Archives for posts with tag: memories

The Birthday Cake

March 3, 2013 //

Every year on March 3, I make a birthday cake, German Chocolate cake made from scratch, for my husband. It takes awhile and it’s not my favorite in the world, but it was his. He died fifteen years ago this year. We don’t spend a lot of time sitting around grieving, but we do remember and we laugh a lot. I just make the cake and tell the kids it will be ready and they show up.

I met Alan when we were both 16, just before he turned 17, at a church dinner during our junior year in high school. I was there with another boy and he told me I just had to meet this guy, he was so funny. I was hoping to get to know another boy I liked, but that didn’t turn out to be so great. Anyway, I remember this tall guy rushing through the room with some other boys, acting goofy. I actually thought he was younger than me and that was that. But, for some reason, I never forgot that moment I first saw him, it stuck in my head. That summer, we met again at a church retreat where we spent a week on a small college campus. This time, I did get to know him and really liked him. He was tall, about 6’2″ at that time, and weighed about 220. He was silly and fun to be around, liked to dance, and we could talk to each other. I don’t know what we talked about but I wanted to see him again when we got back to Tulsa.

He had enlisted in the Navy Reserves and went to boot camp right after we got back. I remember writing him for the two weeks he was gone. We had a retreat reunion right after he got back and he had lost 30 or 40 pounds at boot camp and I remember riding on his shoulders in the lake at what was then Skyline Amusement Park, which had a small lake, roller coaster and other rides. It’s now Post Oak Lodge in Jenks. We hit a wall after that. He wanted to go out with a friend of mine and I admit she was a little hotter than I was. Finally, after many phone calls and conversations with my girl friends trying to figure this out, I asked him to a dance my social club was having. We had our first date in September and danced and danced. I’m not sure how I got him to ask me out again or who badgered him into it, but we really did start dating and that was the beginning. We were seniors in high school, I was skinny and had braces on my teeth that came off right before the prom, he grew two more inches and was skinny with his ears sticking out and I was in the advanced classes and he wasn’t even close, but we filled each others gaps (a quote from Rocky).

We went to separate schools in the fall, he went to two years of active duty the next year while I stayed in school, and we wrote a ton of letters to each other. Long distance calls were expensive and we didn’t have computers, cell phones, etc to communicate. By my senior year in college, he was home and returned to school as a sophomore and we got married during our two week Christmas break. I graduated and started teaching as a graduate assistant while he went to school, he started working for my father in the summers, we had our first daughter, and we finally came back to Tulsa for him to work full time for Daddy. Three more children came along, and we lived our life together with a big fun family.

I can’t say what made us a couple. He always made me laugh but he could be moody, my brooding Scotsman. I always understood him though. All those talks and letters for 4 1/2 years had given us a pretty good sense of each other. We were always each other’s best friend, we shared the same values, we loved our family, we loved each other, and we laughed so much….so very, very much. We would look at each other when we were the maddest and sometimes break out in laughter at the absurdity of it all.

We lost him way too early through cancer that attacked fast and furiously and took him right after he turned 53. Life moved on for all of us, but we always take time to stop and remember. As I bake his cake today, there will be a flood of memories, sweet, funny memories that surely sift into that cake. I will always love my sweet guy. Happy Birthday, Alan!

Tags family, memories, traditions

Categories Family, Memories

High School Revisit

February 14, 2013 //

Yesterday was an interesting juxtaposition of years of my life. I was working on my 50th high school reunion in the morning and received emails out of the blue from the guy who was our senior class president and another who was Mr. Edison that year. It’s Edison Week, the week Thomas A. Edison High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma celebrates the namesake’s birthday with a week of celebrations, culminating today in the awarding of the next Mr. and Miss Edison, along with class superlatives.

Yesterday afternoon, I was at Edison for several hours to watch one of my grandsons in guy cheerleading, a fun tradition of Edison Week. I hadn’t thought about any of this until last night while I was watching videos of the day with him. When I go in the doors of Edison, I immediately feel at home. The halls look smaller, but I can go back and picture the kids, in their various cliques, grouped around the front hall, waiting for the bell to ring, as they were back in my day. The outside has some changes structurally and there aren’t motorcycles out front as much as cars, which is a change. We didn’t have too many kids with cars back in my day. The girls aren’t wearing hoop skirts either!

We didn’t have drugs, but we had the smoke hole. We had more dances and they may have been more fun since kids don’t really date or dance the way we did. There were downsides to that, too, for those who didn’t have dates. Today’s kids are more group oriented when they go out, but that can be a good thing. How can they possibly afford to take someone to a movie or out to dinner? Nobody goes on Coke dates anymore. There are dance classes, but few take them. They can learn the latest from YouTube.

But, when I started really looking back, there are so many things that are basically the same. We decorated the halls of the school…

…just as they do today. This picture is a great illustration of the teenage boy’s brain as he improvises a way to hang a banner by balancing on a 2 inch brick when standing on a chair on a table didn’t work. There were ladders close by, by the way.

The school has fewer students today, but they have more cheerleaders. Here are the cheerleaders in 1963…

Today, they do intricate routines, way beyond 2-4-6-8, who do we appreciate. The gymnastics are incredible.

Face it. The kids are much more fit than we were, especially the girls. It’s a different kind of training, different kind of body toning than we knew. Even our biggest, strongest athletes couldn’t match the bodies I saw yesterday. Or the jumps, leaps and throws. I’m not sure that girls today could even relate to the quaint, which is a kind word for those hideous outfits we purchased at Sears and had our names monogrammed on, gym suits we wore. Jumping jacks and sit ups were pretty much our exercises, although we did get to do some modern dancing, play a few basketball and softball games, and swim. Swimming was awful because we didn’t have blow dryers and you had to walk around all day with your hair in a scarf. I guess you could wear rollers to class – ha!

Edison Week really hasn’t changed much. We had a gridiron show and I found pictures of our version of guy cheerleaders, 50 years ago. These were the football players and the other jocks. The guys have gotten more creative through the years with intricate routines that are SO teen age boy in their enthusiasm and silliness. I have film of my son’s guy cheerleading group.

Here is my grandson’s sophomore class guy cheerleading group…

One of my sons-in-law was Mr. Edison, way back in 1990. It’s a shock to my kids that Nostalgia Day this year was a look back at the 90s, with the kids wearing the styles of that era. My kids are cringing and I’m smiling and trying to remember what they wore. What the heck did I wear way back then, by the way? It’s so far back… Yesterday was Luau Day with all the school dressed for the islands. We had some Hawaiian skits and my kids had luaus, too. It’s always a good party theme.

One of the nice things about living where you grew up is seeing the continuity of life and viewing the changes through different generations. My parents were from other places, so I felt no connection with where they went to school. My kids and grandkids are walking the same halls in high school that their father (for part of junior high) and I did. Yesterday, I got to share in their youth and it was refreshing to be surrounded by all that energy and excitement. I loved the cheers and screams and laughter…mostly, I loved that I got to breathe in some of that rarified air that goes with all that can be good with teenagers.

I watched with pride as the kids said the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the National Anthem. That hasn’t changed.

Mostly, I guess that what I wish for the next generation is that they continue the traditions, making them their own. I do wish they had sung “Hail, Hail to Edison” for me. Just for old times sake…but, yesterday wasn’t about me…it was about them. My past and our future!

Tags high school, memories

Categories Family, Friends, Memories, Places, Reflections

Paper Dolls

January 15, 2013 //

This one’s for Patsy, who reminded me about paper dolls.

I played with all kinds of dolls when I was little and paper dolls were one of the best. I had a box I kept them all in after I carefully cut out the dolls and their costumes. It’s kind of amazing to think that I did that as I didn’t exactly excel at scissors. My kindergarten report card gave me a low grade in that area, so maybe I was trying to compensate in my later years. I’ve always found that to be so funny. I was a very good student, but I’ve chosen to focus on the fact that I was a little weak in scissors when I was four or five years old.

We got books of paper dolls, but what I remember the most is Betsy McCall. My mother subscribed to all the ladies magazines, including McCall’s. Each month, they featured a page with Betsy with a story and new paper dolls and clothes. It was something to look forward to. I had to wait for my mother to read the magazine and then I could tear out my page and start cutting.

I also found some pictures of old valentines with paper dolls. Those were a special treat in our decorated shoe boxes of valentines from our classmates.

I remember spreading all my dolls out and dressing them with the various outfits, bending the little paper tabs that kept the clothes on the doll. I think we used to paste the dolls from magazines onto cardboard to keep them strong enough to stand up and be in the stories we made up about the lives of these paper people. We got cardboard from our daddy’s shirts when they came from the cleaners. We used those cardboard pieces for all kinds of activities.

In this fast paced world, it’s hard to imagine kids sitting for hours cutting those very intricate little pieces of clothing and patiently standing up the dolls to show off their newest outfit or making up a story for them to act out. The other day, I was watching my granddaughter play with a Mickey Mouse iPad app where she dressed him in different rock star outfits. Pretty cute, but not the innocence of Betsy McCall. When she gets older, I’ll try to explain about paper dolls. She’ll listen, wide-eyed, and wonder about that old fashioned world her grandmother grew up in. Or, if I wait too long, she may just roll her eyes.

Sometimes I have to admit what an antique girl I am.

Tags 1950s, Betsy McCall, memories, nostalgia, paper dolls

Categories Memories

Monday, Monday

January 14, 2013 //

One of those lazy Mondays when sometimes a song gets into my head and I’m full of the memories. If I were a whole lot younger, this might be a confessional, but I’m not, so it’s just a memory.

I was a junior at Oklahoma State University in May 1966, and had a brand new silver Impala with white leather seats that I had gotten for my 20th birthday. Probably for being a pretty good kid, making good grades, not causing problems. I was actually embarrassed that my father had spent that much money on me, but he was pleased he could do it. Not many of us had cars in 1966 so it was easy to find people to cruise with.

A popular movie a few years back was “Where the Boys Are,” which featured a group of college kids on spring break in Florida. Spring Break wasn’t as much back then – I’m not even sure we got a week. The idea of going somewhere was also pretty new to us – not an entitlement of youth. Anyway, the title song hung around and we still had romantic visions of meeting a young Jim Hutton on a beach (at least he was the one I liked).

I’m not sure where the idea came from or how we suddenly became obsessed with going to the beach, but we did. It wasn’t even the right time. A bunch of us just decided that would be the coolest thing ever. The closest beach was in Galveston, Texas, and there must have been a rumor of something happening there. What were we thinking? I’m not sure if we told our parents or just took off, but four of us left Stillwater after classes on Thursday and drove to Norman to pick up another friend at OU. I’m not a drinker, so it’s a good thing I was driving my car, cool as it was. We spent the night at someone’s apartment, meeting a bunch of guys there and everyone drinking beer before we fell asleep on the floor, couch, etc. Did I also mention that I was engaged at the time and not looking for guys, just looking for a fun adventure. In fact, we tried to get my fiance (future husband) to fly in from California where he was in the Navy and join us for the weekend.

We stopped in Dallas to find out that my guy couldn’t get there, visited the JFK Memorial and headed on to Galveston. How many miles/hours was that? We had the music blaring in the age before cell phones or even 8 tracks. Just the radio and us. And, we made it there. We must have driven all night.

Nothing looked quite like the movies. It was a dirtier beach than Florida and there were no people. We had a motel room right there, but there were no people, much less college students. But we were here. On Saturday, we hit the water – it wasn’t even sunny. And, suddenly, there was a group of guys. They had cute southern accents and had come over from Monroe (pronounced MON roe) Louisiana. Better than nothing. We also befriended the lifeguard, who took this picture.

That night, the group drank and we danced, some of us on the table in the room. It was pretty innocent, actually. Very innocent, when I look back. You’d think I’d remember more since I was the sober one, but it’s just a blur of silliness now. Nobody ended up together, nobody did anything illegal. Just kids meeting other kids for fun. We didn’t make any stupid mistakes – maybe the movie taught us the consequences of that.

And, back to my point. We drove back to school, arriving Monday in time for some of our classes. As we drove, we kept hearing the Mamas and the Papas singing “Monday, Monday,” on that rainy Monday at the end of our big adventure. Back to normal lives, finishing finals, planning my wedding. The Louisiana guys came to see us, but it wasn’t quite the same. Nice guys, but…

So, I randomly remember this trip when I hear that song. When my own kids wanted to do things, I tried to remember what it was like to want to break out of the norm. I tried to not worry since I had done the same with nothing bad happening. Of course, I knew better and did worry. I’m a Mom, after all.

I have to smile when I think of this really not so wild adventure. It was still fun! “Monday, Monday” always brings it back to me.

Tags Mamas & Papas, memories, music

Categories Memories

More Hamburgers

January 7, 2013 //

I must be starving for hamburgers. There are lots of great hamburgers in the world and we’re lucky to still have some of the ones I grew up with here in Tulsa. They’re probably still my favorites, maybe because they come with a side order of memories.

Van’s was great, but Van sold his location on Peoria to Claud’s long ago. It’s nice to know he was passing it along and it still is owned by the family. I love the tiny space where you can watch the whole operation while you wait. Nice to get a bag of burgers and fries just like the old days.

Across the street is Weber’s with its unique history. Dating back to the 1890s, Mr. Weber made his own root beer and invented the burger. That fact was validated by the governor of Oklahoma and I love the fact that it’s still owned by the family and they use the same grill he used way back when. They still make their root beer and their onion rings are awesome. That little orange building has moved a few spaces since I was a kid, but it’s a welcome sight…gives me sense of stability to see those two families still in business at 38th and Peoria after all these years.

Hank’s goes back even further, 1949. Nothing has changed in there, for sure. Still a great burger, great fries and a malt like I remember them. Way out on Admiral, but fun for an occasional fix.

My husband was a big fan of the original Ron’s on 15th. He would head over there on Saturdays to pick up his burger with chili. I miss the little diner, but at least we can get the burgers at all the locations now.

I discovered Ted’s, over on Edison, many years ago while doing volunteer work in the area. Great hamburgers.

Brownie’s started as root beer stand, according to a friend who lived in the area when we were kids. It became a hamburger and root beer place way back when. My husband and I spent many a weekend lunch or dinner in there. We loved the staff that had been there forever, the atmosphere with all the little toys on the shelf, pictures of customer’s children lining the check-out and the food. When Brownie died, it floundered a little, but a young couple bought it and it’s as good as ever. My favorites are the hamburger and fries with a frosty mug of milk. And the pies…I try to resist the chocolate meringue but that’s always a weakness of mine. They make a lot of pies and they even have a food truck now.

And then there’s Goldies. It first opened as Goldies Patio Grill at 51st and Lewis with a par three golf course adjoining. My dad was invited to the opening and set the first course record. Their steak is a great bargain, but it’s the hamburgers, the Goldies Special being my favorite. Whatever the secret spices they use are, you can’t mistake that flavor. The quality has been consistently terrific through the years. I forgo the fries and get the slaw, unique for it’s creamy dressing. And there are the pickles. Where else do you get a pickle bar? Where else do you sit and munch on a bowl of pickles while you wait for your order?

I guess that’s my tour of my favorite local burgers with memories fried in. There are lots of great burgers, but I like mine the way I remember them. Who knows how long these places will be around…I’m going to start taking my grandkids. A little Tulsa history with a yummy burger thrown in.

Tags 1950s, 1960s, hamburgers, memories, nostalgia, restaurants, Tulsa

Categories Memories, Restaurants

Hamburger Memories

January 5, 2013 //

On my list of things to have with me on a desert island are hamburgers – not the most practical or healthy choice. Hamburgers are comfort food, loaded with memories.

When my grandmother would stay with us, she would cook hamburgers and make french fries. We would get little cups of ketchup, just like going out.

The first hamburger place I really remember was Van’s. They had more than one location eventually, but the one I loved was on 15th Street, east of Lewis.

On special Saturday nights, I could go to Van’s with my Daddy. We stood in line, waiting for our order, listening to the waitress with her droning question, “do you want onions on that?” The guy who cooked the hamburgers was an artist with his spatula. He had long dark hair, combed back under his hat. Watching him take a ball of ground beef and throw it on the well used griddle, where he proceeded to flatten it, shape it and turn it, was an endless fascination. He worked like lightning with skills that I still admire. When they were done, the burgers were wrapped in wax paper and the fries were placed in the little paper envelope. Riding home with that greasy brown bag of burgers makes me drool even now.

But Pennington’s was the place where memories of the food mingle with all kinds of rites of growing up. Pennington’s Drive-In Restaurant was on Peoria and was the heart of my life for many years.

I started going there with my parents, but caught on easily that this was a cool place to be. We would order our hamburger in a basket with either onion rings (Pennington’s were uniquely thin and delicious) or fries. Whoever invented the basket for hamburgers deserves a place in museums of industrial design. Those colorful plastic baskets have never been improved on for ease while eating in the car. Our order would come with a stack of baskets of chicken, burgers, shrimp or any of Pennington’s favorites. Early on, the carhops were on roller skates, when that was the newest thing.

As I grew into junior high, Pennington’s became the hangout for Tulsa’s teens. When you’re not quite teen-aged, it was embarrassing to be there with your parents. Soc Row was the middle row, with pole position being the spot at the end near the restaurant. Here you could wave and honk at your friends as they cruised through, looking for a parking place and everyone could see that you were there. I confess that Daddy thought this was hilarious and I can remember him parking in the prime place, yelling “Whee” as the teenaged girls giggled by. I, of course, was sitting on the floor of the car, mortified and sure that my future life was ruined. Daddy, Daddy. Silly Daddy.

This was my home away from home all the way through high school. We raced to get there and back on our 30 minute lunch hour. If I ran an errand for my mother after school, it involved picking up a friend and stopping at Pennington’s. We went on dates that began or ended there, we piled in cars after football games to drive through, honking our school honk. We decorated our parents’ cars with our social club colors and drove through during our annual rush of new pledges. In the summer, we cruised Peoria in the evenings, looping through Pennington’s as we searched for our other cruising friends. It was where you could see who was with who and you could be seen. Reputations were made there!

We knew the Penningtons, Arch and Lola, and could see them inside behind the counter. Sherry was everyone’s favorite carhop and I’m sure she got more than her share of cocky teenaged boys trying to show her how grown up they were. We weren’t allowed to get out of our cars, for fear of being approached by Jake, the security guard. It was a time when we listened to the rules, although some tried to push him to his limits.

Pennington’s had great food, but my hamburgers, dinner rolls, vanilla Dr. Peppers, black bottom pie and onion rings are interwoven with the memories of first dates, special dates, cruising through with cars full of friends just to see who was there or who could see us, and, even the times with my parents. I miss the old places…

Tags 1950s, 1960s, hamburgers, memories, nostalgia, Pennington's, restaurants, Tulsa, Van's

Categories Memories, Restaurants

Aggie & Grandad

December 28, 2012 //

My grandparents were special people in my life and I was lucky to have them for as long as I did. My father’s parents lived in Oklahoma City during my lifetime and we drove over to see them every week when I was little. Daddy worked for his father and they discussed business with my uncles while we played with our cousins.

My grandmother’s name was Agnes, but we knew her as Aggie. She was born into a large Catholic family in Uniontown, Kentucky…a rather poor family. Some of her siblings became nuns and priests, some to escape poverty. Grandad was James Clay Hamilton, known as Clayton. He was also from a large family in Uniontown, but his family was Episcopalian and a little further up the income scale. Grandad went to college at the University of Kentucky, was a Sigma Chi and majored in mechanical engineering. I guess Aggie graduated from high school, although I never heard.

The story is that when Grandad took Aggie on the train to get married, he brought her a fur muff. She was embarrassed as she didn’t even own underwear. I wish I knew more about them when they were young…that’s the only story I ever heard. My father was the oldest child, born in Grandad’s family home in Uniontown. Then they had another son and a daughter in the next couple of years. The youngest son was born a couple of years later. I know they moved to Ohio and eventually to Oklahoma City, where Grandad opened J. C. Hamilton Co., an automotive parts warehouse.

They raised the kids and there are infamous stories of my father’s rebellions. But he turned out ok and went to work for his father, also becoming a champion bowler and golfer along the way. He’s another story. All the boys and their son-in-law were in the service during World War II. My grandmother never got over the sorrow of losing her youngest son, shot down over Germany and buried there. She took her anger out on F.D.R. and would never even buy a stamp with his picture on it. In later years, she developed arthritis and it was attributed to the anger she held inside. She kept in touch with her son’s girlfriend for many years.

But, the Aggie and Grandad I grew up with were delightful grandparents. I loved to stay at their house with the old furniture, antiques. In their first house, there was a room across the back, behind the kitchen. On holidays, the adults would eat around the big table there, while the youngest of the nine grandchildren were at a kids’ table in the kitchen. Grandad had a workshop in the garage where he made beautiful things from wood. I can still smell the sawdust and see the piles of shavings on the floor. They had a tall bed in one of the bedrooms and we would hide under it in our endless games of hide and seek around their house.

Aggie got a parakeet when those were the new fad. He would ride around the house on her shoulder, talking to her and giving her a peck on the lips. She loved that little bird. One day, she stepped out the back door, forgetting he was with her, and a noise startled the bird and he flew away. She had other birds, but never like that one.

Aggie was very involved in her church – she’d had to convert to the Episcopal church since she didn’t marry a Catholic. At Easter, they took oatmeal boxes and made them into intricate Easter baskets that they sold to raise money. I can’t even begin to describe these baskets with their flowers and petals made of crepe paper. They are works of art. I have a couple of them that I keep wrapped up. You can see them in this Easter picture of my family.

When her friends would call and ask for Agnes, my cousin and I would start giggling and call for “Agnes” to come to the phone. She just smiled at us. Grandad wasn’t as involved, although I know he left the church a lot of money. That pretty little church later became a nightclub. I wonder what they would have thought of that!

Grandad was a bird hunter and I can picture him suiting up with my father, leaving early in the morning with the dogs and returning with quail for us to eat that evening. Hunting and building were his hobbies outside of work. He invested well in the stock market and was one of the wealthiest men in Oklahoma City for money you could put your hand on at one time. You would never know it. Nothing much changed around there.

They eventually moved to a newer house, but nothing changed there either. It was a place of stability. They had recliners when those were new and would stay up on Saturday night to watch wrestling on TV with Aggie furious with the bad guys. We never stopped giggling over that. Aggie fixed us the same breakfast…two pieces of bacon, prunes, probably toast or cereal. On Sunday nights, they had crackers, cheese and sardines. I never liked the sardines. There was always candy corn in a dish on the coffee table in the fall. Around the holidays there was that sticky ribbon candy. She had a finger that she couldn’t bend. She had been cleaning a toilet with the harsh chemicals they used in the old days and some got in a cut in her hand, causing blood poisoning. I picture that crooked finger, bent with arthritis in later years. She made wonderful cookies which were always in the jar in the kitchen. I have that jar in my kitchen window now and it makes me smile.

As they got older, they discovered the cafeteria. It was a very nice one near their home and the entire family would drive over there, sitting at a big table. Aggie never learned to drive, but she could tell Grandad how to. The grandkids would be giggling in the back seat as she told “Dad,” as she called him, to go faster. I’m sure he got pulled over for speeding, but most of the police knew him and let him go. There wasn’t as much traffic then, so I don’t think he was much of a threat.

When we stayed with them, I explored or giggled with my cousins and siblings. I went through and read their books, opened the drawer of old photos, hung out in the garage watching Grandad make things or sat in the kitchen with Aggie. It was peaceful and safe. In later years, I remember being there for a weekend when I was in college. I was engaged that year and more aware of them as a couple. Grandad was sitting in his recliner and Aggie stood behind him, combing his hair. It was the sweetest thing ever.

Grandad helped a lot of his family members who hadn’t done as well as he had. He opened branches of his company for his sons, sons-in-law, and even grandkids through the years. The traveling they did was to visit relatives, mostly in Oklahoma and Texas. My mother, a great housekeeper anyway, said their visits were a terrific incentive to get everything in shape. One time they went to Hawaii, maybe for their 50th wedding anniversary. They looked so out of place, Grandad in his suit and Aggie in her sensible shoes. I loved that they took that adventure at their age.

Mostly, I remember their laughs and how much they loved each other. I know their life wasn’t always the picture perfect vision we saw as children, but they had the marriage we all wanted. They loved each other and they loved us. Perfectly delightful!

Tags family, grandparents, memories

Categories Family, Memories, Reflections

I Do!

December 23, 2012 //

I wonder who came up with the traditional wedding vows? Those are pretty serious promises. When you’re young, as I was 46 years ago today when I said mine, they make you feel pretty grown up to be saying serious things to someone you love. We meant them with all our hearts and understood them as best we could at 21 years of age. We abstractly understood that richer or poorer, sickness and health, until death do us part could happen to us, the last two probably when we were old and gray. In the meantime, we would have a family and grow old together.

What happened to us was a marriage…as opposed to a wedding. Weddings are where you are surrounded by friends and family wishing you well, parties, presents, and serious, we thought, conversations about the future. Marriages are the reality of that future. We had a good one for 31 years, ups and downs and all. I learned from watching my grandparents and parents and their friends that long marriages aren’t always achieved while traveling a smooth road. There are challenges in the very best of marriages, some caused by people within them, some caused by the world around us. My paternal grandparents were married over 50 years, but they lost a son in the war. My maternal grandmother was widowed at 29 and left with three children in the depression. My parents were married over 50 years and were very much in love. Was it always easy? Not at all, but they worked at it.

My marriage was great fun, passionate in all ways. We made each other laugh, we adored our children, we worked hard. It was a lot of work…a lot…to raise four children. We really succeeded at that. But we had to deal with all those pesky vows. We never wavered in those promises…richer or poorer, sickness and health, ’til death do us part. We didn’t expect to have to deal with all of them and we didn’t expect it to end so early. I never thought I’d be a widow at 52. Wow.

But, today, December 23, I pay tribute to those kids that we were who never quit trying. It was quite an adventure with that special guy. Knowing what I know now, would I go back and do it again? You bet! I’d say “I Do!” without batting an eye. What an amazing life we had together. We packed a lot of living and a lot of loving into the time we had. And, that adventure led to my next one and my next one and I keep heading to the next one. Yes, I do.

Tags family, I Do, memories, wedding

Categories Family, Reflections

Barnard Elementary School, Tulsa Oklahoma

December 1, 2012 //

My four children all attended Barnard Elementary School, starting with my oldest entering 2nd grade in 1975 and ending when my youngest graduated from 5th grade in 1988. It was a major place in our lives, leaving us with lifelong lessons, memories, and friendships. The school was opened in 1929, the wall was a WPA project. By the time my family got there, it was a thriving neighborhood school, populated with children from diverse incomes. From the moment I stepped through that entry, I felt my children were in a safe place. There was something about those older schools that envelops you with a sense of strength and history and security.

As a parent, I was involved as much as I could be. I was a Junior Great Books leader for 12 years, leading groups of children through interpretive readings of classic stories during their lunch hour or before school. It may be the best use of my English degree I have ever had. I was a homeroom mother, bringing homemade cookies for parties, helping the teacher with details. Today, homemade cookies aren’t allowed, but the mothers of my day would have been teased if we brought store bought packages or bakery goods. It was homemade all the way. When the weather got too hot and the kids were sweating in the un-airconditioned classrooms, we bought popcicles and sold them to the kids for a quarter.

I helped with anything they needed me for. I remember enrolling kindergarteners the years the churches were sponsoring Vietnamese families and watched as the new students, who couldn’t speak English, lined up in wonderment in our place that was so comfortable to us and so foreign to them. Now there were kids with Asian sounding names in the classes, kids who learned quickly and adapted to a new life more easily thanks to the kindness of Americans and the nurturing atmosphere in our school.

I worked on the fundraising events. We did the first J0g-a-Thons, sold t-shirts, sweatshirts and visors. We had school carnivals and bingo. The best one was the year Gailard Sartain, the great actor who works in Hollywood and lives in Tulsa, called bingo. His daughter was a student and he gladly volunteered when we asked. He was so funny that parents were lined up around the room, filling the doorway to watch him in action in the cafeteria.

We decided to invest in a popcorn machine and sell bags of popcorn to the kids after school for a quarter. I think the machine cost $200 and we had it paid for in a couple of weeks. Popcorn day was one of the kid favorites and I spent many an afternoon with my friends pouring that nasty popcorn oil and measuring out bags for the kids before the final bell and the rush of little grubby kids, quarters in hand, smiles on their faces.

We used our money to give the teachers extras funds for supplies for their rooms, we purchased the Big Toy for the playground and the fathers gathered on a weekend to assemble it. We purchased the first computers for the school. I remember volunteering to work in the computer lab, at a time when nobody had a personal computer but knew they were coming, and thinking that I could surely learn this new technology if the kindergarteners could. And I learned along with them.

The auditorium/gym was the place for assemblies, meetings and performances. We were charmed with the poetry contests that Sharon Atcheson created. Watching the children recite poems of their choice was an incredible learning and performing experience for all of them. There were coveted prizes and the students worked hard on their pieces. I bet many of them still remember the poems they recited. We watched talent shows and plays…I’m remembering Kerry and her friends performing Uptown Girl and Clayton and his friend in A Christmas Carol. There were so many performances. The Spring Sing focused on the incredible musical knowledge and abilities that flourished in all the children under John Townsend. The awards assemblies awarded the students with a portfolio of certificates for good behavior, perfect attendance, best in math and on and on. My mother won the grandparent award for several years as she had seven grandchildren at Barnard. It tickled her …she always said it was the only award given for her children being prolific.

The gym/auditorium was where we had scout meetings, PTA meetings. I remember standing before the group of parents, giving various reports. I remember my husband as Pack Leader for the Cub Scouts and pinning my son’s Bobcat pin on him as he was held upside down (Men must have thought up that one). All in that auditorium…

The year I was PTA President, I spent more time than usual at the school, often in Pat Randall’s office. She was the Principal, an African American woman who was my age and became a dear friend. I’d held various positions on the PTA Board, but this one was special. I already knew the teachers and had spent time in the school, but what I learned as President was a life lesson in what advocacy means. The most special schools are usually that way because of parent involvement – no secret in that. What I watched and dealt with along with Pat, were the various ways that involvement manifests itself. There are parents who think their child is always right, no matter what. It doesn’t matter that the child is…shall we say a brat? The parents will stand up for him/her. There are parents who don’t want to hear anything, good or bad, about their child. And, I learned, it is the rare parent who understands the difference between what may be right for his or her child and what may be best for the entire student body or the school system, seeing the big picture. In the end, it is usually those who can see the Big Picture who understand all the complexities and know that what is best for the most students may be the best for their child, too. Of course, there are various circumstances and every child needs an advocate. God Bless our teachers! I bet my kids could name them all…Marilyn Tomlin, Laurice Nesser, Anne Erker…the list of great teachers who taught and influenced my children and so many others.

The many hours I spent carpooling, sitting in front and back of the school while I let out children or waited for them are fastened in my mind. Those were the quiet moments of motherhood, when you watched your children leave you to be influenced by others in the world and then waited for them to return to you, full of stories of accomplishments and disappointments. Those quiet moments while I sat parked were times when I visited with my dear friends who were also waiting, or contemplated what I would fix for dinner or which carpools needed to be driven after school. The friendships I developed with the other parents and the teachers are some of the most precious. Those were good years, happy years.

Barnard closed at the end of the school year in May 2011 and I walked the halls for the last time. The school looked just as strong as it had the day I first entered it. There were a few improvements, but the old school was looking good. I was so proud of my family’s time there and so warmed by the memories. They left that school with good educations, prepared for the next step. I have always said that I felt like I was throwing my children to the wolves when they left the security of Barnard and had to go to the wildness that is junior high/middle school (the change from junior high to middle schools was made between my 2nd & 3rd child’s graduation from Barnard).

We had waited with a mixture of curiosity and protectiveness to see what the schools would do with Barnard. They treated the school with reverence for its former patrons and its history and moved the Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences there this past fall, a relief and a source of pride for all. Then the unimaginable happened. On September 5, a fire broke out in the early hours, a flash from a newly installed vent, and the school went up in flames, entirely destroyed. I watched the news reports showing the explosions as the classrooms exploded with a sinking heart. A friend, another former PTA President, texted me from the site that day, saying she was standing across the street, bawling. I drove by recently several times as they were tearing the ruins down until there is nothing but a flat lot left. The entry pieces were given to the Tulsa Historical Society. Yesterday, I purchased 10 of the final 800 bricks they placed on sale. As I approached, an elderly lady was leaving with one brick in the basket of her walker. There was a parade of mourners, picking up the scorched, scarred, chipped bricks that are all that is physically left for us to hold and touch from that incredible house of education, memories, friendships and love.

Thank you to all who taught or studied and played or volunteered in that building…Barnard is a special place for us all.

P. S. For more memories and history of Barnard, read Jeremy Bailey’s article in the December 1, 2012 issue of This Land.

Tags Barnard Elementary School Tulsa Oklahoma, elementary school, fire, memories, PTA, school, teachers

Categories Memories, Places, Reflections

Mommie Dude

November 6, 2012 //

My maternal grandmother would be 114 today. Her birth name was Artiemisha Lucille Holt. I never heard Artiemisha, which must have been after her grandmother, Artimissa. I found that doing genealogy or I would have always thought her name was just Artie. She grew up on a farm in southern Oklahoma, near Durant, where she was one of a bunch of kids. I knew Nat and Clint and Lilly and the others, but there were more half brothers and sisters from her father’s first marriage. I don’t know much about her life before, but I think she was 18 when she married Benjamin Newton West, who was 21 years older than she. Before my mother died, she told me that my grandfather came to pick my grandmother up to get married in a cart with a brown horse and a brown blanket. Her parents handed her a bouquet and they left. My grandfather’s best friend was with him and asked, “Where did you find this pretty little thing?” I don’t know much about their marriage other than the precious story of my grandfather building a fire in the morning and then carrying my grandmother down to get warm. They had three children, two boys and a girl, and he worked for his father at the West Wagon Yard in Ardmore and then for the telephone company, stringing lines, I believe. I know my mother was born at her grandmother’s home in the country, so they must have lived there for awhile. When he was fifty-one, he died of Bright’s Disease, a kidney disease that could be easily cured today. My grandmother was 29 years old with three small children, widowed in the depression. My mother was five.

I guess my grandfather knew he was going to die because he left a small neighborhood grocery for my grandmother for income. She ran that for years, supporting the kids through times when their gas was turned off because they didn’t have a nickel for the bill. But my mother remembers they laughed a lot. My mother was a serious and proud child, who loved her mother dearly and always recognized the debt she owed her. My grandfather’s parents were among the founders of Ardmore, OK and had operated the West Wagon Yard. They owned property and my grandmother did own her home, which was the only reason they survived, according to my mother. By the time I was born, the grocery store was long gone and my grandmother’s income came from renting out rooms in her house and another property from my great-grandmother.

I was the oldest grandchild on that side of my family. I was born several months early and my mother didn’t know much about babies, so my grandmother came and got me when I was a few weeks old. I don’t think it warped my relationship with my mother, but I was always close to my grandmother. She was a prissy little girl, so her brothers called her Dude, as did most of her close friends and family. I called her Mommie Dude. She was such an innocent in so many ways and so wise in others. I don’t think she had more than a 9th grade education but she raised three very smart children, mostly on her own. She packed parachutes at the Ardmore Air Base during the war.

My visits with Mommie Dude were among the most precious memories of my childhood. I spent time at her house in Ardmore in the summers, swinging on the front porch swing for hours, picking pears off the trees in the back yard, rummaging through her drawer of photos or the garage full of stuff. I chased horny toads and lightning bugs and walked to the ice plant for chips of ice and downtown to the dime store and to visit my uncle at the bank. She finally got a car, but was never a good driver. There was once an article in the Daily Ardmoreite with the news that Artie West had her grandchildren at the ice cream place. I still have her cedar chest where she kept her fur coat and a hunk of her hair (don’t ask me why people kept their hair in those days). It was all mysterious. I played her records and she sang me old, old songs that I try to remember today. Those songs were old folk songs and I’ve tried to find the history of some. She made us “squares” when she knew we were coming. “Squares” were koolaid, frozen in ice trays. We would get a bowl of squares and eat it while swinging on the front porch. It made the hot summers without air conditioning more bearable and fun. There are so many other stories to write about my times with her…and I will.

Mommie Dude always wrote me and I have her letters somewhere in my garage, boxed with letters from my parents and grandparents. Often she would put in a dollar, telling me to go get a Pepsi. A dollar was a lot to her. I loved getting those in the mail, even through college. I have a photo of my grandmother with my three girls, holding 9 month old Kerry as they all stood on her porch in Ardmore. Shortly after that, she was crippled with arthritis, almost overnight, and had to move to a nursing home. My mother finally brought her to Tulsa, where she lived in pain until her death. I was at the nursing home the night she died and sat beside her, singing the old songs that I hold so dear. This sweet woman loved me so unconditionally all my life and taught me so many lessons without even knowing it. Today, I’m thinking of her with love in my heart and a smile on my face.

Tags grandmother, memories

Categories Family, Memories

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