Graduation

My high school graduation was on May 14,1963 from Reeds Spring High School in Reeds Spring Missouri. It was held in the high school gymnasium/auditorium. Besides my diploma, I received an Art Award, a Secretarial Practice Award and a scholarship to Blue Bonnet Beauty Acacdemy in Springfield Missouri. There were 22 kids in my graduation class.

Favorite Songs and Movies

While looking through my "Memories of my senior days" book I came across some entries I made about favorite songs. Most of them I know, but there are two songs I listed that I don't even remember the words, tune or who sang them. These are the songs that I listed that I liked so well:

Don't be afraid little darlin'
Twenty miles
He's so fine
The end of the world
Puff the magic dragon
You belong to me

It is the firtst two that I can't remember. It didn't surprise me at all that there were no Elvis songs on my favorite list because I didn't like his music that well back then. It did surprise me that there were no Beach Boys, Bobby Vee, Bobby Vinton, Bobby Rydell----you know, all the Bobby's. This was the spring of 1963.

I listed my favorite movies as "Blue Hawaii" and "Gidget goes Hawaiian".

Junior-Senior Proms

Small as our school was, we didn't have just a senior prom like the kids in larger schools now do. We had a joint junior and senior prom. The juniors would do all the planning and raise the money for the prom.

When I was a junior we chose Hawaiian for our theme. We raised the money by the usual ways---bake sales , cake walks and car washes. We hired the local DJ Dick Biondi to play the music for the dance. My date of course was Elmer (or as Laura would say, Kenickie) for both proms. For the junior prom I had a light blue knee length formal and white and silver high heel shoes. It is the same ensemble I wore the following year when I was homecoming queen candidate. I had a corsage of white carnations with light blue tips and a blue ribbon.

For the senior prom, the juniors chose "graduation" as the theme. We had the same disc jockey as before (you guessed it, the only one in the area!) lol I had a white dotted swiss spaghetti strap knee length formal . My corsage was red carnations with white ribbons.

I don't remember the place we had the proms but it wasn't at the school. We all met at the school and rode to the prom in a school bus!! Ain't that a hoot!!! No limousines (wow, had to get spell checker for that one, lol ) were available in the whole area. Now can you believe that? Maybe this is part of the reason I just don't care all that much about protocol. So much fun can be had in the simplest ways.

My Senior Trip---Part 2

Most of us bought souveniours while we were in Biloxi . After being in Biloxi all afternoon and all the sightseeing we did, we didn't get back to our hotel until 11:00 p.m. Part of our sightseeing was driving across the Lake Ponchatrain Causeway. It is 24 miles long and is the longest bridge in the world. A group of us went out to eat even though it was pretty late. We didn't get back to our rooms until about 12:30. We were sure worn out, it had been a fun and very busy day.

The next morning we checked out of our hotel and headed out of town on our way to Vicksburg, Mississippi. We toured the Vicksburg battlegrounds, and then went on to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. We checked in to the Pine Bluff motel, which was the prettiest place we stayed. We headed on home the folowing morning and got to Reeds Spring around 4:30. We all had a wonderful time but sure were tired. We all called our parents to tell them we were back and to please come get us. They were on "stand-by" to come get us, but there was no way we could've projected what time. This was several decades before the cell phones. A group of us sat at the counter in the drugstore and had a coke while we waited for them.

My Senior Trip---Part 1

O n April 29, 1963, 18 of us seniors and our chaperones all met in the school parking lot. We all boarded a school bus and we were off. Our final destination was New Orleans, La. The first night we stayed at the Pelican Motel in Alexandria, Louisiana. We went to the bowling alley for awhile and then we just walked around and enjoyed ourselves.

We got up the next morning at 6:30 and went on in to New Orleans. We stayed at the DeSoto Hotel and our rooms were on the 4th floor. I shared a room with my best friend Barbara Shaw and two other girls. A group of about 7 or 8 of us went out to eat together and then walked around Canal and Bourbon St. for awhile. We went to a movie and saw "The Critics Choice" with Bob Hope and Lucille Ball. When we got back to the hotel, us girls stayed up talking and laughing till around 3:30 in the morning.

The next morning we took a side trip to Biloxi, Mississippi. This is where the clutch went out on the bus. We didn't care a bit because we got to spend all afternoon on the beach!! However, a few of the kids that went into the "Gulf of Mexico" cut their feet on sharp rocks and seashells. The rest of us knew at their expense, not to go in the water barefooted.

The bus driver picked us up after the clutch was fixed and we headed back to New Orleans. We did some sightseeing and then went back to our hotel.

To be continued

Senior Sneak Day

This event was originally called skip or sneak day because all of the students in the senior class would skip school on the same day. No one in the senior class would show up for school. It evolved quite a bit by the time we would have done it. Not only did the school and faculty know about it, but they even let us use one of our old yellow school busses and a driver for the day.

We went to the bowling alley in Hollister first. We had a lot of fun there and then we headed out for Rockaway. It is (or was) a recreation area with a few rides and concession stands. It had a huge ferris wheel. That is one ride that kind of scares me, let's say it makes me very uneasy. Yeah I know, the fearless roller coaster rider afraid of the ferris wheel! Kind of ironic huh? I was goaded and talked in to going on it anyway, and I was right---I didn't like it at all! I hate that feeling of being dropped and always felt like I was going to get "flung" right out of that seat. I don't like any ride that drops me. We had a great time while we were there. We ate our share of the junk food that they sell at these places.Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the school.We had to get the school bus back so it could take some kids home, and of course catch our own busses.

Sure glad I didn't get "flung" anywhere, or all of you would't be around to read this! lol

Homecoming 1962-63

Our homecoming my senior year started with a pep squad assembly at 3:00. We all took our busses home and came back to the school before the A-team started playing a 7:00. The A-team beat Galena 74 to 62. Later the B-team played and won their game 41 to 36 over Galena.

The coronation of the homecoming queen was done between the games. I was the homecoming queen candidate for the senior class. I wore my light blue knee length formal and my white and silver sparkley shoes (three inch spikes). All of the candidates were given white corsages. The junior class candidate won the title of homecoming queen and was crowned by the captain of the basketball team. She also received a bouquet of red roses. The theme for our homecoming was Christmas, so we had red, white and silver decorations on a midnight blue background. It was beautiful.

Afterwards, when I ran into mom and dad out in the hallway of the school, dad was mumbling and grumbling about something but I didn't pay much attention to it. My boyfriend drove me home that night. Mom told me the next day that what dad was grumbling about was that he thought I was the prettiest girl up there and I should have won. Gotta love daddies!!!

The Junior and Senior Plays

I "starred" in both the junior and the senior plays. The junior play was "The spooky tavern". I played the part of Lucy Hacker, a spiritualistic medium. I wore a floor length, long sleeved black dress and I opened the show. It was completely dark on the stage, and I come out with a candle. I hold the candle out in front of my chest so the glow lit up my face in a haunting way, kind of like holding a flashlight under your chin. My opening dialogue was very long and was quite a challenge to memorize. I, of course, rose to the challenge and did superbly. lol Once that opening was finished, I had it pretty easy. I came back on stage several times, but just for a few sentences each time.

The senior play was "Me and my shadow". I played the part of Arlene Harrington, a married woman that owned the house the play took place in. Even though I had the lead female part in this play, it was much easier to learn and perform than the junior play. I had more back and forth dialogue with this one, more feedback from other "stars".

News Letter, the Yearbook and My Art Award

I was on both the newsletter and yearbook staff in my senior year. We had lots of fun with it. At the end of the year I received a secretarial practice award for my work on the Hi-Lights (our newspaper) and the Wolf Pack (our yearbook). In the newsletter, we included regular school news and fun news. In the fun news, we would interview different students about things like "what is your favorite song" and do surveys on who was the coolest, cutest, smartest, sweetest, most friendly, most athletic or had the most scshool spirit ect. These surveys would include students from all four classes since our school was so small.

I also received the school's art award. It sure wasn't for painting like my dad. The award was for several different projects that we did throughout the year in art class. I did some beautiful work on some caligraphy and also stenciled designs on to fabric and painted it. We did several more projects too, I just can't think of them right off hand. I know we did something with clay, but can't remember what I made.

Donkey Basketball Game

Our school just played basketball because we didn't have enough students to play football. You know it only takes five players for basketball. lol That was the case with all the little towns in that area. We did it all though, we had cheerleaders and a pep squad!! No pom teams though, never even heard of that back then. My best friend Barbara Shaw was a cheerleader and I was on the pep squad. I didn't even try out for cheerleader because it just wasn't something I would like.

One Friday night, instead of a regular game, we had a donkey basketball game. It was just as it sounds---donkeys were brought in and the players had to ride them and play ball. They didn't have to dribble but could if they wanted to. They had to maneuver the donkeys to go where they needed to go to shoot a basket!! The donkeys had sock-like shoes on to protect the gym floor. This was absolutely hilarious!!! It definitely was one of the highlights of my school days.

P.S. To "My First Steady Boyfriend"

I told you about Elmer, my steady boyfriend, a few blogs back. I also told you he was quite cute. I forgot to tell you, though, that he was yearbook king in our senior year. Laura saw his picture quite some time ago and said he looked like Kenickie on Grease . She should know because I think she watched that movie a hundred times or so. This is short because it is a p.s. lol

Fishing with Dad

During the summer, dad and I would occasionally go fishing at night. We would put a motor on one of our fishing boats and head out to one of the coves. We would find us a good spot and tie up and anchor the boat. We usually had some sodas and snacks with us. Dad hung our lantern over the side of the boat (not in the water of course). We'd bait our hook and settle back and relax. We would talk about everything from soup to nuts (an old grandma expression). The lantern light would attract the fish because they were so curious and nosey to see what was going on. This curiosity would bring them in toward our awaiting bait. And that would be their final demise!! We always caught a big stringer full of fish---never got skunked (catch nothing). This was really fun and it gave dad and I some alone time. These opportunities were becoming fewer and fewer the older I got because of dating and school functions, so this was one thing for us to do together. We had a lot of fun and as you see, it was memorable.

School Bond Issue

While thumbing through my high school year books I ran across an article that I had clipped and glued into it. Some of you will find this interesting and most will find it humorous. I shortened it somewhat down to just the important parts. So as I plagerize, I am also changing some of the words.So here goes:

Ballot January 22, 1963 on new high school:

There are over 500 students enrolled in school. School enrollment is growing so fast that the 7th and 8th graders have several of their classes in the high school section. This is causing over crowded conditions in the high school. There are study halls with more than 90 students some periods of the day.

The estimated cost for the land, construction and furnishings will be approximately 350,000.00 over a period of 20 years.

I'm Back

Well, I'm finally back and can blog again. I wasn't the one missing it was the computer.We had some problems with the old "dinosaur" and think we have that fixed now. We also bought two brand new laptops so Dave and I will each have our own. Tracy picked them out for us because we know nothing about what we would need. Thank you so much Tracy. Danny has been down all day, he brought the computers down to us and is showing us all kinds of things we can do on them. Hopefully we will remember most of it. lol Now I have to think about what I want to blog next, decisions, decisions, decisions!!

My First Steady Boyfriend

Shortly after starting school in Reeds Spring, I had a couple dates---then through the summer I didn't have any dates. I didn't care, I was having a great time at and on the lake.

About two months into my junior year, a girl came up to me in music class and said she knows someone who likes me a lot but he is afraid to ask me out. No one likes rejection afterall! She asked me if I would go out with him if he asked me? He was a very likable guy and quite cute so I said yes I would go if he asked me. He asked me out that same afternoon after school and walked me to my bus. His name was Elmer. He had a good sense of humor and was fun to be with.
We went to a movie the following Friday night in Branson. Reeds Spring didn't have a movie theatre. I can't remember what the movie was but they previewed "Blue Hawaii". It would start playing the next night. I said something like "oh, I bet that will be so good". He asked me if I wanted to go out with him the next night to that movie and I said yes. He tried to give me his class ring the first date (to go steady), but I didn't take it. He offered it again on Saturday night, so I took it.

There weren't that many boys in the dating pool. It was a small school and our class was very small. There were only around 24 of us in our graduation class the next year. So we probably had 10 to 12 boys and most of them were already going with someone. I wouldn't say I used him because that would not be nice, but by wearing his ring I was sure to have a date to all the important events. He may have given me the ring for the same reason (which would not have been nice either!!) lol

I did date a couple seniors when I was a junior so there were other fish in the sea. I liked one in particular and dated him quite a few times, but just every now and then when I would break up with Elmer. Elmer didn't like him much. lol

The School Bus Ride & the New School

To get to school, Michelle and I rode a school bus for about 45 minutes each way. Keep in mind that we lived quite a ways down a dead end road, we also went down a couple other smaller dead end roads to pick up kids. Of course I had a few friends on the bus to talk to and clown around with. I was always among friends because I liked and got along with just about everyone. I was somewhat like my fourth granddaughter in this respect---give us lemons and we'll make lemonade. I was always happy,unless my boyfriend made me cry, but that is another story.

I started Reeds Spring high school in the spring of my sophomore year. The kids were all so nice and welcomed me to their school. A few of the girls took me under their wing and showed me where all my classes were and the cafeteria. It wasn't too difficult because there was just one corridor. One hallway with about eight classrooms a library and the principals office. Through the double doors were the grade school classrooms.

Another new experience for me was now there were boys among us. I decided fairly quickly that they were okay and didn't have cooties afterall. This was quite different than my all girl's private school. I liked it though!! lol

Living In The Hills

Only one phrase could describe how I felt about living at the lake, "I loved it". Yes our living quarters were quite small, but we all fit in there just fine. Michelle and I shared a bedroom which is nothing new, we always did share a bedroom. I spent a lot of my time listening to my radio.
One radio station played all the current hits. I would lay on the bed and while the radio was playing, I would look through my magazines with all the pop singers in it. I had posters on my wall of Bobby Vee, Bobby Darren , Bobby Rydell (lot of Bobbys huh?") Fabien, and of course Elvis Presley. There were a lot more but these were my favorites and the ones that come to mind right now. I also loved to go for walks. I'd just go off through the woods and enjoy nature. I had several favorite places to sit and daydream. It was so peaceful and serene, so beautiful, expecially in the fall. In the fall the hills come alive with color. They turn such gorgeous shades of gold, yellow, orange and red. When you'd walk through the woods the crisp leaves would crackle and crunch a little when you stepped on them. I think fall was definitely my favorite season, when the air is so fresh and brisk---cool enough to need a light jacket.

Oh! I liked the "Beach Boys" and "Jan and Dean" a lot!

The Lone Pine Resort

On our new lakeside property in southern Missouri, there was only one pine tree. It was a very very tall tree, hovering over all the other many trees. Dad and mom decided to name our resort the Lone Pine Resort. This resort was in the Ozarks on Table Rock Lake. It was off of Highway 13 on DD highway. Our cabins were three sets of duplexes. We moved into Cabin #1 because it was larger than the others. I guess you could call it a suite. It was about 10 to 12 miles down a dead end road. The closest towns were Reeds Spring which had a population of about 300 or so, and Branson. Branson was several times bigger than Reeds Spring, but still considered a small townl. There wasn't much of anything there, just your normal small town businesses--churchs, drug store, movie theatre, grocery store ect. We sometimes went in to Branson for our grocery shopping, but usually we drove an hour into Springfield.

Branson was not a "country music capitol" at the time we lived there. There was Silver Dollar City, Fairy Cave, Marvel Cave and the Shepard of the Hills theatre. The Baldknobbers and the Presleys were the two country music show and always had a "hillbilly" funny guy in the act. All these attractions were not in Branson, most of them were on Highway 76 on the way to Branson.

My First Kiss

On my 15th birthday Aunt Hazel baked me a nice chocolate cake and we had some ice cream. For some reason unknown to me, Kathy's best friend Terri and her younger brother Phil (he was a hunk) were at our house and so had some cake with us and watched me open a few gifts.

Of course I was embarrassed by the candles (I thought I was too big for candles when I was 15) and of course the equally embarrassing singing of Happy Birthday, especially with the "Hunk" there. Well, right after the candles were lit and the song was sung, Phil came over by me and gave me a kiss right smack on the lips!! Wow, I thought I would faint. I know I must have turned a few shades of red. I had a bit of a secret crush on him anyway. You know it was memorable for me to still remember it almost 50 years later! Nothing ever came of it, we didn't date or anything--I was too young to date. Oh! Aunt Hazel didn't know what to make of it so she just said nothing!

Constuction Of The Resort

Although the time frame of the clearing of the lots and constuction of the cabins are a bit fuzzy, I do know that it was ongoing the summer before my sophomore year in school. Dad was to a point that he needed mom to go down and help him with the building.

We sold our house and rented one just around the corner from ours. It was a little two bedroom house just like the one we had lived in before we built onto it. It was a bit small for all three of us girls to be in the same room. We were a bit bigger than when all three of us shared a room before. However it was temporary and besides the only time we were in our rooms was to sleep or change clothes anyway. We didn't mind at all, in fact it was all kind of exciting to us.

Aunt Hazel, dad's oldest sister, came to stay with us girls while mom and dad were away. She was a good cook and she loved us a lot too. She was with us during that summer of 1960 until the spring of 1961 when we moved to the lake (resort).

The Water Moccasin

Once I went down with dad to help clean up all the brush and large rocks on our lots in southern Missouri. It was nice to be off with dad by myself--spending some alone time with him. As I was getting older this was happening less and less.

We slept in the back of the station wagon in sleeping bags and ate our meals over at the cafe nearby. The area we were going to build in was called Coney Island. It was hard work but we paced ourselves and it wasn't bad at all. I actually enjoyed it --it was so beautiful and peaceful down there.

One day, while we were working on some brush dad all of a sudden said "freeze,don't move". His tone of voice scared me and I certainly didn't even flinch. Dad picked up a large rock and threw it down real hard about two feet from me. I hadn't even seen it!! It was a water moccasin ( a poisonous snake). You can bet I was leery of it now and watching better what was around me. He was very hard to see though, they blend right into the surrounding. That is their defense system. That particular snake though, won't ever scare us again!!

Lakefront property

It was along about this time, when I was in the 8th or 9th grade, that mom and dad started talking along with some friends of ours about buying some lakefront property in Missouri. The lots they were considering to buy were in the Ozark mountains in southern Missouri on Table Rock Lake. The idea was to buy these lots and build a resort and boat dock. The friends backed out of the deal so mom and dad went ahead and did it themselves. No hard feelilngs to the friends.

The lots of course were full of rocks, big and small, twigs, tree stumps, brush ect. so it took a lot of cleaning up before we could even think about starting to build. Dad and sometimes mom would go down there whenever they got the chance and work on it.

Then they had to get some heavy machinery like bulldozers and road graders to level off the area for our roads and our cabins. There was a lot of preparation before we could build.

Mount Carmel Academy

We wore uniforms at Mount Carmel. They were very sharp looking. We had navy blue pleated skirts, a navy blue blazer and a white shirt. The only thing I didn't like was the shoes. They were blue velvet!! Velvet!! Can you imagine. They didn't look absolutely terrible with the uniform but I thought it would look so much better with a pair of navy blue dress flats. They didn't ask me my opinion though, so we kept wearing the velvet ones. lol

As you might think, all of the teachers were nuns. All of them were so sweet and kind, I liked them all, but some of course more than others. My favorite subjects were algebra,biology and my sewing class. My worst and most disliked subject was history! This seems so strange to me because it was my son's favorite subject.

Our VW Beetle Bug

When Kathy finished the eighth grade at Mary Magdalene elementary school, she started going to Mount Carmel Academy for high school. It was a private catholic all girls school way on the other side of town. The first year she went to Mount Carmel she used the city bus system. Once she turned sixteen she got her drivers licence. Dad and mom bought us a second car---a volkswagon beetle. Kathy was going into her sophomore year, I would have been going into seventh and Michelle 3rd grade. Kathy drove Michelle and I to school and then across town to hers. She would also pick us up after school. We got to school a bit early and had to wait for a little while for Kathy to pick us up. We liked it a whole lot better than riding the bus and standing at a bus stop in all kinds of weather.

When Kathy started her senior year is when I started as a freshman at Mount Carmel, so I got to ride across town with her. I REALLY liked that.

Once Kathy graduated, I started using the city bus system. I didn't dislike it as much as one would think. I caught the bus just a few blocks from our house and transfered to another bus downtown that took us right up on the Mount Carmel campus. I really liked the downtown transfer after school because my friends and I sometimes stayed there and did some "shopping" and fooling around.

The Waterduck

We had the nicest, sweetest elderly couple living next door to us. They really liked flowers---a lot!! They had a huge flowerbed in the front lawn. It started at the street curb and came up at least 12 feet. It was the whole width of the yard. There were all different kinds of flowers in there. The ones I remember the most are the zinnias and the mums. They had some rose bushes up by the house and a flower bed in back the width of their house. The one in the backyard was only about two feet out from the house. Needless to say, these flowers took a lot of work weeding and so forth.

The man would be outside every day with his hose watering by hand all the flowers and the lawn. Day in and day out you would see him doing this. Mom affectionately nicknamed him
"The Waterduck", because he was always using so much water. The whole time we lived there that is what we called them (between ourselves), the Waterduck and Mrs. Waterduck.

Isn't it strange the things we remember, this story happened over 50 years ago. Actually it is quite trivial and no one is particularly going to enjoy reading this story. However it is a very vivid memory so here it is!! lol

Trick or Treat

We always had a great time on Halloween. Although we had masks most of the time, we made our costumes out of what ever we could find around the house. Hobo and bums were always popular and of course a little girls favorite--princesses. Funny what outfits you can put together if you just use your imagination.

The three of us sisters would head out trick or treating with the instruction to stay together. We had a very large area to trick or treat in---we had four busy streets as borders we were not to go past. We would use brown paper grocery bags for this and when they got about a fourth full they would be getting so heavy. We would take them home and dump them out, and then go out trick or treating again. It was such fun!!! Back then, people passed out the regular size candy bars. None of these fun sized bars and little tiny bags of candy corn or suckers ect. We also would get whole packs of gum or homemade candy apples (yum) or popcorn balls.

Life was simpler and safer in the fifties. Nobody even heard of razor blades,needles or drugs stuck in the treats (how sick is this) and all the other hidden dangers. We also didn't worry about someone stalking us or trying to do some kind of harm to us. We would just skip and run merrily along from one house to the next without a care in the world, gathering our goodies along the way. Yes, life was good!!

4th of July

In the fifties, it was not illegal to shoot off fireworks in the city. We always had sparklers and firecrackers. Of course the sparklers were saved to light after it was dark when they would show up better. The firecrackers, we got to shoot off during the day. Actually we shot them off for a few days. I paricularly liked lighting a bunch of them together for greater effect. lol My favorite thing to do with them though was to light one and then put a can over the top of it. When the cracker popped the can flew up real high. The bigger the firecracker the higher the can would fly!! We did this out in the street.

We usually had a barbecue in our backyard or a picnic in a park and always had ice cold watermelon. At night we would all go somewhere to watch the big fireworks display. We would sit up on top of the car to watch them--dad didn't care if we did that. We always had a great time.

Tornado Warnings

As I explained in my last post, there are a lot of tornadoes in Kansas. We lived in a wood frame two bedroom house with no basement. The houses across the street were made of brick and had basements. Whenever the tornado warning sirens went off, usually in the middle of the night, mom or dad would wake us up, we'd put on our robes and shoes and run across the street to take shelter in their basement. The grown-ups were mostly just visiting and were listening to the radio for updates on the storm. Us kids were having a ball. Afterall, we were up in the middle of the night and we were over at our friends house playing!! What a rare treat to little kids!

Fortunately, we never got hit by any of the tornadoes.

Aunt Toot's Tornado

My Aunt Toots (of Danny's pie baking fame) and Uncle Ken lived on a farm in Kansas. It was somewhere near the Wamego or Manhattan area.They had three kids, a girl my age named Debbie, a girl Michelle's age and I can't remember her name right now, and a smaller boy named Eddie.

Kansas is in the tornado belt of the U.S. They have always had more than their share of tornadoes. I think one of the reasons is that the terrain is so flat, there is nothing to stop or divert them.

One summer when Uncle Ken was not home, there was a tornado headed right toward their farm. Aunt Toots took the three children (real small at the time) to the basement for safety. They all huddled under a small dining room table in the corner of the basement. The tornado hit their place head on and completely wiped their farm away. Everything was gone except for a little rubble left behind. Even the big, heavy farm machinery was gone--tractors, combines, cultivaters ect. The barn and silo were gone.

Aunt Toots and the little kids came through it all just fine. There was not a scratch on one of them. Aunt Toots was looking around to find anything that might be salvagable. The only thing she found, lying on a pile of rubble, was the white christening gown that all three of her babies had worn to be baptized in. It was as clean as the day she bought it and not a rip or any damage to it at all. God was certainly looking after and protecting them that day.

Imagine how Uncle Ken felt that day on his way home and seeing his farm was completely wiped out, hoping and praying that his wife and kids were there somewhere and safe.

The Cannibal

Sometime after Kathy got her new bedroom, Michelle and I were switched from the bunkbeds that we had to a double bed. I don't know why, we just did. We slept good together and had no problem---usually. One night, in the middle of the night, when I was sound asleep, Michelle came over to my side of the bed and bit me in the middle of my back!!! I mean she bit me hard!!! Of course I let out a loud howl and mom came running in to see what happened. She checked my bite and comforted me, and then all she said to Michelle was something like "don't bite your sister in the back sweetie, that hurts her". I mean come on----beat her or something, she hurt me!!!! Nope that was it. I got over the bite and went back to sleep. I didn't get over the fact that Michelle got off so easy.

I felt that Michelle should have been punished. Mom had not done enough to her. So the next morning on the way to the bus stop I told her "if you ever bite me again I will knock out all of your teeth!" I did not say this nicely either. She swore she would never do that again. I would never have done this of course, we never inflicted pain on each other---usually.


In our later adult years when we would talk about this she said that she didn't know what came over her to bite me. She said she just had this strong urge to bite--so I just happened to be the target.

The Roller Skating Rink

We started going to the roller skating rink on Friday nights. Mom and dad would drop us off and then come pick us up later. We were about 8, 12 and 16 years old at this time. I of course was the middle one, 12! When they would have a couples only song, Kathy just about always was asked by a boy to skate. She had grown into a lovely young lady, and I was ugly and chunky! I thought and felt I was anyway. Nobody ever asked me to skate with them.

Overall though, couples skate aside, I loved to go to the rink. I loved to skate and was fairly good at it. Mom had bought some material and made Kathy a skating skirt. There was enough material left over that mom was able to make me one also. Kathy didn't particularly like this, me having a matching skirt. We had received our own white shoe skates for Christmas and we had fur pom-poms on them. We were pretty cool alright.

Oh, I did eventually slim back down and was cute again. It took long enough---at least two years!!!

My Middle Child Complex

It was along about the age of 11 or 12 that my middle child complex kicked in. My body was getting a bit bulky getting ready to bloom. I was no longer little and cute, Michelle was though! It seemed to me at the time that Michelle could do just about anything and not get in trouble because she was the baby of the family. It also seemed to me that Kathy was able to go and do so many things. I, of course, was jealous and resentful because I wanted to go and do these things also. My sisters and I have joked about this middle child complex all our lives but at the time I was very frustrated. It is such a difficult age to go through anyway, emotions flying in all directions and then you have a cute little sister and a big sister that can do everything!!! They were like a fly in my ointment.

I couldn't do the things Kathy could do because I was 11 or 12 and she was 15 or 16. Being told that and even understanding that, didn't help diminish my frustration. I did eventually outgrow this stage and was able to do all kinds of things. Life was good again!!!

My Second Career Choice

Up until about the fourth grade, I wanted to join the circus and be part of a trapeeze act. I knew I would be very good at that---I practiced a lot on my swingset. lol

Around age nine I started thinking about changing my career choice. I decided I wanted to be an airline stewardess. It appealed to my adventurous spirit and desire to travel. I even fantasized about being on a trans-continental flight, working first class on our way to Europe!! I would be able to meet some very interesting and influential people.

Believe it or not, this was still my career of choice when I was a senior in high school. Four year college was not that important back then. Mom wanted each of us girls to at least go to a trade school. This was when I was living at our resort on the lake in the Ozarks. (I haven't blogged about moving to the Ozarks in southern Missouri yet). Kathy had gone to a business college but that didn't appeal to me at all.

I couldn't have gotten the training for being an airline stewardess in Springfield Missouri. I would have had to go to Kansas City or St. Louis--maybe even farther. I was still just seventeen when I graduated from high school. I was not ready to go off that far from home. I could go to a beauty college and learn to be a hairdresser and a manicurist in Springfield Missouri and it wasn't as far away as the other cities. So I gave up that dream, sold myself out so to speak. I was never actually sorry about this, but have sometimes wondered about what my life would have been like if I had followed my dream. That would be a whole other blog, to put it here would make this one too long.