from the porches

JFK funeral

The other day I was at my psychologist's office and picked up a People Magazine.  There was an article written by Jackie Kennedy's bodyguard.  As I read the the article, I was rocketed back to 1963, the year John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

My first husband and I were students at the University of Tennessee back then.  I was doing an elementary internship in third grade at an elementary school in Knoxville when the news broke about JFK's assassination.  I remember it well.  The principal rapped on my classroom door, entered, and then whispered, "The President has been killed."  She then looked at my third graders and told them. . . and they clapped.  Eight year olds, back then, did not know what assassinated meant.  So that became a teachable moment.

What a shock!  There was nothing I could do.  Nothing the nation could do at the time, except mourn the loss of our President.  Immediately, life stood still.  Businesses closed.  Schools closed.  The Nation was in shock.

My husband and I, and our closest couple friends, decided to attend the funeral of John F. Kennedy.  We packed the car, loaded up and headed for D.C.  When we arrived on the day of the funeral procession, Sandra and I changed from pants into our black dresses, black hose and pillbox hats, with black veils covering our faces.

We stood along Pennsylvania Avenue that day.  We watched the funeral procession from ten feet away as  Charles DeGaulle, Jon Jon, Jackie Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and other dignataries walked that Avenue.  We cried that day.  Our nation cried that day.

Later we visited the Capitol's Rotunda and touched the casket; and the following day, we visited the grave site.

I told my fourth grade students in Fort White this story once and had a parent tell her child that I lied.  She said I wasn't old enough to have gone to that funeral.  Well, I guess I have to give the credit to Mary Kay products because I was there.

Check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8LmBGiEURA&feature=related

 

 

remembering: sophisticated drink

 

 

I was talking with my twin on the telephone recently and we started remembering our younger days.  After sharing several stories with Sherry, I asked, "Do you remember my first drink...my first alcoholic beverage?"   Sherry laughed and said, "I'll never forget your first drink.  And then she added, "That night we laughed so hard we cried."

  

This is how the story unfolded:

I had moved to Louisville, Kentucky after my divorce from my first husband.  Sherry was seperated from her husband for a few weeks;  so we moved into an apartment together on Knob Hill. We both had jobs; but times were tough, much like in today's time.  We lived paycheck to paycheck, with little left over for entertainment. 

Sherry and I were not  "party people".  We were good, moral, Tennessee girls looking for one night out on the weekend so we could feel connected with real life happening out there in the real world...a world that I really didn't know anything about.  However, we did know one thing.  We wanted to feel special and sophisticated. So we decided to go out to dinner at the Standiford Airport in Louisville, Kentucky. 

 The airport restaurant was not a raucus place.  Interesting people flying to and from excotic places might be dining in the restaurant; plus it wasn't far from our apartment so the costs were low.  That one particular Saturday night Sherry and I put on our Sunday dresses and high heels and off we drove to the airport.   

 Candles flickered throughout the restaurant much like lightning bugs in the woods on a dark night.  A lone pink flower perched upright in its glass vase, looking all pretty at us.  Soft background Marvin Gay music filled our ears.  Lovers were dotted throughout the restaurant.  One night stands huddled in the dark recesses of the airport restaurant.

Pretty soon, Sherry  asked, "Would you like a drink?"  I thought about it for about ten seconds and said, "I've never had a drink.  I don't know what to order."  (I was 27 years old, for God's sake!  See how goody two-shoes I was?)  Then I told Sherry to order for me.  So she did.  She ordered each of us a screwdriver.  People that's vodka and orange juice!  But somehow, in my mystical state of mind I saw it as a pretty drink.  Did it have a pink umbrella in it?  I don't remember. All I remember was . . . it was pretty.

 

My drink was placed in front of me and my heart fluttered slightly.  The drink was soooo pretty with the two tiny straws jutting out of it.  "Here goes," I must have said.  And I bent my head down to sip from the two tiny straws; and then you will not believe what happened!

 

When I jerked my head up, those two tiny straws were stuck in each of my nostrils!   I am pretty sure I looked like a walrus, because I felt like a walrus with two tusks jutting from it's snout.  Then Sherry and I started laughing.  We laughed so hard, tears rolled down our cheeks.  We don't remember the steak we ordered.  We don't remember another single thing about that sophisticated night, other than laughing. 

I do remember one thing, however.  I didn't feel sophisticated, and I made a memory that has lasted for forty-four years, give or take one or two.

the pink dress & goiters

I have to share the goiter story.  My Mama's goiter story.  You see.  Mom and I sit on my porch and she relives her youth and so do I.  It's also interesting to hear "her truth vs my truth".

I've told you for years now that I am not a good cook.  Plain and simple.  I don't add salt.  But, wait! Tonight I dumped a good amount of salt in my hand to sprinkle on the salmon I was cooking.  I gingerly added salt to the salmon and tossed the remaining heaping amount of salt into the sink.  But I had good intentions.  Really.  I did.  But, then again, it all goes back to my mother's goiter.

 It all started when my Mom was about 31 years old and Sherry and I were around ten or eleven.  Mom and Dad rode a bus from Trenton, Tennessee to Memphis so a doctor could look at my mom's swollen neck...a goiter.  A huge growth strangling her windpipe.  (Well, that's the story we took with us anyway). 

That day Mom and Dad left three children alone in a spooky three-story house.  Mom says that when she and my dad got home, all of the lights were on...lit up just like a Christmas tree.  But, folks...that scary night is a whole other blog.  Now, back to the goiter.

What?  The same photograph?  Yes, indeedy.  On mom's next appointment to have her goiter removed, she took me and Sherry. I remember the bus trip well because of our lovely pink homemade seersucker dresses. 

Anyway, as the story continues, I used to picture the doctors slitting Mom's throat.  After all, we grew up in the days of Blackbeard the Pirate. I heard mention that salt had something to do with Mom's goiter growing and ultimate surgery; and from that day on, I refused to add salt on any of my food.  Believe me, attempting to cook around my house has caused me much distress because of the lack of salting when I prepared a meal. But, that's not a bad thing.  Truett took over that responsibility and I was happy!

However, whatever is instilled in a kid's brain . . . remains in that brain, whether it is the truth or not. As an adult, I learned that iodized salt prevented the growth of goiters.  So I had it all wrong all of my life.

 Tonight Mom and I were discussing her goiter operation and then she said, "Well, the reason you got it all wrong was because you had a hearing problem!"

"A hearing problem?" I asked.

"Yes, don't you remember riding the bus to Jackson, Tennessee and having steel rods inserted in your nose for radium treatments?"

Radium treatments in the 50's  That sounds like something off of The Twilight Zone.  And I did remember.  But, what I remembered most was wearing the same pink dress that I wore when Mom got her throat slit! 

And I still don't use salt. 

They will never convince me on that one!

fearing the switch

 

A couple of days ago I got a new hair cut.  It's cute but short, short, short, especially at the crown.  What I've noticed by looking in the mirror at the back of my hair is my two-inch scar on the crown of my head! 

My hair is sticking up like a rooster tail. Now most beauticians may think I have a cowlick on the crown of my head, but it's not a cowlick.  It is a long white zipper scar.   Here's how the story went:

 
When I was around six years old my mom and dad were adding an addition to their little house. In the side yard was a pile of grey concrete blocks, neatly stacked.  Back then my sister, my younger brother, and I would take our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches outside to eat. . .a picnic, if you will.

 
On this particular day the three of us children were given explicit directions from my mother, "Do NOT climb on the concrete blocks!" 

So I didn't. 

I sat on the sole concrete block resting on the ground at the bottom of the tower of concrete blocks because like most children of the 50's, I feared the switch.

 
But not my three year old brother or twin sister. 

Oh, no. 

They climbed straight to the top of the concret block tower and proceeded to eat their PB&J sandwiches.

Stupid me! 

I should have climbed up the blocks as well because the next thing I knew a concrete block bounced off my head and skidded down my little brown back. (Back in the 50's children didn't have to wear shirts, especially if you lived in the boondocks).

 
I let out a scream and Mama came running.  Of course she could see the scrape marks on my back as she tilted me over and then . . .and then she noticed blood dripping out of my head.

We had no car back then so Mama bundled us up, tied a kerchief over my head and we walked a mile to the city bus stop.  The whole while I was crying.  My twin was crying, and my little brother was crying.  We must have been a sight on that city bus.

Now you do realize no one had the right to really cry except me; and I highly suspect the reason my siblings were crying was the fear of the switch because they knew I would tell Mama that they climbed to the top of the concrete block tower.

 
And then an odd thing happened.  My mama gave my brother and sister a dime to stop crying and causing people to stare. 

Now tell me.  Does that sound right to you?  Why didn't I get a dime?

The rest is a blur.  I suppose I made it to the doctor with my head in a kerchief.  I suppose they stitched up my head, and I assume we rode the city bus back to the country.

But what I am definitely clear about is: I did the right thing by fearing the switch and now sixty-one years later, I have what appears to be a cow lick on the top of my crown and my hair just will not lay down!

 

 

and the rest is history

The other day I found an old photograph of me holding Merry Jennifer.  As I looked at the photograph a story came to mind. . . a story about my curly hair. 

It all began like this:

Truett and I were living in Savannah, Georgia.  At the time, my hair was long.  So long it came to the middle of my back.  It had been growing for years and years and years.

Well, we were walking in the Oglethorpe Mall one evening, listening to Bob Dylan over the mall intercom.  Then I saw a young woman pass me with short, curly hair.  Just like Bob Dylan's.

I told Truett, "That's how I want my hair.  I'm going to ask her where she got it cut."

"Fine," Truett answered.

So I sprinted to the girl, tapped her on the back and said, "May I ask you where you got your hair done?" 

The girl said, "I did it myself."

I told her I wanted my hair to look just like hers. . .and Bob Dylan's, and asked,  "Will you do mine like that?  I'll pay you."

"Sure," she answered; and with that I took her back to meet Truett and Merry Jennifer, our only child at the time.

Evidentally, the young woman needed money so she asked if I wanted my hair done now.

"YES!"  I exclaimed.

And the rest is history.  We hopped in our car and followed the woman to her apartment; and two hours later I had the perfect hair cut.

Boy, times have changed.  Not only with hair styles, but with trust in strangers.
 

missing fingerprints

Tonight's post has nothing to do with my mom, wisteria, or thistle in any way.  Tonight's subject is about me having a lack of fingerprints.  So obviously, since I have no identifiable fingerprints, I cannot show you any pictures of something I don't have.

It all started a couple of months ago when I went to get my fingerprints taken at the High Springs Police Department.  Well, the officer took each finger on my hands and rolled them in the ink.  Then he pressed my fingers one-by-one onto a fingerprint card.

Meanwhile, Truett's prints weren't so good, so the Officer signed a piece of paper that basically said, "That's the best we can get."

But back to my story.  We mailed our fingerprint cards to Tallahassee and waited for several weeks to get our "carrying" permits.  (Yes.  I now own a pistol of my own. . .a Pink Lady).  A couple of weeks later I get a letter from the State of Florida saying my fingerprints were unreadable, illegible; and I needed to have them taken again.

Crap!  I hate going in police stations. Police officers are so official and powerful, especially when you're the driver of a vehicle and for probable cause they could pull you over, turn on those flashing blue lights, and humiliate you in front of God and everybody.  (It's only happened to me once, but I was speeding so he had probable cause).  But, I digress.

  
 I trudged back to the High Springs Police Department where another officer took my fingerprints.  Then he said, "Mam, do you work with your hands?

"Me?"  I asked.  "Never!"

"Well, mam.  You must have some kind of job that has destroyed your fingerprints.  What do you do?"

"Officer," I said.  "I am an elementary school teacher.  I have taught school for forty-six years."

"That's it!" he exclaimed.  "That many years of chalk dust has rubbed your fingerprints off!" 

 
"Well, if I don't have any fingerprints, then the lack thereof should be proof that those fingerprints are mine," I reasoned.

"It doesn't work that way, mam," he answered.  Then the officer added,  "I'll just fill out a card and you attach it to the fingerprint card and that should do it for you."

"Okay," I answered and walked out into the real world wondering why my lack of fingerprints couldn't just be my fingerprints."

Makes sense to me.

 

pink dogwood dilemma

I don't look at the beautiful dogwood trees without remembering an incident I had when I taught in Savannah, Georgia.  

When I went to University of Tennessee, each spring the dogwoods bloomed.  White ones and pink ones.  

Well, when I was teaching in Savannah, under my first woman principal, I had a real eye-opener.  Each teacher was responsible for the office bulletin board that greeted parents.  My turn was in April, right during dogwood blossom time.

So I took coke bottle tops, rounded-cut pink tissue paper strips about two inches long, layered and glued the tissue strips in the opening of the bottle cap and put a yellow construction center on each 3-D pink dogwood blossom.  Then I carefully cut brown strips for the branches of the tree and glued each 3-D blossom to the tree limbs.  Kapow!  The bulletin board was gorgeous!

Two days went by and I got compliment after compliment on my beautiful bulletin board. 

Except for one person: the principal. 

She called me in her office and told me to "Take that down.  You are misleading our students.  There is no such thing as a pink dogwood."  I argued with her for a little bit and told her I could prove that there were pink dogwood blossoms.

At which point I called someone (I'm thinking it was my twin), and said,  "Mail me a pink dogwood blossom."  And I explained my predicament.

The pink dogwood blossom arrived in a white jewelry box covered with white tissue paper.  I showed my principal and she responded, "That's fine.  But pink dogwoods don't bloom in Savannah, so take that bulletin board down."

"Yes, mam," I answered.  Then I put up some store bought poster of "Spring" and labeled it "Spring", and immediately applied to teach at a different school. 

Sometimes, for the fun of it, I look at my white dogwood blossoms across my driveway and imagine they're pink.

So there!

 
 

did you know-betty crocker

To continue my story about being a testing representative for Proctor & Gamble, I was also a testing representative for Betty Crocker.

You have to go back to St. Ann's Catholic Church basement in Louisville, Kentucky in the late 60's.  Betty Crocker was testing out new brownie mix.  Brownies with nuts. Brownies with chocolate chips, and chewy brownies.

Anyway, these housewives, who had no "outside the house" job, came and picked up their brownie mixes. 

A week later, they reported to representatives who asked various questions about the brownies.  Did you like the flavor?  Rate the taste 0-10.  Should the mix be darker?  Lighter? etc.

So a woman came in and stated she was ready to fill out the questionnaire. 

"Fine," I thought and I led her to a private table.  Then the interview began:

Me: Did you like the brownies?

Her:  Yes.

Me:  Was it light and fluffy enough?

Her:  Well, I actually didn't eat them.  I'm on a diet.

People..I went balistic. 

What?  You never tested the brownies, yet you promised to cook them exactly as printed on the box and taste them.

The conversation went further:

Her:  My brother ate them.

By now I knew something was fishy in Denmark.  So I proceeded to tattle on this lady for falsifying information.

Needless to say, a couple of days later, Betty Crocker didn't need me anymore.

Does it always pay to have a moral and ethical conviction?

did you know #2-tide

Did you know I once worked a summer job as a test marketer for Proctor and Gamble and Betty Crocker?

That's right. 

I did a fine job with Proctor & Gamble; but Betty Crocker  really didn't want me because I was just too honest.

Here's how it all played out:

I needed extra money one summer in the late '60's, so I read the want ads in the Louisville Courier Journal. 

Then, low and behold, someone needed people to test new products.  Okay.  Not test the products but supervise the testing of new products.  And not even new products . . .just the packaging of products.

All of this testing took place in a basement of a Catholic Church.  I was hired to oversee the testing process, so I sat there with my clipboard (feeling very powerful, of course, since I was hired by Proctor & Gamble) and I wrote down housewives' names and comments as they tried the newest, new-fangled products that were being  test-marketed.

Tide:  That was the first product I watched these housewives try out.  Oh, yes.  There were twenty or more colors of Tide that the volunteer customers filled out a survey about.  The range of the Tide colors was from white to purple, reds, greens, even aqua and black!  All lined up in tiny cups on a table with numbers beneath them.

All the housewives had to do was make a judgment about color and effectiveness of the color of Tide, fill out a questionnaire, and give it to me.

I was always amazed that the everyday housewife  thought a black Tide product would get out the heaviest dirt.  You know.  Worn denims and overalls smeared in motorcycle  or tractor grease.  But they also believed that the violet and robin's egg blue colors of Tide worked best on baby throw-up.  Go figure.

I had not remembered this part time job until I went to Winn Dixie yesterday and was bombarded by the various colors of Tide caps at Winn Dixie.   I was so exasperated because I couldn't find my original jug of Tide. . .the one with the black top that cleaned EVERYTHING out of your clothes.  EVERYTHING!

Finally, I found the jug I needed; but the cap was dark blue, not black.

And that's when I was teleported back to the late 60's in the basement of that Catholic Church, filling out questionairs about potential buyer's thoughts and feelings about Proctor and Gamble products.

  So here's my question:  "Has it taken thirty-five years for all these "trial product packagings" to reach middle America?"

I'm saving the Betty Crocker story for another day.

did you know. . .pantsuits

I have decided to add a new category to my blog site.  It will be called Did you know. 

Truett's daughter, Tina, and her son, Will, have been visiting us since Friday; so much of our conversations have been remembering the way things were. 

Tina is a teacher in Chicago, so many of our stories revolve around educational issues and anecdotes about life in the classroom. 

This is one story I like to tell:

Did you know I was responsible for changing the dress attire in Jefferson County, Indiana? 

In the late '60's all teachers wore dresses; but to the dismay of the administration, the '60's brought about the evolution of the mini skirt.  Women educators had old fogey dresses to choose from, or if they chose to be "in style", they bought mini skirts conceived by Mary Quant in 1966.

Well, in 1970 I was young and paper thin, so I was a prime candidate for the mini skirt.  I had a whole closet full of these tiny little skirts.  Little did I know the quandry I put my principal and other staff members in, especially the more seasoned educators.

I would wear my mini skirts because that was my only wardrobe. . .except for the latest fashion  statement of 1970: pantsuits, which hung longingly in my closet until the weekends. 

You see, pantsuits were a no/no in Jefferson County, Indiana in the early '70's, as well as all across America.  After all, how could a pantsuit possibly represent a respected member of society. . .an educator.  (I go lightly on the word "respected", because I'm not certain educators have ever been respected.)

Nonetheless, I wore mini skirts to work every day.  Then sometime about October 0f 1970, I found a newspaper article in my school mailbox telling about a teacher who had been fired for not dressing appropriately, ie., she wore a mini skirt that was too short.

For weeks I found new newspaper articles indicating teachers from California to New Jersey, Tennessee to Texas...all across our great nation, teachers were being fired for this terrible obscene display of legs.

I was young and never, not once, not one mili-second did I think I was being singled out.  But I was.

During breaks a few of my friends and I would discuss the dilemma we were in as buyers of fashionable clothing; and we also knew we couldn't wear pantsuits, which we preferred. 

At faculty meetings every Wednesday, the mini skirt/pantsuit issue was discussed; and some of us pleaded with our male principal to allow us to wear pantsuits.  After all, pantsuits would not put us in jeopardy of being fired.  But time and again, we were told,  "It's against school board policy.

Well, one afternoon I was called into the principal's office.  I thought this meeting was about a student who had been disruptive in my classroom.  But, generally, this was the message from my principal: 

"I have had many complaints about the shortness of your mini skirts, plus, you work on the second floor of our old school, (George Rogers Clark Elementary School,) and I don't know what to do about that.  All the little boys stand at the bottom of the stairs just so they can look up your dress."

"What?"  I answered in shock.  (I had seen no boys lingering at the bottom of the stairs).

My principal went on further:  "So I give you permission to wear pantsuits."

I think I leapt out of the chair and thought about hugging his neck because that was the perfect answer to our dilemma.  I wanted to wear pantsuits.  We all did.

So the next morning I wore my nice red pantsuit to work . . .and the school was abuzz.  "Did you know...Did you see...Did you hear about..."

But the story doesn't end there.  No siree, Bob.

The second day NO skirts were seen worn by teachers on that school campus.  EVERY female including office staff, paraprofessionals, and teachers proudly donned the most fashionable women's wear:  THE PANTSUIT!  Well, maybe not the seasoned teachers who still wore old fogey dresses.

And that's the story to the best of my knowledge.  Nothing is fabricated except maybe the exact words spoken by the principal.