The Senior Prom

I have been sitting here staring at my empty blog page for the last hour wondering how and why I remember all this stuff.  Somehow I don't think it is the old-age thing where you can only remember things from long ago since I can tell you what I ate last Tuesday or a conversation with a client about interior design fifteen years ago.  But don't despair if you can't remember events.  I can't recall exactly when the Class of 64's high school prom was or the theme, if there was one.

Etched in my memory are all the events leading up to and the evening itself.  Since my parents never took any pictures after I was five or six the only piece of memorabilia I have is a corsage and a card in a scrap book marking the occasion. At least I took pictures of my son, Wes, heading off to his prom at a fancy hotel ballroom in Detroit wearing a tux and riding in a limo. To haunt Wally for the rest of his life is a picture of him and his date, he in the sliver sequined tie and cumber bun I made him to match his date's dress. Oh well, on with the story.

When prom time approached I was not dating anyone very steadily.  Guess I was too busy with plays or the concept of being the next Miss America. There was a boy I had a few dates with, nothing serious.  My mother didn't like him because when he came over to our house he would pick little pieces of the rubber off his tennis shoes and deposited them on the floor. Perhaps she scared the crap out of him which is a good possibility.  

Actually I was not too crazy about him.  All through high school I had double dated with him and his date on several occasions and gone to parties at his house. He was, I will add, rather full of himself. But when he asked me to go to the prom I was not about to send him packing as there were no other prospects on the horizon. So Mother had to keep sweeping up pieces of rubber from his tennis shoes and I endured endless evenings of hearing how great he was.  Until the phone call.

There are certain events in a teenager life that one never forgets.  About a week and a half before the prom with the dress made, shoes dyed to match and beauty shop appointment confirmed he called and told me he found someone better to go to the prom with. I don't remember what I said to him that night - probably very little.  I know what I would have said to him at this point in my life but I was pretty nice back then.

The minute I hung up the phone the tears started to flow and I remember yelling, "I knew he would do it, I knew he would do it!".  Mother said something to console me but there was nothing anyone could have said to stop the now buckets of tears falling from my eyes. Now you have to realize that when I really am heartbroken it is difficult for me to stop crying.  The more I cry, the more my eyes tend to swell closed.  Not a pretty sight.  After crying all night, no doubt knowing my life was over, I had to go to school the next day.

The next morning I did not recognize the face that I saw in the mirror.  My eyes were so swollen that they were only little slits plus I had a pounding headache.  My darling pharmacist Dad did not offer me any drugs and I did not know at the time how well Preparation H worked on swollen eyes.  So I had to go off to school and face the questions as to what was the matter.  If I had answered that question the flood of tears would have started again. I spent most of the day avoiding everyone but getting strange looks from all my classmates.

Speech class was one of my last classes of the day.  Most of the kids were lot asking questions by that time but one boy seemed very concerned. He was the best of the best when it came to debate, almost the same height I was, rather tiny actually and wore big horned rimmed glasses. We had been in classes together all through high school but I really did not know him all that well.  He very quietly asked me what was wrong and somehow I managed to tell him about the jerk who broke the date to the prom with me without bursting into tears.

He looked at me through those huge glasses and said the same thing happened to him.  I don't think any tears fell during our conversation but if they had the tears would have been as much for him as for myself.  The girl that broke the date with him was really cute and they would have made a darling couple.  I think I got over feeling sorry for myself the instant he told me his story. Forget about the jerk who broke the date with me - how could anyone do that to someone as nice as Drew?

Did he ask me to the Prom right then?  I can't really remember but to characterize a popular cartoon of the day on TV  It was like Mighty Mouse coming to save the day.  Flowers would have popped up at the bottom of the screen and birds and clouds would have floated through the sky.
Funny how fast an upside down world can turn right side up.  I think I knew from the minute he asked me to the Prom that I would have the best time ever.

 Wish I had I had a picture of my dress.  I had learned from a lot of negative experiences with "special occasion" dresses that I had to take matters into my own hands.  If I had asked Dad he would have said to go to one of the department stores and pick one out and charge it. In those days you just signed a hand-written ticket. He would have then faced the wrath of Mother over it.  If I went shopping with Mother she would have picked out something I hated or had me wear some goofy dress I already had.  This had to be special and my choice.

So I went to the fabric department of Hunt's Department Store and bought everything I needed to make what I wanted to wear and charged it.  I remember it was sleeveless (I wasn't good at putting sleeves in), a slightly gathered skirt to the floor and gold satin on the bottom, maybe a brocade on the top.  The Buster Brown Shoe Store stocked in hundreds of pairs of white satin heels. Once you bought the size you needed they dyed them to match your dress.  I have the thought that the dress may have actually been hideous but I was always proud of something I made.

Prom night arrived and Drew came to pick me up. He looked quite smashing all dressed up and it only took a few minutes for me to get over the fact that I was taller in the gold satin heels.  Off we went to dinner at Baker's Catfish Restaurant where we were surrounded by many other Prom attendee's.  Then off to the dance at the high school gym where we danced the night away.  Of course we saw the two villains that broke dates with us and I think we both had to laugh as we were having more fun than any other couple there.

Back in those days I know there were "after parties" as I had been to one my sophomore year that was not fun and I got into trouble for getting home late. My junior year I had to get a ride home with another couple due to a huge argument with my date, once again late, once again in trouble.  Drew took me home by the stroke of midnight, sort of like a Cinderella except I had both of my shoes.  It had been one perfect night and the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

Marshell has been telling me for the last twenty years that everything happens for a reason and it usually happens for the best. Guess I was learning that little fact early on and just did not realize it.  

                                                        Drew                                                            

But What Was I Thinking

The interesting thing about writing for me is that I really have to be in the right mood or the moon has to be in the right place or some current event can't overshadow the track I try to stay on.  It must have been some summer since my last post about high school was on June the 30th. Someday I may actually finish telling stories about my senior year in high school.

We all have, or at least I hope every one has had, those times when you look back at something you did and wonder what in the world you were thinking. I only confess some of this stuff so that you can laugh
about some of the really dumb things I did so you don't feel bad about about your goof-ups.  Isn't that thoughtful of me?  I still sort of cringe at the thought that I actually ran for Miss Muskogee.

There is a good chance I could have put this dumb stunt completely out of my memory if I had not hoarded every bit of memorabilia I could save from the time I was born up to this date. Most of it stayed boxed up through twenty-seven moves until I got tired of looking at boxes and unpacked all of them when we moved here. Being slightly OCD every thing is neatly organized.  One never knows when you might need your high school English compositions, college Chemistry notes or your old divorce papers.

I am a little fuzzy about how I came about this brilliant decision to be Miss Muskogee.  I feel like it was my Mother, the same Mother who hated everything I got involved in, who suggested it.  I can not imagine myself even in my wildest imagination thinking I would end up on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City as a Miss America contestant so it had to be a Mother thing.  Maybe I wouldn't feel so bad about entering if they had begged for girls to enter so they could even have a Miss Muskogee contest.  Then I could say I only entered to help them out.  No.  I was the first one to enter.

Thank heavens there is a lot about the pageant I can not remember. I was hoping there was not a bathing suit competition until I looked at the program and discovered there was indeed a swimsuit competition. It must have been so bad I that I filed it back in the part of the brain labelled 'Never Open".  I was at that time a good twenty or twenty-five pounds heavier than I am now.  My Mother used to tell me I was not fat, just solid.  Now just what did that mean?  You don't describe Sumo wrestlers as solid so maybe it wasn't such a bad description. It was and still is a puzzling term I have never quite figured out.  At any rate, I still cannot see my self parading across the stage in a bathing suit......and high heels.

I do remember the DRESS.  I don't know where that dress came from and I can never remember wearing it again.  It was a good thing my parents did not take any pictures or it would be etched in the minds of other people instead of just mine.  Back in the day Seventeen Magazine and Ladies Home Journal had these pages that gave "dos and don'ts" for different figure types.  If you wanted to look slimmer you did not wear tight clothes or horizontal stripes.  Don't wear skirts below your knees if you wanted to look taller.  If you have a square shaped face you did not wear a square cut top and on and on.  I tried to abide by all the "dos" they preached.

Well, when you have a Mother who looked like she just stepped out of Vogue magazine in anything she put on it was a bad idea to allow her to take you shopping. The dress had a square cut neckline, fit tightly to the waist where it then joined a gathered shirt that was well below my knees but not floor length.  Add to that short puffy sleeves that resembled balloons in a medium brown satin.  To make matters even worse - brown is not a color I should ever wear since it makes me look like I died three days ago. Try not to picture me leaning against a piano singing some song now hidden in the "Never Open" file flat, off-key and out of tempo and you have my talent part of the competition.

Maybe the Evening Gown Competition went better. I think I wore the dress I wore to the Senior prom that year since it is the only long dress I can ever remember having during high school.  Needless to say I did not become Miss Muskogee.  Nor have I ever put being in the pageant on my resume.

I would really like to add here that I never had another time in my life when I asked myself "What were you thinking!"  Seems like in my last story I mentioned that in writing these stories I was beginning to see a pattern of behavior developing.  Sadly, this was only the first of many "What was I thinking" moments.  Next week will start out as one of those when I accepted a date to the prom.  You will have to see how that one turned out.

Anything Can Happen If You Let It

It is amazing how fast time flies especially when you are having fun.  I can't believe it has been a month since I wrote.  There were lots of good intentions but it seems like when I got involved in Mary Poppins a lot of things sort of got put on hold.  What an amazing experience it was.

Let's Go Fly A Kite

b
Back in June I wrote a story about going to the auditions for Ardmore Little Theater's production of Mary Poppins. It had been many years since I had gone to actual auditions for anything, had never been to a production there and only knew one person who was going to try out. To top everything off I had only gotten permission from the orthopedist four days before that I no longer had to have my broken arm in a sling after twelve weeks. Actually since I did not have any music for the singing audition and my arm would only bend up and down at the elbow for the dance audition I decided to just go and see what it was all about.

It was a very strange feeling that swept over me watching other people audition. Memories of my first week of college sort of flooded back.  I had decided to major in theater and dance at college until I went to the classes the first week of school. I was attending an all-girl's college rather well known for it's theater and dance programs.  They actually had a summer stock theater and an awesome dance program.  My only problem was that "preppy" little me was overwhelmed by the multitude of beautiful girls in their leotards, capes and long flowing hair. After a week of agony my advisor suggested I switch to TV, Radio and Film Production.  That worked for me.

Somehow I managed to get through the Mary Poppins auditions and did get a call back and a place in the show.  Even managed to have two lines and as a member of the ensemble was in all the musical numbers.  I can't praise the cast, directors or the stage and set crews highly enough.  It is hard to believe that in thirty-eight days from auditions to opening Mary Poppins was a smash hit.  One gentleman told my husband, Marshell, that it was the very best musical production he had ever seen at the Ardmore theater.

Step In Time

Being "newbie" as I was called early on in the rehearsals was not always easy.  It was always hard to answer the questions about my theater resume which is pretty nonexistent since high school and college.  Also just a little difficult to realize that I was at least fifteen to twenty years older than anyone else in the cast. But I had spent a good thirty years writing and directing plays for children and organizing talent shows at my children's schools so they had the same opportunities that I had growing up.  Then there were years I spent with the Southfield, Michigan Ice Company.  If I could go from only being able to stop and start on ice skates when I got into the show to four years later joining a competitive Precision Ice Team, I could do this play.



A song from the play goes:
Anything can happen of you let it
If you reach for the stars all you get are the stars
But if you reach for the heavens, you get the start Stars thrown in

I sort of disagree with the "let it happen" idea.  No one involved with this show just "let" things happen. From the little boy who played Michael who could not even read the words in the script to begin with but delivered seven flawless performances to the college freshman who played Mary Poppins who was bruised and sore after two nights of "flying" practise in addition to her father being in a bad accident but never missed a rehearsal and was always perfect in every way.  They didn't let it happen, they made it happen.  

 The cast of fourty some people, the director who kept changing things to make the show perfect, the musical director who could teach anyone to sing with constructive and not hurtful words, the choreographer would could get dancers to go beyond their limits, the two costume ladies who kept their composure with constant problems, to the set guys who kept building and rebuilding the sets to make them work, to the sound and lighting crew that made the show sound and look great and to the stage manager who held everyone and every thing together none of these people "let" this play happen.  They all worked hard and MADE it happen.

Cast Of Mary Poppins

There is a Mary Poppins Facebook page where during the show we were all kept up to date on rehearsal times.  It has been changed to Mary Poppins Post-Show Blues Support Group. It is amazing how down everyone gets when a show you spent every waking minute working on or thinking about is suddenly over. People you spent so much time and laughter with have suddenly gone back to their before-the-show lives. So we all keep in touch and tell each other it is okay to wake up in the morning singing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious or Step In Time and how to deal with what to do every evening now that there is no rehearsal to go to.

Bank Scene

I told one of the cast members that I had driven 2,509.7 miles to get to Ardmore for the auditions and the show.  She said that I could have taken a nice vacation driving all those miles. Maybe but it was actually a lot more fun making the drive singing at the top of my lungs (good practise) and being a part of Mary Poppins.

Lily and Ben with Mary Poppins

Politics Is Very Discouraging

Although I started my blog with the intention of staying on track writing about how much fun and how lucky I am to have grown up as one of the first baby boomers there are times when events cause me to side step for a moment.  A few months back I wrote a story about how I would not vote for anyone who refused to raise taxes.  There is another one on the importance of getting away from of our dependence on fossil fuels.  This morning the the sad state of our political affairs makes it difficult to write about anything else.

Having grown up in the fifties and sixties, dysfunctional as my family was, my parents taught us rules to live by that everyone seems to have forgotten. My brothers and I all had paper routes early in our teenage years so we learned the value of work and that if you wanted something you had to work for it.  My parent's bought us our first cars, usually one at least ten years old, but it was our job to keep them running. Auto mechanics became an important thing to learn even for a girl.

Neither of my parents were prejudice against other races or religions.  I was raised in the Episcopal church but being curious one summer when I was eleven or twelve I read thirty nine books on all the religions of the world.  Between those books and my dear Uncle Tom I learned that humans have a need to believe in a higher power for rules to live by.  It all boils down to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". As long as you live by that rule it does not matter what religion you follow.

The town I grew up in had a large black population.  Even with living through the era of the Civil Rights Act and all the riots that followed I don't remember ever even thinking anyone of a different color was any different from myself.  I can remember being totally bewildered by some of my college friends from the deep south and their views on integration.  I am bewildered today by the racial comments against not only blacks but about any person of another nationality or religion.

It is rather interesting that I learned about homosexuality when I was eighteen, in a time when no one spoke about it.  There was a nice family that lived in my neighborhood that I threw newspapers to.  They had two darling little girls that became my very first students in swimming lessons.  I heard some rumors about the family and my parents explained their lifestyle to me.  They were nice people, they were good to me so what was the big deal.  In my forties I had the opportunity to skate in an ice show for five years with many people who had a lifestyle different than mine.  Whether I liked them or not was based on their friendship and personality, not their sexual orientation.

My parents did not own guns or hunt animals.  My mother bought my Dad stupid things like a bow and then a twelve gauge shotgun thinking he needed a hobby.  Neither were ever used.  When I was in college I accepted a date with a guy who had a cool Porsche to go rabbit hunting in the snow.  When "Thumper" hopped out in front of us I made so much noise he quickly vanished.  So did the date.  I have never owned a gun because in my heart I know I could never shoot an animal and even at the threat of my life, another human being. I guess it is okay to own guns but have never understood shooting an animal and certainly not another human being.  This is coming from someone who lived in some of the largest cities as a single parent, including Detroit, without a gun and who generally did not lock doors or windows.

One of the most memorable lessons I learned occurred when I was in the second grade.  A neighbor boy, good friend of mine, and I  were riding our bikes home from school one day and somehow my bike fell into his.  The crash resulted in damage to my bike and I went home and told my Mother it was all his fault.  She went to the principle of the school, a meeting of everyone involved took place in the principle's office and I had to tell the truth that it really was my fault.  I received a spanking at school, a spanking at home and had to go apologize to the boy and his mother. That was my lesson in why you should not lie. There are always consequences when you do something wrong and that was one of the best lessons to learn.

Somehow I never understood the Women' Movement.  Sure I think that every one should have equal rights and equal pay but I can't tell you how much I enjoyed being a stay at home Mom.  I always had a home-based little business that allowed me to participate in the activities of my two boys. It was pure heaven to get to go on school field trips, band trips for long weekends and drag races all over the country. I never had to worry about the children being sick as I could stay home and give them extra attention that they needed. That to me was Women's Lib and there was enough time for a career when they got older.

When my youngest son was fourteen we moved to a new city.  He had braces on his teeth and I found one of the best orthodontists in the area to take him to. When he was examined the orthodontist said that he really needed his lower jaw lengthened by an oral surgeon to correct his overbite.  We went to the recommended oral surgeon and were deciding whether to proceed with the surgery or not when one evening on the local news there was a story about the oral surgeon we had been to see.  He had been arrested for faking prescriptions for opiates for himself. They did not take his license to practice away but only gave him three hundred hours of community service.

When returning to the orthodontist I questioned him about the oral surgeon.  How could I in good faith have my son go thru a surgery performed by someone hooked on drugs?  Wasn't that teaching my son that it was okay to do drugs at a time in his young life you want to keep him from being involved with drugs?  The orthodontist was furious that I would question him on his recommendation.  He would not recommend another oral surgeon and we had the braces removed.

Being human I have fallen down in some of the principles I learned through life from time to time.  But I own up to the mistakes I make and always know that I create whatever situation I get myself into. I raised my children to live by the same standards that I grew up with and am very proud of the adults they have become.

So, how does the current political situation fit into the basic principles I was raised by and the things I believe.  Sorry to say that it doesn't.  
There is no presumptive nominee for President of the United States that I can in good conscience vote for.  In past elections I have made some stupid decision to vote for the lesser of two evils, voted for some third party off-the -wall candidate or stayed home and not voted at all. It seems like the candidates that I thought were honest and trustworthy that I voted for never won.  That says to me that something is wrong with this system.

The sad part is that WE, the people, have created this situation.  We have fallen into a habit of voting for candidates that perhaps have one platform we like and disregard anything else about them.  Maybe we liked the fact that they were rich and powerful overlooking how many lives they ruined to get there.  Then there was the thought that it was time for a person of color or a woman, maybe that was just what the country needs.  Maybe we really believed that they could give us all that they promised when they actually were only after more power and greed for themselves.  Maybe we were so die hard about whatever political party we were affiliated with that voting for their candidate was the only way to vote even though the party candidate was not someone we could trust and believe in.  Maybe this is the time to stop thinking every thing will work out.

This year when I go to the polls I will leave the little boxes for President empty.  I look at it from the aspect that no one running for President fits my code of morality, will not try to enact the things this country needs and is not trustworthy enough for my vote.  I will vote for down-ballot candidates that I believe are honest, trustworthy, stand up for what they believe in and are really going to govern my city, my state and my country for the people, not themselves or for the big business that supports them. At least maybe that is a start on getting this country back to being a country of the people, by the people and for the people.

Your comments are always welcome.  If you want to keep reading my saga throughlife there is a little box in my profile where you can add your email address.  It may add a little humor or insught into your day and you may realize that the path through life may not always be easy but it sure can be educational and fun.

There was A Serious Side To Being A Senior

Even though it is great fun to write about all the fun and silly things we did in high school in the sixties there was a little more serious side to school.  My parents had always said that there was not just twelve years of school, but sixteen.  That meant they expected my two brothers and I to go to college.

Older brother, Paul, had gotten married his senior year and had no interest in going.  He was not a great lover of hitting the books and by the summer after his graduation he had not only a wife, but a child to support.  Little brother, Kenny, was not all enthralled with school even though Mother had visions of him going to M.I.T.  Dream on, Mother.
So, the dutiful daughter, the one who worked hard at keeping the Mother happy, started the wheels in motion towards going to college.

Back in the day it seems like we all took the S.A.T. and ACT tests without any big study sessions.  Did they even have special classes on taking the tests?  I don't remember any and I think we just signed up, paid the fee and showed up at the appointed place at the appointed time.  Guess we just relied on what we knew and moaned later when the scores arrived.  I remember doing well in everything except math, which was not surprising.

Of course I wanted to go to college where my friends were going.  I remember applying to Oklahoma University, Oklahoma State University and Arkansas.  Mother had other ideas.  She decided that an all-girls college would be the best idea.  Swell.  We comprised and I got to apply to the ones I wanted and then to the ones she picked out. Not being overly optimistic I figured that there was a good chance I would be rejected by Smith, Vassar and Stephens.  Then I could pick the one of the one I wanted to attend.

The college applications were sent off and then the lecture came about how I needed a summer job besides my paper route to save money for college or at least earn some money for clothes or whatever.  There was only one fast food restaurant in town and I am not sure they hired teenagers back then.  By chance I happened to think being a lifeguard might be fun so I asked the manager of Meadowbrook County Club where I played golf if he needed a lifeguard for the summer.  Since he and I had become pretty good friends he agreed that I could have the job as the lifeguard for the summer if I got my senior lifesaving card.

Luckily the YMCA offered a Lifesaving Course that spring.  I was not a real strong swimmer as it was always more fun to go to the pool at Honor Heights park and try to look cool in front of all the boys.  Gads - I can remember that we had to wear bathing caps back then.  They actually made them with flowers all over them so you did not look like a pin head. I really don't remember any boy being attracted to a girl who showed traits of being an Olympic swimmer so lounging by the side of the pool getting a tan was the "in" thing. The class at the YMCA was a test of will to keep from drowning myself several nights a week.

While I was trying very hard not to drown the college acceptance letters starting arriving.  There are so many insecure moments in a  teenage life that the neatly typed letters with a college seal can suddenly make a real difference in how you look at yourself.  It suddenly does not matter if you were popular, handsome, pretty smarter or could run faster than anyone else. Someone somewhere thought you had value just by the words written on a piece of paper.

By some real miracle I was accepted to every college I applied to.  I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to go but I knew that my choice did not matter.  Mother chose Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.
Perhaps in reading the school catalogs she figured this one had the most stringent rules.  The real kicker in the final acceptance was the home visit by a Stephens representative.  

One would have thought that the President of the United States was coming to visit.  For the three weeks preceding "the visit" the already immaculate house was thoroughly cleaned several times.  Shopping trips to Tulsa for just the right clothing were frequent. For me to look wholesome my blonde hair had to be dyed back to something far from my natural color of brown. Then the unthinkable happened in that the date for the home visit was the same evening as my final test for the Senior Lifesaving Certificate.  Oh well.  There really was enough time for me to do both.

The last night of the swimming class was brutal, as I remember.  We had to swim thirty laps of the pool and then jump in with clothes on, remove the clothes down to the bathing suit and save the instructor.  Still not sure how I managed to do that but did.  My question is why don't the water rescue people on television news broadcasts show the people jumping into flood waters to save people removing all their clothes?  Must only be something they thought of in the sixties.  After getting my official lifesaving card I rushed out the door of the YMCA for a mad dash home.  Upon arrival I knew I was in trouble when I noticed a strange car in the driveway.  Nothing else to do but go into the house in my wet bathing suit, wet hair and clutching an arm load of school clothes and books.

 Mr. Wilkerson, from Stephens College, was chatting with my very distraught Mother and my smiling Father when I arrived.  What the conversation was about does not come to mind since all I could think about was the dress my Mother had picked out for me to wear was still hanging in my room.  Mr. Wilkerson smiled and laughed a lot during the interview but probably because my wet bathing suit made a huge water spot on the upholstered chair.  At the end of the interview he did announce, much to my Mother's relief, that I was accepted as an incoming Freshman at Stephens College.  Dad wrote out the deposit check and Mr. Wilkerson from Stephens winked at me as he went on his way to some other girl's home.  I can just imagine some of the family situations he viewed as he visited all the homes of high school girls.

Disaster avoided all in one evening.  I now had a job as a lifeguard for the summer along with the early morning paper route and I had been accepted into college.  The other good thing was that I did not have to put on the ugly dress Mother had thought would make me look the part of a sane, wholesome high school senior. Wonder what the outcome would have been if things had gone the way Mother wanted them too?

It is rather fun and interesting to look back on my senior year in high school and realize that a lot of lifetime patterns and behavior began to emerge.  Some good and some bad but you will learn about those as I keep writing.  There are still a lot more humorous stories from that crazy year - well - actually every year.  Stay tuned!

If you want to keep reading my silly saga through life there is a little box in my profile where you can add your email address.  Sending it out as a group email is not working well since gmail thinks it is spam.  It may add a little humor to your day and you may realize that the path through life may not always work out the way you want it to but it sure can be fun.

How Lucky I Am To Be A Baby Boomer - Senior Year

Class of 64 wondering what to do next

It is time to get back to the stories about the Muskogee High School Class of 64.  Considering that our class consisted of five hundred students that blended together in the tenth grade from two different junior high schools it was hard for me to know all the ornery things everyone did.  Remembering them is a another thing.

What has really been fun for me is that in the last few months fellow classmates have sent me comments on the stories I have written.  I fully realize that there are some for whom high school does not have a lot of happy memories.  Life gets very complicated, memories of good friends and good times fade but it is fun to look back and have a good laugh at the silly things we did.

Pat the Instigator

After a recent story I wrote I received a comment from a classmate about something that he was involved in the eight grade.  I was really surprised at the story coming from him.  He was a good student, all-conference football player, cute and very "popular". Here is Pat Ragsdale's story as he wrote it.  

"In May of 1959 Kurt Keidel and I were in the 4th hour shop class at West Jr. High.  Kurt said that at Central High and over at Abbott"s Reformatory (aka-AR, the other Jr. High) they were having "book drops".  Book drops were set at a certain time and everyone would drop a school book on the classroom floor.  It was not a protest or anything like that.  Sounded like a pretty good idea to us so we cut up some slips that simply said, "Book Drop at 2:15"  Surprisingly to us our high jenks took off like wildfire with other students enthusiastically passing the word. I knew this was a big mistake but we did not have any control of it. The next day over the intercom Principal Eliand Rainwater announced they knew who it was and they should immediately report to the Principal's office.  Both Kurt and I gritted our teeth but did not confess fearing that we would be thrown out of school or worse have a painful session with the "Board of Education".  It was a lark, we weren't protesting anything.

School was let out for summer vacation and we were not caught.  Some four years later Jim Little, our high school student body President, disclosed the conspiracy committed by Kurt and I at our Senior Class Diner. I suppose he figured that statue of limitations had finally run.  I guess I should have known better but am glad we did not get caught."

There were a lot of stories that came to light at the Senior dinner.  This one I did not remember especially since it came from Mr. Nice Guy, Pat Ragsdale.  However, seeing him at class reunions there is still that little twinkle in his eye showing he is still up for anything.

The other story came from a girl who was in speech class so anything from those students does not surprise me. I remember all the silly stuff that went on in those classes, but I had forgotten how much fun Virginia Shaver was.  She was always smiling and one of those people you just felt good being around.  She wrote:

"I think I needed some credit, probably to graduate, so a couple of us speech students had to do a little radio speech bit to advertise some businesses in town.  Good grief, what a silly disaster!  I could say anything right and then just giggle about it.  Stupid, stupid...not a good student in anything except art and maybe English.  Now at age 70, we are so much wiser.  I'm still kinda silly but by choice".

Silly Virginia

I can imagine the Radio Speech teacher, none other than Jack Gregory,
trying not to laugh and look stern but busting a gut to keep from laughing himself. Personally I would like someone to tell me the story of the "Secret Clubs" that occurred during our senior year.  All I can remember about them was that there were two separate ones consisting of boys.  There was something about rental houses, expose articles on the front page of the local paper and lots of senior boys coming to school for weeks in shirts and ties.  I think the shirts and ties kept them out of real trouble as they looked so respectable. Besides in the 1960's it was all just innocent fun.  Right guys? Then there were the gatherings at Honor Heights Park.  This is the site of the now famous Azalea Festival - no wonder they close the park at night!

I never drank beer or liquor in high school.  It just wasn't something I ever thought about doing.  Not many of my girl friends drank (that I knew of) and I think I knew my Mother would kill me if I ever did and got caught.  No doubt I would have been dead if I had ever been caught backing up to Ray and Nora's Bar on Friday afternoon to buy beer for some of the boys.  Seems like girls could buy beer at the age of eighteen. Hmm - I was only seventeen but Nora bought medicine from my Dad and thought he was a nice man.  If she ever told my Dad she sold beer to me he never mentioned it and probably got a good laugh about it.

One of these days I will run out of high school stories to tell and move on to college and the the silly life adventures that followed.  It is very interesting to me that the people I grew up with and some from college make it seem like the years have never passed.  My class had a reunion at the ten and twenty year mark, then we started having one every five years and at age fifty, sixty-five and in a few months, seventy, we have class birthday parties.  I have only missed a couple events since the twentieth.  At every reunion it is rather like a big family reunion.   You can hear a voice and instantly know who it is even if they look a little different after fifty years. It takes at least three days for every reunion and then there is still so much more to say and do.

We may all be a little wiser like Virginia said but we are all still just as silly.  Most important of all, friends, and maybe better friends than we were in high school.

70 Would Be A Great Birthday

Today is my seventieth Birthday.  WOW!  

When I started writing this story I wasn't sure where it would lead. It began as a travel log in our electric car and proved to be fun.  Then covered two whacko old building restorations that Marshell and I turned into our homes.  Then it turned into a sort of life history of how much fun it is to have grown up as a slightly off-beat Baby Boomer. This was in protest to most Baby Boomer stories about the distressing elements of aging, lost of parents and friends, illnesses and ailments.

Last week's story was about my high school musical.  This week was going to be about some fun, silly stories that some of my friends have sent me about some of the things they remember. But as with life in general - things happen.  Perhaps this week things happened to me that will inspire my peers to enjoy their age and all my young friends to realize age is a number, not a way of life.

Living in a small, rural town in Oklahoma for the last eleven years has been interesting to say the least.  My love of performing that began in grade school has never left.  Did I really take ice skating lessons at the age of forty and skate in an ice show for five years without ever having finished the lessons?  Did I really play Wipe Out on the drums at the age of sixty while still taking drum lessons?  Did I really organize a bunch of kids to do the Thriller dance at the age of sixty-five with me out front so they could remember the steps?  Did Marshell at age sixty-nine and I at age sixty-five actually rent bear costumes and do a dance on stage?  You have to guess the answer on those.

So, we come to today.  I woke up at 12:06 this morning to do the old age thing of going to the bathroom. To see if it was time to get up I looked at my cell phone to check the time. Now, I don't usually sleep with my cell phone but since I fell off of the window sill while washing the windows nine weeks ago and broke my arm in the worst possible way I have had to sleep in a chair. The phone is my alarm clock or for something to do when I can't sleep. There was a message on the phone from a sweet gal in Ardmore who said  "CONGRATULATIONS!  You made the cast".  What a shock and at the same time - what a special birthday present.

Earlier this year Marshell and I had the great pleasure to meet a group of young people in Ardmore, Oklahoma while campaigning for someone.  We spent several weekends knocking on doors and enjoyed all the intelligent and fun young people we met.  Several could not help on certain days since they were in a play at the little theater in town.  I told them I thought that sounded like fun and they encouraged me to come to the auditions for the musical Mary Poppins. Could I ignore the encouragement?  Being overly optimistic I thought "No big deal" until 
I found out that the audition for the show consisted of about one minute of singing and then a dance audition. That was a couple of days before the time to perform.

To fill in the details of my sudden panic attack you have to realize that  my right arm has been in a sling for nine weeks with limited movement from non-use.  I do dance around the house but that isn't quite the same plus when you produce musical variety shows or festivals you can put yourself in doing anything you want to do.  Sweet Marshell is always encouraging even when I stink.  I spent two days digging thru file drawers full of music and rummaging through CD's, tapes and record albums to find a Disney song to audition with.  All I could come up with was the vinyl edition of the Mary Poppins sound track and a karaoke CD of Bye, Bye Birdie.  They did not mention using a vinyl record for music and of course those karaoke CD's do not play on all CD players - mine included.  

The trip to Ardmore went amazingly fast.  The radio was turned up full blast and I did get some singing practice in singing Billy Joel songs at the top of my lungs. There were a lot of people at the audition.  I found my one friend and told her I didn't have a song and she suggested just to get up and sing Happy Birthday. After listening to auditions for an hour and a half I had the brilliant idea to sing one of the Birdie songs Capella, at least that was better than nothing.  So with words in hand
I finally heard my name called. I think it turned into a comedy routine.
No doubt terribly off-key, didn't even manage to read all the words but I did manage to move around a little instead of standing like a stick.

Then I was sent off to the dance audition where at least I felt a little confident in my new leggings and knowing I had taken years of dance.  HA! The cute dance instructor taught us a very quick routine with lots of arm movements in front of a wall of mirrors. Never wanting to look stupid I forced the arm to move in ways it did not want to and realized how out of shape I had gotten nursing a painful broken arm for nine weeks.  Call backs would be the next night so I drove home without much hope.

I did not let Marshell go with me that night as I did not want to see the look of pity in his eyes when I auditioned.  I sort of told him how bad I was about the same time Paige, my friend who got me into this, texted me and said I had made the call backs. You cannot imagine my surprise!  
Maybe they just wanted to see if I was for real or a mirage they imagined.  Paige said call backs would consist of reading a part with a British accent and some singing to see if you could really carry a tune.
Swell.

I asked Marshell to go with me to the call backs.  Since he would probably never get a chance to see auditions again it might be fun for him. We sat there for a couple of hours while everyone else was called to read different parts of the script.  I did have to do a singing thing with several other girls which I felt I pretty well blew.  Then it was time to go home.  On the way home Marshell and I talked and he did enjoy watching all the events of the evening.  I told him it was a real learning experience for me.  I didn't feel bad that I blew the audition but took it as a learning experience as to what I needed to do for the next time.  I even rationalized that maybe this was not the time for me to do this since my arm as well as the rest of my body hurt.

So this is why the text message from Paige at 12:06 am on my birthday is so special. I made the cast with some small speaking part.  The next five weeks will be filled with rehearsals five nights a week and I am going to love every minute of it. Turning seventy has been a really special day.