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.

Muskogee Bound, Ready or Not

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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Learning New Things About Someone

I am not very good at asking questions.  Maybe that is something I learned growing up as the usual answer I got was "no" when I asked to go somewhere or do something.  Barney had asked me to study together on a Sunday afternoon and it had never dawned on me to ask where was the studying going to take place.  Of course I had said great but were we going to a library or the lake as it made a difference in what I was going to take to study. I also had not ever asked if he lived in a dorm, a house or an apartment.

He arrived at 1:00 to find me sitting outside the dorm armed with a variety of assignments I had to get done by Tuesday.  When we got in his car he said that I had already broken two of the three cardinal rules of Stephens by drinking and being out of the county at night, how did I feel about breaking the third rule?  What the heck, I might as well go for three out of three.   There was some apprehension in going off to his living quarters, as Stephens called them, since I had only known him for a week and a half.  

As we drove across town he told me he had lived in the dorm his first year at Mizzou and didn't like it very much. He looked for an apartment but found that they were expensive and noisy with all the other college students.  So he bought a house trailer from a graduating student.  That way he had his own place to live and study plus selling it when he graduated would pay for his living expenses.   Maybe only 4.0 Eagle Scout students think of things like that.

I have to admit that was the first house trailer I had ever been in and it was pretty neat.  As he showed me around I noticed lots of books, no television, no pictures of past girl friends and yes, I did look in the refrigerator to see that he did not cook much.  There was also no dust on the baseboards so he got an A for housekeeping. I think he got a big kick out of it when I only peeked at the bedroom for a second and then dashed back to the living area.  While laughing he acted liked he had just suddenly remembered that he had invited me over to study.  Then it was down to the business of studying.

He had a paper to type and I had some set drawings to do for the television class or a book to read for Masterpieces of World Literature. I chose not to read the book since it was Wuthering Heights and I knew I would be a crying mess reading it.  So I got the kitchen table for the big drawings and he put his typewriter on the coffee table.  The paper he was typing was on Economics and all he had to work from was a one page neatly typed outline, the kind every English teacher tries to teach students to do.  I must say I was quite impressed with the speed of the typewriter keys. Scratch the thought of ever getting into a typing contest with him.

I guess we worked about a couple of hours with a little conversation every once in awhile when all of a sudden while the typing was going on I heard him singing "Oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain and the waving wheat can sure smell sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain."  I literally cracked up.  He smiled and went right on typing.  It took me awhile to come back at him when I suddenly remembered that he was from Kansas City.  That was easy so I sang "Goinin' to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come.  They got some pretty little  girls there and you'd better not get one."  That got him and he even had to stop typing because of laughter.  He told me that was not actually the words and I told him my words were better than the original ones.

In a couple of more hours he had a twenty page essay done complete with footnotes and no typing errors  and I had two set drawings done for a show similar to the Today show.  His friends, Mike and Christine, that had gone to Jefferson City with us came by and asked if we wanted to meet them for dinner in town.  Even though Mike kept referring to me as Cinderella I thought it would be fun especially since I was starving.

After dinner Barney, even though it was getting to be time for me to check in the dorm, he drove out by the football field and parked.  Barney laughed and said he didn't like to tell lies and by parking at the stadium some of his story to keep me out of trouble was now true.  Then he went on to say that he had seen me around Columbia several times during the year and I was always laughing and looked like I was having fun.  That was why he decided to ask me out and that I was the first thing he thought about every morning and the last thing at night.  
I was speechless as he gave me a quick kiss, started the car and told me he had to get me home before I turned into a pumpkin.  As I snuggled up against him I told him that I would not turn into a pumpkin his car would. Not only did he need to study up on fairy tales he need to drive better while laughing.

It was only two days until we were out of school for Spring Break and both days were incredibly busy for me with classes and sorority stuff.  
Barney had class on Monday night so we managed to meet for lunch each day.  It seemed like everyone was flying out on Wednesday to some place fun, Pam to New York City to visit with some of her Dad's family and Sally would be off to spend the week on the beach in Panama City, Florida.  Several girls were going to Hawaii with a girl from there.  Guess my parents had watched enough Beach Party movies to rationalize that I just needed to come home for the week.

                           No chance I could be like Gidget this year

My parents decided that it was too expensive for me to fly home and then have to be picked up in Tulsa so I got to make the 350 mile trip via Continental Trailways.  Barney took me to the bus station along with my suitcase packed with books thus time instead of too many clothes. He promised to call and pick me up the following week. He did not seem any happier to see me leave than I was in going.  The nine hour bus ride stopped being interesting by the time we got to Joplin.  I know the bus stopped at every town with a population of more than fifty people.  The parents were not too pleased that the bus arrived at 11:30 PM which was way past their bedtime.  I think the man who was drinking something out of a paper bag by the door of the bus station may have given her second thoughts about further bus ride trips for me.


Maybe Spring Break starting off a little bad would make the rest of the week better. One can hope.