What Do The Simple Folk Do

It may seem strange that drag racing became the center of my life from the beginning of my marriage to Dennis. Actually I came by it quite naturally having two car crazy brothers, started going to the drag races when I was fourteen and it was how I met Dennis in the first place.  There were times when I did wonder what the normal folk did to pass their time but there really wasn't much time to think about other things.

When Dennis went to work for Lincoln/Mercury we had a completed chassis and it did not take long for a racing enthusiast at his office to appear in our garage.  Robert E. Lee Capps, Jr. better known as Lee J came by to visit.  He was single, very smart, very funny and ready to go racing.  Since we had the chassis Lee J. wanted to build an engine and both a partnership and a friendship was formed.  Where the idea to build a six-cylinder Ford engine came from I really don't remember but that was the plan.

Dennis and I were building the aluminum bodies for other racers.  About the same time the company I worked for got the idea to make Spanish style wrought iron bar stools.  Quite by coincidence we had made friends with a racer who did car upholstery so naturally I said I could make the cushions for the bar stools. In reality I had no idea how to make them but learned pretty fast how to cut out the fabric, foam and wood it took to make them.  Between my friend and I we made about two hundred of the tops.  Should note here that as ugly as they look now they were the hot ticket in the year of Spanish houses and shag carpet.

Between the dragster, our side businesses of bar stool tops and aluminum bodies the little single car garage was a little difficult to deal with.  It was time to purchase a garage - I mean house.  Since Dennis thought he should only have to drive ten minutes to work we decided to build one of the starter tract homes in Carrollton.  It was Spanish style, of course and was on the very edge of civilization just north of Trinity Mills road. I got to drive to Arlington everyday to work but the good thing about it was that it was going to be much harder to move if someone did not like the house, the garage or the neighbors. Did I really buy red shag carpet and Spanish furniture?

Hertz had another sale of Ford rental cars and we purchased a '69 

Mercury Convertible and said goodbye to the lovely Mercury Marauder.

It also seemed stupid to keep making car payments on the '68 Chevy pick up since it could not be seen on the Ford parking lot. Since a guy can't live without a pick up Dennis found a '51 Ford to replace it.  It was a cool truck and became the tow truck for the dragster and trailer.  We put an oak bed in it and the only little problem it had was a vacuum leak that caused an interesting whistle when you drove down the street.  I

was always curious how someone who told other mechanics how to fix cars could not fix a leaky radiator, a transmission that didn't quite line up with the engine causing sheared clutch discs or a vacuum leak.  It still remains a mystery of life.

Shortly after we moved into the house the dragster had an engine and was ready to go to the Green valley Raceway.  That should have been an exciting day but was a penchant of things to come.  Somehow when we were loading the car on the trailer Dennis had me stand at the back of the trailer and it landed on my toes. My tennis shoe turned instantly red with blood and rather than be concerned about me Dennis was upset that I was so stupid to have my foot there in the first place.  I hobbled into the house, bandaged my toes, put on my saddle shoes in hopes the bleeding would stop and went off to the race track. Wow, my foot hurt a lot as I pushed the race car around.  The car did not run well, Dennis was grumpy and I ended up in the emergency room at 2:00 in the morning.  Nothing broken, big toe just smashed. Not a great evening.

Just to make sure there was never a dull moment around the Tarkington house Dennis and Lee J decided to paint the race car in the garage.  No one thought anything about the fact that the fan for the heat and air was in the garage.  It was magical how the entire interior of the house had a lovely blue dust all over everything. My dear Mother had met a man from Oklahoma City and got married.  We sort of missed the wedding due to some big race we had to attend.  Not a great way to create pleasant family relationships.  Lee J. got married to a gal named Peggy and they moved a few blocks from us. We did attend that wedding.

It was a very good thing the land in front of the house was designated for a future freeway.  Most of the neighbors were pretty good about the number of vehicles and the trailers that would show up on the weekend. Somewhere there had to be a secret map that showed all the want-to-be-racers and fans where the action was. If someone like Benny Osborn or Kenny Bernstein had us building a body for them the traffic got even worse.  Then there was the slight noise when we would start the car in the street to see how it sounded.

At the end of the fourth year of marriage we had now moved seven times, had eight different vehicles, had a running dragster (sometimes),

bought a house and I found out I was pregnant. But we did have the same dog, Herman, who had learned to speak English and stopped eating tacos and enchiladas. Now we can take the time to figure out what the simple folk do..........maybe.

Period of Adjustment

If I thought the first year of marriage was only a period of adjustment just what was the next two or three?  I have been told that in looking back at past events you only remember the good parts and forget the bad. There must be some message in my not being able to remember any really happy times but only constant turmoil and stupid events.

Dennis decided I should go back to college in the fall of 1966 and become an English teacher.  Going to work might have been a better idea since money was tight but only having worked as a lifeguard had not provided me with many job skills.  So I enrolled in Arlington State College in Arlington.  Since this was my first time to go to school in Texas I was hit with taking all the state required courses for graduation which were less than inspiring. With tuition only being $5.00 a semester hour it was cheap enough.

Going back to college as a freshman at twenty years of age and married was difficult but not knowing anyone was the hard part.  Trying to handle taking care of the house and Dennis was the harder part as it seemed there was never time to study for the sixteen hours of classes I was carrying.  Luckily for me there was another girl, a few years older, in most of my classes.

Gretchen was a tall, beautiful girl who stuck out among the teeny boppers more than I did.  She was married to a much older man who was very prominent in Dallas social circles and very wealthy.  Somehow we became friends.  We arranged all of our classes the second semester
to be the same and spent all of our free time at school together.  Without Gretchen I would have never made it through two semesters. 
Neither of us were enthralled with the college and one attempt at socializing outside of school was a disaster.  She invited Dennis and I to a sports car race one weekend.  Her husband had a Lotus and although I enjoyed the race, liked her husband and had a great time.  Dennis was rude and hated every minute of being there.  She transferred to SMU the next fall and I had a hard time thinking about going back to Arlington without her.

Dennis changed jobs during my second semester and went to work for LTV in Grand Prairie, Texas.  He also decided that driving a 61 Chevy with a six-cylinder engine was not cool so a lot of time the second semester on weekends were spent doing an engine swap to upgrade to a V-8.  I don't remember why we got rid of the Volkswagon except Dennis hated it so when I got a summer job with the Ft. Worth Park Department I needed a car.

Dennis's Dad just happened to have an all original, except for the upholstery, 1941 Four-door Chevy sitting in his driveway not being used.  My thought on cars is that if it has four wheels and runs it is fine. So, we borrowed the 41 Chevy for me to drive and towed it to Texas. What a fun car to drive with only one minor little glitch.  Seems like the radiator had some problems and would leak when it got a little overheated.  It as easy to tell when this happened as little drops of water would appear on the windshield.  That was an easy fix as I just carried milk bottles in the backseat full of water and stopped and added water when needed.

The Park Department playground job was awesome.  There were twenty playgrounds at the elementary schools and the recreation centers.  Each one had a boy and girl partner to work at them. I had a partner named Howard.  He was a tall, gangly guy my same age with the biggest feet I have ever seen.  He was going to TCU and wanted to be an Episcopal priest.  Our job was to play with kids all day.  We had a school playground in the morning in a rather poor neighborhood and one in the afternoon in a very rich one. Both of our cars were filled with sports equipment, boxes of board games and craft making items. Our job was to play with the kids and teach them lifetime sports which were bowling, golf, badminton and tennis.

The morning playground had between 40 to 60 kids everyday hanging on the fence waiting for us to get there at 8:00 in the morning.  The afternoon had maybe ten kids the first week and then none.  They cancelled the afternoon playground and made Howard and I the travelling play directors for the big contest the end of the summer. Howard's mother had us come to their house everyday for lunch or if she was busy we would go downtown and his Dad would take us out. Our playground kids won almost every contest at the end of the summer including the play contest.  The last day the kids cried because it was over and I have to admit Howard and I did too.  

I tell this story for several reasons.  First of all I have wondered through the years whether the kids or Howard and I learned the most.
We learned a lot about kids less fortunate than we were, kids that needed snacks because there was no breakfast, kids that never had adults play with them and kids that just needed to have attention. I have also wondered how Howard has done in life as we lost touch.

The other reason I had to tell this story is partly due to the funny looking 41 Chevy.  Dennis had put the bigger engine in the 61 Chevy and things did not work out as well as he had hoped.  That may be putting it mildly.  It seemed like every three weeks or so the clutch plate in the transmission would shear apart - meaning no clutch, no driving possible. So I would have to drive the 41 Chevy to where ever it decided to happen, hook up his car with the trusty tow bar, stop by an auto parts store for a new clutch disc and tow the 61 home.

Here is where the fun began. In the dark of night with only a trouble light he would have to drop the transmission and replace the clutch disc
while laying on our driveway. My part in all this was to be like a nurse 
assisting a doctor during surgery handing him the needed tools while learning a whole stream of new words and phrases. If anyone can tell what "I'll be a suck egg dog" refers to I would appreciate a definition.
This too often an operation on the car made me wonder if it would be like a surgeon operating on an appendicitis and only cleaning out the infection but leaving the appendix.  Was it one of those cases where Chevy put in some bolts that were not really needed so you just leave them out when putting a car back together?  I think I heard car companies did that so they could charge more money.

On weekends when there was no drag racing we went to see family in Oklahoma.  Most of the weekend were spent at Dennis's home in Warner since my family was a mess.  No one ever mentioned Dad to Mother or Mother to Dad.  Paul had remarried to a girl with a cute little boy and I lost all contact with his first wife, Joan, and son, Don. That was hard as Joan and I were really good friends. Plus with Mother dumping Dad Dennis's parents no longer liked her. Mother at this time was going through her second childhood, bought a little house in Muskogee and a Corvette.  Visiting was a nightmare to say the least.

Since I was not enthralled with college when Gretchen was not returning somehow a master plan was conjured up. The new plan was to (1) Build a race car since that was all Dennis thought about and we spent every weekend going to watch them (2) Buy a house (3) Have a baby.  That required dollars so I had to find a job doing something that paid a little more than playing with children all day.

Remember what I said in the last story about friends?  I think maybe Gretchen and Howard were the beginning of learning a very important coping skill.

I Should Have Eloped

Maybe Newton's first law of motion describes my agreeing to marry Dennis.  An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. No unbalanced force appeared on the horizon and once I agreed to marry him there was no way of going back.

My brother Kenny actually introduced Dennis and I the summer before I was a senior and he was a student teacher in Industrial Arts at my high school.  Kenny was enthralled with the fact that he had a dragster and we drove down to Warner one day to meet him. Dennis was nice looking, six years older than I and we did not date until February when his student teaching was done.  He followed the rules of not dating students.

After his student teaching was done he took a job teaching in Copan, Oklahoma and was home every weekend.  I was pretty active in school activities and we actually didn't date that much as I was busy.  Add to that the fact I went out with other people at the same time.  He tried to get me to marry him and not go to Stephens.  He ended up going to work for an oil field supply company that summer and moved to Farmington, New Mexico.  In the year and a half before we got married I had seen him a total of eleven dates. If that implies that I really knew very little about him, it's right.

Mother moved into the wedding planner mode.  That was definitely not her calling.  Forget looking at the latest copy of Bride's Magazine.  Let's keep this simple and get it over with was more her idea.  A short wedding dress, described in the newspaper clipping, as waltz length was nothing but ugly.  The attendants dresses were made by Dennis's mother of aqua satin even uglier. And just who plans a wedding for 10:00 on a Saturday morning in January and does the reception at home instead of at the church?  Who invites relatives we have never seen to a daughter's wedding? You guessed - my Mother.

There were three wedding showers all of which I totally blocked out of my mind as I dislike opening presents in front of other people.  I must have received enough towels and crocheted pot holders to open my own store. One shower I do remember as it was given by Ruth Winner from my carpool and Linda Reavis and they spiked the punch.  My Dad loved having me come home quite tipsy. Had to be on my best behavior for the one in Warner and the one Joan, my sister-in-law, gave for me.  
Was I really supposed to be excited about getting an iron or a silver tea service?

Dennis came home a few days before the wedding.  He sold his car, a 1965 Impala, to Kenny and we were keeping my Volkswagen with the cheap car payments.  Moving to New Mexico meant getting all my stuff packed up and sent by railway express.  All my stuff meant all my clothes, books and all those little scraps of memorabilia that I put into scrapbooks as I knew anything left at home would be gone.  Dennis pitched a horrible fit at the $57.00 it cost to send it.  Hmm....didn't know he had a temper.  Then he fainted when we went to have the blood tests done.  Did he faint over the thought of the $57.00 or the sight of his own blood?  I think both.

Pam

Pam came from Columbia to be my Maid of Honor but Cathie couldn't make it from Lubbock so Dennis's sister, Judy, was the bridesmaid.  We got married in the Chapel of Grace Episcopal Church which was a problem because most of Dennis's relatives thought they would be forever condemned to Hell if they set foot in an Episcopal Church.  Added to the problem of the church was the fact that although it was a sunny day at 10:00 in the morning it was 2 degrees with a thirty mile an hour wind out of the west. One of those days it would be better to stay at home by the fireplace so not many people attended.

After the short wedding with very few in attendance everyone moved to our house for the even shorter reception. I must add here that Judy is a little fuzzy in the official wedding photograph as she was so hung over she could hardly keep her eyes open and I am quite sure Pam was still wondering why I was marrying this guy.  We had packed the Volkswagen with most of the stuff the day before and had to go buy a luggage rack to put on top in order to get clothes and extra wedding presents to New Mexico.  All we would have needed would have been a mattress tied on top to look like the Grapes of Wrath. Kenny made matters worse by writing on the car and doing the tin can thing.

Paul, Little Don and The Bride

While I was changing clothes into the lovely going away outfit the phone rang for me.  It was Western Union with a telegram for me.  I must say that is the only telegram I have received in my life.  It said,    
"Congratulations and all the happiness in life. Stop. Just remember I will always love you." Stop. Barney.  Stunned, dumbfounded, total disbelief!  Who does that?  

Was this after the telegram?

Newton's Law suddenly turned into Murphy's Law as anything that could go wrong did.  If it sounds like the wedding went perhaps a bit poorly wait until you hear about the Honeymoon to Red River, New Mexico to go skiing. Priceless!

Not the Clever's

I have always thought how lucky I have been to have grown up in what is called the Baby Boomer generation.  Other age groups will argue that theirs was better but growing up with the music of the Beatles, Elvis and Chuck Berry gave us music to dance by and dance we did.  Boys learned how to fix up older cars if they could not afford the advent of 
Mustangs or Corvettes and drag racing was in it's infancy. The teen movies like Gidget, the Beach Party shows and others instilled the idea that boy meets girl, trouble happens and a breakup occurs but love prevails in the end.  

There was a great deal of innocence and an optimistic attitude that every thing was going to work out great regardless of what happened. 
I woke up every morning confident that it was going to be a wonderful day.  But life is not the movies and all families were not like Beaver Cleaver's.

After dinner the evening Barney went back to Columbia Mother said she wanted to talk to me.  We sat at the kitchen table in a fashion similar to a scene from Dragnet where the interrogation takes place.  This had happened before so I prepared myself for what was to come. I could have never actually prepared myself for that conversation.

Mother

She wanted to know, of course, what Barney's father did for a living and how a college student drives a new Corvette.  Sorry Mom, I didn't have an answer except that his father had passed away when he was an infant and there was a stepfather he didn't talk about very much. Why would I ask him where he got his money when I had been taught never to ask those questions?  What I did tell her was that he was a good student with a 4.0 average, had been an Eagle Scout (not mentioning that she had wanted Paul to be one) and that he wanted to go to Northwestern and get his MBA.  That should impress any parent, right?

Wrong.  Well, on second thought I guessed she was impressed since her next question was just what did he see in me?  Ever have that sudden feeling you couldn't breathe?  Thoughts raced through my head like, would she like to call him and ask him but I knew better than to go there. I probably mumbled something like I didn't know. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised since as hard as I tried to get good grades and do the right thing nothing I did had ever really pleased her.  
She had never liked anyone I dated before thinking they were not good enough for me and now I am not good enough for Barney.

Somehow the interrogation finally ended with something about she didn't send me to Stephens to date or to have fun.  Then there was something about perhaps running around with rich girls made me think I was something I was not. I didn't cry myself to sleep that night, I just cried all night and thought of all the times I had disappointed her by being a cheerleader, doing plays she never came to and just breathing in general. On the other hand I always did all those things she wanted me to do like running for Miss Muskogee, being trophy girl at the stock car races, not going to slumber parties or doing the things all the other girls got to do.  It was like walking on a tightrope everyday.

The next morning she came in my room at 5:00 AM all cheerful as if there had been no discussion the night before.  It was obvious I had been crying all night since my eyes were almost swollen shut but I put on my happy face and had a cheerful cup of coffee with her, helped Kenny with his papers and acted as normal as possible when I wanted to scream.  I fell back into my normal pattern of behavior with her to try to keep the waters calm.  Somehow I knew my return to Stephens was hanging in the balance as well as my relationship with Barney.

Barney called before I left for work that morning and told me how much fun he had with me in Muskogee and how much he loved and missed me.  I did not tell him anything about the conversation with Mother.  
That was normal behavior for me as I never could admit to anyone that our house was not like the Clever's.  I did call Cathie as she had figured out a lot about my home situation during the time we lived together at Stephens. Talking to Barney and Cathie helped me get through the next couple of weeks.

There were lots of phone calls, cards and letters that summer from not only Barney, Pam and Cathie but from the other girls from Stephens.  Some were spending the summer at beaches somewhere or travelling in Europe.  It was fun to get so much mail and I made sure Mother saw the posts cards from exotic places around the world.  Of course there were times I wished I was someplace else but I was happy for all my friends doing exciting things. There was no discussion about Stephens even though there were letters for my parents from them.  

I spent a lot of time with my little nephew, Don.  He turned three that summer and there was a big family birthday party.  Paul had made him a stock car for him out of a pedal car.  I was always available to baby sit and Don loved to go for ice cream with Aunt Nana.  He got to cruise Muskogee in either my VW or Joan's VW convertible as a trip for ice cream was always a good excuse to run around town at night.

Don, Dad, Me and Little Girl

My neighbor, Tom, and I hung out a lot.  He was extremely funny and could brighten any day.  Tom, Kenny and I somehow managed to get tickets to go see Herman and the Hermits in Tulsa. I had to laugh as they sang "Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter" because when that song came out Barney changed all the words and sang it like he was singing to my Mother.  Wonder what she would have thought about that one?

I managed to keep the waters between Mother and I calm until I told her Barney was coming back the first week in August.  That was when she announced that she and Dad were not sure they could afford to send me back to Stephens.  Okay - for one thing, Dad did not agree to that but he would not disagree with Mother.  Secondly, with a scholarship and a grant tuition, room and board for both semesters was half paid for.  In my typical fashion I did not remind Mother that it was her idea in the first place to go to Stephens.  The sad part was that no one argued with Mother except Paul.  I guess Dad, Kenny and I watched some of the consequences of arguing between them and knew it was fruitless to try to get your point of view across.

Barney was to arrive the following Sunday and I had no idea how the visit would go.

Home for the Summer

Dad and I left Columbia mid-morning on Friday for the drive back to Muskogee for the summer.  Driving through Missouri, even on the interstate, is a beautiful drive.  Since Dad was not much of a talker we sped along in his 1960 Studebaker Golden Hawk with not much conversation.  The further we got away from Columbia the more I already wished I was back there. The positive thoughts about going home for the summer and how fast the summer would pass were quickly fading.

During that drive there were a lot of questions I could have asked my Dad.  Being at school and hearing other girls tell about their families and hearing bits and pieces of their conversations with their parents on the phone I had begun to realize that I actually knew very little about my parents.  Growing up I was told by my Mother that all families had their disagreements and I guess I figured all families had their little secrets. Somehow I got the impression that other families had a lot more fun and a lot more conversation than mine. Never did ask why Dad came to pick me up instead of Mother or both of them.  

Mother was pleasant when we arrived and I snapped into my best smiling behavior. If it was hard for me to not "rock the boat" for a week during spring vacation three months were going to be very difficult.  At least I had a job six days a week and brother Kenny to help me out.  On Sunday Kenny drove me out to Meadowbrook Country Club to see Bob, my boss.  He was happy to see me and I was to start as the lifeguard on Tuesday.

There was just on slight problem with the job.  My hours were to be from 10:00 to 12:00 and from 1:00 to 7:00 Tuesday through Sunday. Sunday evening I brought up the subject of how was I going to get to and from work since Mother sold my beautiful faded red 1954 Chevy convertible when I left for college.  Mom, Dad and Kenneth all had to be at work at 8:00.  Sounded like a problem to me.  Ahh, but Mother had the answer.  She would drop me at the club on her way to work a little before 8:00 and someone would come pick me up at 7:00.  Wow, that was going to be fun. I smiled and agreed to the plan thinking what in the world was I going to do for two hours before I was actually supposed to be at work?

The first week went reasonably well. I got my usual severe burn which required me to only wear bathing suits at all times and sleep sitting on the living room floor with my head on a pillow on the coffee table.  Once several layers of skin burned off I had my California Beach tan and all was fine. One day it rained and I got to sit in the clubhouse and play cards all day with Bob. Then one night everyone forgot to pick me up and I waited until 7:45 to call home.  Slowly the conversation got around to me needing a car since I was so much trouble.

My salvation was that Barney called once a week and sent me a dozen red roses for my birthday.  He had signed up for nine hours in summer school which was a lot for the classes and homework he had to do.  
Even with all the studying he wrote letters and sent cards and I did the same. 

Mother was a little miffed about the flowers and I told her they were from a friend but I was sure she had read the card before I got home.  
It was interesting that she never asked about him and I did not offer any explanation. There was just no way I could tell her about him or how much I loved him.  That was simply not something she would have understood since she had never liked anyone I had ever dated.


Dad I and went car shopping and I ended up with a new 1965 green Volkswagon.  Amazing that the car payments were only $52.00 a month with Dad co-signing the note. At least I had transportation to get to work at the correct time and home.  The one thing I discovered was that there really wasn't time to run around town and that I really didn't have any friends to hang out with.  In the course of the time I was at Stephens I had completely lost touch with all my high school friends.

My neighbor, Tom, who was a year younger than me started coming out to the pool in the afternoons which was fun. There was a small grocery store in Muskogee called The Palace that would not sell cigarettes to minors but they certainly would sell beer to them.  Tom would go to the Palace and buy a couple of bottles of beer, then go to the A&W Root Beer stand and buy cones of root beer, pour it out and fill them with beer.  It was probably pretty terrible for the only lifeguard on duty to sit in front of the kids and drink "root beer" but it was rather fun and no one ever drowned.

Seems like I remember Mother totally hating all the time I spent at the stock car races the summer before.  Interesting that Bob came out to the pool one Friday morning and said I had a phone call.  He watched the kids and I answered the call from Mother.  She said that they needed a Trophy Girl for the races that night and she volunteered me.
Nice when your Mother works for the newspaper that owned the radio station that broadcast the races and found Trophy Girls.  She told me I needed to go to Mr. Darrel's Beauty Shop at 7:00 to get my hair done and be at the races by 8:30. This was not exactly on my list of things to do for the evening but I knew better than to decline the order. What girl would turn down something like that plus getting her hair done for free?


Some how I managed to survive the month of June without causing too much family turmoil.  Barney called and said he was coming to Muskogee between summer school semesters.  I was overjoyed to be able to see him but at the same worried about Mother's reaction.

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.

Making The Best of a Not Merry Christmas

Funny how we look forward to something, imagine how much fun it is going to be and whip it up in our mind to be nothing short of spectacular.  When I did that it usually turned out to be a disaster.  Guess I learned pretty young that one needs a great amount of "spring back" to navigate through life.

Going home for Christmas after four months away at college still stands out as one of those events.  What I imagined as two and a half weeks of family, fun and Christmas spirit was quickly dashed the moment I got off the plane.  For some reason Mother was not prepared for the once again blonde haired daughter who arrived with luggage forty pounds overweight filled with clothes borrowed from friends. It was several days later that she began speaking to me.  Actually I didn't want to talk to her as she had sold my car.  

This was behavior I was quite used to since any minor little mistake, coming home from a date late, dating someone she didn't like, getting involved with cheer leading, plays or not agreeing with her on every thought she had resulted in the same silent treatment. Poor Dad was treated the same way.  We actually went on a vacation once when Mother did not speak to Dad for the entire two weeks we were gone. That was an interesting trip filled with the usual "Donna, would you tell your Father it it time to eat" or "Donna, would you tell your Father he is on the wrong road".  I did learn to read a map at an early age.  

I learned from Dad to simply live through the silence until I was on Mother's list of people who were worth talking to.  There was never a discussion on why she was not speaking to us and acted like everything was fine.  Placating her moods and whims was not good for either of us and was a behavior pattern I kept for far too many years.



I do remember a few things about those three and a half weeks of Christmas vacation. A guy, Dennis, I had dated my senior year came home for a few days.  He had been a student teacher at our high school and was off in New Mexico working.  Before I had left for college he was in the "marry me now or never" mode. He was older and more serious than I was and the idea of marriage was pretty far out of my realm.  I left for college which was my answer to his question.  When he came home that Christmas I got him to take me to see the Ice Capades in Tulsa.  That was fun. My answer to his question was the same as it had been in the fall.

My lifesaver was a boy who was a year younger than me that lived around the corner. Tom had been in the speech department at high school with me.  We started hanging out together and went to a dance or two, the movies and I got to counsel him on his girl problems.  He was extremely funny and I seem to remember that we laughed all the time. Besides he had to be home earlier than I so I stayed out of trouble in that respect with Mother. Guess Tom was not a threat to Mother's little world.

Tom at Honor Heights Park

One day we went out and took pictures of the "sights" in Muskogee so I could take them back to college and show them to my friends. On New Year's Eve we went to a dance at Meadowbrook Country Club where I had been a lifeguard the summer before.  Mother was in the hospital after having some surgery.  We stopped by the hospital before the dance.  Tom was wearing a huge black cape and carrying a briefcase in which we had put a bottle of champagne and some glasses to celebrate the evening with Mother.  Must have been as interesting sight. I think I was actually celebrating that in two days I would be on the plane headed back to college. Doing silly things with Tom saved that Christmas time at home.



This has been a very hard story to write.   I have spent the last six weeks trying to decide how to explain the patterns of behavior I developed growing up.  If I didn't then I really could not go on with my stories.  So many of our choices and decisions we make through our life come from patterns of behavior we learn at a very young age.  My term "spring back" that I used in the first part of this story gave me the ability to make the most of a bad decision or situation.  When things were not good or happy I have the ability to put them aside and spring back to a happier mode. I have also had the great good fortune of having friends and family I could depend on.

It gets really interesting from here on.  If you want to keep reading go back up to the top and hit the little subscribe box.  You will get put on the automatic mailing list.