I started writing this blog, as they call them, a couple of years ago when a friend suggested I write one about a road trip my husband, Marshell, and I took to the east coast in our Tesla. It was challenging to write and I look back at them now and cringe at how bad they were and how much trouble I had each night writing them. After the trip I realized that writing was fun for me so I did some on our building renovations and I have done a few political ones which now I try to stay away from as each of us has their right to their own opinions. But.....some things aren't really political.
Originally I titled the blog I Should Have Known. That came from the thought that if I had been a little smarter, a little wiser I might not have made the boo-boos through the years that I did. As I wrote about being born in 1946, the first year of the baby boomer generation, the thoughts and the title sometime changed to How Lucky I Was To Be Born A Baby Boomer. I still feel that growing up when I did was a blessing.
Even though I happen to think that growing up in Muskogee, Oklahoma was the best place to live others will think their hometown was. I have written in previous blogs about my slightly dysfunctional family that I thought was completely normal. Having two brothers, Paul, two years older and Kenny, two years younger gave me a wide circle of friends to the point where I knew pretty well everyone a few years older and younger than myself.
Perhaps the memories of how much fun I had growing up come from the amount of innocence that surrounded us. In a town of about 35,000
kids rode their bikes or walked quite a distance to school, it was not important to always lock your doors and we played outside until it got dark with all the other kids in the neighborhood. Most families sat down to a home cooked dinner together even if the Mother worked outside the home. As we reached our teenage years there was a lot of things in town to do like movie and drive-in theaters, a skating rink, Friday night stock car races or high school football games. I can remember dances at the high school with the school jazz band playing after basketball games and of course, there was the cavernous building
at Meadowbrook Country Club where the local rock and roll band played on a pretty regular basis.
Growing up with two brothers both of whom were into cars/hot rods our house always seemed to be a gathering place for the local boys. I had quite a few girl friends who liked to come to my house perhaps not for my company but for the chance to see some of the boys hanging out in the garage. My older brother, Paul, only thought of me and most of them as little pests. It was quite devastating to me to have to hide in the backseat of the car if he had to take me to school or if in the hallway some good looking friend of his would say "Hey, Hansen, isn't that your sister?" as they passed me. Paul's answer was always "No, I don't have a sister". Here I thought I was a blossoming Gidget from the movie and he treated me like a silly kid who had braces on her teeth.
When I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school, I had never been on a date with a boy except if some parent drove us to a dance or to the movies. It must have been in the fall since that is the normal time of the year for hayrides that the speech classes had a hayride out to the sandbar on the Arkansas River. For some reason a very good looking boy in Paul's class asked me to go on the hayride with him. He was not really one of Paul's friends but I was more than a little excited. A real date.
Paul was less than excited and gave me a long lecture against going out with him. He told me how stupid I was and that I had no business going out with this boy but I just thought Paul was being mean because someone in his class liked me. Naturally I was going to show Paul how grown up I was or maybe just defy him. It turned into one of those I should have known times and also one of those I should have listened.
Mother was only agreeable with my going on a date to the hayride as it was a school function. It did seem to surprise the speech coach when I showed up with this boy but I took it as he was just surprised that anyone would ask me for a date. But the moment the hayride started and all the way to the sandbar it became a fight to keep him off of me.
I was totally confused as to what was happening or what to do. There were no movies with scenes in them like this. No one treated Gidget like this. The speech coach pulled him aside once we got to the sandbar for the wiener roast and talked to him. I don't know what was said but the boy left me alone from then on.
He barely talked to me the rest of the evening and when we got back to where the hayride started I got in the car with him so he could take me home trying to make polite conversation. When he drove past the street where we should have turned to get to my house I mumbled something but he kept driving until he pulled the car off into a field and stopped.
I was trying to think of what was going on and what to do next while sitting as close to the passenger door as I could get. He lunged across the seat at me and at the same time the passenger door opened and I almost fell out.
Paul told me to get out of the car and into his. Paul said something to the boy before he came back to his car. When Paul got into his car he asked if I was proud of myself and didn't he tell me not to go out with him. Actually he was yelling at me but I did ask how he found us in that field. He told me he had been waiting for over an hour for us to get back and knew if I got in the car with that boy I was going to be in trouble so he followed us. Did I now understand why he was so mad when I accepted the date? Did I know what was about to happen to me? I said yes but I was not really sure just what all the consequences would be.
When we got home he told me to get out of the car and go in and tell Mother how much fun I had. I asked if he was going to tell her what happened and his reply was that if he told her she would never let me out of the house again. He also said I better get a little smarter as he was never going to follow me around again. I don't remember if I thanked him and we never spoke about that night again. I was too embarrassed to ever tell anyone about that night until I told Marshell a few years ago.
The interesting thing is that when the current sexual harassment things started popping up I did stop blaming myself for what happened that night. Actually it was a good lesson for me in that I did learn to be a bit more discerning in who I accepted a date with. I did learn how to get myself out of a bad situation like bailing out of a bathroom window when a party got out of hand or leaving a date in the woods when I did not realize what a Fraternity blanket beer party was.
This is where my How Lucky To Be A Baby Boomer part comes into play. I never drank until I was in college, clothing was never provocative, and there was that little unspoken rule that nice girls "didn't". If asked do I know the date of when this happened or the field he parked the car in? No, I don't. Did it traumatize me for the rest of my life? Yes in that it took away some innocence and established a lack of trust. Would I believe anyone else who shared a similar or a worse story? Yes, by all means. Would I want this to haunt the boy for the rest of his life? Another profound yes because if he did it to me he did it to many other girls who did not get rescued. Could I prove this happened if asked? Not if Paul wasn't around as almost all things like this happen with only two people involved. Most important is that this jerk ruined my very first date and it was very difficult for years to go on a date without a great amount of fear as to what would happen.
How Lucky I Was To Be A Baby Boomer because I was taught as a teenager that you didn't drink, go out and do things against the moral values you were taught at home and that just because your friends do something it doesn't mean you can or should. Echoing in my head is my Mother telling me that just because everyone else did things or went places I was not allowed to was because I was not "everyone else".
Thank you, Paul. Hope you never felt bad because I never needed you to rescue me again but you did a great job of teaching me a lesson that was never forgotten. Thank you Mother for setting strict rules for me as a teenager even though we hardly ever agreed on anything. Thank you to all the nice boys and men I have known through the years who were decent and respectful of women. Finally, thank heavens I learned a lesson at fifteen that stayed with me all these years.
The statics are that 1 in 3 women have been sexually assaulted in some form or the other. Most go unreported because of embarrassment or from no one believing their story or being ridiculed. It would be nice if the time has come to where it is okay to speak out.
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