Hello 1984

There had been very few times in my life when I celebrated on New Years Eve.  I remember going to dances when I was in high school on that night and always having a good time but most since I had been married were quiet evenings at home and usually to bed long before the big ball dropped in Times  Square.  Nor can I remember making many resolutions on what I was going to do or how the New Year was going to be so much better than the past one.  So 1984 rolled in quietly without any fanfare, hangovers or lack of sleep.                                                  
Riverton School was back in session after the holidays.  I think the boys were anxious to get back and see their friends.  Of all the schools the boys attended through the years that one is one of, if not, their favorite. It was K-8 and there was right at three hundred children.  Most of the teachers lived in town and it seemed there was much more of a one-on-one relationship with each child.  A real plus factor with the teachers was that most lived in Riverton and had children that attended school there and that helped make it the very good and very friendly place it was. I can remember that the boys came home telling funny stories not only about their friends but their teachers.

Wes had become quite the artist by the age of thirteen and was quite proud of the drawing table he received for Christmas.  Mr Leven, the art teacher, had to laugh as the only thing he would draw was race cars or designs for drag strips.  But Mr. Eleventy-Leven as all the kids called him still encouraged him to draw whatever he wanted. Wally was one of the few who had learned to read before the first grade and loved every minute of going to school.

My Calculus/Physics class started up again and there was a noticeable difference in the size of the class. I think we lost two-thirds of the students.  I was not too surprised since I had watched a lot of other students kind of grimace when test and lab reports were handed back.
Guess I never could understand why anyone would not study hard enough to pass a class.  Perhaps I was just a little OCD about doing well in class since some people around me loved to think I was stupid.  After all who gets up at two or three o'clock in the morning to study.

Barney arrived in Philadelphia the last week in January on a five hour layover on his way to Boston.  It was a very cold, windy and grey day so we stayed at the airport since it was too cold to do much of anything else.  It was an interesting visit as he seemed a little down and for the first time we talked more about our martial situations.  We had been avoiding this for years and were both a little hesitant in talking about it.  We both felt that it was better to stay away from the subject but both knew it had to come up sometime.

He started in by telling me Lauren wanted to move to California to be close to her family and adopt another child. He was happy in Kansas City and loved his job doing the seminars, lectures and writing the books.  In truth he could do that from anywhere but he was not sure about more children. He was gone a lot which probably helped keep the marriage together but felt like he was not being the father he wanted or needed to be especially with a toddler as Sam was only three.  A lot of his work he did from home and that was difficult for him with Sam. 

I think when he and Lauren married their goal was not to have children and would both be career people.  She had finished law school after they were married and finally passed the bar but now she only wanted to fill the house with children.  Then he point blank asked me how happy I was married to Dennis.  I told him some things but kept it to only some of the things like the constant put downs. I had to admit that he didn't run around on me, was home for dinner every night and thought constantly about drag racing  but really was not very social or had many friends.  If I went through too much I would sound like a total idiot for staying in the marriage.

It was a discussion that had been laying just under the surface of our relationship for the last five years.  We agreed that we loved each other and that was sort of the glue that got us through whatever bad times we had.  He actually said on bad days he would think to himself that I would understand and just to hear my voice kept him going.  That made me laugh because I was doing the same thing. When he kissed me goodbye before getting on the plane he said that he knew we would be together one day. I agreed.

One of the reasons I loved living in New Jersey was the weather.  I am a winter person as I love cold weather and snow.  Anything over eoghty degrees dose not make me happy.  New Jersey had it's warm days but even at the shore you could walk the beach on a summer morning in shorts and a sweatshirt.  Winter was the best.  My motto has always been "One can not have too many sweaters".  Had lots of them in New Jersey and back then is snowed a nice amount.  It was also fun to listen to the ice breaker come up the Delaware River opening up the shipping channel way before dawn.  Roaring fires in the fireplace were perfect.

Valentine's Day had always been the holiday I loved the most.  Dad treated Valentine"s Day, like Christmas, and filled the house with candy, flowers and presents.School parties were always fun so being homeroom Mother for both the boys I became the Cupcake Lady.  This
particular Valentine's Day I got up early and baked fifty or sixty cupcakes for the school parties and for us.  When the sun came up it looked to be a beautiful morning.

About the time I was whipping up the frosting I was listening to the radio and they started reading off the numbers they used for school closings.  They did that for snow storms, hurricaines and such.  Did I really hear Riverton's number?  The sun is out. Why would the school be closed?  I went and turned the television on and there was the weatherman stating that they had no idea of what the weather was going to do but it looked like a blue northerner was coming in.

I had lived in New Jersey for three and a half years and there had not been a blue northerner since I had lived there so I did not not know what to expect.  About the same time I had gathered the information it got really dark outside and it started snowing. Cupcakes went to the freazer and trash the frosting as it is now snowing so hard we could not see across the street. Dennis had gone into work early and called to see if it was snowing at our house.  The kids got up and were jumping for joy.....they take after me when it comes to snow.

Well, that was a snow storm.  It snowed for four hours, the freeways and major roads came to a halt as no one could see to drive and if they stopped five minutes later they were stuck.  It took Dennis two hours to get home from work which is only fifteen miles away. Naturally he arrived home in one of his cursing moods while the kids and I are loving every minute of it.

I guess it was a good thing it was a Friday as the entire Philadelphia area was at a complete stop for four days after the snow stopped.  The airport was closed until Monday or Tuesday due to the fact there was simply no place to put the snow as they tried to clear the runways. The major roads were all impassable due to the cars that had been left in the middle of the road. The final total was twenty-tree inches of snow in about four hours. The kids and I thought it was like a wonderland and had great fun shoveling and playing in the snow.

Saturday morning the sun popped out and it was a wonderland.  Of course we only lived a block from the library and two blocks to the  school, grocery store and downtown.  Everyone in town was out shoveling and walking to where they wanted to go. We actually opened the library on Saturday so those stuck at home could come get a book to read. By Monday the roads were some what passable and school was open.   Cupcakes got frosted and Valentine's Day was celebrated a little late.

The red car under all that snow was my most favorite car I ever had.  It was a Mercury Capri five-speed complete with every bling and leather interior.  Wes bet me one evening that I couldn't lay rubber with it.  I smiled and said for him to come outside.  Naturally Wally and Dennis appeared in the yard as well.  It took a long time for the tire tracks to wear off the road in front of the house.  Dennis gave me a lecture on how I was not to treat a company lease car like that and no doubt got angry until the tire marks disappeared.  Oh well.

The year was starting off pretty well. But one never knows when another type of blue northerner will blow in.

Merry Christmas?

Needless to say it took awhile to get over being perhaps a little miffed about the Thanksgiving Day events.  I kept looking on the bright side of things, after all I did get to go to the Macy's parade and I did not have to cook Thanksgiving dinner.  Plus Wes and Wally had a good time. I guess after eighteen years looking on the bright side of things became my method of survival.

Even though Christmas was never the Norman Rockwell painting I still always managed to get excited about the holiday and hope for the best.  The two things I love most about the Christmas season are the Christmas cards and the decorations.  Actually I do love the shopping though most people have always thought I was a little crazy as I like to wait, carefully preparing my list of what to purchase, until a week or so before the big day.

Those were the days when I sent a hundred Christmas cards each year. Dennis always had a very long list of fellow employees that required cards and the personal list seemed to grow bigger with each year due to the moves around the country and the friends we had left behind. Living in New Jersey you did not really decorate until Christmas Eve and lights on the house could get you shunned so that event made the decorating rather quick and fun.

As for the shopping I never let on to Wes and Wally that there was no Santa.  I still, at the ages of thirteen and nine, made them do the Santa letter with the list of what they wanted.  What fun is Christmas if you don't believe in Santa?  I always told them that there had to be a Santa.
Did they really think their cheapskate parents would buy them all that stuff?  Wes would argue with me but Wally was not real sure but that kept Christmas fun.

Ah, Christmas of 1983.  Perhaps the most memorable in the worst way possible. Everything was going along very well until Christmas Eve.
Excellent actually, part of which I will get to later, but the day dawned bright and not too cold, we had gone and gotten our live tree a few days before from the tree farm and were about to put our tree up when our neighbor came and asked Dennis to help him with his.

Jim had an awesome house behind us - three stories, built at the turn of the turn of the century and it had twelve foot ceilings downstairs. Jim had gone and gotten a huge twelve foot tree for the living room.  Naturally it was heavy and ended up being about a foot too tall. They wrestled with the tree, got it to the right height and started standing it up.  Somehow Dennis got poked in the eye by a pine needle. Ever heard of that one before?  Me neither. By the time Dennis got home he was in pain and of course getting poked in the eye by the pine needle was all Jim's fault - like Jim stabbed him on purpose.  You have to remember that nothing that ever happened to Dennis was an accident or in any way his fault.

Did you ever know anyone who could not close one eye and keep the other one open?  There are those people and I guess Dennis never winked at any girl as he was one of those people.  So I, in effect. had a blind husband cursing to beat the band and I finally dashed him off to the emergency room at 7:00 on Christmas Eve.  Have you ever checked into an emergency room that wasn't busy or what are your chances of getting an emergency room doctor good at pine needle pokes in the eye?  If you guessed no for both answers you got it right.  Three hours later we were told that pine needles have a poison on the tips (?),they gave Dennis an eye patch and said he should go see an eye doctor after Christmas. Swell.

As soon as we got home I made the boys put out cookies and milk for Santa and tucked them in their beds and then convinced Dennis he should do the same.  Now I got to finish the tree, assembled the big Christmas presents and finish all the rest of the Santa stuff. That was actually very enjoyable and I finished off the evening with a beer or two and napped on the sofa.  Before I fell asleep I ate the cookies and poured out most of the milk since I didn't think it would settle well on top of the beer.

I woke up before the patter of growing feet came running down the stairs.  After all I needed to keep the myth alive that Santa had come down the chimney and me asleep on the sofa may have made them wonder. Bigger feet came slowly down the stairs with no patch, he didn't like it, both eyes closed and clutching the railing.  He laid on the sofa while the boys and I opened presents moaning.  Every so often the boys would open one of his for him as he couldn't open them and he would feel of it and say it was nice in between moans. He did manage to eat Christmas breakfast and dinner without any problem.

That evening the boys and I went to Sis and Gus' for a little get together.  All their children and grand children were there and it was the highlight of the day for me.  When I explained where Dennis was Sis didn't say anything but just rolled her eyes.  She had her own opinion of Dennis after being witness to some of his stunts like using the motor scooter for a ladder and running his arm through a broken window. That evening with her family gave me enough fortitude to keep from losing it for two more days before we could get to the eye doctor since Christmas was on a Friday that year.

We did go to an eye doctor on Monday.  He said there was no damage to the cornea and to wear the patch until it healed and it would be fine.  The patch would give the eye time to rest and heal but doctors were all very stupid and did not know anything. So, naturally he could not wear the patch.  By the time he went back to work a week or so later it was all healed. It was and probably still is all Jim's fault.

A few days before Christmas Eve I got a letter in the mail from someplace called Kaplan something or other.  I opened it up and it was a letter thanking me enrolling in their Medical School Entrance Test Class in Philadelphia in March. There was also a receipt for three hundred and seventy-five dollars.  At first could not figure out what kind of class this was or how they thought I had paid and enrolled. There had to be some mistake.  I knew it was not something Dennis would have done as he hated every minute I was at school or studying.  Then it dawned on me that it was the class Barney had suggested I take. 

Well, I broke my rule about calling him as I wasn't sure he was home. He did answer and I asked what the present was for as we did not give presents to each in the five years we had been friends. He said it wasn't a present but it was a reward for making a A in Calculus/Physics and if I worked as hard on the Kaplan course as he knew I did on the Calculus/Physics that I would ace the Medical School exam.  I told him he should not have done it but he said no that he should do more than he has. I thanked him and promised to study hard and do well.  With a laugh he said I did not need to promise as he knew me well enough to know that I would do great. He also said he would be in Philadelphia the end of January.

I guess I was totally taken back by someone being nice to me and believing in me. That didn't seem to come much from Dennis or my mother as they both acted most of the time like everything I did was wrong.  I was thinking that the New Year would be a great one.

Little did I know at Christmas what the next year would bring.  If I had known ahead of time I wonder what I would really have chosen to do.

Here Come Those Holidays Again

Many stories ago I wrote one about how I felt about holidays.  As a child I always looked forward to them even though most were not happy events.  Dad loved them and went out of his way to make them special while Mother hated holidays and only wanted for them to be over.Usually by the end of the day for any holiday my parents were not speaking to each other. But she always said all families behaved that way which didn't make it any more pleasant for the three children.

As an adult  and married to Dennis I thought holidays would suddenly become like the ones I always wished I had had as a child.  That thought was quickly dashed as Dennis loved the holidays when someone else did all the cooking, cleaning, shopping, decorating and assembly of the presents .

I had always been an avid watcher of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade each year jumping up during the commercials to check on the dinner that no one should could or would eat.  When I heard we were actually going to get to go to New York with another couple I was excited beyond belief.  This would be THE year that a holiday would actually be fun.

The plan was that we would follow Jim and his wife, Janique, to New York, watch the parade and then eat dinner someplace.  Jim and Janique had family in The Bronx and were going there for the rest of the holiday.   The day dawned more beautiful than one could hope for with bright sunshine and warmer than usual weather for Thanksgiving in New Jersey.  There was  even not much traffic as we traveled up the Jersey Turnpike and through the Lincoln Tunnel to the city.  The problem was going to be the parking so it was decided before we left that they guys would let us all out so we could watch the parade while they parked the cars.

So far, so good.  Janique and I went and found a place on the sidewalk in front of the building Jim said to station ourselves at and the five children with us all got to the front of the crowd while we stood back on the sidewalk behind them. The parade was already in progress but we watched the bands, floats, huge flying balloons and saw all the movie and TV stars.  I was so exicited about being there in person that I didn't realize that it had been a really long time since the guys dropped us off.
Finally right before the end of the parade they showed up.

Jim was all cheerful and was glad we were having a good time.  Their children were all younger than ours and by that time had seen all the parade they wanted to see. They headed off to see their relatives. I noticed that Dennis did not look too happy and the bag he was carrying with the Airpot of hot chocolate looked a little sad. He was not happy - more like furious and he had dropped the bag with the Airpot in it which had broken and leaked all the hot chocolate out. He made a big scene about parking and wanted to leave right then but I refused as the kids wanted to see Santa arrive at the end of the parade.

Actually it was a good thing he had dropped the bag with the hot chocolate soon after he left the place where the car was parked.  It was a good thing because he had no idea of where the car was so all we had to do was to follow the little dribbles of hot chocolate on the sidewalk to find where he had left the car.  Arriving at the garage where the car was parked we were confronted by two big and a little scary guys who were furious with Dennis because he did not leave the keys in our vehicle.  They had asked him to as they ran a limo service from the garage and could not move cars around because they did not have keys to ours.   I hurried our departure when Dennis began what sounded like he thought they tried to steal his car and he was correct, as usual, by not leaving his keys. It was a straight drive home - no stopping for a Thanksgiving dinner anywhere. 

As silly as this may sound I rank that Thanksgiving as one of my favorite ones.  First of all I love New York City and actually think I could live there.  I got to go see the parade I had watched on television all my life and it was everything and more I thought it would be. When you stop and think about the ordeal with someone being so stupid as to not pay attention to where he parked the car and depending on someone else, Jim, to lead him back you have to do a big eye roll. Always remember if you are worried about getting lost in the big city just dribble hot chocolate on the sidewalk. The big scary guys gave us the car back and we did not end up in the Hudson River tied to cement blocks. And, best of all.....I didn't have to cook and clean up that horrid dinner.

Dr. Grey, my calculus professor, had a novel idea after our final exam for the semester.  If you were on the line between an A or B or any other combination of grades you could request an additional oral test to see if you could raise your score.  I happen to have been between and A and a B so I jumped right on that one.  It sounded so easy the day he had us sign up but when the day finally came I was so nervous that I really did not even know my name. As tiny in statue that  Dr. Grey was he was a very imposing person and I had never had a one on one conversation with him.

I arrived at the appointed time for the oral exam which could be anything he had covered for the semester.  There was no way to study for this one as it was all that information you were supposed to have learned.  Before he asked me the question I could hardly breathe I was so nervous.  No, not nervous just flat out scared. When he finally asked me something about being on an icy pond with the ice beginning to crack how would I get off I completely froze and my mind was a total blank.  What kind of an idiot question was that! What did an icy pond have to do with calculus?  If he had asked me if I shot an arrow into the air, where would it land or the speed of lightning I could have answered.

Standing there in front of someone I thought to be the smartest man in the world I wondered how he could come up with such a stupid question.  Just before the tears started to fall I remember opening my mouth and mumbling something about how to get off the ice.  I don't remember what I said or even where the answer came from but when I was done there was a big smile on his face and he said "Correct".  Too use the old phrase, "you could have knocked me over with a feather" is one way to describe it. Then he told me that out of thirty-four students in the class I was the only one who had signed up for an oral exam and he asked me the ice question just for fun to see if I really studied and learned as much as he thought I did. Got the A!

Well, One holiday down the tube and vacation from Calculus for a month.  Next is the holiday that somehow can be the most fun and a nightmare at the same time.  This one turned out to be a real doozie. out to be a real doozie. 

Back To School

After a few very busy weeks life is getting back to whatever normal is around here so back to the story........

It is the fall of 1983 and I am still the Librarian, still the President of the Home and School Association and back in college.  All this severely cut into my time for Porch Club, the Friday craft/potluck afternoons and the amount of time I had to sit and visit with friends. Living in a town that was one square mile in size with an average age of sixty-two, some of whom had never learned to drive, did make me look a little strange.


When I had gone back to college at Texas Women's University in 1975 it was not quite so daunting as it was this go round.  Although most of the classes I took back then were filled with eighteen and nineteen year old's there were several students older than I for me to bond with.  This time the class was filled with faces straight out of high school plus I figured the professor, Dr. Grey, could not be more than thirty although he looked like he was twelve. The first few weeks there was probably not a day that went by when I did not question myself on why I was taking a Calculus based Physics class.

The question of what I was doing really came to a head after the first test. Somehow I learned how to type a ten page Lab report on my new electric typewriter to at least get a passing grade.  The first test score was a lot less than I even dreamed of.  By the look on the faces of the entire class I did get the opinion that I wasn't the only one that was disappointed.  But Dr. Grey was nice about it and made the suggestion that perhaps a little time spent in the school Library on the computer might be to our advantage.  There was that word again - computer.

I had heard words like Main Frame and Computer before but had no idea of what they really meant.  My choices at that point were to drop out of the class or drop into the Library to see what this computer thing was.  Dr. Grey had given us some information on what to do or how to use the computer all of which made no sense to me but I decided to at least see what this thing was all about.

The Library at the school had a huge room filled with tables that had little television screens and keyboards.  With my information in hand from Dr. Grey I sat down at one of the computers and had no clue as to what to do although crying at that moment was a definite option. Before the tears of frustration begin to fall a young man came and asked if I needed some help. I guess I had looked pretty forlorn staring at the thing and very thankful he came to help.  I gave him all the information and he showed me how to "log in". When I did the words came up on the screen "Hello, Donna"! Wow, was this special or what?

Dr. Grey's computer program seemed nothing short of brilliant to me.
There were physics problems that required the use of whatever formula we had been studying and you had to solve them using the formulas and a scientific calculator.  If you got it right there were stars that popped up but if you got it wrong you had three chances to try again.  If you failed to come up with the right answer he walked you through what you did wrong plus there was a print out of everything you did. Needless to say I became addicted to that thing called a computer and there was never a flunking test score again.

Halloween was a big deal in Riverton, New Jersey every year.  The night before Halloween, known as Devil's night due to the fact that if kids were going to paper trees or soap cars that was the night.  To keep the kids busy Riverton and Palymra had a parade and hot dogs in the park.  I thought it would be fun to enter a float in the parade that year.  It was actually the Library doing it and someone loaned us a trailer.  I had the kids dress up like their favorite characters in a book and sit in front of a huge cardboard replica of the book. I must say when I needed a costume to wear so I could keep the kids from falling off the trailer it was nice to know my ninth grade cheerleader uniform still fit.  The best thing was that out of eighteen floats we won first place.

At school the next day there were the usual Halloween parties plus the kids wore their costumes to school and then did a parade down all the sidewalks in town so everyone could see their costumes. I think that was the first year people did not give out so much candy due to idiots trying to ruin a really fun day.

Wes was playing soccer on a little league team and it seemed like there was a game several evenings a week.  The team was really good and ended up the area champions which was a big deal.  He was quite proud of his red championship jacket.  Wally had tried soccer but was more interested in the dirt clods that were all over the field. It was plain to see that Wes was the "go do anything" competitive person while Wally needed to stay far away from all sports.  When the little leagues for soccer or baseball started forming I can remember asking Wally if he wanted to be on a team and he was always thankful when I didn't sign him up without asking him.  Actually I am not sure I could have managed to sit through sporting events for both of them.

 Barney flew into Philadelphia the first part of November on his way to New York.  He had finished his second book and needed to meet with the publisher.  Although we still talked on the phone every Tuesday it had been four months since I'd seen him.  He had a four hour layover so we grabbed a brown bag lunch and sat by the Schuylkill River and Boat House Row which was beautiful with the leaves just beginning to turn into brilliant colors.  Needless to say it was wonderful to see him. I was very proud of him on the new book and he was tickled to death about my physics class.  He asked me if I had heard of the Kaplan course to prepare for the medical school entrance test. I hadn't but he thought it might be a good idea and would look into it for me.

It was always hard to take Barney back to the airport and have him fly away but this visit we had managed to stay away from too much conversation on the subject of our particular situations. We did talk about how different our relationship would look to others.  Both of us laugh about the fact that no one would believe that we didn't rush off to a hotel the moment we had the chance, not that we didn't want to.  Our relationship is quite complicated but I do not  ever want to lose it.

It seemed like our Oklahoma families didn't make the trip to New Jersey to visit as much as they did when we first moved there but at the same time we did not go there as much either.  So, as the holidays approached it looked like there was not going to be any visitors. This was perfectly fine with me as I was never much for holiday gatherings and looked forward to a few days away from work, school and all the activities the boys were involved in.  A nice quiet time sounded really nice until a guy Dennis worked with invited us to go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with them in New York City.  

Ever since I could remember the Macy's parade had been the thing I watched or tried to watch every year.  What could be more exciting than to actually get to go?  I could hardly believe I was really going to stand on the streets of New York and see all the huge balloons, the bands and all the stars.