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.