The End of the Semester

The last three weeks at Stephens were busy trying to catch up on all the classroom assignments and finals.  Trucks and boxes lined the halls of the dorms so everything could be packed and shipped as most of the girls would be flying home. It seemed like there were more instructions than one had time to read.  Lucky me didn't have to worry about packing too much as Dad was coming to pick me up and the only worry was that he could find his way to Columbia.

The University of Missouri had it's last big fling the second weekend of May.  It was a huge street dance with a couple of bands and everyone from the whole area, students or not, always attended. Barney picked me up about 6:00 so we could find a place to park in close proximity. He had a picnic dinner and a 24 can case of pony cans of Colt 45 Malt Liquor to pass out to friends who wanted some.  

Now I have to say here that I was not much of a drinker and neither was Barney. For one reason any drinking could get girls sent home from Stephens if they got caught and those were the days when "nice" girls did not drink. I was also one of those who got very sick after two or three glasses of wine which was not a pretty sight.  But...there was something about the Colt 45 that tasted pretty good.

I woke up about 6:00 the next morning feeling fantastic.  As I thought about all the fun I had it suddenly dawned on me that I did not remember anything beyond about 10:00 and we did not have to be in that night until 1:00.  Ever have one of those moments of sheer terror?
As hard as I tried there was no way anything came to mind until I did remember laying on the floor of my room and everyone laughing at me.
The panic was setting in so I called Barney and woke him up with the question of what did I do last night?

He started laughing and asked what I remembered. When I told him nothing past 10:00 he told me he never heard so many jokes from someone in his life.  Me?  I never tell jokes because I don't remembered them. Guess I did that night and then he said he never saw a funnier drunk that I had danced my feet off but the funniest was when I managed to sing with his friend's band. He wondered how I managed to sing all the words to the song as much beer I had to drink.  How much I did drink came pretty close to all but one can in the case.

He asked how I did signing in at the dorm?   Cathie and some other girls were at the dance and did work for an hour to try to sober me up. Barney and I sat on the bench outside the dorm waiting for Cathie to come up to escort me in. Cathie filled in the rest of the story.  She said I managed to get in the dorm and she pulled out my card from the box for me so I could sign in.  Mrs. Wells was standing right there as she usually did and noticed I signed in upside down. Cathie said I told her I had lost my glasses and couldn't see a thing. Mrs. Wells expressed her concern about my lost glasses I am sure she never saw me wear.  How I managed to not get caught drinking that night I will never know.

All my finals went very well thanks to Barney.  It was easy to study together since he was Mr 4.0.  Hours could go by and we didn't say a word to each other which was much better than trying to study with Cathie, Sally or Erin.  They managed to create endless laughter all the time.  Somehow Cathie and I both made A's in boating since we were the best at righting the boats and getting back in no doubt due to all the practice Cathie created for us.

Dad did manage to arrive in Columbia without much trouble.  Maybe he just drove thru the same town three times in a row when Mother was in the car with him.  He, Barney and I went out for dinner the last night to the nicest restaurant in town. Dad and Barney got along very well and I was beginning to learn that my Dad was a lot different when Mother was not around. 

Back at the dorm there was one last thing to do before I went home.  There was this ceremony that took place after everyone was in the dorm for the night.  If any girl got dropped (a fraternity necklace), pinned with a fraternity pin or engaged (a ring)  everyone stood in a circle and passed a candle around until the lucky girl blew it out.  The candle would go around once for dropped, twice for pinned and three times for engaged before it was blown out.  Most of us hated the whole ordeal.

The very last night on campus I borrowed a diamond ring from one of the girls and told Mrs. Wells that Barney and I were engaged. I don't know how the ten or twelve girls who knew this was a joke kept from cracking up. It was hard for me to keep a straight face as the candle went around three times. When I blew it out everyone screamed and hugged and all that dumb stuff while the ones in on the secret got a huge laugh. Luckily Barney was in on the joke because when he arrived the next morning to help me move out of the dorm Mrs. Wells could not congratulate him enough.

The next morning the halls of the dorm were filled with girls running around saying bye to each other and getting ready to fly home or waiting for parents to pick them up.  Barney arrived early and by the time Dad arrived we had most of my belongings down all four flights of stairs.  When we had a few minutes together Barney said he thought about buying me a present but could not think of something really special to get.  He handed me his high school letter he had received playing football and said he would love me as long as I kept it. There could not have been a special gift and one that I still have today.

Leaving Stephens for the summer did not seem to be all that sad as everyone was returning in the fall and the "Big Eight" as we called ourselves would all be back together.  Barney was going to summer school and promised to write, call and come visit.  Three months were going to fly by.

Little did I know that I was heading home for the worst summer of my life.

Learning New Things About Someone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                           No chance I could be like Gidget this year

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


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