Archives for category: Friends

Child of the 60s

February 1, 2025 //

I started the 60s as a teenager in 9th-10th grade and ended the decade as a college graduate, married and pregnant with my second child. It was a time of immense change in both me and the world we had known.

Not sure if I was a typical teen, but I was a busy one. I studied hard, learned all the social graces, dated and fell in love, got my driver’s license and cruised with my friends, went to movies and football games and laughed a lot. I was an oldest child, anxious to please adults and do the right things…and I was a girl who was taking in all the things I saw adults doing that I thought were not quite right. I wasn’t as much quiet as observant. And, I read a lot. I’m a month too old to be a legitimate Baby Boomer, which makes me the end of the Silent Generation. My parents and grandparents had lived through the Depression and World War II, which they didn’t talk too much about. I learned through digging through the photos and objects in their houses. In school, we read all the dystopian novels, “1984,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Animal Farm,” “Fahrenheit 451,” and I was absorbed with the “Diary of Anne Frank,” both the book and movie. By my senior year, I was exploring the works of Camus and Kierkegaard and other existentialists while developing my own faith and belief system.

By college, we were listening to folk music along with our beloved rock and roll, which we danced to with great joy. I spent many years rolling my eyes at my parents as they rolled theirs at the music, the slang, the way we dressed. My freshman year had barely started when we were rocked by the assassination of President Kennedy, followed by the Beatles coming to America the following spring. Everything was changing so rapidly and we were watching all the things that had seemed so stable begin to show the cracks in the systems.

I recently watched the Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” and actually got teary listening to the music and watching the images of the 60s. In my Freshman dorm room, we only had one or two electrical outlets, which my roommate and I shared. We had a popcorn popper, hair dryers, lamps, and I had an electric typewriter (I think I had an electric one by then), a clock radio and my record player. I played my records all the time, listening to Joan Baez, Peter, Paul & Mary, and so many other folk singers over and over. As the Viet Nam War started to build up, we saw our contemporaries going to college and/or getting married to avoid the draft. Many of my classmates were shipped out after they graduated. One classmate was killed as soon as he arrived. Protest songs were becoming more relevant to what we were living.

The Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, the Anti-War Movement were all around us. In particular, we were seeing the inequalities for women. We had different curfews, campus rules. Once we were out of college, we had to either hope to get married to someone who could support us or get hired. The most touted options for us were Secretary, Nurse, Teacher. I went to hear Gloria Steinem on campus and read the latest feminist works. Even the women’s magazines my mother subscribed to were beginning to have articles on women’s place in society.

My boyfriend was in the Navy and we married when he got out and returned to school. We were poor and happy and welcomed our first child with complete ignorance of what to do. He joined my father’s business and I became the housewife and mother I was supposed to be. But, I found that there was so much more to do. I joined a discussion group of other young mothers, I volunteered in the community, and I kept questioning all of the norms in society. I could write more about all the things women couldn’t do, even as educated white women, but there were so many. We were basically still second class as far as many businesses and laws were concerned. By the time I had three daughters, I was doing all I could to make sure their world had more opportunities for them and their daughters. My last child was a boy and he was the one who really cared about women’s rights by the time he was in college. His mother and three sisters motivated him, as he said.

That decade of the 60s was definitely a major time period in my overly privileged, white life. From my lofty perch as I rapidly approach 80 this year, I wish that I lived in a society that listened to its elders and learned from the wisdom we have acquired, but I also see people my age living greedy, selfish lives and impacting others in negative ways. There are so many times I think we are going backwards – in a bad way.

I guess we all take different ideas from our lives. I like to think that this Child of the 60s came out of that time with a greater appreciation for those who didn’t have my advantages and a greater sense of empathy for the suffering of others. This makes it my responsibility to always do what I can for others, whether it is speaking out or making contributions or taking actions to make changes for the betterment of others. I’ll never get too old for that. Peace and Love!

Tags 60s, book-review, books, college, folk music, high school, history, marriage, memories, women

Categories Books, Events, Family, Friends, History, Memories, Reflections

The Big Picture

October 14, 2024 //

There is nothing like standing on a beach to remind you of what a minuscule speck each of us is in the scope of the universe. Those are the times you recognize your belief in a greater force of nature than your own limited understanding of your place in all of the beauty and wonder of all you can see and feel.

When I was in college, a friend told me I had a great ability to see all sides of a situation. I like to think so and believe I grew in that ability through reading, meeting people from all ends of society and traveling to other countries and parts of my own country to broaden my perspective. I don’t think I have to have had every experience to try and put myself in someone else’s place when trying to solve a problem.

Through the years, I have had many leadership positions that challenged me to find solutions to problems that affected more people than just my own family or friends. When I was President of the PTA at my children’s elementary school, I spent a lot of time in the office with the Principal and visiting with teachers. Parents who advocated for their own children often overlooked the needs of the entire student body. It was advocacy in motion and sometimes either frustrating or narrow in view. There is nothing wrong with standing up for your child, but sometimes you need to look at other children and the issues that teachers and schools are dealing with to help all children. If your problem is one that many children are facing, there should be ways to find solutions for all.

The same thing happened when I was President of my Neighborhood Association. I get that, too. Our homes are usually our greatest financial investment and what is happening in our own area is important. Once again, maybe your neighbors have the same issues or maybe your grievance is something based on just your own personal beliefs or desires. There are rules and regulations for all of us and we can always come together to find solutions.

Unfortunately, I have watched meetings in many groups become contentious and ugly rather than productive. I’ve seen this in families, churches, businesses, organizations of all sizes. People get defensive when defending their opinions. After all my years of taking classes in conflict resolution and group facilitation, I am still shocked when confronted with people who are going to stand their ground no matter what facts are presented to them.

Believe me, I’m not always right and I can get defensive, too. I’m just always trying to find that way to peace. I think it comes from being the oldest child who had to sit between siblings in the back seat of a car while they reached across me to hit each other.

And so, we come to the world today, where I have never in my almost 79 years seen such division. People I know are afraid of everyone who doesn’t look or believe like them or they are afraid they will lose all their money or power. Others are sure they are right because of their religious views or their own self-righteousness over people who don’t live just like them. And, never have I seen so many people who are only concerned with what happens to them. Those who try to see another point of view are called “woke” in a sarcastic way, while I just see an attempt at empathy.

I’ve obviously got more years behind me than ahead of me, but I still like to look at the Big Picture of what might work for most of us. Not everyone has been as fortunate as I have, nor had the opportunities or health I have. Many things are out of our control and we are trying to do the best we can. Mistakes are made in life and people pay for them in many heartbreaking ways. The best we can do is look at the universe and see how we can make a place for all of us to live in peace and some happiness.

If you don’t have a beach to go stand on, find a sky to watch. Look beyond yourself and try to find a place for peace and love in your heart.

Tags Big Picture

Categories Family, Friends, Reflections

The Displaced Homemakers

September 2, 2024 //

Forgive my eye roll as I listen to discussions in the news on how women are most fulfilled by staying home and raising babies. Everyone knows how much I love my children and how I enjoyed being home with them, but…here’s my story.

When I went to college in 1963, women were beginning to be expected to work really hard through high school to get into college and then…well, the options we were given were ok but really an excuse to stay in school and find a college educated husband. If you had to work after college until you found one, that was ok, but you were still kind of expected to start a family as soon as possible.

I’m not sure I really had a goal of any kind. I was smart, observant, in love, and thought my life would mirror my parents’, which was pretty nice I thought. I was very naive about how the world was going to work for me and my friends. I got married right after I turned 21, finished school, started grad school so I could teach while my husband finished up, and had my first child. Our life progressed as we thought it would and I stayed home and had three more kids before I turned 30. My husband worked with my father, I loved the babies (which I had never even thought about before I had them), and we were happy.

But, there was the fact that I got bored when the kids were asleep or at day care, preschool, school. Housework and playing bridge weren’t really doing it for me. I started doing volunteer work, as was expected of those of us who had it so seemingly easy, and found an unpaid career that filled my time, brought me new friends and taught me more than I ever imagined. I learned new skills and attained new leadership positions. My thought was that I couldn’t be out saving the world, but I could save my own little world, one day at a time, while still doing all the mom things, which I loved.

By the 1980s, I had edited a cookbook, a magazine, planned for city growth, worked with the arts, helped educate people on Historic Preservation, served on Boards of Directors and was feeling pretty good. It was the 80s and women were speaking up more and more. I had heard Gloria Steinem speak when I was in college and read all the women’s and new magazines and current books and was up on Women’s Lib, as it was called, sometimes not in a nice way. I understood and empathized, but I was busy driving a billion carpools and leading committee meetings and selling popcorn after school – all things that were needed. I wasn’t out marching for Women’s Rights. I didn’t have time.

The Equal Rights Amendment was in the news and states were ratifying it and dismissing it. Would it ever get passed? Nope. Women were slowly gaining more rights but were still not considered equal under the law in the United States. That’s the truth and still is to this day. It doesn’t mean that we can’t get more rights, but it means that they can more easily be taken away. Eventually, it was out of the news and women were content with small victories along the way. NOTE: we never should have stopped fighting for it.

I thought of myself as a person who was good at bringing people together to make decisions and finish projects and get things done. I was aware of inequities for women, but I wasn’t much of an advocate – yet. The Junior League of Tulsa was a bastion of educated women who spent their time trying to make the city a better place. It was the epitome of what women, even women who were proud homemakers and mothers, could do to make change. In 1983, two projects were proposed for the coming year. One was to work with domestic violence advocates and organizations to increase awareness. This was a new movement at the time.

The second project was to collaborate with The University of Tulsa to open a resource center for women who needed help as their lives changed due to numerous upheavals and changes of direction. This included women who needed to go to work, women who were widowed or divorced and left to fend for themselves and would help women who didn’t have the opportunities and contacts my friends had at the time. I first heard the term “displaced homemakers.” For some reason, the Catholic community decided that this project would be doing abortion counseling and there was a big uproar with even the Bishop becoming involved, articles in the paper about it all causing much division in the Junior League membership. After all of this, when it came time to vote for new projects to give our time and money to, I wasn’t sure if we should do something that was causing so much friction. I’m not sure how I voted, but both projects passed and were ready to go. Then it was time to choose chairmen for the projects. I was more than shocked when I got a call to chair the women’s resource center project. My first inclination was to say no, because why did I need to have stress like this, but a good friend convinced me that I was the right person precisely because I didn’t have a side in it and could work to bring everyone together. Flattery and a new challenge were appealing and I took off on a year that would be life changing in so many ways.

Our joint committee of volunteers and representatives from TU worked for nine months to set up the policies and hire a professional Director for The Women’s Center, as we decided to call it. We had a converted house donated by the university to furnish and set up, materials to collect, and publicity to generate. By the time we opened in January, 1984, women were pretty much lined up for the services. I’m proud to say that the center, under a different organization, still exists in Tulsa today. I met women who were desperate for job counseling, looking for places to live, needing just anyone to talk to. Nobody was asking about an abortion, by the way.

A couple of years after this project, I was asked to chair the domestic violence project as the new shelter was opened and new programs being developed. After that year, I continued to serve on the Board of Directors for six more years, including a year as Board President. In all those years, I never spoke to a community group without a woman or women coming up to me afterwards to tell me their story. They were beginning to break free with education about the issue.

This was becoming personal because I was the mother of three girls and I felt like I needed to be a role model in the fight for other women. I needed to expose them to the things that happen to women. And, I was the mother of a son who needed to be a man who respected women. My son was the one who worked for women’s rights while he was in college. Hopefully, they all absorbed some of what I was doing.

Another reason this was becoming more personal was because at the same time, my friends were also going through major life shifts. In my parents’ time, there were few divorces, mainly because the women had no recourse. They had no education or skills, no money except through their husbands, and no support from churches, society or even family. You were expected to stay in a marriage, no matter how bad it got. Cheating and abuse and addiction and gambling and men who couldn’t provide for their families are nothing new, but nobody talked about it. It was the age of secrets. By the time I was in my thirties, more marriages were falling apart. We had married young for so many reasons. Birth control was new and only available if you were married. Girls had to either have abortions in secret places, give their babies up for adoption or get married. Guys could get exemptions from Viet Nam if they were married or couples married because the guy was drafted. You were expected to have your children young for health reasons. But now, maybe some of those reasons weren’t good enough for a sustained marriage. Guys who cheated felt free to leave their families for their new love, husbands died, husbands were cruel. I also had friends who realized that they were gay, which was fine with me. They really weren’t any different, just happier. When I wasn’t out saving the world for others, I was on the phone with friends who were facing new realities.

Those who suddenly had to find work learned that those degrees we got were pretty useless if you hadn’t been in the work force building up your resume. Many sucked it up and called people they had worked with as volunteers to see if there was a paid job they could do. Networking was key to survival. Whatever job was found was mostly at entry level and many still had children at home to take care of. Divorces were messy and many a friend became a fierce advocate for their children and themselves in courtrooms where men still had an advantage. Once you were out there, it was just becoming a thing for women to get their own credit and bank accounts. There were those who suggested that women should stay married no matter what and were no support at all.

Through the 80s and into the 90s, I did a lot of writing, speaking and advocating for these women, these “displaced homemakers.” In that time, my own children went to college. The three girls married and had their first babies and my son was in college. I had gone to work part-time, then full time and had my own business. Then, suddenly, I was one of the displaced. My husband died of cancer very quickly and, after almost a year of being immersed in the world of medicine, I was out there on my own. After putting four children through college and having three weddings, selling our family business and watching my husband have to reinvent himself, our resources were at a low. I was a widow at 52. Life happens.

In the 25+ years since, I have reinvented myself so many times, used every skill I ever had, laughed and cried with friends and watched the world changing all the time. There are so many new developments in medicine and technology for my children and grandchildren. My friends are still going through transitions and reinventing ourselves for our later years. I survived because of the experiences I had through the years, the friends and family who gave me love and support, and because of the strength of the women in my family whose stories I tell with such pride. My daughters, and daughter-in-law, mother and grandmothers and all the women I have known have made me stronger and happier than I ever expected. I ride on all their shoulders.

Looking back, I smile at the dream of the “Happy Homemaker” that we believed in so blindly. It is a great part of life, but it is only part of who we will be as women. “Children are the best thing in your life” is an easy thing to say, but they can be a challenge. Some are born with physical or mental disabilities, some become addicted, some just seem to defy everything we give them, some make bad decisions. And some die. Some women cannot have children by birth and may struggle through fertility issues and adoptions. And, some women just don’t want to have children. Children cannot be the only way to happiness.

I am a lucky girl. My children were healthy and sweet and fun and came out ok. I am a lucky, lucky girl. I will always be grateful for my wonderful children. I will also say that I also had wonderful men in my life, including a supportive husband. I will always be grateful for the loving, kind men I have known and been friends with throughout my life. Because I have been so lucky, I will aways fight for the women who haven’t been. I will write and talk and post and march and vote for the homemakers and the “displaced homemakers” and those who chose another direction.

The thing is that we cannot make decisions for other people. We cannot force them to believe as we think they should or live as we think they should. We cannot judge them for their beliefs and decisions. None of us know what is going on in other people’s lives. We need to support and love and listen. We need to live the Golden Rule. Life isn’t always easy and we don’t need to make it harder for anyone. We need to be kind.

Politics has become a way to beat other people down instead of lifting their lives up. We need to be better.

Tags displaced homemakers, domestic violence, ERA, women's lib

Categories Family, Friends, History, Reflections, Uncategorized

Life’s Chapters

August 23, 2022 //

The problem with thinking of life in chapters is that there has to be a last one. Who wants to think about that? I’ve just been pondering where I am, following the quiet years of COVID-19 where I was home more than I had been in decades. There were good things about it. I spent more time with my pets, listened to the birds, walked the neighborhood and everybody smiled and waved. Now we’re back to mostly normal, but it’s hard to comfortably move from pandemic life to whatever the new one is.

I’m 76 right now and, pre-COVID, I was going all the time. Now it seems to be moving more slowly and that’s not just due to my age. We’re easing into life at a time when I feel like I need to be hurrying so I don’t miss anything before, frankly, I just can’t do it anymore.

There have been so many chapters in my life so far, starting with childhood in the 40s and 50s. I was fortunate to have a very peaceful, comfortable life.

Then there was junior high and high school, where I changed and grew and learned and questioned.

And then there was college, where I was away for the first time and made new friends and learned more and even got married.

And then I was a wife and mother to four before I turned 30, finding a life for myself through volunteer work and family activities.

And life went on as the kids grew up and went to college and married and I went to work part-time, then full time and then owned my own business. And then the shock of becoming a widow at 52 and starting yet another chapter where I had to close my business and find work that gave me health benefits and supported me and all of that. During that time, I pushed myself into going places by myself or with friends to meet me. The first was Alaska with my high school friend who lived there. It was a big trip to take alone when I’d always had my husband to travel with.

By the time my husband died, we had the first three of our grandkids, who proved to be my next chapter and my salvation.

I could go on about each chapter, but they are all parts of a huge whole life. I had several careers that I had never dreamed of as a young wife with an English degree, but my life experiences and my ability to communicate served me well through the years and I made new friends, accomplished new goals and was amazed at what I had done when I finally retired.

My other love has been travel and I’ve been grateful for special friends who were available to travel with me as I traveled the American West, South, and back to France. I’ve taken my grandchildren on trips and explored my own state of Oklahoma and the states around us. I’m always ready to go visit somewhere.

So, what is this new chapter? I’ve lost friends who were near and dear to me in recent months and spent the last week or two at memorial services. I’m not good at funerals, but two of my favorite people lost their husbands after long illnesses and I needed to be there for them. I also lost a friend at the end of last year who was 95 and another who was 101 in the last few weeks. I also went to a memorial for a friend’s mother who was 101 – two services for 101 year olds in five days!

But those deaths and the lives of these women we were celebrating have inspired me. I have had many men I loved and adored in my life, but it’s the women who are speaking to me at this time of my life. I had strong grandmothers and a strong mother and their lives have taught me so much. These other women I adored who lived so long were as strong as anyone can be. And I look at their lives and try to find the secret of what made them the role models they are for me.

First, all of these women had to face hardships at various times in their lives, whether loss of spouse, loss of child, loss of husband’s job, loss of any support other than themselves. They all lived on and smiled and laughed and loved and didn’t just sit around feeling sorry for themselves. None of them ever considered themselves a victim. There was no drama – just life.

Second, I can remember all of their voices and their laughter so well. The memories make me smile. They all had terrific senses of humor and were able to laugh at life’s little kicks.

Third, they never quit going as long as they could. They were always curious and learning and keeping up with what was going on in the world. They never stopped growing intellectually or emotionally. Several traveled until they had infirmities that made it difficult. The 95 year old and the 101 year old read all the time. The 95 year old was still reading about a book a day until close to the end.

They all loved their families as much as anyone could. They died beloved by their offspring.

So, where do I go from here? I’ll keep traveling until I can’t, reading until I can’t see (and then there are audio books), learning several new things every day, fighting for the things I believe in and doing what I can to leave the world a better place because I’ve been here, even if my contribution is something small. I’ll keep enjoying my children and grandchildren and be here to share their lives with all the ups and downs that there will be. I’m not sad that they’re all growing older because I’m so privileged to be here to watch it all and put it in the perspective of our world and all the family members who have gone before.

So this next chapter is exciting to think about and invites new goals. Basically, I’m just going to keep on keeping on for as long as I’m supposed to. Lucky me.

Tags chapters, Friends, life, women

Categories Family, Friends, Memories, Reflections, Uncategorized

Nylajo – portrait of an artist & friend

January 2, 2022 //

My parents taught me at an early age to value the work of artists. My father tended towards carved wood or figures while my mother was more eclectic. When I traveled with them, I learned that we could bring art back easily since paintings could be rolled or laid flat in our bags. Since I seem to have never been able to develop any ability to create anything with paint, I also learned to appreciate those who could.

Throughout my adult life, I have met many artists through various projects who became friends. Nobody has had an impact on me like my friend, Nylajo Harvey, who recently passed away at the age of 95. When I was a young mother with three daughters, I became aware of her work and wanted to own a painting. I decided I might as well have her paint my daughters since it cost about the same as buying another piece. This was a giant splurge for me, but I knew it would be worth it.

When I met Nylajo in 1975, I was 29 and she was 48. I was happily married with daughters aged 6, 4 and 2. She had been married and divorced three times and had two daughters with one of her husbands and two sons and a daughter with another. Her younger daughter and son were in elementary school. At the time, she had a glassed room at the front of her house that was her studio. The house was over 100 years old and was located across from a popular park near my home. I herded my little ones in to pose for the first time and was amazed that she could set them up and capture their personalities in a short time. After that, I would bring them one at a time. I don’t remember having many sittings with all of them – thank goodness.

I found myself stopping by to see her when I would take the girls to school or had a sitter. Of course, I was checking on the painting, but we were becoming closer friends all the time. We would talk while she painted, even with other people stopping by to see her and visit also. She was smart and interesting and we were just instant friends. She must have had us over for dinner, because she and my husband became friends also. For Mother’s Day that year, he brought home a little painting he knew I loved at her house.

Having seen her art before I met her, I was aware that she had earlier periods where most of her work was in pastels, then in blues. When I met her, we shared a love of bright colors, which she incorporated into the portrait of the girls.

She had instantly caught my middle daughter’s impatience with this whole process, my youngest daughter’s sweet baby self and my oldest daughter’s oldest child taking it seriously attitude. It was a delight. Just before she was finished, we learned that I was pregnant again. She laughed at my husband showing up to tell her to stop the painting until we knew what to do. Our solution was to wait for the baby to be born, guessing it to be another girl, and then paint the infant into my oldest daughter’s lap. There wasn’t a way to tell very much about a baby until it was born in 1975, so we waited until November.

Amazingly, our fourth child was a boy and Nylajo said she would wait and paint him when he was older, little knowing what a trip that would be. She often told me that she liked me and my children, telling stories of hiding in the closet when some other families showed up. We all liked her, too.

By the time my son was three, he had already locked into wearing a cowboy hat every day, one that looked like the hat Hoss Cartwright wore on the “Bonanza” tv show at the time. I had bought it at Neiman Marcus because it was so cute, little knowing that it would become a worn out, dirty family icon. Nylajo wanted to paint him in the hat and asked that we bring his Wonder Horse to the studio to paint him on. Those sessions had to be among her craziest sittings as he would rock the horse wildly, sometimes sitting backwards. He was not the ideal kid to sit still for a portrait. But, she succeeded beyond our wildest dreams and captured my little one’s personality perfectly.

At some point, I had taken a couple of photography classes at Philbrook Museum and showed Jo some pictures I took of my kids. She did paintings from two of them, one of my son (again in the cowboy hat) and one of my youngest daughter. She gave those to me and I later gave them to those two.

My mother was about 10 years older than Jo and they also became close friends. When my mother found out that Jo owed about $5,000 on her house, she paid it off so that she would own the house outright. Money was always tight for our artist friend and my mother said that the only reason her widowed mother and my mother and her two brothers had any dignity during the Depression was because they owned their home and would be able to stay there even when they couldn’t pay the gas bill. I doubt my mother wanted to be repaid, but Jo gave her several large paintings in thanks. She would also give her little gifts, such as this small piece painting on a lid or something she found.

I think Jo was the one who first told me that it was a good exercise for an artist to paint large and small. I have this small painting, probably 2″x3″, that I love for the tiny details that let me know what is happening in this moment.

I have many of her paintings. I loved her images of children and have a couple of children’s parades. I also loved her portraits of women, flowers, so many. She had many themes.

Through the years, I was busy with children and volunteer activities and work, but managed to see Jo when I could, always trying to stop by her birthday parties in July or her annual show in December. She knew everyone in town, from artists to her wealthier patrons, and knew what was going on with everyone. It was always a lively party where I met interesting people through the years. Her dinner parties were special as she put together congenial, interesting groups, to enjoy her home cooked meals at beautifully set tables. She told me she also considered cooking an art as she made pots of soup to freeze, often sending some to my mother in her later years.

Nylajo was one of the most unique women I was ever fortunate to know. When my grandson needed to interview someone who had been alive before World War II for a high school project, I took him to meet her. She was 90 at the time. Listening to her answer his questions, I learned even more than I had known about her before.

Nylajo was born in 1926 to a banker father and a mother who was a teacher. She had one brother and three sisters and were a close family. Contrary to popular belief, she was not Native American. I recently looked up something to write this piece and found one of her paintings for sale online, and it was described as by this known Native American artist, which made me laugh. I always loved her name, but it is not Native American.

Jo always wanted to be an artist. As a child, she was told that she could draw better than she could write, and she took that to heart. She attended high school in Springfield, MO, and grew up loving sports, being a runner, a softball player and even playing football until her mother found out. She loved trout fishing with her father. Her first job was tinting photographs in a department store.

She won an engineering scholarship to Purdue, so she went there first. The men were all away at the war and women were being recruited. She learned that wasn’t for her, so she got a scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute and studied to be an artist. During that time, she dated the son of Thomas Hart Benton and told me of meeting him in his home.

Another story she told me was of working for an architect and meeting Frank Lloyd Wright. I later purchased a painting she did entitled, “The Night I Met Mr. Wright.” Jo was known for her thick red hair which she wore in a long braid down her back for many years. In this painting, she was young, with her red hair flowing. She described him to my grandson as being really short and wearing a black cape, really interesting.

She got married for the first time in 1948 and became a mother that year at age 22. She never had much to say about any of her husbands to me as they were all long gone when I met her. She was so independent that I can’t even imagine her with anyone.

Talking to my grandson, she told him that she learned the basics from her teacher mother: honesty, kindness and truthfulness. She also fully learned the English language. She was reading a book a day well into her 90s and spoke to me about the books she was reading the week before she died. She could talk about anything with anyone. She got her first tv when she was 62 years old.

She told us that her most important decades were the 1940s-1960s when she was raising her children and found who she was. She was a strong, loving mother. She loved to be with people and often spent time in a neighborhood bar, where one of her paintings was displayed, probably given to pay her bar bill. She was a drinker and the first person I know who was 86ed from a place, the neighborhood bar, of course. Her parties were lively and she had her drinking buddies. She partied with Leon Russell and probably other artists of the area. I don’t think she considered herself one of the boys – she didn’t need to. She was very much herself always. I don’t remember her swearing or being obnoxious, although I’m sure she could. She was extremely well mannered and a tribute to the values her parents taught her. She was honest and outspoken and funny and smart.

She never felt like she was discriminated against as a woman, probably because of her self confidence, and she didn’t discriminate against anyone. She did not suffer fools and alienated many people through the years, although many worked their way back to her. She did not change who she was – ever. She could be difficult, probably with the drinking, but she had a large group of devoted friends who showed up to help her set up her shows (she was always painting until the last minute) or to take her to the store after she quit driving or to be there for her. I was not her best friend, just a long time friend, one of so many.

Jo adored her children, speaking of each of them as if they were the most interesting people she knew. They were some of her favorite subjects in paintings through the years. She enjoyed them and was able to travel with her youngest late in life. I have no idea what kind of a mother they think she was, but they loved her.

She enjoyed her children as adults. Maybe too much. After two of her daughters had died of alcoholism, she quit drinking. Having lost a child, I understand what a blow losing them was to her.

Since I didn’t see her all the time, I never knew what had been going on in her life when I stopped by. One time she was recovering from cancer, having refused the treatment. She lived at least another 20 years. Another time, she had fallen off a ladder while doing something on her roof (two story house) and had many broken bones. Her invitations to her annual show were often photos of her doing something fun and adventurous, such as riding a motorcycle. Here she is on a boat named after her.

Through the years, her lush red hair turned gray and her braid got thinner. Here she is visiting after my mother died.

Jo was a tiny woman with a big voice and terrific laugh. She was a fabulous hostess and I loved being in her kitchen, shown here a few years ago. I’m only about 5’4″ these days, so she was tinier than her oversized personality indicated.

When I took my grandson to meet her, I was struck with how great a listener she was – not just because she couldn’t hear as well at 90, but because she always had been.

From our earliest years as friends, I had always known she would be there, always curious and always compassionate. She was my confidante through the years, listening to all the ups and downs my own life took, never being judgmental, just being there. She could comfort you by being so wise and so loving, just as my mother was. They truly were kindred souls. When I lost my husband and, later, my son, she grieved with me.

A couple of years ago, I stopped by to see her and found her uncharacteristically sad. Her brother had died unexpectedly. They had spoken every week for an hour or more and he had just been chopping wood when she last heard from him. He was in his 90s and still going strong until he was gone. She suddenly felt a huge void. For the first time, she didn’t feel like painting.

When the wonderful new park, Gathering Place, opened in Tulsa, I persuaded her to visit it with me. I drove her up to the door since she couldn’t walk as far anymore. I took her outside to see the wonderful seating areas.

I wanted her to see the beautiful architecture and designs in the Lodge, so we went inside where I caught this image of her against the wall. She was having so much fun and delighting in this new place.

I drove her around to the Boathouse and took her inside the fascinating exhibit room there. She was her usual self, taking it all in and happy to be there. We didn’t stay long as I didn’t want to wear her out.

A few weeks later, she told me she was doing a retrospective show. They called it “Nylajo’s Last Picture Show.” She had been buying up her old paintings from estate sales, so had many to re-sell along with new ones. I was shocked at first and then realized that she was outliving her old patrons. When I stopped by, she was in her usual place at her easel. I took several pictures (why had I not taken more through the years?) and one was used on the invitation to the show. I just wanted to always remember her as she was when I had first met her – painting.

The show was great fun with many local artists coming to see her. She had influenced so many through the years, more than I will ever know. My son’s daughter was about 10 and threw her arms around her, to Jo’s delight. Her eyes twinkled as she remembered my son with me.

When the pandemic hit right after this show, she was locked at home with her books and cooking. I sent her a card, a cutout of Picasso. She called me, delighted, and said she had him standing where she could see him all the time. She never failed to tell me that from then on. As time went on, I stopped by when it was safe and found her as sharp as ever, interested in me and life around her.

I went by right before Christmas to leave her some bourbon pralines and could see her curled up, sound asleep on her couch. I didn’t want to disturb her, so I left the treats. She called me later to tell me they were her favorites and to say she had not been able to sleep all night and had fallen asleep, which was something that often happened. She told me about new books and I told her I’d be back by. I was going to go last Thursday, but heard late the night before that she was gone. I hoped it had been easy since I had just talked to her, but found that she had multiple organ failure and great pain and fought it all the way. Of course she did.

Grieving for someone who lived 95 incredible years is a little selfish. I am really sad because I will miss her so much. It’s not that I saw her all the time, but that I knew she was there. She made a huge impact on my life with her strong personality, her great affection for me and my family, and the wise and witty conversations we shared for all those years. For all who appreciated her work or were lucky enough to share a little of her world, there is a gap to be filled by viewing her lifetime of work or just remembering her for who she was. When those who knew her gather, there will be new stories to share. Nobody knew all of them.

She was one of those people who only needed one name to tell you everything about her.

Nylajo

Tags Nylajo, Nylajo Harvey, Oklahoma, Tulsa, Tulsa artist

Categories Art, Family, Friends, Memories, Reflections

Size ‘Em Up

July 19, 2020 //

For 74 1/2 years, I’ve been accumulating impressions, stereotypes, prejudices and images in my mind, whether I know or like it or not. I’m a white woman who grew up in Oklahoma with a certain amount of privilege, education, and experience which I have taken into the world as I’ve traveled, worked and lived. In 2020, I’m trying to analyze what my feelings are, where they came from and who I’ve influenced along the way.

We were taught that first impressions mean a lot. That’s where I’ll begin to check on myself. I’m figuring out what I see when I “size ’em up” as I meet people in so many situations.

When we see someone, whether walking down the street or being introduced to them, we are flooded with so many things to take in. As a woman, I think I check a person’s sex first. This is probably defensive. If it’s a man, how big or strong does he look, how old is he, how is he dressed, what is the expression on his face? It’s hard to break it down because we see so much in an instant. I’ve been experimenting with this for the last few days. There’s so much to assess. I’m trying to see how prejudiced I am.

Of course, I see skin color, race. It would be crazy to think any of us don’t notice something that is so identifying. What I’ve found is that I have so many prejudices and assumptions about people that it’s hard to decide what I see first.

The song, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught,” from the musical South Pacific, reminds us:

You’ve got to be taught
Before it’s too late
Before you are six
Or seven
Or eight
To hate all the people
Your relatives hate
You’ve got to
Be carefully taught

Maybe our parents didn’t specifically teach us, maybe we just observed the way they treated people. The people of color in my life as a child mostly worked for us, but I only respected and loved them. I would have been in trouble if I didn’t mind them. The funny things I remember were hearing that my grandfather said to never trust a red-headed bookkeeper and having my grandmother tell me not to let communist professors influence me in college. Those are amusing, to say the least. Who knows where those ideas came from.

The main thing I am learning is that my parents didn’t dehumanize anyone to us. We traveled to other countries and met people of other cultures and races and learned from them. They passed down to me that people are interesting and you can learn so much meeting others.

I grew up in the 50s and 60s and watched the world change. I’m stunned now to have friends who grew up in other circumstances in the same city and were subjected to prejudices and abuse of all kinds because they were Jewish, Native American, Black, or crippled. One friend told me she was bullied because she had lived in South America and spoke fluent Spanish. She was called names and was so traumatized that she quit using her Spanish. She is quite white, by the way. And, my friends who have been treated differently because they are female is a whole other discussion. I’m in that group myself but I digress.

Being white in Oklahoma is almost an anomaly. At one time, I worked for the American Red Cross, where I took a lot of diversity training. The Red Cross has a large number of volunteers who work with staff to assist people in disasters and they emphasize that you cannot discriminate when people are in crisis after a fire or tornado or other tragedy. We spent a lot of time learning how to approach people from other cultures. I did a lot of the programs in rural areas and schools for all ages. We were supposed to report the demographics of who we spoke to after each program. My reaction was that I couldn’t even tell the boys from the girls when I was speaking to the classes. Especially in Oklahoma’s rural areas, there are so many children from mixed families – Native American/Hispanic, Black/Hispanic, White/Black, etc. So many combinations. It’s amazing that we are considered to be such a “Red” state since we are a true melting pot.

I’m finding that I have fewer prejudices towards the melting pot I find myself in than I do to the actual people I should feel most comfortable with. I’m back to the things I notice and the prejudices I have. I’m old enough to take my initial impressions with a grain of salt. Tattoos are a great example of something that used to signal one thing to me and now are just another feature of someone to learn more about. Fluorescent hair and messy clothing (which may actually be very expensive) are things that aren’t what they seem. Not all blondes are dumb and not all teen agers are on drugs and so on. We have so many assumptions we make at first glance. Today’s political strife is not making it easier. We judge people quickly by stances they take online and it’s a strange world we are in where we are making judgments on people we have known forever.

In the late 60s or early 70s, t-shirts became a fashion statement. I’m old enough to remember making the stupid statement that I wasn’t going to wear men’s underwear. Now my wardrobe has an inordinate number of t-shirts covered in logos from places I’ve traveled, groups I belong to, or statements I want to make. Here I am after the first Women’s March of the current times on January 21, 2017. Sorry for the mirror image, but you get the drift and you would correctly assume from this that I was marching for women’s rights, the climate, and civil rights – all causes I’ve been working for most of my life. I wasn’t a marcher most of my years, but I’ve worked to better my community for all who live here in these areas and others.

This week, I saw a woman wearing this t-shirt. I immediately made assumptions about her, based on my own prejudices. I saw someone who was proudly proclaiming that she was a Republican and would only vote Republican and there is no point trying to talk to her about anything. She is right (and probably never wrong) and proud of it. I watched her play with her child and thought how much that t-shirt had changed how I was reacting to her. All my own prejudices were on my nerve endings, an emotional and visceral reaction, which is pretty amazing since I spent most of my voting life as a Republican.

It would be wonderful to think that my years of experience have taught me something, taught me to not put people in little boxes of my own assumptions, but I’m not even close to that level of perfection, no matter how hard I try. The only thing I can conclude from my study of myself is that I don’t think I dehumanize people, whether I like them or not. They are all still human beings to me and I know they have challenges in their lives that I can’t see at first glance or qualities that I should spend time discovering. I know I need to listen to more people and learn from other’s experiences. Working on being sympathetic, empathetic, and understanding are at the top of my list of things I want to improve in myself. I try to practice the Golden Rule in all things that I do.

And, yet, when I see or meet people and “size ’em up,” there are my lifetime of assumptions oozing out of my brain. In these troubling and confusing times, it’s a good idea to step aside and look in the mirror. We can all do better – and should.

Tags Golden Rule, prejudice

Categories Events, Friends, Reflections, Uncategorized

Be Festive, Be Flexible!

April 8, 2020 //

Fifteen years ago, I started a job as Fundraising Events Manager for Philbrook Museum in Tulsa. My first event was for the holidays, named Festival of Trees, which was decades old at the time. As I learned my way around the museum and began to work with the staff, who were all called upon to help in various ways, I heard grumbling about working on this event. There was a definite problem.

My main focus became to make the work fun for everyone rather than something they dreaded. In a staff meeting, I commented that we weren’t doing brain surgery, we were planning parties. I’m also well aware that planning events is working with elements that you definitely can’t plan for as all kinds of things can go wrong. I told everyone that we should “Be festive, be flexible.” In other words, have fun with it and don’t get so set in our extreme planning that we couldn’t face the unknown things that would definitely pop up.

These words kind of became my mantra with one staff member even making a t-shirt so we would all remember. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA The words served all my teams well through the following years, both at the museum and at Oklahoma State University, where I did the same kind of work with college students.

So, here I am today, facing Covid-19, and drawing on all my resources to get through the weeks ahead. I’m having to remind myself of the mantra daily.

First, there was the awful realization that I’m one of the elderly they keep talking about. I’m 74, but that wasn’t a term I applied to myself or my friends. It took a bit for that to sink in and become real.

Then, there was the fact that I’m basically pretty active and going all the time. I’ve felt like I was always running, trying to live my life as fully as I could, see as many places as I could, visit as many friends as I could, before that dreaded old age really did limit my movement in whatever way possible. I’m realistic enough to see that I don’t know when either my body or my mind or my money will prohibit me from doing so many things I love to do. I had just returned from visiting friends in France, traveling by myself, as the virus started to spread into our daily lives.

Who knew it would be a pandemic that would put me in restraints? I’ve seen a lot of things in my life, but not this, so it’s probably time for the virus of the century. My grandparents and my father were alive during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, so it’s time for my generation to experience this as history repeats itself yet again.

It started with a feeling of sheer terror, where I woke up in the night, frightened of all that was happening, waking from nightmares. Gradually, I began to realize that my terrors are the same they have always been. I want my children, their spouses, and my eight grandchildren to be safe. This has always been the source of my nightmares – trying to keep them safe when it was totally out of my control. I pray a lot these days. They are smart and seem to be following the rules, even the teenagers and young adults, who are the group most likely to think they are invincible. I have two grandchildren graduating from high school and one from college, who are missing those last months with friends and a nonstop calendar of activities. I hurt for them as they lose these times they were looking forward to, even as I know it will work out in the long run. I don’t know how yet, but it will be ok in the grand scheme of their lives.

Next is the scary feeling when you are around people in a store and have to stay far away from them. I haven’t been out much, and it’s getting to be less all the time, but there are people getting too close, disregarding everything we have been told. The last time I actually shopped, I had thrown a bandana and some cotton gloves into the car at the last minute. When I arrived at the store and saw the line, I put them on and was so glad, despite the looks I got.

I’ve made masks out of bandanas, discovered a box of gloves in the medicine cabinet, and have a go pack in my car of wipes, gloves, hat, masks. We do what we do.

And then there is the quieting of life, the thing I have most dreaded the past years while I was racing around and am finding it is just fine. I’m still having a hard time focusing, so I’m not reading or bingeing as much as I could. I don’t cook insanely for my self locked in. In fact, I’ve got more food around here than I have in years and still go for takeout to support my friends in the restaurant industry. I always knew I couldn’t live without peanut butter on a desert island and I’ve found it to be way too true. I’m stocked up.

The quiet is beginning to feel okay. I have my two dogs, ages 15 and 12, who are so glad to have me home. I’m taking walks which are delightful, even though I walked before. There seem to be more birds singing and the flowers are just beautiful in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s one of the prettiest Springs I can remember. I wish I could get into the Botanical Garden, the museums, The Gathering Place and see all the work their fabulous gardeners have done, but they are sending photos and videos online for us to enjoy.

People are out walking like never before. I’ve never seen some of the dogs being walked, so the animals must be delighted. People speak to each other on the street and smile. People sit in their front yards and on their porches like never before and wave and speak to you. Everyone is smiling, happy to be enjoying the fresh air.

Families are living together as they haven’t done in decades. No sports or after school lessons or activities or late night work to interrupt their time. As this strange time goes on, everyone seems to be taking a breath and realizing what they have been rushing around for is still right here at home.

People are getting creative. Stores and businesses are finding ways to keep going, although I know they are hurting. They are doing curbside pickup and online sales and bring to do it with a smile. Individuals are creating masks, delivery services, art projects, and so many ways to help each other get through these strange times.

We are so very lucky to be living now. This isn’t some medieval time where a plague is running through our village, wiping us all out before we even know what is happening. This isn’t a time when we can’t find out what is going on in the rest of the world until days later. All our news is instant, although we have learned to temper the 24/7 onslaught of information. We can check in and find out the latest.

Mostly, we can communicate with people like never before. We can still write letters, which is wonderful, but we can call, text, use social media like FaceBook, Instagram and Twitter, FaceTime or Skype, have Zoom meetings, and keep up with everyone we have ever known. It’s lifesaving to be able to reach out to other human beings around the neighborhood, the town or city, the state, country or world. We are all connected in this time in ways we never dreamed of even twenty years ago.

Teachers are amazing. My daughter-in-law is a nurse, so I have had my ten year old granddaughter here some of the time and had to help her with school work. The world of technology is bringing the classroom into our homes in ways we never knew. I’m so impressed with the children and the teachers and how it is all working, even as parents and grandparents have to learn how to navigate all the sites and monitor the lessons.

The earth seems to be healing without so many people out there wearing it down. I volunteer with the Sierra Club and have been concerned for years about what is happening to the planet.. Now I see pictures of places where the air and water are returning to their pre-human polluting state. This ought to be a lesson to all of us.

There is a part of me that thinks that Mother Earth sent us a virus to send us inside to heal while the planet healed itself from us. There are lessons to be learned from all that we are going through and I hope we remember them when this passes. Because, we should all have faith that it will.

In the meantime, we are all finding our own pace and our own way of coping. I hope you can all use my mantra and keep a smile on your face even while we are facing the unknown. Look for the positives, the helpers, the people who are making this work through the hard times. Be grateful if you are safe at home with loved ones. Be grateful for those who are out there keeping the world going. Be grateful for those who are taking care of the sick. These times are life and death, but life is somewhat of a festival at times with all the good and the bad that an event can bring.

Be Festive, Be Flexible. We will get through this with our personal strengths and with each other.

Tags Covid-19

Categories Events, Family, Friends, History, Nature, Pets, Reflections, Uncategorized

The Playlist

January 20, 2018 //

My Road Trip playlist came together when I was travelling with my three oldest grandsons and wanted to share some of my favorite music with them. I’ve added a few things since I now use it when I drive the roads alone. I picked songs that keep me awake and remind me of old times along with the songs I love to sing along with. It’s something of a history of me.

There are songs from junior high and high school. How about a little Buddy Holly that I played so much in 7th and 8th grade? Some old rock & roll with Jerry Lee Lewis (music to shock the parents with the loud pounding piano and “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shaking Going On”) Unknown-2 and Fats Domino, Little Richard and Chuck Berry. I had to explain to the kids that DJs were brave to play music from black artists, which my 19 and 20 year olds didn’t get understand at all. Unknown-1 We were a dancing generation, so I’ve got some great anthems of my youth. “Do You Love Me?”, “What’d I Say?”, “Good Lovin'”, “Do You Want to Dance?”, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” and, of course, “Louie, Louie.” Hopefully other drivers don’t notice the old lady rocking out a little down the road.

High School also brought us the Beach Boys, so I listen to “Surfing’ Safari,” and folk music, which took us to coffee houses and brought in social consciousness. I have some Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, the Kingston Trio and, probably my favorites, Peter, Paul & Mary. My concert days included all of them except Joan Baez. I went to this concert when I was a senior. images For this list, I don’t have my Barbra Streisand favorites, but there are songs from Diana Ross & the Supremes, Credence Clearwater, and Simon & Garfunkel. It’s a hodgepodge for me to sing and think about.

The years went by, and there are a bunch of songs from The Beatles, who we discovered our freshman year in college when they were on Ed Sullivan and then embraced from then on. Unknown And, to round it out, my country vibes are all out there with Willie Nelson, because, well because WILLIE! I’ve got some of his most fun songs to make me smile and sing, “I Didn’t Come Here,” “If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time,” “Big Booty,” and “On the Road Again,” because you have to have that one when you’re driving.

Some of these songs take me back to all the fun of dancing for hours with all my friends, some take me to the times when I listened to songs in my dorm room and tried to understand love, friendship and the world around me, some take me to concerts I attended (Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, the Beach Boys, The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul & Mary, and Paul McCartney) and some I just have to hear. I’m not even a bar person, but get a kick out of the drinking songs. I keep thinking of another playlist, but this one is so much fun that I haven’t gotten around to it.

If you see me on the road, don’t laugh. Find your own favorites to sing along with and see if it doesn’t make the trip go a little faster!

Tags Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Peter Paul & Mary, Playlist, road trip, The Beatles, Willie Nelson

Categories Entertainment, Friends, Memories, Music, Reflections, Uncategorized

Ode to Oregon 2017 – Part 3

October 20, 2017 //

Sorting through the 1,000 pictures I took in Oregon because I can’t help myself, I had a hard time picking the best ones to tell the story. I was trying to find ones that were different from my other visits, but there are always the same ones that I can’t ignore. When I take a break from my semi-retirement regular life, spent with my family and my part-time job, I also take a break from most of the news and all the other headaches of everyday life. That means I’m there to soak up every healing thing I can see, hear, smell, touch or feel to fill my soul with memories that will override the crap we all have to deal with most of the time.

This year, we started our trip by landing in Portland and driving a quick 5 hours to outside of Crater Lake National Park, one of the National Parks I hadn’t seen yet (they are all on my bucket list – even the ones I have seen several times). It had been touch and go as to whether we would go there because of the fires in the state, but it miraculously snowed early in the week, cleaning the skies. We parked at the Crater Lake Lodge, excited to get to the views. And, of course, it started raining on us as we got out of the car. Dang. We raced inside to be greeted by yet another beautiful historic park lodge with fireplaces roaring.By the time we got outside, the rain was stopping (typical Oregon) and we made our way along the rim before driving to the spot where we would meet our trolley tour around the lake. I have to recommend this trip. The West rim was closed for construction (and earlier for the fires), but we were able to see it all through the tour. Our guide, Ranger Annie, is a retired geologist and was full of information, showing us photos and picking out interesting things to show us at all the stops. We learned about the plants, wildlife, lake life, flowers, trees, and geology of the lake. She also showed us the impacts of climate change on the area and gave us insight into what the park services and scientists are doing to learn more about this area. I can’t tell you how much I love National Park Rangers!I told my friend I just wanted a minute with the sky blue so I could see the lake in all its glory. I’d come all this way, after all. I got more than a minute as the sun came and went all through our visit. Oh my – it truly is glorious to see one of the deepest and the cleanest lake in the world sparkling in the sun.Regardless, it was also beautiful to see it with the silver shimmer when the clouds were overhead.We saw the Phantom Ship island, which looks small as does everything until you can get the scale.Leaving the park, we also stopped at Natural Bridge to get my first glimpse of the raging Rogue River that goes all the way to the Pacific. Nothing like a roaring river to wake up your senses.That was just the first full morning of our trip, which gives you an idea of how many treasures we had ahead of us. It was too much to prioritize which ones to visit again or for the first time. We did see a couple of the many, many covered bridges this time. The first one was on our way to Crafter Lake, Lowell Covered Bridge. The second one we saw was towards the end of our trip, Drift Creek Bridge, east of Lincoln City. Don’t ask me why I’ve never seen covered bridges until this year when I saw these two and a couple of the Bridges of Madison County. They are fascinating, lovely pieces of our history.The view from our condo in Depoe Bay is lovely in clear weather or in storms. Since Depoe Bay is the Whale Watching Capital of the World, we looked for whales. Some years, we had to take the whale watching boats out to see them, but the past two years they have been right outside our window. They came as close as just past the rock in the picture, which was pretty close to the seawall on Highway 101. That’s the closest I’ve ever seen them come in. Here’s one right off the rocks. One of our favorite beaches is Fogarty Creek, where the creek runs into the sea right out of the magical forests along Highway 101. Our first morning there, we found driftwood tossed around, looking battered from the journey.This other piece is on the walk to the beach from the car and has been there for years. I always enjoy this angle that looks like a creature peeking at us.The sea was pretty calm for the first few days, but there was sea kelp (or sea whips) and sea weed, and feathers floating and rocks shaped like hearts.We also were standing near this man and I recognized his gesture as giving thanks on the beautiful morning.His name is Mark D. Shelton, http://www.markdshelton.com, and he is the Tribal Artist of the Chinook Tribe. It turned out he has relatives in Oklahoma, another small world moment. Our nightly sunset viewing didn’t look too promising, but it turned into something special by the Depoe Bay seawall when we watched the sun set through a rainstorm, a unique view. The next day we wandered up the road to Lincoln City where a Kite Festival was happening! We’ve always missed it in the past, so it was a treat to see all the colorful kites flying.We walked out in time to watch a synchronized kite contest where teams flew their kites in routines to music, a dance in the skies.My friend was born in Oregon, so she is basically coming home. I pretend I’m not a tourist since I’ve been there so much. When the weekend is over and the weekend crowd is gone, we take longer trips down the coast. On a beautiful day, I had the wild idea of taking a hike I had read about, so we drove down the coast to Yachats (don’t pronounce the c). We had driven through but never stopped, which was a mistake. It’s absolutely charming. Wow! I could stay there any time. Here’s a view from one of the parks. Beautiful parks, views, restaurants, and it’s near Cape Perpetua, another wonderful place.I didn’t do all of my hike due to not really knowing if I was on the right place (I was, but couldn’t tell), but the woods were lovely and I looked down across the Pacific Ocean.From Yachats, we wove around Highway 101, past Cape Perpetua with the Devil’s Churn, Thor’s Well, and The Spouting Horn, stopping below Heceta Head Lighthouse for a quick visit with a friend before heading south to Florence for lunch. We had the iconic view of the lighthouse. The last photos I took showed it covered up for restoration.Around the curve was the view of the Oregon Dunes, a dramatic change from the Cape Perpetua cliffs.In Florence, we ate by the docks. I’m a sucker for piles of colorful buoys.The next day we lazed around Depoe Bay, having a lovely lunch at Tidal Raves and watching whales off our porch as they spouted a heart at us. Later we headed to Newport for crab for dinner and realized the sunset was coming so we crossed the bridge and headed for a view at Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, gleaming in the fading light on its hill. We were watching the sunset through the trees, when I turned and saw the moon coming up over the Yaquina Bay Bridge behind us. Another lovely image of the most familiar of the Conde McCullough bridges along Highway 101 in Oregon. I fell in love with this bridge the first time I crossed it back in 2009.The next day was for driving north, through beautiful farm country, to a mandatory stop at Tillamook dairies for ice cream before heading on to Cannon Beach. It was a beautiful day on this gorgeous beach where the weather can change in a minute! We parked at Tolovana Park where my friend grabbed her book for a beach read while I started the walk to Haystack Rock. It looks close until you realize that the people beside the rock are ant-size. I think it’s about a mile from where I started, but it’s a wonderful walk on a flat, sandy beach. The last time I was here, the tide was out and there were tide pools with urchins and other critters. This time, I couldn’t get so close, but the reflections were incredible.On the way, I witnessed a life and death fight between a crab and a seagull. My heart was with the crab, although that was a little hypocritical since I ate one the night before. I walked right up, trying to give the crab a chance, but the seagull was persistent and won his dinner. The crab waved his claws bravely, fighting all the way.I’m still a long way away in this photo.There were great views of Tillamook Lighthouse to the north. The story of Terrible Tilly is interesting as men fought to build on the rock.Walking back, the skies changed, of course, but the view to the south was gorgeous too.After a lunch at Mo’s on the beach, we drove back, stopping to see a dahlia farm in all its blooming beauty. So many varieties!I was anxious to get back to our condo as I have driven Highway 101 through the fog and forest – not fun with all the curves. We made it back in time to watch the sunset at Fogarty Creek. Lovely.For our last full day on the coast, we drove back to Newport (only 15 minutes away), stopping at Yaquina Head Lighthouse, where we’ve been several times before. It was such a beautiful day and we couldn’t resist.On that day, the whales were spouting like crazy all around us and visitors were pointing all over. I like the birds lined up on the rock to watch the show.In Newport, we went to the docks on the bayfront,and then to see the funny California Sea Lions that stay there. We’re told only the males come, so it’s kind of like a fraternity house with some lounging around and others fighting for a spot.While watching the sea lions, we spotted a first for us. Jellyfish were swimming around the docks. I’ve seen them in aquariums, but never out in nature. These orange ones were quite fascinating as they undulated along. We next toured the Sylvia Beach Hotel with its rooms named for various authors and the Next Chapter Restaurant. It’s right on Nye Beach with beautiful views.There are rooms for J. K. Rowling with a Harry Potter theme, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Amy Tan, Gertrude Stein, Ken Kesey, William Shakespeare and others, all beautifully decorated. We loved the Dr. Seuss room with this whimsical bed. Such a fun place for lovers of books!On the cliffs at the point by our condo, I watched our last beach sunset with the same mixed feelings I always have when it’s time to leave. I spotted a whale spouting near the buoy in the bay, and saw the harbor seals sleeping on a rock on the other side,before the sun finally set calmly into the sea. Sigh.All week the ocean had been very calm, so we were rewarded the next morning when we made a final visit to the cliffs on the point before we left town. I can’t tell you how mesmerized I am by the crashing waves. On past trips, I’ve had to tear myself away from watching them grow,foam,and crash against the rocks.And I spotted a precious feather on the rocks of the cliff.I have so many photos – I can’t resist. This was a nice way to end our visit to the coast.

As we drove east towards Salem, we drove back to see the Drift Creek Covered Bridge. Looking at the land around it, I took away another memory of a more rural Oregon.So ends my ode to Oregon for this year. When I think of this state, I always know a piece of my heart is there and that’s just fine.

Tags Cannon Beach Oregon, Depoe Bay Oregon, Florence Oregon, Heceta Head Lighthouse, Lincoln City Oregon, Mark D Shelton, Newport Oregon, Oregon, Sylvia Beach Hotel Newport Oregon, Tillamook Lighthouse, Yachats Oregon, Yaquina Bay Bridge, Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, Yaquina Head Lighthouse

Categories Friends, Memories, Nature, Reflections, Travel, Uncategorized

Ode to Oregon 2017 – Part 2

October 19, 2017 //

One should always sample the local foods while traveling – right? I try never to go to a national chain restaurant, except for a Dairy Queen dip cone, unless there is nothing else around. Little cafes, local people, local foods are part of the experience. In Oregon, I’ve found some favorites that I return to every year while still searching out new places and new tastes! Here are my recommendations!

First, there’s Farmer John’s in McMinnville, a stop we make traveling to the coast from Portland. Farmer John’s has produce and zinnias and hazelnuts if we get there during the harvest,but we stop for the Strawberry Shortcake with a warm biscuit topped with strawberries, ice cream and whipped cream. This isn’t unique to the world certainly, but it’s a much anticipated treat for us.On the Oregon coast, you can find Mo’s in several locations. We like the one at Otter Rock, although I’ve been to the one in Newport (the original) and the one at Cannon Beach. All are great. I go back for the Clam Chowder and the Garlic Cheese Bread.

This year, we visited Mo’s at Otter Rock on a rainy day for the chowder and then also stopped at the one on Cannon Beach, where I had the Shrimp Medley. Lovely and tasty while looking out at that beautiful beach and Haystack Rock! I love the little bay shrimp every which way!While I’m showing you beautiful plates, here’s one I had in Florence this time. I don’t get there every trip, but this is worth the drive. We ate at ICM on the docks, overlooking the boats with a view of the bridge in Old Town Florence, an absolutely charming place.I don’t remember what this was called, but it had fresh cod, Dungeness Crab and bay shrimp. Yum!Speaking of Dungeness Crab, we NEVER leave without a visit to this place on Highway 101, south of the bridge in Newport!It’s a fish market, grocery store, and has fresh steamed crabs and incredible onion rings. We split the crab, which comes with a pile of french fries. We always forget that and order the onion rings extra and have way too much to eat. But, it’s all about the crab and working to get each little bite of deliciousness!Our other favorite place in Newport is in the historic Bayfront area. We go to see the California sea lions who come to entertain us on the docks and then we go to Gino’s down the street.There’s just something about this place with its blue and white and scads of buoys that is refreshing.On our first visit, we met one of the owners, a family of fishermen. They sell fish there, too, but we go for their famous Popcorn Shrimp. The batter is incredible and the little bay shrimp are piled up. The onion rings and slaw are pretty special, too!We stay in Depoe Bay, right in the middle of the Central Oregon Coast and the Whale Watching Capital of the World. Depoe Bay is also the World’s Smallest Harbor. We have to go to Gracie’s Sea Hag on either Friday or Saturday night to see Michael Dane perform, watch the bartender play the bottles and share the seafood platter. This was the first meal I ever had in Oregon while driving up the coast many years ago. It’s as good as I remember it every time! I think there are two sea platters, but this one is listed under the appetizers.We top that yummy pile off by sharing Marionberry Tart. Since I can’t get Marionberries in Oklahoma, this is an Oregon dish I don’t miss.The other restaurant in Depoe Bay that we never miss is Tidal Raves, right on the Sea Wall and a short walk from where we stay. It’s always listed as one of the best on the coast with a beautiful view of the bay. Reservations are advised.I’ve had so many great dishes there and I recommend the Rockfish and the Bread Pudding. The one thing we always share is the Seahawk Break, which could be a meal in itself. Once again, those bay shrimp!!!No visit to Oregon is complete without trying Tillamook Ice Cream. I fell in love with the story of this Farmer’s Cooperative on my first visit. The cheeses are great, but the ice cream!!!! I scream for ice cream! It is the creamiest ever. You can get it in the stores, but if you can get to Tillamook and visit the dairy, do it! I think it is the best right there where they make it. I know this is one of the main tourist attractions in Oregon, but it’s worth it. They’re building a new Visitor’s Center now, but the temporary one is just fine. It has the ice cream, after all. This time, I had a double dish of Salted Butterscotch and Udderly Chocolate, but you just can’t go wrong with any flavor!!!On my recent trip, we went to Crater Lake and visited the historic Beckie’s Cafe in Prospect, listed on the National Historic Register. A photo on the wall showed the early cafe, where they specialized in Clean Home Cooking! Yikes! Who wants dirty home cooking? The husband’s nickname was Beckie and after he died, everyone started calling his wife Beckie. We had a delicious breakfast there and returned for their famous pies. Since it was in season, we chose the Huckleberry Pie. Of course! The cream pies sounded pretty yummy too! It was as good as it looks!!!In answer to your question, I didn’t gain any weight in Oregon because we walk so much. If we didn’t, we’d be in serious trouble! I leave you drooling for some Oregon tastes, one of the many things I love about visiting this beautiful state!