The Wedding Part II

 

It was nice to be back in the hotel after a day that was fun, interesting, terrifying and slightly funny all rolled into about twelve hours.  I am just pretty good at getting myself into stupid situations.  One minute I can feel like the innocent and backward country bumpkin and the next minute  bask in the ability to go forward unscathed in what could have been a serious situation.

Charles was glad to see me and asked all about my visit with Erin.  I told him how much fun it was to see her and everything we had done.  I did leave out all of the more interesting parts of the adventure.  Somehow I thought it might make it sound like the really dumb things I could manage to get myself into.

The next day dawned bright and beautiful which was a good thing as the wedding was to be in the garden.  Charles and I arrived at the Mansion shortly after lunch with his business partner, Allen and his wife. The wedding was to be at 4:00 followed by dinner and dancing.  I wandered around watching the bustle of the caters, the wedding planner lady dashing around barking orders and the nervous bride sometimes laughing and sometimes in a rage over something. Actually I did my best to stay out of the way.

I had never attended a Jewish wedding much less a Jewish-Catholic wedding complete with both a Priest and a Rabbi.  I must say it was an interesting and really a beautiful event. While the wedding party spent two hours taking pictures most of the eighty guests visited the bar. Once seated in the huge dining room I discovered I was sitting at the head table next to Charles with his daughter, Jamie, on the other side. Things went well with all of the toasts and the speeches but after they were over Jamie stood up and in a very loud voice demanded to know why I was sitting next to her Dad.  Every head in the dining room turned to stare at us.

Naturally I had no answer for that...well maybe I did bit I certainly was not going to say it.  No one said anything.  I was a little surprised that Charles did not say anything but then Jamie had never had her Dad say anything negative to her in her life.  I just sat there wanting to disappear or cry or pop her in the mouth none of which sounded like a good idea.  When no one responded she finally just disappeared.   It was about the same time that Charles' business partner, Allan came and said her and his wife needed to get to the airport as they had an flight back to Detroit that evening.  We had all come in the same car from the airport the day before so Allan needed someone to take them.  Guess who volunteered?  I needed to get out of there as I felt like everyone was discussing Jamie's outburst.

Armed with a map, Allam driving and my excellent map reading skills we made it to the airport in plenty of time.  Since we had not had any dinner and I was not in a hurry to go back to the wedding party I went into the airport with them and we had dinner.  Then I watched as their plane took off for Detroit. I really wished I was on the plane with them.

It took me a couple of hours to get back to the wedding.  Charles said he was beginning to get worried about me and I just said I got a little lost.  That was not the whole truth as I was just driving around seeing the sights in order to avoid going back.  It was obvious that Charles was not going to say anything about Jamie's behavior which was disappointing.  She kept her distance from me and somehow I managed to get through the rest of the evening. Detroit was very nice to get back to the next day.

I don't know if Charles was expecting me to bring up the subject or not but shortly after we got home he suggested we go to counseling.  He was a big believer in it and it was apparent that maybe our relationship needed some help.  The first time we went together but the counselor said she thought it might be good for me to come in alone.  I learned a lot about myself like why I was so non confrontational and of course, all my issues with my Mother.  The interesting part of it all was how long it would take me to actually change some of the patterns of my behavior. Sometimes the status quo is just easier. 

Life got busy that fall.  Wally started the ninth grade at Seaholm High School.  Work was very busy plus it was costume design time with the ice show.  Busy was good as I did not have very much time to dwell on the situation with Charles or his daughters.  One evening I was glancing through the Detroit Free Press newspaper which I rarely ever looked at.  It would be interesting to know just what made me look at the paper that day.  As I was flipping through the pages a headline caught my attention or maybe it was the picture.

  "World Famous Speaker To Give Seminar"  and there was that smile I knew so well.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Summer of '86

It had been a nice relaxing weekend camping with Charles and Bowser but it was nice to come home.  The answering machine was glad I was home as it probably wanted to explode with all the calls that had arrived.  Mostly business for wallpaper, draperies, bedding and painting. That was a good thing as it would keep me busy and I could use the income.

There was also a call from Mother.  She bought wallpaper for one of her bathrooms and wanted me to come and hang it.  Guess there were no wallpaper hangers in Oklahoma City.  There was also a couple of calls from Wes making it sound a little urgent.  One call from a client or a child did not throw up any red flags, more then one in a short time frame did make me stop and wonder what was going on. At least there was not one from Wally wanting to come home after only a week in the wilderness.

I did not return any calls until the next morning.  Sort of fudged a little with Mother on when I could come since Wally was not home and I had quite a bit of work to do.  Going to Oklahoma was not a bad idea as Wally had not seen Dennis' parents since the wedding and he was really fond of them.  Although I am quite sure Mother would have preferred that I come without Wally so she could only have me to boss around.

Wes, on the other hand, had some interesting news and an even more interesting question.  His Dad was being transferred to Cleveland.  Wes was going to be a senior the next year and really did not want to change schools.  I couldn't blame him as we had moved him four different places and schools already.  The only alternative was to come and live with me. I had mixed emotions about it but told him I was sure we could work something out.  There was still a little hurt on my part because of him not speaking to me for almost a year after the divorce and maybe it would be good for Wes and Wally to spend more time together.

As I spent most of the day on the phone scheduling visits to see all the new clients that had called I had to think how lucky I was to have the business to the point where it almost could support Wally and I with the help of child support and alimony. I never advertised the business so it spread by word of mouth. Not the career path I had wanted but one that really worked for me.  I was one of those women who loved being a Mom and having the freedom to be there to go to school stuff and little league games (not my favorite). At the same time I always managed to have some little home based business where I could still have time with the boys and go to the swimming pool in the summer and play in the snow with them in the winter. Guess that was Women's Lib for me. Even when I had the Librarian job in New Jersey I could still take off whenever there was something going on at school since I had an army of volunteers that loved to run the Library without me. 

In the two weeks before Wally got home from camp I had taken care of most the work from all the new clients.  I only saw Charles twice when we met at the skating rink on Wednesday nights. Wes was working there for the summer so it was fun to go and see him at the same time. I was even so organized that there was time for my Thursday lunches and shopping trips with Claire.  She still had many things for me to do at her house but was never in a hurry. 

Finally the day arrived for Bowser and I to go pick up Wally from the bus from camp.  When he stepped off the bus laughing and talking to the other kids I wondered if he had really grown a foot taller or did he just appeared that way.  It was definitely happy and a more grown up thirteen year old Wally. After he and all his very smelly gear was loaded into the Bronco I heard all the stories on the drive home.  No doubt he had a wonderful time and certainly was ready to go back next year.  I will never forget that perhaps bathing in the St. Mary's River as the large oil tankers passed by might not have been the upmost in getting clean. 

Wally had a week of down time to see his friends and fill them in on all his adventures while I finished up a few little jobs.  Believe it or not our trip on the plane was the very first one since I was in college that was not a Ford Motor Trip.  At the age of 42 I actually bought my own tickets.  Mother had wanted to buy them but I said no I could do that myself. No reason to be beholden'

I think we had a pretty good time since going to Mother's was like visiting a swank hotel.  Nothing like an indoor swimming pool and Cabana, no helping to get meals ready as that was not allowed and lots of places to go.  We spent one day at the Oklahoma City Zoo.  They had recently added the Dolphin area and she was proud that her name was on the bronze sign as a donor to the project.  Actually the visit with her went pretty well.

Since Wally and I flew to Oklahoma City we sort of needed a vehicle to drive to Warner to see Dennis' parents.  Mother's friend, Jimmy, loaned us the Mercedes to make the trip.  Pretty cool and of course we went with the top down. The visit went much better than I had thought it would.  The divorce was very hard on Alpha, Dennis' Mom. Divorce was one of those things her generation did not do plus she and I had been really good friends and had lots of fun together. I guess after a whole year and a half had passed she had mellowed a lot and we had a great time together plus they adored Wally.  From that visit on and for the rest of her life we remained very good friends.

It only took about two hours to do the wallpaper.  Proof that she just wanted me to come visit.  But it really was a fun trip and I was glad we had taken the time to go.  But it was also nice to go home as I probably said "Yes, Mother" far to many times when I did not mean it.

Wes would be moving in with us sometime in August.  Dennis and the new family wanted to get to Cleveland before school started there.  It was going to be interesting to have Wes in a lot of ways.  He and Wally were going to have to share the attic room which was large - hopefully large enough.  It was also a twenty-one mile drive from our house to his High School in Farmington Hills.  It was also that far to his job at the skating rink when he did not come home on Friday or Saturday nights until mid-night.  Wes was, let's say a little hot headed, and I remember giving him many lectures about road rage and the fact that their were lots of guns in cars driving across Detroit. I understood him wanting to graduate with his friends as I did but that did not ease the constant worry.

It was certainly going to be interesting.

What is a Vacation?

When Dennis suggested that we rent a place on the beach at Sea Isle City, New Jersey for vacation I have to admit I was excited but horribly apprehensive at the same time. My history with vacations was far from good, so much so that I tried to avoid even thinking about the word "vacation".

Growing up there were two trips to Wisconsin to see Mother's family.  The first one Dad managed to run into the back of a trailer in Illinois and we had to have the headlights replaced in order to continue on.  At the age of six I was pretty small to realize any strife but I don't think Dad was too impressed with staying on a dairy farm for two weeks.  The next year Dad stayed home and Mother took my two brothers and I on the train. I remember having fun but that was the last time we did that.

When I was twelve Mother and Dad decided to rent a cabin in Colorado for two weeks in the mountains.  How much fun that was going to be!  Only they got in a spat loading the suitcases in the car.  Do you have any idea how small the interior of a 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk was?  Small enough that Mother and Dad almost touched shoulders in the front seat. When we passed through the same western Oklahoma town twice in one hour Mother said to me "Donna, would you tell your Father he is on the wrong road".  I learned to read a map very quickly but they still did not speak to each other for the entire two weeks and probably for weeks after we got home. Thank heavens that was the end of family vacations.

Maybe I carry a vacation cloud over my head as they did not get any better after I married Dennis.  For many years there were trips out of town to drag race. One can't call those vacations by any means.  Those were drive all night to get someplace, attempt to race all day and drive all night to get home.  When Wes was three we actually planned a two week trip to Colorado.  In three days we saw a few sights, Dennis had read all his drag racing magazines, he tore a night light off the wall in the cabin because he couldn't get it to turn off one night and in three days we headed home. 

Perhaps I should not downgraded the Ford Motor Company trips. They all sounded fantastic, chance of a lifetime adventures to St. Maarten, Freeport, Nassau, a Cruise, and Spain.  They sounded fantastic but when you go as a host and have to keep anywhere from 300 to 500 people happy and on schedule it leaves a little to be desired.  Add to that Dennis did not travel well to put it mildly.  To be brief there were always clothes that were too small, people he could not deal with, horrible food, his suitcase not showing up and the inevitable illness that always occurred. 

Being an optimist I really did hope a week at the shore would be fun even with Dennis' Mother, Alpha, and his Aunt Hazel joining us but it is hard to shake seventeen years of vacation disasters.  Good points to remember was that the house was huge, three stories with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a fully stocked kitchen plus the fact that you walked out the door onto the sand of the beach and a washer and dryer, everything brand new. Add to that was the fact that both ladies loved to cook and we were only a few blocks from the Boardwalk and lots of places to eat with good old American food. 

The stars must have been in line that week.  I am not sure what made that vacation be the only good one I can remember in all those years.  Was it just being at the shore where you did not need to do anything else but fly kites or make sand castles or work on a tan?  Were Alpha and Hazel a great buffer to keep Dennis from throwing one fit or another?  Did he not get sick because his Mom was cooking good old American food?  For one glorious week I wasn't stupid once, the boys had too much fun to fight or argue and Dennis was on his best behavior. I will never forget my long walks on the beach as the sun came up or went down, the laughter at the dinner table every night or the sheer beauty of the shore.  I will always thank Alpha and Hazel for that week as it would not have been the same without them.

Alpha and Hazel stayed another week after we got home and I did make some appearances at my job at the Library but they seemed to be doing very well without me.  Any time company came to visit I always jumped at the chance to take them to New York.  The two ladies had never been and a little reluctant to go but I managed to talk them into it so off we went.  They were worried about all the terrible things that could happen to them since they watched far too much television. I was determined to make it a trip of a lifetime to two rural Oklahoma ladies.

Bright and early one morning Alpha, Hazel, Wes and I headed up the Jersey Turnpike to New York City. Wally elected to stay and play with Sis all day since he was not crazy about New York at the age of nine.
I had carefully studied maps and sights to see because I was not all that good getting around in New York.  Mother liked to go to Macys, Tiffany's, eat at the Plaza Hotel or Trump Tower but that was Mother. This needed to be a different sightseeing tour.

I decided to do the Statue of Liberty and would have loved to go to Ellis Island but it was closed at that time.  I managed to take the Brooklyn Bridge into New York and find Battery Park which is a part of the city I had never been before. Alpha and Hazel were showing real signs of terror but I parked close to where you get on the Ferry and the parking guy started a conversation with me about being from Jersey.  I could see both ladies clutching their purses and waiting to have them ripped from their arms. But maybe they realized that even in New York people can be friendly. Off on the ferry for a tour of to the ferry, a great tour of the Statue and a ride back to the city in pretty cool fog.

Next I wanted to take them to mid-town Manhattan but truthfully I was a little lost.  Sitting in the left turn lane at a stop light a guy in a limo signaled to Wes to roll his window down.  Panic in the eyes of the two ladies.  He merely wanted to make an illegal turn out of the wrong lane and asked if he could turn in front of me.  I said sure if he could tell me how to get to mid-town. He said "Follow me", the deal was struck and off we went.  That was fascinating as we passed all the waterfront docks and drove under an overpass similar to what was in Serpico and where all the Mafia guys kill people in movies and on TV. I loved it, knowing we were breaking all speed limits but I knew the ladies had seen the same movies and TV that I had and were terrified. At some point the guy waved his arm out the window and sped away and I recognized the Empire State building so we had made it.

A tour of the Empire State building, lunch at a tiny Jewish Deli, my usual visit to Tiffany's and a visit to Central Park was all we could fit in the day before we headed back down the Jersey Turnpike.  I can imagine they went back to Warner, Oklahoma quite thankful they were still in one piece. Over the weekend the whole family did the grand tour of Philadelphia which like New York would take weeks to see everything.  Having people come to visit was always great fun for me as there was so much to see and do.

Oh, it might be time to show up at work.  That was really okay since it never seemed like a job.  The summer was going to be a busy one with the reading program, the area tours with the kids and a Muppet play I had written while getting all tan on the beach. I also had a bike safety program planned and a pet show. 

It was going to be a busy summer but a continuation of what had so far been a really fun one.

Gorda

I was actually always a little sad when school started in the fall.  As much trouble as it was at times to have to make plans around Wes and Wally I really did enjoy the summer days when I didn't have to get Wes up and off to school.  Then when school was out for the day making sure I got home or there was someone for Wes to stay with. I guess I really liked the lazy days of summer if you could call mine that.

Probably living in the neighborhood we lived in with mainly young families all close to the same age with plenty of children made a big difference. A lot of that summer was spent taking a couple of car loads of children to the zoo, tours of the Royals stadium, the local pool, the art museum and any other place that we could find to entertain them.  When there didn't seem to be any particular place to go some one's front yard would be filled with bikes and the lucky house filled with children.

There were no children's television programming past nine o'clock in the morning, no cable networks, no computer games and Wes and Wally's childhood was much like mine in that how much fun you had depended on how creative you were in finding things to do.  A lot of my original decorating work was in the neighborhood so it was easy to take Wally with me and Wes would always show up with friends to visit especially in the new construction wallpaper work.  I may not have realized all the time back then but I really had the best of the stay-at-home Mom and the sort-of-working Mom worlds.

After school started it was time for me to show up at the Johnson County Health Department.  At first it was two afternoons a week but jumped to three afternoons very quickly.  As a Family Planning Counselor I did pregnancy testing and birth control counseling.  I had spent quite a bit of time during the summer hanging out there and watching the nurses and my boss, Frances, in their jobs and learning as much as I could. I had learned a lot in my previous volunteer job assisting the doctor doing exams one evening a week but the daytime position was another world.

Being a teenager in the early sixties had taught me a certain set of values and I learned very quickly that growing up in sort of  a middle class family I had sort of missed part of the real world. There were many talks with the young nurses at the clinic about the changing morality of the current teenagers.  I discovered very quickly that not everyone grew up in a nice house with a two parent family. Also that having sex before the age of twenty was the normal thing to do.  I remember them explaining to me that things were actually no different than when I was a teenager but that the age just kept getting younger.
I guess that I assumed that everyone was just like me not knowing that there was a whole other world out there that I knew nothing about. More on this later.

I had only seen Barney once when I delivered the rest of the blinds and drapes for the downstairs of his house in the five weeks between his travels and mine.  There had only been a couple of phone calls and of course the silly one from me from Oklahoma. When he called the day I got home and we made plans for lunch on Thursday. it was going to be fun to catch up on what we had both been doing in all that time. Needless to say I would not go into great detail about the exciting trip to Oklahoma or the misadventures of going to the race in Indy.

I got to our meeting place at the fountain by the County Club Plaza first.  He pulled up in his car and told me to hop in he had an errand to run before lunch.  As we drove through the streets of Kansas City the conversation was about how much we had missed each other.  It was rather difficult for me to embellish the trip to Oklahoma and ended up talking more about drag racing which he did not know much about.  We were so busy talking that I didn't pay much attention to where we were when he stopped at a rather huge empty house.

He told me to come look at the house with him and after I got out of the car he told me he needed me to count the "vindows". We both started laughing and I asked him when he figured out that Gorda was actually me.  He said he wanted to say that he knew right off but that he fell for it hook, line and sinker.  He dashed over to count the windows and waited for Gorda to call him back.  Finally yesterday he called the phone company and told them he had lost a phone number of someone who had called him on the day of the call to see if they could help. Actually he knew Gorda's suggestion to just Dial 9 would not work.  Being as charming as he was in his business persona they told him the call had originated in Warner, Oklahoma and gave him the number.  There was no one else in the world he knew that would call him from Warner, Oklahoma.

The laughter at lunch was so bad that it was difficult to eat.  Barney would try to look stern at me and mumble something about the fact that I was the one that did not learn phonics in school as he had to type all my college papers so I could even pass due to bad spelling.  Of course, I had to remind him that he actually said he remembered Gorda from a seminar.  Or just out of the clear blue he would start laughing and so would I.  At one point he wanted me to promise not ever to do anything like that again.  Of course I had to tell Mr. Barney I vould not do same thing again - maybe just little different, ya?

DISASTERCATIONS

AAH....it is vacation time.  From childhood experiences of only two memorable vacations during which my parents were not speaking to each other the entire trip I preferred not to think about them much less go on one.

In the twelve years of marriage to the "then husband" the only real vacations were the trips Ford Motor Company sent us on. Even though we went to great places they were still disatercations.  Weekends to drag races were not exactly vacations as we usually left at 3:00 in the morning, went straight to the race track,  then the motel in the wee hours of the morning or drove home all night. 

Around our house vacations were the two week trips to Warner, Oklahoma to my "then in-laws" home.  Now I did like my in-laws, Alpha and Allen, and always had a good time with them.  But two weeks in a town of roughly 1,200 people with no pool, no theater or anything else besides a furniture store, a post office and a not very good hamburger stand can get a little tiresome.  The worse part is that my Dad and brothers lived twenty miles away and Mom about a hundred miles and I was lucky if we got to visit once or twice.  Of course I could never go to Muskogee by myself to see any of the high school friends.

Days were spent fishing, which I have a hard time with due to the poor fish gasping for breath or driving around seeing the sights of northeastern Oklahoma. Alas, Wally had about the same reaction to fishing as I did.  At four years of age it dawned on him that the pretty fish now swimming in the kitchen sink ready to be slaughtered were going to be dinner.  He went to the living room and refused to come into the kitchen until after dinner.  There were lots of card games and the construction of a jigsaw puzzle or two.  The boys ran wild all day as there was nothing they could get into or anyplace they could get lost.
Perhaps the one good thing was that I didn't have to cook much since I am terrible at frying food or making poke salad or knew how to make
biscuits and gravy or pinto beans.  My mother taught me "yankee cooking" so I was pretty useless in Alpha's kitchen except to do dishes.

Both Alpha and Allen had huge extended families that dropped by everyday. Things were always more fun if Dennis' sister and her husband Jim arrived during our visit.  Jim was a lot of fun and when he was there it seemed like there was a great deal more laughter.  I had gotten good at making the best of anything and the trips to Warner were good practice.

Before we left for Warner Barney had arrived home.  He had been gone for almost three weeks and I realized how much I missed seeing him. I guess that I had thought it would be a nice break from how complicated the whole situation was. Actually it was quite the opposite and it was noticeable that the longer he was gone the more often he called.  Plus the usual conversations about what he had seen in Philadelphia or Chicago or how the seminars and book signings were going changed to more how he felt about things.

I was a little terrified that I had opened up a can of worms I wouldn't be able to close when I brought up the subject of being able to tell by his eyes there was a lot of things he was not saying.  It actually had made it easier for him to talk to me about his feelings than he had been before.  Maybe it was easier for him on the phone as our conversations became longer and much more frequent. It was an interesting change for the better.

The day I went over to install the rest of the blinds and drapes he answered the door in a huge pair of sunglasses....the ones that are about a foot wide. It was obvious that they were to keep me from watching his eyes and we both doubled over in laughter.  I realized that Mr Always Perfect Eagle Scout was learning how to play.  Playing as an adult is an important part of life and very good at chasing your troubles away.

Moving to Kansas City with all my crazy neighbors and a great influence from my college room mate, Cathie, I spent a great deal of time playing. I had to act like the perfect corporate wife but I discovered how much fun it was to go to the grocery store in the middle of the summer with my neighbor dressed as a clown and me as Raggedy Ann or pop out of the neighbors bushes when her husband came home dressed as a huge rabbit. In really bad times you just have to think back about the reaction on someone's face when a giant rabbit pops up out of the bushes and most of the seriousness of life slips away.

When Barney had actually thought of buying the sunglasses and surprising me with then I realized that he perhaps was beginning to let loose and have the fun he had never had growing up. As much as I loved him and as awesome as he was I always had the feeling there was something missing. The sunglasses and our conversation about his family life growing up made me realize he never learned to play or to just be silly.  

I really didn't know how I was going to survive two weeks in Warner, Oklahoma without seeing or talking to him.  Much to my surprise I actually did very well.  In the bad moments, the anger over not getting to spend more time with my family or high school friends I would think of Barney in those glasses. Also contemplated on more silly things to do to him and see what he comes up with.  

Little did he know that his course in Silliness 101 was about to begin.
Staying at the house with non-fisherman Wally on the last fishing expedition of the endless two week vacation gave me a chance to teach Barney the first class in Silliness 101.

An Awesome Grandmother

When I married Dennis I acquired a plethora of extended family that was one hundred and eighty degrees opposite from mine.  Both my parents had lots of brothers and sisters living in far off places.  The only relatives I had in Muskogee were my Dad's sister Della and my Uncle Tom. Dad was not too crazy about Della but my Uncle Tom was a big part of my life and probably a pretty good influence growing up. As for Mom's family the only time I saw them were the two summers we went to Wisconsin when I was six and seven years old.  All my grandparents had passed away by the time I knew what grandparents were.

I often thought the the town of Warner, Oklahoma was all related to Dennis. When his family all got together it was really difficult for me and something I never got used to. It was not that I didn't like them, I just had a hard time getting used to so many people in one place at one time.  Then there was the difference in food.  Even though I grew up in Oklahoma I had never heard of having beans and cornbread, poke salad, corn salad, white bread dressing for turkey, fried salt pork, drank iced tea or heard of biscuits and gravy for breakfast. I did learn to love the biscuits and gravy but the rest is still a big yuk.

I did, however, like his parents, Alpha and Allen. They were very down to earth people and always fun to be around. Allen in his overalls was very different from my Dad in his suit, tie and hat. Alpha did not wear designer clothes and was known to leave the house without hair fixed and makeup on like my Mom.  Needless to say after one family gathering of Dennis's family that my parents attended they managed not to ever show up at another one.

There was always a lot of laughter when we were with them. When Alpha came to visit it was always fun as she liked going places, it didn't matter if the house was immaculate or we had other things to do while she was there.  Most important she adored Wes and Wally and was the picture of a wonderful grandmother. Quite different from my Mother.

Alpha arrived on Friday afternoon and I did not ask how long she was staying since most of the time it would be in the neighborhood of two to three weeks. That was fine with me since I had work to do at Barney's, I could take her to the New Neighbors activities and all the neighbors were on alert to include her in any children's adventures while I was off working. I was also very lucky in that Dennis had much better behavior when she was around.

When I arrived at Barney's on Tuesday to start the wallpaper there was no one home.  That was actually a good thing since I could get started and have the time to work without any conversation.  To my surprise the the old wallpaper in the powder room was already stripped.  Someone had been busy over the weekend which made the work in the powder room go really quick. By lunch time I was ready to move to the kitchen.

Just as I got started trying to figure out if the awful angry rooster wallpaper was going to come off easily Barney came home carrying take-out food.  He said he had been trying to call me all morning. I had thought while working that they certainly got a lot of phone calls on what I gathered were two separate phone lines.  I didn't know I should answer phones while I was there which made him laugh and realize that we hadn't talked about that.  So, we worked out a system of rings and hangups on his office phone if he wanted to talk to me.  I could also give that number to my mother-in-law in case she had any problems with the boys. But it was nice that he brought home lunch and I had to tease him about him saying he wasn't going to feed the decorator again after the original price I had quoted him.

After lunch he went off to some appointments and I went back to wallpaper.  It was a really pleasant surprise when the old kitchen paper came off pretty easily and by late afternoon I had the kitchen ready for the next day.  I do have to admit that it was a little nerve wracking to work in someone else's house, especially Barney's.  Besides doing paint and paper in my own home, one friend's where I hung the wallpaper upside down and a couple of new construction houses that no one lived in I had no experience with customer's houses. I probably spent a huge amount of time being incredibly neat and tidy.  Maybe I learned to do a job the way I would want a person to who worked in my home to do.

I went home feeling pretty good about my first day on the job.  The boys had gone swimming with Karen and all the other neighbors.  Alpha had fixed dinner, the house looked decent and everyone was happy.  I breathed a big sigh of relief.  Funny how I had worried all day that there would be some disaster or another.  

I got a phone call later that afternoon from Frances at the Health Department where I had been volunteering for the last three months on Monday nights.  She said she really wanted to talk to me about my job.
Was I being fired from a volunteer position?  Does that ever happen?
We made arrangements for me to go by the office on Thursday afternoon. Maybe disasters happen other places than at home.

So Much For Serious Talks

From the time I was about twelve years old I had always been fascinated by old buildings and houses.  My family had one of those two bedroom tract homes built after the second world war in Muskogee. But I loved driving through the older part of town and looking at the huge old homes and imagining being lucky enough to live there.  

It did not help when my parents actually thought about buying an old house referred to as the "Bower" house. Sitting on a huge corner lot the two story house with a portico, huge trees and a four car garage with servants quarters above was a dream come true.  Inside it had a two tiered mahogany staircase and I could imagine at the age of twelve how cool it would be to dance down the stairs with a date waiting at the bottom.  With a curved music room, beautiful woodwork and very tall ceilings I didn't pay any attention the the peeling wallpaper from a leaky roof or the fact that the kitchen was circa 1930. I saw it all restored and beautiful but my parents saw more work than they could do so they opted for the new house in a new subdivision.

I spent a lot of time in Kansas City driving through the magnificent old neighborhoods and hanging out at the Country Club Plaza which was the first suburban shopping center built in the 1920's.  When Barney said to meet him at Kelly's Bar built in 1850 and that it was believed to be the oldest building in Kansas City I could not get there fast enough. 
Kelly's was was originally a store that sold provisions to those travelling west along the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails.  It was even once owned by Daniel Boone's grandson.  In 1947 it began serving provisions of the alcoholic variety and has done so to this very day.

Barney was waiting on the sidewalk for me because even at lunch time it was difficult to get in the door for all the people and we would have never found each other inside.  We finally got a table and had lunch but there was so much laughter and conversations from other people it was difficult to talk to each other with out yelling. I just ate and studied every inch of the wood, the bar, all the people and decided it was one of the coolest places I had ever been.

After lunch we walked around Westport and looked at some of the shops before we found a bench to sit on. Time for me to find out what serious thing he needed to talk to me about. He started out by telling me how I had done a great job in putting all the paper, paint and window coverings together for his house.  Actually that was pretty easy since he told me what he thought he wanted and I knew him well enough to make the right choices.  I began to wonder if he was firing me.  Then he apologized for for putting me in the position of meeting Lauren but that I had done an amazing job of handling the situation.

Hmm....this was sounding a little serious and it took me a few minutes to respond.  Finally I told him that it was not the easiest thing I had ever done but I knew that when I agreed to do his house that I would meet her and I thought I had handled it pretty well myself. Then he gave me the opportunity to back out of redoing the house since there would be times when he was out of town and I would have to see more of her. Looking really sad he said he wished I had popped back into his life before he married her.

In all the time we had spent together in the last ten months we had never talked about either Lauren or Dennis except very casually. Lamenting about our problems with them I never thought would be a good thing and I didn't think it was time to start now. Barney sat there waiting for a response from me as I tried to figure out what to say. I guess I had known that this discussion would come up but it was not one I was ever going to be fully prepared to enter into.

Finally I told him that maybe it would be more difficult to see and work with Lauren if we were making mad passionate love to each other like we had done in college. Which was a sixties morality lapse on my part. Our situation is a little complicated with other people that depend on us and maybe by keeping our relationship more like friends I can deal easier with anything that comes up. If we were both happy in our marriages I would probably never have called him when I came to Kansas City and he would have never agreed to meet me that first time.  Maybe we both made a mistake thirteen years ago by drifting apart or letting go of each other back then for silly reasons.  The only time I have ever been mad at him was when he sent me the telegram on the day I got married wishing me the best and professing his love. But being friends, if you can call it that, is the happiest I have been in all these years.

Who knows what will happen between us next month or next year but I can't imagine him not being there.  The sound of his voice when he calls, knowing I will meet him somewhere or thinking about something funny he said brightens day and not only makes me feel good but also gets me through any bad things that happen. I may not have lost my early sixties morality but I do have my "big girl" shoes on and I can handle being with and working with Lauren.

Barney sat there for what seemed like a long time.  Then he smiled that smile and said that was quite a speech and maybe we thought more alike than he imagined we did. Too bad it was nearly time for me to pick up Wally as he wanted to whisk me off to a hotel.  I laughed and told him that I didn't always do what I really wanted to do.  He walked me to my car and gave me a key to his house so I could get in if no one was home. Driving to get Wally I had to laugh because it was Barney who needed to talk and I ended up doing all the talking.

Dennis's mom, Alpha, was driving up from Warner, Oklahoma the next day.  She was very good at taking care of the boys.  It seemed like every time we had a Ford Motor Company trip we had to go on she took charge.  I liked her a lot and we had always had a lot of fun together shopping, playing cards or her favorite, working jigsaw puzzles. The boys adored her but she was also pretty good at keeping them in line.  Very much different than my mom as she never babysat and I didn't think she even liked them around for more than ten minutes.

It looked like her visit was going to work out well and I scheduled working at Barney's three days the first week so I still had time to be do things with Alpha and the boys.  Of course just as I begin to think everything is going to work out well something happens. Wonder what a dull moment would feel like?

Options

When the restaurant burned down that Barney and I had been meeting at for lunch over the course of eight months I wondered what we would do now.  In a phone call he said he thought of several options which I found was a strange way to put it.

It was a beautiful almost spring day when I met him by the fountain at the Plaza.  The first thing he asked was did I have quarter, I did and he said he used to ride his bike up the the Plaza as a kid to make wishes in the fountain.  He discovered that throwing pennies in really did not work but quarters did.  It took a minute to think of a wish I really wanted to come true and pitched my quarter in.  Then he said he had three options for lunch.  One was a picnic, number two was a nice little place a block away and number three was room service in the huge hotel behind us.

I am not normally fast thinking on my feet or very clever.  Somehow I managed that day to tell him it was like Let's Make A Deal and which of the three doors would be the big prize.  When he stopped laughing and wanted an answer I asked him if he had brought a picnic lunch.  He said no so I had it narrowed down to two doors which got a little harder.  How do I tell him without losing him that door number three was not an option as there were too many other people to consider?  While he was sitting there smiling that smile of his I knew this subject would come up at some point in time.  Finally I came up with an answer and told him that I had just made a big wish in the fountain that he said would come true.  Then I told him I didn't want all my wishes to come true at the same time so it would have to be number two - lunch around the corner. He grabbed my hand as we headed off down the street and told me I was priceless. 

The little place a block away turned out to be a piano bar that happened to have very good hamburgers.  Naturally everyone working in the place knew him.  To my surprise they asked if he was going to play for them today.  He explained that he hadn't had a piano since Columbia and would come in there when they were not busy and play.  So after lunch we sat down at the piano and he started off with Billy Joel's Piano Man.  We both ended up singing until it was time to go. It was the most fun I had had in a long time.  When he walked me to the car he said I had chosen the right door and that he had never had more fun with anyone than he had with me.  I agreed with him but it was a lot more than just fun.

It was some times hard to slip back into reality after a lunch with Barney.  By the time I picked up sweet little Wally from Mother's Day Out and Wes and Ninette arrived home from school I managed.  That particular day my neighbor, Frances, was coming by.  Dennis expected dinner ready when he walked in the door at 6:00 so between a quick pick up on the house, starting dinner and checking with the kids on how their day went there was not much time to think about much before Frances arrived.

Frances lived directly behind me and was probably about my Mother's age.  I had met her at a few neighborhood gatherings, saw grandchildren playing in the yard and knew she was a nurse at the Health Department.  It was hard for me to imagine why she was coming.  Did the kids do something terrible? I really could not imagine.

When she arrived we sat in the kitchen so I could watch over dinner cooking on the stove.  She began by telling me that she was actually the Director of the Olathe branch of the Health Department just south of where we lived.  I found out they provided some medical services to people in lower income brackets that could not afford to go to the doctor.  A big part of their work was in Family Planning, Well Baby Clinics, immunizations for school children and many other services.  It was quite interesting that at the age of thirty-three that I had never really heard what a county health department did.

Frances said that she had a staff of four young nurses but because of some budget problems she was short on help especially on Monday nights when an intern from the Osteopathic medical school came for female check-ups.  She had heard I had a science degree and was applying to medical school.  Would I be interested in being a volunteer on Mondays nights?  A lot of what they did did not require a registered nurse but she wanted someone with a little background, they could teach me what I needed to know and thought I might like it.

As Frances talked I could catch all the caring and compassion she had for her clients and her job. I remembered how I had asked Dr. Chandler, the plastic surgeon in Dallas, if I could go to work for him but he said no because I would never finish school and besides he did not pay his people very well not that money meant that much to me.  I had applied to the osteopathic school in Kansas City without really knowing much about it.  Now someone was offering me a chance to help out in what I wanted to do. What other answer was there but yes?  Plans were made for the next Monday night.

After I said yes to Frances about the Health Department I knew Dennis was not going to be happy about it.  Actually he was at a point where he was not happy about anything.  We rarely ever went anywhere except a few times we went out to dinner with some people he worked with or we took the kids to the zoo, a museum or on his famous Sunday afternoon rides through the country the children hated. He endured some of the New Neighbors gatherings for couples but never made any attempt to be very friendly to any of the other men and there were very few of the neighbors he paid any attention to or liked. 

I really tried to be the perfect wife and actually got very good at it.  Dinner was always on the table at the precise time, the yard was mowed every Friday afternoon so he didn't have to do it on the weekends, house was usually immaculate when he walked in the door, laundry and grocery shopping done. One of my most memorable Mother's Day was being the only parent sitting in a slight dusting of snow at one of Wes's soccer games while he sat at home watching TV.  But I always had a happy face when he was home.

I didn't mention the Health Department the evening after Frances came over as Dennis arrived home cursing about his job and wanting to move back to Dallas. I had a few days to formulate a plan on how to tell him - forget asking permission as his answer was always a big no.  But a phone call the next day from Gary, our neighbor and builder, gave me a way to ease into telling him about my volunteer job.

The Phone Call

It took a lot of courage to finally pick up the phone and call Barney after twelve years.  When I finally did dial the number and hear his voice all I could say was "Hey".  When there was a pause that seemed like an eternity all the reasons why I had put off making the call flashed through my mind.  He didn't remember me, what nut says "hey" instead of hello this is.... or he simply did not want to hear from me.  Just as I was about to hang up and forget the whole thing I heard "Hey, yourself.  Where have you been for the last eleven years, seven months and six days?". Somehow I managed to mumble something about being in the process of moving to Kansas City.  He stopped me in the middle of my rambling and said he wanted to see me.  Could I meet him for lunch tomorrow? Without any hesitation I said yes and he gave me the name and address of a restaurant and then added he could not wait to see me.

Even though a sense of relief swept over me after the phone call there were some serious doubts about my having called him. The best thing to do was to stay busy for the next twenty-four hours so I made arrangements for a babysitter and took the boys to the zoo for the afternoon.  I did drive by the restaurant that afternoon so I could be sure to find it the next day.  When Dennis came back to the motel that evening I told him I was going to have lunch the next day with an old Stephens friend and he just said that was nice.

I surprised myself by not really being very nervous getting ready or driving to the restaurant. Barney had always been easy to talk to and of all of the people in my life I had been more open and honest with him than anyone else. There was perhaps a little apprehension when I walked into the restaurant and the maitre d' asked if he could be of service.  I told him I was meeting someone, he smiled and said "right this way". As we made our way through the restaurant I saw Barney stand as we approached the table. There was that same smile, that same lock of hair that fell across his eyes and he had not changed a bit.
He came around the table gave me a big hug, said how glad he was to see me.  When I asked him how the maitre d' knew I was meeting him he said he showed him a picture of me.  He pulled a slightly worn photograph out of his wallet taken back in the Stephens days.  Wow and I thought I was the only one that kept all that stuff.

It is difficult to explain the feeling that crept over me the moment I saw him.  There is a lot to be said for staying in touch with family and old friends.  Ever since I had married Dennis I actually spent very little time with my family and had not seen or heard from any of my childhood friends except Pam and Cathie.  There is something special about people you grew up with even if you weren't best friends.  For some reason it always seems like you just saw them yesterday. The years, the disappointments and the bad times seem to just melt away.

We spent the next three hours talking.  I was afraid several times when he asked about a bottle of red or a bottle of white or said he couldn't believe I looked so good after all this time that he was going to burst into song like he used to do. When I teased him about it he just laughed and said it was rather like the scene from an Italian Restaurant by Billy Joel.  Instead of talking about Brenda and Eddy we discussed Pam and Cathie.  I told him Pam was in the L.A. area working at a bank and travelling around the world.  That I had pictures and postcards from all sorts of fascinating places.  Cathie, on the other hand, had married a super nice guy but they had split because he wanted children and she did not. Besides she was busy protesting pigs raised in cages and doing women's marches.

When the subject changed to he and I he said he had married Sarah six months after I had gotten married.  The marriage did not last even a year (I did not say "I told you so") and he did get his MBA from Northwestern.  For several years he worked in New York on Wall Street but finally came back to Kansas City and had a real estate company and did investments.  Six months ago he married a gal named Lauren who was going to law school. He seemed happy with his life which was really all I cared about.

I filled him in on the last eleven years, seven months and seven days as best I could.  He liked that I had two boys and that I had finally graduated from college. My big question for him was why the stupid telegram on the day I got married. He laughed and asked if it got to me.
He said he meant every word that it said, he did want me to be happy and wished me all the best but at the same time why would he stop loving me.  He asked if I had stopped loving him and I said no that I always believed you could and did love many people at the same time but maybe in different ways.  He actually said he went to Muskogee a few years ago to try to find me but someone else lived in the house and Dad's pharmacy shop was closed. 

He walked me out to my car when it was time to get back to the boys. That was when he sang "I'll meet you any time you want at our Italian Restaurant.  How about next Thursday?".  How could I say no to that?


 

Put On A Happy Face

Mother and George

There is an old adage that most girls marry guys like their fathers.  I guess that stems from the fact that the father is the first male roll model and it feels familiar and comfortable.  My Dad was quiet, easy going on the outside, always listened and in his eyes I could do no wrong.  Mother on the other hand was loving one minute and totally 
unpredictable the next.  I always tried to be good, wear clothes she wanted me to wear, make good grades and do everything she wanted me to do. But the rules would change and I was always a disappointment to her.  After being married to Dennis for eight years I began to realize that I had married the personality traits of my Mother.

The year of 1974 started out pretty good.  We had the new Ed Mabry chassis, a new body and a new trailer.  I also found out I was pregnant with a due date sometime in October.  After being off two months on Wes's birth there was no need to set a real date this early.

Although I was not crazy about getting a boxer puppy she turned out to be a pretty sweet dog.  Her name was Dandy and she seemed quite alright with Wes poking at her eyes and pulling on her ears.  Since Dennis was still travelling every week and I was the one feeding her she quickly became my dog.  Dandy slept by my side of the bed at night, followed me to my ceramic workshop in the back yard to curl up in the boxes of shredded paper while I worked and was by my side all the time.

Wes and Dandy

The new dragster chassis got the 302 Ford engine installed and several attempts to get it to run consistently did not happen.  One night before the lettering and pin stripping was done on the car Dennis lost his temper when I offered a suggestion about what to do to the engine.  After all I had been around long enough to know something about them.  He flew into a rage and yelled at me that he felt like he was whipping a dead horse.  Anyone should know you should not yell at a pregnant woman.  Thank heavens Ralph and Mark popped in at that moment.  I was on the verge of tears but they thought the dead horse thing was the funniest thing they had heard in a long time and brought me to laughter.  When the ace painter, Zero Wasson, came to finish the car he painted a cartoon of a horse laying on it's back with all four hooves in the air.  The car was known from then on as the Dead Horse.

Town East Craft Show

Wes was growing like a weed, had a vivid imagination, never stopped talking or moving. At four years of age he was actually a lot of fun although there were times when I wanted to choke him. One time at a craft show at Town East Mall Wes and a fellow artist's little girl were playing behind us and then they were gone. Anne was panic stricken while I was not too concerned.  Anyone who took Wes would bring him back in ten minutes.  After about thirty minutes with Mall Security looking for them they were found eating ice cream cones in the mall office. It looked like my craft show days were numbered if I had to have a four year old with me all day.

                                                        Wes

The only friends I kept in contact with were Cathie and Pam from Stephens.  Pam had graduated from college in Arizona and went back to L.A. to work in banking.  I have stacks of letters and postcards from all around the world from her travels.  Cathie went to Texas Tech, met a great guy named Terry, got married and graduated with a mathematics teaching degree.  I always found it funny that she married an accountant and got a degree in math when she taught me to use red ink in my checkbook when I was overdrawn.

One day Cathie appeared on my doorstep.  That would be the first of many fun surprise visits through the years.  Wes fell instantly in love her with and said that when he grew up he was going to marry her.  Of course Cathie loved that.  Dennis and I took her out to dinner to the Old San Francisco Steakhouse where there was a waiting line.  Some bubba in line behind us started making remarks to her which were not very nice.  She turned around, stared at him with those huge blue eyes and told him in a very loud voice exactly where and what he could do with his male appendage.  Everyone in the line gasped and I thought Dennis was going to faint.  The bubba went silent for a few minutes and then apologized to her. That was typical Cathie and I loved every visit.  Dennis did not.

Sometime that spring or summer Dennis got a promotion from service rep to Owner's Relations Manager and the travelling slowed down.  After four years of him being gone all week he was suddenly home for dinner at 5:05 every afternoon.  He brought work home almost every night and it was not an easy adjustment to say the least.  Two things stand out in my mind.  One night Wes was running though the house playing and Dennis shouted for me to shut that screaming brat up.  The other was his statement that if he ever had a handicapped child he would put it in some institution.  Neither comment set very well with me as I had always thought I wanted to have six boys and I was pregnant at that time.  Time to rethink having any more children.

Although I had not kept in contact with any of my high school friends or even seen any of them on trips to Muskogee to see family I got a letter about our ten year reunion.  I really wanted to go.  After all I had spent all of my school years with these friends.  A year before I had organized and got all of Dennis's class together for a reunion so I assumed we would go to mine. Oh, how wrong could I be? There was some excuse about me being six months pregnant - so?  All I know is that I did not get to go and spent that entire weekend crying.   I ran out of imaginary black stars for awhile over that one.

October rolled around .  The dragster was still behaving like a dead horse making that part of my life difficult.  Dandy, the boxer, had developed Demodectic mange when she was about four months old.  Many trips to several vets and hundreds of dollars did not cure it.  She could no longer come in the house and it was getting cold outside.  It broke my heart but on the advice of the vet I had to put her down.

George had gone fishing one weekend at Beaver's Bend and came home on Sunday night telling Mom he thought he had gotten a cold.  Mom was going to school to become a nurse since George did not want her to work.  She had gotten a job when they first got married but he told her she was ruining his tax bracket so he gave her a couple of gas wells and an allowance to stay home.  When she came home from class on Monday morning she could not understand anything George said.  In the emergency room it was determined he had gotten stung by a wasp,  had viral encephalitis and lapsed into a coma that night.  He passed away on Thursday at the age of 57. They had only been married for four years during which Mother was the happiest I had ever seen her.

After a quick visit with Dr. Herndon on Friday he gave me a thumbs down on going to Oklahoma City to George's memorial service on Saturday.  Dennis attended the service which was probably not very comforting for Mother as they never got along well.

                                                                          Wally

I messed up Dr. Herndon's office hours on Monday by giving birth to Walter William Tarkington that afternoon.  Another healthy eight pound baby boy. One might think "What else could possibly happen?".  Well, life-changing events always seemed to pop up out of nowhere and grab you.  Seemed to happen often in our household and I was becoming very adept at putting on the happy face.