Archives for posts with tag: family

Sonshine

November 5, 2013 //

Today is my son’s birthday. Thirty-eight years ago today I was lucky enough to bring him into this world where he shone so brightly. As his mom, I’m trying not to get sad or do something worse and make him seem bigger than life or better than he was. I can hear him saying “Mom!” The truth is that he was a whole person who lived and loved his entire life and, like a true star, he left some of his shine on those who met, knew and loved him.

He was a cute little boy, a loving little boy, a funny little boy, a mess of a little boy.

He was a sweet kid, a fun kid, a sometimes exasperating kid. He was a kid who embraced pop culture from the beginning, always on trend.

He was a teenager, a handsome teenager, a teenager who worked hard and played hard and studied when the mood struck him or a teacher inspired him.

He was a college student who partied and danced and went to class and learned what he learned. He rallied for women’s rights, he formed an improv group, he graduated years after he should have, but he graduated.

He was a young man who became an uncle to his three sisters’ kids, loving them with all his heart.

He was a cancer survivor for 10 years. He rose to the disease, fighting it with everything he had. When he returned from radiation, I found him comforting other cancer victim online in chatrooms. He volunteered at the hospital, working with cancer patients when most would have rather have been away from that world.

He fell in love, deeply in love, and married in all his Scottish finery.

And he continued to have fun.

He was a brother

and a son

He became a father, a father who loved his little girl with all his heart.

He lived his life right up to the end, teaching us all how to fight through pain every day

He lived a life, a complete life, a circle of life. Today, his wife and daughter, his sisters and their families and I will celebrate that life with Clayton’s Pie Night, pizza (which he delivered in college) and pie (which he loved to bake). His life touched his family, his friends, strangers who met him.

I sang the song to him as a child, as I did to his sisters and to my grandchildren.
You are my sunshine.
May we always bask in the light that he brought to our lives.

Tags Clayton Alan Fraser, family, son, sunshine

Categories Family, Memories, Reflections

Baseball…the memories

October 26, 2013 //

The World Series is on this week and my mind flashed back to baseball through my years, a zig-zag view of the sport. When I was a kid, we played baseball all the time, mostly a version of workup with whoever was available in the neighborhood. My brother played on a team, but it was different. We all didn’t go to every game, sometimes the coach piled the kids in his car to drive somewhere, they went for ice cream after games, there were no trophies unless you won something really big, like a whole season. Kids just played baseball and dads coached. I guess there were leagues for the ones who were really good, but I don’t remember much about those.

The World Series was a big deal. Countless friends of mine remember teachers setting a radio in the window of the classroom so the kids could listen to the series, which were mostly played during the day. We sat quietly at our desks, listening to the sounds of the game. I loved the Yankees because of Mickey Mantle. I don’t think I knew he was from Oklahoma, but who was more baseball than Mickey? Years later, my father played golf with him and I was impressed. I’m still impressed even knowing his life’s ups and downs. I have a cat named Mickey because he swats with both paws, a switch-hitter like the Mick.

Baseball was always around, but I was doing different things until my kids were in high school. One of my daughters played softball in high school and I learned to keep score, definitely an insight into the game and all its intricacies. I didn’t really get back into it until my husband got season tickets to our local AA team and we became fans, real fans. Our seats were in the second row behind home plate and we would go early to watch them line the fields, watch the team warm up. It was a place where we lived in a different world with friends who sat around us, player’s wives, scouts, kids all over the place. It was a world of what we want the real world to be. There were no outside worries at the ballpark. You ate your hot dog and cheered for your team. I love AA ball because you are watching kids who are on the verge of making it big. Some of them did and it was fun to watch them move on to the big leagues. Some of them played minor league ball for a long time and finally had to move along. That life of little pay, long bus rides, motels and time from your family isn’t always fun no matter how much you love the game.

We kept those tickets for 19 years, after my husband died, after the kids all had kids. The family went together, we loved the mascot, we watched fireworks, we played the games outside the field, one of my grandsons went to the player clinic. Many happy family memories at the ballpark. We finally gave them up when the team moved to a nicer stadium. It wasn’t because we lost interest in the game, but because we had our own ballplayers now and too many games to watch to make all the big games. We still love them…we just pick and choose our games.

I never saw a major league game in person until a visit to Denver in 2010 where we watched the Rockies play the Cubs, my son-in-law’s favorite team. It was a treat, a special game in beautiful Coors Stadium but not quite as intimate as our home AA field. There’s something nice about watching kids who are trying to make the dream that can beat out multi-million dollar players for winning your heart.

I do love the game. I watched Ken Burn’s series, “Baseball,” and love all the history, the symbolism. I’m not one who can throw out all the stats, but it doesn’t matter. Today, I have three grandsons playing the game, playing because they love to play. They play pretty competitively so I thought they all were trying to reach the pros. I think they’d like to play at least into college. Mostly, they just play to get better and keep playing. It’s fun to watch them, fun to watch the families who make every game on fields that are better than the pro teams played on in the game’s beginnings.

Pretty good lessons in life. Sometimes you swing and hit a home run, sometimes you strike out. You run to the bases, trying to get to the next one and then you come home. There’s the glory of the win and the sting of defeat. You’re part of a team and you play together to win. All those things we’ve heard through the years.

Nothing too profound here. Just having some baseball memories. Here’s a good quote to ponder while you watch the series…

“Baseball was made for kids, and grown-ups only screw it up.”
Bob Lemon

Tags AA baseball, ballparks, baseball, Chicago Cubs, Colorado Rockies, family, Ken Burns, Tulsa Drillers, World Series

Categories Entertainment, Memories, Reflections, Sports

My River Kinfolk

August 20, 2013 //

Knowing where your relatives came from is intriguing, at the very least. Maybe it will explain something, anything about us. All those questions…

The family member I know the most about is my father. I have pictures of him from baby to the end of his life. He was born in 1912, so way back there. I have a book someone did of Hamilton genealogy that goes back to Thomas Hamilton leaving Scotland for Maryland and then joining a group that moved to Kentucky.

The greatest source I have is a book, “The Sun Shines Bright,” written by my great-aunt, Sue Hamilton Jewell, a book of stories about the family in Uniontown, Kentucky in the late 19th century into the early 20th, including a few about my Daddy as a child.

My great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were all born in Uniontown. Here’s a photo I found that must be the Main Street that she wrote about, where even a 3-year old could be sent on errands.

Last week, I journeyed to Uniontown on the Ohio River, near Illinois and Indiana. I had no idea what I would find. Getting closer made me very emotional as I drove past fields of corn in rich agricultural west Kentucky, called the Upper South.

My great-grandfather was a grain dealer with an office in the warehouse on the river. My great-grandmother was from a plantation near New Orleans…another story to find. How did they meet? They had a great love story. Nine of their 12 children survived to adulthood, living a Tom Sawyer childhood along the river, “Our River,” as they called it.

…and later…

They had a staff of servants to help with the large home they finally moved into. Their land covered about half a block, with a diversity of neighbors on each side. There were 14 rooms with a 40 foot hallway the younger kids raced up and down on velocipedes pulling wagons. My great-grandfather was never bothered and must have been the kindest of gentlemen.

So, I drove to Uniontown with this info, along with the knowledge that the town had suffered greatly from the Ohio River floods of 1884, which brought Clara Barton to town for the first Red Cross relief effort as the river raged for weeks through the Ohio River Valley and all the river towns in its path. The 1937 flood left my widowed great-grandmother to be rescued from the second floor balcony by rowboat. The damage to the house and the remnants of the flood led to her death by pneumonia. This must be just a regular flood in this faint photo…

I knew the latest population was 1,000 and I found it on the map, but it was missing from my iPad map. How do you lose a town in an aerial shot? Scary. What would I find?

There was a town still. A levee keeps the flooding away, but the river has changed. I first looked across, imaging a shore where kids could swim across, barges and riverboats coming ’round the bend with my relatives waiting.

There was more than I expected actually. No old buildings, but a post office, VFW, cafe, two grocery markets and a marine store for the boaters who launched their boats on the river. I drove around enough to get a feel for where the house might have stood, picturing what I could from stories…the family eating fried chicken, Kentucky ham, homemade peach ice cream, and asparagus they grew in the yard. They gathered with their friends for burgoo, a community stew of whatever was brought. Such an isolated little town, a river town.

A young girl with a Kentucky drawl at Floyd’s Food Market gave me directions to the cemetery and I hurried before dark to a small cemetery surrounded by cornfields ready for harvest. Where to look? It was all very clean and well kept, divided into about four areas. In frustration, I parked and walked up the little hill. I remember Aunt Sue writing about the babies buried on the hill.

Suddenly, there it was…

…my great-grandparents. And the babies were beside them, touching little headstones for Annie, Nell G. and Merritt.

Behind them were my great-great grandmother and their oldest son, who I actually remember. Then I found two of their daughters. One died after the birth of her second child and her sister married her widower. All three of them, Verg and the two sisters he loved, all buried together. There were some others near, too. I looked and looked for any of my grandmother’s people because she grew up here, too. I didn’t find anyone…another story.

In the end, I stood by the gravestone and put my hand on it and my eyes were overflowing with tears. I thanked them for all the love they passed down. I thought of all the generations that have followed them…

One last look at the wide Ohio River, which is now kind of My River, too.

Then back to Floyd’s for a souvenir…

What did I find out? Lots more than I ever dreamed, but I’ll leave it with this…some of the best things about my family were born in a little town on the Ohio River. No flood will ever take that away. And now that river runs through me…

Tags family, Kentucky, Ohio River, Ohio River floods, Uniontown Kentucky

Categories Family, History, Memories, Places, Reflections, Travel, Uncategorized

Five Questions I Wish I’d Asked My Parents and Grandparents

August 6, 2013 //

Some friends and I were talking today about how we’ve reached the age when we’re really interested in our ancestry. Not that we weren’t before, but we probably just didn’t have the time to do the research and find the stories. And one of the things we all agreed was that we wish we’d asked our parents and grandparents more questions, learned more about them in the days before they knew us.

There was a day when I asked my mother about her grandmother and she started telling me the most interesting stories. I went home & came back with a recorder a few days later and had her repeat them, not knowing about the recorder. She sat at her desk illustrating her memories for me to explain things I wasn’t familiar with. That recording is a treasure, my mother talking and me asking the questions. Why didn’t I do more of that? How did I miss asking my grandparents and my father and my in-laws things that I wonder about now.

In this age of technological advances that change so quickly we can’t keep up, it’s amazing how little we had when I was growing up and how much I’ve seen in my lifetime. They were watching the changes, too. What did they think?

Here are five questions I wish I’d asked. I know there are more, but here are my first five good ones!

1. What did you do during the war? My father was a Lt Colonel in the Army Air Force in World War II and received the Distinguished Flying Cross. Why didn’t I ask him more about what his time overseas was like? My grandmother worked in a parachute factory. What was that like? My grandparents sent three sons and a son-in-law to serve and their youngest son didn’t come back. Why didn’t I ask more questions?

Here’s my father during the war…

He told me some stories, but not all.

2. What did you do for fun when you were young? Who were your friends? What did you play with? Where did you go when you were young adults? They didn’t have electronic games or television…what did they do?

Who is my grandmother’s friend in this photo?

What kind of lodge was my grandfather in?

Here’s my other grandfather’s fraternity picture…

3. What kind of work did you do or what did your parents and grandparents do? Or maybe, what was your first or favorite job? I know one great-grandfather ran a mill on the Ohio River and another one was a farmer and another one ran a wagon yard in Ardmore. One of my grandfathers worked for the telephone company on the wires when that was a new thing. What did the women do? One grandmother ran a neighborhood grocery store and rooming houses.

4. What was your house like growing up? How big, how many rooms, how were they furnished? That sounds so simple, but I know it was so different from the way we live our lives today. The way I grew up is different from my parents. I can remember our first dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer, television set, air conditioner. Our homes are so much more complicated today.

5. What were your dreams? I don’t know if they did as they were expected to and dropped their dreams behind them and found new ones or what they expected out of their lives.

It’s universal among my friends that we wish we’d asked more. We’re getting to the age where our children and grandchildren should start asking us. One of the problems is we think our life isn’t that interesting. We need to get over that and just remember and share. All of us have interesting stories…all of us.

Tags family, grandparents, memories, parents, questions, relatives, time

Categories Family, Friends, History, Memories, Reflections

Where the Wind Comes Sweepin’ O’er the Plains

July 26, 2013 //

Living in Oklahoma is not for sissies. True to the song, that wind does come sweepin’ and sometimes it’s a little strong. The beautiful plains probably handle it better than the cities. In Tulsa, we are in the corner of the state called “Green Country” by the tourist bureau. For those who think this state is flat and dry, you haven’t seen all of Oklahoma. We have gorgeous trees and hills in our lovely city.

This week, we had a blast of 70-80 mph winds that swept over our area, swirling and blowing until a large portion of the city was without power and nature had pruned our urban forest. It would break my heart to see the huge trees upended in yards all over the place, but I’ve been through it before and know that when all is cleaned up, we’ll look much the same around here with a few gaps in the sky. We have an abundance of trees. After our major ice storm a few years ago, the city looked like a war zone, but nature picks up and goes again. I’ve also learned from the National Parks, where they let nature take its course.

Getting around town has been slow as you dodge limbs in the streets and wait to go through intersections one at at time while the street lights are out. Poles are broken and leaning and crews are arriving from other states to help! I saw some poles propped up with a smaller pole bound to it.

If there is anything good about storms like this, it’s the human spirit that shines through. Days without power make us more grateful for what we do have. After writing about Keeping Cool earlier this week, many had to live it in the humid heat following the storm. At least there are places to go with air conditioning and ice. Neighbors and families with power provide meals and cool places to sleep. We know not to open our refrigerators to keep them cold or put perishables in coolers with ice until the stores run out. Most people should have lanterns and flashlights around. Some have generators left over from ice storms.

One of the newest problems is charging all our devices. One of my daughters without power took all of her family’s electronics to her sister who had power to recharge…iPhones, iPads, iPods. We’re kind of an Apple family and need our gadgets to stay in touch.

On the other side, my brother doesn’t have power after three days and needs to be connected for health reasons. I check on him and make sure his phone works so he can get help if needed. I’m sure there are many like him. I have to wind through the back streets to get to him because he’s on a main street blocked by electric company workers trying to get everything going.

Power outages bring out our pioneer spirit, 21st century style. We’re not exactly without resources these days. Neighbors help neighbors move limbs until the hoards of trucks and men with chain saws flood the city. There’s money to be made following a storm.

I’ve been grateful to have power, although I lost my internet and cable for a couple of long periods. Hard to complain. In fact, it makes me laugh to think how deprived we can feel without things that are really luxuries. Reading books is back in style, by lanterns or on tablets, in a storm.

Here’s a sample of some of Tulsa’s damage this week. Multiply this times a bunch and you’ll see what we’re seeing…

Here are two trees uprooted onto the owner’s house…

A tree broken across a fence…

A multi-trunked tree uprooted onto the house and new car…

and debris piled on the curbs for pick up…

One of the major problems is our glorious oaks that die from the inside and look fine on the outside but are vulnerable to the winds…

So, we’re picking up and going again. We survive wind, tornadoes (big wind), ice, heat and cold and floods here in Oklahoma. We’re OK.

Tags electric, family, Friends, high winds, nature, Oklahoma, power, storm, trees, Tulsa

Categories Family, Friends, Nature, Reflections, Uncategorized

Behind the Camera

July 21, 2013 //

I take a lot of photos. I’d say too many but I don’t think you can take too many. We’re a far cry from the days when you took the picture and had to be careful you didn’t waste the film or the plate or whatever you were using. I love all photos, posed or candid, although I admit to loving the random moments we catch best.

I’ve got a lot of old family pictures, collected from my grandparents and my parents. I was looking at some of them recently and it crossed my mind that I wasn’t sure who took them. Who captured this special moment, what were they thinking? I can guess at some of them because of the setting. It opened up a whole new look at people I knew, gave them a new dimension to think of them behind the camera, catching this moment.

Here’s what I mean…

Who took these photos of my great grandfather and great grandmother? Who had a camera on that farm? Who wanted to capture him chopping wood or her feeding the chickens?

Who took this picture of my father? I know they hired professionals sometimes, but…

I’m guessing my grandfather took this one of his parents with his children. I never saw my grandfather with a camera, so this is a revelation.

This one of my great-grandmother with my mother and her brothers is a mystery. My grandfather had already died when this was taken, so who took it? I don’t think my grandmother had a camera then.

Did my grandmother or one of my uncles take this of my mother at her high school graduation? Who would she pose for?

I know my father took this one of me as a baby…

He must have taken this one too and it touches my heart that he captured this moment.

And I guess he took this one of his father with my brother and me…

My mother always said she didn’t like photos, but I bet she took this one…

I know how I feel behind a camera and I know what I’m looking for, the moments I’m trying to capture. I know when I get a picture that has caught a look we all know. Now I’m thinking of all the members of my family who went before me. The photos they took, the ones they kept teach me a lot. I feel even more of a connection with them through these photos. I hope I’m passing that down to my children and my grandchildren and that they can feel those same connections. There is something about looking through a lens…

Tags camera, family, memories, photography

Categories Memories, Photography, Restaurants

Cousins

June 23, 2013 //

A friend of mine always marvels at his cousins, saying they share 1/2 of his DNA. He’s right, of course. The connection is unique and interesting, especially when you start getting into your first cousin-once removed, second cousins, etc. The hilarious HBO show, Family Tree, is about a man searching for his relatives and finding all kinds of off the wall characters.

In my life, which is the only one I can speak of with any iota of experience, cousins have played many different roles. I had eight cousins on my father’s side and three on my mother’s side. I was the middle cousin and the oldest cousin. None of mine lived where I live, but I saw several of them a lot, spent time with them growing up. Looking back, one cousin and I seemed to always be off on an adventure, sharing secrets that we hope nobody found out about. Once we snuck into my parents’ bathroom & took stuff out of the medicine cabinet, combining things into what we called “mixtures.” We kept a notebook of the different combinations. This included everything from medicines to creams to whatever was in there. Yikes! I don’t think my parents found out…ever. Once we got on a bus and rode it to wherever it went. My aunt had to come get us when we got off and had to ask someone to use their phone. A much more innocent time, obviously! Her life went in some tragic directions…she kept on making crazy and hurtful choices. I keep in touch with several of my cousins, even with the different places our lives have taken us. They are special links to people and places in my history.

My own children had five cousins, four on my side, two on their fathers. Three of the cousins lived a block away growing up, went to school with them, played with them. They were close in age to two of my own so they have secret memories that I find out about when they are laughing about something they did way back then. My mother kept getting the award for the grandparent with the most grandchildren at the school (7), which made her laugh. She said it was an award for having prolific daughters!

My grandchildren are a unique bunch. They were born in bunches, it seems, and all live in the same town, going to the same school, playing sports together. I’m speaking of the older seven, who range in age from 11-16. The youngest, at 3 1/2, is on her own but finds them all pretty exciting. She has her own special place in all their lives, the living reminder of her father, their uncle, who died very young. She bonds with each of them differently. I love her with her 13 year old cousin who looks like he is her older brother…

If our family has been given a gift, it’s these cousins. All are close to their own siblings as well as the extended family. In fact, sometimes you can’t tell which one belongs with which family. For me, it’s watching the genetic pool at its most frenzied. Some of the children seem to have sprung from one of their aunts or uncle, some look more like a cousin than their own sibling. When you have them all together, you have to marvel at the connections and see how closely we are joined by the DNA. And you have to acknowledge the incredible individuality of each of them. There are different personalities, different approaches to life, and amazing affection for each other.

Here the oldest three…eight months between the oldest and youngest of them…two in the same class at school…

Here are the next two, eight months apart, who play basketball together, are in the same class…

And the younger two, boy and girl, three weeks apart in age, who we thought shared the same brain when younger…

What will their futures bring? I’m sure they’ll go in different directions and be as individual as they are now. They’ll have spouses and children and do different things. The comforting thing is that they have had the unique and wonderful experience of having a larger pool of relatives to share their youth and their experiences. I’m sure they have more secrets than we can even imagine.

I hope that they take all of this with them, in their hearts…and that it makes them even better people than I think they will be. Great kids…all of them. Grandmothers do get to beam with pride, yes we do!

Tags cousins, family, memories

Categories Family, Memories, Reflections

My high school reunion history…

June 4, 2013 //

I graduated from high school 50 years ago. 50 YEARS AGO!!! That’s hard to say, hard to imagine. Really? Where did all that time go? How did it pass so quickly? I was in a great class, a class of about 650 that produced 26 National Merit semi-finalists, had excellent teachers and a whole lot of fun. This week is our reunion, which makes me think about all of our reunions…I’ve been on every committee.

The 10th reunion was in 1973. The committee had to have calling sessions to find everyone, using our high school directory to call parents’ homes, phone directories, information. We sent out newsletters, printed with a fun logo drawn by one of our artist classmates, using the name of the student paper when we were in school. We worked hard to find everyone we could. The excuses for not coming that year were mostly due to lack of funds or having babies, we were in our childbearing years. Actaully, I had just had my third child a few months before – there were many of us with new babies on the committee. We ended up with about 200 attending, including spouses. We had lost some classmates and found out that some of the people we knew really hated high school and never wanted to remember anything. Many came home to see family while they were at the reunion.

Friday night was the night where you broke the ice, greeted everyone, met their spouses, and caught up on what was going on in their lives. We rocked out to records at the studio where we first took dance lessons. We still knew all the moves.

We had an Assembly at the school on Saturday. Some of our former teachers attended and we pretty much did a traditional assembly, as I feebly recall.

Saturday night, we dressed to impress and went to the fanciest country club in town. Hairstyles ranged from shags to intricate, high updos. The men had longer hair than when we graduated and mustaches were in. The clothes were loud, the times were fast. We gave awards for who had been married the longest, which went to a classmate who married while we were still in school, most children, most unusual profession (jockey), who traveled the farthest to get there, and best preserved male and female bodies (last time we ever gave that award). We were pretty groovy, dancing to a popular local band, dressed in the latest styles.

We published a directory after the reunion with all the updated addresses and phone numbers we had found so people could stay in touch.

By our twentieth reunion, we were kind of in a groove. We went through the same steps to find everyone, using printed labels for our mailings. The committee worked long hours, finding we had lost more classmates and couldn’t find others who had moved in the past decade. We were still using our old class directory and the phone to locate everyone. We’d lost more people along the way. The excuses for not coming were jobs, money, small children. We still got about 200 to show up.

The schedule for the 20th was about the same. We were noticing that the girls were becoming women and the guys looked like they were starting to lose their looks, or so we whispered. There were a few new spouses, divorce already beginning to take its toll. The list of deceased was growing. We had an elaborate slide show at our assembly, set to the song “Memories.” Teachers still came to the events and we realized they weren’t as old as they had seemed in high school. We were getting older, heading for middle age. There were those who timidly showed up on Friday, wondering how they’d be received, wondering if they’d know anyone, and left on Saturday feeling part of the group. We started to care less about what had happened in high school, the cliques were beginning to loosen.

We had a directory and a t-shirt to remember. This time the directory was copies of forms people had sent in with bios and pictures. We were a little more sophisticated these days. Our design was created by one of our classmates who was always an artist, now a professional one.

By 1993, we were ready for our 30th reunion. We had lost the heart of the reunions, our inspiring leader, and others stepped up to fill his place. The committee meetings were still the most fun, catching up with each other, helping to make the calls to locate classmates. We could still find some through the old class directory, some through calling their friends. We’d lost more in the decade, our list was growing smaller. The excuses for not coming as we approached our 40s were money, children now graduating from school or in school activities, jobs. There were still about 200 there, not even the same 200. We went through the casual evening, the class assembly, the dressy dinner dance. Now people showed up on Friday hoping they’d recognize our rapidly changing faces. We had picture nametags that year. You could see how we looked in high school and look up to see how we looked right then. The women still seemed to be getting better. The men were balding, going gray, more mature, still cute!

It was fun to see if those class prophecies had come true in any way. Our beauty queens were still beautiful, our jocks were still looking pretty fit, the smartest ones were still smart. But, not everything stays the same, thank goodness. Some of those who had lived too hard were beginning to show it. The guy who got the award at our 10th reunion for cutting the most days of classes our senior year was now president of a bank. One of the smart ones who went to Rice and got an engineering degree had married, divorced, quit big business and gone to Colorado. He was Mayor of Winter Park & loving the mountain life. Never would have dreamed it, but he was happier than ever. And we’d lost more of our favorite classmates along the way. Two of our classmates met for the first time at the reunion and married a year later.

We did another t-shirt and directory, much like the last one. We were beginning to celebrate each other as much as the memories. We were an interesting bunch.

By the time the 40th reunion rolled around, we were different, the world was much different in 2003 than in 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993. We’d been through Viet Nam, The Beatles, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the changing of the century, and 9/11. We’d battled divorce, moves, heart attacks, cancer, raising children and becoming grandparents. Some of us were caring for our parents. In fact, the excuses for not coming this time were the most varied yet. There were those with young children because they’d started late or were on a second or more marriage. There were college graduations, jobs, kids, illnesses and parents. We had classmates with AIDS. We were in the Sandwich era of our lives, between our children and our parents. Would there ever be a time that was just about us? We still managed to get about 200 to attend.

Technology was changing faster than we could have imagined and we had the internet. We purchased a website and got it up and running. This would be our last time to do the hours of phone calling. Once we got the information on the site, classmates could keep updating it as we went along, adding bios and pictures, doing the work for us. We didn’t have to do a directory and we didn’t do t-shirts. We were moving with the times.

We hadn’t cut away from the tradition of the casual night, the assembly and the dressy night yet. People still came Friday night, worrying if they would recognize or remember anyone. The pictures were on the name tags again. The Assembly was replaced by a tour of the old school, walks down the halls where some of our classmates could still find their pictures celebrating their athletic achievements. People toured the city to see the changes. We had golf for those who wanted it.

On Saturday night, we were still rocking to the band. The songs were the same, oldies now. Classic oldies…just like us. We made new friends with old classmates we hadn’t known then. Two more classmates married after the reunion. We were valuing these people who had shared our youth with us, who they had been and who they had become.

This time, we produced a DVD that incorporated all the slides and photos from the past with current interviews. We were changing with the times and shaking our heads at the things that had gone by the wayside.

We had so much fun at the 40th and realized how many people we were losing at a faster rate that we decided to have a mini-reunion – a 45th. We did one casual night, thinking it would be mostly for classmates who lived close by. The band was guys our age, playing our music. Amazingly, 75-80 came from all over the country. It was easy and fun. We were still rocking, still here and breathing! Some could still jump, we looked older and wiser.

The 50th! Good grief! We have lost so many people over the years, close to 100 that we know about, probably more. The 50th is here. We used the website, mail and email to contact people. We’ve added a Facebook page. This reunion is about celebrating us, celebrating that we are still here. We’ll have 175-200 for this one, some who have never been before. We’ll have larger type on the name tags, but no pictures. Everyone wonders if they’ll recognize anyone or remember anyone. We have two teachers who can come…one is 92 and will speak to our group. The other is not that much older than we are – we were her first pupils out of school.

The excuses this time are children and grandchildren, surgeries, illnesses, money, busy retirement schedules, work schedules and even Japanese Parliament not getting out in time. A former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia is coming in from Dubai. The President of our Student Council and our class Vice-President both have Alzheimer’s. One classmate just had back surgery, several with knee and hip surgeries. Some are hobbling to the reunion however they can. Our will is strong, our bodies starting to need replacement parts. We are distinguished, fun-loving, casual, full of life and representing everything that happens to us in a lifetime.

This time there is nothing to impress anyone. We’re going to be in the heart of all the happening things in Tulsa right now, right in the middle of the Arts District. We’ll meet early at a bar with a patio and then everyone can do the Art Walk, watch fireworks from the baseball stadium, get a fancy meal, enjoy their special group of friends, or tuck in early. Anyway you want it. Saturday night we meet at historic Cain’s Ballroom for barbecue, wearing comfortable shoes and casual clothes. We have t-shirts again and the band is back from the 45th, classmates of ours, to bring back the oldies. Everyone is excited to see whoever comes. We laugh that we’ll have a whole new group of friends by the end of the weekend. Our Facebook page has 70 members now and is lighting up with excitement and memories. We’ll be there with our cell phones and iPads, today’s brag books of pictures of our beloved children and grandchildren. We’ll share experiences, travel stories, memories. We’ll have our cameras! Our aging Eagles are flying in to celebrate!

I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, Rock On Class of 1963!

Tags 1963, 50th reunion, Edison, family, Friends, high school, reunion, Tulsa

Categories Events, Family, Friends, History, Memories, Places, Reflections, Uncategorized

Connecting Personally & Quickly

June 2, 2013 //

First there were letters, then the telephone to keep us connected to the family and friends we couldn’t see every day. Amazing how many years those worked for us, isn’t it? It’s astonishing to think about what a short time it’s been. Fifteen years ago, I had a mobile phone – I think it was a bag phone that I kept in the car for special use. I had a computer that was mainly for word processing. I had an answering machine. In my grandchildren’s lifetimes, look what has happened…

I can judge the dates by my life, by what i was using when my husband died fifteen years ago. Since that time, we all began using the internet and email. Bag phones became mobile phones became cell phones became smart phones. Chat rooms became My Space and then Facebook. Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest…it goes on and on. Computers morphed into PCs, Macs and then laptops and iPads/tablets. Texting & messaging. All in such a short time.

Technology changes all the time, faster, faster. Who can keep up with the latest. Look at the 3-D copiers that will change medicine and other things in our lives, especially great for us old people who need replacement parts.

Life is all about change. Some of us do it with more ease, but we all have to deal with it. There are those of all ages who escape to the wilderness or into their own world, trying to ignore all that is happening, but it keeps coming.

At my age, or at any age, there are those who embrace it and those who are perplexed by it. I have 90 year old friends on Facebook and young friends who avoid it. I’m one who loves the new technology. I sometimes find it funny that I spend so little time on the phone when I used to spend hours talking with my friends. Actually, I do spend time on the phone. We don’t talk, but we text, read our Facebook pages, look at photos. When I first had grandchildren, we had brag books. Now we keep our photos on our phones & tablets. Always with us.

Traveling with an iPhone and iPad, or whatever you use, is the best. I love the maps, the camera, having the internet at my fingertips, being able to connect with family and friends from wherever I am. So easy to use that my 3 year old granddaughter and a 90 year old friend use them with ease.

Email, the internet, Facebook – all ways that we find and connect with those from our present and our past. Facebook keeps me in touch with friends and relatives from throughout my life. We share jokes, photos, memories. I keep in touch with my children and grandchildren and their friends and know what they are doing in this fast paced world. I don’t have to use SKYPE or FaceTime since all of my family is near, but it’s a treasure for my friends with family spread out. I don’t have to wait for Christmas letters or even daily letters to see what everyone looks like, how their families are growing, what is happening in their lives.

I look back and remember ways that we kept in touch fondly and regret the things that we no longer have or do, but I rejoice in the things we have now. We can bring our phones with us in remote areas and take pictures that can be instantly shared (if we have coverage). We can take pictures and videos on the spot without lugging lots of equipment with us all the time…it’s important to me to capture moments in time to jog my memory later. I know my family and friends in a different way as we share posts, photos, videos, thoughts. Even my fancier camera connects to all the other gadgets I use to communicate.

There’s always nostalgia for simpler times, but there is also joy in embracing the new and what it can bring us. One of my daughters recently got a message on her phone that mystifies and amuses us. We don’t know how it got there, but it appears to be a message from her brother, my son, from the great whereafter. We choose to just embrace the mystery and smile at the thought that maybe he reached across to her, to us. Who knows what the future will bring? Wouldn’t it be interesting if that bridge to the unknown was crossed?

Technology is moving fast. It’s fun to try to keep up and even more fun to share each others lives. Time is moving fast…too fast. I’m grateful to be able to share each day with family and friends, old and new. I’m grateful for all the technology that makes it so instant. I’m mostly grateful that I have so many to share with.

Tags communication, Facebook, family, Friends, iPad, iPhone, travel

Categories Family, Friends, History, Memories, Reflections, Travel

Pool’s Open!

May 25, 2013 //

Not much is more exciting than the first trip to the pool in the summer! My friend in Montana is still battling snow and in Oklahoma we’re sunbathing. Like everything else, your excitement varies along with your age. Watching the pure joy in my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter’s face was priceless.

The older kids are a little more blasé, especially the ones who have their own pool at home, but they still look forward to it. For the moms and dads, it’s a signal for a break from the school year routine, a break before the new summer routine. For grandparents, it’s just pure fun to watch your kids and grandkids enjoy fun in the sun together, whether it’s the pool, the lake, the ocean.

Of course, there’s the flood of memories that come with age…mental pictures of yourself as a child, your own children splashing in the water, the cries of “Mommy, Mommy, watch me,” repeated so many times that I still turn when I hear any child saying those words. Automatically. Strong conditioned reflex.

Today, my youngest grandchild is tall enough to go down the big slide…she ran to the measuring stick first thing. At 3 she remembered that from last summer. She’s tall, so she made it! I told her she had to wait for me to be at the bottom to catch her since she can’t swim yet. I forced myself into the icy water…it may be hot out, but the water hasn’t caught up yet…and stood there, waiting. A dad asked me if it wasn’t freezing in there and I told him I would only do this for a grandchild. YIKES! The look on her face as she approached the end of the slide will be etched in my heart forever. She did it!

But…dang it…that’s another milestone passed. They grow up so so fast! She’s be racing through each step of growing up at a pace I want to keep up with. I’m grateful for each step I get to share with these kids and their parents. Here’s to the fun times of summer and making memories for them to remember as they watch their own children and grandchildren. That’s how we roll…

Tags family, memories, Oklahoma, pool, summer

Categories Friends, Memories, Reflections, Seasons

Search

Categories