainty of being in a new place it did not take long to drift off to sleep after the five hundred mile trip on the bus.  Any dread over what was to take place in the course of the next month was quickly forgotten that night. 

The next morning Bill announced that he had made arrangements for us to be Junior Lifeguards at the Officer's Club Swimming Pool.  That way we would have something to do and have the chance to meet some of the other kids on the base.  Wow! Is that right up a teenagers alley or what?  Within a week's time a group of about eighteen kids from age sixteen to twenty-one who were all pretty bored with one another gathered around us and the fun began.

                                    Officer's Club Swimming Pool

The base Commander's son, 21, and daughter, Boo, 17, became the leaders of the pack.  They had access to two Volkswagen busses which we filled to go on picnics at White Sands National Park, there were trips to Juarez, Mexico for the bull fights and exploring the town on Sundays and off to Los Cruses for dinner.  The base had a teen club that had not been used in years. A little cleaning and a record player gave us a place to hang out together after going to the base theater in the evenings.

THE BULLFIGHTS

It was fascinating to meet army kids that had lived all over the world. They in return enjoyed having two new kids arrive that gave them the spark they needed to get together and show us a good time while having fun themselves. It seemed that every day they thought of something new to do like hiking up to an old mine in the mountains or how easy it was to get arrested by the MP's by roller skating around the missile silos.  Perhaps their parents were quite happy when it was time for us to leave since they were never sure what we were up to.

Movies in 1963

Hanging out at the Teen club

Pat's parents came to pick us up at the end of July.  Arriving there a month before I had no idea how hard it was going to be to leave.  What turned out to be a summer of fun with new interesting friends was also a summer of some important lessons.  My world suddenly expanded beyond the city limits of Muskogee, Oklahoma. I listened to stories from the other kids on how hard it was to move from base to base and how they envied me being able to stay in one place growing up. Because these were kids I had not grown up with and would probably never see again it was easy to talk about feelings I didn't share with my friends at home.  Besides all the fun and laughter of that summer I learned an awful lot about myself.

                                 Hiking up to an old gold mine

By the time I arrived at home I had come to the conclusion of just how stupid it was to think getting married at seventeen would be so great. There were so many people I would disappoint.  There was so much more I wanted to do. 

It was not easy to end the relationship that had seemed so important the month before. In truth there was no way to tell him I didn't love him.  I look back now and realize that you can love a lot of people in your lifetime for a lot of different reasons.  The first real love of your life never really goes away no matter what circumstances ended the romantic relationship.  We went our separate ways but remained great friends until he passed away. There are still those times when I hear some song that reminds me of those days and I have to smile.

Of course their had to be a summer beau just like in all the teen movies.