N is for Newspapers

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

There's an old Southern saying that a lady's name should only appear in the newspaper three times: when she is born, when she is married, and when she dies.

I found these newspaper articles from when I was young that either prove that statement is false or that I apparently am no lady.

My senior year in high school, I was cast in the play Arsenic and Old Lace. We had a good many talented girls who auditioned, so the director made the decision to have a split cast, meaning each female role was played by two different casts. Each cast of girls performed for two nights with the boys performing all four nights. I played Martha Brewster, one of the two elderly sisters who made elderberry wine that was laced with arsenic and a pinch of strychnine and served it to unsuspecting gentlemen callers.

Front page of the Ruskin Highlight, baby!

Close up: Mike, Kenna, and me

That no being enough, I qualified to go to the State forensics competition, along with three others from our school's tournament forensics program. I competed in an area called Prose (also known as Storytelling) with a story from a book of parables called The Way of the Wolf that I loved. I performed a story called "Barrington Bunny."

Becky (still in contact with her), Tim, Nancy, me

I made the school newspaper twice when I taught elementary school in a very small town in the Ozarks. Kindergarten all the way through high school was housed in different wings of the same building, and since we were so close in proximity (and didn't have a newspaper of our own), the monthly high school newspaper always included an item or two about the elementary school as well. When I was first hired, I was interviewed as one of three new teachers in the building. Another time, I was pictured in a group of female teachers doing a dance routine at a benefit basketball game.

Teaching 4th grade. They were a great group.

I'm always the tall one.

Last, I found a photo of me and my co-worker that was submitted to the local newspaper when we were officers for our school's MSTA (Missouri State Teachers Association) chapter.

I have no idea who these men were, although I think the one
on the right may have been the state president. My co-worker
Patty and me in back (see? always the tall one)

Contact my publicist for interviews....

M is for McDonalds

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

My best friend Jane and I always looked forward to Friday nights when we were in high school. During school, Jane and I would discuss (through note passing, of course) who was driving, who we hoped to see while we were out, what we were wearing, etc., then later that evening, one of us would drive to the other's house and pick her up. 

No matter what we were doing that night, like going to a movie or a football or basketball game, we ended it by going to McDonalds, along with a large number of others from our school. Before we could go to McDonalds, however, we had to cruise through the Burger King parking lot to see which guys were there showing off their muscle cars that were backed into parking spaces around the perimeter of the parking lot, windows rolled down. Burger King's rule was they could park there, but they couldn't get out of their cars (no loitering, you know). I don't know how the place stayed in business, because none of the guys ever went in and bought anything, and there weren't many spaces to spare for diners to park and walk in (this was the days before drive-thrus). 

After checking out Burger King, we would drive the block or so down the road to McDonalds. We always took a lap through the parking lot before going inside, checking to see whose car was there and whose wasn't. Once inside, the place was popping. The rule at McDonalds was that you had to be sitting down in a booth and couldn't stand and talk (no loitering again), and I think you had to buy something, but my memory is sketchy on that. Doesn't matter, because we always got food: hamburger, small fry, medium Dr Pepper for me for $.94 (Jane's was $.99 because she got a cheeseburger). It was almost always crowded, and we would table hop, scooting into booths to visit with friends that we had just seen at school. It was our favorite social activity.

When I graduated from high school and found out my parents actually expected me to get a JOB, I figured I might as well work at McDonalds, because why not? Instead of applying at the one less than a mile from my house, however, I picked one 10 miles away, because I didn't want anyone I knew to come in while I was working. Jane then applied, too, and we worked together all that summer. It was my first job. 

We worked hard. There were no computerized cash registers then; we had an order pad, a pencil, and a tax chart, and I would hide my hand under the edge of the counter and count on my fingers when I was totaling an order. We had something like a minute to take an order, ring it up, and fill the order, and we were often timed by managers. Need a shake? Unless it was during the lunch rush, you had to make it yourself. MAKE it. Ice cream, milk, syrup in a cup, fit it on the mixer, and bzzzzzz it until it was smooth. It felt like it took forever AND YOU WERE BEING TIMED. The uniform was a hideous lime green, double knit fabric, and it always smelled like french fries.

I quit working at that McDonalds that fall when I moved to Springfield to go to college three hours away, but the following summer, I got another job at McDonalds, this time in Springfield, and I continued to work there until I graduated. Navy blue uniforms this time (much better), but it still smelled like a french fry. Most of the employees were college or high school students, and we had a lot of fun together, both at work and after. The store opened its first drive-thru right after I started, and they had computerized cash registers, so no more order pads and counting on my fingers! The first promotional game came out that first summer, with game pieces handed out with each order. Many of the game pieces held instant winner prizes of free food, so we stuck handfuls of game pieces in our socks while at work to open later at home (the managers were less subtle; they sat in the office and ripped them open, looking for free food prizes). Happy Meals had just come out, and we all had collections of the toys (socks again), and no, I don't have any of those anymore, but I did find this in a box in my bedroom closet:

And I don't care what anyone else says, sometimes NOTHING tastes better than a regular McDonalds hamburger and fries, and you won't make me change my mind. 

Frankly, My Dear and Other Thankfuls

April is halfway over tomorrow. Already! It's been a busy bloggy month with the A to Z Challenge AND the TToT, but I'm still hanging in there (barely) with both. If April is the cruelest month, it's only because it's BUSY.

1. The eclipse was pretty cool, and I'm thankful we lived in an area where we got 95% coverage. It didn't get as dark as I expected it would, given the dire warnings on all the news sources, but it did look like it was about to storm at the peak of the eclipse.

2. I'm thankful for the timing of the eclipse (thanks, Sun and Moon, for coordinating that), because it was during nap time at school. We gave every worker who wished to experience it the time to go outside and take in the view, and we had plenty of glasses to share.

Nikki and I enjoying how nice our necks look with
our heads tipped up like this to view the eclipse

3. Eclipse glasses reminds me to be thankful for my husband for going on the search for them the week before the eclipse, so we weren't scrambling to find them or getting price gouged over them.

4. I'm thankful for my friend Nikki for SOOOO many reasons, but this week, it was for helping with what turned out to be practically nothing but that I had built up to gargantuan proportions.

5. I'm also thankful she is going to go with me to get our toes did this week (you reading this, Nikki? My chips have chips!).

6. I got the opportunity to see "Gone With The Wind" at the movie theater this week, and I convinced three of my co-workers to go with me. If you've only seen it on a tv, you have no idea how spectacular this movie is on the big screen! It was Nikki's first time to see it at all, and she was not a fan of Scarlett O'Hara. Turns out, two of us were and two of us were not. Do you know which one I am? By the way, if you want to read about the FIRST time I saw Gone With The Wind, you can read it right here.

As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again!

Roll film, we're ready!

7. My class can drive me NUTS, but then there are other times when they make my heart melt. This week, as we were transitioning from lunch and potty time to our cots for naps (chaotic at BEST), a couple of them started singing, then a few more chimed in, and before I knew it, the sweet sounds of their voices filled the room. I asked them if they would like to sing a few songs every day before we turn out the lights and hear our bedtime story, and they unanimously said yes. Their favorite songs? Itsy, Bitsy Spider, Down By The Station, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Five Little Ducks. You know, typical children's songs. Oh, and the Mickey Mouse Club Theme Song. They have no idea what the Mickey Mouse Club was (and it was before my time, too, but I saw it in re-runs), but they LOVE it. So stinkin' cute!

8. My son and daughter in law celebrated their third wedding anniversary this week. I'm so thankful they found each other! 

9. My husband and I are in Kansas City this weekend to cat sit our grandcat Calvin while our daughter is out of town. We left our three cats home alone to come take care of the Little Prince. It was a good excuse to spend the weekend in KC and attend church in person, though, so we will come up and cat sit any time we can! 

10. Saturday, my husband and I spent the day going to thrift stores and looking for treasures, after a stop at Target for underpants because someone forgot to pack any and was NOT comfortable  going commando any longer than it took to go to the store, buy the underpants, and put them on in the women's bathroom.... We also had a fabulous Italian meal for lunch. KC friends - go to Nico & Ana's in Overland Park the first chance you get!

Baked rigatoni. Ahhh!

There is still plenty of time to join the Ten Things of Thankful blog hop. It doesn't end until midnight tonight! Let's go!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

L is for Love and Lovies

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

In "C is for Communication, 70s Style" I explained how my friends and I wrote and passed notes to each other at school. The notes always closed with "Love" or "Love ya" or something else of the sort, and that's where someone, somewhere, got creative and started closing notes with the overly cute "Love and Lollipops," which eventually was shortened to "Love and Lollies." My very good friend Jan and I frequently used the "Love and Lollies" closing on notes to each other.

Jan and I were in class together from 2nd grade all the way through college, and we are still friends. She was that person I could tell anything to, because she never judged. We lived two blocks from each other until my family moved to a new neighborhood after I finished 6th grade, but as we only moved a mile and a half away, it was pretty easy for me to hop on my bike and ride over to her house, where we would partake in one of our favorite things to do: ride together up to A&W and get root beer floats and french fries (the statute of limitations hasn't run yet on some of our other activities from when we were in high school and college, so those shall not be mentioned at this writing, if ever). 

One day while we were in high school, Jan was writing me a note during class. She sat next to a boy named Rick Lamar, and as she was writing, he was leaning over and reading what she wrote. When she got to the saccharine "Love and Lollies" closing, he said, "Love and LOVIES?!" What's THAT supposed to mean?  

"It doesn't say 'love and lovies'! It says 'love and LOLLIES," she explained, then she added a footnote to my note along the lines of "that moron thought it said 'Love and Lovies.'"

From that moment on, Jan and I signed all notes and other correspondence to each other by closing with "Love and Lovies" which then evolved to "Love and Rick Lamar" and finally to "Love and RL." 

Those notes were from maybe 1976.

These are Facebook posts from the past year:

I'm positive Rick has no idea the legacy he created when he was being nosy that day over 46 years ago, but we will never forget.

Me and Jan, college graduation, 1982

Out on the town, 2022

K is for Kamp

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

We didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up, but in spite of that, every summer, we took one week a family vacation to Branson, Missouri. We stayed in a cabin at a fishing resort called Blue Haven, located on the shore of Lake Taneycomo. The original cabins were probably built in the 1940s and the newer ones in the late 1950s. There were about 30 one and two bedroom cabins, with 20 of them located on the lake. The floors were linoleum, the sofa beds were gray vinyl, and each cabin had a tiny kitchenette and a dining room table and a window air conditioner. The main attraction was a large, covered dock (they later added a second, smaller dock) for trout fishing, and on the other side of the cabins was a large pool with a diving board and slide; a second, smaller pool was added by the time I was in high school. I thought the place was magnificent, and I wished we could live there.

Photo of an old postcard from Blue Haven. The top photo 
is a view of the cabins from the pool; the bottom is the dock.
The back side of these cabins face the dock and are
obscured by the trees in this photo.

Many of Blue Haven's guests returned year after year at the same time and stayed in the same cabin each year, and many friendships were forged because of it. I met a girl named Mary Lou there in the early 1970s. She was from St. Louis, and our families vacationed there at the same time for many years (and she and I are still in contact with each other). The typical pattern for most families was the dads fished all day and the moms and kids played at the pool and took trips into town to visit local attractions like The Doll House and Silver Dollar City. There were barbeque grills available, and a walk along the sidewalk in front of the cabins in the early evening would reveal hamburgers cooking on the grills and families eating supper inside the snug little cabins. Mallard ducks would come ashore, and kids would feed them bread. Some of my happiest memories are from staying at Blue Haven, and I looked forward to our week every year.

The summer of 1974, my brother had a summer job and didn't want to go on vacation with us, so my parents let me invite a friend to Blue Haven. I chose my friend Liz to go with me. My mom drove us into town to visit the tourist attractions, and when we weren't doing that, we were at the pool, playing with the other kids. We also hung out in the resort's office with the owner, Jerry Acton, whom Liz mistakenly called Elmer Corn when she met him and which became the name we called him all that week (and for years to come). 

Now, the road that took you to Blue Haven passed a large summer camp, or Kamp as it was called there. The girls camp was called Kamp Kanakomo and the boys camp was Kamp Kanakuk. Sessions were a minimum of 6 weeks, and it was rumored most of the kampers hailed from Texas and came from families with lots of oil money.  One afternoon, Liz and I decided we would check things out at the ol' Kamp, meaning try to look at boys (we were 14 at the time). We walked down the narrow road and back and forth in front of the iron gates, hoping for a glimpse, but all we saw were little boys and an occasional counselor. Mission foiled.

Get in the Time Machine with me and travel to 1989. My parents had continued to vacation at Blue Haven every summer since the early 1970s, even after both my brother and I were grown and flown. They had an epiphany (and more money, since my dad had taken over my grandpa's farm supply store ten years earlier) and bought a house on Lake Taneycomo a couple of miles away from Blue Haven and on the opposite side of the lake. 

Guess what's right across from the lake house? Kamp Kanakuk!

Guess who recently moved into the house two doors down from the lake house? Elmer Corn!

Full circle.

Liz on the left, me on the right (sporting a halter top I SEWED MYSELF), sitting on the front porch of our cabin at Blue Haven. The girl in the center was named Mary,
and we played with her and her brother at the pool all week.

J is for Just A Memory

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

It was September of 1975 and my friend Rose's 15th birthday, and the plan was for Julie, Dana, Rose and me to celebrate by attending a special showing of "Gone With The Wind" at a movie theater across town. 

Since we weren't old enough to drive, my mom agreed to take drive us. She recruited her friend Marilyn to go with her, and we picked up Julie and Dana, who lived in our neighborhood, then off to Rose's house. The Birthday Girl climbed into the car, settled into her seat, and announced, "Today, I am sensuous!" My mom started laughing so hard, I thought she was going to drive into a ditch.

My mom and Marilyn opted to sit elsewhere in the theater while we four girls picked seats nearer the screen. The theater was crowded, and as we found seats and made our way down the row, we spied a couple we knew from school sitting in the back of the theater. They were older than we were and kind of an "it" couple, so we did what any other group of 15 year old girls would do: pulled our mirror-backed keychains out of our purses and spied on them until the show on the screen started.

Once the film began, we forgot about Steve and Carrie in the back of the theater making out and were enthralled with the movie. I had read the book, but seeing the story brought to life on the screen was magical. Happy Birthday, Rose!

Since that night, I have seen "Gone With The Wind" several times on tv, and I even owned a VHS copy of it, but I have no independent recollection of seeing it on the big screen again after Rose's birthday.

Fast forward 48 years to Monday of this week.

I saw an ad for a special showing of "Gone With The Wind" at out local theater (an incredibly crappy theater that had a chance to clean the goo off the floors, fix the seats, and generally spruce the place up during Covid but didn't, so it still has sticky floors and smells like feet) and invited a couple of my co-workers to attend with me. The theater wasn't crowded like the last time I saw the movie; in fact, there weren't more than 15 people in our showing. There was no young couple making out in the back of the theater for us to spy on, the popcorn was disappointing, we were out WAY past our bedtimes to see a four-hour film, the floor was definitely sticky and the place smelled like feet.

But I believe that Scarlett O'Hara still reigns, that watching a movie on your television is no substitute for the big screen, and that Rose is still sensuous!

Rose, the sensuous 15 year old

Julie

Me

I couldn't find Dana's school picture,
so this pic of the two of us will have to do

I is for I'm A Barbie Girl

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood..

I saw the Barbie movie with my daughter. She cried when it was over, so moved was she by the message of empowerment of women. I thought it was a nice movie (and I may or may not have dozed off for part of it, but we did go to a late showing), but my thoughts were very different from my 25 year old daughter's. 

My daughter grew up with the girls-can-be-anything Barbie. The original Barbie, which came out the year before I was born, was a teenage babysitter. I don't remember receiving my first Barbie, but I was probably around 5 when I got her. She had a bouffant hairdo, and my mom found her a whole wardrobe (including a nurse's uniform, complete with navy blue cape) at a garage sale. 

Poor girl. Think of all the time she spent under
the hairdryer to get that look! (not my doll)

Not mine, but the ones I had were just like this.

I got Barbie's little sister Skipper next, followed by my first Barbie with bendable knees. Malibu Barbie, Malibu Francie, and Malibu Skipper came along after that, along with a Stacy doll. Another couple of Skippers joined the group after that. 

Instead of the Barbies all living in their own homes and living their own lives as depicted in the movie, my Barbies were a family, and I played house with them (fyi: NONE of them were named "Barbie;" I renamed every one of them). I also added a few small dolls to be baby sisters, and I logged hundreds of hours playing with all of them. 

Barbie Dream House? I didn't have one. I took the four Barbie cases I owned and set them up in a semi-circle to be an open floor plan house. Barbie Convertible? I WISHED I had one, but it wasn't practical for such a large family anyway, so the larger Barbie case I used as a living room doubled as the family's station wagon.

I longed for a Ken to be the dad, but I didn't have one for a number of Barbie-playing years. I had to pretend Ken was at work, and when I finally received a Malibu Ken, he then had to double as the dad and as the boyfriend to the oldest sister. 

I made their wardrobes by cutting out wraparound skirts with tunic tops made from scrap fabric and tied at the waist with a piece of yarn. Eventually, I figured out how to make pants by hand sewing them, and Ken got a bitchin' new outfit.

And my original Barbie? I put baby powder in her hair and made her the grandma.

I wish I had my Barbies to show you, but they met an unfortunate end in the Great Sewer Pipe Break in my parents' basement many years ago. Here's what survived:

The living room/station wagon

Ken in his double-knit, houndstooth leisure suit.
Eat your heart out, Ryan Gosling!

I also found this book (it was never in the basement so it is in pristine condition!):

The inside cover of the book, inscribed to me
from my Grandma, who passed away in 1968
when I was seven years old.

My daughter and I may have played Barbies completely differently, but for each of us, they were just what we needed at the time.