Starting with the trip to Supreme Bakers in Denver, Colorado, I knew my life was going to be more enchanted because of the Girl Scouts of America. Remember that special moment when the tube that dispensed the creme filling for wafer bars was plugged, and the operator who was trying to get it going again got a face full? That was when I knew that fun and serendipity would always grace my path if I stuck close to the Girl Scouts of America.
As a Brownie, nothing could compare with dressing in the uniform that made all small girls look like, well, Brownies. The cap that topped our heads made us look like little acorns. We were irresistible sellers of Girl Scout Cookies, and we had been to the bakery where they were made, so could testify that they were the best of the best. Living on Capital Hill made selling the delicious treats both daunting and successful. The blocks surrounding our home were made up of a variety of cottages and bungalows.
But at least one of my class mates arranged for us to visit his grandparent's nearby home, the Hull Mansion to see their private collection of American Indian artifacts. In that area lived people whose mansions took up whole city blocks. Passing the classic Victorian iron fencing and approaching the open gates where hitching posts still stood, a very small Brownie would have to work up the courage to walk the pathway toward the gigantic home, climb the large steps, and use the door knocker that sometimes looked like a gargoyle, or, if lucky, push the doorbell to hear a sort of song rung out in chimes.
Invariably a butler or maid would come to the door, and occasionally they would usher a stooped, smiling grandmotherly lady to the door upon our asking, "Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?" The answer was always yes. And the quantity was nearly always just one. Now, ponder the number of Brownies and Girl Scouts that attended at the elementary school just 3 blocks away, and imagine how many either worked up courage, or were cleaver enough to realize that gated homes housed wealthy people. Further, imagine all the hired help going home with boxes of Girl Scout cookies once they were delivered, and the cups of coffee and tea served with Sugar Cookies and Thin Mints from polished silver platters.
From courage to enter uncharted territory to salesmanship and dressing for the occasion, the lessons taught while earning Brownie Stars and Merit Badges were so very valuable. So waiting to get bigger and older was exciting as we contemplated the day we would be true Girl Scouts. Then we would wear the green uniforms our big sisters wore to their meetings and would be able to attend Girl Scout Camp.
Soon after moving to Pueblo I was a Girl Scout. The first thing I leaned was how to tie a square knot, necessary to properly apply the neckerchief we all wore. Left over right and right over left. The Beanie was traded for a Barret, and we were smartly uniformed young ladies. Girls whose fathers worked in the steel mills were dressed just the same as girls whose fathers worked in the bank. The leaders who ensured we were all welcome tapped the resources found in the careers and experiences of Post-War working mothers. In the tight economy of the early 1960's nearly everyone's mother did some part time work.
My mother sold china and silver from an off-shoot of Sara Coventry Jewelry, The Nobility Club. Under her tutelage we learned to set a perfect table, naming each piece of silver service and its use. Maria Cosar's mother was a nurse, and from her we learned to make a perfect bed, using squared corners and properly placing pillows within their cases, the ends folded in. The merit badges increased in numbers on our sashes as our self-confidence grew. We sold our lots of Girl Scout Cookies, experienced in our trade, and with all of respected society standing behind us. So we were ready and able to go to Girl Scout Camp, our cookies having paved the way so that no girl was left behind.
As close as we lived to the Sangre de Christo Mountain Range, our various families had all made the rivers and streams a part of life. But many of us had not camped in the mountains. The Girl Scout Camp was several days, if not a full week long. We slept either in cabins or in the tents built over wooden floors and frames, depending on the years of experience we had. Every day a new skill was demonstrated so we could practice and learn ourselves how to do such things as starting a fire or properly using a pocket knife.
During one such exercise one of my favorite friends, Sally, was standing beside me with a stick she had carefully whittled to a sharp point. We were at the railing outside the lodge overlooking the sweeping mountain view and she leaned over, the stick in her mouth, point end in. To my horror, she slipped forward and the stick became lodged in her palate. She had to be transported to the hospital an hour or more away. Girl Scout Camp was a nice place to be that year, but our hearts were heavy as we thought of Sally, who couldn't share our experiences. We asked about her often. Late in the week we were grateful to have the official word she would be just fine.
When we weren't learning new skills, we were taking turns with kitchen duty. It was there that I leaned the proper way to wash dishes. Dishes were gathered, organized, and scraped clean of garbage. Before they could be washed they were first rinsed free of debris, and then glasses, plates, and silverware were washed in that order. If the dishwater became cold or murky looking it was drained and changed for fresh soapy water. The dishes were rinsed in clear hot water with a certain measurement of bleach, and allowed to drain before putting away after a light wipe with a clean towel to ensure they were dry.
At home we followed the same procedure, and thought everyone else did as well. As my circles of friendship widened it became apparent that not everyone used the same method, and what seemed very dirty to me was quite acceptable to others. The great work of comparing what is "done" and deciding what you would keep as a good habit began with those days. Friendships were formed that are still fondly remembered.
Eventually Junior High School overtook us and after the first year most of us were so busy with school activities that we left our uniforms and sashes behind for other uniforms like Pep Club and Band. We were prepared in so many ways for a happy, can-do attitude in life, thanks to Girl Scouts. For me, I kept those ways, those experiences, and used them all m life.
Two (c) Nita Walker Boles
Curls Courtesy of Plastic Turtles
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Being 13, Part II
The walk to school each morning began with a stop at the corner to greet my newer friend whose father was a professor at the college. She and her dad lived around the corner and her mother, who was from England, lived a neighborhood away, but close enough for walking, about a mile. Kathy and I would sometimes stay the night with her mom, drinking cranberry juice and ginger ale, while listening to our Beatles records.
During the week, though, Kathy and I were walking pals. Kathy was adept at making new friends, and older friends. So often we left early to stop by the home of her 9th grade friend, Christine, who was dating an even older boy in the 10th grade, at Centennial. The art of becoming a teenager is largely observant. By understanding how one does one's hair, applies makeup, puts together an outfit, one assimilates into the culture. So we both sat on either side of her in reverence as she coated her lashes with several layers of mascara (to which neither of us had regular access at home) and ratted her hair into what became a perfectly shaped football accented by completely straight bangs cut just above her penciled eyebrows.
Christine's toilette was fascinating, but not inspiring. Neither of us wanted to have hair that looked like a football once lacquered with hairspray. But her teen angst was worthy of note, and when she met us at the door, eyes swollen with tears to tell us of her breakup with the boyfriend it was clear that the songs about losing the one you love were all true. How perilous love must be, we thought. Unfortunately Christine felt a little older after the breakup and didn't see much of us since she needed to confide in others more experienced in such matters.
Different routes would mean different company as we walked. Sometimes we didn't join company but just observed from a distance. One popular redhead could be observed with her circular skirt swinging from side to side, her sweater draped over her shoulders with the arms tied around the Peter-Pan collar of her blouse.I had been too puzzled by how she happened to attain that sense of motion to think why she would want to until my friend cracked, "I wish I had a swing like that in my back yard!"
Some mornings Kathy had to be earlier or later than me and I walked alone. I preferred Elizabeth Street for the beautiful yards and homes along the walk. I had grown out of an old set of clothes between spring and fall, and my mother had rewarded me with the very latest in Mod fashion. It was nice to look so well dressed without having to worry someone else was going to walk in wearing an identical outfit.
My hair always bleached blonder in the summer sun, which seemed to draw the attention of both friend and foe. And on one particular day, a convertible Mustang belonging to my neighbor pulled up full of Red and white letter-jacketed boys. "Hi, Sherry!" one of them shouted.
I glanced nervously around the street. There were no other people walking within 2 blocks on Elizabeth Street that day.I pulled my hair down over one eye and ducked my head. Surely my neighbor, Sam Ratcliff, knew who I was. He had to see me nearly every day. Sometimes he came over with his friend on a Vespa to play basketball in our front yard. I would climb up in the tree from which the net hung to visit with them as they played. That is how I got asked to Prom in the 8th grade when one of his cute friends was taken with me. (My sister was not amused, my mother was adamant that I was entirely too young, and I was disappointed because the asker was pretty cute. My father promptly took down the basketball net and remarked that the boys were killing the grass.)
If Sam knew who I was he was playing along with his buddies that day, and the teasing went on for nearly a block. Still calling me Sherry the boys asked whether I thought someone named Robbie was home. I was mortified. They thought I was walking by some boy's house. Obviously one of those houses was some boy named Robbie's house and they thought I was Sherry-who-liked-Robbie!
Still no one on the street. Two blocks up to the turn where they had to go one way and me the other. I walked faster, not responding, both flattered to think I looked old enough to be one of their class mates and embarrassed because I didn't know how to gracefully get out of their line of attention.
Then to make matters worse, they started singing "442 Glenwood Avenue" a song about a party at that address. Rats. All this great attention, no girlfriends to share the glory with, and no possibility of it becoming an episode on Father Knows Best or Donna Reed.
Finally I reached the turnoff. What a crummy situation, I thought as I pivoted on one heal and headed up to Freed Jr. High. I hoped when I got to High School someday that High School Boys still wanted to take me to the Prom and had something to say to me when I knew who they were and could have an intelligent conversation with them. Their mouths fell open as they realized the case of mistaken identify. I snickered to myself.
Not a story I could share, I had learned. It was becoming clear that being liked by boys made one a target of hatred by girls less able to easily develop friendships with them.The girls in your own crowd could and would share the names of their secret crushes. They always had a first and last name, like Rusty Samford, or Jimmy Bascom. If the crush was shared your, it could net a letter jacket for a few weeks with the understanding it had to be returned for certain occasions. But only the High School kids had cars to take you to the Tastee Freeze or the roller rink, and precious few of them were allowed to drive on weekends.
Besides, our parents were never going to let us date before we turned 16. So we all had a lot of time to observe, practice, and dream about being date-able girls. On Saturday mornings we cleaned and did our chores fervently so we would be done in time to watch American Bandstand.There we were schooled in the current dance favorites: The Hand Jive, The Twist, The Stroll. Overnight stays were for sharing records and looking through Beatle cards, and dream about Prom.
My tall, chestnut-haired sister with the perfect dimple and the demeanor of a gracious Princess was going to the Prom with the best looking older boy at church. He was really nice, from a really nice family. He went to a different high school so it made for great gossip for my sister and her friends. Mother was making her a tailored Prom dress that could have come from the pages of Seventeen Magazine. Mary was beautiful as always, but more so.
How could I compete with that? I thought. It would be a few more years before I could go to Prom, I supposed. It was hard being just 13.
During the week, though, Kathy and I were walking pals. Kathy was adept at making new friends, and older friends. So often we left early to stop by the home of her 9th grade friend, Christine, who was dating an even older boy in the 10th grade, at Centennial. The art of becoming a teenager is largely observant. By understanding how one does one's hair, applies makeup, puts together an outfit, one assimilates into the culture. So we both sat on either side of her in reverence as she coated her lashes with several layers of mascara (to which neither of us had regular access at home) and ratted her hair into what became a perfectly shaped football accented by completely straight bangs cut just above her penciled eyebrows.
Christine's toilette was fascinating, but not inspiring. Neither of us wanted to have hair that looked like a football once lacquered with hairspray. But her teen angst was worthy of note, and when she met us at the door, eyes swollen with tears to tell us of her breakup with the boyfriend it was clear that the songs about losing the one you love were all true. How perilous love must be, we thought. Unfortunately Christine felt a little older after the breakup and didn't see much of us since she needed to confide in others more experienced in such matters.
Different routes would mean different company as we walked. Sometimes we didn't join company but just observed from a distance. One popular redhead could be observed with her circular skirt swinging from side to side, her sweater draped over her shoulders with the arms tied around the Peter-Pan collar of her blouse.I had been too puzzled by how she happened to attain that sense of motion to think why she would want to until my friend cracked, "I wish I had a swing like that in my back yard!"
Some mornings Kathy had to be earlier or later than me and I walked alone. I preferred Elizabeth Street for the beautiful yards and homes along the walk. I had grown out of an old set of clothes between spring and fall, and my mother had rewarded me with the very latest in Mod fashion. It was nice to look so well dressed without having to worry someone else was going to walk in wearing an identical outfit.
My hair always bleached blonder in the summer sun, which seemed to draw the attention of both friend and foe. And on one particular day, a convertible Mustang belonging to my neighbor pulled up full of Red and white letter-jacketed boys. "Hi, Sherry!" one of them shouted.
I glanced nervously around the street. There were no other people walking within 2 blocks on Elizabeth Street that day.I pulled my hair down over one eye and ducked my head. Surely my neighbor, Sam Ratcliff, knew who I was. He had to see me nearly every day. Sometimes he came over with his friend on a Vespa to play basketball in our front yard. I would climb up in the tree from which the net hung to visit with them as they played. That is how I got asked to Prom in the 8th grade when one of his cute friends was taken with me. (My sister was not amused, my mother was adamant that I was entirely too young, and I was disappointed because the asker was pretty cute. My father promptly took down the basketball net and remarked that the boys were killing the grass.)
If Sam knew who I was he was playing along with his buddies that day, and the teasing went on for nearly a block. Still calling me Sherry the boys asked whether I thought someone named Robbie was home. I was mortified. They thought I was walking by some boy's house. Obviously one of those houses was some boy named Robbie's house and they thought I was Sherry-who-liked-Robbie!
Still no one on the street. Two blocks up to the turn where they had to go one way and me the other. I walked faster, not responding, both flattered to think I looked old enough to be one of their class mates and embarrassed because I didn't know how to gracefully get out of their line of attention.
Then to make matters worse, they started singing "442 Glenwood Avenue" a song about a party at that address. Rats. All this great attention, no girlfriends to share the glory with, and no possibility of it becoming an episode on Father Knows Best or Donna Reed.
Finally I reached the turnoff. What a crummy situation, I thought as I pivoted on one heal and headed up to Freed Jr. High. I hoped when I got to High School someday that High School Boys still wanted to take me to the Prom and had something to say to me when I knew who they were and could have an intelligent conversation with them. Their mouths fell open as they realized the case of mistaken identify. I snickered to myself.
Not a story I could share, I had learned. It was becoming clear that being liked by boys made one a target of hatred by girls less able to easily develop friendships with them.The girls in your own crowd could and would share the names of their secret crushes. They always had a first and last name, like Rusty Samford, or Jimmy Bascom. If the crush was shared your, it could net a letter jacket for a few weeks with the understanding it had to be returned for certain occasions. But only the High School kids had cars to take you to the Tastee Freeze or the roller rink, and precious few of them were allowed to drive on weekends.
Besides, our parents were never going to let us date before we turned 16. So we all had a lot of time to observe, practice, and dream about being date-able girls. On Saturday mornings we cleaned and did our chores fervently so we would be done in time to watch American Bandstand.There we were schooled in the current dance favorites: The Hand Jive, The Twist, The Stroll. Overnight stays were for sharing records and looking through Beatle cards, and dream about Prom.
My tall, chestnut-haired sister with the perfect dimple and the demeanor of a gracious Princess was going to the Prom with the best looking older boy at church. He was really nice, from a really nice family. He went to a different high school so it made for great gossip for my sister and her friends. Mother was making her a tailored Prom dress that could have come from the pages of Seventeen Magazine. Mary was beautiful as always, but more so.
How could I compete with that? I thought. It would be a few more years before I could go to Prom, I supposed. It was hard being just 13.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Barbara* , the Bain of all New Girls, or How I Was Responsible for a Marriage
The names of everyone mentioned from school in this piece are fictitious, including the teachers, but the deeds are all too familiar.
I was still seven when my mother gave me what was to be the last permanent she would ever give me. Mother meticulously sewed, dressed, and groomed us, with whatever means she had, and that included well-set hair. My hair was so white when I was about 3 that a lady waiting with us for a traffic light to change could not resist reaching down to finger it, remarking to my mother's horror, "My, her hair bleaches nicely."
But by the time I was seven, although still a blonde, just one area of my head was white and the rest ash colored. Thick and unruly, it never behaved well, so mother bought a Tonette and set to work with the rollers. The problem was, although the baby color was gone, the texture was and always would be the same: fine. It was fine as a delicate spider's web and the effect of the chemicals on those almost microscopic strands of hair was quite stunning.
As mother combed through it after the last rinse, tears welled up in my eyes. "I look like a French Poodle!" I choked.
Mother looked like she might cry, too.."It will wash out in a while," she offered, but her face betrayed her own doubt. I can only imagine how badly she wished she could have known to use bigger rollers. But it had been some time since my last perm and her expertise dated back as far as the first commercial perms went. I was her third girl, not to mention at least 3 of her sisters, and her own hair that she had seen after since she was old enough. My hair wasn't burnt, just tightly curled.
To make matters worse, on a trip to the mountains I had hit my front tooth when releasing a well pump handle. The tooth was broken off a quarter of the way up, and I avoided smiling and guarded how I held my upper lip to keep the snaggle-tooth from showing. I hoped to avoid calling attention to myself so much that people probably couldn't keep their eyes off me for trying to understand why I was so odd.
So on my very first day in the 4th at grade at Thatcher Elementary, I presented with insanely curly hair. The teacher, sweet little Mrs. Andrews, announced my addition to the class with my exotic first name, Juanita. It was the only first name I had, and I never considered using the middle name, Ruth, because I just didn't know any Ruths to judge whether it would work as well as Tammy or Linda might have for a better first name. The large freckles strewn across my nose must have made the mop on my head even more bizarre as my face turned crimson.
As we exited for the playground at recess I walked past a girl with shiny, smooth brown hair who was surrounded by a group of well-dressed friends. "She doesn't look Mexican," she said as though I was invisible while clearly, since all eyes were on me, they could at least see through me. I was later to learn from one of the other, less popular girls, that this was Barbara. She and her personality-free Secret Service agents were known widely as The Clique.
Within a week it was clear that I would have precious few friends among my classmates if she had anything to say about it. What I could not understand was why, if she didn't want to be friends, was it necessary so far as she was concerned, to be enemies. What I did that made her so determined to ruin my life would always escape me. But for 4 long school years, Barbara made it her objective every single day to have something unkind to say within my earshot. She seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time on me for someone who so disliked me so much. In doing so, she acquired free rent in my head, where for years after we left Pueblo, into my life as a young adult if I felt socially inept or like I didn't belong she would visit my dreams with her hangers-on.
In spite of her constant interference, I gradually got to know the other less socially important girls, and joined Girl Scouts where The Clique was subordinate to a lot of recited mottoes and stated purposes. The leaders were some of the few adults apparently not charmed by Barbara's social connections and talents in crowd control. They quickly snuffed any takeover attempts in that venue and redirected the group toward more purposeful and fulfilling activities. Girl Scouts became the great equalizer and testing ground for trying out new things and showing accomplishment without feeling somehow inferior. Anyone could get a badge, anyone could advance rank, and no one was better than the other.
Still the daily grind at school was a tough one. It irritated Barbara that I could finish my work before her and make better grades than her. Since our family moved in just before Christmas and Mrs. Lacy discovered quickly that I was a talented artist she had me use the extra time, sometimes half the day, to paint the faces and costumes on a new set of Santa's Helpers that would adorn the staircase at Thatcher that year. Using a blowup projector she enlarged a paper Santa's Workshop I had brought as an example when she asked for ideas from the class. Strangely no one else was privileged to work on this project, which lasted several days, and took me out of class as soon as my work was done. I could feel Barbara's eyes on my back as I left the classroom with the Art Teacher.
On one of the few occasions in which Barbara spoke directly to me she stopped me while we happened to be alone in the hall. "Hey," she said authoritatively with one hand on her hip, "What kind of health insurance does your family have?"
Wide eyed and afraid not to answer, I swallowed and said, "Blue Cross".
"Good!" she said, busily straightening her cashmere sweater. She needed to be certain my family was contributing to her well-being, I suppose. "My father sells Blue Cross."
As she walked away with her perfect hair bouncing over her shoulders I said to the back of her head, "Well my father sells life insurance." Could she possibly respect that our fathers had a shared dependance on the purchase of insurance, I wondered.I had never thought of discussing what my father did with my classmates, and I wondered what conversation in her (much-bigger-than-mine) house had pushed her to recruit from her school mates. If I could get in the Way-Back machine I would probably find out that the date was the one following the announcement of Colorado Fuel and Iron's Steel Mill closing. The ripple effect would take about 3 years to seriously compromise hundreds of families that were dependent either directly or indirectly on CF&I's success.
I crept back to anonymity since our common thread was unknown by anyone else, and I really didn't want to be a part of The Clique anyway. I wasn't shy but most of my friends were, so I was the one who sought them out, and we were mostly members of the Girl Scout Troop.. I visited one friends' fishing cabin high in the Rockies and attended birthday parties at the homes of others. And one popular and talented girl with blonde hair like mine was just as friendly to me as she was to everyone else. It wasn't so bad being Barbara's most hated classmate.
A couple of months after I arrived, a new girl, Esther, was introduced to the class. I watched in amazement as Barbara repeated the same sizing-up she had done with me, evaluating the usefulness of Esther to her group of well-dressed followers and dismissing her initially as unimportant. Esther was the only Jewish girl in our class. She had strongly ethnic features, and gazed straight at you when she spoke with you. I sensed her loneliness very quickly and reached out to her to be sure she had a friend. For a couple of weeks, Esther was my friend alone, but when Barbara learned that Esther's father was a banker I walked into class to find Esther standing right next to Barbara. Both of them looked straight at me, and I took my seat.
She had joined The Clique immediately when invited, but it wasn't long before we were playing together again after school. Saturdays she had Sabbath School and could not play, and Sundays I went to church. I was pained that Esther had been so quick to abandon me but glad when she returned. Still Esther had a quality that allowed her to maintain friendships with anyone she chose and the amazing ability to move within several circles. She and I were friends, but not best friends, and she joined Girl Scouts as well.
After forth grade came fifth, and Mrs Steadmond. Mrs Steadmond had hair that was plastered fast against her head in a severe bun. Her mouth was permanently fixed in a thin, grim line beneath a short, snooty nose and two eyes knit together in the middle by the frown of disapproval she wore solely for me. She would never call on me in class and kept her attention fixed on the shining social stars. She couldn't find fault with my test scores but she would dismiss writing that I knew was above my own grade level as superfluous. After reading an especially deep book I thought I would ask if she had read it. She listened, a look of annoyance on her face as I attempted to explain the story line of The Ghetto, a recount of the Warsaw Jewish experience. World War II had ended less than 20 years before, and I had seen the numbers printed on Esther's mother's hand. When she did not respond, I offered, "I write poetry, Mrs. Steadmond." She looked at me evenly and said "Oh, a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None." It was a long year. She really preferred to chat during playground time with Barbara and the Barbettes. I began writing more.
In the sixth grade, my mother had long since stopped trying to perm my hair to control it, so it was wavy and unruly. Mr. Melton was a big, jovial man with a good sense of humor. He did give me credit for a brain, but I cannot remember a single thing he ever said other than to ask me in front of the class if I had combed my hair with an egg-beater. Whatever I was doing, it wasn't working for me in the hair department. Barbara's favorite hairdo was a little flip with a bouffant pouf pinned in the back. I described it to my mother and she helped me pin the bouffant under. As I approached the classroom, Barbara's sycophants had already reported my change of hairstyle to her. She leaned against the door frame watching me through half-shaded eyes and said dryly as I entered, "Nice try, Kiddo."
For the first time I looked right back at her and said,"You know, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." She left me alone the rest of that year. Mr. Melton seemed contrite after witnessing our conversation but my mother also had taken special interest in his egg beater remark. It is possible she delivered him an ultimatum he couldn't refuse, because he began to ask me questions directly when he could see I knew the answers rather than wait for my hand to come up. He seemed to make a special effort to treat me just as he would the rest of the class.
When we started Junior High School, the addition of new friends from a broader cross-section of our part of town diluted some of the effects of Barbara's efforts. There were several equally popular crowds, and of course all of them, including Barbara's had a Cheerleader for its' showpiece. That cheerleaders and football players went hand in hand had never occurred to me. But across from me in my eighth grade math class sat a tall, friendly football and basketball player, Jeff, who first introduced himself to me, and then for the majority of the year continuously talked and joked with me.
Completely across the room from us sat Barbara, shooting withering glances my way as I tried to keep the banter quiet to avoid getting in trouble with the teacher. I thought it was just Barbara's way of being superior, not causing a ruckus by not sitting somewhere next to somebody who wanted to talk and joke. But we were assigned seats by the teacher so I was there through no choice of my own. Jeff took every opportunity to crack jokes, sometimes at my expense, just audible to everyone around us. There was a lot going on in that corner of the room, but we were just friends having a good time, I thought. It never occurred to me that Jeff might have Boyfriend potential. He was fun like my big brother was fun, and I was going to marry Paul McCartney.
Over the year as Jeff's attention persisted, Barbara became more and more frustrated. She spent her one of her CIA agents to determine whether or not I had romantic inclinations toward Jeff. I told her she was ridiculous, and that we were just friends. But after class one day the teacher asked whether Jeff and I were a "pair". When I insisted we were only friends he raised an eyebrow in disbelief and nodded his head.
I left wondering whether it was possible people really thought I liked Jeff and that he liked me when we never saw each other nor really spoke outside of class. I thought about sock hops and whether I could ever remember dancing with Jeff, and I really couldn't. Barbara had admitted to her friends that I was a "good dancer" once at a sock hop where I never lacked for a partner. They were probably trying to figure out why no one asked them to dance when they were so important and popular. Since I loved to dance it also never occurred to me that in the social scheme of things, any one of my dance partners was a Potential Boyfriend. Maybe I had danced with Jeff. It was a big school. Sock Hops lasted a couple of hours. You could dance with a lot of people in that amount of time if each record was 3 minutes long.
The next day as I walked toward Math class, I could see a sort of parade of populars trailing behind the tall head of Jeff, but couldn't see who was next to him until the bottleneck formed at the door. Barbara turned with a little smile and stepped into the classroom with a glance back at me. Jeff sat down silently across from me, never to tell another joke again. For the rest of the year, Jeff walked Barbara everywhere to class. I would miss the fun a little, but I had other things to worry about.
We were moving after school was out to be near my older brother, who had cancer. I had told my close friends, and was trying to wrap my head around the concept of leaving Colorado for the Desert Southwest of New Mexico. The Steel Mill had been closed for a year or more and Daddy's business had virtually stopped as the economy of 1962-1963 plummeted. He was going to farm in New Mexico again after some 15 years of making a living in the city.
Our family moved on to Lubbock, Texas after less than a year, and I met and married my husband after high school there. Like my mother, I loved to sew, so I got a little job in the fabric department of one of the more elegant department stores, Hemphill Wells. When they opened a new store at the mall, they hired a new girl, Jan, to work in the fabric department with me. We warmed up right away, but she sometimes stood staring at me. "I just know we've met before," she said.
We went through church, college, sororities, social clubs, and finally high schools. I went to Lubbock High School, but she went to Centennial, in Pueblo. My mouth fell open. What year? What Junior High? It was staggering to think she could remember me from so many years before. I hadn't changed, apparently, although my hair was now honey brown and well-behaved. Who did you know, we asked each other. I ran through the list of Choir friends and Girl Scout Friends. She knew most of them, and I wondered how we had failed to connect at Freed Jr. High with so much in common.
Then she asked if I knew Barbara. I said, yes, we had gone to grade school together and were in the same Girl Scout Troop. She said Barbara was her best friend. I couldn't suppress the gasp, but I walked back through the past several months of working with Jan to examine any evidence of unkindness. She was always, always nice, I concluded. "Well, are you still in touch?" I asked. When she affirmed that they still wrote I wondered how long our friendship was going to last now.She ran through who had dated who in those years after we left Pueblo, and who was married to who now. Barbara had married Jeff.
I could hardly believe my ears. We were in the eighth grade. Had she held onto him all four years of high school or did they ever see anyone else? Had I haunted Barbara as some kind of force to be reckoned with when I managed to thrive despite her seeming desire to crush me like a bug? Was marrying Jeff, who came from a poor family like mine, a decision that began with taking away something she thought I had? I was never going to ask Jan.
Jan was getting married. She and her fiance had finished college, and would be moving to a farm homesteaded by his grandparents. It sounded like a wonderful life, and she held my admiration as future wife of the American Farmer gone Agribusiness. We stayed in touch and wrote for several years we added to our little families and worked out the American Dream. Barbara never came up in conversation again. Jan never cooled in her friendship with me, and I quit having dreams about Barbara on a bad day not long afterwards. So far as I know, she and Jeff, my never-even-considered-it boyfriend, are still married.
I was still seven when my mother gave me what was to be the last permanent she would ever give me. Mother meticulously sewed, dressed, and groomed us, with whatever means she had, and that included well-set hair. My hair was so white when I was about 3 that a lady waiting with us for a traffic light to change could not resist reaching down to finger it, remarking to my mother's horror, "My, her hair bleaches nicely."
But by the time I was seven, although still a blonde, just one area of my head was white and the rest ash colored. Thick and unruly, it never behaved well, so mother bought a Tonette and set to work with the rollers. The problem was, although the baby color was gone, the texture was and always would be the same: fine. It was fine as a delicate spider's web and the effect of the chemicals on those almost microscopic strands of hair was quite stunning.
As mother combed through it after the last rinse, tears welled up in my eyes. "I look like a French Poodle!" I choked.
Mother looked like she might cry, too.."It will wash out in a while," she offered, but her face betrayed her own doubt. I can only imagine how badly she wished she could have known to use bigger rollers. But it had been some time since my last perm and her expertise dated back as far as the first commercial perms went. I was her third girl, not to mention at least 3 of her sisters, and her own hair that she had seen after since she was old enough. My hair wasn't burnt, just tightly curled.
To make matters worse, on a trip to the mountains I had hit my front tooth when releasing a well pump handle. The tooth was broken off a quarter of the way up, and I avoided smiling and guarded how I held my upper lip to keep the snaggle-tooth from showing. I hoped to avoid calling attention to myself so much that people probably couldn't keep their eyes off me for trying to understand why I was so odd.
So on my very first day in the 4th at grade at Thatcher Elementary, I presented with insanely curly hair. The teacher, sweet little Mrs. Andrews, announced my addition to the class with my exotic first name, Juanita. It was the only first name I had, and I never considered using the middle name, Ruth, because I just didn't know any Ruths to judge whether it would work as well as Tammy or Linda might have for a better first name. The large freckles strewn across my nose must have made the mop on my head even more bizarre as my face turned crimson.
As we exited for the playground at recess I walked past a girl with shiny, smooth brown hair who was surrounded by a group of well-dressed friends. "She doesn't look Mexican," she said as though I was invisible while clearly, since all eyes were on me, they could at least see through me. I was later to learn from one of the other, less popular girls, that this was Barbara. She and her personality-free Secret Service agents were known widely as The Clique.
Within a week it was clear that I would have precious few friends among my classmates if she had anything to say about it. What I could not understand was why, if she didn't want to be friends, was it necessary so far as she was concerned, to be enemies. What I did that made her so determined to ruin my life would always escape me. But for 4 long school years, Barbara made it her objective every single day to have something unkind to say within my earshot. She seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time on me for someone who so disliked me so much. In doing so, she acquired free rent in my head, where for years after we left Pueblo, into my life as a young adult if I felt socially inept or like I didn't belong she would visit my dreams with her hangers-on.
In spite of her constant interference, I gradually got to know the other less socially important girls, and joined Girl Scouts where The Clique was subordinate to a lot of recited mottoes and stated purposes. The leaders were some of the few adults apparently not charmed by Barbara's social connections and talents in crowd control. They quickly snuffed any takeover attempts in that venue and redirected the group toward more purposeful and fulfilling activities. Girl Scouts became the great equalizer and testing ground for trying out new things and showing accomplishment without feeling somehow inferior. Anyone could get a badge, anyone could advance rank, and no one was better than the other.
Still the daily grind at school was a tough one. It irritated Barbara that I could finish my work before her and make better grades than her. Since our family moved in just before Christmas and Mrs. Lacy discovered quickly that I was a talented artist she had me use the extra time, sometimes half the day, to paint the faces and costumes on a new set of Santa's Helpers that would adorn the staircase at Thatcher that year. Using a blowup projector she enlarged a paper Santa's Workshop I had brought as an example when she asked for ideas from the class. Strangely no one else was privileged to work on this project, which lasted several days, and took me out of class as soon as my work was done. I could feel Barbara's eyes on my back as I left the classroom with the Art Teacher.
On one of the few occasions in which Barbara spoke directly to me she stopped me while we happened to be alone in the hall. "Hey," she said authoritatively with one hand on her hip, "What kind of health insurance does your family have?"
Wide eyed and afraid not to answer, I swallowed and said, "Blue Cross".
"Good!" she said, busily straightening her cashmere sweater. She needed to be certain my family was contributing to her well-being, I suppose. "My father sells Blue Cross."
As she walked away with her perfect hair bouncing over her shoulders I said to the back of her head, "Well my father sells life insurance." Could she possibly respect that our fathers had a shared dependance on the purchase of insurance, I wondered.I had never thought of discussing what my father did with my classmates, and I wondered what conversation in her (much-bigger-than-mine) house had pushed her to recruit from her school mates. If I could get in the Way-Back machine I would probably find out that the date was the one following the announcement of Colorado Fuel and Iron's Steel Mill closing. The ripple effect would take about 3 years to seriously compromise hundreds of families that were dependent either directly or indirectly on CF&I's success.
I crept back to anonymity since our common thread was unknown by anyone else, and I really didn't want to be a part of The Clique anyway. I wasn't shy but most of my friends were, so I was the one who sought them out, and we were mostly members of the Girl Scout Troop.. I visited one friends' fishing cabin high in the Rockies and attended birthday parties at the homes of others. And one popular and talented girl with blonde hair like mine was just as friendly to me as she was to everyone else. It wasn't so bad being Barbara's most hated classmate.
A couple of months after I arrived, a new girl, Esther, was introduced to the class. I watched in amazement as Barbara repeated the same sizing-up she had done with me, evaluating the usefulness of Esther to her group of well-dressed followers and dismissing her initially as unimportant. Esther was the only Jewish girl in our class. She had strongly ethnic features, and gazed straight at you when she spoke with you. I sensed her loneliness very quickly and reached out to her to be sure she had a friend. For a couple of weeks, Esther was my friend alone, but when Barbara learned that Esther's father was a banker I walked into class to find Esther standing right next to Barbara. Both of them looked straight at me, and I took my seat.
She had joined The Clique immediately when invited, but it wasn't long before we were playing together again after school. Saturdays she had Sabbath School and could not play, and Sundays I went to church. I was pained that Esther had been so quick to abandon me but glad when she returned. Still Esther had a quality that allowed her to maintain friendships with anyone she chose and the amazing ability to move within several circles. She and I were friends, but not best friends, and she joined Girl Scouts as well.
After forth grade came fifth, and Mrs Steadmond. Mrs Steadmond had hair that was plastered fast against her head in a severe bun. Her mouth was permanently fixed in a thin, grim line beneath a short, snooty nose and two eyes knit together in the middle by the frown of disapproval she wore solely for me. She would never call on me in class and kept her attention fixed on the shining social stars. She couldn't find fault with my test scores but she would dismiss writing that I knew was above my own grade level as superfluous. After reading an especially deep book I thought I would ask if she had read it. She listened, a look of annoyance on her face as I attempted to explain the story line of The Ghetto, a recount of the Warsaw Jewish experience. World War II had ended less than 20 years before, and I had seen the numbers printed on Esther's mother's hand. When she did not respond, I offered, "I write poetry, Mrs. Steadmond." She looked at me evenly and said "Oh, a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None." It was a long year. She really preferred to chat during playground time with Barbara and the Barbettes. I began writing more.
In the sixth grade, my mother had long since stopped trying to perm my hair to control it, so it was wavy and unruly. Mr. Melton was a big, jovial man with a good sense of humor. He did give me credit for a brain, but I cannot remember a single thing he ever said other than to ask me in front of the class if I had combed my hair with an egg-beater. Whatever I was doing, it wasn't working for me in the hair department. Barbara's favorite hairdo was a little flip with a bouffant pouf pinned in the back. I described it to my mother and she helped me pin the bouffant under. As I approached the classroom, Barbara's sycophants had already reported my change of hairstyle to her. She leaned against the door frame watching me through half-shaded eyes and said dryly as I entered, "Nice try, Kiddo."
For the first time I looked right back at her and said,"You know, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." She left me alone the rest of that year. Mr. Melton seemed contrite after witnessing our conversation but my mother also had taken special interest in his egg beater remark. It is possible she delivered him an ultimatum he couldn't refuse, because he began to ask me questions directly when he could see I knew the answers rather than wait for my hand to come up. He seemed to make a special effort to treat me just as he would the rest of the class.
When we started Junior High School, the addition of new friends from a broader cross-section of our part of town diluted some of the effects of Barbara's efforts. There were several equally popular crowds, and of course all of them, including Barbara's had a Cheerleader for its' showpiece. That cheerleaders and football players went hand in hand had never occurred to me. But across from me in my eighth grade math class sat a tall, friendly football and basketball player, Jeff, who first introduced himself to me, and then for the majority of the year continuously talked and joked with me.
Completely across the room from us sat Barbara, shooting withering glances my way as I tried to keep the banter quiet to avoid getting in trouble with the teacher. I thought it was just Barbara's way of being superior, not causing a ruckus by not sitting somewhere next to somebody who wanted to talk and joke. But we were assigned seats by the teacher so I was there through no choice of my own. Jeff took every opportunity to crack jokes, sometimes at my expense, just audible to everyone around us. There was a lot going on in that corner of the room, but we were just friends having a good time, I thought. It never occurred to me that Jeff might have Boyfriend potential. He was fun like my big brother was fun, and I was going to marry Paul McCartney.
Over the year as Jeff's attention persisted, Barbara became more and more frustrated. She spent her one of her CIA agents to determine whether or not I had romantic inclinations toward Jeff. I told her she was ridiculous, and that we were just friends. But after class one day the teacher asked whether Jeff and I were a "pair". When I insisted we were only friends he raised an eyebrow in disbelief and nodded his head.
I left wondering whether it was possible people really thought I liked Jeff and that he liked me when we never saw each other nor really spoke outside of class. I thought about sock hops and whether I could ever remember dancing with Jeff, and I really couldn't. Barbara had admitted to her friends that I was a "good dancer" once at a sock hop where I never lacked for a partner. They were probably trying to figure out why no one asked them to dance when they were so important and popular. Since I loved to dance it also never occurred to me that in the social scheme of things, any one of my dance partners was a Potential Boyfriend. Maybe I had danced with Jeff. It was a big school. Sock Hops lasted a couple of hours. You could dance with a lot of people in that amount of time if each record was 3 minutes long.
The next day as I walked toward Math class, I could see a sort of parade of populars trailing behind the tall head of Jeff, but couldn't see who was next to him until the bottleneck formed at the door. Barbara turned with a little smile and stepped into the classroom with a glance back at me. Jeff sat down silently across from me, never to tell another joke again. For the rest of the year, Jeff walked Barbara everywhere to class. I would miss the fun a little, but I had other things to worry about.
We were moving after school was out to be near my older brother, who had cancer. I had told my close friends, and was trying to wrap my head around the concept of leaving Colorado for the Desert Southwest of New Mexico. The Steel Mill had been closed for a year or more and Daddy's business had virtually stopped as the economy of 1962-1963 plummeted. He was going to farm in New Mexico again after some 15 years of making a living in the city.
Our family moved on to Lubbock, Texas after less than a year, and I met and married my husband after high school there. Like my mother, I loved to sew, so I got a little job in the fabric department of one of the more elegant department stores, Hemphill Wells. When they opened a new store at the mall, they hired a new girl, Jan, to work in the fabric department with me. We warmed up right away, but she sometimes stood staring at me. "I just know we've met before," she said.
We went through church, college, sororities, social clubs, and finally high schools. I went to Lubbock High School, but she went to Centennial, in Pueblo. My mouth fell open. What year? What Junior High? It was staggering to think she could remember me from so many years before. I hadn't changed, apparently, although my hair was now honey brown and well-behaved. Who did you know, we asked each other. I ran through the list of Choir friends and Girl Scout Friends. She knew most of them, and I wondered how we had failed to connect at Freed Jr. High with so much in common.
Then she asked if I knew Barbara. I said, yes, we had gone to grade school together and were in the same Girl Scout Troop. She said Barbara was her best friend. I couldn't suppress the gasp, but I walked back through the past several months of working with Jan to examine any evidence of unkindness. She was always, always nice, I concluded. "Well, are you still in touch?" I asked. When she affirmed that they still wrote I wondered how long our friendship was going to last now.She ran through who had dated who in those years after we left Pueblo, and who was married to who now. Barbara had married Jeff.
I could hardly believe my ears. We were in the eighth grade. Had she held onto him all four years of high school or did they ever see anyone else? Had I haunted Barbara as some kind of force to be reckoned with when I managed to thrive despite her seeming desire to crush me like a bug? Was marrying Jeff, who came from a poor family like mine, a decision that began with taking away something she thought I had? I was never going to ask Jan.
Jan was getting married. She and her fiance had finished college, and would be moving to a farm homesteaded by his grandparents. It sounded like a wonderful life, and she held my admiration as future wife of the American Farmer gone Agribusiness. We stayed in touch and wrote for several years we added to our little families and worked out the American Dream. Barbara never came up in conversation again. Jan never cooled in her friendship with me, and I quit having dreams about Barbara on a bad day not long afterwards. So far as I know, she and Jeff, my never-even-considered-it boyfriend, are still married.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Being Thirteen: Part One
"And now," said The Great Stoneface, "for a really, really big sheewww..." It was quite possible that everyone knew Ed Sullivan as the Great Stoneface, but tonight it didn't matter what other people's fathers called him, because the Beatles were on and it was clearly an event for all time. My father eyed me and my sister watching enthusiastically as screaming adolescent girls drowned out the cute mop-headed band members. We had heard them on KDZA just a few times, but we liked them because they were different. And they were from England, we explained to Daddy, who looked at us from under a now-raised eyebrow. He politely waited for a commercial before he explained that he could walk out on the street and find four young men and himself produce a band equal to the Beatles.
"No, Daddy," we shook our heads, which were covered in metal spiked brush rollers for the next day's smooth flips that would bob up and down as we discussed the night's events with our girlfriends. "They are REALLY neat!"
He nodded, his look a little jaded. We knew he didn't understand but he was not a girl, was he?
Over the next months we acquired overseas pen pals, because you really needed a girlfriend in England if you loved the Beatles. You and she could share details about what was exciting in your two respected and admired countries that could then knowingly be told to your un-penpalled friends. And while my sister went on to High School and acted normal, I went to Jr High School and along with all my equally Brit-enchanted friends acquired an English accent to be used while out riding the bus or shopping, or in any other public occasion. Six or more of us on a single bus could command the attention of every wary adult who could neither understand a single thing we said, nor why we would wear the leather caps or knee length boots that had become a sort of uniform.
My mother was so impressed when my friends and I all chattered in our Brit Brogue that she had to tell one of her friends about our call to the radio station asking a record be played that we knew had been released in England but not yet in the US. She was certain we had convinced the station we were VIPs from across the water. She sewed mod outfits enthusiastically for me and my sister. Since she was able to literally reproduce an outfit from a magazine photo we were on the cutting edge at all times.
My friends and I collected Beatle Cards in huge stacks. Mine were taken away by a teacher who found them a distraction and at the end of the year my mother, though still impressed with my linguistic skills did not go sign them back to me, so they were forfeited. Since I couldn't have chewed the gum that they came with at school, it must have landed in the trash can just outside the gymnasium where the sock hops were held every other Friday.
A local DJ would spin our requests and we could wear off calories and boundless energy and enthusiasm for the bands we stayed up late at night to hear. All of us without visible means of support-very few of us got such thing as an allowance-resorted to a 10 cent ice cream sandwich for lunch and saved the rest to buy 45 rpm records at Globe Discount City, the precursor of KMart and WalMart.
On Saturday mornings we would start our trek south toward the bridge on West 4th street and meet each other along the way. Dressed in our Pep Club uniforms with maroon corduroy skirts and matching sweaters declaring our membership in gold letters around a golden mascot Ram we were unavoidably American. The walk gave us ample time to discuss boys, boy friends and boyfriends, and to sing "My Boyfriend's Back" along with The Angels via Linda's transistor radio. At the game, we worked in concert with the cheerleaders. We were a chorus to be reckoned with, and surely insured the success of our outstanding football team whose members all were, of course, cute boys.
The walk home took us past Globe and we could there acquire the prize 45 rpm of the week for less than a dollar. It only required a few days of ice cream bars to provide a library of fab records. And a month of restraint could lead one to own the latest album. Later, in one or the other of our homes we would gather around the stereo and no one really minded at all that 5 or 6 of us were actually singing over the voices of our idols, because that was, after all, what we did-in a kind of trance. We had the words memorized and the tones and inflections duplicated perfectly. We were choir geeks of the first kind, having been chosen for our superior talents to sing in the Performance Choir.
Later that night after KDZA signed off we would tune into KOMA and Wolfman Jack to stay in touch with the broader USA, who were also enchanted with everything British. So the announcer in the echo chamber that chanted off the names of raceways having big road blasters also listed the bands most of us would never see: Herman's Hermets, The Searchers, Manfred Mann, The Moody Blues, and of course a mix of American bands all going to cities no where near Pueblo.
We would write a note about the game and our record purchases to our pen pals, and whisper a little longer on the phone trying not to be caught up late. Finally we would go to sleep with the radio still running under our pillows.
There were only a few of us who really did see the Beatles at Red Rocks. I won't forget their names, Mary Jane who loved Ringo, and Linda, who loved Paul and was the first of my friends to have 3 inch long white shag carpet in her living room. Those lucky girls. Most of my friends saw A Hard Day's Night first run. I could not come up with the money in time even if I skipped the ice cream bar, so I ruefully stared at the marquee from across the street at the park as I waited to meet up with them.
When the movie was out we all got on the bus and put on our British accents before getting off at a little shop downtown to order some hot tea with cream and sugar. My fortunate friends didn't let me sulk at all, but gave me a moment-by-moment detail of the entire movie. Behind the counter the waitresses whispered back and forth to each other something that must have been like,"Well, there's some more of those kids acting like they're from England again. They must have just come out of that ridiculous movie with those long-haired singers. Yep, and since all they can afford is a cup of tea, there's not going to be a tip, either."
"No, Daddy," we shook our heads, which were covered in metal spiked brush rollers for the next day's smooth flips that would bob up and down as we discussed the night's events with our girlfriends. "They are REALLY neat!"
He nodded, his look a little jaded. We knew he didn't understand but he was not a girl, was he?
Over the next months we acquired overseas pen pals, because you really needed a girlfriend in England if you loved the Beatles. You and she could share details about what was exciting in your two respected and admired countries that could then knowingly be told to your un-penpalled friends. And while my sister went on to High School and acted normal, I went to Jr High School and along with all my equally Brit-enchanted friends acquired an English accent to be used while out riding the bus or shopping, or in any other public occasion. Six or more of us on a single bus could command the attention of every wary adult who could neither understand a single thing we said, nor why we would wear the leather caps or knee length boots that had become a sort of uniform.
My mother was so impressed when my friends and I all chattered in our Brit Brogue that she had to tell one of her friends about our call to the radio station asking a record be played that we knew had been released in England but not yet in the US. She was certain we had convinced the station we were VIPs from across the water. She sewed mod outfits enthusiastically for me and my sister. Since she was able to literally reproduce an outfit from a magazine photo we were on the cutting edge at all times.
My friends and I collected Beatle Cards in huge stacks. Mine were taken away by a teacher who found them a distraction and at the end of the year my mother, though still impressed with my linguistic skills did not go sign them back to me, so they were forfeited. Since I couldn't have chewed the gum that they came with at school, it must have landed in the trash can just outside the gymnasium where the sock hops were held every other Friday.
A local DJ would spin our requests and we could wear off calories and boundless energy and enthusiasm for the bands we stayed up late at night to hear. All of us without visible means of support-very few of us got such thing as an allowance-resorted to a 10 cent ice cream sandwich for lunch and saved the rest to buy 45 rpm records at Globe Discount City, the precursor of KMart and WalMart.
On Saturday mornings we would start our trek south toward the bridge on West 4th street and meet each other along the way. Dressed in our Pep Club uniforms with maroon corduroy skirts and matching sweaters declaring our membership in gold letters around a golden mascot Ram we were unavoidably American. The walk gave us ample time to discuss boys, boy friends and boyfriends, and to sing "My Boyfriend's Back" along with The Angels via Linda's transistor radio. At the game, we worked in concert with the cheerleaders. We were a chorus to be reckoned with, and surely insured the success of our outstanding football team whose members all were, of course, cute boys.
The walk home took us past Globe and we could there acquire the prize 45 rpm of the week for less than a dollar. It only required a few days of ice cream bars to provide a library of fab records. And a month of restraint could lead one to own the latest album. Later, in one or the other of our homes we would gather around the stereo and no one really minded at all that 5 or 6 of us were actually singing over the voices of our idols, because that was, after all, what we did-in a kind of trance. We had the words memorized and the tones and inflections duplicated perfectly. We were choir geeks of the first kind, having been chosen for our superior talents to sing in the Performance Choir.
Later that night after KDZA signed off we would tune into KOMA and Wolfman Jack to stay in touch with the broader USA, who were also enchanted with everything British. So the announcer in the echo chamber that chanted off the names of raceways having big road blasters also listed the bands most of us would never see: Herman's Hermets, The Searchers, Manfred Mann, The Moody Blues, and of course a mix of American bands all going to cities no where near Pueblo.
We would write a note about the game and our record purchases to our pen pals, and whisper a little longer on the phone trying not to be caught up late. Finally we would go to sleep with the radio still running under our pillows.
There were only a few of us who really did see the Beatles at Red Rocks. I won't forget their names, Mary Jane who loved Ringo, and Linda, who loved Paul and was the first of my friends to have 3 inch long white shag carpet in her living room. Those lucky girls. Most of my friends saw A Hard Day's Night first run. I could not come up with the money in time even if I skipped the ice cream bar, so I ruefully stared at the marquee from across the street at the park as I waited to meet up with them.
When the movie was out we all got on the bus and put on our British accents before getting off at a little shop downtown to order some hot tea with cream and sugar. My fortunate friends didn't let me sulk at all, but gave me a moment-by-moment detail of the entire movie. Behind the counter the waitresses whispered back and forth to each other something that must have been like,"Well, there's some more of those kids acting like they're from England again. They must have just come out of that ridiculous movie with those long-haired singers. Yep, and since all they can afford is a cup of tea, there's not going to be a tip, either."
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Pueblo, a beautiful place in time.....
We arrived on my birthday, November 25, 1959, the year I turned eight. Although there were no presents because of the haste of our move I could not know the gift we all were receiving in our father's transfer to Pueblo. Appropriately, the next day was Thanksgiving.
Although we had loved the mountains and life in Denver, and had forayed into several wonderful adventures during our brief stay in Colorado Springs, we were about to live through the most enchanted time of our lives.
Assembly-line style, we carried boxes from the truck our father had rented to move our belongings into the white stuccoed house with green trim, taking in details about our new home. It had a modest Tudor look to it, was framed by elms in front and back, and a rather unruly shrub between the windows. The front door was thick wood, appropriate for a medieval fortress, with a little door to peak out of that latched from the inside. The inside was a modern aqua blue--a designer, we were told, had owned the house before us. Draperies framing the living and dining room windows made of quirky abstract prints in light colors. A built in display and book shelf was on the wall opposite the fireplace in the roomy living room.
The kitchen was a calm creamy yellow but the ante room between the kitchen and stairs leading to the basement was a brilliant, not quite mustard yellow. Our mother announced that painting the ante room would be a top priority, but it was still the same color when we moved out several years later. In the kitchen were a staggering number of shelves, all of which needed cleaning before we could put away the dishes, and one small appliance garage just right for a toaster.
The bathroom had a soft blue terry shower curtain that contrasted with the pink and black metal tiles that lined the wall. Like the curtains in the front of the house, a little quirky.
There were two upstairs bedrooms, both ample.There were two parents,two daughters, and a son when we moved in.In Colorado it was almost unheard of that you didn't have a basement. We did, with a beautifully paneled light knotty pine bar at one end of a long black and white tiled floor game room.
In the corner behind the game room was a little coal room, long out of use, with a single small window that had been the coal chute. Behind the remaining width of the game room was the laundry and storage room, where all the Christmas decorations were kept.
Mother was quick to turn the coal room into David's abode. Mary got the nice front bedroom, and I was consigned to the 8 X 10 room, with what was probably the wine closet for my clothes closet, just behind the bar. Mother curtained off the open room with a feminine floral print for privacy and I was good to go.
The truck unloaded, our things arranged, we spent our first night in what was to be the home of our hearts. The morning was cold when we awakened the following day. We were grateful to have a fireplace, and a nice furnace, which was allowed to heat the 3 core rooms upstairs. (All the bedrooms had their furnace grates shut and we slept beneath quilts piled so thick we could hardly turn over, but kept a window cracked in almost any weather because we craved the fresh, clean air.)
After whatever morning chores we had were done, my brother, David, and I coated up and ventured out into the neighborhood to see who we might meet. It was the Thanksgiving holiday and the sounds of other children nearby piqued our curiosity. We made our way across the front yard when two boys appeared from behind the fence across the street and began to throw rocks at David. He seemed non-pulsed and just picked them up to throw 'em right back. Pretty soon they were best friends, my brother, David, and David Norton.
The Nortons lived in a big white farmhouse that was probably there before the rest of the neighborhood encroached from the south where the downtown area was.
We lived on 22d Street between Court and Grand streets, and to our south on Grand were an array of tall turn-of-the-Century row houses. They were punctuated with filigree and gingerbread, every one having a porch. To our north on Grand after the first lovely Victorian style home came a series of Bungalow and Mission style homes on both sides of the street. In general the surrounding neighborhood dated to the turn of the century every block or so but was filled in mainly with homes dating to the 20's and 30's.
As we explored the neighborhood, my brother and sister and I found the park just five blocks south, it's name dreamy: Mineral Palace Park. Specimens of different trees still had labels declaring their origins. Waterlilies lay dormant beneath ice in a small pond that became a skating rink when it was cold enough. A community hall flanked one side of a beautiful lake that was accented by two beautiful arched bridges. Behind a shrub-covered chain link fence was the right of way and the noise of the highway. Across the lake from the community hall, a band shell with an Art Deco rainbow frame presided over the stage from which we would later hear the city orchestra play in the summers. A swimming pool and a playground in the park seemed mere fringe benefits. A bench to dream upon was all we needed aside from the carefully staged beauty around us.
Winter came quickly with an abundance of snow, and the walk to Thatcher Elementary School was pure joy. Although everyone shoveled their sidewalks, we loved to walk in the drifts to each side, making deep prints in the snow. An easy snowball fight could last for blocks as friends joined the parade along the way.
Grand street was the usual path we took toward Thatcher, but it was my preference to take Court because the trees from both sides of the street formed an ice Cathedral overhead for most of the walk. Ice cicles draped every tree and house, snow frosted and softened the landscape and silenced the scene to allow the gentle packing of footprints left behind to assure a record of your travel to a warm destination. Coats and hats and boots left on hooks and wooden floors were reclaimed at the end of the day.
I remember seasons before Pueblo only in flashes of time, but the walk to school gave a little girl a lot of time to notice everything. Winter slowly gave way to violets blooming through melting patches of snow. Daffodils and tulips came next, then Lilacs, heavenly Lilacs.
Mrs. Arthur, our next door neighbor had 3 different Lilacs: a light purple, a dark purple, and a white. We had two light purple not quite as tall as hers had grown to be, but we could sit under them to read Under the Lilacs by Louisa May Alcott. How romantic!
The elms in the front and the back had crotches just at the right height to be able to climb. Across the street, the Nortons had a tall pine with sturdy spiral stair branches to climb. A wooden swing suspended from a thick rope hung beneath the branches of their cottonwood tree.
When the school year wrapped up, we were scattered among relatives so Mother could work without worrying about what kind of trouble we were getting into, and as summer wound down, we would return home for the preparation for school. Mother sewed nearly everything we wore, and there was shopping to do for material and shoes. Her machine hummed out a complete wardrobe within days.
With sweaters and coats bought we were glad to start the annual migration back to school. Doors along the way opened as friends joined us for the walk through crunchy leaves. The sweaters of the morning were too hot for the afternoon sun on our shoulders as we returned home.
The familiarity of the routine was right out of Leave it to Beaver or My Three Sons. Something fragrant was cooking for dinner when we came in from school. Daddy would up from his big Family Bible, marking his place with one finger, and say,
"You need to get a Nanner (banana) and eat it right now!"
Filling our cheeks and bellies with the stuff of life, covering our bodies with hand-made clothes, providing our minds with beauty and joy that would last a lifetime, we were so very lucky. This time of life was the best, the very best present we could get.
Although we had loved the mountains and life in Denver, and had forayed into several wonderful adventures during our brief stay in Colorado Springs, we were about to live through the most enchanted time of our lives.
Assembly-line style, we carried boxes from the truck our father had rented to move our belongings into the white stuccoed house with green trim, taking in details about our new home. It had a modest Tudor look to it, was framed by elms in front and back, and a rather unruly shrub between the windows. The front door was thick wood, appropriate for a medieval fortress, with a little door to peak out of that latched from the inside. The inside was a modern aqua blue--a designer, we were told, had owned the house before us. Draperies framing the living and dining room windows made of quirky abstract prints in light colors. A built in display and book shelf was on the wall opposite the fireplace in the roomy living room.
The kitchen was a calm creamy yellow but the ante room between the kitchen and stairs leading to the basement was a brilliant, not quite mustard yellow. Our mother announced that painting the ante room would be a top priority, but it was still the same color when we moved out several years later. In the kitchen were a staggering number of shelves, all of which needed cleaning before we could put away the dishes, and one small appliance garage just right for a toaster.
The bathroom had a soft blue terry shower curtain that contrasted with the pink and black metal tiles that lined the wall. Like the curtains in the front of the house, a little quirky.
There were two upstairs bedrooms, both ample.There were two parents,two daughters, and a son when we moved in.In Colorado it was almost unheard of that you didn't have a basement. We did, with a beautifully paneled light knotty pine bar at one end of a long black and white tiled floor game room.
In the corner behind the game room was a little coal room, long out of use, with a single small window that had been the coal chute. Behind the remaining width of the game room was the laundry and storage room, where all the Christmas decorations were kept.
Mother was quick to turn the coal room into David's abode. Mary got the nice front bedroom, and I was consigned to the 8 X 10 room, with what was probably the wine closet for my clothes closet, just behind the bar. Mother curtained off the open room with a feminine floral print for privacy and I was good to go.
The truck unloaded, our things arranged, we spent our first night in what was to be the home of our hearts. The morning was cold when we awakened the following day. We were grateful to have a fireplace, and a nice furnace, which was allowed to heat the 3 core rooms upstairs. (All the bedrooms had their furnace grates shut and we slept beneath quilts piled so thick we could hardly turn over, but kept a window cracked in almost any weather because we craved the fresh, clean air.)
After whatever morning chores we had were done, my brother, David, and I coated up and ventured out into the neighborhood to see who we might meet. It was the Thanksgiving holiday and the sounds of other children nearby piqued our curiosity. We made our way across the front yard when two boys appeared from behind the fence across the street and began to throw rocks at David. He seemed non-pulsed and just picked them up to throw 'em right back. Pretty soon they were best friends, my brother, David, and David Norton.
The Nortons lived in a big white farmhouse that was probably there before the rest of the neighborhood encroached from the south where the downtown area was.
We lived on 22d Street between Court and Grand streets, and to our south on Grand were an array of tall turn-of-the-Century row houses. They were punctuated with filigree and gingerbread, every one having a porch. To our north on Grand after the first lovely Victorian style home came a series of Bungalow and Mission style homes on both sides of the street. In general the surrounding neighborhood dated to the turn of the century every block or so but was filled in mainly with homes dating to the 20's and 30's.
As we explored the neighborhood, my brother and sister and I found the park just five blocks south, it's name dreamy: Mineral Palace Park. Specimens of different trees still had labels declaring their origins. Waterlilies lay dormant beneath ice in a small pond that became a skating rink when it was cold enough. A community hall flanked one side of a beautiful lake that was accented by two beautiful arched bridges. Behind a shrub-covered chain link fence was the right of way and the noise of the highway. Across the lake from the community hall, a band shell with an Art Deco rainbow frame presided over the stage from which we would later hear the city orchestra play in the summers. A swimming pool and a playground in the park seemed mere fringe benefits. A bench to dream upon was all we needed aside from the carefully staged beauty around us.
Winter came quickly with an abundance of snow, and the walk to Thatcher Elementary School was pure joy. Although everyone shoveled their sidewalks, we loved to walk in the drifts to each side, making deep prints in the snow. An easy snowball fight could last for blocks as friends joined the parade along the way.
Grand street was the usual path we took toward Thatcher, but it was my preference to take Court because the trees from both sides of the street formed an ice Cathedral overhead for most of the walk. Ice cicles draped every tree and house, snow frosted and softened the landscape and silenced the scene to allow the gentle packing of footprints left behind to assure a record of your travel to a warm destination. Coats and hats and boots left on hooks and wooden floors were reclaimed at the end of the day.
I remember seasons before Pueblo only in flashes of time, but the walk to school gave a little girl a lot of time to notice everything. Winter slowly gave way to violets blooming through melting patches of snow. Daffodils and tulips came next, then Lilacs, heavenly Lilacs.
Mrs. Arthur, our next door neighbor had 3 different Lilacs: a light purple, a dark purple, and a white. We had two light purple not quite as tall as hers had grown to be, but we could sit under them to read Under the Lilacs by Louisa May Alcott. How romantic!
The elms in the front and the back had crotches just at the right height to be able to climb. Across the street, the Nortons had a tall pine with sturdy spiral stair branches to climb. A wooden swing suspended from a thick rope hung beneath the branches of their cottonwood tree.
When the school year wrapped up, we were scattered among relatives so Mother could work without worrying about what kind of trouble we were getting into, and as summer wound down, we would return home for the preparation for school. Mother sewed nearly everything we wore, and there was shopping to do for material and shoes. Her machine hummed out a complete wardrobe within days.
With sweaters and coats bought we were glad to start the annual migration back to school. Doors along the way opened as friends joined us for the walk through crunchy leaves. The sweaters of the morning were too hot for the afternoon sun on our shoulders as we returned home.
The familiarity of the routine was right out of Leave it to Beaver or My Three Sons. Something fragrant was cooking for dinner when we came in from school. Daddy would up from his big Family Bible, marking his place with one finger, and say,
"You need to get a Nanner (banana) and eat it right now!"
Filling our cheeks and bellies with the stuff of life, covering our bodies with hand-made clothes, providing our minds with beauty and joy that would last a lifetime, we were so very lucky. This time of life was the best, the very best present we could get.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
A Winter Wonderland
Although we lived there almost 5 years, I have never seen a single photograph from that period of Court Street in full winter regalia, so I am left with my memories of winters in Pueblo, Colorado and a need to describe the splendor of a cherished life there.
Our home, between Court and Grand street on 22nd was a white stuccoed Tudor with green trim. It fit oddly into the cross-section of building periods represented within a few square blocks. Directly across the street a large farmhouse and its' outbuildings occupied more space than the rest of the neighborhood lots, which had undoubtedly been carved from its' original acreage. Heading south around the corner on Grand were bookended Victorian era row houses, ambling and ample, some made into apartments. To the north, after a couple of lovely and graciously grounded Victorian homes, a succession of Arts and Crafts style Bungalows stretched on,and spread, seemingly in every direction for several miles. Court street had a few brick houses that seemed that seemed to have been more recently built, but by and large it was a '30's neighborhood all the way south to Mineral Palace Park. An abundance of trees of every kind and landscaping, fountains, and statuary, to complement different homes made any stroll interesting.
In the spring I preferred the walk past the Victorians toward Thatcher Elementary school. But in the winter nothing could possibly compare with the five block walk down Court Street through a tall cathedral of interlaced branches laden with icicles and an ample dusting of snow .
Leaving the warmth of our home and dressed in wool from head to toe, we would join the silent march of people, some as young as 5 and others as old as 18, headed toward our various schools. The high schoolers walked a full mile to the old Centennial High, and the Junior High, Freed, was something more than a half mile. If you were on the way to the elementary school you avoided the carefully shoveled walks and took your trek through the mounds of snow on either side of the walk in order to enjoy the muffled crunch of the snow as you packed it with your boot prints.
The few conversations were animated, but hushed in the winter, because the snow both insulated and amplified every sound. In the white silence, the occasional drip of ice melting from a roof or breathing of the earth beneath the snow pack left an anticipation of something inexpressible. Peace and quiet reigned. The work of living was shortened by the hours allowed by the sun. Crocus and violets were months away and I willed them dormant to allow plenty of time for this long respite the earth seemed to crave. Snow left a long trail toward Christmas and a school holiday. It made evenings by the fire place with popcorn or hot chocolate and Nat King Cole or Sing Along with Mitch, or, better, the piano and Christmas carols.
In the rituals of winter our mother scattered cornbread on the snow for the birds that failed to migrate, commenting on one particularly fat robin who had stayed behind. She hung our father's starched shirts on the line to freeze, their arms outstretched in a bizarre gesture satisfied only by the singed smell of the iron soothing away the wrinkles and restoring warmth. Periodically after a fresh snow a big enamel pan was filled with the white fluff, sugared, and vanilla flavored for "snow ice cream".
My brother considered it play to shovel the walk, at least at first, and the widow next door was given a free shoveling guaranteed by our parents. If the adults minded shoveling sidewalks or driveways, we were unaware. It was with a smile that our father took off his overcoat to inform us he had put chains on the tires.
The house was kept cold, except for the living areas and kitchen. Thawing was done in front of an open oven in the kitchen, the fireplace in the living room, or grate from the furnace. Drawn together by the warmth, we sang at the piano or watched television shows that presented our portion of the Camelot dream. Walter Cronkite assured us that we were all a part of a greater whole as we contemplated the changing times. The Lovely Lemon Sisters sang sweetly. Haws, Adam, and Little Joe, all failed to marry, but stayed close to Pa doing chores on the Ponderosa. And Captain Kangaroo kept the Treasure House ready for us when we awakened every morning.
Although there were furnace outlets in our bedrooms, we preferred our bedrooms cool, at least a half inch of window open to allow fresh air in the winter. Pajamas were flannel, quilts were wool and corduroy. Once in bed we could hardly turn over for the weight of quilts that took a while to warm to body temperature.
On weekends and during the holidays it was our joy to make forts for fabulous snowball fights. A good snow could provide a virtual empire of walls and fortresses, and an inexhaustible supply of snowball fights for the entire neighborhood. Some winters our growth outstripped our parents' budget, and the right size in boots or mittens was not on hand. Several layers of socks and plastic bags tied over our shoes (or hands, in the absence of mittens) enabled survival for battlefield forays.
If we were lucky, it was the year of the Wintertime Olympics. In that case, Mother celebrated with a batch of homemade yeast rolls and butter. Or Daddy popped corn in the little fireplace pan with a wooden handle. We were fortunate enough to have ice skates and after watching the graceful presentations on television, headed to the park to skate in less graceful patterns, but with no less satisfaction than the Olympiads.
Eventually the last snow melted and the violets and crocuses presented the first colors of spring as the noise of birds filled the branches on Court Street and in the expanse of the park. We peeled back some of the layers on our beds, and shed our coats for spring sweaters. As for me, I shifted my walking arrangements to gaze at the Victorians on Grand street once more, since the park offered the main visual course in the spring, and I had to get to school on time.
Our home, between Court and Grand street on 22nd was a white stuccoed Tudor with green trim. It fit oddly into the cross-section of building periods represented within a few square blocks. Directly across the street a large farmhouse and its' outbuildings occupied more space than the rest of the neighborhood lots, which had undoubtedly been carved from its' original acreage. Heading south around the corner on Grand were bookended Victorian era row houses, ambling and ample, some made into apartments. To the north, after a couple of lovely and graciously grounded Victorian homes, a succession of Arts and Crafts style Bungalows stretched on,and spread, seemingly in every direction for several miles. Court street had a few brick houses that seemed that seemed to have been more recently built, but by and large it was a '30's neighborhood all the way south to Mineral Palace Park. An abundance of trees of every kind and landscaping, fountains, and statuary, to complement different homes made any stroll interesting.
In the spring I preferred the walk past the Victorians toward Thatcher Elementary school. But in the winter nothing could possibly compare with the five block walk down Court Street through a tall cathedral of interlaced branches laden with icicles and an ample dusting of snow .
Leaving the warmth of our home and dressed in wool from head to toe, we would join the silent march of people, some as young as 5 and others as old as 18, headed toward our various schools. The high schoolers walked a full mile to the old Centennial High, and the Junior High, Freed, was something more than a half mile. If you were on the way to the elementary school you avoided the carefully shoveled walks and took your trek through the mounds of snow on either side of the walk in order to enjoy the muffled crunch of the snow as you packed it with your boot prints.
The few conversations were animated, but hushed in the winter, because the snow both insulated and amplified every sound. In the white silence, the occasional drip of ice melting from a roof or breathing of the earth beneath the snow pack left an anticipation of something inexpressible. Peace and quiet reigned. The work of living was shortened by the hours allowed by the sun. Crocus and violets were months away and I willed them dormant to allow plenty of time for this long respite the earth seemed to crave. Snow left a long trail toward Christmas and a school holiday. It made evenings by the fire place with popcorn or hot chocolate and Nat King Cole or Sing Along with Mitch, or, better, the piano and Christmas carols.
In the rituals of winter our mother scattered cornbread on the snow for the birds that failed to migrate, commenting on one particularly fat robin who had stayed behind. She hung our father's starched shirts on the line to freeze, their arms outstretched in a bizarre gesture satisfied only by the singed smell of the iron soothing away the wrinkles and restoring warmth. Periodically after a fresh snow a big enamel pan was filled with the white fluff, sugared, and vanilla flavored for "snow ice cream".
My brother considered it play to shovel the walk, at least at first, and the widow next door was given a free shoveling guaranteed by our parents. If the adults minded shoveling sidewalks or driveways, we were unaware. It was with a smile that our father took off his overcoat to inform us he had put chains on the tires.
The house was kept cold, except for the living areas and kitchen. Thawing was done in front of an open oven in the kitchen, the fireplace in the living room, or grate from the furnace. Drawn together by the warmth, we sang at the piano or watched television shows that presented our portion of the Camelot dream. Walter Cronkite assured us that we were all a part of a greater whole as we contemplated the changing times. The Lovely Lemon Sisters sang sweetly. Haws, Adam, and Little Joe, all failed to marry, but stayed close to Pa doing chores on the Ponderosa. And Captain Kangaroo kept the Treasure House ready for us when we awakened every morning.
Although there were furnace outlets in our bedrooms, we preferred our bedrooms cool, at least a half inch of window open to allow fresh air in the winter. Pajamas were flannel, quilts were wool and corduroy. Once in bed we could hardly turn over for the weight of quilts that took a while to warm to body temperature.
On weekends and during the holidays it was our joy to make forts for fabulous snowball fights. A good snow could provide a virtual empire of walls and fortresses, and an inexhaustible supply of snowball fights for the entire neighborhood. Some winters our growth outstripped our parents' budget, and the right size in boots or mittens was not on hand. Several layers of socks and plastic bags tied over our shoes (or hands, in the absence of mittens) enabled survival for battlefield forays.
If we were lucky, it was the year of the Wintertime Olympics. In that case, Mother celebrated with a batch of homemade yeast rolls and butter. Or Daddy popped corn in the little fireplace pan with a wooden handle. We were fortunate enough to have ice skates and after watching the graceful presentations on television, headed to the park to skate in less graceful patterns, but with no less satisfaction than the Olympiads.
Eventually the last snow melted and the violets and crocuses presented the first colors of spring as the noise of birds filled the branches on Court Street and in the expanse of the park. We peeled back some of the layers on our beds, and shed our coats for spring sweaters. As for me, I shifted my walking arrangements to gaze at the Victorians on Grand street once more, since the park offered the main visual course in the spring, and I had to get to school on time.
Friday, September 10, 2010
The Hills Were Alive
If the Heavens are the Throne of God, and the Earth His Footstool, then the Rocky Mountains must be the very spot where He rests His feet. When we were children, the hues of deep forest green and dusky blue pines and spruces, and the flickering of green aspen leaves against white and black trunks provided a tapestry of smells and sounds that refreshed and nourished our spirits. Thirsty for water pumped through rock formations that bade us drink for the taste of springs secreted deep in the earth, we filled our cups. The cold streams and rivers that ran in abundance provided the cleansing noise of rushing water spending itself against stones rounded with the effort of a million years. Falls spilling over magnificent cliffs terrified with constant thundering that this was Hallowed Ground. We were ancient as the woods and waters once settled within the canyon walls. We roamed and climbed, finding secret places of moss hidden beneath the long branches of shrubs at the water's edge.
Evergreen and Estes Park were places we frequented, but our father and mother loved the road and we searched out places like Rabbit Ears Pass and Steamboat Springs. In plateaus we found mining towns such as East Cliff, Middle Cliff, and West Cliff. We wandered through museums where our father talked with locals about UFO sightings reported there. Through the languid, pleasant years that seemed as though they could not possibly end, we explored both sides of the Continental Divide, witnessing the astonishing metamorphosis from forest to arid Pleocene bluffs
eerily brooding over dried seabeds now watered by two rivers.
We were at the pinnacle of Earth's diversity and beauty, and most precious of all, a family. The songs of road trips often came from Broadway musicals, frequently The Sound of Music, as my sister and I harmonized together. At the end of the day we would make the drive, long or short, back to our home, colors, sounds, and sensations memorized and implanted, a part now of our genetic makeup.
Evergreen and Estes Park were places we frequented, but our father and mother loved the road and we searched out places like Rabbit Ears Pass and Steamboat Springs. In plateaus we found mining towns such as East Cliff, Middle Cliff, and West Cliff. We wandered through museums where our father talked with locals about UFO sightings reported there. Through the languid, pleasant years that seemed as though they could not possibly end, we explored both sides of the Continental Divide, witnessing the astonishing metamorphosis from forest to arid Pleocene bluffs
eerily brooding over dried seabeds now watered by two rivers.
We were at the pinnacle of Earth's diversity and beauty, and most precious of all, a family. The songs of road trips often came from Broadway musicals, frequently The Sound of Music, as my sister and I harmonized together. At the end of the day we would make the drive, long or short, back to our home, colors, sounds, and sensations memorized and implanted, a part now of our genetic makeup.
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