If the New Mexico Desert had been a trial for us, the Yellow House Canyon and Lubbock, Texas was the matter-of-fact, unassuming and ample reward. It would be up to us to discover what the treasure was that lay there for us. For Mary, who never really lived there, Lubbock became the place where the rest of her younger siblings and parents lived as she entered her young adult life. She moved on to the green and graceful tree-lined streets of Ft. Worth and Arlington.
Our sister, Nina, and her husband, Donald, had a great 55 Ford ready for her to take to school, and they supplied the gas. They had just moved into a beautiful new home, so Mary had the use of a nice new room . Nina took on the job of seeing that she had the right clothes and shoes to wear. Mary took meals with them when she could, and went to school on a student loan.
The rest of our family moved first into a little two bedroom rental home near 34th Street, just down the block from our dad's sister. The dining room became my room with the addition of the curtain partition that had traveled with us from Pueblo. The boys had the small bedroom and my parents the large one.
It was the second semester of my 9th grade year. My two younger brothers were wearing clothes, so I know they had some, and they didn't look funny to me, so what they had must have fit. No doubt they had their share of donated pants and shirts from cousins and other relatives. Boys clothes were, at least for their ages, pretty generic: jeans and a tee shirt were adequate most places.
I had never thought of myself as a clothes horse. In fact, what I wore had been of so little concern to me that my mother had found it a challenge to get me to say what I liked. So I was beholden to her good taste for the nice wardrobe she usually sewed for me, and which I had once taken for granted. But as we began the new life in Lubbock there were no resources for new clothes, and the out-dated hand-me-downs fit, so I wore them.
I felt like a complete dork. I suddenly realized that Mod clothing had been my style. I had precious little of it now that I had grown out of nearly everything in the months since we left Colorado. What did fit was suited for winter in Colorado, and we were in the West Texas Panhandle. To offset the shortfall in current clothing, =I took a pair of scissors and gave myself a haircut rather like Twiggy's. I did fine with the cut, but I still had those Brenda Lee style dresses to contend with, and I looked as much like I belonged in them as Twiggy might have. I wanted to disappear.
Not only that, but my transfer in had placed me in a position to be the ONLY girl in a science class that covered how a motor for a car was designed to work.I quickly assessed that the boys in that class had developmentally arrested at the age of 12. I was, to them, a girl with a strange accent and clothes from old television shows like Leave it to Beaver and Donna Reed. Being the gentlemen that they were and finding me inexplicably on their territory, I suppose they did their best to make me feel at home. A freckled boy who had not hit his adolescent growth spurt sat in front of me. He disclosed to me the private name they had for our teacher, at the same time explaining to me reassuringly that she was really very nice. The other boys surrounding my desk nodded in agreement.
I was stuck on her nickname, and when I asked, Freckles gestured with his hands and nodded at her chest. I could see she wore a dress even older than mine, similar to those my own grandmothers wore, big and loose, covering her rather large bosom. I gasped in realization and put my face flushed, and I fell forward into my arms on the desk, humiliated for her and for me.
When my head came up I looked ruefully around me at the Martians, now focused on the firing mechanism of a piston. Someday, they would all pass for just a group of high school boys in a shop class. But for now, it was February and we would be done with the semester in June.
Freckles and the other Martians disappeared out of my field of vision as I focused on the clock. How many hours and minutes until June? I had learned to outlast the stuff you found incomprehensible, but this required going to another planet, and I was not prepared for that. Please, God, I prayed silently. I know they have requirements, but can you Please get me out of this class?
The girls at J.T. Hutchinson, down to the last one, were just as nice as could be, no matter how odd I must have looked. My growing list of kind and helpful friends expressed sympathy as I confided my plight during P. E. After conferring, they suggested I talk to the Science teacher~whose real name will forever be erased from my mind and supplanted by the glass Carnation containers that had once fit neatly into wooden compartments of the pale green milk box on our front porch in Denver~yes, talk with her about letting me take Home Economics instead.
Miss Carnation, an understanding woman who patiently tolerated and overlooked the boys' crudeness--all of which was intended, but failing to be out of her earshot--promptly insured that my wish was granted, and returned to her work of directing their lowly thoughts toward the mechanics of things. But not before I passed a test demonstrating that I could correctly identify all the parts and purposes of a V-8 motor.
Home Ec and Science were electives in the 9th grade curriculum. I had already taken home economics and was proficient, so the class was what we would call a 'yawner'. The teacher was clearly not from a savvy cooking background. My parents made their own biscuits, but canned biscuits were reserved for making home made doughnuts. And anyone knew you did not freeze canned biscuits for future use, but not our teacher. She had found them on sale and decided to freeze them to have them available for the unit. My id was coming into its' own now, realizing that not all adults had all the answers. I was grateful not to have to prove I could sew a straight seam using a sewing machine for the third time. This was the third Junior High School I had attended. I could not wait to go to High School.
The benefit of school, beside getting an education, was income. There was enough change after buying a little lunch to save a little. I could begin the day with our usual farmer's breakfast and last easily on a ten cent ice cream bar, making the rest of the money available for the purchase of Needful Things.
Mother's portable stereo record player had traveled with us from Colorado, and while located for anyone's use, it was used mostly by me. I had a limited number of Beatle albums, a few of my oldest sister's variety albums with top ten hits of previous years, and a growing number of 45 rpm singles. Although I don't remember ice cream bars as the lunch alternative, I do know that I bought a few 45's during the 6 months or so that we lived near Wayne's Records. Wayne's was only a few blocks' walk. We still had the old plastic radio and the hits of the '60's were not wasted on the home of Buddy Holly. Rock and Rockabilly embraced Folk and the British invasion in Lubbock, Texas, where music came with the West Texas pioneers.
At school I was for the first time beginning to appreciate Texas history. I still wrote my friends in Colorado, and less often my English pen pal, but life in Lubbock was beginning to busy us with Saturday milk bottle top movies and trips to the Library. And when that semester finished we very quickly moved into a home of our own, with much better living arrangements.
I had a real bedroom of my own for the first time in my life. I had the use of the nice French Provencal dressing table and drawers. The double bedstead had disappeared somewhere during the last two moves. . Mine was a nondescript twin, and I don't remember the bedspread, or the curtains. But at night I was alone in my own room with a door to close, where I could lay and pray up through the ceiling to the God who held my life and future in His hands. I knew He was in charge of the chaos that life was, and that from it He would somehow wring order and meaning to it all. I just talked and He listened. Although I didn't have big questions, sometimes I would get impressions about what I should do about something.
The boys were out in the small converted garage with the gas water heater that had a faulty pilot light. While I knew my parents checked it frequently, and that my dad had tried to "fix" it, with the wind always blowing in Lubbock, I was constantly checking it. It was really the opening and closing of the outside door that frequently blew it out during daylight hours. I had a keen sense of smell and after bed time I would sometimes get up at night o make sure it was lighted. I suppose that must have driven the decision to call the gas company to have it fixed. There was a window exit, and after the gas company "fixed" it, the outside door remained closed and locked from the inside.
Mother would call a taxi that would take her, along with Rob if we were in shool, to her Avon territory She would prearrange a pick up time and place for later, if possible, and if not, Rob said, she would politely ask to use a phone to call her cab. Rob would sit reading or quietly playing with a pocket toy on the front steps as she sold her wares to the lady of the house.
In a short while she had enough money to buy a used car. With the means to get to a paying job, she added work at a doughnut shop for $1 an hour, where she brought home everything she could from the day-old rack. While it did not take me long to get tired of stale pastry, the boys devoured put in front of them. In a short while she was working at Montgomery Wards in the sewing department.
I became assistant, if not chief cook and bottle washer at the house that summer. After school if Daddy was not there to start supper, I cooked and cleaned and watched my youngest brother, Rob. David, just two years younger than me, had the freedom to roam the neighborhood and went about making friends. For myself and Rob, there were some trees to climb and a park nearby. And although we had little time to visit, I had gotten to know the girl across the street a little that summer.
I had moved so many times that I couldn't remember exactly where I knew people from, and their names refused to take a permanent hold in my mind. For the rest of my life, learning and retaining names became an embarrassing struggle. I had to associate closely with someone to feel I knew them and could remember their name. Perhaps if I didn't know too many people I wouldn't lose too many of them. Making new friends was slow for me.
A new school, Lubbock High School, was ahead for me. Everyone would be new in some way, since several Junior High Schools fed into the huge Spanish Revival building. So everyone would be making new friends. My one friend across the street so nice, and the kids at Hutchinson had also been so nice that I was sure that Lubbock High would be just fine.
God was in His Heaven, and Mother's job at Wards was a blessing to us all. Her deftness with a sewing machine, sophisticated look, and outgoing personality were just what they wanted in that part of the appliance department. She brought home some material for me to sew into a skirt and provided a matching sweater. I began to like looking at patterns and material for the first time in my life! The anticipation of anything nice and new to wear was worth the trial of figuring out how it went together.. And for the best backup plan, Mother was working feverishly to sew model outfits for the manikins to display that she would later buy at cost for us to wear. A few more additions to the wardrobe made sure I was Mod again! Transformed, tucked away into my own room at last, I anticipated High School, hardly guessing at the experience that waited ahead.
And every night I lay in bed, eyes directed into an unseen heaven, no longer weeping for the friends and home we knew in Colorado. Instead, I was talking about my day with God, content enough with where my life was to be happy and hopeful before falling off to sleep.
Two (c) Nita Walker Boles
Curls Courtesy of Plastic Turtles
