Finally arriving home to Muskogee for Spring Break was needless to say a relief after the nine hour bus ride. It was also nice to have the whole family, Mom, Dad and brother Kenny there to pick me up. For a few moments I even forgot that I didn't get to go to a beach somewhere or some exciting big city. On the way home most of the conversation centered on the fact that Continental Trailways did not advertise the number of gentlemen being leisurely and drinking from paper bags outside of the bus stations. Can you picture what an ad like that would have looked like?
I had promised myself that I would be on my best behavior during my week home and not cause any family problems. I even bounded out of bed at 5:00 AM every morning when Mom came to dust mop my room, helped Kenny fold newspapers for his route before he went to school and joined Mom for a cup of black coffee, which I hated, before she went off to work. By 8:30 everyone was out of the house and I was left without transportation. It was pretty quiet compared to the dorm.
At 9:00 AM the phone rang and the operator said she had a long distance call for Donna from Barney and would I accept. Of course I would and then there was that now familiar "Hey". He must have known about the bus characters as he wanted to make sure that I had made it home alright. I told him all about the trip especially the story about how Mom had suddenly become concerned over the fact that maybe bus trips were not the thing for her daughter. We did not talk long due to the long distance charges but it was nice to hear his voice.
It felt good to throw on a sweat shirt and a pair of jeans after having to get dressed up everyday. Exploring the house, yard and two garages everything was in it's usual immaculate order. When you have a mother who dust mops the parquet floors every morning and washes the windows every Saturday morning plus a Father who wipes the car off with a chamois every night things tend to be in order. They were certainly an interesting pair. Even though I can remember Mother telling me one time they were just like all parents the older I got the more I realized that was not the case.
When I made to promise to myself that I would not cause any family problems during my week at home it meant that I would have to be very careful about what I talked about. Mom did not want to hear about anything concerning my college days except class work and school stuff. She was not paying money for me to have fun with friends and certainly not to meet boys and go out on dates, not that she said that out loud. I knew from previous experience that those conversations would throw me into the category of someone not worthy of being spoken to.
It would have been so neat to be able to tell Mom about all the silly things that my friends and I did or how much fun it was just to have girl friends. I imagined that some Mothers would have gotten huge laughs out of some of the horrible dates I had been on and would have wanted to know everything about someone special I had met. Ever since I was fourteen or fifteen every conversation with her had to guarded and I learned it was best just to agree with her on everything and never tell her how you felt about anything.
So I spent the week studying and hanging around with my brother, Kenny. Kenny was two years younger than me and was always the perfect child. I can't remember Mother ever getting mad at him so I was safe cruising the local hangouts with him at night. Chet's was the local hot dog stand where most of the high school kids hung out, The Corral was the place for the local hot rodders with the white t-shirts and the longer hair and Russ's was where everyone drove through or parked to watch who was driving through - that was Muskogee on any given night. Kenny had been building cars since he was twelve so he knew every hot rodder in town as we rode around in his 55' Chevy. Our back garage was usually filled with guys wanting car parts or advice so Kenny and friends were my only source of fun while I was home.
Dad had me take him to work on Friday so I could have his car to check on my summer job. It was fun to go out to Meadowbrook County Club and see Bob, my boss. I had been the lifeguard at the pool the summer before and he wanted me to come back the next year. He was glad to see me and hear I would be back. We had become friends the previous summer and he caught me up on all the gossip since it seemed like I was always the only person he had to talk to. People are fascinating.
By the end of the weekend I was ready to go back to Columbia. I had gotten to spend time with my older brother, Paul, wife Joan and my darling little nephew, Don. Mom had asked if I wanted to go to Tulsa and shop for clothes which I declined saying that I did not need any.
Now what girl turns down a chance to shop? That was easy for me since I really didn't want to spend that time in the car with her fearing I would say the wrong thing plus in my eighteen years of shopping with her I never got to purchase what I wanted.
Monday everyone went back to work and school so I had the house to myself again. Barney called at 9:00 AM as usual. We had talked on the phone everyday and I had called him a couple of times after Mom and Dad went to bed. He told me he had gone out to Stephens Lake on Sunday to read a book but had trouble reading because he missed me being there with him. How come this guy keeps surprising me with statements like that? This isn't the movies which is the only place guys say things like that. I finally admitted to him that the days had really dragged by and I thought about him all the time. He laughed and said good, that he was afraid I would be having too much fun to even think about him.
Well, that conversation made the day go by at a snails pace. Mother came home with new travel plans for me to get back to school. If I flew from Tulsa to Kansas City it would be $42.00 plus I would still need to ride a bus the seventy miles to Columbia. ( Could not suggest that Barney would have come to Kansas City to get me.) So the plan was for me to fly from Tulsa to Columbia on Ozark Airlines and it would only cost $12.60 and I could get a cab from the airport to Stephens. That sounded like an excellent plan as I did not really want to go through another nine hour bus trip.
Cathie called on Tuesday and said she was ready to get back to school. None of her friends in Midland were on Spring Break either so she had been hanging out at home too. Maybe my family was not the only one that was difficult to deal with or maybe we were just beginning to enjoy being more on our own.
Kenny skipped school and took me to Tulsa on Wednesday to fly back to Columbia. I think my Dad was almost in tears when Kenny and I stopped by the drugstore to say goodbye. He gave me some money to buy clothes in Columbia since he knew why I did not want to go to Tulsa with Mom. I know he missed having me around more than anyone.
For some reason I never got on an airplane and sat next to a normal type person. If there was a character of some type on the plane - that is who sat next to me. This time I got to sit next to a German Shepard.
There was a blind woman and her little girl across the aisle that needed to sit together so I got the dog. He wasn't much for conversation but at least I got the window seat. The airport in Columbia was pretty small and as we came in for a landing I could see the Barneymobile in the parking lot. I wanted to kiss Rin Tin Tin goodbye and tell him how happy I was to be back but I didn't think he would understand.
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