The Cast of Characters

After sending out the story last week I got and email from Pam.  She wondered what I meant in my list of questions when I wondered what we all would have done without her in our little group.  Also how it was amazing how we all thought the other person was so outgoing and we wanted to be like them.  

To say the least the eight of us were a very diverse group of eight girls. Without telling too much about the years in between 1964/65 and now I will say that Pam, Cathie and I managed to stay friends all these years.  Cathie and I found Erin in the eighties and just in the last year we added Sally. The whereabouts of Paula, Mary and Woodie are unknown but they still may pop up one of these days. 

Before I tell all the silly stories of the year at Stephens I need to give a brief description of the eight of us that were thrown together.  These are my observations looking back fifty years with some insight as to how at least five of us turned out as adults.  On the whole it is a lesson that people really don't change much even with life's challenges.

I will start with Mary and Erin who were Cathie and my suite mates which means we had a connecting bathroom.  Mary was actually rather quiet, very pretty and at times very dramatic. Do I remember her saying several times she wanted to kill herself? I can't remember why or how we talked her out of it but maybe she was just lost in the dynamics of the group and it was a good way to get attention.  It could also have been living with Erin. 

The best way to describe Erin was that she was a mess. I must say that I loved her clothes and lucky for me we were the same size. She had the world's largest collection of plaid pleated shirts, matching sweaters and knee socks. She took her shirts to the cleaners and had triple starch put in them so you could wear them for days and they never wrinkled.
She was very smart with a dry sense of humor that made us roll on the floor in laughter.  It seemed like she had a date every night and Cathie accused her often of dating the entire army based at Fort Leonard Wood
She would just laugh and go on.  It was amazing to see her twenty-five years later and hear about her life. She still had the triple starched shirts and knee socks.

Paula, in front, Erin and Mary, in back

Woodie and Sally were two who had their differences and living together was a challenge - a funny one to all of us - but still a challenge.
Best way to describe Woodie is to say I have never in my life met someone so naive.   She had these huge puppy dog eyes that sort of said to everyone that she did not have a clue as to what was going on. When I think about it now I think she was just overwhelmed by the rest of us.  If left on her own she would have been very quiet and maybe a loner but there was no way she could do that especially living with Sally. I have to give her a lot of credit for hanging in there and being an integral part of the group.

Woodie and Cathie

When I think of Sally the only thing I can think of is laughter.  Sally was from Montgomery, Alabama and had the biggest southern accent I had ever heard.  There were very few days that went by that she did not say or do something that was totally stupid and funny.  I have pictures of the night she decided everyone should stuff pillows under our clothes to see what we would look like being pregnant. How did Sally break her nose? As I remember she was breaking a couple of those "get expelled" rules by being at a party in a motel drinking bathtub purple passion.  
Guess they also had beer since she was jumping on the bed trying to stick beer cans in the popcorn ceiling when she fell. I will have to ask her if that is the correct story.  Pam said when I found Sally that she always imagined her growing up to be a true southern belle with beautiful clothes, gloves and drinking tea each afternoon.  What did I say about us not changing much?

Sally

Next to Pam and Paula. Both from the Los Angeles area but as different as night and day except when it came to academics where they both excelled. Paula was a dancer and gone a lot for practises.  Of all of the eight of us she was the quietest and the only one who did not pledge a one of the local campus sororities.  Also beautiful and very poised.

Pam wondered about my statement of what would we have all done without her in the last story.  My first opinion of her was how sophisticated and worldly she was compared to little bumpkin me from Muskogee. Funny that I actually thought she would not like me and here we have been friends for fifty-one years. Pam traveled a lot and really hated flying and the rest of us were always amazed how she took all her clothes in a carry on bag.  In the group she was the voice of reason, the one who took care of everyone else through thick and thin and never showed her disapproval when one of us did something stupid. I do not know if she ever broke a rule at Stephens but maybe now she might tell me.

Pam

There is no way to describe Cathie in a paragraph.  She was one of a kind and I feel very lucky to have had her for a roomie.  Cathie was one of those people that everyone loved except parents who looked at her as a terrible influence. She in turn, never met anyone she didn't like and found good in everyone.  There have been many times in my life when some situation would come up and I would actually ask myself "what would Cathie do?". The next few stories will begin to give you a look at how living with Cathie didn't change me but gave me the ability to be a lot more carefree and daring than I had been before.

So there is the cast of characters.  Set these people in a town of 35,000 residents and 16,000 college students.  This was an era when "nice" girls did not do a lot of things or admit to it. This was before student protests and the Feminist movement but during the race riots and the early stages of the Vietnam War.  Sitting in the middle of Missouri with no television or computers or cell phones life was simple and a heck of a lot of fun.

The Start of the College Adventure

Cathie breaking the rules

With my computer being offline for most of the month of December due to my own stupidity I had lots of time to think about those first few weeks of being at college.  Usually I can sit down and write these stories in a couple of hours but this one has been started and erased many times over the last week.  It really never dawned on me until the last couple of weeks how much that year at Stephens College caused a lot of changes in me.  Maybe that is called growing up or at the very least, the beginning of that transition from childhood to being responsible for one's self.

Arriving at Stephens was actually quite devastating. I have always told people I am really quite shy which no one believes.  It has always been an effort to meet new people and know what to do or say. But at the same time there has always been the desire to be liked and to have friends. Growing up and living in the same town for eighteen years made it easy for me to have friends just because I had known them all my life.

So, here I was in a group of eighteen hundred girls I did not know, who appeared to be so self-assured, had beautiful clothes and came from exciting places.  To top it off I had Cathie for a room mate. There were many times in those first few weeks that if I would have had the courage to ask to change room mates I would have.  As time passed there were many times the dorm mother asked if I wanted to room with someone else that I would laugh to myself and tell her that maybe I could help Cathie be a better person. Some how Cathie's constant antics, total disorganization and love of people drew me in.  It got to the point where I was almost as good as she was at getting us into trouble.

Looking back now I have begun to realize that the eight of us living at the end of the hall together probably all wondered what we were doing there.  Somehow we all managed to blend together in a little group we called "the Big Eight".  Although we all made other friends at Stephens we relied on each other in the good and bad times and spent a lot of our free time together.  

Pam, Sally, Woodie, Donna, Cathie, Marty Mo

When classes started I realized that perhaps I had gotten in over my head.  All the classes were fine except for the ones in Theater and Drama which was my intended major.  Five minutes into the first class I was trying to fade into the chair dressed in my plaid wool jumper and weejuns.  Everyone in that department was dressed in black tights and ponchos, had long flowing hair and wore sunglasses even at night.  Sorry, I had gone through the "beatnik" phase when I was in the ninth grade and did not find it very appealing.  Besides with the affected speech patterns everyone had I hardly understood anything they were saying.

Thankfully after the first week of classes you had a meeting with your advisor for him to see how your classes were going.  I hope I did not sit there and cry since I was so unhappy but he did get the idea that I did not fit well in Drama department.  By a stroke of luck he was the head of the Television, Radio and Film department and instantly switched all the drama classes to TV, Radio and Film. Have to say that I felt at home in that genre.  The only class that was challenging was General American Speech.  It was difficult to rid myself of the Okie accent that I did not know I had.

The student-advisor relationship at Stephens was pretty impressive.  Mr. Wheeler, my advisor, not only kept check on you - to the extent that if you missed a class he called you on the phone to see what the reason was - but he also had a little get together with all his students once a month.  Usually we were invited to his home for a cookout or dinner on a Sunday evening with his wife and three small children. I guess this gave him a chance to study us and see how we were doing. It gave me that little touch of home and family life that you tend to miss on your first adventure away from home.

Driving through Norman recently on a football game day I realized how much things have changed since I was in college.  The second weekend I was in Columbia there was a University of Missouri football game. Stephens girls were not allowed to have or to drive cars.  Going to the game meant walking to the stadium, which was quite a hike, with your girl friends or a date.  Everyone dressed up to go to the game and if you were lucky enough to have a date you sported a huge mum in the black and yellow colors of the Missouri Tigers.  I can remember walking to the game with a boy named Skip in my pleated skirt, sweater, knee socks and loafers with that flower pinned on my shoulder. After the game we had dinner and then went to a mixer (dance) at Stephens.  It was the first college game I had ever been to and the whole day was so much fun.

Perhaps the most startling difference in going to college then and now was phones. Of course there were no cell phones and there were no phones in the dorm rooms. Each floor had a phone on both ends of the hall on every floor. Calls could come in from the outside or from the desk in the lobby of the dorm.  It may sound awful but actually it was rather nice.  If you decided going out with someone was not a good idea then you could happen not to be there or if your parents were calling to complain about money you didn't have to take the call. Everyone was good about leaving notes on your door stating what calls you had while you were out.

It may be that a lot of girls going off to college for the first time, away from parental supervision, would take the opportunity to become a little wilder than they were at home.  In some ways perhaps we all did but basic lessons and morality instilled at home kept us pretty much in line.That is not to say we did not have a heck of a good time.

Did Cathie and I really exit a party through a bathroom window?
How did Sally break her nose on a date?
Was hitch-hiking to a banned night club the really smart thing to do?
How does one smuggle someone out of a hospital right after surgery for a pizza and beer?
Can a person drink 23 pony cans of Colt-45 and still walk?
If your father is the President of a bank did he really teach you to switch to a red pen when you are overdrawn?
Jefferson City is within the city limits of Columbia isn't it?
Why do I know so much Hebrew when I am not Jewish?
What would we have all done without Pam?

Lots of questions to figure out the answer to.

The First Week At Stephens

Just so no one feels bad and thinks all this comes from memories I will confess that some of it comes from little notes written on the Activity Calendar. I kept a pretty good record of events, activities and dates on the calendar that helps me remember a lot of this.  It is interesting how a little note like "date with Skip" can cause you to remember a lot more.
As you read the stories always remember this was 1964.  Things were a lot different then than they are now but in thinking back - not all bad.

After a very long and slightly calamitous day arriving at Stephens College sleep was a welcome relief.  I can imagine that before my eyelids closed I tried to remember the names of our suite mates and all the other girls I had met in the last few hours. Did that girl, Cathie, sleeping in the nearby bed with a giant teddy bear really put her hair up in a rubber band on top of her head while I carefully put rollers in my hair? I really hated her the next morning when she popped out of bed and brushed her hair into a beautiful flip.  Did she actually open her suitcase, grab an armload of clothes and stuff it in the dresser drawers?  What did she think when I carefully unpacked with neatly folded clothes being placed in the dresser drawers in some sort of order?

We had arrived at Stephens at 2:30 in the afternoon and the 6:00 dinner hour came rather quickly.  There was actually a twelve page booklet on the do's and don'ts of eating in the Dining Hall.  The big requirement was that you had to wear hose and heels to dinner. There were tables that seated eight covered in crisp, white table cloths.  One girl, designated by where you sat, was the Hostess who presided over the meal.  Proper etiquette filled several pages of the book and I often wondered how many or if any girls struggled with any of the rules.  The one great thing was that the food was outstanding and it became very evident through the year that one could easily gain weight eating three meals a day in the Dining Hall.

                                 Interesting Dress Code Just To Eat

                                   Even though we arrived on campus a week before classes started there was not a lot of free time.  The second day consisted of a Hall Meeting for everyone in the dorm.  At this meeting the Hall Mother, a very stern looking woman who looked to be ninety, laid out the rules for the dorm. There was to be "room check" every week to make sure we had good housekeeping practices, when leaving the dorm in the evening we had to sign out on a card stating where we were going and with whom and sign in upon our return.  Of course, she would be standing there as we signed in and out to make sure we were properly dressed and sober upon arrival back. If you were late the door would be locked and you had to ring the doorbell for her to let you in. The rule was that you had to be in by 10:00 on the weekdays and 12:00 on Friday and Saturday.  Any infraction would be swiftly dealt with by the Hall Council made up of girls living in the dorm.

For some reason I was picked as the South Hall representative on the Junior Class Steering Committee.  I could not imagine then, nor to this day, how I was bestowed with this honor.  Did I really appear as a sweet little goody-two-shoes?  Would I really set an example of a Stephens Susie who was perfect in every way?  It was obvious on that day that the Hall Mother felt I could do no wrong but she would be in for some big surprises as the year progressed. Do I really remember her as always wearing a black dress and matronly shoes?

Stephens College had an interesting way of looking at your college education in that your first couple of years should be spent exploring curriculum you were interested in.  They required that a student take seventeen hours with a max of nineteen per semester.  This was only eight hours of required courses and the rest of the classes devoted to art, dance, science etc.  Girls were also required to have Saturday classes.  Would you believe a physical education class in Equestrian Riding?  Yes, Stephens had a stable out by their lake and girls did bring their horses to school.

That first week there were two days of Placement Tests?  Never have figured that one out.  Then there were welcoming shows, teas, registration for local, on-campus sororities, and a many other things we were required to attend.  The important meeting of the week was with your advisor. I had put on my application that I wanted to major in Drama with an interest in Television Radio and Film Production. The Professor I got for an advisor was in charge of of the Television classes and he helped me pick classes in Drama to enroll in.  Later I would find out how involved he was in my life at Stephens.

With all of the events of that week we still had time to explore the campus, realize that downtown Columbia was one block west from the campus and the University of Missouri started one block south of our dorm. There were four of five clubs in town that had bands on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights so lots of chances to meet boys and dance. The clubs also offered free pitchers of beer to Stephens Susie's on Sunday afternoon.  I found that interesting as legally no one at Stephens was old enough to drink and if you got caught drinking it was an automatic trip home the next day. Even more interesting was that these clubs were packed with Stephens girls and University of Missouri boys every Sunday.

I really feel that Mother missed the boat when she thought she was sending me to a girls college and that there would be no boys around.  What a surprise to her if she had known that boys were on campus all the time.  The very first Saturday night I was at Stephens the college had a mixer with boys invited to attend from the University of Missouri, Kemper Military Academy and Westminster College. It was surprise to me to find out that four boys from Muskogee were attending Westminster including Barry Bayless and John Cable from my class. That was a fun evening dancing to a local orchestra from Columbia using all our proper manners.

It was also the week that the group of eight girls at the west end of South Hall got to know each other and form a friendship that would last the year for some of us or a lifetime for some.  There were Pam and Paula both from California, Woody from Memphis and Sally from Montgomery, Erin from Lansing, Mi and Mary from Hudson, Ohio and Cathie and I from Texas and Oklahoma. It was a very diverse group logistically and socially but we all managed to bond together quite well. The number eight worked out perfectly for the dinner table in our heels and hose, maybe without all the correct manners.

It was during that first week living with Cathie I came to realize that she was always late, never met a stranger, would do or say anything to anyone, would break any rule and filled our room with laughter morning, noon and night. There would be ups and downs through the year but the differences never lasted more than a few minutes.  Besides she had the Kingmen's album with Louie, Louie on it so how could I stay mad at her. 

The adventure was only just beginning.

Heading Off To College

The Summer of 64 seemed to pass very quickly at times and drag endlessly at others.  It was a learning experience having my first real job and one that I did well enough at that my boss asked me to return the next summer. The knowledge that I was leaving everyone and everything I knew for the first time in eighteen years was a mixture of excitement and apprehension or perhaps sheer terror would be a more apt explanation.

Shortly after my acceptance letter came in the mail from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri a book arrived in the mail that was a guideline for all students. There was also a letter that told me who my roommate was as the college picked those on the basis of the home visit done by the college representative done during my senior year. Mother got in contact with my new roommate's mother and took charge of decorating the room since we had visited the college during the summer. She immersed herself in "With In The Ivy" and gleamed over all the rules and regulations.  The worst part was that she shopped for clothes for me.  I tried to match the clothes she bought to my stacks of Seventeen magazines and wondered what style books she was looking at.  Ah, but there was no arguing with Mother.


While Mother is planning my life at Stephens, Dad had a different idea.  He thought it would be nice if I just stayed home and went to college at Northeastern State University. It was a short commute and he would buy me a  Corvette or even a 1953 MGTD, which was my choice.  It was tempting.  Looking back now I realize that I probably knew what was going on with both parents but did not have the courage to just tell them they needed to stop the tug of war over me.  Mother wanted the prestige of sending her daughter off to a private girl's college.  Dad wanted his only daughter, his only buffer between he and my Mother, not to leave. Although Dad and I never talked about it we both knew what I had to do as neither of us was able to say no to Mother. It was a good thing I worked six days a week, spent as little time at home as possible and tried very hard not to think about any of it.

Back in 1964 there were a lot more rules for female students to live by. Stephens was no exception but perhaps due to the history of the college,  a little more strict.  In 1833 the Columbia Female College was established to provide a higher education for the girls in town. In 1857 the Columbia Female Academy was incorporated into the Baptist Female College.  Finally in 1870 an endowment fund saw the name of the institution changed to Stephens College and in 1911 was reorganized to provide emphasis on the education of women in the first two years of college.  By the mid-sixties it became a full four year college.

Stephens had hours that girls had to be in their dorms unlike the University of Missouri a few blocks away.  Sunday through Thursday you had to be in by 10:00 and 12:00 on the weekends.  You signed in and out of the dorm stating where you were going on the weekend nights and the dorm Mother was always there when you signed in.  If you broke one of the three cardinal rules which were (1) No Drinking of alcoholic beverages (2) Do not enter a man's living quarters (3) Do not leave the county limits during the day or the city limits at night.  Failure to heed these rules was an immediate plane ticket home.  Sounded great to parents. I guess I figured those were going to be pretty simple to follow.  Right?

Finally departure day arrived. Stephens had made plane reservations for all of the incoming freshmen.  I was to fly from Tulsa to Kansas City to meet up with all the girls from the western part of the country.    At the same time planes landed in St. Louis with all the girls from the east.
Chartered buses were to meet us at the airport and we would then be off to Columbia. I had never flown before, I was going off to college, I had luggage for the first time in my life all of which should have been very exciting.  Upon landing in Kansas City all the girls were put into a large group while waiting for more planes to land.  

A plane ticket from Tulsa to Kansas City was $40.25 in 1964

It was one of those times when all the insecurities and shyness seemed to overwhelmed me.  I looked around at all the others girls giggling and laughing dressed in their Seventeen Magazine outfits with blonde hair and I wanted to hide in a corner and have a good cry.  Mother had made me get my blonde hair dyed back to it's natural brown color so I looked wholesome.  To make the day really perfect she had decided I should wear a brown dotted swiss dress with awful shoes that hurt my feet. Brown is not my color and had there been zombie movies at the time I would have been cast in an instance. But the worst was not over yet.

No one told me, nor was it mentioned in the book Mother studied so intently, that upon arrival at Stephens College the streets would be lined with boys from the University of Missouri.  It was a tradition that the boys came by what seemed to be the hundreds to check out the new crop of Stephens Susie's as we were called.  As I shuffled, yes shuffled, because my feet would no longer bend in those shoes I was wondering what I was doing in this place. I could only slide my feet along the pavement or pick them up and put them down flat much like a horse tromping down the street.  Getting to my dorm room on the fourth floor I passed through more giggling girls finding out where everyone was from.  I heard New York City, Los Angeles, Hawaii and on and on. How could I tell anyone I was from Muskogee, Oklahoma?  Who ever heard of anyone from Muskogee?  How many actually knew where Oklahoma was on the map?  The bright spot had to be that Merle Haggard had  not yet recorded that song as somehow it does not compare to 'New York, New York',  'San Fransisco Here I Come' or 'Chicago Is My Kind Of Town'.

South Hall at Stephens College

The dorm room was stacked with boxes that had been shipped ahead of time. The rooms were set up so that two rooms shared a bathroom with a shower, sink and toilet. There was not much I could do until my roommate should up so I sort of hid in the room.  Girls came in and out, introductions were made and names and hometowns swirled around me in a blur.  Where could the mysterious roommate be?  Surely she arrived in Kansas City and on the stream of buses about the same time I did.  Maybe she wasn't coming?  Maybe I could just hide in that room all by myself. Why did I ever let myself get talked into coming to this place?

About the time I was ready to break down and have a good cry a girl walks into the room.  She said "Hi, I'm Cathie.  You have to be my roomie".  Every  insecurity I ever had and maybe some new ones cut through me like a knife that moment she walked in the door.  She had the most brilliant blue eyes I had ever seen, beautiful blonde hair and she filled any room with her presence.  She would always remind me how my mouth dropped open when she appeared in the room. Needless to say it was a very rocky start for me at that moment to believe I would like her or that I could get along with her.

Cathie

At least she was from Midland, Texas and not a glamorous place. That first day with Cathie was interesting to say the least especially when she went searching for one particular box that she had to find.  Upon opening it, out came a very well worn four foot tall teddy bear named Jex.  Jex slept with her every night.  Even though I seriously wondered how out of eighteen hundred girls and seven boys attending Stephens College that fall I ended up with Cathie I would soon learn everyday was an adventure.  I would also learn a lot about myself.

My Sunburned, Stock Car Summer Part 2

                                        Muskogee's First 15 cent Hamburger Stand

Back to the story of the summer after high school graduation.  When I visited Muskogee last week for the Class 70th Birthday Party I got a chance to visit with my nephew, Don, and his son Brett.  By a stroke of luck Brett is quite the champion stock car driver and Joan, Don's mom, used to write all the stories about the races for the local paper back in the late sixties.  Don had a book of all her newspaper stories with pictures that brought back lots of memories.  So on with my story where I left off.

A powder Puff Derby at the stock car races was one where females drove the cars.  Since a couple of my classmates had built a car they thought it would be great if I drove it for them in the Powder Puff race. I thought that was pretty brave of them - what if I wrecked it?  They did not seem to be worried about that and I proceeded to see what I needed to do to drive it.  Hmm....all I needed as far as the race track was concerned was permission and a release form signed by my parents since I was underage.  No big deal.  

Wrong.  When I approached the subject my Dad kept his hand over his mouth so Mother did not see him laughing as she started gasping for breath.  I wasn't sure whether she was having a heart attack or she was so upset she could not breathe. When she was able to breath again it was the upset part that I was so stupid to think there was anything cool about driving a stock car. If you ever had a parent who started sentences with the phrase "I did not raise you to....etc.etc." you can imagine the discussion.  Later when I said something to Dad about it I got the usual phrase "You know how your Mother is."  I think he would have liked to have seen me drive the stock car.

But somehow in all the stock car driving talk in our hot rod hangout garage a boy a few years older than I, Danny Borovitz, asked me if I would like to go to the stock races on a Friday night.  He crewed on a car and said the wives and girlfriends of the driver and the other crew members would pick me up at 6:30 that Friday night. 

Good Old Rollers

Now that did present a few problems.  On the rare occasion I had a date and did not get done at the swimming pool until 6:00 there was a problem with my hair.  If you look back at pictures of the mid-sixties you will notice the very bouffant hairstyles.  My lifelong horrible hair required washing, rolling on big rollers, sitting under a hairdryer for thirty minutes and then backcombing and lots of spray.  This did not happen getting off work at 6:00 and going out at 6:30.  The only answer was to fix my hair as usual in the morning, pray the wind did not blow at thirty miles an hour, chase all the children out of the pool by 5:30 and hope no one decided to try to drown in water deeper than four feet. If all went well I was good to go out on a date.

Danny crewed on Tom Laster's stock car and Tom's wife, Judy picked me up each Friday night.  The grandstand was filled with thousands of people every Friday night.  We sat in a boxed area of the grandstands right in the center of the track cheering Tom on.  Back in the day Tom Laster was one of the best driver's with one of the fastest cars.  After the races we would meet the guys at the beer distributorship where they kept the car.  The guys would have a beer or two (I did not drink - then), rehash the races and then Danny would take me home. Of course Mother was not happy with me hanging out at Thunderbird Speedway and gave me a lecture every Friday night when I got home. Oh well, nothing new.  Thinking back now I don't remember ever going out with Danny except to the races but became great friends.

Thunderbird Speedway as it is today

Last weekend when we were home Marshell and I went out to the Fairgrounds where Thunderbird Speedway is/was.  Muskogee no longer has a fair and all the old buildings sit vacant except for a couple the city is using. The Speedway closed in 2003 when it was condemned and although a couple of people have purchased it and tried to revive it they have not been successful.  I could almost hear the roar of the engines and the crowd as I walked around and took pictures of it as it stands today.  Being a preservation person I wanted to cry as it meant so much to the town back in it's day.

We also drove out to what was Meadowbrook Country Club, now Eagle Crest Golf Course.  Fifty years have wiped out all of what was once there.  The pool is gone and the clubhouse both of which held a lot of memories of my first real job.  Muskogee was a great town to grow up in. Every town has it's good and bad, ups and downs but Muskogee had a lot of things to do, very,very good schools, great people and I am glad that I got to spend my first nineteen years there. Through my life I have lived a lot of different places but Muskogee, no matter how much it changes will always be home.

                            Meadowbrook Pool Used To Be Here 

Mother spent most of the summer pouring over the Stephens College Handbook with all the rules and regulations. She and I drove up to Columbia, Missouri one Monday on my day off and took a tour of the college.  The campus was beautiful with old buildings covered in ivy but the rule book made it sound like I was going off to a nunnery. She was glowing with the prospect of very strict hours and all the do's and don'ts.  I tried very hard not to think about the end of the summer and leaving home.

The Birthday Bash

Class of 64



The very last thing I need to be doing today or even this week is to be taking the time to write a story.  If I did have the time to write it should be the second part to my story about the summer after graduation but we came home last night from a weekend that can best be described as spending three days in a big warm hug. Maybe if I put the weekend down on paper I can move on to doing what I should be doing this week.

This weekend my Senior Class had a birthday party since this is the year we all turned seventy.  Sounds rather silly but we started the birthday party thing when we all turned fifty.  One of our class mates had been having his annual fortieth birthday party for ten years and on what he called his tenth annual fortieth birthday party, we all decided to join in with him. Even with class reunions every five years it seemed like sixty-five was a milestone and another party ensued.  Turning seventy sounded like another great excuse for party time. If there is one thing the Muskogee High School Class of 1964 knows how to do it is how to have a great time.

Arriving at the La Quinta Inn and Suites, headquarters for everything, we were greeted by the night manager who told us no we could not plug in our electric car which we had done on previous visits. There were a few moments of silence, Marshell was looking grim and then the manager laughed and told us he was only kidding.  So the laughter began instantly.  The party planners had a conference room filled with the green and white high school colors and enough snacks to feed an army.
Naturally there were drinks to go along with that.

Classmates arrived, even some that had moved away during the school years and graduated in other locations.  They decided not to make name tags since no one is ever sure who will actually show up and many tags were left from the last reunion.  It is really fun to have people walk into the room that you have not seen for years and try to guess who they are.  Regular reunion attendees are easy but those who come for the first time in years or the first time ever make for a real challenge.  After all these years there are a times a voice you hear or the way someone moves that instantly tells you who they are. If all else fails, just go introduce yourself and find out.

A funny part of Friday evening when it was rather late and a lot of people had slipped off to bed.  Ten of us were sitting around and a wife of a classmate picked up a yearbook and started reading what everyone wrote under their Senior picture.  She did not attend school with us and inquired about some of the activities that people had listed under their Senior picture.  Lots of laughter about many of the things that people had posted in the yearbook that they did not even know what it was or that they even participated in them. Did some people just put down anything on those ten lines to fill in?  Did those with nothing under their picture just not care or were absent that day? Funny how things that seemed so important then, like having lots of activities under your picture in the yearbook, don't matter now.

Saturday morning after free breakfast in the hotel that lasted a couple of hours it was off to beautiful Honor Heights Park for a picnic. The park, all 132 acres of it, is more beautiful now than it ever has been since it was established in 1909.  It was the sight of school and company picnics, family reunions, the place to drive through night or day on it's hilly winding road.  It was famous for it's rose gardens and now azaleas and spectacular Christmas lights. It was the place to go swim or to see if a Volkswagon could really float in one of the five ponds. The park is as much a part of our growing up as school was.

Saturday night we were picked up by a trolley and whisked off to a sport's bar/restaurant in town.  More classmates we had not seen showed up to make the weekend more special.  There was a band in one room playing music that we did not relate to and recorded music for the dance floor which tended to be for country two-steppers.  Didn't take long to flood the floor with good old swing dancers and the music changed to the Twist. Too bad the trolley came to pick up the old folks when we were just getting started.

Back at the motel we were informed by the organizing committee that we had to play some games because they had door prizes to give away. No details will be given on the Plunger Game. All I will say is that most seventy year old people would not have participated but we are no normal seventy year old people.  Chair volleyball was exciting with the ball bouncing off the walls and lights.  Good thing the night manager was off duty to help oversee the game.  Actually I think he was one of the ball servers.  Like he said, his job was to make sure we had a good time.

Chair Volleyball

The very best part of the weekend was the group of classmates. At breakfast Saturday morning one of the girls said to me that she enjoyed reading my stories but that they made her sad. That was a surprise as I work very hard to make them entertaining - where did she get sad?  She said she was jealous because I had so much fun in high school and she did not.  I was really just a little surprised as she was one of those girls that I wished I was like.  She was popular and had lots of friends. I told her she was one of those people that I looked up to and wished I could be like her.  That my stories may seem funny and lots of fun but that they are just my way of masking all the insecurities and shyness that I lived with. Might be better to say, the insecurities and shyness we all had. 

Another girl said no one even knew or remembered her from high school.  Wrong - I remember her as being very cute and shy.  A boy told a story about his childhood that was pretty unbelievable that none of us ever knew.  There was a discussion about just who had the most dysfunctional family and mine did not seem nearly as bad as I thought. Another boy said how much in love he was with me and another girl but always thought he was too poor to ask either of us out. Thank heavens we have reached a stage in life where we can actually admit to our feelings to each other about the hardest years of growing up.  

One of the most important things I have learned in the fifty-two years since we graduated is that the classmates that I spent twelve years of my life with and many reunions have become family.  I did not ever meet many of my relatives for whatever reason and family dinners at holidays after growing up usually did not go well.  Moving around in my adult life I made a lot of friends but soon lost track of them without bring there to share current happenings with them.  How can they not be family when you grew up with them, spent eight hours a day for nine months of every year with them and shared all the memories of activities and events.

One of the funny moments of the weekend I shared with Robert who has always been the glue that holds the class together.  He and some other people were watching football at the hotel on Saturday afternoon.  One of the couples proudly announced that their fiftieth wedding anniversary was coming up.  I looked at Robert and asked him if he and I added up all our own marriages could we come up with fifty years. It no longer matters whether you are rich or poor, many times married, if you were a cheerleader or played football (well, maybe that still matters), fat or thin or whether your life is going well or badly.  We can get together and make everyone feel better because we are family.

My Sunburned Stock Car Summer

Favorite Lifeguard Bathing Suit

After graduation from Muskogee Central High School in May of 1964 it was time to start my first "real job".  Getting up at four o'clock in the morning for the past two years to throw newspapers just did not seem to qualify as a "real job", more like something kids did.  Being all grown-up with a high school diploma it was time to get serious.  The chance to be a Lifeguard and getting paid a dollar an hour sure seemed like a move up in the working world. On the first Tuesday after Labor Day I drove to Meadowbrook Country Club with my newly acquired Senior Lifesaving Card and more than a little apprehension.

Looking back now I realized that the only things I knew about Meadowbrook County Club was that I had played golf on their nine-hole course many times in the previous two years usually at the crack of dawn all by myself.  Growing up in Muskogee every teenager attended the dances in the huge old building with the rent-a-cop sitting by the door. I knew my bosses name was Bob and that I was the only lifeguard for the pool behind the Pro Shop.  As far as being a lifeguard was concerned I only knew how to jump in the water and save a potential drowning person and that lifeguards sat up on high platforms getting a beautiful tan. Wow! Was I in for a learning experience!

When something is called a Country Club you might have visions of a pristine golf course, a beautiful dining area with white table cloths, a pro-shop filled with all sorts of golf equipment and a beautiful pool. Meadowbrook was the public country club in town and quite different from the  "membership only" one across town. Thinking back about it now, being more of a history buff, I wondered just when it was built. There doesn't seem to be any facts on the Internet but I did find that Bob Peerson ran Meadowbrook from 1950 to 1963 even though he was still there in 1964 and 1965.

Evidently in it's heyday there was a restaurant and bar called the Topaz Room adjacent to a large area that could sit 400 people with a stage for dinner and dancing. Ah, the answer as to what the large building was where the teen dances were held.  The Pro-Shop was a small building by Tee #1 big enough for a couple of tables.  I can imagine golf equipment being sold from the glass cases that in 1964 held a few golf balls and snacks.  Soft drinks and beer were available from the cooler.

The pool was built up on the ground almost like they dug the hole and then piled the dirt up on the sides then poured the concrete.  It was surrounded by a chain-link fence with the only trees far in the distance. Instead of a lifeguard stand there was a park bench.  Meadowbrook had been there for several decades and no doubt was on the decline.  None of that was noticeable to me then.  Being my first job I loved every inch of the place.

The pool hours were 10:00 to 12:00 and 1:00 to 7:00 Tuesday through Sunday. Not only was I to keep anyone from drowning but it was my
 job twice a day to check and make sure all the chemicals were right. Never can learn enough important tasks. When it rained the pool was not open and if I needed to take a break to go to the bathroom I had to get everyone out of the pool until I returned. So, I arrived my first day at work in my bathing suit, with a whistle around my neck and a towel. The learning experience began and trust me, there was a lot that I learned that summer.

The morning session from 10:00 to 12:00 was usually very quiet - quiet as there were hardly ever any swimmers there except for an occasional mother with a little child or two.  It made for a very long morning so my Dad bought me a portable radio.  Listening to music and the DJ chatter from KLIF out of Tulsa was entertaining.  You have to love my Dad who loved to shop.  He did not just buy me a little plastic radio, he bought one in a leather case with a pretty good sized speaker. They could probably hear the music in the clubhouse.

                               1960's Leather Covered Radio

The afternoon was a whole other story.  I could have anywhere from five or six children to as many as forty in the pool at the same time. Rarely was there ever a parent who stayed at the pool with their little ones.  They played golf, sat in the clubhouse or just left.  Ages of the children ranged from four to fourteen. Actually they were pretty well behaved but it was difficult to keep an eye on all of them at the same. time.

The first week of sitting in the sun all day with no shade what so ever proved to be interesting.  Those were the days before mammoth amounts of sunscreen.  Those were the days of Coppertone and Baby Oil with Iodine so you could get the California Beach Blanket/Surfer look.  Instead of turning into the next Gidget, I turned into a charbroiled lobster.  Mother would not have had to worry if I had gone out on a date since a boy's hand two inches from my body would have caused screams of pain from the sunburn.  The first week the only way I could sleep was sitting on the floor in the living room with my head on a pillow on the coffee table.  After the first or second layer of my skin peeled off things were much better and finally the California girl look set in with the tan and sun bleached hair.  The exception was my nose which did require several applications of good old white zinc oxide a day.

About the same time I started my job a couple of the boys I graduated with had built a stock car.  Muskogee was pretty famous for their Thunderbird Speedway stock car track at the Muskogee Fairgrounds. Built in 1907 as a horse racing track it was converted to stock cars in 1955.  No one in my family ever went to the stock car races but they were broadcast live on the local radio station plus you could hear the roar of the engines over half the town on any Friday night. Stock cars were almost as popular as football on a Friday night.

The boys came to see Kenny one night for technical advice or parts or something and the subject of a Powder Puff Derby came up.  There was to be one in a week or so.  Everyone thought it would be a great idea if I drove the car in the Powder Puff Derby.  Wow!  Sounded like a really cool idea to me.  Certainly it would not be any more dangerous than me jumping on a surf board like Gidget soaring over the waves. If in Oklahoma you have to do what the locals do which was jumping in a car and racing around a dirt track as fast as you could go.

Since I want to keep you in suspense as to what happens next you are going to have to look for part two next week.  What did happen with the stock car adventure and did anyone drown that summer?