Watching a program the other day I learned that it was forty years ago that the movie Saturday Night Fever made it's debut. Gads where did all the years fly by to? It did make me curious about the 70's since I am writing about that period of time so I did a little research to jog the old memory as to the events. I turned thirty in 1976 and a friend much older than I told me I would have more fun in my thirties than any other decade. She was wrong as I have had more fun each decade since.
Way back when I started writing these stories for lack of anything else to write about at the time I did a story on the fact that I have horrible hair. With the advent of going back to college, the kids, the race car, and all the other things I crammed into a day I resorted to an Afro Style of stupid curls. I have avoided posting any pictures as I looked so bad a cat would have not dragged me home. Okay, if you really want a laugh it is in a story from 7/24/15. But two things happened in the mid-seventies to save the world from looking at it. One - Farah Fawcett was quite popular with her Shag haircut and Two - I spent less time with racing so there was time to fool with blow dryers and hot rollers. I did not end up looking like Farah but it was an improvement.
So, what did we do when all of a sudden the race car was gone that we had poured every thought, every extra penny, every vacation and was the center of all of our friends for ten years? Must say that for me, although I resented the reasons and the way it happened, it took one form of stress out of my life. I had plenty to do with college, the boys and my little business. Not so true for Dennis.
A few months after school started in the fall of 1976 Dennis decided we needed a bigger house. More fitting I guess to him feeling like a Junior Executive with Ford Motor Company. When we bought the "starter" home in Carrollton in 1970 it was twenty thousand dollars and it was your basic three bedroom, bath and a half, living room and family room house. It was also five minutes for Dennis to get to work. I had no problems with the house and Wes was happy in the first grade at a school two blocks away plus the field in front of our house was where Wes played soccer. After months of looking at fifty thousand dollar houses that were not much bigger, farther from work and school and only offered few more amenities we decided to stay where we were.
Mother had a pretty bad couple of years after George passed away and I didn't really have much time to spend with her in the racing days. She had come down to visit once and had Dr. Chandler get rid of the extra tissue (called bags) around her eyes right after I had met him. In the spring of 77' she came down to get a facelift. That was pretty interesting as she was really a pretty woman but no one argued with Mother. Then she started jogging much to my dismay. I hate jogging but every time she arrived I had to purchase new running shoes as I always managed to get paint or something on the previous ones. I had to have been the perfect daughter as I did go out and run three miles every morning with her on her visits. It was a blessing that after all the cosmetic surgery and the fitness craze that she had gained lots of boyfriends and was too busy to visit very often especially since Dennis and Mother were like putting a match to a puddle of gasoline.
My brother, Kenny, and his wife and girls came down in the spring for a classic car show in Arlington. Kenny had been building old cars since he was twelve and had a really cool old truck to put in the show. What a fun weekend that was. There were lots of neat old cars and lots of contests for the people who came like races for the kids and silly things for the adults. I entered a spark plug changing contest where they provided wrenches but Kenny had a speed wrench in his truck that I used instead of the ones provided. An old drag racing trick won the contest for me.
Two things happened after Kenny's visit. The light bulb went off in Dennis's head and he decided we needed a street rod. Working for Ford and going to a lot of dealerships he came across a lot of old cars in old dealerships and pastures. One weekend we borrowed a trailer and went to Vernon, Texas to drag home a real "project" car in the form of a 1937 Ford. The kids and I thought it was pretty cool and it would definetly give Dennis something to do.
The second idea came when Kenny took a dip in our pool. Kinda small.
Since the pool was a little small we decided to build a bigger one. I vetoed going to summer school that summer because summer school was really tough going everyday and I needed to be home to watch over the construction. It seemed like it took the entire summer to get finished but the kids were about as happy with the piles of sand as they were when the pool was finally done.
Wes took swimming lessons and we bought Wally a ski vest that we kept by the backdoor. He learned he had to put it on every time he went out the door even if it was just to play in the yard. The dog, Boodles, which was the longest resident dog we had, was a problem. She was an English Bulldog, Dennis's choice and certainly not mine, and sunk like a rock every time she fell in the pool. If I had been able to be cruel to an animal I would not have jumped into the pool fully dressed on a regular basis to save that dog. Must admit there were times I thought about it.
When school started in the fall I found out that if I took an extra class each semester that I would be able to graduate in the spring of 1978.
That sounded great as I was ready to get all that over with. Since we no longer needed a nine passenger van to tow a race car with I got a 78' black Mustang 5-speed with T-tops to drive back and forth to school.
Now that was a cool car to drive while the radio blasted with the Bees Gees, Elton John or the one the kids hated, Barry Manilow. Poor Wally learned to hate Disco and Barry Manilow at the age of three.
The pool got finished in time for Wes's seventh birthday party and I must say I loved having the pool. The last two semesters started off quite nicely and as I look back now I can see that at turning thirty a change in attitude began to happen. Was it going back to college, rocking out to the disco music, having more fun with the cute little boys or actually gaining a little maturity? Perhaps it was a combination of all of those things. Whatever it was helped prepare me to handle all the events of the coming year.
No comments:
Post a Comment