Just Normal Everyday Life

Let's see - by the fall of 1967 I had been married a year and a half, Dennis was currently at his second job, we are the proud owners of a '61 and a '41 Chevy that teach a lot about auto mechanics on a daily basis, we had already moved five times and after five semesters of college I had not really decided what I wanted to be when (actually if) I grew up. The master plan for a path forward in life, build a race car, buy a house, have a baby, meant I needed to get a REAL job that paid more money than playing with children all day. Aah - time to become a normal person.

Back in those days if you didn't know anyone or have a family business to jump into the best way to find a job was to go to an employment agency.  Since Dennis worked in Grand Prairie and we lived in east Ft. Worth, maybe Arlington was the place to look. When the employment agency discovered I had no skills they sent me to a business they must have had a lot of experience with. It was one they must have sent many girls to with no skills.

It was a small parts manufacturing business on the western edge of Arlington.  It was owned by two gentlemen that I will call Mr. Scary ( A description, not his real name) and Bob. The office was a converted house and there was a machine shop at the back of the property.  Bob interviewed me and sat me down at an electric typewriter for the horrid typing test.  Well, I had never typed on an electric typewriter and flunked that one.  Guess Bob liked the fact that I spoke in full sentences, my dress covered more than the bottom of my underwear and I wasn't trying to look like the local stripper. Mr. Scary would hire people with different qualifications than Bob did including a receptionist that often asked questions like what state was Chicago in. I got hired.

Since I was so nervous when I went to interview for the job I somehow missed the fact that there was a bar in the house/office building.  About 4:00 every afternoon Mr. Scary had a parade of friends who would come by for a few drinks, a few very interesting stories and off-color jokes. Come deer season Mr. Scary would disappear for days only to return with his cronies in their vehicles with Bambi's strapped to the hoods. Bob and I would remain at our desks working away pretending that they were not there.  After all, somebody in the place needed to work.

The good thing about living in the little duplex in Ft. Worth was that I picked up a few skills when I got tired of white walls.  Unknown to the owner, I painted the kitchen cupboards and bought new hardware for them. Since it was years before mini blinds I learned how to make curtains out of really cheap material and wallpapered the bathroom. When it looked really comfy, Dennis decided we should move to Arlington. Oh boy, move number six in two years.

We found a house to rent that actually had a single car garage with a paved floor. One needs to note here that in looking for houses the garage was the most important attribute.  For a rent house it was not too bad and the curtains I made for the other place sort of worked plus it had a fenced backyard. The backyard meant we could get another dog. The cute little puppy grew to be a huge dog that we named Phydeaux.  He was a sweet guy but when he got big enough to jump the fence and scare all the neighbors when we went to work or eat the sofa when we left him in the house to long Dennis said he had to go. Goodbye dog number three.

Phydeauz (Fido)

Over the course of the next year Dennis tired of the '61 Chevy problems.
We looked at Mustangs but they were too expensive at $4,500 so he bought a new '68 stripped down pickup for $2,300.  He was also hellbent on taking the '41 back to his Dad and by some stroke of luck he found a '50 Mercury for $50.00.  It didn't run but all it required was a timing chain for $7.00 plus we found $20.00 stuffed in the overhead light.  What a steal!  I have to admit that I rather liked driving the Mercury.

Back at work, Bob decided he didn't really approve of Mr. Scary and the office situation so he went off and started his own company.  Since I had actually learned to type on an electric typewriter he called me once he was set up in the new business and I escaped Mr. Scary and went to work at Bob's new business.  About the same time Dennis and I started building race car bodies on the weekends. The extra money from building the race car bodies afforded us the extra money to build a race car - a dragster to be exact.

Since the business Bob had started had connections to purchase the tubing required to build dragster he let me purchase it at cost.  Then we took the tubing to Sand Springs, Oklahoma to the shop of a drag racer named Benny Osborn to build it.  I have to say here that in all my years of being involved in the sport, Benny was the nicest person I ever met. He also built us a beautiful and safe chassis.

                      Dragster Chassis and our neighbor boy, Bruce

By chance someone at LTV where Dennis worked saw an add in the paper that Ford/Lincoln/Mercury was looking for service reps. and thought it was something Dennis would like.  He went and applied and got the job as one of those company people who show up at a dealership when you have problems with your Mercury the dealership can't seem to fix. Now he was working in Carrollton, Tx, north of Dallas, and we were in Arlington.  No - not moving yet.  But they did not like his pickup in the Ford District Office parking lot.  Lucky for us that Hertz had a sale of rent cars each year and he bought a lovely '68 Mercury Marauder - gold - not one of Ford's most attractive cars - but cheap.

Funny story about the Marauder.  For the first time since we  went on the honeymoon Dennis decided we should go on vacation to Monterrey, Mexico with his Mother and niece.  Let me tell you the Mexicans loved the car.  Every time we parked it somewhere guys rushed up with buckets of water and wax.  When we came back they demanded money in a way you could not refuse. That had to be the cleanest car on the continent.  Dear Dennis ate tacos from a little street vendor and drank the water.  Add that to the fact that Monterrey was very industrial so he not only acquired Montezuma's Revenge but also a smog attack and couldn't breathe.  Nice....vacations are not turning out to be much fun as there is too much moaning being sick and bad words on the car getting spotless.

By the end of the third year of marriage we had now moved six times, had six different vehicles, Dennis was on his third job, acquired a dragster chassis, had two awful vacations and dog number 4, Herman, the wire-haired fox terrier who only spoke Spanish.  Oh, and a few cats I have not mentioned.  Just your normal, everyday life - right?

                                      Herman and our niece Ninnette

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.

Why The Celebration?

This blog, as these things are called, is a milestone that I never thought when I started this two and a half years ago I would reach.  This is number 100 in my list of stories, as I call them. If anyone wonders why I write them it started quite innocently with Pam, my dear friend from Stephens, when she suggested I write a blog about our Tesla road trip to the East coast.  She had to explain to me what a blog was and how to do it.

                                          Tesla Road Trip

Armed with a new laptop I didn't know how to operate Marshell and I took off on a trip to the east coast.  We were to meet up with other Tesla owners in Ocean City, Maryland. But the week we were to be gone turned into twenty-one days and 4,800 miles. I took pictures every day and spent hours every night trying to post a story.  The writing verges on terrible and any sane person would have given up.

When we got home I started reading some of the thousands of blogs that are posted everyday and found out some people make thousands of dollars each week by running ads on their pages.  The thought struck me that I could do that. My only problem was that I hated all the ads that no one wants to look at even though that is how they make money.
Sorry blogger.com, you and I are not going to going to get rich.

If you can imagine a subject there are hundreds of blogs about it.  Some just post pictures with no explanation of where they are or a constant stream of recipes that never get made since no one really cooks any more.  Lots of self-help for anything that ails you or tech blogs so you can learn how to operate all the electronics that surround us.  The worst are the Mommy blogs on how to protect your children from dirt and Danger Strangers.  Baby boomers blogs really do me in as most are how to care for aging parents, how to suddenly get fit when you ignored it for fifty years, how to keep your brain intact or does anyone remember saddle shoes or 45 rpm records.  So if I enjoyed writing what to write about?

The first thing that popped into my mind was the insane renovation of turning an old building into a home.  Looking back on it I am not sure that any one realized the ten year ordeal of living in plaster dust and not having a kitchen for seven years comes out in it.  Also I am not sure sleeping on a futon for five years or being watched over by Dr. Severs, our resident ghost, was added to the story.  My writing needed to get better for people to understand we were on an adventure of magnitude portion. With the renovation stories done, what to do next as I was now addicted to writing?

                                Our kitchen for several years

I love to learn about people since we are all such fascinating creatures. If I had my preference I would only read biographies although a good romance novel is okay. When I look at Facebook I skip all the posts that people share about loving your daughter, some recipe that sounds good, most of the politics and anything else that fails to tell me something about my friends and what they are doing. I have one friend who posts about all the places he goes to listen to music or out to dinner with friends, another who shows off his vast collection of 50's and 60's era stuff, any animal picture, video or story, or a niece who keeps me posted on her children and life and what my kiddos and grandkiddos are up to. Those are the posts I like to read.

                                      

That lead me to start writing about how lucky I was to grow up in the baby boomer years and what it was like for me. I think I had a tendency at first to not put in some of the sad or hurtful events, stupid mistakes I made and even some of the fantastic friends that created a lot of special moments in my life.  The comments I get back on the stories have helped me in being more open and honest as I have found so many people have been through a lot of the same things. Another great thing about writing has been my learning how to spell.  I hated phonics in the second grade so spelling had always been my downfall.  Now if blogger tells me something is spelled wrong rather than wait for spell check I figure it out or look it up.  Never too old to learn.

One of my favorite lines from a movie was in Dirty Dancing when Patrick Swayze says to Jennifer Grey's parents "Nobody puts Baby in the corner".  There have been countless times that I felt through the years that I was being shoved into a corner and my opinion did not count. There were so many times when I was called stupid or that perhaps I was not smart enough to do something. If you hear anything enough times you have a tendency to start believing it. Thank heavens for all the friends I have had in this journey through life.

                                                Mark and Ralph

In the next 100 blogs/stories you will meet some of them.  There is the plastic surgeon who sewed up my face when I tried an Evil Knievel stunt.  He encouraged me to finally go back to college and finish my degree.  Mark and Ralph always made the early days of drag racing fun when Dennis made it so difficult.  Kansas City gave me a neighbor named Karen to get in silly, unbelievable antics with creating constant laughter and Barney who helped me start my decorating business. New Jersey gave me a lady named Sis who was old enough to be my Mother but taught me how important the little things in life are. Without Claire in Michigan I might not have survived the divorce and starting a new life. Lisa and Robert made it fun to reconnect with all my high school classmates after twenty years of not seeing or hearing about them. 

Wes and Wally at work

I have mentioned Pam and Cathie a lot in the stories.  Ever since Stephens they really are "family" with a lot more stories to tell.  Wes and Wally, my two sons, have grown into talented, independent and wonderful men in spite of my perhaps not always being the vision of a perfect Mom.  Then there is Marshell.  For twenty-one years he has let me be me in spite of all the craziness but maybe I just bring that out in him too. He also has great patience with me when I want to be gone every night, drive a total of 2500 miles in six weeks just to be in a play
or get the car stuck in the mud trying to avoid a hail storm.  What a guy!

 Marshell and I as Dancing Bears

I hope in reading the stories they bring back memories of yours, both good and bad, as life contains both.  You may learn a few of my tricks in how to see some humor in any situation.  Good friends are a lifeline when you need them but it is also important to walk away from people who drag you down be they family or friends. Life is too short for sadness, anger or regrets.

So back to the continuing saga next week.

I Should Have Owned A Moving Company or At Least A Truck

                                                      Moving, Moving, Moving

If anyone has read my profile you probably notice that I have a tendency to jump into things before I really pay attention to all the particulars of the situation.  I am afraid that has been true all my life, even to this day.  But that is also why I think it has been an exciting and fun roller coaster ride.  Somewhere through the years I decided that I had amazing "springback".  Think of one of those spring type doorstops. No matter how much you try to bend or force it down it just pops right back up.

After a less than desirable wedding and honeymoon getting settled in Farmington, New Mexico was not easy.  Farmington was an oil boom town on the edge of the Navajo Reservation and although it may be a tourist destination now it certainly was not in 1966.  Dennis had made no friends in the seven months he had been living there and working for Mid-Continent Oil and Supply and I don't remember meeting a single person except some Jehovah Witnesses that came to the door once.  But we did not live there long as he was transferred to the main office in Fort Worth three weeks after we got there. Let's see - married on January 28th, moved to Farmington and moved to Ft. Worth on February 21st. 

I have totally blocked the move to Ft. Worth out of my memory but I am assuming we must have rented a truck as there was no way we could do the Okie/VW routine with his stuff too.  In typical Dennis fashion we made the 800 mile trip in one day as staying in a motel was a waste of time and money.  One night in a motel in Ft. Worth and then rented a furnished apartment the next morning.  Since Mid-Continent's office was downtown it was important to find a location close.  Wow, we found one four blocks south of the huge Post Office and I-30 and only ten city blocks from his office. 

It was actually not a bad apartment for $65.00 a month and it had a swimming pool. I took Dennis to work each morning and with a map of Ft. Worth and the phone book in the car I toured the city then rushed home to fix dinner before I went to pick him up.  When the weather got warmer and other tenants had parties at the pool in the evening Dennis decided it was not a nice place to live.

By some stoke of luck the owners of the apartments had a duplex only three blocks further south. Still close to downtown and closer to John Peter Smith Hospital.  We were entertained all night by the sound of sirens from both ambulances and police cars.  There was even a nice policeman who came to check on us often which gave us the idea that maybe the neighborhood was less than desirable.  The duplex was really nice and much larger than the apartment.  There was only one small problem in that it had a water cooler instead of an air conditioner.   It was a particularly rainy, muggy summer and by August there was a nice coat of black mold on the bedroom walls. Time to move - again.

                                                            The Moldy Place

I can remember looking at only one place again for this move.  It was another duplex one block south of East Lancaster in a nice older neighborhood.  It had a garage (with a dirt floor), a big yard and no furniture. We managed to find a cute 1950's round top refrigerator for $90.00 and an antique bedroom set for $50.00.  That got us moved in....what more do you need? After a few weeks of curse words about not having any more furniture Dennis's Mom, Alpha, came down and one Saturday while Dennis was at an Air Force Reserve meeting we went shopping. Garage sales and thrift stores came in handy.
When he arrived home there was a kitchen table and chairs, sofa, a chair, end tables and lamps. I always liked Dennis's Mom coming to visit as we had fun together and Dennis tended to not use bad words in front of her.

                                                            The Cute Place

So, let's see where we are at:

Married the end of January and by the middle of August we had moved four times. Is this a sign someone is not happy anyplace he lives?

 The VW was on it's third clutch when the car was only a year old since someone drove it like it was a 327 with a four on the floor.

We had not met anyone except people who wanted us to go to their church (told all of them I was Jewish) and the new next door neighbors. The neighbors did not have a car so the garage was all ours.  We nicknamed them Two-Ton-Tillie and Country Coy.  Two-Ton ran the car wash down the street and Coy made Ranch Style Beans at the bean factory.  According to Two-Ton all Coy would eat was taters and beans. We tried not to be too friendly with them or to put it bluntly, there were no dinner parties.

Oh, and the constant cockroach problem was because they lived at Two-Ton's but smelled the gourmet meals from our place and scrambled over. Guess the roaches were tired of Ranch Style Beans.

We got a cute little American Spitz puppy.  I loved it since it didn't yell at me but it barked a lot so Dennis gave it away.  Then there was a kitten, Duke, that we both adored that adopted a litter of kittens from a bad mother cat. Dennis hated the mother cat and kittens so he took all of them to the pound.  Duke got sick and passed away.  Then we found a little German Shepard at a junk yard and named him Oscar.  He was fun and cute but as he got bigger Dennis did not like him either so I think he went to the pound. Not doing well with pets.

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                                          Duke and Daiquiri

I had a job in a department store for a few months but the hours were not the same as Dennis's and there was no dinner on the table at 5:00 everyday.  He decided I should go to Arlington State College in September of 1966 and finish getting a degree.  It seems really silly that I would have agreed to become an English teacher so I could have summers off.  Maybe that song from Bye, Bye Birdie was stuck in my head.  Gads, I still know all the words.

Going to school meant we needed another car. One Saturday we bought a 1940 Ford pickup. It was beautiful but after we got it home Dennis discovered it had copper tubing for brakes lines. We took it back and found a 1961 Chevy that looked good but when it started up you could not see the car for all the white smoke coming out of the engine. It was some minor problem that Dennis was able to fix.

For fun Dennis tried building model airplanes you fly.  He would sit for hours gluing the thin paper on the struts and then we would go to Forest Park on Sundays to fly them. Well, sort of fly them.  Seems like everyone he built took off, went straight up and then crashed straight down.  I think three times ended that hobby.  I made him go roller skating at this really cool outdoor rink one night and thirty minutes into the session he informed me we were never skating again.(No, HE was never skating again. It did not mean I was not skating again.)  Dancing did not ever happen. So we spent weekends watching drag racing at Green Valley Raceway from the spectator stands or running home to Warner to his Mom's house to go fishing.....ugh!

To top off the wonderful year of 1966 my brother Paul and Joan got a divorce. Mother had me come home on the bus sometime before we had a second car to try to talk brother Kenny out of marrying an older girl with two children right after he graduated from high school. I have to confess I did not work too hard at trying to change his mind. To really top the year off after Kenny got married Mother filed for divorce, locked Dad out of the house without telling him and never spoke to him again.

Like the Elton John song - I'm Still Standing - not defeated yet.  Being the eternal optimist things would get better. After all, isn't the first year of marriage an adjustment period?

The Honeymoon

                                                  The Honeymoon Destination

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Honeymoon as 1: a period of harmony immediately following a marriage 2: a period of unusual harmony especially following the establishment of a new relationship 3: a trip or a vacation taken by a newly married couple. From my experience the first two definitions with the word "harmony" do not quite seem to fit.  Let's go with number 3. a trip or a vacation taken by a newly married couple.  There is a noticeable omission of any adjectives like romantic or harmonious.  Humorous and eventful fit better.

The wedding took place at 10:00 AM, the reception followed across town at my home and by 12:30 PM we were off on the trip to Red River, New Mexico.  I have attended weddings and receptions that started at 2:00 in the afternoon and ended at 2:00 in the morning so this was a pretty quick exit.  It was, however, most important to Dennis that we get to Amarillo by nightfall.  Best laid plans?

From Muskogee to Amarillo is quite a trip in a VW packed to the point where Dennis and I barely fit in plus four suitcases on the luggage rack on top of the car.  Adding to the loss of aerodynamics of the car there was a thirty mile an hour headwind on the steady incline going west.  Perhaps fifty miles or so into the trip and due to the little channels that run along the top and down to the back bumper the luggage rack sled all the way down the back of the car. That made it necessary to reposition the luggage rack on top of the car, purchase some sash cord and tie it to the front bumper. This was done with quite a few words I had not used or actually heard or used in my life.  Those words that cause a parent to wash your mouth out with soap or get a swift hit on your backside. With the luggage rack back in position we were on our way again looking very much like Okies going west.

Travelling at the maximum speed of forty miles an hour it was dark when we arrived in Oklahoma City. Since it had been a long, tiring, mostly silent afternoon in the car we stopped for the night.  The next morning there was still a headwind from the west but we got off to an early start with only a minor glitch.  Who puts their sunglasses in the passenger seat?  Not paying any attention entering the car I accidentally sat on them. This caused more words and expressions similar to the luggage rack problem all the way to Amarillo when Dennis finally stopped to purchase some new ones.  Whoops, remember the old Blue Laws when you could not buy anything on Sunday's that were not a life and death matter?  It was Sunday and they could not understand at numerous stores this was a life and death matter. 

I remember dinner in Springer, New Mexico consisting of a root beer and cheese and crackers. Then finally arriving in Red River very late at night.  Dennis had made reservations for an A-frame cabin that slept eight and came complete with a kitchen. Kitchens are important on Honeymoons as who would want to eat out all the time.  After all I was a pretty good cook and home cooked meals three times a day would save money and be better than cheese and crackers.

Up bright and early the next morning to hit the slopes.  Dennis had skied several times in Durango, Colorado while living in Farmington.  I had never skied before but how hard could it be?  Just put the boots and skiing equipment on and go get on the Palmer lift.  The Palmer lift is the bar that comes up behind you and you just sit down on it.  Dennis got on first to show me how and went up the mountain.  I was ready to go, I thought, but when the lift up came up and hit me from behind I tumbled off into the snow. I laid there in the snow trying to get up to no avail. This was my first lesson in character traits of my new husband.  Everything is done NOW, not in ten minutes or even two seconds but Now.  So in going skiing for the first time someone puts the boots on you, buckles on the ski's and off you go. Do not take the time to learn how to get the silly things off.  Dennis finally came down the  mountain and asked me how I could be so stupid.  After I finally stopped crying I went to ski school where I remained the rest of the day far away from Dennis.  We broke from skiing so I could cook lunch and of course I got to cook dinner before falling asleep.

The second day I really did not feel very well even though I cooked breakfast before going back to ski school for the morning.  After  a home cooked lunch I tackled the lift and the mountain all by myself.  I found that skiing was really very simple if you applied all your roller skating techniques of edging to it.  Also realized that after a day and a half in ski school I was a much better skier than Dennis. Maybe I wasn't quite so stupid after all.

By the end of the day I really did not feel well at all.  I knew I was running a temperature but had chills at the same time. Good thing I only knew how to cook for four people so there were leftovers for Dennis to eat for dinner.  He could not convince me that if I ate something I would feel better.  Was he just being nice, wanted me to throw up or just wanted me to go into the kitchen and cook?  Who knows but I can guarantee he ate leftovers.

                                  The Very Sick Snow Bunny

Things did not look very good the next morning as I was still running a temperature and ached all over.  Even though we were supposed to stay another day we packed up and headed for Farmington.  All I can remember about the 231 mile trip that should have taken four and a half hours is that it was dark before we got to Farmington.  We passed snow plowed up on the sides of the highway as tall as the car and it was so cold the heater did not seem to be working.  How can you run a temperature and be freezing to death?  

First stop in Farmington was the emergency room where it was determined that I had a temperature of 105 degrees and probably the flu.  Loaded down with medicine we checked into a motel for the night.
Here is where I have to explain that Dennis had not found a place for us to live and his rule in life was not to stay in a motel/hotel any longer than necessary.  So bright and early the next morning while I still felt like I had been run over by a truck we went looking for a place to live.

                    Guess we couldn't afford to stay too many nights

Do I really remember us taking the first place we looked at?  There were not a lot of places for rent due to an oil boom in the area and there was a duplex that was cheap and furnished.  Furnished is an interesting description.   It had the lovely western pine furniture that looked like it had been made from old wagon wheels and upholstered in a beautiful western orange print of cowboys roping steers.  I guess I could say it was clean but not "Hansen" clean.  We unloaded the VW and discovered that the heater had been working great all the way from Red River.  In fact it had worked so well that it melted Dennis's dress shoes. Thank heavens it did not melt my extensive vinyl LP collection.

Having the car unloaded meant we could go pick up the boxes from Railway Express and go to the grocery store so I could once again do my thing in the kitchen.  By the end of the day we were settled into our new home with food in the kitchen so I guess you could say the honeymoon was over even though I was waiting for it to start.  I never read a wedding announcement in the paper again or looked at some one's honeymoon pictures when I didn't really wonder if any compared to mine.

What could possibly happen next...............

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!

Decisions

Northeastern State College

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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