Here Come Those Holidays Again

Many stories ago I wrote one about how I felt about holidays.  As a child I always looked forward to them even though most were not happy events.  Dad loved them and went out of his way to make them special while Mother hated holidays and only wanted for them to be over.Usually by the end of the day for any holiday my parents were not speaking to each other. But she always said all families behaved that way which didn't make it any more pleasant for the three children.

As an adult  and married to Dennis I thought holidays would suddenly become like the ones I always wished I had had as a child.  That thought was quickly dashed as Dennis loved the holidays when someone else did all the cooking, cleaning, shopping, decorating and assembly of the presents .

I had always been an avid watcher of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade each year jumping up during the commercials to check on the dinner that no one should could or would eat.  When I heard we were actually going to get to go to New York with another couple I was excited beyond belief.  This would be THE year that a holiday would actually be fun.

The plan was that we would follow Jim and his wife, Janique, to New York, watch the parade and then eat dinner someplace.  Jim and Janique had family in The Bronx and were going there for the rest of the holiday.   The day dawned more beautiful than one could hope for with bright sunshine and warmer than usual weather for Thanksgiving in New Jersey.  There was  even not much traffic as we traveled up the Jersey Turnpike and through the Lincoln Tunnel to the city.  The problem was going to be the parking so it was decided before we left that they guys would let us all out so we could watch the parade while they parked the cars.

So far, so good.  Janique and I went and found a place on the sidewalk in front of the building Jim said to station ourselves at and the five children with us all got to the front of the crowd while we stood back on the sidewalk behind them. The parade was already in progress but we watched the bands, floats, huge flying balloons and saw all the movie and TV stars.  I was so exicited about being there in person that I didn't realize that it had been a really long time since the guys dropped us off.
Finally right before the end of the parade they showed up.

Jim was all cheerful and was glad we were having a good time.  Their children were all younger than ours and by that time had seen all the parade they wanted to see. They headed off to see their relatives. I noticed that Dennis did not look too happy and the bag he was carrying with the Airpot of hot chocolate looked a little sad. He was not happy - more like furious and he had dropped the bag with the Airpot in it which had broken and leaked all the hot chocolate out. He made a big scene about parking and wanted to leave right then but I refused as the kids wanted to see Santa arrive at the end of the parade.

Actually it was a good thing he had dropped the bag with the hot chocolate soon after he left the place where the car was parked.  It was a good thing because he had no idea of where the car was so all we had to do was to follow the little dribbles of hot chocolate on the sidewalk to find where he had left the car.  Arriving at the garage where the car was parked we were confronted by two big and a little scary guys who were furious with Dennis because he did not leave the keys in our vehicle.  They had asked him to as they ran a limo service from the garage and could not move cars around because they did not have keys to ours.   I hurried our departure when Dennis began what sounded like he thought they tried to steal his car and he was correct, as usual, by not leaving his keys. It was a straight drive home - no stopping for a Thanksgiving dinner anywhere. 

As silly as this may sound I rank that Thanksgiving as one of my favorite ones.  First of all I love New York City and actually think I could live there.  I got to go see the parade I had watched on television all my life and it was everything and more I thought it would be. When you stop and think about the ordeal with someone being so stupid as to not pay attention to where he parked the car and depending on someone else, Jim, to lead him back you have to do a big eye roll. Always remember if you are worried about getting lost in the big city just dribble hot chocolate on the sidewalk. The big scary guys gave us the car back and we did not end up in the Hudson River tied to cement blocks. And, best of all.....I didn't have to cook and clean up that horrid dinner.

Dr. Grey, my calculus professor, had a novel idea after our final exam for the semester.  If you were on the line between an A or B or any other combination of grades you could request an additional oral test to see if you could raise your score.  I happen to have been between and A and a B so I jumped right on that one.  It sounded so easy the day he had us sign up but when the day finally came I was so nervous that I really did not even know my name. As tiny in statue that  Dr. Grey was he was a very imposing person and I had never had a one on one conversation with him.

I arrived at the appointed time for the oral exam which could be anything he had covered for the semester.  There was no way to study for this one as it was all that information you were supposed to have learned.  Before he asked me the question I could hardly breathe I was so nervous.  No, not nervous just flat out scared. When he finally asked me something about being on an icy pond with the ice beginning to crack how would I get off I completely froze and my mind was a total blank.  What kind of an idiot question was that! What did an icy pond have to do with calculus?  If he had asked me if I shot an arrow into the air, where would it land or the speed of lightning I could have answered.

Standing there in front of someone I thought to be the smartest man in the world I wondered how he could come up with such a stupid question.  Just before the tears started to fall I remember opening my mouth and mumbling something about how to get off the ice.  I don't remember what I said or even where the answer came from but when I was done there was a big smile on his face and he said "Correct".  Too use the old phrase, "you could have knocked me over with a feather" is one way to describe it. Then he told me that out of thirty-four students in the class I was the only one who had signed up for an oral exam and he asked me the ice question just for fun to see if I really studied and learned as much as he thought I did. Got the A!

Well, One holiday down the tube and vacation from Calculus for a month.  Next is the holiday that somehow can be the most fun and a nightmare at the same time.  This one turned out to be a real doozie. out to be a real doozie. 

Back To School

After a few very busy weeks life is getting back to whatever normal is around here so back to the story........

It is the fall of 1983 and I am still the Librarian, still the President of the Home and School Association and back in college.  All this severely cut into my time for Porch Club, the Friday craft/potluck afternoons and the amount of time I had to sit and visit with friends. Living in a town that was one square mile in size with an average age of sixty-two, some of whom had never learned to drive, did make me look a little strange.


When I had gone back to college at Texas Women's University in 1975 it was not quite so daunting as it was this go round.  Although most of the classes I took back then were filled with eighteen and nineteen year old's there were several students older than I for me to bond with.  This time the class was filled with faces straight out of high school plus I figured the professor, Dr. Grey, could not be more than thirty although he looked like he was twelve. The first few weeks there was probably not a day that went by when I did not question myself on why I was taking a Calculus based Physics class.

The question of what I was doing really came to a head after the first test. Somehow I learned how to type a ten page Lab report on my new electric typewriter to at least get a passing grade.  The first test score was a lot less than I even dreamed of.  By the look on the faces of the entire class I did get the opinion that I wasn't the only one that was disappointed.  But Dr. Grey was nice about it and made the suggestion that perhaps a little time spent in the school Library on the computer might be to our advantage.  There was that word again - computer.

I had heard words like Main Frame and Computer before but had no idea of what they really meant.  My choices at that point were to drop out of the class or drop into the Library to see what this computer thing was.  Dr. Grey had given us some information on what to do or how to use the computer all of which made no sense to me but I decided to at least see what this thing was all about.

The Library at the school had a huge room filled with tables that had little television screens and keyboards.  With my information in hand from Dr. Grey I sat down at one of the computers and had no clue as to what to do although crying at that moment was a definite option. Before the tears of frustration begin to fall a young man came and asked if I needed some help. I guess I had looked pretty forlorn staring at the thing and very thankful he came to help.  I gave him all the information and he showed me how to "log in". When I did the words came up on the screen "Hello, Donna"! Wow, was this special or what?

Dr. Grey's computer program seemed nothing short of brilliant to me.
There were physics problems that required the use of whatever formula we had been studying and you had to solve them using the formulas and a scientific calculator.  If you got it right there were stars that popped up but if you got it wrong you had three chances to try again.  If you failed to come up with the right answer he walked you through what you did wrong plus there was a print out of everything you did. Needless to say I became addicted to that thing called a computer and there was never a flunking test score again.

Halloween was a big deal in Riverton, New Jersey every year.  The night before Halloween, known as Devil's night due to the fact that if kids were going to paper trees or soap cars that was the night.  To keep the kids busy Riverton and Palymra had a parade and hot dogs in the park.  I thought it would be fun to enter a float in the parade that year.  It was actually the Library doing it and someone loaned us a trailer.  I had the kids dress up like their favorite characters in a book and sit in front of a huge cardboard replica of the book. I must say when I needed a costume to wear so I could keep the kids from falling off the trailer it was nice to know my ninth grade cheerleader uniform still fit.  The best thing was that out of eighteen floats we won first place.

At school the next day there were the usual Halloween parties plus the kids wore their costumes to school and then did a parade down all the sidewalks in town so everyone could see their costumes. I think that was the first year people did not give out so much candy due to idiots trying to ruin a really fun day.

Wes was playing soccer on a little league team and it seemed like there was a game several evenings a week.  The team was really good and ended up the area champions which was a big deal.  He was quite proud of his red championship jacket.  Wally had tried soccer but was more interested in the dirt clods that were all over the field. It was plain to see that Wes was the "go do anything" competitive person while Wally needed to stay far away from all sports.  When the little leagues for soccer or baseball started forming I can remember asking Wally if he wanted to be on a team and he was always thankful when I didn't sign him up without asking him.  Actually I am not sure I could have managed to sit through sporting events for both of them.

 Barney flew into Philadelphia the first part of November on his way to New York.  He had finished his second book and needed to meet with the publisher.  Although we still talked on the phone every Tuesday it had been four months since I'd seen him.  He had a four hour layover so we grabbed a brown bag lunch and sat by the Schuylkill River and Boat House Row which was beautiful with the leaves just beginning to turn into brilliant colors.  Needless to say it was wonderful to see him. I was very proud of him on the new book and he was tickled to death about my physics class.  He asked me if I had heard of the Kaplan course to prepare for the medical school entrance test. I hadn't but he thought it might be a good idea and would look into it for me.

It was always hard to take Barney back to the airport and have him fly away but this visit we had managed to stay away from too much conversation on the subject of our particular situations. We did talk about how different our relationship would look to others.  Both of us laugh about the fact that no one would believe that we didn't rush off to a hotel the moment we had the chance, not that we didn't want to.  Our relationship is quite complicated but I do not  ever want to lose it.

It seemed like our Oklahoma families didn't make the trip to New Jersey to visit as much as they did when we first moved there but at the same time we did not go there as much either.  So, as the holidays approached it looked like there was not going to be any visitors. This was perfectly fine with me as I was never much for holiday gatherings and looked forward to a few days away from work, school and all the activities the boys were involved in.  A nice quiet time sounded really nice until a guy Dennis worked with invited us to go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with them in New York City.  

Ever since I could remember the Macy's parade had been the thing I watched or tried to watch every year.  What could be more exciting than to actually get to go?  I could hardly believe I was really going to stand on the streets of New York and see all the huge balloons, the bands and all the stars.  

Anything You Can Do

Yesterday I got a message from a friend who reads my weekly stories wondering if I had quit writing since I have missed a couple of weeks.
No, I haven't given up on writing it has just been a busy, crazy month and writing takes some concentration and time. All my time and concentration was used for the Ardmore Little Theater's production of "Annie Get Your Gun".

Quite by accident or maybe fate two years ago I met a girl who was involved with the theater who kept telling me I needed to audition for their production of "Mary Poppins".  Wow! That was a flashback to high school when I was in a musical which led me to want to be a star on Broadway. Off to college to major in theater but was scared off in less than a week by the drama queens and their level of talent.  My major changed with lightening speed. But now, fifty-five years later, I am having fun doing what I wanted to do. It's not Broadway and I am certainly not a star, but still fun.

This blog, as they are called, is not just about the theater but more about some observations and thoughts that pop up spending a great deal of time in a large group of people.  The cast of about forty people ranges in age from a few not old enough to drive to one actually older than I am. Each one has their own reason for being in the cast.  Some, the college age theater majors, because they want to make it a career and some, us older ones may be reliving past desires or it is just something fun to do. 

I am there because anytime I found a stage I have had the desire to get on it. One of my favorite songs from the play is "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better".  Perhaps I have gone through life with the motto "anything you can do, I can do" - skip the "better part" - most things I am merely capable at best.  I often wonder and also think that life may have been a little easier if I did not have some inborn desire to always learn something new or try to do things I saw others doing. Then I think no since life could not be as much fun if I just let things pass me by.

When I started writing my blog/stories I titled them  "I Should Have Known" in hopes that they would explain some of the dumb situations I got myself into through the years.  The more I wrote the more I realized that maybe the fact that I was a Baby Boomer had a lot to do with a freedom to create ways to have fun and learn.  My younger brother and I put on Little Rascal  type shows on the driveway for the neighbor kids, we got books from the Library and I taught myself to sew at the age of seven, girls cooked back them and I could whip up dinner by the age of ten, there were piano and dancing lessons and roller skating lessons at twelve that resulted in being in two skating shows.

At the age of fourteen I helped my twelve year old brother build a street rod.  He read Hot Rod Magazine, explained it all to me, we built it and Mother took it out for test runs since we were too young to drive.  Boys liked me because I could talk hot rod talk and that gave me a basis for years of drag racing and a team uniform business. In what I call the hilarious years being a single Mom auto mechanics came in handy when I had to do a brake job or change a tire because I could not afford to pay someone to do it. Those were the days when I bought a car for a $100.00 in 1990.  It was a 1965 four-door faded red Dodge that did wonderful things like have the entire exhaust system fall off on the road, or the shifting linkage messed up and you had to open up the hood to fix it or that my design clients in their expensive houses liked because I had reasonable prices. My son and I had more fun in that car than anything else I ever owned.

The sewing came in handy when I needed a dress for a formal dinner or drapes for the house. That turned into a thirty year career as a interior designer for which I did all my own work cause I certainly wasn't going to pay someone else to make drapes, cornice boards, upholstery, paint, wallpaper or make a little boy's room look like a castle.  Then there was deciding to learn to ice skate a forty years of age.  During the second lesson when I could stand on them and stop I signed up to be in the largest amateur ice show in the country.  Of course everyone had to make their own costumes and I learned how to bead and sequin and got very good on the skates.  

There were many other adventures and enterprises through the years.  Marshell and I owned an Opry that became a very unique blues venue, a diner, restored two buildings turning them into homes and lots of musical instruments. Sure there were bad times, good times and some downright hilarious times but the bad disappeared quickly as there are too many great times to be had.

I didn't write this to brag or make myself look sane in any way.  I just get a little sad seeing people spending their time trying to get a life from that phone everyone carries around and looks at even in between scenes of the play. Put it away, take a class and learn something new or try talking to the people around you. If there is always something you wanted to do just go do it. 

Life is short and it seems to go very quickly the older you get. Don't blame others for your bad decisions or errors in judgment and realize you are the only one who is going to make you happy. I have always believed that sleeping is over rated and it wastes so much time when you could be having fun or being constructive. Stop with the "old" sayings like forgetting things since the marvelous thing is that the busier or the more active you are the more you remember.  Laugh a lot, have lots of pets, call people instead of texting and always remember material things don't really mean anything, especially happiness.

I have told my kids that if I die tomorrow they should only remember that I had a heck of a good time! (Although I plan on hanging around quite a bit longer as there are still to many things I want to do.)

SPRINGBACK

After last week's blog I got quite a lot of feed back about Dennis giving the dog the boys and I loved away and my not saying or doing anything about it.  In the course of my stories there have been a lot of questions as to why I stayed in the marriage  - probably as many questions that through the years I asked myself.  Maybe it is time for a little history or perhaps a backstory that you did not catch before. Most of this I did not realize at the time.

I remember taking a physiology class in college that talked about how much we learn watching the behavior of our own parents growing up. I did not pay any attention to it at the time as I saw no relevancy in how it was connected to me in anyway. Couldn't see the forest for the trees as I looked at everything I learned growing up as perfectly normal.  I think my Mother even told me one time that all families behaved in the same way. Hopefully not everyone learned the "patterned behavior" I did.

Mother was the boss around our house and what she said was the rule of law.  I can't say I had an unhappy childhood in that I learned way before I started school how to behave.  Mother must have wanted a "girlie" girl as she always tried to make me look like Shirley Temple with the curls and the frilly dresses. I was, however, the tomboy of tomboys and arrived home with the hems torn out of my dresses and constant skinned knees from playing baseball in grade school.  She put me in classical piano lessons when I wanted to play rock and roll and dance lessons thinking I would be a ballerina but I only loved to tap dance. I went along with all of it because that was what a child did.

The only real problem was that I never stopped being that child. A child from the aspect that I did what I was supposed to do and never argued or tried to stand my ground on what I wanted to do. On the rare occasion that I did go against Mother's wishes or rules I knew what the consequences would be. Unlike getting a spanking for something I was told how stupid I was, how just because other girls got to do this or that I could not which was then followed by days or weeks of her not talking to me.  With the verbal abuse and silent treatment I guess I felt that I was such a bad human being that I wasn't even worth talking to. That set up the "yes, Mother" pattern, the child-like behavior of always agreeing with her even when I began to think she was a little nuts.  She was my Mother and I wanted her to love me at all costs.

Interesting how this pattern of behavior carries on and how you learn to cope and survive.  I guess there was something about Dennis when we were dating that felt comfortable until the day we got married.  I think that was the first time I heard "God dammit, Donna" when I accidentally sat on his sunglasses which were laying in my seat in the car. By the time the miserable honeymoon was over I ended up in the emergency room physically ill from the realizing I had indeed just married my Mother in terms of behavior. But like the child I had learned to be around my Mother I knew how to handle Dennis.  If I could just be good, do everything right, be the best wife in the world everything would be perfect.

So, here I was many years later still in the same situation, still trying to make life perfect for someone who is without a doubt the unhappiest person in the world.  For God's sake how could anyone be jealous of a pet!  But I had become the most optimistic person in the entire world and did not know what to do other than to carry on.  I had been told many times I was too stupid to be able to make enough money so I could pick out the house we lived in and incapable of taking care of the boys in the right manner.  Even though I knew better there was a lot of fear that maybe Mother and Dennis were right.

Being perfect took a lot of energy.  Dinner was always on the table at the precise moment he walked in the door, the lawn was mowed by 5:00 on Friday afternoon, the house was usually immaculate, the wash and ironing caught up and I could throw pretty nice dinner parties for people he worked with.  I managed to get to go back to college because he looked at it as me being able to make extra money for race cars but he was not happy with the thought that I might make more money than he did.  Actually I was probably trying to be perfect so other people liked me when I really just needed to believe Dennis and Mother liked or loved me.

Was I a miserably unhappy person?  No and I have actually told people I was the happiest person I knew.  The only person who can make you happy is yourself. In my few seconds of maybe being a little not-so-happy I looked around and found something new to do or to learn. I taught myself to sew when I was eleven so I could have clothes to wear I liked although I am glad I have no pictures of me in them as some of the first attempts were probably pretty bad.  Mother did not want to spend money on Prom dresses so I made my own and by that time they were pretty stunning.  I participated in every organization in school as well as speech, debate and musical theater.

Having brothers I learned car talk and how to take them apart and put them back together. I had to be careful and play sort of dumb after marrying Dennis and having race cars but there were many times when I could have told him why the car didn't run well.  Somehow that would not have gone over well. Out of necessity I learned how to paint, wallpaper, make drapes and home decor and upholster just because we could not at times afford to pay someone else to do it.  I could write a play, make costumes for Halloween the night before, put on jogging shoes and run three miles with Mother during her visits and never run another inch until her next visit.  The list of more silly things I learned to do goes on and on but it was the way I could tell myself that I really was okay.

All of the above relevations did not occur to me until many years later.  I can remember my brother, Paul, telling me he could be a brain surgeon if he had a book.  At the time I thought he was just teasing me but years later I realized that he was behaving much in the same way I was.  Like me he was always learning something new, changed careers a lot and was excellent at all of them. Not sure how that worked out for him but I could see the similarity in how we both behaved. 

Three or four decades of constant put-downs and mental abusive do not go away easily if ever.  But somewhere through the years I decided I had amazing Springback. This tree, meaning me, was not going to crash to the ground no matter how hard the wind blew or how hard anyone tried to put me down.

Life is actually filled with a lot of fun and fantastic things as long as you don'y live with the attitude of "oh, whoa is me".  Although it is difficult to laugh at things in the moment you can certainly feel great if you can realize how much there is in life to laugh about.  That was another good survival trick.  

So Happy To So Sad

                                                                  Wally and Tug

The summer had been filled with a lot of high and low spots.  The Library programs were busy and really fun.  One of the really low spots came from our dear neighbor, Danny Mento having a relapse of his Adult Onset Leukemia that had been a problem for the past ten years or so.

Danny had never appeared to be ill.  He was still selling Oldsmobiles by day and playing his saxophone with his jazz combo by night looking sharp in his tuxedo. Mary Jane, his wife, did not drive so I became her taxi driver to go visit him at the hospital.  These two people were really quite a pair of characters.  They had been married for close to forty years, had one daughter they adorned living in Colorado and complained about each other constantly most of the time to each other. Danny being 100% Italian enjoyed the fact that Mary Jane did not drive, cook or actually do much of anything.  Mary Jane was really proud of the fact that she could pretend to be totally helpless and this is how she kept Danny from wandering off all those years.

As the summer progressed Danny began showing signs of being much more ill and his daughter, Jennifer and grandson Joey, arrived from Colorado. Jennifer really was as wonderful as her parents had proclaimed and we became instant friends.  Shortly after she arrived Danny did pass away.  I did not realize how hard it would be on me losing him as I had loved his pizza and treats he brought the boys and how much he loved Wes and Wally, sons he never had.  He used to yell "Hey, Sweet Thing" over the back fence when he saw me in the yard and I would miss all his stories and his flirting with me.

I am not a fan of funeral viewing so I volunteered to take care of Joey that evening.  There were over a thousand people that came to both the viewing and the Catholic service the next day.  Afterwards there was what I learned was a typical Catholic wake at the house with stories of all the funny and kind things Danny had done.  I did find out that they had buried Danny in his tuxedo with his saxophone. His mother said that now he could entertain everyone in heaven but I told her he entertained everyone everyday just by being Danny.

With the busy and sad summer that it had been it was nice to be invited to go to Block Island for the Labor Day weekend.  This Oklahoma person knew nothing about Block Island, Rhode Island but a get away was a very pleasant thought.  Looking at the road atlas we were going to have to drive 256 miles through upstate New York then all along the coast of Connecticut to Rhode Island, get on a ferry boat and go 14 Miles through the waters of Block Island Sound.

                                        Block Island Harbor

Block Island has quite a history from Indian settlements to being occupied by the British navy during the War of 1812 to being used by the Navy during World War II.  There is actually a German sub laying in the water seven miles from the island that was sunk.  The two ways to get to the island are by boat or ferry or the small commuter airport that was built in 1950.  There are two lighthouses that were constructed in the mid-1800's. The Southeast Lighthouse leads into the Old Harbor and sits on 200 foot high Mohegan Bluff while the North Lighthouse warns of a sandbar extending out from that end of the island.

The island is only six miles long and three miles wide.  The population of full time residents numbered only about fifty.  There is always wind and temperatures are ten degrees cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter than the mainland.  It can be foggy and damp in the morning and evening with brilliant sun during the day. It's two harbors and quaint hotels and gifts shops attract visitors as well as it's 20 miles of sandy beaches.

Labor Day weekend is the biggest weekend of celebration on the island.  The Old Harbor is filled with motorized boats and the Great Salt Pond on the opposite side of the island is filled with sailboats of all sizes.  The population on that weekend can swell to over three thousand people filling the hotels along the harbor which were built a hundred years ago. The house that Sis' daughter and son-in-law owned was perched high on a bluff over looking the Great Salt Pond and all the wonderful sailboats.  It was an old boarding house built way before the turn of the century. There were seven tiny bedrooms and one bathroom that had been added downstairs at some point in time.  Somehow I don't think Dennis liked the accommodations but the boys and I thought we had died and gone to heaven.

We spent five days exploring the lighthouses, going to all the little shops and restaurants, picking blueberries in the yard of the house and spending every afternoon on the beach so the boys could build sandcastles and fly kites. There was no television so evenings were spent enjoying sitting in the yard until dark.  I will always remember that the two really great vacations that I had were in one summer happily enjoying the East Coast beaches.

By the time we got home it was time for the boys to start back to school as well as my first day back in college.  I had found that Burlington Community College just fifteen minutes from Riverton had a class in Calculus based Physics. The best way to describe how I felt driving to the community college that day was sheer terror.  I questioned myself on just why I doing this?  It had been seven years since I graduated from TWU and never in one second of the time had I used calcucus.  On the drive I could not even tell you one thing about Physics and maybe I should just turn the car around and go back home and forget all this.

I didn't turn the car around and did manage to find the classroom.  Glancing around the room did not install anything positive but only more terror.  All the other students, about forty of them, looked like children.  They looked at me wondering what Grandma Moses was doing there and I was further confused by no individual seating but long tables and chairs for everyone to sit at. Where was the individual desk at the back of the classroom where I could hide?

Once everyone was settled into seats at the tables I noticed a guy wondering around tinkering with some of the stuff on a huge table that ran the length of the room. Then all of a sudden there was a loud bang and a stuffed Yogi Bear toy fell from the ceiling. Then there was a loud voice that said "That was an example of Physics.  Welcome to class and let's get started."  

The loud, booming voice came from Dr. Grey who did not look much older than some of the just-out-of-high-school kids that filled the tables.  He was only about five foot five, very thin and stomped around in cowboy boots.  Who wears cowboy boots in New Jersey?  To perhaps make matters worse our grades were going to be based on 50% tests and 50% lab reports. He stated that homework was just busy work and that we were on our own to learn each section of the class in whatever was the best way for us.  He also said something about practice tests being available on the computer in the Library.  Computer? This was 1983. What was a computer and how does one use one?

I drove back to Riverton after class and had thoughts about not going back.  Dr. Grey had spent two hours talking about stuff that was all Greek to me but at the same time the class was quite intriguing. Could I really remember all those calculus formulations I learned years ago?  There was something rather interesting in all the demonstrations, things falling from the ceiling and loud noises that made you wonder and want to learn.  Maybe I would hang in the class for awhile and see how this goes.

That night I will always remember as one of the worst nights of my life.
Here I must admit that I had made and would make in the future many dumb decisions and choices.  My inability to speak up or to cause controversy, a Hansen family trait, made me regret to this day that I let this happen.

All four of us were sitting at the table in the kitchen discussing the first day back at school for the boys and I when little almost nine year old Wally said "Dad, when are we going to go get Tug?".  Dennis had taken him to a kennel before we left for Block Island.  Actually that sounded like a good idea since it was worrisome to have the neighbor kids take care of him and I did not have the time to do it.

Dennis then told the boys we were not going to go get him and that he had actually given him to some woman.  Whatever else Dennis said I do not remember due to feeling like my heart had been ripped out.  Wally was in tears begging for Dennis to go get him, saying he would take care of him and on and on. Wes was furious and wanted his dog back. And what did I do or say?  Nothing.

I will go to my grave wishing at that moment I had told Dennis exactly what I thought about him being so cruel and heartless to give away a member of the family that the boys and I loved dearly. Actually that everyone in town loved.  It was his idea to pay a huge sum of money for a registered English Springer Spaniel in the first place. I did not want another dog because he had hated, mistreated or was glad when any other dog we had was gone.  Agreeing to getting Tug in the first place was my mistake but how could I not want such an adorable puppy?  Was Dennis jealous because we all loved the Tug?  Or was he just purely a mean and terrible person far beyond what I had thought before? Why did I not demand he go get Tug back? 

I have often wondered if Wes and Wally thought I was in on the plot to give Tug away?  I really never believed Dennis gave Tug to some woman but just dumped him at a pound.  After the boys were in bed that night I picked up all of Tugs toys but that did not keep me from crying  as I am now writing this.

What is the saying about having company for an extended time?  Is it something about smelling dead fish?  Having Alpha and Hazel for close to three weeks was actually a lot of fun but it was also very nice when they headed home and life around the house could settle back into being more normal.  Normal that summer seemed to be playing with children all day.

It was very interesting to find out that so many of the children in Riverton did not have much of an idea about what lied beyond the city limits.  The reason I had taken the children to Philadelphia and other interesting places the summer before was that I discovered that so many of them had never seen the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, the Art Museum or many of the other sights within a few miles of where they lived.

When I was growing up, even though vacations were out of the question, my parents did take us on adventures to Tulsa to the zoo, the art museum, Branson, Missouri when it was only a post office and little grocery store and once to Oklahoma City to see an exhibit on atoms and stars. My poor children were dragged to everything within a day's driving time every place we lived.  This was my inspiration for the children's library field trips.

That summer we did the historical part of Philadelphia as they all wanted to see the Liberty Bell again, added the Ben Franklin Museum which turned into two trips to see everything but the best one was the ship museum. Philadelphia had a tall ship moored at Market Square with a wonderful museum. For the sum of fifty cents per child they would do a program on sailing ships. The children sat in a little auditorium while a gentleman explained how the Vikings, Christopher Columbus and the tall ships sailed the seas.

I must say I was as spellbound as the children when we learned about the Vikings in the open boats covered with animal skins to keep from freezing and how the boats rocked back and forth.  The perils Christopher Columbus faced sailing in those three really tiny ships when so many at that time thought the world was flat and they would simply fall off the edge and finally the magnificent Tall Ships.  After the lecture they toured the museum with artifacts from the Titanic and other ships.
A history lesson for them all to remember.

The children's books were flying off the shelf.  They all wanted the chance to win a trip to the shore again at the end of the summer.  But the fun part for them was getting to do another play.  Doing a short version of the Wizard of Oz last summer was great but available children's plays was a little slim and most of them were pretty simple.  While tanning on the beach I got the idea that all the children loved Sesame Street, it had great characters and I had watched enough of the shows that I knew something about how the story lines went so I just wrote a play.

The story line was that Donny Osmond came to visit Sesame Street.  Miss Piggy was, of course, in love with him tossing Kermit aside, Statler and Waldorf sat of to the side heckling everyone, especially Fozzie Bear. There were dancing mice, The Count, Oscar, Big Bird and all the other characters.  Needless to say the children loved the idea and everyone pretty well picked out the part they wanted to be without arguing or getting hurt feelings. The hardest part of the whole production was my discovery that the kindergarten age cast members did not know how to read the script. After the tears dried up the rest of the cast helped them to simply memorize their lines. My dear son Wes had to play Donnie Osmond since he was the oldest, tallest and would not have been in the play if he had to play some other part.

I will never be able to figure out how thirty children put on a flawless performance to a standing room only audience.  The parents had really jumped in and helped on costumes, we used our scenery from the 4th of July float and the children had done an awesome job of learning all their lines and the songs in less then four weeks  when practice was pretty limited with all the other things going on. My only thought was that in giving them a play with characters they understood and really thought of as their friends made the difference.  I was in tears before it was over as I was so proud of them.

Perhaps the programs at the Library were a little over the top and not usually what a Library does.  But I have to admit that their were a couple of reasons for my planning them.  First, the Library was my job and after I learned the Dewey Decimal System there was not much to do except ordering new books and being nice to the Library patrons.The job needed to be fun and interesting in order for me to want to go to work everyday.  

The second reason was really rather selfish.  I had two boys ages thirteen and nine who needed something to do everyday while I was at work. No way were they going to do well with a babysitter or sit at the Library all day.  So I just came up with things they would like to do and let the rest of the children in town join in.  It turned out to be a win win situation for everyone involved.  The children got to see their friends everyday, they read a lot of books, learned a lot of historical facts, got to be in plays that the school did not have time for and stayed busy and happy all summer. Unlike most parents I was always sad when school started and summer was over.

That summer I was a little too busy to go to the Friday Craft/Pot-Luck Lunch/Swimming Pool Party at Bay's House.  It was a gathering of the lifelong Riverton ladies, their children and grandchildren. Bay was a lady in her sixties, a Quaker with a heart of gold who taught every child in Riverton how to swim every summer.  She had gotten to the point where she did not hear very well and could not wear her hearing aids in the pool. My oldest son, Wes, swam like a fish from the time he was five. At the start of the summer Bay asked if Wes could help her with the swimming lessons as she would not be able to hear the children in the pool.

I was a little surprised that she asked.  Wes was, shall we say, at times a child who would make any parent want to drink being highly energetic, always coming up with some big deal and always moving at the speed of light. His attributes were that he was very intelligent, very articulate and an amazing artist for his age even if he did only draw race cars and drag strip layouts. He, for whatever reason wanted to help Bay and part of my planning for all the Library activities that summer worked around his swimming schedule.  If I had any doubts that Wes could help Bay I was certainly wrong.  He not only did a great job he also became the preteen idol of every child that took the lessons.  He rather liked being the local idol and I was very pleased to know he could behave so well in public.

Just before Labor Day when I thought the fun of the summer was over and it was time to start thinking about school for both the boys and I we got a surprise invitation.  Sis and Gus, my neighbors and best friends, had a daughter and son-in-law that lived in Williamsburg, Va.  He was the Lt. Governor and the crowds of people were at times more than they could bear so they bought a huge rambling old house on Block Island, Rhode Island for a peaceful place to getaway too.  

Needless to say Dennis was not overwhelmed with the thought of spending five days with a bunch of old people on an island fifty miles out in the Long Island Sound.  But this time he was out voted by two very excited sons and his wife.

It was one of those trips that even with the typical vacation problems with Dennis it was like dying and going to heaven.  However what happened when we returned home is something that makes me wonder how anyone could be so cruel and heartless.  I could understand Dennis doing that to me but how could he do it to the boys?

What is a Vacation?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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