Even though it is great fun to write about all the fun and silly things we did in high school in the sixties there was a little more serious side to school. My parents had always said that there was not just twelve years of school, but sixteen. That meant they expected my two brothers and I to go to college.
Older brother, Paul, had gotten married his senior year and had no interest in going. He was not a great lover of hitting the books and by the summer after his graduation he had not only a wife, but a child to support. Little brother, Kenny, was not all enthralled with school even though Mother had visions of him going to M.I.T. Dream on, Mother.
So, the dutiful daughter, the one who worked hard at keeping the Mother happy, started the wheels in motion towards going to college.
Back in the day it seems like we all took the S.A.T. and ACT tests without any big study sessions. Did they even have special classes on taking the tests? I don't remember any and I think we just signed up, paid the fee and showed up at the appointed place at the appointed time. Guess we just relied on what we knew and moaned later when the scores arrived. I remember doing well in everything except math, which was not surprising.
Of course I wanted to go to college where my friends were going. I remember applying to Oklahoma University, Oklahoma State University and Arkansas. Mother had other ideas. She decided that an all-girls college would be the best idea. Swell. We comprised and I got to apply to the ones I wanted and then to the ones she picked out. Not being overly optimistic I figured that there was a good chance I would be rejected by Smith, Vassar and Stephens. Then I could pick the one of the one I wanted to attend.
The college applications were sent off and then the lecture came about how I needed a summer job besides my paper route to save money for college or at least earn some money for clothes or whatever. There was only one fast food restaurant in town and I am not sure they hired teenagers back then. By chance I happened to think being a lifeguard might be fun so I asked the manager of Meadowbrook County Club where I played golf if he needed a lifeguard for the summer. Since he and I had become pretty good friends he agreed that I could have the job as the lifeguard for the summer if I got my senior lifesaving card.
Luckily the YMCA offered a Lifesaving Course that spring. I was not a real strong swimmer as it was always more fun to go to the pool at Honor Heights park and try to look cool in front of all the boys. Gads - I can remember that we had to wear bathing caps back then. They actually made them with flowers all over them so you did not look like a pin head. I really don't remember any boy being attracted to a girl who showed traits of being an Olympic swimmer so lounging by the side of the pool getting a tan was the "in" thing. The class at the YMCA was a test of will to keep from drowning myself several nights a week.
While I was trying very hard not to drown the college acceptance letters starting arriving. There are so many insecure moments in a teenage life that the neatly typed letters with a college seal can suddenly make a real difference in how you look at yourself. It suddenly does not matter if you were popular, handsome, pretty smarter or could run faster than anyone else. Someone somewhere thought you had value just by the words written on a piece of paper.
By some real miracle I was accepted to every college I applied to. I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to go but I knew that my choice did not matter. Mother chose Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.
Perhaps in reading the school catalogs she figured this one had the most stringent rules. The real kicker in the final acceptance was the home visit by a Stephens representative.
One would have thought that the President of the United States was coming to visit. For the three weeks preceding "the visit" the already immaculate house was thoroughly cleaned several times. Shopping trips to Tulsa for just the right clothing were frequent. For me to look wholesome my blonde hair had to be dyed back to something far from my natural color of brown. Then the unthinkable happened in that the date for the home visit was the same evening as my final test for the Senior Lifesaving Certificate. Oh well. There really was enough time for me to do both.
The last night of the swimming class was brutal, as I remember. We had to swim thirty laps of the pool and then jump in with clothes on, remove the clothes down to the bathing suit and save the instructor. Still not sure how I managed to do that but did. My question is why don't the water rescue people on television news broadcasts show the people jumping into flood waters to save people removing all their clothes? Must only be something they thought of in the sixties. After getting my official lifesaving card I rushed out the door of the YMCA for a mad dash home. Upon arrival I knew I was in trouble when I noticed a strange car in the driveway. Nothing else to do but go into the house in my wet bathing suit, wet hair and clutching an arm load of school clothes and books.
Mr. Wilkerson, from Stephens College, was chatting with my very distraught Mother and my smiling Father when I arrived. What the conversation was about does not come to mind since all I could think about was the dress my Mother had picked out for me to wear was still hanging in my room. Mr. Wilkerson smiled and laughed a lot during the interview but probably because my wet bathing suit made a huge water spot on the upholstered chair. At the end of the interview he did announce, much to my Mother's relief, that I was accepted as an incoming Freshman at Stephens College. Dad wrote out the deposit check and Mr. Wilkerson from Stephens winked at me as he went on his way to some other girl's home. I can just imagine some of the family situations he viewed as he visited all the homes of high school girls.
Disaster avoided all in one evening. I now had a job as a lifeguard for the summer along with the early morning paper route and I had been accepted into college. The other good thing was that I did not have to put on the ugly dress Mother had thought would make me look the part of a sane, wholesome high school senior. Wonder what the outcome would have been if things had gone the way Mother wanted them too?
It is rather fun and interesting to look back on my senior year in high school and realize that a lot of lifetime patterns and behavior began to emerge. Some good and some bad but you will learn about those as I keep writing. There are still a lot more humorous stories from that crazy year - well - actually every year. Stay tuned!
If you want to keep reading my silly saga through life there is a little box in my profile where you can add your email address. Sending it out as a group email is not working well since gmail thinks it is spam. It may add a little humor to your day and you may realize that the path through life may not always work out the way you want it to but it sure can be fun.
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