Decisions

Northeastern State College

At age nineteen perhaps my decision making processes were not the best they could be. Growing up I think I learned to make decisions creating the least amount of stress not only for me but for others around me. In my home there was never any arguing, parents made the decisions, those were the rules you followed. I never learned how to tell my Mother what I wanted to do when it differed from what she planned for me.

A few days after Barney's last visit she announced that I would not be going back to Stephens.  I did not ask why and she offered no explanation.  She was rather surprised when she asked me what I was going to do and I told her I guessed I would go to Northeastern State College in Tahlequah.  No begging, pleading or crying although I was really devastated.  I knew Dad and Kenny would be happy since I usually was a buffer between Mother and them but I have wondered many times what the outcome would have been if I had argued.

My recall on events for the next six months is pretty limited.  If there was ever a time in my life when I blocked things from my memory because they were too painful to remember this was the time.  Life changing decisions were made that maybe were not the best but ones I dealt with as best I could. Did a lot of "yes, Mother" things to keep the waters calm.

The end of August the guy I had dated some in high school came home for Air Force Reserve camp or something. He had been a student teacher at our high school and we had dated some.  Dennis was six years older than me and was the one who wanted me to marry him instead of going to Stephens - sort of a now or never thing.  I said never but he did write letters to me at Stephens, most of which I did not read and called, most of which I did not answer. When he was home I did go out with him a couple of times mostly to visit his parents and go fishing.  Did I ever say how much I hate fishing?  That ranks right up there with shooting bunnies.

I enrolled in sixteen hours at Northeastern all tucked into 8:00 to 12:00 every day.  Still can't believe that sixteen hours of college plus fees was only $98.00.  Then I got a job as the County Law Librarian for the afternoons in Muskogee.  Somehow I managed to get into what was actually a life threatening, road race carpool to Tahlequah everyday.

The most I remember about Northeastern, besides living through the drive over and back, was the Humanities class where the instructor turned off all the lights in a hot room at 8:00 in the morning to show slides of historical artifacts.  One day he turned on the lights and stated he guessed he could hire out as a cure for insomnia since everyone was asleep.  The drafting instructor hated women and said they had no business in his class.  He really hated me when all my drawings were spot-on perfect.  

The job was a serious joke but I got paid $100.00 a month for sitting at a desk among hundreds of law books.  It was a real treat to come to work and actually have a book on my desk to put back on the shelf.  No one ever came in and I spent my time doing homework or writing letters to Pam at Stephens, Cathie at Texas Tech and Barney.

Barney called almost every Sunday night.  We were both in pretty much impossible situations we did not have any solutions for.  Long distance relationships are difficult at any age plus extenuating circumstances don't make them any easier.  He always got a big laugh from my stories about school, work and the crazy carpool. The honor of being Miss Thunderbird Speedway really got him and I sent him a copy of the newspaper.  Interesting that we fell in love first but during that semester we became great friends as well.

Shortly after Thanksgiving Dennis had called.  Mother asked after I hung up if it was him and I said yes.  She then stated that I should just marry him. Needless to say that one came out of the blue.  In truth I was pretty miserable and fed up with everything.  I could not see a future with Barney and he was going further away in January to Northwestern in Chicago.  I did not have any friends in town, not dating and Mother seemed to get more difficult everyday. So with my faulty decision making process, my inability to say what I really wanted to do and my lack of knowing how to argue I called him up and said "let's get married".

Barney tried to talk me out of it but really understood why I did it.  He continued to call until he left for Chicago.  Did we stop loving each?  No, but I really had the feeling our situation was hopeless and I would never love anyone else the way I loved him.

For Christmas that year I got two presents.  An engagement ring from Dennis and a silver heart for my charm bracelet that was engraved with "Always" from Barney.

Do Things Work Out?

I have always had to laugh when someone says "Things always work out for the best".  Mother's adaptation of that was "Things always work out but not always the way you want them to".  The summer of 1965 she worked very hard to make sure her statement was the correct one as far as I was concerned.

When it finally dawned on me the end of July without an official declaration that I was not going back to Stephens in the fall I took a little trip to Tahlequah on my day off.  Northeastern State College was located there and I filled out an application for the fall semester.  Within the same week I had a letter back granting me acceptance pending their receipt of my high school and college transcripts.  Not really what I wanted to do but if I waited any longer there would be no chance to get into any school.  I had heard the lecture from the time I was in grade school that there was sixteen years of school not twelve.

Barney arrived on the first Sunday in August after his summer school was over.  He was a firm believer in that there were some important things you did not discuss on the phone or in letters.  Since all of our conversations avoided important topics we had lots to talk about. 
Actually that was a pretty good rule especially since those were the days when you paid dearly for long distance calls.

I went first and explained the situation with Mother and the chance I would not get to come back to Columbia in the fall.  Since there was no logical explanation it was hard to figure out a reason so I could only guess.  I did not feel like the expense was logical, maybe my having fun was a problem, she really did not like Cathie and maybe my relationship with him bothered her.  He listened and asked some questions, then it was his turn.

He had been accepted at Northwestern for the MBA program pending him finishing up two classes at Missouri in the fall.  They would accept any graduate classes towards his Maters that he added to his schedule that fall so he would be in Columbia until January.  That was terrific news because that is what he wanted to do all along.  The bad news was about Sarah. When he originally told me about her he also said it was going to be tough to get her to believe their relationship was over.

Barney had never really dated anyone besides Sarah before I came along.  He said that he had not been happy in the relationship with her for a year before we met but just had not broken up with her.  There had been threats of suicide when he finally did.  Three weeks ago she had attempted suicide blaming him for the reason.  Knowing how he was really a "Dudley Doright" type of a person I knew he was having a hard time with it. By this time it was really late and we were both tired.
The best thing to do was to sleep on it and come up with an answer in the morning.  Sounds like a Meatloaf song.

The next morning we drove up to Tenkiller Lake and spent most of the day trying to figure things out. My problems seemed small compared to his.  He offered to pay my tuition for me to go back to Stephens but it was, after all, a girl's school and parents were in charge of their daughters.  That was not going to work at all.  So then he asked me to marry him.

I would have loved to have said yes.  But I was concerned about him.  
How was he going to feel if Sarah did something drastic?  How many 
people had he seen jump into a marriage that didn't last.  Would we begin to hate each other when goals didn't get met and things got tough?  I told him I would always love him and the best thing we should do was to give it some time and things would work out.  He said he did not know how he ever had the courage to slide into the booth the night we met but I was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He said he fell in love with me on our first crazy date when we walked all over town and would forever love me.

When he dropped me at home that evening to head back to Missouri it was hard to get out of the car.  There would be phone calls, letters and flowers but I had no idea it would be more than a decade before I would see him again.

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.

Back To The Fun Place

January 3, 1965 could not come fast enough after being home for Christmas vacation from college.  It was not what I had imagined it would be although, in my usual manner, I made the best of it.  Perhaps it was great training for the years ahead.

Since Mother was still in the hospital after some minor surgery Dad was responsible for getting me to the airport in Tulsa fifty miles away.  This was troubling for me as my very intelligent Dad was totally directionally impaired.  He was a man who could quote any chemical formula in an instant or tell you what high school football player would do great in college. (This is why he was pretty good at betting on college football games). But he could not find his way out of a paper bag. To make sure he got back to Muskogee my little brother skipped school and went along with us.

Checking in at the airport once again meant Dad had to pay the overweight charge on the luggage.  Not only did I have all the clothes I arrived home with but all the clothes I got for Christmas.  On the subject of clothes - Mother and I had completely different taste in apparel from the day I was old enough to realize people wore clothes. For Christmas I got the usual array of frilly items of some weird silky fabric.  They were clothes she would look like a million bucks in but that I felt like I had a clown costume on.  Oh well, I was sure someone in the dorm would put them to good use.

There was no room in the suitcases for my roller skates.  They would have added an extra five pounds to the luggage so I just tied the strings together and slung them over my shoulder.  If you are wondering why I had to take my roller skates to college it was pretty simple.  Physical education at Stephens consisted of things like golf, which I did poorly at, bowling, horseback riding, boating and canoeing, archery and many others, one of which was roller skating.  Something told me I could take roller skating, act like I could not skate at first and then get pretty good.  Sounded like an easy "A".  We will find out later how that worked out but maybe having my own skates was not such a good idea.

January at Stephens meant the first two weeks were to catch up on all the class work you didn't get done for the semester.  I can remember re-writing a paper on comparing Hawthorne's Heroines several times to pass American literature. To this day I would have a hard time writing that paper because "who cares!"  Then the last two weeks were Dead Week and finals.  I think all eight of us on the end the hall of the dorm were actually good students so it was pretty easy to get studying done. There were a couple of exceptions to serious study.

At Stephens, since we were all supposed to be proper ladies, there was room inspection every Friday.  The house Mother in the black dress and sturdy shoes would come by and check to make sure the room was neat and tidy and that there was no food in the room.  She always put a note on the door with a ranking on how the room looked.  Of course Cathie and I always got a Superior as I made sure the room was perfect before going to class on Friday.  One Friday during Dead Week Cathie yells at me about being so tidy. Guess we thought it would be fun to shred the room for inspection. Actually it was fun and when we arrived home there was a Poor rating stuck to the door.  Success.

The joy of being successful with a poor rating was short lived.   I got called down to the dorm Mother's office for a chat. Now you have to remember that she thought Cathie was a terrible influence on me and always inquired if I wanted to switch room mates. She didn't buy my story that we had overslept and just didn't have time to straighten the room up.  Guess the mattresses half off of the beds, the food wrappers on the floor and all the drawers hanging open with clothes spilling out didn't seem logical.  She thought Cathie had done all that after I had left for class. That seemed to be a pretty good explanation so I played like it was all Cathie's fault.  She felt sorry for me having to live with such a terrible person but I declined changing room mates because I felt it was my duty to help Cathie be a better person.  Gold star for me,
black one for Cathie. That was one of my better schemes to get us out of trouble.

Cathie the Innocent

Made through finals in good shape, parents were pleased. Second semester proved to be very interesting.  Looking at all my notes on the calendar classes and the sorority got much busier and I don't have many notes on dating.  Maybe the mysterious Mike person made me swear off of dating. Hard as Pam tried nothing could keep Cathie and I out of trouble.

Friends

I have had trouble in writing the next chapter in my story about how much fun it has been to grow up as a Baby Boomer.  The subject of how coming home from college the first year for Christmas vacation has caused a lot of thought about friends. I think the old saying about how you can't go home again sort of kept running through my mind.

The really funny part about writing about friends and home has come at a time when I have been spiffing up the house for a high school class party.  By a stroke of luck a high school friend posted on Facebook this morning "You never forget the neighborhood kids you grew up with". How true not only of the neighborhood kids but all the kids you spent the first eighteen years of your life with.

I guess I was lucky in the fact that I did get to stay in my hometown until I graduated from high school.  After that it was fifty years of moving all over the country and only staying in one place for a few years.  Yes, I always made lots of new friends, had many great experiences but it is difficult to form the bonds that growing up with the same group of people forms. 

My twentieth class reunion was the first one I attended and I have only missed a couple since.  It is very hard to describe how it felt to go back and see all the people I had grown up with. Maybe all the moving around made it feel like I had actually come "home". There is something very special about being able to see someone you haven't seen in twenty or even fifty years and feel like you just talked to them yesterday. 

The first eighteen years of our lives maybe the most challenging years if you stop and think about it.  There is so much to learn in how to make and maintain friendships. So many insecurities and a lot of disappointments that seemed huge at the time. It is funny but at the last class reunion one of the girls said it was difficult for her to read my stories since I had so much fun growing up and she didn't.  I had to laugh as she was one of those girls I wanted to be like since she was pretty, popular and a good student. One of the boys whose voice I recognized before I even saw him told me he always wanted to ask me for a date but never did because I was cute, popular and one of the rich kids (not hardly). We all did have our little insecurities.

The really great part of reconnecting with my high school class is that through the years I have gained friendships with classmates I did not know that well back then. I feel bad for those class members who don't come to our class parties.  Not everyone has great memories of high school but I think they need to realize that the people you grew up with are the best friends you can have. We share so many experiences, good and bad, that we are all bonded for life.

Maybe "home" is not a location on the map or a house on a street but the shared memories and fun times you have had with those you grew up with.  Every time I get the chance to see all my classmates I feel like I have gone home.

Funny How We Learn Some Lessons

                                                              Stephens in the Snow

The interesting thing about Stephens College was that they really encouraged all students to investigate areas of interest in the first two years.  They did not bog students down with all those required classes that everyone hates.  The only ones they required were Physical Education, an English course and one called Ideas in Living Today. They encouraged venturing out and trying new things.

Sounded good to me so when the first snow fell sometime around Thanksgiving I jumped at the chance to go rabbit hunting with a boy I had been going out with. First of all, I love snow.  Growing up in Muskogee, Oklahoma we rarely ever had any but Columbia had lots of it.  The thought of tramping through the snow in the woods close to town was rather exciting. Pam said recently in an email that she remembered the snow in Columbia but I got the idea that living in LA she hasn't seen any since.

                                    The Sidewalk to My Dorm

The next thing to note is that my only experience with a gun was when I was seven years old.  My brother had a BB gun that you had to cock before you fired it.  Well, the first time I tried that I got part of the palm of my hand caught in the stupid thing and had to have seven stitches. At least I didn't shoot my eye out.  My parents never owned a gun except one Christmas my Mother bought my Dad a shotgun thinking he would like to hunt. At age eleven even I knew my Dad was not going to go walking through the woods in his suit, tie and hat for any reason. Don't know what ever happened to the shotgun that never came out of the box.

I cannot remember the boys name so I could not have been too interested in him but I do remember he had a car which was a very big deal.  Off we went to someplace out by Stephens lake.  He should have had somewhat of a clue when I did not know how to hold the rifle. After a few instructions on where the trigger was, how to load and aim the thing we went on search of rabbits. I was very happy just walking through the snow and the thought that I was expected to slay a rabbit never entered my little blonde head.

All of a sudden a rabbit popped up in the snow right in front of us.  That was right after he had scolded me about not talking so much or making so much noise.  Guessed it was like fishing (I had gone fishing a couple of times) so you did not scare the creatures away. Actually I did not see a rabbit.  I saw Thumper and as the boy whispered to me to take aim, Thumper and I made eye contact.  At that point I yelled, "You have got to be kidding!" He took the rifle out of my hand and headed for the car. It was a long, silent trip back to the dorm.  Needless to say I never saw him again.

That one hunting experience taught me that I would never be able to look at an animal without seeing Thumper or Bugs Bunny or Bambi or Bambi's parents.  Fishing became impossible for me when I could not equate their gasping for breath as the compassionate thing to do. I have no problem with other people owning guns and hunting or fishing. But that one beautiful snow covered day taught me something that has stayed with me the rest of my life.

Most of trying of new things worked out better than the hunting episode.  Pam, who lived in the room next door, wanted to go to Temple and explore her Father's religion.  She did not want to go alone so on Friday nights I went with her. I only knew one Jewish boy growing up and he was the one who broke the date to the Prom with me.  Always being curious about different religions I learned a lot about it and gained a lot of respect for the religion and the people.  Pam and I even took Hebrew lessons each week from the Rabbi. It is funny how much Hebrew I actually remember after all these years.

Christmas was the first time we were allowed to go home.  While I looked forward to it there was some apprehension.  All my classes were going well except for one "C" in golf which is a long story.  I knew I had changed a lot in my attitudes about things and wondered how being at home would feel like. It turned out to be very interesting.

Life With Cathie

Cathie

The lessons learned in college are so much more than what you learn in classes and from books.  It is almost like the day you arrive on campus the door at home closed behind you and suddenly you are on your own. How well you succeed academically, the people you meet and the choices you make are now up to you.  There is suddenly no one around to tell you what to do or who you can or cannot be friends with.  Lots of freedom all of a sudden but also lots of responsibility not to make a mess of it.

Then there was Cathie.   It was a rocky start between us from the moment she walked into our room on the day we all arrived on campus.
Naturally she was a couple of hours late getting to the room when we all arrived on campus at the same time.  She always laughed about my mouth dropping open when she walked in and said that I must be her roomie. Besides the big blue eyes, the perfect figure and the blonde hair she was like a magnet and just made people want to be around her.  My best guess was that she was late because she had met half the people in Columbia on her way to the dorm. Our dorm room became the hangout for every girl she met on campus.

 I was totally unprepared to deal with someone who from outwardly appearances did not have a care in the world, never met a stranger or someone she did not like or someone that did not her.  She could pick up a dress off of her closet floor and look like she stepped out of a magazine.  She changed my name on the little sign on our door from Donna to Dee.  In Cat's world the sky was the limit, there was not a rule that could not be broken or anything you could not do.  I had officially entered an alternate universe whether I wanted to or not.

Actually it did not take long to get over my differences with her.  Within two weeks I had blonde hair again.  My neat little stacks of folded clothes disappeared and we were partaking the free beer for Stephens Susies' at the local clubs on Sunday afternoons.  If she thought I was miffed at her about something she would wait until I went to bed and then sit on my bed with that huge teddy bear she slept with and tell stories until we were both laughing. There would be many nights in that year when we stayed up most of the night laughing not because I was mad at her but from the stories each had to tell about some of our daily adventures.

Cat had an incredible knack of getting herself out of situations that could have been really bad.  One night we had accepted dates with two very handsome boys to a party at a house. It was fun for a couple of hours but then it got a little too serious for both of us. We excused ourselves to the bathroom and after a little discussion decided it was best to leave... via the bathroom window. We laughed all the way back to the dorm about the locked bathroom door we had left behind.  Then there was the time she had a date with a guy on a motorcycle.  We could not wear slacks so she rolled the legs of her pants up under her skirt.  Somehow she lost her skirt so she had me throw her a skirt from our fourth floor window so she could get in the dorm in PROPER attire.

There was an all black night club a little ways out of Columbia. Definitely off limits since it was not in the city limits but they had really great performers do shows there.  Could we really miss seeing Jerry Lee Lewis?  It didn't take long to decide it was the chance of a lifetime so....
we hitchhiked out to the club. It was quite noticeable that we were the only two blonde haired, blue eyed white girls in the place. I actually think the crowd was more afraid of us than we were of them.  It was Jerry Lee in his leopard suit, jump on the piano days and great fun. We went back weeks later and saw Ike and Tina Turner. Hitchhiking in those days was fun and Cat had a way of staying out of bad situations that was amazing. If questioned about where we went to school we always said the University of Missouri since those girls did not have strict rules that Stephens did.

There was one evening that we actually did not break any school rules.
One of our friends from Westminster College had gotten hurt playing football with friends and got kicked in the spleen.  He was brought to Columbia to have his spleen removed and called to say he was wanted company after surgery. What our friends for but to visit ailing people in the hospital.  Cat and I walked to the hospital to find Buddy was starving to death.  What he needed was a pizza.  So we got him dressed and sneaked him out of the hospital and off to get a pizza. Luckily we got him back by the end of visiting hours and he did not get caught.  Wonder if he remembers that evening?

Cat kept a diary so each evening before bed we both wrote the stories of the day.  I wish I had mine now as I can imagine there is a lot I don't remember but there was also a lot that perhaps I never wanted my mother to see. Cat's dad was the President of a bank and I have often wondered if he taught her to write in her check book in black ink when there was money in the account but change to red ink when she was overdrawn. Sounded like a good idea to me because when both Dad's called to let us know we were overdrawn we knew exactly how much we needed for them to deposit. Can't say that it didn't take me years to get over that little practice.

As much as it may sound that we went completely wild those first few weeks at Stephens College it was really not the case.  I have to really thank Stephens in how strict the rules were and how busy they kept us.
I had a Monday night class, sorority meetings on Tuesday night, mandatory Vespers on Wednesday night, an 8:00 am class on Saturday morning and curfew hours. Cat and I both were good students and there was plenty of hours spent hitting the books. Values learned at home were not completely thrown aside.

There are still a few more stories to tell about that year, the important lessons learned and the lifelong friends made. It is interesting to really go back and concentrate on remembering all that went on that year.  
Rather amazing how one school year can affect the rest of your life.



















                                                                       

The Cast of Characters

After sending out the story last week I got and email from Pam.  She wondered what I meant in my list of questions when I wondered what we all would have done without her in our little group.  Also how it was amazing how we all thought the other person was so outgoing and we wanted to be like them.  

To say the least the eight of us were a very diverse group of eight girls. Without telling too much about the years in between 1964/65 and now I will say that Pam, Cathie and I managed to stay friends all these years.  Cathie and I found Erin in the eighties and just in the last year we added Sally. The whereabouts of Paula, Mary and Woodie are unknown but they still may pop up one of these days. 

Before I tell all the silly stories of the year at Stephens I need to give a brief description of the eight of us that were thrown together.  These are my observations looking back fifty years with some insight as to how at least five of us turned out as adults.  On the whole it is a lesson that people really don't change much even with life's challenges.

I will start with Mary and Erin who were Cathie and my suite mates which means we had a connecting bathroom.  Mary was actually rather quiet, very pretty and at times very dramatic. Do I remember her saying several times she wanted to kill herself? I can't remember why or how we talked her out of it but maybe she was just lost in the dynamics of the group and it was a good way to get attention.  It could also have been living with Erin. 

The best way to describe Erin was that she was a mess. I must say that I loved her clothes and lucky for me we were the same size. She had the world's largest collection of plaid pleated shirts, matching sweaters and knee socks. She took her shirts to the cleaners and had triple starch put in them so you could wear them for days and they never wrinkled.
She was very smart with a dry sense of humor that made us roll on the floor in laughter.  It seemed like she had a date every night and Cathie accused her often of dating the entire army based at Fort Leonard Wood
She would just laugh and go on.  It was amazing to see her twenty-five years later and hear about her life. She still had the triple starched shirts and knee socks.

Paula, in front, Erin and Mary, in back

Woodie and Sally were two who had their differences and living together was a challenge - a funny one to all of us - but still a challenge.
Best way to describe Woodie is to say I have never in my life met someone so naive.   She had these huge puppy dog eyes that sort of said to everyone that she did not have a clue as to what was going on. When I think about it now I think she was just overwhelmed by the rest of us.  If left on her own she would have been very quiet and maybe a loner but there was no way she could do that especially living with Sally. I have to give her a lot of credit for hanging in there and being an integral part of the group.

Woodie and Cathie

When I think of Sally the only thing I can think of is laughter.  Sally was from Montgomery, Alabama and had the biggest southern accent I had ever heard.  There were very few days that went by that she did not say or do something that was totally stupid and funny.  I have pictures of the night she decided everyone should stuff pillows under our clothes to see what we would look like being pregnant. How did Sally break her nose? As I remember she was breaking a couple of those "get expelled" rules by being at a party in a motel drinking bathtub purple passion.  
Guess they also had beer since she was jumping on the bed trying to stick beer cans in the popcorn ceiling when she fell. I will have to ask her if that is the correct story.  Pam said when I found Sally that she always imagined her growing up to be a true southern belle with beautiful clothes, gloves and drinking tea each afternoon.  What did I say about us not changing much?

Sally

Next to Pam and Paula. Both from the Los Angeles area but as different as night and day except when it came to academics where they both excelled. Paula was a dancer and gone a lot for practises.  Of all of the eight of us she was the quietest and the only one who did not pledge a one of the local campus sororities.  Also beautiful and very poised.

Pam wondered about my statement of what would we have all done without her in the last story.  My first opinion of her was how sophisticated and worldly she was compared to little bumpkin me from Muskogee. Funny that I actually thought she would not like me and here we have been friends for fifty-one years. Pam traveled a lot and really hated flying and the rest of us were always amazed how she took all her clothes in a carry on bag.  In the group she was the voice of reason, the one who took care of everyone else through thick and thin and never showed her disapproval when one of us did something stupid. I do not know if she ever broke a rule at Stephens but maybe now she might tell me.

Pam

There is no way to describe Cathie in a paragraph.  She was one of a kind and I feel very lucky to have had her for a roomie.  Cathie was one of those people that everyone loved except parents who looked at her as a terrible influence. She in turn, never met anyone she didn't like and found good in everyone.  There have been many times in my life when some situation would come up and I would actually ask myself "what would Cathie do?". The next few stories will begin to give you a look at how living with Cathie didn't change me but gave me the ability to be a lot more carefree and daring than I had been before.

So there is the cast of characters.  Set these people in a town of 35,000 residents and 16,000 college students.  This was an era when "nice" girls did not do a lot of things or admit to it. This was before student protests and the Feminist movement but during the race riots and the early stages of the Vietnam War.  Sitting in the middle of Missouri with no television or computers or cell phones life was simple and a heck of a lot of fun.

The Start of the College Adventure

Cathie breaking the rules

With my computer being offline for most of the month of December due to my own stupidity I had lots of time to think about those first few weeks of being at college.  Usually I can sit down and write these stories in a couple of hours but this one has been started and erased many times over the last week.  It really never dawned on me until the last couple of weeks how much that year at Stephens College caused a lot of changes in me.  Maybe that is called growing up or at the very least, the beginning of that transition from childhood to being responsible for one's self.

Arriving at Stephens was actually quite devastating. I have always told people I am really quite shy which no one believes.  It has always been an effort to meet new people and know what to do or say. But at the same time there has always been the desire to be liked and to have friends. Growing up and living in the same town for eighteen years made it easy for me to have friends just because I had known them all my life.

So, here I was in a group of eighteen hundred girls I did not know, who appeared to be so self-assured, had beautiful clothes and came from exciting places.  To top it off I had Cathie for a room mate. There were many times in those first few weeks that if I would have had the courage to ask to change room mates I would have.  As time passed there were many times the dorm mother asked if I wanted to room with someone else that I would laugh to myself and tell her that maybe I could help Cathie be a better person. Some how Cathie's constant antics, total disorganization and love of people drew me in.  It got to the point where I was almost as good as she was at getting us into trouble.

Looking back now I have begun to realize that the eight of us living at the end of the hall together probably all wondered what we were doing there.  Somehow we all managed to blend together in a little group we called "the Big Eight".  Although we all made other friends at Stephens we relied on each other in the good and bad times and spent a lot of our free time together.  

Pam, Sally, Woodie, Donna, Cathie, Marty Mo

When classes started I realized that perhaps I had gotten in over my head.  All the classes were fine except for the ones in Theater and Drama which was my intended major.  Five minutes into the first class I was trying to fade into the chair dressed in my plaid wool jumper and weejuns.  Everyone in that department was dressed in black tights and ponchos, had long flowing hair and wore sunglasses even at night.  Sorry, I had gone through the "beatnik" phase when I was in the ninth grade and did not find it very appealing.  Besides with the affected speech patterns everyone had I hardly understood anything they were saying.

Thankfully after the first week of classes you had a meeting with your advisor for him to see how your classes were going.  I hope I did not sit there and cry since I was so unhappy but he did get the idea that I did not fit well in Drama department.  By a stroke of luck he was the head of the Television, Radio and Film department and instantly switched all the drama classes to TV, Radio and Film. Have to say that I felt at home in that genre.  The only class that was challenging was General American Speech.  It was difficult to rid myself of the Okie accent that I did not know I had.

The student-advisor relationship at Stephens was pretty impressive.  Mr. Wheeler, my advisor, not only kept check on you - to the extent that if you missed a class he called you on the phone to see what the reason was - but he also had a little get together with all his students once a month.  Usually we were invited to his home for a cookout or dinner on a Sunday evening with his wife and three small children. I guess this gave him a chance to study us and see how we were doing. It gave me that little touch of home and family life that you tend to miss on your first adventure away from home.

Driving through Norman recently on a football game day I realized how much things have changed since I was in college.  The second weekend I was in Columbia there was a University of Missouri football game. Stephens girls were not allowed to have or to drive cars.  Going to the game meant walking to the stadium, which was quite a hike, with your girl friends or a date.  Everyone dressed up to go to the game and if you were lucky enough to have a date you sported a huge mum in the black and yellow colors of the Missouri Tigers.  I can remember walking to the game with a boy named Skip in my pleated skirt, sweater, knee socks and loafers with that flower pinned on my shoulder. After the game we had dinner and then went to a mixer (dance) at Stephens.  It was the first college game I had ever been to and the whole day was so much fun.

Perhaps the most startling difference in going to college then and now was phones. Of course there were no cell phones and there were no phones in the dorm rooms. Each floor had a phone on both ends of the hall on every floor. Calls could come in from the outside or from the desk in the lobby of the dorm.  It may sound awful but actually it was rather nice.  If you decided going out with someone was not a good idea then you could happen not to be there or if your parents were calling to complain about money you didn't have to take the call. Everyone was good about leaving notes on your door stating what calls you had while you were out.

It may be that a lot of girls going off to college for the first time, away from parental supervision, would take the opportunity to become a little wilder than they were at home.  In some ways perhaps we all did but basic lessons and morality instilled at home kept us pretty much in line.That is not to say we did not have a heck of a good time.

Did Cathie and I really exit a party through a bathroom window?
How did Sally break her nose on a date?
Was hitch-hiking to a banned night club the really smart thing to do?
How does one smuggle someone out of a hospital right after surgery for a pizza and beer?
Can a person drink 23 pony cans of Colt-45 and still walk?
If your father is the President of a bank did he really teach you to switch to a red pen when you are overdrawn?
Jefferson City is within the city limits of Columbia isn't it?
Why do I know so much Hebrew when I am not Jewish?
What would we have all done without Pam?

Lots of questions to figure out the answer to.

Heading Off To College

The Summer of 64 seemed to pass very quickly at times and drag endlessly at others.  It was a learning experience having my first real job and one that I did well enough at that my boss asked me to return the next summer. The knowledge that I was leaving everyone and everything I knew for the first time in eighteen years was a mixture of excitement and apprehension or perhaps sheer terror would be a more apt explanation.

Shortly after my acceptance letter came in the mail from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri a book arrived in the mail that was a guideline for all students. There was also a letter that told me who my roommate was as the college picked those on the basis of the home visit done by the college representative done during my senior year. Mother got in contact with my new roommate's mother and took charge of decorating the room since we had visited the college during the summer. She immersed herself in "With In The Ivy" and gleamed over all the rules and regulations.  The worst part was that she shopped for clothes for me.  I tried to match the clothes she bought to my stacks of Seventeen magazines and wondered what style books she was looking at.  Ah, but there was no arguing with Mother.


While Mother is planning my life at Stephens, Dad had a different idea.  He thought it would be nice if I just stayed home and went to college at Northeastern State University. It was a short commute and he would buy me a  Corvette or even a 1953 MGTD, which was my choice.  It was tempting.  Looking back now I realize that I probably knew what was going on with both parents but did not have the courage to just tell them they needed to stop the tug of war over me.  Mother wanted the prestige of sending her daughter off to a private girl's college.  Dad wanted his only daughter, his only buffer between he and my Mother, not to leave. Although Dad and I never talked about it we both knew what I had to do as neither of us was able to say no to Mother. It was a good thing I worked six days a week, spent as little time at home as possible and tried very hard not to think about any of it.

Back in 1964 there were a lot more rules for female students to live by. Stephens was no exception but perhaps due to the history of the college,  a little more strict.  In 1833 the Columbia Female College was established to provide a higher education for the girls in town. In 1857 the Columbia Female Academy was incorporated into the Baptist Female College.  Finally in 1870 an endowment fund saw the name of the institution changed to Stephens College and in 1911 was reorganized to provide emphasis on the education of women in the first two years of college.  By the mid-sixties it became a full four year college.

Stephens had hours that girls had to be in their dorms unlike the University of Missouri a few blocks away.  Sunday through Thursday you had to be in by 10:00 and 12:00 on the weekends.  You signed in and out of the dorm stating where you were going on the weekend nights and the dorm Mother was always there when you signed in.  If you broke one of the three cardinal rules which were (1) No Drinking of alcoholic beverages (2) Do not enter a man's living quarters (3) Do not leave the county limits during the day or the city limits at night.  Failure to heed these rules was an immediate plane ticket home.  Sounded great to parents. I guess I figured those were going to be pretty simple to follow.  Right?

Finally departure day arrived. Stephens had made plane reservations for all of the incoming freshmen.  I was to fly from Tulsa to Kansas City to meet up with all the girls from the western part of the country.    At the same time planes landed in St. Louis with all the girls from the east.
Chartered buses were to meet us at the airport and we would then be off to Columbia. I had never flown before, I was going off to college, I had luggage for the first time in my life all of which should have been very exciting.  Upon landing in Kansas City all the girls were put into a large group while waiting for more planes to land.  

A plane ticket from Tulsa to Kansas City was $40.25 in 1964

It was one of those times when all the insecurities and shyness seemed to overwhelmed me.  I looked around at all the others girls giggling and laughing dressed in their Seventeen Magazine outfits with blonde hair and I wanted to hide in a corner and have a good cry.  Mother had made me get my blonde hair dyed back to it's natural brown color so I looked wholesome.  To make the day really perfect she had decided I should wear a brown dotted swiss dress with awful shoes that hurt my feet. Brown is not my color and had there been zombie movies at the time I would have been cast in an instance. But the worst was not over yet.

No one told me, nor was it mentioned in the book Mother studied so intently, that upon arrival at Stephens College the streets would be lined with boys from the University of Missouri.  It was a tradition that the boys came by what seemed to be the hundreds to check out the new crop of Stephens Susie's as we were called.  As I shuffled, yes shuffled, because my feet would no longer bend in those shoes I was wondering what I was doing in this place. I could only slide my feet along the pavement or pick them up and put them down flat much like a horse tromping down the street.  Getting to my dorm room on the fourth floor I passed through more giggling girls finding out where everyone was from.  I heard New York City, Los Angeles, Hawaii and on and on. How could I tell anyone I was from Muskogee, Oklahoma?  Who ever heard of anyone from Muskogee?  How many actually knew where Oklahoma was on the map?  The bright spot had to be that Merle Haggard had  not yet recorded that song as somehow it does not compare to 'New York, New York',  'San Fransisco Here I Come' or 'Chicago Is My Kind Of Town'.

South Hall at Stephens College

The dorm room was stacked with boxes that had been shipped ahead of time. The rooms were set up so that two rooms shared a bathroom with a shower, sink and toilet. There was not much I could do until my roommate should up so I sort of hid in the room.  Girls came in and out, introductions were made and names and hometowns swirled around me in a blur.  Where could the mysterious roommate be?  Surely she arrived in Kansas City and on the stream of buses about the same time I did.  Maybe she wasn't coming?  Maybe I could just hide in that room all by myself. Why did I ever let myself get talked into coming to this place?

About the time I was ready to break down and have a good cry a girl walks into the room.  She said "Hi, I'm Cathie.  You have to be my roomie".  Every  insecurity I ever had and maybe some new ones cut through me like a knife that moment she walked in the door.  She had the most brilliant blue eyes I had ever seen, beautiful blonde hair and she filled any room with her presence.  She would always remind me how my mouth dropped open when she appeared in the room. Needless to say it was a very rocky start for me at that moment to believe I would like her or that I could get along with her.

Cathie

At least she was from Midland, Texas and not a glamorous place. That first day with Cathie was interesting to say the least especially when she went searching for one particular box that she had to find.  Upon opening it, out came a very well worn four foot tall teddy bear named Jex.  Jex slept with her every night.  Even though I seriously wondered how out of eighteen hundred girls and seven boys attending Stephens College that fall I ended up with Cathie I would soon learn everyday was an adventure.  I would also learn a lot about myself.