The End of the Semester

The last three weeks at Stephens were busy trying to catch up on all the classroom assignments and finals.  Trucks and boxes lined the halls of the dorms so everything could be packed and shipped as most of the girls would be flying home. It seemed like there were more instructions than one had time to read.  Lucky me didn't have to worry about packing too much as Dad was coming to pick me up and the only worry was that he could find his way to Columbia.

The University of Missouri had it's last big fling the second weekend of May.  It was a huge street dance with a couple of bands and everyone from the whole area, students or not, always attended. Barney picked me up about 6:00 so we could find a place to park in close proximity. He had a picnic dinner and a 24 can case of pony cans of Colt 45 Malt Liquor to pass out to friends who wanted some.  

Now I have to say here that I was not much of a drinker and neither was Barney. For one reason any drinking could get girls sent home from Stephens if they got caught and those were the days when "nice" girls did not drink. I was also one of those who got very sick after two or three glasses of wine which was not a pretty sight.  But...there was something about the Colt 45 that tasted pretty good.

I woke up about 6:00 the next morning feeling fantastic.  As I thought about all the fun I had it suddenly dawned on me that I did not remember anything beyond about 10:00 and we did not have to be in that night until 1:00.  Ever have one of those moments of sheer terror?
As hard as I tried there was no way anything came to mind until I did remember laying on the floor of my room and everyone laughing at me.
The panic was setting in so I called Barney and woke him up with the question of what did I do last night?

He started laughing and asked what I remembered. When I told him nothing past 10:00 he told me he never heard so many jokes from someone in his life.  Me?  I never tell jokes because I don't remembered them. Guess I did that night and then he said he never saw a funnier drunk that I had danced my feet off but the funniest was when I managed to sing with his friend's band. He wondered how I managed to sing all the words to the song as much beer I had to drink.  How much I did drink came pretty close to all but one can in the case.

He asked how I did signing in at the dorm?   Cathie and some other girls were at the dance and did work for an hour to try to sober me up. Barney and I sat on the bench outside the dorm waiting for Cathie to come up to escort me in. Cathie filled in the rest of the story.  She said I managed to get in the dorm and she pulled out my card from the box for me so I could sign in.  Mrs. Wells was standing right there as she usually did and noticed I signed in upside down. Cathie said I told her I had lost my glasses and couldn't see a thing. Mrs. Wells expressed her concern about my lost glasses I am sure she never saw me wear.  How I managed to not get caught drinking that night I will never know.

All my finals went very well thanks to Barney.  It was easy to study together since he was Mr 4.0.  Hours could go by and we didn't say a word to each other which was much better than trying to study with Cathie, Sally or Erin.  They managed to create endless laughter all the time.  Somehow Cathie and I both made A's in boating since we were the best at righting the boats and getting back in no doubt due to all the practice Cathie created for us.

Dad did manage to arrive in Columbia without much trouble.  Maybe he just drove thru the same town three times in a row when Mother was in the car with him.  He, Barney and I went out for dinner the last night to the nicest restaurant in town. Dad and Barney got along very well and I was beginning to learn that my Dad was a lot different when Mother was not around. 

Back at the dorm there was one last thing to do before I went home.  There was this ceremony that took place after everyone was in the dorm for the night.  If any girl got dropped (a fraternity necklace), pinned with a fraternity pin or engaged (a ring)  everyone stood in a circle and passed a candle around until the lucky girl blew it out.  The candle would go around once for dropped, twice for pinned and three times for engaged before it was blown out.  Most of us hated the whole ordeal.

The very last night on campus I borrowed a diamond ring from one of the girls and told Mrs. Wells that Barney and I were engaged. I don't know how the ten or twelve girls who knew this was a joke kept from cracking up. It was hard for me to keep a straight face as the candle went around three times. When I blew it out everyone screamed and hugged and all that dumb stuff while the ones in on the secret got a huge laugh. Luckily Barney was in on the joke because when he arrived the next morning to help me move out of the dorm Mrs. Wells could not congratulate him enough.

The next morning the halls of the dorm were filled with girls running around saying bye to each other and getting ready to fly home or waiting for parents to pick them up.  Barney arrived early and by the time Dad arrived we had most of my belongings down all four flights of stairs.  When we had a few minutes together Barney said he thought about buying me a present but could not think of something really special to get.  He handed me his high school letter he had received playing football and said he would love me as long as I kept it. There could not have been a special gift and one that I still have today.

Leaving Stephens for the summer did not seem to be all that sad as everyone was returning in the fall and the "Big Eight" as we called ourselves would all be back together.  Barney was going to summer school and promised to write, call and come visit.  Three months were going to fly by.

Little did I know that I was heading home for the worst summer of my life.

Fun Before Finals

                                                                    The Party
                                                   
The first weekend in May at Stephens was called Red Carpet Weekend. They had Parent's Weekend and Boyfriend's Weekend in the fall and this was the last big weekend of events before the final three weeks of school. Where the name Red Carpet came from I never knew but it was fun. The whole weekend was going to be a nice diversion from the thought that my deposit was due on Monday for my room the following year.  Naturally I had heard nothing from my parents.

Friday night the music and drama department did an outstanding production of My Fair Lady.  Musicals had always been my favorite and it was not difficult to talk Barney into going.  I was sitting there enjoying the play when during the song  "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" Barney handed me a folded up piece of paper. I unfolded it and it was a check from him made out to Stephens in the amount of the room deposit.  I must have said "What" rather loudly as several people stared at us.  Barney just smiled, told me to be quiet and watch the play. Leave it up to him to hand the check to me during a pretty cool song.

After the play Barney told me that I should check with the Financial Office on Monday and if they had not received the deposit from my parents to give them the check.  If my parents did send the money to just tear the check up.  When I asked him why he just smiled and said why not?  My brilliant response was "Why?" He asked if I wanted to come back the next year?  I told him boy friends didn't do things like that and he just replied "This one does".  He could render me speechless very easily which was rather hard to do most of the time.

                                                                    Cathie

Saturday was an open house in the dorm which meant boyfriends could come in and see more than just the lobby.  The night before Cathie had gotten "pinned" by her guy, Marty, so written in lipstick on the mirror was her big announcement.  That is the cutest picture I have of dear Cathie in her usual dorm attire. She was so excited that she actually helped clean up the room before Marty and Barney arrived. She did, by the way, put on some clothes.

After the open house there was a picnic at the lake for the whole school and friends.  That evening there was a dance with music provided by Woody Herman and His Orchestra.  One always had to remember that Stephens not only wanted to educate girls but to teach them to be ladies at the same time.  A rock and roll band would not have been on  their radar at that time.  Dancing the evening away to Woody Herman all dressed up was really more fun than one might have thought especially when it was obvious to everyone that my date was quite the ballroom dancer.

My dear Mother called on Sunday afternoon to announce that they had sent a check in for my room deposit.  Nothing like making me sick with worry before she agreed to it.  She had actually called my advisor and Mrs. Wells, the dorm mother, to see how I was doing in classes and behaving otherwise.  At least she had talked to the right people.  Mr Wheeler, my advisor, told her I was an excellent student and only missed one day of classes all year. Mrs. Wells thought I could do no wrong and informed her that she had been pleased to hear I was rooming with Pam the following year. Thankfully Mrs. Wells had not said anything about the nice young man I was dating or that would have been the end of it.  It is interesting how you can feel grown up one minute and be reduced to feeling like you are twelve years old the next.

The other big event of the week on the calendar for the eight of us at the end of the hall was Woody's Birthday.  Poor shy Woody had put up with her room mate teasing her endlessly all year, had managed to stay true to her BBH as we called the boy back home and actually it never seemed like she was having fun. Who knows who got the idea for the surprise birthday party but it was something Cathie and Woody's room mate, Sally, would have thought of. Barney agreed to host the party at his place.

Barney and I went out and got everything to bake a cake and Cathie and I baked it in the kitchen of the dorm.  After dinner in the dining hall where everyone sang to Woody we blindfolded her and Barney put her in the trunk of his car.  The rest of us piled into his car and went off to his trailer for the party.  I don't know if Woody cried because she was so happy and surprised at the birthday or just thankful to be out of the trunk.  Everyone enjoyed cake and ice cream and the several bottles of wine.

Woody and Paula

 There were only three weeks of college left.  The school events and meetings slowed down while the amount of study time increased.  
While everyone else was looking forward to the summer break I was trying not to think about it. I could only hope that the days would pass quickly and everyone would keep in touch over the summer like they said they would.  

But a lot can happen in those final three weeks of school.

Sometimes Things Do Work Out

It was an extremely long Saturday the day Barney drove to St. Louis to talk to Sarah.  Having classes all morning kept half of my mind occupied, there was always homework to do and staying surrounded by all my friends all helped.  Receiving flowers from Barney with a card with the word "love" written on it got me through some really anxious moments.

Perhaps the worst part was the empathy I felt for both Barney and Sarah.  How do you tell someone you have been in a long term relationship with that all of a sudden you don't love them anymore?  Do you tell them someone else came along who you now love more than them?  Do you throw up a list of every negative thing that you feel has occurred in the relationship? Or how do you feel when you hear those words?  The old saying "Sticks and stones can hurt my bones but words can never harm me" is totally backwards and stupid.  You can heal from wounds inflected by sticks and stones.  Words never go away they just float through your mind forever. 

Sunday morning the phone in the hall rang at 9:00 AM and I was the closest one to it that was awake, as I had been most of the night, to answer it.  I was a little surprised but very happy to hear the familiar "Hey".  I asked him if he was alright and he said yes and that he had gotten back to Columbia about 8:00 the night before but just needed some time alone.  He asked if I had homework to do like he did and it would be more fun if we did it together.  I, of course had lots to do, so I jumped at the chance to be with him.  He said he would pick me up at 11:00, we'd have lunch and then study away the afternoon. 

It seemed like Sunday mornings were the times when Mother always picked to call me. Thank heavens it did not happen too often as most of the calls were not very positive. Real nice of her to pick this Sunday morning to call with the worst of the worst ones. She said they had received a letter from Stephens to let them know it was necessary for the school to know who was returning for the next year and that I had filled out forms indicating I would be returning.  Although she acted like it was a huge surprise I had talked with her during the spring break about coming back the next year and how Pam and I were planning on rooming together. At that time she was all pleased about it but now she was not sure they wanted to send in the deposit to hold my place.  The deposit needed to be sent by the first of May which was two weeks away and we ended the phone call with her perhaps still thinking about it.  Why did she do this to me on this day of all days?  The only thing I could do was to hide my anger, disappointment and a few tears and go on.

It was a very happy sight to see Barney in the lobby visiting with his biggest fan, Mrs. Wells.  She was very pleased to see me with an arm load of books  and wished us both happy studies as we went out the door. We went off to a little restaurant and ended up with a late breakfast instead of lunch.  I chatted away, told him I loved the flowers and remembered to wish him a happy Easter.  About halfway through breakfast he looked at me rather strangely and asked why I hadn't said anything about his trip to St Louis.  I told him I did not think it would be nice or fair of me to quiz him on their conversation.  That I knew it was a difficult thing for him to do and even a harder thing for Sarah to hear and that it was up to him as to what he wanted me to know.  There was silence for a few minutes and then he said "That is why I love you so much".

At Barney's we curled up on the sofa together and while he read some book on Economics and I read Edmond Rostand"s drama Cyrano de Bergerac. It was good thing we were both pretty serious about how much studying we had to do.  The phone rang once and he said he knew she was not going to give up easily.  I told him if he needed to talk to her when I was there I would go outside for a walk as long as it wasn't raining.  That got a good laugh and a repeat of the I love you from him. I told him I loved him more which I think surprised him.  A quick kiss and back to the books.  It was a great afternoon after a pretty terrible couple of days.

There were a lot of activities I was involved in that seemed to escalate during the last couple of weeks in April.  All the television/radio classes seemed to have evening shows, I was elected President of the local sorority I was in for the following year and I got involved in decorations for the ball the end of the month.  The funniest thing was being chosen to be on the Hall Council for the dorm Pam and I were going to live in. It was funny because then I would have a say in giving punishment for hall infractions like coming in late.  Cathie and I spent one afternoon rolling down the hills of Columbia in a huge tire she talked a guy out of. 
Somehow there was never a dull moment with Cathie and we did manage not to get arrested or killed. I still wonder what that poor innocent family thought when they arrived home one evening to find their front door blocked by a huge tire.

Barney was as busy as I was but we did manage to see each other every day even if it was for a short time.  Since the trip to St. Louis he seemed a lot more at ease when we were together especially on the weekends.  One night we went bowling with Cathie and her friend Marty. That was an experience as none of us could figure out how she could look like the bowling bowl should go forward but would end up rolling back behind her or how she managed to get it into the lane next to us.  Needless to say no one bowled very well that night due to the laughter.

I had talked to Mother a couple of times with no answer on the school deposit.  Calling Dad only got the reply "You know how your Mother is".
One night close to the deadline for the deposit to be in Barney and I were at one of the clubs listening to the band and dancing.  Out of the clear blue I just started crying.  The only time Barney had ever seen me cry was over a movie so he took me outside to see what was the matter.  I had never intended to tell him about my relationship with my mother as it was so confusing I didn't understand it.  

There were few, if any, friends I had ever told about my mother.  Not only was it confusing but also embarrassing since all my friends had mothers they could talk to, have fun going shopping with and confide in.  Outwardly every one who met her thought she was beautiful, intelligent and that we had this wonderful relationship.  In private nothing I ever did was right or good enough, she did not really like any of my friends or any boy I ever dated.  It was her idea that I should go to Stephens when I wanted to go to a college where my friends were going.  Now that I was doing well, happy and having fun she wanted to take that all away.

Sitting in Barney's car I felt like it sounded as if I was some spoiled, emotionally unstable child. Not quite the way I wanted him to view me as it was a story that was pretty difficult to believe.  He listened to the story until I ran out of tears without saying anything.  Then he said I needed to realize that no family was perfect and what you saw in public was perhaps not the way it really was in private.  Did I ever stop to think that because of the way she treated me perhaps it was the reason I was the fun, caring, compassionate and goal-orientated person he was in love with?

When he kissed me goodnight at the dorm he told me to stop worrying that everything would work out . 

Love Is More Than Just A Word

When Barney came outside and said he needed to talk to me after I had sort of forced him to answer a phone call he wanted to ignore I did not have a good feeling. I had been sitting on the steps for what seemed like hours but was only a few minutes.  My mind had been going through what was a near-death-experience where the last six weeks of our relationship was flashing by trying to give me some idea of what I had done wrong. Why did I think it was something bad instead of his grandmother calling to see how he was or a friend wanting to meet up for dinner?

In the six weeks since we met there had only been two days when I did not talk to him or spend time with him.  Nothing was ever said about old boyfriends or girlfriends or that either of us was seeing someone else. The word "love" had not been tossed around between us like people do in their high school years when they love everyone they date.
He didn't even kiss me goodnight until the third date and it was 1965 when nice girl's didn't hop into bed with everyone they dated.  So, just where did I stand since I was hopelessly in love with him.

I followed him inside and sat down on the sofa.  He pulled up a chair and sat in front of me and took both my hands in his and said he was glad I made him answer the phone.  That he had needed to talk to me since our first date but never could come up with a way to start the conversation.  Then he told me the story about Sarah.

He and Sarah had been dating steadily since they were sixteen.  She went to college in St. Louis and he came to Columbia and he had been going to see her every other weekend for the past two years. Last year she quit school, went to work and decided it was time for him to move to St. Louis and they could get married. He had gone to summer school and loaded up on classes each year so that he could graduate and then go after his MBA before he even thought about getting married. Their weekends had turned into arguments and he realized that they both wanted different things out of life and whatever they had in high school had disappeared.  He had taken a few girls out in Columbia but didn't find anyone special until I came along.

At this point I was going to say something but he stopped me and wanted to finish what he needed to tell me.  He apologized for lying to me the first weekend when he sent me the flowers and said he had gone home for the weekend but would pick me up on Sunday at 3:00.  
He actually had gone to St. Louis to see Sarah and it had been another bad weekend with her.  Ever since that first date the only thing he wanted to do was to be with me and that he had worried all the time I was gone for the spring vacation that I would not want to see him when I got back to Columbia. Sarah had been calling and demanding he come to St. Louis but breaking up with her on the phone just did not seem to be the right thing to do.   If I agreed he would go on Saturday to talk to her and end their relationship.

Now it was my time to talk although it was difficult to know what to say.  First of all I told him that I had thought at times there was something going on with him that he had not told me and maybe that was what made me get him to answer the phone.  He did not need my permission to talk to Sarah but that he needed to do what he felt the best about.  There is no easy way to end a relationship especially one as long as they had and in a way I felt sorry for her. He seemed surprised at that but I told him that ever since our first date I had had trouble thinking about anything but him and could not imagine being without him.  I told him I had never been so at ease with anyone, that I felt like I could talk about anything with him and actually be myself.  I asked him if he really thought I would walk away because there had been someone else?  He admitted that he had been worried. Luckily by the time we finish talking it was time for me to get to the dorm by curfew.  It could have been one of those times that it would have been difficult to stay in the "1965 good girl syndrome".

Monday at 4:00 was my hearing by the Hall Council to decide my punishment for the 23 late minutes a month before. I dashed into the dorm at five minutes before 4:00 from class to find Barney sitting in the dorm lobby.  When I asked what he was doing there he said he came to find out what my punishment would be since he was the one who caused the problem. I didn't think I would be kicked out of school but who really knew. When I came out of the hearing smiling he knew it couldn't be bad.  After both of us worrying for a month I ended up having to come in one hour early on the next Saturday night.  Maybe sometimes worrying does pay off.

The rest of the week was busy.  Pam and I decided to room together the next year so we had to go pick out our room in one of the Senior dorms, our on-campus sorority had elections of officers for the next year, I was the director of the Montage television show on Thursday night besides all the usual classes.  Barney and I saw each other everyday and on Friday night we went to see the movie The Americanization of Emily.  That was a real poor choice since it was about a couple who met, fell in love and then parted.  I cried my eyes out which is never a pretty sight. 
Poor Barney was at a total loss over the tears especially since he was going to St. Louis the next day.  It was hard to convince him I was just crying over the movie....or maybe just needed a good cry.

I was not looking forward to Saturday but it got brighter when I arrived back from morning classes.  There were red roses and a card with the magic word neither Barney nor I had spoken.