My husband, Ed, and I started running marathons again two years ago after a 12-year hiatus. I actually promised myself in 1995 when I ran the one before the break that it would be my last. After that race, I was in such pain that it took months to recover. I explained to numerous inquiries about my limp that I had been ignorant enough to do a marathon, twice. However due to many factors—a knee strap, stupidity, masochism, and a desire to relive that marathon high—two years ago, we got back in the game and ran the Dallas White Rock Marathon . Since that time, we have done the New York City Marathon, the Oklahoma City Marathon and last weekend, the San Antonio Marathon. We thought the OKC Marathon, billed as the Run to Remember for the victims of the 1995 bombing, was horrible—with 30 mph head winds and 70 degree temperatures, but that was nothing compared to the 94% humidity and 80 degree temperatures in San Antonio. I’ve discovered that the challenge in running marathons is that the decision is made and the money paid three months before the run. And I’m definitely too cheap to drop out because of a little bad weather
It was a quick trip because I had to save what vacation days I had left for the Christmas holidays. We departed Dallas on Saturday morning, November 14, 2009 at about 9:00 a.m. We have a relatively new Prius and haven’t quite figured out the navigation system, so we didn’t understand why PETA (our personal trip advisor) kept trying to deter us from the interstate and direct us to the 8-hour back-roads route instead. We finally realized why she was being so obstinate (we told her no freeways); and once we changed that setting, she didn’t bug us as much.
We are always apprehensive about an upcoming race and so try to eat right and limit our activity the day before—absolutely no running and a limited amount of walking and alcohol. But once we arrived at our destination, the Red Roof Inn, we were obligated to hike the mile to the Expo at the Alamo Dome to pick up our packets and get our freebies. It was definitely hot which made us extra nervous about our chances for good weather the following day.
The Expo was similar to most—get your number, get your shirt, get your goody bag—and then spend a fortune on Marathon gear. The prices were mostly outrageous although there was a selection of warm, cuddly jackets that were only $42. Luckily I wasn’t looking great that day, and the jacket I tried on didn’t do much for me, so I saved myself some money. We bought a nice poster for $20 that we will frame and put with the others on the Wall of Fame in our recreation room.
At the Expo, we spent a good portion of our time looking for the MGD 64 booth. Runners were required to present their photo ID in order to get a bracelet that allowed them a free beer at the finish line. This was to insure no beer was served to minors. After drinking Shiner Bock, MGD 64 tastes like piss-water; and I don’t see why anyone would be worried about a few calories after running that far, but it was the only choice available. I figured even piss-water would hit-the-spot after 26.2 miles.
We were told at the Expo that most San Antonio restaurants near downtown had sold-out for the evening. That’s what 32,000 people will do to a city. We had elected not to participate in the $15/each pasta dinner in San Antonio because in OKC the servings were small—kid-meal size—and we were afraid of a repeat of that. So we made a reservation at a pizza restaurant (the closest we could get to pasta) ten miles from downtown. It turned out to be a lucky choice even though we had to drive; and, once again, PETA came in handy. When we arrived at our destination, a place not very appetizingly-called “Dough”, there was a line a mile long out the door. We sailed in with our reservation and were seated almost immediately—at the Chef’s Table, no less—where we could watch with fascination, the pizzas being prepared and cooked in a wood-burning oven. The pizza was to-die-for and the apple crisp topped with vanilla bean ice cream literally out-of-this-world. Satiated, we turned out the lights at 8:30 p.m.
We were up well before dawn and checked out of the hotel by 5:00 a.m. Bad omen—before we left the hotel, a runner in the lobby stepped outside and remarked that the sweatshirts we were wearing would not be necessary. A t-shirt was plenty—serious problem. We also had had a serious problem with the shuttle in OKC and wouldn’t have made it to the start line had it not been for the kindness of strangers from Ft. Worth. As the start line was 2.5 miles from our hotel, we wanted to make sure we didn’t have to walk that before running the 26.2. We needn’t have worried. When we got to the shuttle stop, there were busses and runners lined up for miles. The runners, in conga-line style, started, stopped and snaked around numerous times before being deposited at the door of the bus. After nearly an hour, we were safely on our way to our destination and our destiny.
Once at the start line and in the corral which positioned us according to projected finish time, we waited for the Star-Spangled Banner and the sound of the gun, and waited, and waited, and waited. The start was a “wave start” to spread out the field so once the gun sounded, we still had another 35 minutes until we were actually off. There are inherent problems with the wave start. In addition to having to wait forever to start, you never know how you’re doing because the clocks on the course start before you do. To make matters worse, when you’re finished, your time looks much worse than it actually was; and that time is captured in your victory photo as you cross the finish line. It makes me wonder why anyone would buy one of those pictures and why they even bother to take them.
Finally we were running and it felt exhilarating. There were few spectators for the first mile or so; but after that, they hung out in droves in some areas while other areas were relatively dead. Because it was a Rock-N-Roll Marathon, bands blared and stomped at least every mile and the music lifted my spirits and put a spring in my step. At mile 2.25, we passed the Alamo; at mile 6.5, San Pedro Park and mile 9, the King William District. Ed and I had been running together from the beginning. A couple times he had told me to slow down, and believe me, I tried; but I felt too good. I finally left Ed during mile 10 right before the half marathon split off. At that time I was confident and going strong.
I felt absolutely marvelous and that I could run forever. As I ran, I was calculating my finish time in my head based on the 11-minute pace I was running. If I kept it up, I would achieve my goal of a 4:45 marathon. I was writing this story in my head projecting my elation and surprise at how wonderful I felt and how wonderful I did—NOT! How often have I told the kids, “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” This was a classic case of that.
I continued to feel good and click off the miles. Mile 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17—still felt good. I kept to my pace although it was starting to heat up. When the run began, it was in the high 60’s or low 70’s. By mile 18, the temperature was approaching 80. The sun had burned through the clouds and began to beat down mercilessly. I lost a minute during mile 18 and another one during 19. After that, I hit the wall hard! It was brutal and devastating. I walked and ran the last 7 and finished in 5:09. I did manage to run the entire last mile although it took every ounce of my remaining strength. As I crossed the finish line, I felt elation at having finished and also elation at being able to stop! I sat on the curb with my feet in a puddle waiting for Ed. He finished in 5:32. He was right—we should have gone slower in the beginning!
After drinking a bottle of water and washing off with an ice-cold washcloth (wisely given at the finish line instead of the usual insulating heat sheets), we got our picture taken with our medals. We meandered to the beer tent and I downed that piss-water in record time. We picked up bananas and energy bars, but what we were aching for was real food. Wasting no time, we hobbled the mile back to the hotel, picked up our suitcases from the lobby and walked to the car. When I took off my shoes to change into sandals, I guessed I would lose the big toenail on my right foot and the second toenail on my left. But hey, like one of the signs on the course said, “Toenails are overrated!”
The week before, I had called the YMCA closest to downtown to make sure we could use their facilities after the race. Most folks were hanging out in San Antonio another night to recover and celebrate. There was a concert planned with Grand Funk Railroad and Los Lonely Boys, admission free with race number; but because I had no vacation time left, we had to head home. We found the YMCA easily, thanks to PETA; but didn’t like what we heard. The showers were closed? How could that be? The front-desk attendant on duty didn’t have the authority to unlock them and the manager was incommunicado. What to do?
In an act of desperation, we chose our only option—wash in the sinks. I was lucky no one came in during my “shower” as I stood buck naked in a pool of soapy water. I washed my hair in the sink before realizing I didn’t have a towel. I dried off with paper towels which came out slowly and in small sections from the motion-sensitive dispenser. When I was finished, I actually felt clean, although a tad bit soapy. A still would have preferred a hot shower!
The drive home was uneventful. We stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner almost immediately. That helped a lot. By the time we ate, I was famished. Everything tasted so unbelievably delicious. After dinner and back in the car, our conversation turned to the Dallas White Rock Marathon. It was four weeks away—we decided to look at a long-range weather forecast and see how we felt after running the 8-mile Dallas Turkey Trot. We would run another marathon—probably sooner rather than later.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
1964 - 1968
I think I blocked out many of my high school memories. It seems strange that I remember more in my earlier years than I remember about high school. I don’t remember my first day of high school yet I remember my first day of kindergarten. Doesn’t that seem strange? I remember a lot of angst—feelings of insecurity, self-consciousness, yearning—but not many specifics.
I walked to school most days especially when I was a freshman and sophomore—it was over a mile and took about a half hour. I walked with Marsha, Judy and Karen—although I can’t say I remember. We wore uniforms—blue and grey plaid wool skirts, grey knee socks, black penny loafers, blue blazers and white blouses. The cool girls rolled their skirts up at the waist so their knees showed, but I wasn’t cool. I had short curly hair, glasses that pointed up at the ends and no boobs.
Freshman year, everyone took P.E. We had lockers to hang our uniforms but no showers. We wore baggy blue shorts and white blouses with short sleeves. Ms. Lenhardt was a typical gym teacher—masculine, like a drill sergeant and with absolutely no sense of humor. The “gym” was actually the stage of the auditorium. We ran races, dribbled and threw basketballs, performed calisthenics, played games and generally goofed around. Perhaps I remember P.E. because we were allowed to be ourselves. We laughed, acted bored, cheered each other on and generally had a good time while pretending we weren’t. It wasn’t cool to like P.E.
Our other classes were just boring academics—we studied, read, listened to lectures and took notes. The years passed by—nothing stands out. I gave a presentation once in History. My topic was the Greek Agora. I couldn’t find out anything about it. There were only a few sentences in the World Book Encyclopedias that we had at home. We didn’t have computers—so it was either the library or a home reference book. I guess it turned out fine but I don’t know how. I studied for tests—never went into a test unprepared—always had my homework. I was afraid of being reprimanded so I was above reproach. My high school GPA was 4.0. I was in the top five in a class of around 160. I would have received a ribbon for attendance but I missed one day my senior year to be in a dance performance.
Freshman and sophomore years, I stuck with the Pius girls. During the summer before high school started and the summer after our freshman year, we took tennis lessons at Jermaine Park nearly every day and hung around afterward practicing. There were guys there and that’s where Karen and Marsha met their first boyfriends—guys I would have liked had they liked me. I did meet a guy there, Steve Barney, but he was just a friend. He would come over nearly every afternoon and we would play the guitar and sing. He was super nice—he wanted to be a priest. He had an older, hunkier brother, Mike Barney, who worked at the Park. Steve and I got pretty close that summer; I was torn up when he left for Seminary. Mom even took me to visit him once; but without cell phones and Facebook to keep in touch, I gradually forgot about him. I often wonder whether he went through with it.
Tennis had levels of achievement like many of the kid-sports today and tests were given by teachers and coaches. I passed though many of the beginner levels easily. The test I failed consisted of playing with the pro, serving, returning volleys and placing shots. I was very disappointed because some of the other girls passed. I lost interest after that and didn’t play nearly as much although I was on the Notre Dame team during my senior year. Karen and Marsha were much better players than I was. I was pretty adept at the guitar though. I learned a lot of Bob Dylan’s and other folk songs from Carla and wasn’t shy about singing in front of people. I remember once when Marsha and her boyfriend were having a fight, I drove around with him for hours, playing my entire repertoire. He called me Dee Dee Baez.
Another sport I played when I was in high school was CYO girls’ softball. CYO stands for Catholic Youth Organization and I was a willing participant—after all there were guys in CYO. CYO had parties, dances and various activities designed to help teens appropriately socialize. I was the pitcher on the softball team and had some success. We played on a field in front of St. Francis High School—the all-boys Catholic school.
The CYO also had a talent show in which I performed every year. There were different categories depending on your talent and, of course, I was in the dance category. Unfortunately for me, so was Craig Barrow who performed flashy Russian numbers and always won. I would usually come in second or third. I think it bothered Mom to no end that they chose Craig every year over me. Carla and I decided to sing a duet one year just to get out of competing with Craig, but we still didn’t win. Carla played the guitar and we sang, “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right” in harmony.
I remember going to CYO dances at St. Francis in their gymnasium. It was very dark and everyone just milled around trying to catch the eye of someone who showed some interest. I don’t remember having much luck. Mom and Dad decided to have a party in our new recreation room—I invited my girlfriends and Mom and Dad invited some of their friends’ sons. I think the object was to get us hooked up with some good, Catholic boys but it didn’t work. I used to see one of the guys, Bruce, at the St. Francis dances. He wasn’t very cute but I would have settled for him—anyone just to have a boyfriend. We also used to go to dances at the Catholic Club. They were very similar to the ones at St. Francis—big room, lots of people, loud music—we did the jerk mostly. I don’t remember meeting anyone there either.
When I was a freshman, Carla was dating a guy named Mike who played the piano. Mom even said she moved the piano from the living room to the recreation room so she wouldn’t have to listen to him play. It wasn’t that he played badly—he just played loudly. He had a friend named, Gene Haney, who I started going out with. I was 15 and Gene was 19. He was really cute and I wanted him to like me so much—but all he wanted to do was make out. I was a good Catholic girl so I perfected all the counter-attack moves to prevent most of the hanky-panky. But we did make-out a lot and have a lot of arguments about why I wouldn’t let him go further. At one point, he gave me his senior class ring which meant we were “going steady”—now it’s called “going out”—meaning seeing someone exclusively. I put a rubber band around the ring so it would fit me—that’s what everybody did back then. I remember feeling pretty “cool” that I had a steady boyfriend. But it didn’t last long.
Gene signed up for the Army, went to boot camp and then Vietnam. I went down to the Greyhound Bus station and saw him off with his parents. For about a month, he wrote every day and even sent me a picture of him in his uniform; but then I didn’t hear from him for a long time. He came home on leave once and took me to Cedar Point with an Army friend, but then he disappeared again. The last time I saw him was after he came home permanently. He didn’t say much except that he had been in Da Nang. We drove to Ottawa Park and he wanted to make-out, but I still didn’t want to. He gave up on me after that and I never saw him again. At that point it didn’t make much difference to me because I had moved on.
When I was a freshman in high school, my Grandma Welch died suddenly of a heart attack. She was living in California and I hadn’t seen her for years but it still mattered a lot to me. I remember not being able to share my grief with anyone because I didn’t want anyone to know I was grieving. My Dad was the only one who went to the funeral. It was the first time someone I really cared about had died. I think it might have been easier had there been some outward sign that something had happened. That might have helped me make some sense out of it. I am very glad that my kids got to go to my Dad’s funeral—thanks to my sister, Terry. I think it helped them process what had happened.
I believe it was the summer after Grandma died that the eight of us drove out to California on vacation. We were gone for three weeks. We went to see Grandpa but also to see Aunt Arlene and Uncle Dick and Aunt Grace and Uncle Bob. We did a lot of sight-seeing on the way out—taking a northerly route and on the way back—going through Texas. We were pretty squashed in our Jeep Wagoneer because we had all grown since our Florida trips. The seating configuration was now Mom, Dad and Ann in the front, four of us in the back and one of us laying on a small mattress on top of the luggage in the way-back. We fought constantly and about everything. We weren’t comfortable; and we knew if we had to go to the bathroom, we were sunk. Dad wouldn’t stop unless we were at the pleading stage. I think our first sightseeing excursion was through the Badlands and to see Mt. Rushmore. Mt. Rushmore was truly awesome but I don’t remember much about the Badlands.
Dad did most of the driving so we would normally stop at dusk as he would be pretty tired. We usually ate picnic lunches to save money. Sometimes we would stop at nice hotels with swimming pools—that was the most fun. We went through Yellowstone National Park—I remember standing out in the cold waiting for Old Faithful. It finally erupted—but took it’s time. We saw a lot of scenery—I remember paint pots for some reason. I know we stopped at a few places in Colorado—the Royal Gorge, the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Pikes Peak as well as Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park in Utah.
We were very happy once we finally made it to California although the conditions at Uncle Bob and Aunt Grace’s weren’t that great. The eight of us stayed with them so we didn’t have a lot of room to spread out. Luckily their two boys, our cousins Robbie and Johnny, were gone visiting their Mom’s sister so at least there was an empty bedroom. Our cousin, Kiki, was there. She was close to Ann’s age. There was a pet snake loose in the vents but, luckily, we never saw it.
We did some fun things while there—we went to Knott’s Berry Farm, although at that time it wasn’t the big amusement park it is today. I remember seeing a performance of “Our American Cousin”, the play President Lincoln was attending at the Ford Theatre when he was shot. During the play, at the exact moment Lincoln was shot, there was a dramatization of the event. It must have been memorable. We also went to Disneyland which was a huge treat!
Speaking of huge treats, Aunt Grace cooked a Mexican dinner for us one night. I remember it clearly because it was so painful. We were all such very picky eaters that no one touched anything. Mom gobbled up everything she could just so it would look like we had eaten some of it. She couldn’t very well force us to eat the food because Dad wouldn’t eat it either. We were brought up on meat and potatoes; and although I have branched out a great deal, there is still a lot of food I won’t even try. But, of course, now Mexican is everyone’s favorite.
The only other memory of note while we were in California was sitting on the beach waiting for the grunion run. We actually never saw any grunions and I wondered if Uncle Bob had been pulling our leg. But no, you can actually Google grunion run and find a schedule for several California beaches. The grunion run is the night the female grunions come up on shore en masse to lay their eggs which are later fertilized by the male grunions. I guess they don’t always run on schedule.
On the drive home, we stopped at the Grand Canyon, and I recall feeling overwhelmed by the vastness of it. I know we wanted to stop at Carlsbad Caverns but I don’t believe we did. We drove through Mesa Verde National Park and saw the cliff dwellings from a distance but it was too late in the day to do a tour. Lastly, I remember going through St. Louis and seeing the Arch. We didn’t take the claustrophobic ride to the top; I saved that for a later trip.
Back at school, during my sophomore year I was in Glee Club, another class of which I have some recollection. Sister Rosalee was the Choir Director and she made it fun. I have always enjoyed singing even though I don’t have a very strong voice. I never got any solos or stood out in any way, but I did enjoy it. We performed some, mostly at school functions. There was time to “goof off”, while other voices were practicing their parts, and I remember doing my share. I am glad I was in Glee Club as I think it gave me the confidence to sing in summer stock the year after I graduated from college.
I also joined the Chess Club. I had played chess with my Dad most of my childhood. Everyone in our family played. In fact, Dad used to tell a story about playing chess against a lifeguard in Florida on one of our vacations. Each one of us played the lifeguard and beat him all the way down to Ann. I started off and got lucky winning my first game. I was the only one on our team to win, so I was immediately moved to first chair which meant I played against the best player in every school. I never won another game all year. I did not return to the Chess Club my junior year.
During my high school years, I continued ballet but changed studios to Gail Grant’s. Mom felt I had gone as far as I could with the Hanf’s and I am sure I had. Gail Grant was famous for the publication of a dictionary of ballet terms and for dancing with the Radio City Ballet Company, at the time one of the few professional ballet companies in the United States. Gail had a very strong classical ballet background and might have been a great teacher had she not been such a natural. She had natural turnout and perfectly arched feet—neither of which I had. She didn’t know how to teach someone to improve on those qualities if they didn’t have them naturally. I was a natural performer (some might say ham) which made up for some of my other deficiencies. I performed in the Pas de Quatre, Paquita; was the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty; and danced the Waltz in Les Sylphides. I am sure Mom was very happy when I graduated to college and she didn’t have to make any more costumes. The bodice of the Paquita costume had hundreds of individually-sewn-on black sequins while the fan prop had hundreds of individually-glued-on red sequins. Gail wanted everything as professional as possible.
When I was 15, because of my incessant pestering, Mom and Dad began teaching me how to drive. Carla hadn’t seemed that interested in learning, but I was quite the opposite. I was determined to get my license on my 16th birthday—I wanted my freedom. Many days, I would drive to school in our second-hand car with the stick on the column and Mom riding shotgun. One rainy Toledo day, when pulling into the parking lot of Notre Dame Academy, I accidentally hit the clutch instead of the brake and slammed into a parked car. There didn’t appear to be any damage to the other car, so Mom saw no reason to leave a note. Midway through the day, I was summoned to the Principal’s office and reprimanded. Apparently someone had seen what I had done and had reported the accident. Of course I apologized profusely while explaining almost in tears that I hadn’t left a note because I hadn’t seen any damage. I exchanged phone numbers with the owner of the car and ended up paying a whopping $15 to remove a scratch from the bumper.
True to my word, I took my driving test on my 16th birthday and passed! The driving portion of the test was nerve-wracking, especially the parallel parking part, but I confronted my fears bravely. One of the perks of driving was to get late-night burgers for Dad from White Hut. On one such run, early on in my driving experience, I was stopped by a policeman for driving nearly a mile without my lights. He asked me if I knew why he stopped me and I didn’t have a clue. I was embarrassed beyond belief but he didn’t give me a ticket.
Dates were few and far between for me in high school. I met a guy who (looking back) was a total jerk but, of course, at the time I thought he was my one true love. His name was Bob Rochelle and I think I loved his name more than I did him. It sounded so romantic. There were lots of tears and not many good times but thankfully it was short-lived.
Before all of us had steady boyfriends, slumber parties were frequent and usually in Karen Ritter’s basement. There would be eight of us or so and we would drink pop, eat snacks, dance to popular records and talk about boys all night. There were never any boys at these events—gay or straight—although we didn’t even know any gay guys. Both my girls have many close gay friends—something I saved for later in life—after I became a professional ballet dancer.
When I was a sophomore, I tried out for the cheerleading squad at St. Francis; and, because I was limber and athletic from my ballet training, I was chosen as an alternate. This was a huge honor as there were three girls’ schools and only one boys’ school so only two or three girls were picked from each school. There were six on the squad and two alternates, so the alternates actually filled-in quite often. This coup definitely raised my status as most of the cheerleaders were hot and popular. I had a ways to go to be that, but being a cheerleader definitely bumped me up a notch.
I didn’t actually start cheering until I was a junior but we practiced throughout the summer. A young priest was our mentor and always at our practices. He helped us learn our leaps, round-offs and flips which we practiced in the St. Francis gym. The older or second-year girls taught the newcomers the cheers. I was extremely shy and hardly ever said anything. I felt out-of-my-league with these confident, beautiful and shapely women who actually had boyfriends who treated them nice. My second year of cheering, when I was a full-fledged cheerleader instead of an alternate, was much better. I gained some confidence—mostly because I got contact lenses, a padded bra and a boyfriend who went to St. Francis.
The football games were lots of fun. We had guys on the squad at the games who helped the girls choose the right cheers. They had megaphones and helped lead the cheers while the girls went through their calisthenics. My favorite part of the evening was half-time when everyone in the stands would sing the Alma Mater and we would do our routine in the middle of the field. It was very moving. When I was a senior, my friend, Karen, was nominated for Homecoming Queen. Although she didn’t win, it was exciting to be out on the field when they announced the winner.
When I was a junior, I decided to take typing and shorthand instead of Algebra II. This was different from the norm as most of the girls who planned to go to college took the college prep classes while those who planned to go into the workforce took the clerical route. I knew I wanted to major in dance in college so I felt I needed a skill to fall back on when I couldn’t find work in my field. I hate to put it this way but most of the girls in the typing class weren’t that bright or motivated. I did have one friend in typing with similar ambitions and that was Nancy Sattler, who I remain friends with to this day. She caught on quickly like me and we often vied for the highest scores on the timed typing and shorthand tests.
Nancy and I quickly became good friends and we formed a clique whose members included me, Nancy, Pat Duffin, and Pat Gulch. We hung out together almost exclusively during the school day and on many weekends. Nancy’s Mom started taking us to school some days, especially when the weather was nasty. Nancy was a member of Junior Achievement and I joined too. One night a week we would go learn how to select a product, make the product, sell the product and reap the rewards. I was Vice President of my company and a runner-up in the Best Salesman contest. Looking back, it surprises me that I was actually good at selling as I have wanted nothing to do with it most of my life.
Nancy started going out with someone she met at Junior Achievement, J.R., who was also a cheerleader at St. Francis. I started dating Steve Heer, a friend of J.R.’s. Steve was pleasingly plump and lovable although we fought constantly about the same thing Gene and I fought about. The four of us double-dated often and spent many an evening on Nancy’s front porch. I was a typical adolescent female, moody and emotional, and I think Steve was a saint for putting up with me as long as he did. Nancy and J.R.’s relationship was just as tumultuous and he ended up marrying my friend, Judy, in a shotgun wedding right out of high school.
During the summer before my senior year, Carla and I spent a marvelous, independent six weeks in New York City. It came about mostly at the urging of my ballet teacher, Gail Grant. She assumed I would become a professional ballet dancer someday and so stressed to Mom the importance of training in New York City. Gail also suggested that, while I was there, I audition for the Radio City Ballet Company even though I was only 16 and 18 was the required age. Carla, who was interested in acting, took acting lessons at the Herbert Berghof Studio while I took ballet at Ballet Arts at Carnegie Hall. We stayed at the Laura Spellman residence for Women, a YWCA at 8thAvenue and 58th Streets.
We rode the Greyhound Bus to New York from Toledo and quickly learned our way around the subway system. Somehow our luggage got lost en route and we returned time and again to the Greyhound Station until they finally located it. The YWCA had a cafeteria where we ate most of our meals. Occasionally we would go next door to a family-owned pizzeria where we got to know the owners. We introduced them to the rest of our family at summer’s end. We didn’t have much money so we were severely restricted in our activities. We rode the Staten Island Ferry back and forth numerous times because it was something to do that was cheap. We also bought paperback books and read voraciously. I read Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood”, and Henry Bellamann’s “King’s Row” among others while there.
Ballet class was difficult and I was mortified time and again by the instructor who criticized me constantly. I discovered that I wasn’t as good as I thought I was and that I had a long way to go if I truly wanted to be a professional someday. Being good in Toledo meant being mediocre in New York at best. I was also embarrassed by the fact that the girls/women who changed in the dressing room had no shame. I changed in a corner so as to be inconspicuous but they flaunted their naked bodies. I did audition for the Radio City Ballet Company but was reprimanded for wasting their time because I was unavailable due to my age. I do, however, think they were interested in hiring me.
I discovered I had a lot to learn in more ways than one. One day when I was walking home from ballet class, I was confronted on the sidewalk by a man who offered to instruct me in the ways of the world if I would be come up to his hotel room. He asked if I was a dancer in one of the Broadway shows. Although I was secretly flattered, I was also appalled. His offer to pay me didn’t help his case.
Carla and I had a few adventurous excursions while there. We visited Mom’s cousin who lived on Staten Island. She liked us instantly although we had never seen her before and we never saw her since. We went to Coney Island one day and almost got killed trying to cross the freeway. I rode the Cyclone by myself because Carla was too scared. While in Brooklyn we walked for miles looking for the house of a guy Carla liked from Toledo University named Lee Wessof. When we stopped at a drug store soda fountain, the owner knew who Lee was but called him Lloyd Wessofski—the guy with the big nose.
We saw the Broadway show, “I Do I Do” with Mary Martin and Robert Preston and “Zorba” with Herschel Bernardi. We bought tickets for “Caberet” with Liza Minelli and Joel Grey but ended up giving them to Mom and Dad who absolutely loved it. We met some sailors we flirted with and took pictures of and some older men we sat with while eating lunch at the Y. The worst thing that happened while I was in New York was dislocating my jaw while eating a piece of pizza. It was very difficult to eat for weeks after that. At the time I was extremely anxious that I had done something irreparable and it turned out to be true. I have had TMJ ever since that day.
At the end of our time in New York, Mom, Dad and the rest of the family came to pick us up. We spent a week going up to Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire before heading back to Toledo. Our summer in New York was an unforgettable experience that matured us beyond our years. It would be unheard of today to allow kids of that age to go unchaperoned to New York City, but it was a different time. We ended up taking the bus back to the City a few years later with Carla’s friend, Carol Erford, to see a few shows and relive our gay, independent time there.
Back at Notre Dame, my senior year started off great—mostly because I got contact lenses. Immediately I was more confident probably because I was better looking. At one of the first football games of the season, I ran into Vinnie, my old neighbor. He and his family had moved about five years earlier to a house with a swimming pool in a much more affluent neighborhood. He was looking good and he must have thought I was looking good too. I felt like I had finally made it to the “big time” when we started dating. I was a St. Francis cheerleader with a St. Francis boyfriend. Now I would be like the other cheerleaders—going to homecoming, prom, etc.
Vinnie and I were made for each other. He was everything I ever wanted in a boyfriend—handsome, rich, attentive, “in love”. In fact we both felt the same way. We spent quite a lot of time together from the start. He had a little red sports car convertible that was old but respectable. He didn’t play any sports but I didn’t care about that. It gave him more time for me. I had a date for everything, and that was a dream- come- true.
Senior year was college decision time. Carla was attending Toledo University, but I wanted to major in ballet and there was no ballet major at TU. Mom agreed to let me audition for the University of Cincinnati. Their College Conservatory of Music, of which the Dance Department was a part, had a very good reputation. It was recommended by Gail Grant because Suzanne Farrell, star of the New York City Ballet, had been trained there. Mom made all the requisite calls and set up the audition. It was in February that Mom, Dad and I drove down for the audition. I immediately fell in love with the city and the campus. Cincinnati is definitely one of the nicest cities in Ohio mostly because of its hills and beautiful views.
The audition went well. David McLain was the head of the Dance Department and he liked me. He told me I wasn’t quite at the level of some of the other dancers coming in as freshmen because I had not had as much training. I had been taking classes once or twice a week my whole life while many of them would be coming from high schools such as Performing Arts in New York City where they had been training daily. He explained that I would have to work very hard to catch up and keep up. But he did accept me and I was overjoyed. I had a new determination to work hard and make the most of college. I didn’t know a soul who was going to UC but I wasn’t afraid; I was excited.
I was also excited about the Senior Class Play--Antigone. Because of my acting experience, I felt I would be chosen for a part. I was devastated when I wasn’t. I had watched every Senior Class Play—just waiting for my turn and then it was not to be. It was hard for me to accept that I didn’t have much talent as an actress.
The rest of my senior year flew by in a blur. I took Vinnie to my prom at Notre Dame and he took me to the St. Francis prom. Before each prom I got my hair done in “petals” as was the style. The beautician would comb the hair to the top of the head, rat it, spray it and form it into loops that she bobby- pinned in place. Before the St. Francis prom, a group of us went to a fancy restaurant and after the prom to the bowling alley. We arrived back home in the wee hours of the morning—but that was expected. It was nice that we never had to worry about money—Vinnie always had it.
In addition to our two school proms, Vinnie and I went to the Junior Achievement prom and a formal dance sponsored by Vinnie’s Dad’s company. At that dance, they raffled off five new Mustangs and Vinnie won one of them! He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and then this! I bought a formal and wore it twice but then borrowed one from Carla for the third prom and borrowed one from a girl I hardly knew for the fourth. Unbeknownst to me, during the evening, someone burned a hole with a cigarette in the dress I had borrowed. I didn’t notice it until I got home. I never told the girl what had happened but Mom gave me $25 to buy the dress from her, which the girl was happy to accept.
After it was decided that I would be going to Cincinnati for college, Vinnie and I spent a few agonizing months wondering how we were going to make it being separated by so much distance. Phone calls were expensive and I didn’t have a car. We had both done quite well on our SAT tests (57 verbal and 65 math for me) and money was no object, so Vinnie could pretty much go wherever he wanted. I didn’t try to sway him but he narrowed his choices to Ohio University, in Athens, or Xavier University in Cincinnati. I didn’t know until shortly after graduation that he had been accepted at Xavier and that’s where he had decided to go. Of course, I was elated. I wouldn’t be alone.
The weeks leading up to graduation were hectic and full of parties and fun. I was overjoyed to find I was one of five in my class to wear a ribbon for all A’s my entire high school career. I also received $250 from Junior Achievement and $100 for being the best secretarial student in the class. Debbie Restivo, the Student Council President, was Valedictorian; I was probably third or fourth. Scholarships were almost non-existent if you didn’t have financial need; and even with six kids, Dad made too much money for me to qualify. Mom had already told me I needed to make $500 during the summer to help with tuition and expenses.
The day of my graduation from high school was June 5, 1968—Mom woke me with the news that Robert F. Kennedy had been killed in Los Angeles—a memorable day in more ways than one. My parents took us out to a fancy restaurant as a graduation gift. I could tell they were very proud of me as Mom went on-and-on to Vinnie about what a “gem” I was. After the ceremony, yearbooks were passed around so everyone could sign them. Vinnie spent an extra-long time writing in mine and I felt very special. It was impossible to believe we wouldn’t be seeing these friends much anymore.
It was time to get down to business. I got my first job as a car hop at an A&W Root Beer stand. Vinnie hated it when I was working and hung out in the parking lot watching me. I think he was afraid I was going to get hit-on. I worked there a whole four days before I screwed up so badly that, instead of getting paid, I had to pay them. I was so upset that I cried to Vinnie I didn’t want to go back. The next thing I knew, Vinnie’s Dad had gotten me a job at Sears in their Catalog Sales Department—a much-improved position. I worked mornings—from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. It took the entire summer to earn $500 so I couldn’t have been making much per hour.
There were about twenty women working in Catalog Sales and I was the youngest by far. Most of the women had been working at the job for years. The work was stressful at times, especially when I was making calls with the manager listening in. Most of the time we answered calls, answering questions and filling out order forms. That was the easy part. For an hour or so a day, we called people who had been sent sales flyers and tried to get them interested in buying something. That was the part I hated. For two weeks during the summer, I worked from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., subbing for someone having an operation on her hemorrhoids. During that week I got a feel for what a full-time job entailed and it made me especially glad I was going to be a dancer.
The rest of the summer was pretty laid-back. I swam at the new YMCA Bowman Park pool with my family and at Vinnie’s pool with his family. He had two older brothers—both of whom were married and it made us feel grown up to hang out with them. We went to lots of movies and out to eat. We made out in the back seat of the new Mustang. We were looking forward to college and the next stage of our lives but we weren’t in any hurry.
I walked to school most days especially when I was a freshman and sophomore—it was over a mile and took about a half hour. I walked with Marsha, Judy and Karen—although I can’t say I remember. We wore uniforms—blue and grey plaid wool skirts, grey knee socks, black penny loafers, blue blazers and white blouses. The cool girls rolled their skirts up at the waist so their knees showed, but I wasn’t cool. I had short curly hair, glasses that pointed up at the ends and no boobs.
Freshman year, everyone took P.E. We had lockers to hang our uniforms but no showers. We wore baggy blue shorts and white blouses with short sleeves. Ms. Lenhardt was a typical gym teacher—masculine, like a drill sergeant and with absolutely no sense of humor. The “gym” was actually the stage of the auditorium. We ran races, dribbled and threw basketballs, performed calisthenics, played games and generally goofed around. Perhaps I remember P.E. because we were allowed to be ourselves. We laughed, acted bored, cheered each other on and generally had a good time while pretending we weren’t. It wasn’t cool to like P.E.
Our other classes were just boring academics—we studied, read, listened to lectures and took notes. The years passed by—nothing stands out. I gave a presentation once in History. My topic was the Greek Agora. I couldn’t find out anything about it. There were only a few sentences in the World Book Encyclopedias that we had at home. We didn’t have computers—so it was either the library or a home reference book. I guess it turned out fine but I don’t know how. I studied for tests—never went into a test unprepared—always had my homework. I was afraid of being reprimanded so I was above reproach. My high school GPA was 4.0. I was in the top five in a class of around 160. I would have received a ribbon for attendance but I missed one day my senior year to be in a dance performance.
Freshman and sophomore years, I stuck with the Pius girls. During the summer before high school started and the summer after our freshman year, we took tennis lessons at Jermaine Park nearly every day and hung around afterward practicing. There were guys there and that’s where Karen and Marsha met their first boyfriends—guys I would have liked had they liked me. I did meet a guy there, Steve Barney, but he was just a friend. He would come over nearly every afternoon and we would play the guitar and sing. He was super nice—he wanted to be a priest. He had an older, hunkier brother, Mike Barney, who worked at the Park. Steve and I got pretty close that summer; I was torn up when he left for Seminary. Mom even took me to visit him once; but without cell phones and Facebook to keep in touch, I gradually forgot about him. I often wonder whether he went through with it.
Tennis had levels of achievement like many of the kid-sports today and tests were given by teachers and coaches. I passed though many of the beginner levels easily. The test I failed consisted of playing with the pro, serving, returning volleys and placing shots. I was very disappointed because some of the other girls passed. I lost interest after that and didn’t play nearly as much although I was on the Notre Dame team during my senior year. Karen and Marsha were much better players than I was. I was pretty adept at the guitar though. I learned a lot of Bob Dylan’s and other folk songs from Carla and wasn’t shy about singing in front of people. I remember once when Marsha and her boyfriend were having a fight, I drove around with him for hours, playing my entire repertoire. He called me Dee Dee Baez.
Another sport I played when I was in high school was CYO girls’ softball. CYO stands for Catholic Youth Organization and I was a willing participant—after all there were guys in CYO. CYO had parties, dances and various activities designed to help teens appropriately socialize. I was the pitcher on the softball team and had some success. We played on a field in front of St. Francis High School—the all-boys Catholic school.
The CYO also had a talent show in which I performed every year. There were different categories depending on your talent and, of course, I was in the dance category. Unfortunately for me, so was Craig Barrow who performed flashy Russian numbers and always won. I would usually come in second or third. I think it bothered Mom to no end that they chose Craig every year over me. Carla and I decided to sing a duet one year just to get out of competing with Craig, but we still didn’t win. Carla played the guitar and we sang, “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right” in harmony.
I remember going to CYO dances at St. Francis in their gymnasium. It was very dark and everyone just milled around trying to catch the eye of someone who showed some interest. I don’t remember having much luck. Mom and Dad decided to have a party in our new recreation room—I invited my girlfriends and Mom and Dad invited some of their friends’ sons. I think the object was to get us hooked up with some good, Catholic boys but it didn’t work. I used to see one of the guys, Bruce, at the St. Francis dances. He wasn’t very cute but I would have settled for him—anyone just to have a boyfriend. We also used to go to dances at the Catholic Club. They were very similar to the ones at St. Francis—big room, lots of people, loud music—we did the jerk mostly. I don’t remember meeting anyone there either.
When I was a freshman, Carla was dating a guy named Mike who played the piano. Mom even said she moved the piano from the living room to the recreation room so she wouldn’t have to listen to him play. It wasn’t that he played badly—he just played loudly. He had a friend named, Gene Haney, who I started going out with. I was 15 and Gene was 19. He was really cute and I wanted him to like me so much—but all he wanted to do was make out. I was a good Catholic girl so I perfected all the counter-attack moves to prevent most of the hanky-panky. But we did make-out a lot and have a lot of arguments about why I wouldn’t let him go further. At one point, he gave me his senior class ring which meant we were “going steady”—now it’s called “going out”—meaning seeing someone exclusively. I put a rubber band around the ring so it would fit me—that’s what everybody did back then. I remember feeling pretty “cool” that I had a steady boyfriend. But it didn’t last long.
Gene signed up for the Army, went to boot camp and then Vietnam. I went down to the Greyhound Bus station and saw him off with his parents. For about a month, he wrote every day and even sent me a picture of him in his uniform; but then I didn’t hear from him for a long time. He came home on leave once and took me to Cedar Point with an Army friend, but then he disappeared again. The last time I saw him was after he came home permanently. He didn’t say much except that he had been in Da Nang. We drove to Ottawa Park and he wanted to make-out, but I still didn’t want to. He gave up on me after that and I never saw him again. At that point it didn’t make much difference to me because I had moved on.
When I was a freshman in high school, my Grandma Welch died suddenly of a heart attack. She was living in California and I hadn’t seen her for years but it still mattered a lot to me. I remember not being able to share my grief with anyone because I didn’t want anyone to know I was grieving. My Dad was the only one who went to the funeral. It was the first time someone I really cared about had died. I think it might have been easier had there been some outward sign that something had happened. That might have helped me make some sense out of it. I am very glad that my kids got to go to my Dad’s funeral—thanks to my sister, Terry. I think it helped them process what had happened.
I believe it was the summer after Grandma died that the eight of us drove out to California on vacation. We were gone for three weeks. We went to see Grandpa but also to see Aunt Arlene and Uncle Dick and Aunt Grace and Uncle Bob. We did a lot of sight-seeing on the way out—taking a northerly route and on the way back—going through Texas. We were pretty squashed in our Jeep Wagoneer because we had all grown since our Florida trips. The seating configuration was now Mom, Dad and Ann in the front, four of us in the back and one of us laying on a small mattress on top of the luggage in the way-back. We fought constantly and about everything. We weren’t comfortable; and we knew if we had to go to the bathroom, we were sunk. Dad wouldn’t stop unless we were at the pleading stage. I think our first sightseeing excursion was through the Badlands and to see Mt. Rushmore. Mt. Rushmore was truly awesome but I don’t remember much about the Badlands.
Dad did most of the driving so we would normally stop at dusk as he would be pretty tired. We usually ate picnic lunches to save money. Sometimes we would stop at nice hotels with swimming pools—that was the most fun. We went through Yellowstone National Park—I remember standing out in the cold waiting for Old Faithful. It finally erupted—but took it’s time. We saw a lot of scenery—I remember paint pots for some reason. I know we stopped at a few places in Colorado—the Royal Gorge, the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Pikes Peak as well as Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park in Utah.
We were very happy once we finally made it to California although the conditions at Uncle Bob and Aunt Grace’s weren’t that great. The eight of us stayed with them so we didn’t have a lot of room to spread out. Luckily their two boys, our cousins Robbie and Johnny, were gone visiting their Mom’s sister so at least there was an empty bedroom. Our cousin, Kiki, was there. She was close to Ann’s age. There was a pet snake loose in the vents but, luckily, we never saw it.
We did some fun things while there—we went to Knott’s Berry Farm, although at that time it wasn’t the big amusement park it is today. I remember seeing a performance of “Our American Cousin”, the play President Lincoln was attending at the Ford Theatre when he was shot. During the play, at the exact moment Lincoln was shot, there was a dramatization of the event. It must have been memorable. We also went to Disneyland which was a huge treat!
Speaking of huge treats, Aunt Grace cooked a Mexican dinner for us one night. I remember it clearly because it was so painful. We were all such very picky eaters that no one touched anything. Mom gobbled up everything she could just so it would look like we had eaten some of it. She couldn’t very well force us to eat the food because Dad wouldn’t eat it either. We were brought up on meat and potatoes; and although I have branched out a great deal, there is still a lot of food I won’t even try. But, of course, now Mexican is everyone’s favorite.
The only other memory of note while we were in California was sitting on the beach waiting for the grunion run. We actually never saw any grunions and I wondered if Uncle Bob had been pulling our leg. But no, you can actually Google grunion run and find a schedule for several California beaches. The grunion run is the night the female grunions come up on shore en masse to lay their eggs which are later fertilized by the male grunions. I guess they don’t always run on schedule.
On the drive home, we stopped at the Grand Canyon, and I recall feeling overwhelmed by the vastness of it. I know we wanted to stop at Carlsbad Caverns but I don’t believe we did. We drove through Mesa Verde National Park and saw the cliff dwellings from a distance but it was too late in the day to do a tour. Lastly, I remember going through St. Louis and seeing the Arch. We didn’t take the claustrophobic ride to the top; I saved that for a later trip.
Back at school, during my sophomore year I was in Glee Club, another class of which I have some recollection. Sister Rosalee was the Choir Director and she made it fun. I have always enjoyed singing even though I don’t have a very strong voice. I never got any solos or stood out in any way, but I did enjoy it. We performed some, mostly at school functions. There was time to “goof off”, while other voices were practicing their parts, and I remember doing my share. I am glad I was in Glee Club as I think it gave me the confidence to sing in summer stock the year after I graduated from college.
I also joined the Chess Club. I had played chess with my Dad most of my childhood. Everyone in our family played. In fact, Dad used to tell a story about playing chess against a lifeguard in Florida on one of our vacations. Each one of us played the lifeguard and beat him all the way down to Ann. I started off and got lucky winning my first game. I was the only one on our team to win, so I was immediately moved to first chair which meant I played against the best player in every school. I never won another game all year. I did not return to the Chess Club my junior year.
During my high school years, I continued ballet but changed studios to Gail Grant’s. Mom felt I had gone as far as I could with the Hanf’s and I am sure I had. Gail Grant was famous for the publication of a dictionary of ballet terms and for dancing with the Radio City Ballet Company, at the time one of the few professional ballet companies in the United States. Gail had a very strong classical ballet background and might have been a great teacher had she not been such a natural. She had natural turnout and perfectly arched feet—neither of which I had. She didn’t know how to teach someone to improve on those qualities if they didn’t have them naturally. I was a natural performer (some might say ham) which made up for some of my other deficiencies. I performed in the Pas de Quatre, Paquita; was the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty; and danced the Waltz in Les Sylphides. I am sure Mom was very happy when I graduated to college and she didn’t have to make any more costumes. The bodice of the Paquita costume had hundreds of individually-sewn-on black sequins while the fan prop had hundreds of individually-glued-on red sequins. Gail wanted everything as professional as possible.
When I was 15, because of my incessant pestering, Mom and Dad began teaching me how to drive. Carla hadn’t seemed that interested in learning, but I was quite the opposite. I was determined to get my license on my 16th birthday—I wanted my freedom. Many days, I would drive to school in our second-hand car with the stick on the column and Mom riding shotgun. One rainy Toledo day, when pulling into the parking lot of Notre Dame Academy, I accidentally hit the clutch instead of the brake and slammed into a parked car. There didn’t appear to be any damage to the other car, so Mom saw no reason to leave a note. Midway through the day, I was summoned to the Principal’s office and reprimanded. Apparently someone had seen what I had done and had reported the accident. Of course I apologized profusely while explaining almost in tears that I hadn’t left a note because I hadn’t seen any damage. I exchanged phone numbers with the owner of the car and ended up paying a whopping $15 to remove a scratch from the bumper.
True to my word, I took my driving test on my 16th birthday and passed! The driving portion of the test was nerve-wracking, especially the parallel parking part, but I confronted my fears bravely. One of the perks of driving was to get late-night burgers for Dad from White Hut. On one such run, early on in my driving experience, I was stopped by a policeman for driving nearly a mile without my lights. He asked me if I knew why he stopped me and I didn’t have a clue. I was embarrassed beyond belief but he didn’t give me a ticket.
Dates were few and far between for me in high school. I met a guy who (looking back) was a total jerk but, of course, at the time I thought he was my one true love. His name was Bob Rochelle and I think I loved his name more than I did him. It sounded so romantic. There were lots of tears and not many good times but thankfully it was short-lived.
Before all of us had steady boyfriends, slumber parties were frequent and usually in Karen Ritter’s basement. There would be eight of us or so and we would drink pop, eat snacks, dance to popular records and talk about boys all night. There were never any boys at these events—gay or straight—although we didn’t even know any gay guys. Both my girls have many close gay friends—something I saved for later in life—after I became a professional ballet dancer.
When I was a sophomore, I tried out for the cheerleading squad at St. Francis; and, because I was limber and athletic from my ballet training, I was chosen as an alternate. This was a huge honor as there were three girls’ schools and only one boys’ school so only two or three girls were picked from each school. There were six on the squad and two alternates, so the alternates actually filled-in quite often. This coup definitely raised my status as most of the cheerleaders were hot and popular. I had a ways to go to be that, but being a cheerleader definitely bumped me up a notch.
I didn’t actually start cheering until I was a junior but we practiced throughout the summer. A young priest was our mentor and always at our practices. He helped us learn our leaps, round-offs and flips which we practiced in the St. Francis gym. The older or second-year girls taught the newcomers the cheers. I was extremely shy and hardly ever said anything. I felt out-of-my-league with these confident, beautiful and shapely women who actually had boyfriends who treated them nice. My second year of cheering, when I was a full-fledged cheerleader instead of an alternate, was much better. I gained some confidence—mostly because I got contact lenses, a padded bra and a boyfriend who went to St. Francis.
The football games were lots of fun. We had guys on the squad at the games who helped the girls choose the right cheers. They had megaphones and helped lead the cheers while the girls went through their calisthenics. My favorite part of the evening was half-time when everyone in the stands would sing the Alma Mater and we would do our routine in the middle of the field. It was very moving. When I was a senior, my friend, Karen, was nominated for Homecoming Queen. Although she didn’t win, it was exciting to be out on the field when they announced the winner.
When I was a junior, I decided to take typing and shorthand instead of Algebra II. This was different from the norm as most of the girls who planned to go to college took the college prep classes while those who planned to go into the workforce took the clerical route. I knew I wanted to major in dance in college so I felt I needed a skill to fall back on when I couldn’t find work in my field. I hate to put it this way but most of the girls in the typing class weren’t that bright or motivated. I did have one friend in typing with similar ambitions and that was Nancy Sattler, who I remain friends with to this day. She caught on quickly like me and we often vied for the highest scores on the timed typing and shorthand tests.
Nancy and I quickly became good friends and we formed a clique whose members included me, Nancy, Pat Duffin, and Pat Gulch. We hung out together almost exclusively during the school day and on many weekends. Nancy’s Mom started taking us to school some days, especially when the weather was nasty. Nancy was a member of Junior Achievement and I joined too. One night a week we would go learn how to select a product, make the product, sell the product and reap the rewards. I was Vice President of my company and a runner-up in the Best Salesman contest. Looking back, it surprises me that I was actually good at selling as I have wanted nothing to do with it most of my life.
Nancy started going out with someone she met at Junior Achievement, J.R., who was also a cheerleader at St. Francis. I started dating Steve Heer, a friend of J.R.’s. Steve was pleasingly plump and lovable although we fought constantly about the same thing Gene and I fought about. The four of us double-dated often and spent many an evening on Nancy’s front porch. I was a typical adolescent female, moody and emotional, and I think Steve was a saint for putting up with me as long as he did. Nancy and J.R.’s relationship was just as tumultuous and he ended up marrying my friend, Judy, in a shotgun wedding right out of high school.
During the summer before my senior year, Carla and I spent a marvelous, independent six weeks in New York City. It came about mostly at the urging of my ballet teacher, Gail Grant. She assumed I would become a professional ballet dancer someday and so stressed to Mom the importance of training in New York City. Gail also suggested that, while I was there, I audition for the Radio City Ballet Company even though I was only 16 and 18 was the required age. Carla, who was interested in acting, took acting lessons at the Herbert Berghof Studio while I took ballet at Ballet Arts at Carnegie Hall. We stayed at the Laura Spellman residence for Women, a YWCA at 8thAvenue and 58th Streets.
We rode the Greyhound Bus to New York from Toledo and quickly learned our way around the subway system. Somehow our luggage got lost en route and we returned time and again to the Greyhound Station until they finally located it. The YWCA had a cafeteria where we ate most of our meals. Occasionally we would go next door to a family-owned pizzeria where we got to know the owners. We introduced them to the rest of our family at summer’s end. We didn’t have much money so we were severely restricted in our activities. We rode the Staten Island Ferry back and forth numerous times because it was something to do that was cheap. We also bought paperback books and read voraciously. I read Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood”, and Henry Bellamann’s “King’s Row” among others while there.
Ballet class was difficult and I was mortified time and again by the instructor who criticized me constantly. I discovered that I wasn’t as good as I thought I was and that I had a long way to go if I truly wanted to be a professional someday. Being good in Toledo meant being mediocre in New York at best. I was also embarrassed by the fact that the girls/women who changed in the dressing room had no shame. I changed in a corner so as to be inconspicuous but they flaunted their naked bodies. I did audition for the Radio City Ballet Company but was reprimanded for wasting their time because I was unavailable due to my age. I do, however, think they were interested in hiring me.
I discovered I had a lot to learn in more ways than one. One day when I was walking home from ballet class, I was confronted on the sidewalk by a man who offered to instruct me in the ways of the world if I would be come up to his hotel room. He asked if I was a dancer in one of the Broadway shows. Although I was secretly flattered, I was also appalled. His offer to pay me didn’t help his case.
Carla and I had a few adventurous excursions while there. We visited Mom’s cousin who lived on Staten Island. She liked us instantly although we had never seen her before and we never saw her since. We went to Coney Island one day and almost got killed trying to cross the freeway. I rode the Cyclone by myself because Carla was too scared. While in Brooklyn we walked for miles looking for the house of a guy Carla liked from Toledo University named Lee Wessof. When we stopped at a drug store soda fountain, the owner knew who Lee was but called him Lloyd Wessofski—the guy with the big nose.
We saw the Broadway show, “I Do I Do” with Mary Martin and Robert Preston and “Zorba” with Herschel Bernardi. We bought tickets for “Caberet” with Liza Minelli and Joel Grey but ended up giving them to Mom and Dad who absolutely loved it. We met some sailors we flirted with and took pictures of and some older men we sat with while eating lunch at the Y. The worst thing that happened while I was in New York was dislocating my jaw while eating a piece of pizza. It was very difficult to eat for weeks after that. At the time I was extremely anxious that I had done something irreparable and it turned out to be true. I have had TMJ ever since that day.
At the end of our time in New York, Mom, Dad and the rest of the family came to pick us up. We spent a week going up to Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire before heading back to Toledo. Our summer in New York was an unforgettable experience that matured us beyond our years. It would be unheard of today to allow kids of that age to go unchaperoned to New York City, but it was a different time. We ended up taking the bus back to the City a few years later with Carla’s friend, Carol Erford, to see a few shows and relive our gay, independent time there.
Back at Notre Dame, my senior year started off great—mostly because I got contact lenses. Immediately I was more confident probably because I was better looking. At one of the first football games of the season, I ran into Vinnie, my old neighbor. He and his family had moved about five years earlier to a house with a swimming pool in a much more affluent neighborhood. He was looking good and he must have thought I was looking good too. I felt like I had finally made it to the “big time” when we started dating. I was a St. Francis cheerleader with a St. Francis boyfriend. Now I would be like the other cheerleaders—going to homecoming, prom, etc.
Vinnie and I were made for each other. He was everything I ever wanted in a boyfriend—handsome, rich, attentive, “in love”. In fact we both felt the same way. We spent quite a lot of time together from the start. He had a little red sports car convertible that was old but respectable. He didn’t play any sports but I didn’t care about that. It gave him more time for me. I had a date for everything, and that was a dream- come- true.
Senior year was college decision time. Carla was attending Toledo University, but I wanted to major in ballet and there was no ballet major at TU. Mom agreed to let me audition for the University of Cincinnati. Their College Conservatory of Music, of which the Dance Department was a part, had a very good reputation. It was recommended by Gail Grant because Suzanne Farrell, star of the New York City Ballet, had been trained there. Mom made all the requisite calls and set up the audition. It was in February that Mom, Dad and I drove down for the audition. I immediately fell in love with the city and the campus. Cincinnati is definitely one of the nicest cities in Ohio mostly because of its hills and beautiful views.
The audition went well. David McLain was the head of the Dance Department and he liked me. He told me I wasn’t quite at the level of some of the other dancers coming in as freshmen because I had not had as much training. I had been taking classes once or twice a week my whole life while many of them would be coming from high schools such as Performing Arts in New York City where they had been training daily. He explained that I would have to work very hard to catch up and keep up. But he did accept me and I was overjoyed. I had a new determination to work hard and make the most of college. I didn’t know a soul who was going to UC but I wasn’t afraid; I was excited.
I was also excited about the Senior Class Play--Antigone. Because of my acting experience, I felt I would be chosen for a part. I was devastated when I wasn’t. I had watched every Senior Class Play—just waiting for my turn and then it was not to be. It was hard for me to accept that I didn’t have much talent as an actress.
The rest of my senior year flew by in a blur. I took Vinnie to my prom at Notre Dame and he took me to the St. Francis prom. Before each prom I got my hair done in “petals” as was the style. The beautician would comb the hair to the top of the head, rat it, spray it and form it into loops that she bobby- pinned in place. Before the St. Francis prom, a group of us went to a fancy restaurant and after the prom to the bowling alley. We arrived back home in the wee hours of the morning—but that was expected. It was nice that we never had to worry about money—Vinnie always had it.
In addition to our two school proms, Vinnie and I went to the Junior Achievement prom and a formal dance sponsored by Vinnie’s Dad’s company. At that dance, they raffled off five new Mustangs and Vinnie won one of them! He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and then this! I bought a formal and wore it twice but then borrowed one from Carla for the third prom and borrowed one from a girl I hardly knew for the fourth. Unbeknownst to me, during the evening, someone burned a hole with a cigarette in the dress I had borrowed. I didn’t notice it until I got home. I never told the girl what had happened but Mom gave me $25 to buy the dress from her, which the girl was happy to accept.
After it was decided that I would be going to Cincinnati for college, Vinnie and I spent a few agonizing months wondering how we were going to make it being separated by so much distance. Phone calls were expensive and I didn’t have a car. We had both done quite well on our SAT tests (57 verbal and 65 math for me) and money was no object, so Vinnie could pretty much go wherever he wanted. I didn’t try to sway him but he narrowed his choices to Ohio University, in Athens, or Xavier University in Cincinnati. I didn’t know until shortly after graduation that he had been accepted at Xavier and that’s where he had decided to go. Of course, I was elated. I wouldn’t be alone.
The weeks leading up to graduation were hectic and full of parties and fun. I was overjoyed to find I was one of five in my class to wear a ribbon for all A’s my entire high school career. I also received $250 from Junior Achievement and $100 for being the best secretarial student in the class. Debbie Restivo, the Student Council President, was Valedictorian; I was probably third or fourth. Scholarships were almost non-existent if you didn’t have financial need; and even with six kids, Dad made too much money for me to qualify. Mom had already told me I needed to make $500 during the summer to help with tuition and expenses.
The day of my graduation from high school was June 5, 1968—Mom woke me with the news that Robert F. Kennedy had been killed in Los Angeles—a memorable day in more ways than one. My parents took us out to a fancy restaurant as a graduation gift. I could tell they were very proud of me as Mom went on-and-on to Vinnie about what a “gem” I was. After the ceremony, yearbooks were passed around so everyone could sign them. Vinnie spent an extra-long time writing in mine and I felt very special. It was impossible to believe we wouldn’t be seeing these friends much anymore.
It was time to get down to business. I got my first job as a car hop at an A&W Root Beer stand. Vinnie hated it when I was working and hung out in the parking lot watching me. I think he was afraid I was going to get hit-on. I worked there a whole four days before I screwed up so badly that, instead of getting paid, I had to pay them. I was so upset that I cried to Vinnie I didn’t want to go back. The next thing I knew, Vinnie’s Dad had gotten me a job at Sears in their Catalog Sales Department—a much-improved position. I worked mornings—from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. It took the entire summer to earn $500 so I couldn’t have been making much per hour.
There were about twenty women working in Catalog Sales and I was the youngest by far. Most of the women had been working at the job for years. The work was stressful at times, especially when I was making calls with the manager listening in. Most of the time we answered calls, answering questions and filling out order forms. That was the easy part. For an hour or so a day, we called people who had been sent sales flyers and tried to get them interested in buying something. That was the part I hated. For two weeks during the summer, I worked from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., subbing for someone having an operation on her hemorrhoids. During that week I got a feel for what a full-time job entailed and it made me especially glad I was going to be a dancer.
The rest of the summer was pretty laid-back. I swam at the new YMCA Bowman Park pool with my family and at Vinnie’s pool with his family. He had two older brothers—both of whom were married and it made us feel grown up to hang out with them. We went to lots of movies and out to eat. We made out in the back seat of the new Mustang. We were looking forward to college and the next stage of our lives but we weren’t in any hurry.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The Last Baby Bird
I begin my solo road trip to Toledo, Ohio, from Dallas, Texas, after work on Tuesday, August 11th. I am anticipating some problems with fatigue as I don’t do well with caffeine—it makes me jumpy and, behind the wheel of our new Prius, I don’t want to be that. I have taken many a road trip in the past to Toledo and Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, where my husband’s family lives, but never alone. I am accustomed to driving two hours and sleeping two hours while Ed drives. But this time, I am counting on Sirius/XM radio to keep me awake.
I have the entire trip planned down to the hour. I have purchased Priceline hotel rooms along the way for me and the girls. Ali and Katie will leave the following Monday to drive up to Muncie, Indiana, where Katie is due to start college the Monday next. On the return trip, Ali will accompany me leaving Katie’s car behind for visits to relatives or friends in Cincinnati or Toledo on weekends or Spring Break. Before and after my trip down to Ball State to help Katie move in the dorm and pick up Ali, I will be staying with my long-time best friend and former college roommate, Sue, and her husband, Mike, as well as with my Mom in Toledo.
A jumble of thoughts swirl through my head as I begin my journey. My oldest child, Andrew, is due to begin college at long-last. After three years of being on his own, working as a waiter and growing up, he discovered his true love is still music. Thanks to the Texas Tomorrow Fund, he is now enrolled in the Jazz Studies program as a keyboard performer at the University of North Texas, one of the top music schools in the country. I thank Families Anonymous and Andrew’s indomitable spirit for his success in finding his way to the place he needs to be. For once, we did nothing. Ed and I are very proud of Andrew and the fact that he is putting one foot in front of the other and doing what it takes. We often look at each other and smile—we must have done something right because all three of the kids are fascinating, talented and caring human beings.
Ali is pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor at Texas A&M University. She is an undergraduate junior majoring in Biology and is scheduled to take the MCATs in a few weeks. She has been phenomenal in everything she’s ever undertaken—gymnastics, piano, science, etc. She currently has a 4.0 average at one of the most difficult universities in the nation. She is very goal-oriented, independent and mature—much more so than I was at her age. She actually hasn’t had a boyfriend in almost a year—even though she has had many offers. She believes in total equality of the sexes and thinks some of my ideas about marriage are antiquated. Sounds familiar! Although my mother was ahead of her time and I believe I’m ahead of mine, Ali is way out there.
And then there’s Katie—the last baby bird to leave the nest. I am grateful to say, she has finally found her niche. She floundered in many of her early attempts, but I guess she’s just a late bloomer. Wisely, she didn’t follow in her brother and sister’s footsteps and go into piano at the Arts Magnet High School—although she could have. She chose theatre instead and it seems to have worked for her. Katie was one of twelve chosen by audition from a 200-person pool of actors to participate in Ball State’s prestigious theatre program. Her ambition is none other than to win the Best Actress Academy Award and thank her parents for their support.
How did the kids get so old so quickly? When Ed and I married, which seems like in the relatively recent past, they were ages 4, 5 and 7. We were a blended family—Ali is my biological child and Andrew and Katie were adopted from Korea by Ed and Joan, who passed away rather suddenly. And now fifteen years later Ed and I are finally going to be alone. It’s a bit scary. We’ve always had kids around—lots of activity, lots of noise. I know our faithful cats, Homer and Maggie, will keep us company but, no doubt, it will be different.
The first five hours of the drive to Little Rock fly by surprisingly quickly. I listen to The Grand Ole Opry on the satellite radio. I blow by Texarkana and am into Arkansas before I know it. My life seems to be going by the same way. Andrew turned 21 last January. Ali turns 21 in November, Katie 19 in December. So they’re more-or-less adults now. They don’t rely on me the way they used to. They call me when they need something quickly, but most of the time they figure out on their own how to navigate their lives. I don’t remember being treated like or feeling like an adult when I turned 21; but in this day-and-age, thanks to the Privacy Laws, one day kids are kids and can’t do anything without our signature and the next day you can’t find out anything about them without their permission.
I stop for “dinner” at Taco Bell and eat my burrito while I’m driving. I’m in-and-out in a matter of minutes. When traveling with the kids, we would stop more often and spend more money. My burrito is $1.79 and it makes me laugh. I brought a cooler of Coke Zero and bottled water with me and a bag of pretzels, chocolate covered almonds, dark chocolate bars and breakfast Detour bars. So other than the occasional vegetarian main dish, I’m pretty set. The Prius is running like a charm and I feel safe and comfortable inside it. I use the cruise control and keep the car at an even 75 mph.
Being a young adult today is quite different than when I was young. College wasn’t nearly as hard—nearly everyone succeeded who tried it. It wasn’t as expensive nor was it as difficult to get accepted. Families didn’t take trips around the country checking out universities. Kids attended their local city or state colleges and didn’t complain about it. There didn’t seem to be nearly as many career choices. You majored in business, teaching, medicine, science, the arts, etc. No one majored in “Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics” like you can now.
I spend a quiet, peaceful night in Little Rock after watching a Seinfeld rerun. I am up and on the road by 9:00 a.m.—right on schedule. I stop to grab a banana from the free breakfast and eat a Detour bar for my protein. The Prius GPS tells me the drive today consists of 639 miles and will take 11 hours and 10 minutes. I don’t believe it—taking into consideration the hour change from Central Time to Eastern Time, I plan to arrive in Cincinnati at 7:00 p.m. I find Bob Dylan’s Theme Radio on Sirius. I am happy to be on the road and not at work. I am grateful for the beautiful weather and the day spreading out like a patchwork quilt before me.
Oftentimes my mind is like my dreams—in the morning, I try to catch the memories before they float away. A thought will enter my mind; I’ll reach for my pen, and it’s gone. I desire more clarity but I seem to be in too big a rush. I want to slow down and learn to enjoy the NOW. The little success I have had with “living in the moment” usually occurs when I’m walking in the park by myself. I walk slowly, taking in my surroundings, feeling every inch of my body. Thoughts enter my mind and I gently let them go and return to my mindfulness. There is nothing I need to do, nothing I need to plan.
But now, I am on my way to Memphis. We visited a few years ago when Ali competed in the National Tumbling Championships. I remember how I enjoyed watching her fly through the air. Our friend, Larry, is transferring our videos to DVDs so we have been watching some of the old footage. I wonder if new technology helps kids’ memories stay intact. We have videos of just about every event in our children’s lives. Wouldn’t that help prevent repressed memories? Does watching movies of yourself when you were a kid prevent denial? After all, it’s difficult to deny what’s right there in living color. So much of what happened in our childhoods has to be dredged up to be examined.
I have the entire trip planned down to the hour. I have purchased Priceline hotel rooms along the way for me and the girls. Ali and Katie will leave the following Monday to drive up to Muncie, Indiana, where Katie is due to start college the Monday next. On the return trip, Ali will accompany me leaving Katie’s car behind for visits to relatives or friends in Cincinnati or Toledo on weekends or Spring Break. Before and after my trip down to Ball State to help Katie move in the dorm and pick up Ali, I will be staying with my long-time best friend and former college roommate, Sue, and her husband, Mike, as well as with my Mom in Toledo.
A jumble of thoughts swirl through my head as I begin my journey. My oldest child, Andrew, is due to begin college at long-last. After three years of being on his own, working as a waiter and growing up, he discovered his true love is still music. Thanks to the Texas Tomorrow Fund, he is now enrolled in the Jazz Studies program as a keyboard performer at the University of North Texas, one of the top music schools in the country. I thank Families Anonymous and Andrew’s indomitable spirit for his success in finding his way to the place he needs to be. For once, we did nothing. Ed and I are very proud of Andrew and the fact that he is putting one foot in front of the other and doing what it takes. We often look at each other and smile—we must have done something right because all three of the kids are fascinating, talented and caring human beings.
Ali is pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor at Texas A&M University. She is an undergraduate junior majoring in Biology and is scheduled to take the MCATs in a few weeks. She has been phenomenal in everything she’s ever undertaken—gymnastics, piano, science, etc. She currently has a 4.0 average at one of the most difficult universities in the nation. She is very goal-oriented, independent and mature—much more so than I was at her age. She actually hasn’t had a boyfriend in almost a year—even though she has had many offers. She believes in total equality of the sexes and thinks some of my ideas about marriage are antiquated. Sounds familiar! Although my mother was ahead of her time and I believe I’m ahead of mine, Ali is way out there.
And then there’s Katie—the last baby bird to leave the nest. I am grateful to say, she has finally found her niche. She floundered in many of her early attempts, but I guess she’s just a late bloomer. Wisely, she didn’t follow in her brother and sister’s footsteps and go into piano at the Arts Magnet High School—although she could have. She chose theatre instead and it seems to have worked for her. Katie was one of twelve chosen by audition from a 200-person pool of actors to participate in Ball State’s prestigious theatre program. Her ambition is none other than to win the Best Actress Academy Award and thank her parents for their support.
How did the kids get so old so quickly? When Ed and I married, which seems like in the relatively recent past, they were ages 4, 5 and 7. We were a blended family—Ali is my biological child and Andrew and Katie were adopted from Korea by Ed and Joan, who passed away rather suddenly. And now fifteen years later Ed and I are finally going to be alone. It’s a bit scary. We’ve always had kids around—lots of activity, lots of noise. I know our faithful cats, Homer and Maggie, will keep us company but, no doubt, it will be different.
The first five hours of the drive to Little Rock fly by surprisingly quickly. I listen to The Grand Ole Opry on the satellite radio. I blow by Texarkana and am into Arkansas before I know it. My life seems to be going by the same way. Andrew turned 21 last January. Ali turns 21 in November, Katie 19 in December. So they’re more-or-less adults now. They don’t rely on me the way they used to. They call me when they need something quickly, but most of the time they figure out on their own how to navigate their lives. I don’t remember being treated like or feeling like an adult when I turned 21; but in this day-and-age, thanks to the Privacy Laws, one day kids are kids and can’t do anything without our signature and the next day you can’t find out anything about them without their permission.
I stop for “dinner” at Taco Bell and eat my burrito while I’m driving. I’m in-and-out in a matter of minutes. When traveling with the kids, we would stop more often and spend more money. My burrito is $1.79 and it makes me laugh. I brought a cooler of Coke Zero and bottled water with me and a bag of pretzels, chocolate covered almonds, dark chocolate bars and breakfast Detour bars. So other than the occasional vegetarian main dish, I’m pretty set. The Prius is running like a charm and I feel safe and comfortable inside it. I use the cruise control and keep the car at an even 75 mph.
Being a young adult today is quite different than when I was young. College wasn’t nearly as hard—nearly everyone succeeded who tried it. It wasn’t as expensive nor was it as difficult to get accepted. Families didn’t take trips around the country checking out universities. Kids attended their local city or state colleges and didn’t complain about it. There didn’t seem to be nearly as many career choices. You majored in business, teaching, medicine, science, the arts, etc. No one majored in “Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics” like you can now.
I spend a quiet, peaceful night in Little Rock after watching a Seinfeld rerun. I am up and on the road by 9:00 a.m.—right on schedule. I stop to grab a banana from the free breakfast and eat a Detour bar for my protein. The Prius GPS tells me the drive today consists of 639 miles and will take 11 hours and 10 minutes. I don’t believe it—taking into consideration the hour change from Central Time to Eastern Time, I plan to arrive in Cincinnati at 7:00 p.m. I find Bob Dylan’s Theme Radio on Sirius. I am happy to be on the road and not at work. I am grateful for the beautiful weather and the day spreading out like a patchwork quilt before me.
Oftentimes my mind is like my dreams—in the morning, I try to catch the memories before they float away. A thought will enter my mind; I’ll reach for my pen, and it’s gone. I desire more clarity but I seem to be in too big a rush. I want to slow down and learn to enjoy the NOW. The little success I have had with “living in the moment” usually occurs when I’m walking in the park by myself. I walk slowly, taking in my surroundings, feeling every inch of my body. Thoughts enter my mind and I gently let them go and return to my mindfulness. There is nothing I need to do, nothing I need to plan.
But now, I am on my way to Memphis. We visited a few years ago when Ali competed in the National Tumbling Championships. I remember how I enjoyed watching her fly through the air. Our friend, Larry, is transferring our videos to DVDs so we have been watching some of the old footage. I wonder if new technology helps kids’ memories stay intact. We have videos of just about every event in our children’s lives. Wouldn’t that help prevent repressed memories? Does watching movies of yourself when you were a kid prevent denial? After all, it’s difficult to deny what’s right there in living color. So much of what happened in our childhoods has to be dredged up to be examined.
I am past Memphis and nearing Nashville. I make a few calls—to Sue to tell her when I plan to arrive and to Ed to tell him I miss him. I am looking forward to one of Sue’s outstanding meals. She is one person who doesn’t mind that I have become a vegetarian. She loves me just the way I am and I feel the same about her—for forty years now. We have been through marriages—two for her and two for me—divorces, children, and illness. She developed cardiomyopathy right after she married her second husband and hasn’t been able to work for years. She got sick after she got her Masters and became Director of the Dance Department at the University of Cincinnati where we were once underclassmen. While I went on the dance professionally, she went on to teach ballet at the college level. So I guess you could say our college educations paid off. I hope my kids will be as fortunate.
However, the competition seems to be getting more intense. Everyone is getting better at everything. When Ali was in gymnastics, her coaches would tell her that at Level 10 she was doing more difficult tricks than the athletes who competed in the Olympics twenty years ago. In track-and-field, football, basketball, etc., records are being broken every day. When I see regional dance companies, most of their dancers are as good as anyone in a New York City ballet company back in my day. Will humans continue to improve? Or is there a limit to what the human body can do?
A college degree is almost not enough these days. Kids are graduating with four-year degrees and the only jobs they can find are as waiters and waitresses. Or they are competing for jobs as interns that don’t pay anything—you work for the experience that affords you a paying job down-the-road. My generation fears their children will be worse-off financially than they are. Has the tide finally turned?
I find a country station on the Sirius/XM radio that plays a lot of artists I like—Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Robert Earl Keen, John Prine. I stop for a Wendy’s cheddar and broccoli potato and struggle to eat it while I’m driving. Being a vegetarian on a road trip sucks! I am through Nashville and on my way to Louisville, Kentucky. I lived in Louisville with my first husband, Mike, the year after I graduated from college. Sue was living with her first husband, also a Mike, and we would visit them often. While in Louisville, I continued to study ballet with the hope of becoming a member of a ballet company whose Artistic Director was setting Les Sylphides on the Louisville students. Suffice it to say I wasn’t the type of dancer they were looking for. At the time, I was disappointed; but in hindsight everything worked out perfectly. It brings to mind a song in which Garth Brooks sings, “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.” Amen.
My switch to vegetarianism is a recent development. Ed and I viewed the film, Peaceable Kingdom, a few months ago at our Unitarian Universalist Church. The extent of the cruelty being perpetrated against factory farm animals throughout this country in order to satisfy our hunger for meat is appalling. Hens are crammed so tightly together their beaks are snipped off at an early age to keep them from pecking each other to death. From birth to death, most factory farm animals never see the light of day. Female cows are kept perpetually pregnant so they can continue to produce milk. Their udders become so massively bloated from this cycle that many of them have a difficult time walking to the slaughterhouse. Once they deliver their calves, they are artificially inseminated again while their male offspring is sold as veal. Pigs fare no better. They are pumped full of steroids and kept in pens so confining they can’t even turn around. If our meat consumption declines, so will the killing. It’s just that simple.
I am through Louisville in a wink and am now only a little over an hour from my destination. I call my older sister, Carla, while crossing the Ohio River. Her condo overlooks the River and I will be seeing her soon—sooner than I think it turns out. When I arrive at Sue’s, only a half-hour later than my scheduled ETA, her two standard poodles, Prince and Patch, welcome me wildly. I am happy to have arrived safely; I am happy to see Sue and Mike, and I am happy to be sipping a refreshing glass of white wine. The dinner is as I expected—Perfecto! More wine, dessert and then off to bed early as tomorrow will be a busy day.
The weather in the morning is perfect for a jog so off I set with my IPod to go exploring. As I run, I mentally recite my “gratitude list”—I’m grateful to God and Guru; I’m grateful to be a beloved child of God himself; I’m grateful for this blessed day full of sunshine and friends. After my shower, Sue and I decide we will have lunch at my favorite place, Mt. Adams Bar & Grill, and we invite another former classmate, Marcy, and my sister, Carla. Carla and Marcy got to know each other during our Summer Stock days at the Pioneer Playhouse in Danville, Kentucky. It was the summer after my college graduation and it was my first paid dancing gig.
A lot has changed since then—most of it for the best. At the time I was timid and unsure of myself. I hooked up with Mike so I would have a “partner in crime”. It’s a lot easier to take risks when there are two of you. But also I have matured. I don’t need anyone else to lean on or “make” me happy. I know why I am here on this earth and what things are really important—and they’re not material.
The lunch is so fun—four old broads not caring what anyone else thinks. We drink Stella beer and laugh like hyenas. I am with people I care about deeply and it warms my heart. Later, after a swim and a nap, Sue, Mike and I eat dinner at a pizza place. Life is good and it’s even better when you savor the moments. The next morning I leave for Toledo. I am not sad to say goodbye as I will return with Ali in a week.
As I drive I think about my brother, Joe, and the fact that he is in love. He was married for several years to Julie and they have two kids—Allison and Kevin. They are sweetheart kids and I have seen quite a bit of them in the last four years since their parents split up. Joe is determined to see they have a close relationship with the members of his family. He tends to be a workaholic; but after Julie left, I think he has let up some. He is a very attentive and nurturing Dad. Last summer I asked him if he thought he would ever marry again. In his typical jovial manner, he quipped, “I don’t think I’ll ever date again.” So I am exceedingly happy that he found a great girl like Mary. When I met Ed, after I had been married 10 years and divorced 13 years, it was love at first sight. I have been so happy and fulfilled in my second marriage that I wish that for everyone.
Julie is somewhat of a glamour girl. I think when we’re young, we tend to marry for looks. Hopefully, although it’s not always the case, the older we get, the more we are attracted to the beauty within. I am not saying Mary is not pretty—but it’s a different kind of beauty. It’s a mature, down-home, comfortable beauty. At least that’s what I see in her picture. I have yet to meet her.
When I arrive at Mom’s, she and Terry, my younger sister, are waiting for me. They both look good and I’m happy to see that Mom is walking better. She broke her hip last Spring and has had a real time of getting her mobility back. It doesn’t help that she has macular degeneration and doesn’t see well. But she’s in great spirits. It’s wonderful to see them both and we visit until Carla comes and it’s time to go meet the rest of the crew. Mom elects to stay home and enjoy the peace and quiet.
My youngest sister, Ann, and her husband, Charlie, were playing golf with Joe and Mary so we meet them at a restaurant near the golf course. I get to sit next to Mary and feel an instant rapport. She really does seem perfect for Joe (although not perfect, like Joe—his words). I find out that she and Joe dated in college and reconnected on one of his trips to Chicago to play in a guts Frisbee tournament. They have history—that might explain the instant attraction. She is a freelance photographer, a yoga instructor, a Buddhist and a vegetarian so we have lots to talk about.
On Saturday, Joe and Mary’s last day in town, we play golf at Terry and Gerry’s. They live on a golf course and it’s tradition to play there at least once when we’re in town—especially since they usually pick up the tab. Aside from the fact that I don’t play well, it’s great fun. Brother Carl and his girlfriend, Linda, bring Mom and we all go out to the Bayshore Supper Club for dinner. The kids join us for a night of bridge, euchre and Texas Hold ‘em back at Terry’s. Two of the kids are the big winners. I record everything with my new camcorder to show Ed, but accidentally erase it. The story of my life.
The next few days are filled with bridge and golf—the two games I enjoy most in the world. More often than not I lose at bridge because, as they say, “Lucky in love, unlucky in cards.” One night Nancy, my best friend in high school, and her husband, Rudy, take me to dinner at Olive Garden and we reminisce. She is one of those friends who never change. We can go a few years without seeing each other; but when we do, it’s like no time has passed.
On Monday I play golf with my three sisters at Bedford Hills. It is not only our favorite course but also the site of Terry and Gerry’s wedding some 13 years earlier. They were wed overlooking the 18th green after a scrambles tournament. I am optimistic I will play better today than I did on Saturday, but many obstacles prevent me from reaching that goal. After we play the first eight holes, the sky opens up unexpectedly and we are caught in a deluge. We huddle under a tree sharing one umbrella and giggling despite the fact we are getting soaking wet. After about 30 minutes, the rain lets up and we make a mad dash for the clubhouse. In between pitchers of beer and thunderstorms, we finish our game—in a record-breaking nine hours.
I can’t remember when I have enjoyed a game of golf more. I feel sorry for people who don’t have brothers and sisters and incredibly lucky that I do. The six of us are very close and we rarely fight or even argue although that wasn’t always the case. I am grateful that I married Ed so Ali could enjoy siblings. Maybe I love my family more because I live far away from them and seeing them is such a treat. I do think there is something to the theory that people reincarnate in groups. I think we must have earned our good “family karma” in a previous life. I am glad that my kids “chill” together and keep in touch by calling, texting and on Facebook .
Wednesday finally arrives and it’s time to drive to Ball State. The drive is uneventful but easy and stress-free. Carla and I meet the girls at their hotel and we drive together to McDonalds for some breakfast. Of course they haven’t eaten—they would have had to use their own money. I have taught them well. After breakfast, we follow the girls to Katie’s dorm to unload her belongings. It is looking very much like rain; but luckily, it holds off while we get everything unpacked and stacked at the curb. Katie and Ali walk into the dorm so Katie can sign-in and get her room key. Good news, she’s on the third floor—one of the elevator stops. We won’t have to walk up any stairs. Volunteers in pink scoop up everything in one load and we march single-file up to Katie’s new home. After about an hour, it really does look like home. Katie’s belongings are hung up, tucked in drawers or on display.
There are a few things we need to do so we set off to get them done. Katie needs a parking sticker for her car so we follow a family with a sophomore who knows the way. The line is predictably long and we wait about an hour before the mission is accomplished. Katie also needs to buy a few items—most notably a fan as the dorm is not air conditioned—so after parking Katie’s car at the Football Stadium, we drive to Target to shop. Afterward, we eat lunch together and it’s time to say goodbye. Back up in Katie’s dorm room, we Skype her roommate so we can “meet” her (unbelievable technology) and then prepare to leave. Of course, we take lots of pictures and I have the camcorder going—but it’s more of the footage I lost. Katie is a little teary-eyed but I am determined not to cry. I know we will both be fine and become accustomed to the new arrangements quickly.
Once downstairs in the dorm lobby, we realize that once again it is pouring rain. I guess we should be thankful that all Katie’s stuff didn’t get wet. What else is there to do but dress in some discarded plastic bags and make a run for it? It pours off-and-on all the way home but it isn’t raining in Toledo so we stop and visit Ann, Terry and their Wednesday night golf league cronies at the usual Mexican restaurant. Ali is with us and I think she enjoys being with her Aunts and being treated like an adult. I slip her margaritas when the waitress isn’t looking. As long as she knows “everything in moderation” she will be fine. I am not worried about her.
The next morning there is more rain in the forecast, but we decide to try to golf anyway as this is our last chance. It’s the girls again only this time Ali makes five. She has never played on a regulation course although she did take a semester of golf at college. She is nervous that she won’t do well and that she will be embarrass herself. Ha! She is incredible—getting a par 5 on the first par 5 hole she has ever played. Ali is a natural athlete and I am happy for her that she plays well. We will all be talking about that game for a long time. And unbelievably, it doesn’t rain!
We gather for a farewell dinner at the River Café, although unfortunately Carl and Mom have already gone to their usual Thursday night Mass and dinner at Big Boy. I am sorry that we didn’t call them earlier to tell them about our plans. The food is good; we take lots of pictures and exclaim loudly and often, “This is the life.” We finish the night with our last few rubbers of bridge. At 85 Mom is as sharp as ever and, once again, she whips our butts. Friday morning Ali and I leave on schedule for Sue’s and our trip back to Texas. It is difficult, as always, to say goodbye.
Mom still lives in the same house we moved into when I was in the fourth grade so it brings back a lot of memories. Many of the memories are of my Dad who passed away almost six years ago, but most of the memories are happy even so. I am grateful to have had such wonderful, nurturing parents as I know that is essential for the development of healthy self-esteem. However, parenting today has changed quite a bit from the way we were parented.
While the kids were growing up, I wanted to make sure they respected me and knew who was boss. I attempted to impose my will upon them and “make” them do what I wanted them to do. I was a “do-it- because-I-said-so” kind of a mom. Again because of Families Anonymous, I realize that might not be the best way to parent. I am now a firm believer in keeping my mouth shut and letting my kids make their own decisions. They either suffer the consequences or reap the rewards and it’s all their doing. I only take credit for myself and my own accomplishments and leave them to their higher power.
The visit with Ali, Sue and Mike is magical. I look on in awe at the astonishing woman who came through me but is definitely her own person. I no longer have to “mother” Ali. I can appreciate her and all my kids as my dear, dear friends. The trip back to Dallas flies by too quickly. Ali leaves for college the day after we get home.
I am looking forward to having a new, freer life with my husband. No more homework, rushing out for last-minute supplies, hectic weekends filled with concerts, plays or gymnastics meets. Just the two of us—sitting on the couch reading, watching a movie holding hands, having a candlelit dinner for two or running a marathon. I no longer worry about the kids. They are being cared for by a being with whom I can’t compete. Nor would I want to. I am ready to relinquish my role. The last baby bird has flown the nest.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Port Aransas and More
Our three kids are grown. In June of 2009, my husband, Ed, and I went on a short vacation to Port Aransas, Texas, to rest, rejuvenate and reminisce. Our youngest daughter, Katie, had just graduated from high school and, being our most demanding child, we went all-out for her. We were exhausted and badly in need of a break. The gifts were given, the party thrown, the diploma was in hand and the relatives had gone home. Because money was tight and we were trying to save at least something for the August tuition payment, we opted for a “cheap” vacation at a destination only a short eight-hour drive from home. We had gone to a beach wedding there two years ago and at least I had been dying to go back ever since. From my recollection, Port Aransas was calm and peaceful and I felt my spiritual life in need of a jump-start. I had been meditating for some years and the beach seemed the perfect place to deepen my practice.
I started my life as a Catholic attending Catholic grade school and a Catholic girls’ high school. From my earliest memories, I prayed frequently and felt God’s presence in my life. During high school I went to Mass nearly every day. I even thought of joining the convent, and believe I would have if it hadn’t been for my overwhelming desire to be a ballet dancer. However once I got to college and boys became a big part of my life, God took a back seat. Even after I married, and perhaps because my husband wasn’t devout, I continued to live a rather secular life. And I can’t say that I was happy.
In 1973, my first husband, Mike, and I became members of a small touring ballet company in residence at the University of Idaho. Mike was brought up Presbyterian but wasn’t particularly religious or spiritual. We were on the road a good percentage of our yearly 11-month contract and church-going was something we just never did. After five years in Idaho, we moved to Dallas to join Dallas Ballet. With Dallas Ballet we hardly traveled and usually had the months of May, June and July off. Nearing my 30th birthday, I felt my youth slipping away and with it an urge to explore life’s quintessential questions.
After about a year in Dallas, a dancer friend introduced us to St. Alcuin’s Community Church which opened up a whole new world for me. The church was lead by Father Taliaferro, a senior member of the Rosicrucian Order, an ancient religious society dedicated to the study of mysticism. Talk about the difference between night and day! Fr. Talliaferro’s weekly sermons were eye-opening and often baffling. It was hard for me to put into words what they were about. I just knew they mesmerized me and I wanted to know more.
When Father Taliaferro spoke, it was as if he were in a trance. He never spoke from notes and the amount and depth of the information he disseminated seemed monumental. I wondered how any individual could remember so much and speak about it so effortlessly and eloquently. He spoke of Jesus being the Buddha reincarnated, that Sir Francis Bacon actually wrote the Shakespeare Plays, that many of the founding fathers of the United States believed in mysticism and designed the dollar bill using mystical symbols, to name a few of his sermon topics. He spoke of the guidance of the ascended masters, meditation and reincarnation. It was all fascinating and mind-blowing. He spoke with such conviction that it touched something deep within me. I felt what he said was true and I embraced it.
Because of my interest in Father Taliaferro’s teachings, I joined the Rosicrucian Order to “develop my inner wisdom through their home study system of metaphysics and mysticism.” I don’t remember how many years I was a Rosicrucian or even much of what I learned. I do recall deciding to discontinue my studies at the point when the materials were teaching out-of-body travel. I never had any truly eye-opening experiences while a Rosicrucian. I wasn’t ready. I had too much earthly stuff yet to experience.
Living in Dallas offered many spiritual avenues. I started using my summer vacations to explore where I was being led. After being in Dallas a few years, I enrolled in an Astrology class at the Constellation Bookstore. I had always been interested in Astrology because, as a Virgo, my personality characteristics seemed to match so exactly what little I had read about my sign. Upon delving deeper into Astrology, I learned we are much more than our Sun sign and that many additional planets in my chart are also in Virgo. Constellation Bookstore held classes in other subjects too and I began taking advantage of what they had to offer. I watched a movie about Nostradamus; took a workshop on Palmistry; a seminar with astrologer, Alan Oken; and even started weekly Yoga classes.
Things began to change rapidly in my life. The Director of the Dallas Ballet, George Skibine, who had hired me, died suddenly. At the end of a tour of South America with the Dallas Ballet, Michael and I contracted hepatitis and were in bed for two months. Luckily, it was during our summer break; but not so luckily, Michael suffered a severe stress fracture in his shin when he started dancing again. He was forced to drop out of the ballet for the year. Randy, a friend who later became more than a friend, gave Michael a job in Nevada working a surface gold mine. That was the beginning of the end of our relationship and our marriage.
In my desire to increase my awareness and influence the events of my life, I signed up for a week-long seminar called Silva Mind Control. It was my first taste of prolonged meditation, although what Silva teaches could more accurately be called creative visualization while in a meditative state. The meditation of Silva usually has a material end in mind—landing a new job, finding a new boyfriend or winning the lottery (which Jose Silva actually did using his methods). During the seminar, I remember hearing about a book called “The Name It and Claim It Game” written by Helen Hadsell, better known as the Contest Queen. She purportedly won every contest she ever entered because she believed she was going to win. She used Silva Mind Control techniques to cement her beliefs. After the Silva seminar, I was meditating three times a day for fifteen minutes at a time. I continued this type of meditating with varying results for many years.
To further expand my horizons, I started going to classes, meditations and workshops at the Alphabiotics Center. The Center offered so many exciting activities it was hard to choose which to try first. I began by attending the weekly healing meditations. The participants would sit on the floor in a darkened room directing their collective energy to people in need of healing. I also signed up for a 6-week class on Handwriting Analysis with Mary Lynn Bryden, founder of the Institute of Graphological Science. After the first lesson, I was hooked. I began a ten-year intensive study of handwriting analysis.
Mary Lynn had spent years developing her handwriting course and having it certified by the Texas Education Agency. The first study manual was comprised of twelve lessons and when completed the title of Certified Graphologist was awarded. Each lesson focused on a different aspect of analyzing handwriting—for example, slant, size, spacing, zonal balance, and the shape of individual letters. Passing the lessons of the second study manual conferred the title of Certified Master Graphologist. After I had been studying with the Institute for several years, Mary Lynn developed a third course. In passing that series of lessons, the student became a Master Graphotherapist. Those lessons were based on codependency and addiction issues and taught methods the Graphotherapist could use to help a client change his behavior based on changing his handwriting.
After passing all three levels, I worked many Psychic Fairs in Dallas, Austin and Houston. There was good money to be made and my specialty was Compatibility Analysis. I would analyze a sample of handwriting from each person in a relationship and discuss with them the similarities and differences in their personalities. In doing the comparisons, I also brought in Astrological aspects. The Fairs were held on weekends so they didn’t interfere with my regular job. After years of study, I worked part time for Mary Lynn grading the lessons. I continued as grader even after Mary Lynn was strangled to death by her boyfriend. The Institute was taken over by a long-time friend and former lover of Mary Lynn’s. Alan and I worked together to keep the Institute going until it was sold to a woman from Oklahoma about three years after Mary Lynn died.
My life continued amid all the changes. Mike and I got divorced. Randy and I lived together for seven years until we too parted ways. I remained friends with both of them. I dated a bit and tended to go from one monogamous relationship to the next looking for Mr. Right. During one such relationship with someone I cared about deeply, I discovered I was pregnant. I couldn’t have been happier. Luckily at the time, I was immersed in a spiritual program that helped me deal with everything that was going on.
“The Course in Miracles” was my new spiritual savior. I heard about it from my best friend, Lynn, who had been attending a study group in the home of a man named, Kurt. She urged me to go with her and I am very glad I did. The Course describes in detail many of the misconceptions that have developed over the teachings of Jesus. The message of the Course is forgiveness and the book is summed up in the statement: “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God.” The Course contains a Workbook of 365 lessons. The year I was pregnant, I practiced a lesson every day and they helped free me of resentments and anger. I believe I took many steps forward on my spiritual path that year. It was definitely a year of new beginnings—a miracle baby and a freer mind. Unfortunately, about a year into my study, Kurt died of AIDS.
After Ali was born, I drifted back to St. Alcuin’s and Father Taliaferro. He was the one who baptized her when she was 3 months old. I attended services sporadically over the next 4 to 5 years until Father Taliaferro passed in 1993. I attended his Memorial service as did hundreds of others.
In 1994, I enrolled Ali in a Montessori School in Oak Cliff. Father Taliaferro was instrumental in my decision as he had often preached about Maria Montessori and how her methods help children stay connected to the spirit within them. Father Taliaferro was one of the founders of the St. Alcuin Montessori School in North Dallas. I wanted Ali to attend St. Alcuin’s but it was too far away and too expensive. I soon found out that D.C.W. Montessori School was the place God wanted her to be because that’s where I met my husband, Ed.
Once Ed and I got together and I was the mother of three, we started attending Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Duncanville, Texas. Ed had been brought up Catholic so it seemed like the next best step. I always felt like an outsider at Holy Spirit even though I had my first marriage annulled so Ed and I could be married in the Church. We enrolled the kids in Faith Formation where they spent Sunday mornings for the next ten years. They received the Sacraments of Reconciliation, First Holy Communion, and Confirmation. We were happy when Father Timothy became Pastor because we loved his sermons. He was young, cute and the kids could relate to his sense of humor. I continued to believe in Reincarnation and the fact that everyone is saved. I cringed whenever I heard, “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on me.” I tried to keep my mouth shut and not confuse the kids too much.
In the year 2000, after years of searching, I found my spiritual home. My cousin, Ted, who has always been a spiritual seeker too, was the one who introduced me to Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings. I began by reading one of the Guru’s many books, most of which are made up of his early lectures. I was very attracted to his teachings which “emphasize the underlying unity of the world’s great religious and teach universally applicable methods for attaining direct personal experience of God through meditation.”
Yogananda was born in India in 1893 to a devoutly religious family. His mother and father meditated regularly and were devotees of Lahiri Mahashaya. It was this Guru who saved Yolanda from certain death by curing him of a serious illness when he was a small child. When he was just 17, Yogananda went searching for a spiritual teacher and found him in Swami Sri Yukteswar, a disciple of Lahiri Mahashaya’s. Yogananda lived in Yukteswar’s hermitage studying the science of Yoga for nearly ten years. He graduated from Calcutta University in 1915 after attending very few classes—he prayed and passed all his tests. Shortly thereafter, he became a monk of India’s venerable monastic Swami Order where he was given the name Yogananda, which means bliss through divine union.
In 1920, Yogananda was invited to the United States to attend an international religious conference in Boston. While here he founded the Self-Realization Fellowship which is a religious organization whose aim is to “disseminate worldwide his teachings on India’s ancient science of the philosophy of Yoga and its time-honored tradition of meditation.” He established its headquarters in Los Angeles. Yogananda toured the U.S. for from 1920-1935 giving lectures and teaching dedicated students.
After an 18-month tour of Europe and India where he lectured and met other spiritual leaders, he returned to Los Angeles to begin a contemplative and more private time of his life. He gave smaller classes only to his closest devotees who became the first monks and nuns of the Self-Realization Fellowship Order. He wrote his life’s story, Autobiography of a Yogi, which was first published in 1946 and has since been translated in 18 languages. In 1952 he entered mahasamadhi, which is the permanent conscious withdrawal of the life force from the body. In other words, he passed from the material world to the spiritual world when he desired it and without any loss of consciousness. Twenty days after his death, no decay or disintegration of his body was visible to the Director of the Forest Lawn Cemetery who signed a notarized statement to that effect. He said the body of Yogananda was in a state of perfect preservation.
The SRF home-study lessons teach “scientific techniques of concentration and meditation that lead to the direct personal experience of God.” After years of practicing the techniques, a devotee is able to withdraw the life force from the senses and direct it to the higher spiritual centers. That is where the direct experience of God is felt as new, ever-changing joy. Once a person is able to reach that state by repeated practice, meditation is no longer work but complete contentment and bliss. The meditation experience spills over into all areas of his life and, no matter what his earthly circumstances, he is supremely happy. After eight years of meditation, I have begun to scratch the surface. In my meditations I am finally reaching the state of interiorization where the outer world becomes insignificant.
After I completed the classes, which took me approximately three years, I received Kriya initiation. Kriya is a “sacred spiritual science originating millenniums ago in India.” This science was brought into modern times by Yogananda and the ascended masters of Jesus, Krishna and others. Practicing Kriya dissolves negative karma and saves a person countless incarnations. It helps the devotee attain enlightenment at a more rapid rate. Yogananda promised his devotees that, if they practice Kriya faithfully, no matter at what stage of their life they begin, they will achieve enlightenment in this lifetime. That’s why I tell everyone—tongue-in-cheek—that I am not coming back. This is my last incarnation.
During the first week of August every year, the Self-Realization Fellowship holds an International Convocation in Los Angeles. I have attended this Convocation twice. It consists of a week of classes, meditations and lectures guided by the monks and nuns of the SRF. Nearly 6,000 people from 54 countries attend annually. It is truly an enlightening and monumental experience—meditating and chanting with so many people from so many different countries who have such a strong, common bond—dedication to the Guru and his teachings. I always return from that experience resolved to meditate with more attention and devotion.
Unfortunately this summer I was unable to attend the Convocation—mainly because of the fact that starting this Fall, I will have three kids in three different colleges. Port Aransas was my spiritual retreat. Each morning Ed and I would get up and run for an hour on the beach. It was brutal—but the rest of the day was pure bliss. We followed our run with a leisurely breakfast and then shopping—for groceries, towels, beach chairs, t-shirts for ourselves and souvenirs for friends. At about 1:00 p.m. we would go back to our cottage where I would sit on the balcony overlooking the ocean and meditate. I found that with the wind and sun on my face and the sound of the waves in the background, it was the perfect environment for meditation. I was spiritually rejuvenated. At about 3:00 p.m., I would make my way down to the beach, jump in the waves, and thank God for my life and all its blessings.
And if I wasn’t lucky enough to find my Guru, I also found my Church home. The Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff is nurturing me in ways I never would have thought possible. I am learning what it means to truly believe that “all men are created equal”. I now know more than ever “what I stand for” and I am making my voice heard by my writings and emails. I am growing in empathy and compassion through the Social Justice Ministry. The First Tuesday Films are opening my eyes to injustices everywhere and I am doing what I can to “walk the walk”. Best of all my kids are finally seeing what I am all about. I am a member of the Dallas Peace Center and the Texas Coalition Against the Death Penalty. I walk in the Gay Pride Parade. I am a vegetarian because I am incensed at the way animals are treated on factory farms. I write the “Green Tips” for the UUCOC Monthly Newsletter. We recycle, use organic fertilizer and have a compost pile. I have finally found the peace that I have sought for so long. I am not complacent, but I am finally happy.
I started my life as a Catholic attending Catholic grade school and a Catholic girls’ high school. From my earliest memories, I prayed frequently and felt God’s presence in my life. During high school I went to Mass nearly every day. I even thought of joining the convent, and believe I would have if it hadn’t been for my overwhelming desire to be a ballet dancer. However once I got to college and boys became a big part of my life, God took a back seat. Even after I married, and perhaps because my husband wasn’t devout, I continued to live a rather secular life. And I can’t say that I was happy.
In 1973, my first husband, Mike, and I became members of a small touring ballet company in residence at the University of Idaho. Mike was brought up Presbyterian but wasn’t particularly religious or spiritual. We were on the road a good percentage of our yearly 11-month contract and church-going was something we just never did. After five years in Idaho, we moved to Dallas to join Dallas Ballet. With Dallas Ballet we hardly traveled and usually had the months of May, June and July off. Nearing my 30th birthday, I felt my youth slipping away and with it an urge to explore life’s quintessential questions.
After about a year in Dallas, a dancer friend introduced us to St. Alcuin’s Community Church which opened up a whole new world for me. The church was lead by Father Taliaferro, a senior member of the Rosicrucian Order, an ancient religious society dedicated to the study of mysticism. Talk about the difference between night and day! Fr. Talliaferro’s weekly sermons were eye-opening and often baffling. It was hard for me to put into words what they were about. I just knew they mesmerized me and I wanted to know more.
When Father Taliaferro spoke, it was as if he were in a trance. He never spoke from notes and the amount and depth of the information he disseminated seemed monumental. I wondered how any individual could remember so much and speak about it so effortlessly and eloquently. He spoke of Jesus being the Buddha reincarnated, that Sir Francis Bacon actually wrote the Shakespeare Plays, that many of the founding fathers of the United States believed in mysticism and designed the dollar bill using mystical symbols, to name a few of his sermon topics. He spoke of the guidance of the ascended masters, meditation and reincarnation. It was all fascinating and mind-blowing. He spoke with such conviction that it touched something deep within me. I felt what he said was true and I embraced it.
Because of my interest in Father Taliaferro’s teachings, I joined the Rosicrucian Order to “develop my inner wisdom through their home study system of metaphysics and mysticism.” I don’t remember how many years I was a Rosicrucian or even much of what I learned. I do recall deciding to discontinue my studies at the point when the materials were teaching out-of-body travel. I never had any truly eye-opening experiences while a Rosicrucian. I wasn’t ready. I had too much earthly stuff yet to experience.
Living in Dallas offered many spiritual avenues. I started using my summer vacations to explore where I was being led. After being in Dallas a few years, I enrolled in an Astrology class at the Constellation Bookstore. I had always been interested in Astrology because, as a Virgo, my personality characteristics seemed to match so exactly what little I had read about my sign. Upon delving deeper into Astrology, I learned we are much more than our Sun sign and that many additional planets in my chart are also in Virgo. Constellation Bookstore held classes in other subjects too and I began taking advantage of what they had to offer. I watched a movie about Nostradamus; took a workshop on Palmistry; a seminar with astrologer, Alan Oken; and even started weekly Yoga classes.
Things began to change rapidly in my life. The Director of the Dallas Ballet, George Skibine, who had hired me, died suddenly. At the end of a tour of South America with the Dallas Ballet, Michael and I contracted hepatitis and were in bed for two months. Luckily, it was during our summer break; but not so luckily, Michael suffered a severe stress fracture in his shin when he started dancing again. He was forced to drop out of the ballet for the year. Randy, a friend who later became more than a friend, gave Michael a job in Nevada working a surface gold mine. That was the beginning of the end of our relationship and our marriage.
In my desire to increase my awareness and influence the events of my life, I signed up for a week-long seminar called Silva Mind Control. It was my first taste of prolonged meditation, although what Silva teaches could more accurately be called creative visualization while in a meditative state. The meditation of Silva usually has a material end in mind—landing a new job, finding a new boyfriend or winning the lottery (which Jose Silva actually did using his methods). During the seminar, I remember hearing about a book called “The Name It and Claim It Game” written by Helen Hadsell, better known as the Contest Queen. She purportedly won every contest she ever entered because she believed she was going to win. She used Silva Mind Control techniques to cement her beliefs. After the Silva seminar, I was meditating three times a day for fifteen minutes at a time. I continued this type of meditating with varying results for many years.
To further expand my horizons, I started going to classes, meditations and workshops at the Alphabiotics Center. The Center offered so many exciting activities it was hard to choose which to try first. I began by attending the weekly healing meditations. The participants would sit on the floor in a darkened room directing their collective energy to people in need of healing. I also signed up for a 6-week class on Handwriting Analysis with Mary Lynn Bryden, founder of the Institute of Graphological Science. After the first lesson, I was hooked. I began a ten-year intensive study of handwriting analysis.
Mary Lynn had spent years developing her handwriting course and having it certified by the Texas Education Agency. The first study manual was comprised of twelve lessons and when completed the title of Certified Graphologist was awarded. Each lesson focused on a different aspect of analyzing handwriting—for example, slant, size, spacing, zonal balance, and the shape of individual letters. Passing the lessons of the second study manual conferred the title of Certified Master Graphologist. After I had been studying with the Institute for several years, Mary Lynn developed a third course. In passing that series of lessons, the student became a Master Graphotherapist. Those lessons were based on codependency and addiction issues and taught methods the Graphotherapist could use to help a client change his behavior based on changing his handwriting.
After passing all three levels, I worked many Psychic Fairs in Dallas, Austin and Houston. There was good money to be made and my specialty was Compatibility Analysis. I would analyze a sample of handwriting from each person in a relationship and discuss with them the similarities and differences in their personalities. In doing the comparisons, I also brought in Astrological aspects. The Fairs were held on weekends so they didn’t interfere with my regular job. After years of study, I worked part time for Mary Lynn grading the lessons. I continued as grader even after Mary Lynn was strangled to death by her boyfriend. The Institute was taken over by a long-time friend and former lover of Mary Lynn’s. Alan and I worked together to keep the Institute going until it was sold to a woman from Oklahoma about three years after Mary Lynn died.
My life continued amid all the changes. Mike and I got divorced. Randy and I lived together for seven years until we too parted ways. I remained friends with both of them. I dated a bit and tended to go from one monogamous relationship to the next looking for Mr. Right. During one such relationship with someone I cared about deeply, I discovered I was pregnant. I couldn’t have been happier. Luckily at the time, I was immersed in a spiritual program that helped me deal with everything that was going on.
“The Course in Miracles” was my new spiritual savior. I heard about it from my best friend, Lynn, who had been attending a study group in the home of a man named, Kurt. She urged me to go with her and I am very glad I did. The Course describes in detail many of the misconceptions that have developed over the teachings of Jesus. The message of the Course is forgiveness and the book is summed up in the statement: “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God.” The Course contains a Workbook of 365 lessons. The year I was pregnant, I practiced a lesson every day and they helped free me of resentments and anger. I believe I took many steps forward on my spiritual path that year. It was definitely a year of new beginnings—a miracle baby and a freer mind. Unfortunately, about a year into my study, Kurt died of AIDS.
After Ali was born, I drifted back to St. Alcuin’s and Father Taliaferro. He was the one who baptized her when she was 3 months old. I attended services sporadically over the next 4 to 5 years until Father Taliaferro passed in 1993. I attended his Memorial service as did hundreds of others.
In 1994, I enrolled Ali in a Montessori School in Oak Cliff. Father Taliaferro was instrumental in my decision as he had often preached about Maria Montessori and how her methods help children stay connected to the spirit within them. Father Taliaferro was one of the founders of the St. Alcuin Montessori School in North Dallas. I wanted Ali to attend St. Alcuin’s but it was too far away and too expensive. I soon found out that D.C.W. Montessori School was the place God wanted her to be because that’s where I met my husband, Ed.
Once Ed and I got together and I was the mother of three, we started attending Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Duncanville, Texas. Ed had been brought up Catholic so it seemed like the next best step. I always felt like an outsider at Holy Spirit even though I had my first marriage annulled so Ed and I could be married in the Church. We enrolled the kids in Faith Formation where they spent Sunday mornings for the next ten years. They received the Sacraments of Reconciliation, First Holy Communion, and Confirmation. We were happy when Father Timothy became Pastor because we loved his sermons. He was young, cute and the kids could relate to his sense of humor. I continued to believe in Reincarnation and the fact that everyone is saved. I cringed whenever I heard, “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on me.” I tried to keep my mouth shut and not confuse the kids too much.
In the year 2000, after years of searching, I found my spiritual home. My cousin, Ted, who has always been a spiritual seeker too, was the one who introduced me to Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings. I began by reading one of the Guru’s many books, most of which are made up of his early lectures. I was very attracted to his teachings which “emphasize the underlying unity of the world’s great religious and teach universally applicable methods for attaining direct personal experience of God through meditation.”
Yogananda was born in India in 1893 to a devoutly religious family. His mother and father meditated regularly and were devotees of Lahiri Mahashaya. It was this Guru who saved Yolanda from certain death by curing him of a serious illness when he was a small child. When he was just 17, Yogananda went searching for a spiritual teacher and found him in Swami Sri Yukteswar, a disciple of Lahiri Mahashaya’s. Yogananda lived in Yukteswar’s hermitage studying the science of Yoga for nearly ten years. He graduated from Calcutta University in 1915 after attending very few classes—he prayed and passed all his tests. Shortly thereafter, he became a monk of India’s venerable monastic Swami Order where he was given the name Yogananda, which means bliss through divine union.
In 1920, Yogananda was invited to the United States to attend an international religious conference in Boston. While here he founded the Self-Realization Fellowship which is a religious organization whose aim is to “disseminate worldwide his teachings on India’s ancient science of the philosophy of Yoga and its time-honored tradition of meditation.” He established its headquarters in Los Angeles. Yogananda toured the U.S. for from 1920-1935 giving lectures and teaching dedicated students.
After an 18-month tour of Europe and India where he lectured and met other spiritual leaders, he returned to Los Angeles to begin a contemplative and more private time of his life. He gave smaller classes only to his closest devotees who became the first monks and nuns of the Self-Realization Fellowship Order. He wrote his life’s story, Autobiography of a Yogi, which was first published in 1946 and has since been translated in 18 languages. In 1952 he entered mahasamadhi, which is the permanent conscious withdrawal of the life force from the body. In other words, he passed from the material world to the spiritual world when he desired it and without any loss of consciousness. Twenty days after his death, no decay or disintegration of his body was visible to the Director of the Forest Lawn Cemetery who signed a notarized statement to that effect. He said the body of Yogananda was in a state of perfect preservation.
The SRF home-study lessons teach “scientific techniques of concentration and meditation that lead to the direct personal experience of God.” After years of practicing the techniques, a devotee is able to withdraw the life force from the senses and direct it to the higher spiritual centers. That is where the direct experience of God is felt as new, ever-changing joy. Once a person is able to reach that state by repeated practice, meditation is no longer work but complete contentment and bliss. The meditation experience spills over into all areas of his life and, no matter what his earthly circumstances, he is supremely happy. After eight years of meditation, I have begun to scratch the surface. In my meditations I am finally reaching the state of interiorization where the outer world becomes insignificant.
After I completed the classes, which took me approximately three years, I received Kriya initiation. Kriya is a “sacred spiritual science originating millenniums ago in India.” This science was brought into modern times by Yogananda and the ascended masters of Jesus, Krishna and others. Practicing Kriya dissolves negative karma and saves a person countless incarnations. It helps the devotee attain enlightenment at a more rapid rate. Yogananda promised his devotees that, if they practice Kriya faithfully, no matter at what stage of their life they begin, they will achieve enlightenment in this lifetime. That’s why I tell everyone—tongue-in-cheek—that I am not coming back. This is my last incarnation.
During the first week of August every year, the Self-Realization Fellowship holds an International Convocation in Los Angeles. I have attended this Convocation twice. It consists of a week of classes, meditations and lectures guided by the monks and nuns of the SRF. Nearly 6,000 people from 54 countries attend annually. It is truly an enlightening and monumental experience—meditating and chanting with so many people from so many different countries who have such a strong, common bond—dedication to the Guru and his teachings. I always return from that experience resolved to meditate with more attention and devotion.
Unfortunately this summer I was unable to attend the Convocation—mainly because of the fact that starting this Fall, I will have three kids in three different colleges. Port Aransas was my spiritual retreat. Each morning Ed and I would get up and run for an hour on the beach. It was brutal—but the rest of the day was pure bliss. We followed our run with a leisurely breakfast and then shopping—for groceries, towels, beach chairs, t-shirts for ourselves and souvenirs for friends. At about 1:00 p.m. we would go back to our cottage where I would sit on the balcony overlooking the ocean and meditate. I found that with the wind and sun on my face and the sound of the waves in the background, it was the perfect environment for meditation. I was spiritually rejuvenated. At about 3:00 p.m., I would make my way down to the beach, jump in the waves, and thank God for my life and all its blessings.
And if I wasn’t lucky enough to find my Guru, I also found my Church home. The Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff is nurturing me in ways I never would have thought possible. I am learning what it means to truly believe that “all men are created equal”. I now know more than ever “what I stand for” and I am making my voice heard by my writings and emails. I am growing in empathy and compassion through the Social Justice Ministry. The First Tuesday Films are opening my eyes to injustices everywhere and I am doing what I can to “walk the walk”. Best of all my kids are finally seeing what I am all about. I am a member of the Dallas Peace Center and the Texas Coalition Against the Death Penalty. I walk in the Gay Pride Parade. I am a vegetarian because I am incensed at the way animals are treated on factory farms. I write the “Green Tips” for the UUCOC Monthly Newsletter. We recycle, use organic fertilizer and have a compost pile. I have finally found the peace that I have sought for so long. I am not complacent, but I am finally happy.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
MY LIFE STORY - Deanne Marie Welch Hurd Stofko
1950 TO 1959
Wow—I have a daunting task ahead of me. At the age of 58, I have decided to write the story of my life. I’ve only thought about this for a day or two. Mainly it has come about because of the demise of the financial system in the United States and around the world. At the present time I am personal assistant to a multi-millionaire. He has sold all his hedge funds, most of his stocks, and is taking a wait-and-see attitude. So here I am with not much to do but having to be here every day from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. What am I going to do with myself?
Mom wrote her life story about 5 years ago and it was enlightening. I thoroughly enjoyed it and vowed to write my own someday. Of course she was 79 at the time and, like I said, I’m nowhere near that old. But who says I can’t start now, get up to present day and then write the rest as it develops.
I’ve thought a little more about it and I’ve decided this can’t be a “tell-all expose’”. My kids would think it was gross and my husband wouldn’t want to read it. So I will skip the gory details and stick to the main story. That way I won’t have to say, “Some names were changed to protect the innocent.” I guess I’ll just dig right in.
Mom and Dad were high school sweethearts. Mom was actually in the 8th grade when they met and Dad was 3 years older. It was “love at first sight” or so Mom says, and I guess we’ll never know if it’s the truth or not. They were born and brought up in Toledo, Ohio and they were both Catholic. During their married life, they always signed their names: Bets and Greenie, although Mom’s name was Elizabeth Carstensen and Dad’s was Carl Welch. Dad was poor—he slept in the same bed as his grandmother when he was young. His Mother and Father married young and his Father periodically had trouble with alcohol and with holding down a job. His Mother worked steadily and frequently was the one keeping the family afloat. We heard the usual “horror stories” from Dad about walking 10 miles with cardboard in his shoes to make a nickel delivering a paper (or was it a penny?). Mom was relatively well-off. Her Dad worked in a financial office and her mom was a stay-at-home-mom. Dad grew up during the depression which was Mom’s excuse for why he was so darn tight—although I suppose frugal and sensible is a better way to put it. In high school Dad worked flipping hamburgers to help pay for his dates with Mom.
When WWII broke out, Dad enlisted like everyone else. Mom was starting college at Mary Manse, an all-girls’ Catholic College that was run by the Ursuline nuns. Mom also went to an all-girls’ Catholic High School called St. Ursula’s Academy. She had wanted to go to the coeducational Central Catholic High School where Dad went but had won a scholarship to the all-girls’ school. She was very upset but no compromise could be reached. At Mary Manse, Mom was an Education major with an English and Music Minor. She played piano brilliantly although she insisted her whole life that she had no talent. She could play her recital piece, “Flight of the Bumblebee”, well into her 80’s.
During the War, Dad had wanted to be a radio operator flying with fighter pilots; but lucky for us, he was colorblind. He ended up going to a secret school in Boca Raton, Florida, to learn how to put radar in planes. He was stationed on many Pacific islands during the War, but I don’t believe he was involved in any direct action. He frequently wrote Mom letters—she saved a 50-page one he wrote one night before he was shipped overseas. It’s a unique insight into his character and their relationship. His “claim to fame” was his proximity to the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. He was stationed on the Island of Tinian from where the plane left on its fateful mission. After the War, and less than a month after Mom graduated from college, Mom and Dad were married.
The wedding was beautiful. Mom has a book of about 10 pictures—all in black and white, of course—where they both look so young and happy. After the ceremony, they lived in a duplex with Dad’s brother and his wife, Uncle Bob and Aunt Grace. They played hearts and hung out together—two young married couples without a care. Mom worked for a short while as a teacher but hated it. Dad got a job with Jeep where he started as a millwright and worked his way up into management. They lost their first baby a few days’ after she was born. They named her Carla Marie, the same name they gave their next child, my older sister. Mom worried needlessly that they might never have another child, but I don’t think it was long before she was pregnant again.
I think it was after I was born on September 20, 1950 that we moved in with Mom’s parents because the duplex wasn’t big enough for the four of us. I was the second girl and they named me Deanne Marie. I was more often than not called Dee Dee although Dad would call me Deanne sometimes—mostly when I had done something wrong. I remember being told that both Carla and I were baptized Marie because neither of our names were saints’ names. Carla was fair like Mom and I was dark like Dad. Imagine being told your whole life that you looked like your father! Both Carla and I had naturally curly hair when it wasn’t really fashionable. But Mom said we got lots of compliments from relative strangers on the street because of our contrasting looks. Dad’s friend, John Szabo, was building a house for us while we were staying with Grandma and Grandpa.
From the time she met Dad, Mom kept scrapbooks filled with pictures and mementoes. The first one was romantically called, “Me and My Guy” and the second was “Me, My Guy and My Baby”. The scrapbooks are the reason why, much of the time, I don’t remember if I remember something or if I just remember the pictures. There are many pictures of Carla as a naked baby—pictures we teased her about mercilessly when we were young. The first picture of me in the scrapbook was taken when I was about 9 months old. I have very little hair but it is all combed to the top of my head in a peak. My ears, which I inherited from my Mom’s side of the family, were huge even then. You can definitely tell it is me.
I don’t remember moving into the new house and I don’t know exactly when it happened. I just know that shortly after we moved in, my younger sister, Terry Grace, was born. There is a picture of her being held by her godparents, Cousin Jerry and Aunt Pat, in front of the new house. The house was at 2230 Portsmouth Avenue, about three miles from Grandma and Grandpa Carstensen’s. It was in a nice neighborhood with lots of kids. When we moved into the house, the attic wasn’t finished yet and there were just two bedrooms downstairs. Carla and I were both in cribs in the back bedroom and Mom, Dad and Terry slept in the front.
I think this is my first memory because I was still sleeping in the downstairs bedroom. One night when my parents were watching TV, I came out of my room and took a right into the living room instead of a left into the bathroom. I almost peed on the chair instead of in the toilet. I don’t remember being embarrassed because everyone thought it was so funny. I got lots of attention and I liked it.
At some point, Dad (and big sister, Carla) finished off the attic and made it into one big bedroom. It had a big closet with one door that opened into the bedroom and another that opened onto the stairs. I remember hiding in that closet and playing in it often. The room itself was paneled in knotty pine wood. The ceiling was sloped and the floor was covered in brown tile with yellow streaks. After Terry got a bit older, she moved up there with me and Carla. Our beds were in a row—Carla, by the window; me in the middle, and Terry by the closet door.
The stairs to our bedroom were curved right before the opening to the first floor. Those were the stairs I fell down one time when Grandma was babysitting. After that Grandpa always came with her—he didn’t trust her with us kids. I must have bit my lip as I fell because it swelled up to twice its size. I don’t remember falling but I do remember that the reward of getting better was riding the ponies at Kiddieland. I must have been younger than five because the ponies were led around in a circle by a trainer—pretty boring stuff for anybody older than a tot.
When Grandma babysat, we loved it. We would make her sit for hours reading us little Golden Books until she was tired and hoarse. We would fight to sit next to her—so we could be close to her and see the pictures. Often one of us would get to go home with her and spend the night. We loved spending the night with Grandma—we even got to sleep in the same bed with her. On Sunday morning we would get up and walk down the alley the two blocks to St. Agnes Catholic Church. On a few occasions she took one of us to the Mother/Daughter breakfast where they served delicious sugary treats—treats we never got at home. We would swing on the home-made swing hanging from the big tree in the backyard and pick green onions and radishes from Grandpa’s garden behind the garage. We played Go Fish, Rummy, pick-up-sticks, jacks and Crazy 8’s. The highlight of the visit was when Grandma gave us a dollar to go to Kresgee’s to pick out something just for us. We would try to choose something sure to make the other girls jealous.
Singing was always big in our family. I remember Mom making up a song one day when our trash can was mysteriously missing. She sang, “The garbage man, he took our can, he’s a mean old garbage man,” and we sang right along with her. When driving in the car, we would sing—I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair, K-K-K Katie, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, Beautiful Brown Eyes (that was my favorite because my Dad sang it to me), the Yellow Rose of Texas, Red River Valley and many more. Carla reminded me we always sang a song after our prayers at night. One of them was, “Joseph, the carpenter, silent and strong, worked in his little shop all the day long.” Other songs we sang with our records—Cinderella, Train to the Zoo, Train to the Farm, Peter and Pusher and The Carrot Seed. I remember the Carrot Seed like I heard it yesterday—“Carrots grow from carrot seeds; I planted one, I’ll grow it. I’ll water it, and pull the weeds, carrots grow from carrot seeds.” It continued, “And my father said, ‘Nah, nah it won’t come up, it won’t come up, it won’t come up. Nah, nah it won’t come up, your carrot won’t come up.’” It continued with the mother, and brother—all saying it won’t come up. I don’t specifically remember the ending, but I bet the carrot came up.
I remember lots of things from the Portsmouth era but I’m not sure what comes first. I remember getting a swing set and spending hours and hours singing and swinging. I think that was my favorite thing to do. I remember splashing in the tiny swimming pool in the back yard in the summertime. I remember the boy next door, Billy Secrest. We didn’t like him when we first moved in, but we became friends pretty quickly. I think he was younger than Carla but older than me. His mom, Katie, worked at the corner drugstore. She was so nice and pretty with long red hair. The store was on the way to school and we used to stop and buy penny candy on our way to and from.
When it rained was the best time. We would sit on the front porch and watch it filling up the streets. One time it came all the way up to the porch. After it stopped, we would take off our shoes, wade in it and meet all our friends doing the same thing. Imagine letting our kids do that now. We would be scared to death they would catch some dread disease.
One summer day sister, Carla, and I were out in the back yard. Bees were buzzing around the flowers and she told me to try to catch one. She promised me it wouldn’t sting and I believed her being two years younger. She tricked me—it stung me bad! I went crying to Mom and Carla got in trouble. But most of the time Carla and I were good friends and best buddies.
Dad often brought us suckers or candy. He would hold the treats behind his back and we would choose which hand we wanted. Another treat was to go to Kiddieland. It seemed like we went often. Kiddieland was outdoors so we probably only went in the summertime. Besides the ponies, there were quite a few rides that were for little bitty kids. I bet if I saw it today it would look really small—but I remember it as magical. Another treat we often got was Dairy Queen. We would go out for a drive to look at the expensive houses and then stop for ice cream on the way home.
Aside from going to Kiddieland and Dairy Queen, we didn’t go out much. We never went out to eat and Mom cooked every night. We didn’t have a dishwasher so we had to wash the dishes and clean up the kitchen every night too. I remember seeing a picture of Terry washing dishes when she couldn’t have been more than about 4 or 5. After dinner and cleanup, we would play with Dad on the floor. Over-the-chute was one of our favorites and we would run around endlessly from his head to his feet, waiting in line to be flipped again. Dad would often wrestle with us. He would grab us by the arms or legs or pin us between his legs and we couldn’t move. Even though it was 3 to 1, we would all be caught with no means of escape. Sometimes he would loosen his grip for just a second and one of us would wiggle free. Then it was our job to help free the other two without being caught again. We really couldn’t win and we would usually end up crying or being tickled to death with Mom trying frantically to come to our aid. She would admonish Dad that he was being too rough with us but that usually didn’t stop him. I attribute that rough-housing then to being deathly afraid of being held down today—even in fun.
We went to Grandma and Grandpa Carstensen’s often because they lived so close by. While there we played with Lincoln Logs and pick-up-sticks. The same toys were there for years and always in the same place, in a cupboard next to the bathroom. We also saw Aunt Pat and Uncle Fred a lot—Mom’s sister and brother-in-law. We played with their oldest kids—Spook and Teresa—now known as Mike and Terry.
We visited Grandma and Grandpa Welch every Friday night. I remember when Grandma got a parakeet. Mom is deathly afraid of birds; and one time when it got out and was flying around the room, Mom knelt on the floor with her arms over her head until it was back in its caged home. We usually couldn’t wait to get home because “Seventy-Seven Sunset Strip” was on TV on Friday nights. It was our favorite show and we hated to miss it. We talked about how great it would be to have a portable TV so we could watch it in the car. We didn’t really think it would ever be the reality it is today. Now kids have numerous ways to watch TV programs—iPods, laptops, iPhones, pull-down car screens, you name it!
Our favorite cousins were Gayle and Gary. They were the children of Aunt Arlene and Uncle Dick—Dad’s sister and brother-in-law. Gayle was a year younger than me and Gary was my age. We were devastated when they moved to California when I was in the eighth grade. We didn’t get to see them much at all after that—not until we were much older. Uncle Bob and Aunt Grace moved there when we were so young we don’t even remember them. I never even met one of their sons and the other son I met for the first time just last year, when I was 57.
There are a lot of pictures of us looking very rag-tag in the scrapbooks. Carla got the new clothes and then passed them on to me when she grew out of them. By the time they got to Terry, they looked pretty warn. Our winter clothes looked especially raggedy. Often our pants were far shorter than fashionable. I don’t remember my clothes particularly bothering me until I got older, but I do remember feeling especially beautiful when I was wearing something new or something I had picked out. When we went to the shoe store, I remember sticking our feet in the x-ray machines. I don’t think it did any lasting damage, but can you imagine that?
We always had to take a nap every day. I hated taking naps and I fought against sleep. I remember once when I didn’t want to go to my room, Mom put a clock on a chair next to my bed. She told me I had to be quiet until the hand reached a certain place on the clock. I watched and watched that clock, but finally it got the better of me and I drifted off. When I woke up I remember thinking Mom was pretty smart. She knew I would lose interest in watching the clock and fall asleep.
Mom fell once going down the stairs to do the laundry. She twisted her knee pretty badly. She couldn’t walk for awhile and it bothered her for some years. The washing machine and the dryer were in the basement. Once when we were out meeting Grandma Carstensen at the bus stop, the dryer was running. When we got home, Mom smelled smoke and called the Fire Department. Our clothes were all burned up, but luckily that was the only thing that was damaged. Naturally we had to get a new dryer after that and the insurance paid for it—so that was a good thing.
By the time I started kindergarten when I was almost five, I already had some irrational fears. The first thing I remember being afraid of is having my picture taken with a flash. For some reason, it petrified me. I couldn’t keep my hands from flying to my face to protect my eyes from something I thought would be horrible. There are a number of pictures of me taken during this time either looking down or with my hands up. I remember being fearful well in advance—like the time I was in a chorus and knew ahead of time that my parents would be there and that they would take my picture. I agonized for hours about whether I would embarrass myself by putting my hands up. I did but I doubt anybody noticed.
Another thing that scared me to death was that someone was going to come out of the closet door and shoot me while I was going down the stairs. I know now how unlikely that sounds—but at the time I was deathly afraid of it happening. I saw a movie at the theatre, maybe the first movie I had ever seen, in which a little boy is shot because he draws a plastic pistol on a gunslinger. That gunslinger is the one I was afraid would shoot me. The image haunts me to this day. It makes me wonder how many kids are traumatized by the horror movies that so many of them watch. Or perhaps it affected me so much because I was normally so sheltered.
The third thing I remember being afraid of is getting reprimanded by a teacher. When I was in the first grade, the cover of my religion book was coming off and I was worried the teacher would find out. We were not allowed to take the books home as they were kept in our desks. I worried about that for weeks. I even made a pact with God that if he fixed my book, I would give up Dairy Queen forever. It was the middle of the winter and we hadn’t had many ice cream cones lately, so I figured I was safe with that. Mom devised a plan whereby Carla would come into my classroom right before the bell rang with some tape to fix the cover. It worked—the teacher didn’t even bat an eye. The cover was repaired! I was elated—that is until we stopped at Dairy Queen that summer. I remembered my promise. When Dad asked what I wanted, I started to cry. It took him awhile to pry the truth out of me but eventually I told him everything. He assured me that God didn’t expect me to keep a promise like that. He told me he thought it would be alright if I had some ice cream—I was so relieved. I remember Dad as being sympathetic, understanding and wise.
I remember clearly my first day of kindergarten. I anticipated it impatiently. Carla had already gone to kindergarten and first grade. It felt like my turn would never come. Mom accompanied me although she would not have needed to. I couldn’t believe all the kids who were crying and clutching onto their mothers. Didn’t they know this was going to be FUN! I was only sorry that I could only attend half days. My teacher was Ms. Valentine and I was in love with her. I felt cheated when she left at Christmastime to have her baby. For some reason I remember telling the other kids in the class that if they didn’t wear green on St. Patrick’s Day, it was a sin. It was in kindergarten that I first realized not everyone was Catholic like we were. However, I thought the rules still applied. I was quick to point out that if they didn’t know it was a sin, it wasn’t as long as they remembered to wear it next year. I also sang “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” in Latin at Christmastime. My teacher was so proud of me that she marched me from classroom to classroom while I sang it many times. I remember feeling very good that I could sing and feeling sorry when my performances were over. Perhaps that was the first time I realized I enjoyed performing.
It was at the age of five that I started ballet class—something that shaped my life in ways I could never have fathomed at that young age. I recall hearing my mother talking on the phone about an exciting birthday gift for me and Carla. I persuaded her to tell me what it was—that we were going to start dance classes. We must have started in the fall because both our birthdays are in September. Initially we took classes at Eddie and Ruth Hanf’s home in their basement. Later we moved to their newly-built studio. Their daughter, who we thought was the picture of grace and beauty, taught us. I recall vividly learning the positions of the feet and the arms. To this day, I can perform the very first dance I learned, “I’d Like to be a Little Ballerina.” I did my dance for anyone who would watch and recollect doing it for Grandma Welch in her kitchen. Everyone, of course, thought I was adorable. It’s funny that I don’t remember Carla performing it with me. Either she wasn’t as much of a show-off as I was (which I doubt) or I have just suppressed that part of my memory. I do remember Mom and Dad performing it for their friends. I have another memory of being lost in the beauty of the moment during ballet class—doing my port de bras to a record—wishing it would never end. Ballet transformed me to distant, miraculous places.
Summers were very fun as we usually went somewhere on vacation. During the first years of my life, we mostly spent a week or two in cottages on nearby lakes. In fact, we did that until all six of us were born—we didn’t venture far from Toledo. But it was always exciting. Pictures in the scrapbook show us on vacation with Gail and Gary and also John and Lorraine Szabo, friends of Mom’s from Mary Manse. After Terry was born, Grandma Carstensen came with us to help Mom take care of us all. When Grandma couldn’t come anymore because she was taking care of Grandpa, we brought babysitters to help Mom. I remember vacationing on Devil’s Lake and Round Lake. We walked around Round Lake with Dad once and it felt like quite an accomplishment although I can’t remember how long it took. Usually the cottages were directly on the Lake and we could run right out the back door and into the water. It was a lazy kind of vacation for us kids although probably lots of work for Mom. I don’t remember eating out so I’m sure she cooked dinner every night as usual.
One summer we went to the Hazenhurst Hotel on Clear Lake in Indiana about 90 miles from Toledo. The hotel was rustic and romantic—far different from the one-story cottages we were used to. We played ping pong and shuffleboard in the common areas while Mom and Dad played bridge in the dining room. Unfortunately the entire time we were there it was rather blustery and cold so we didn’t get to swim much in the Lake behind the hotel. Carla remembers meeting Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong from Cincinnati who gave her peanut butter cups—she even wrote to them for some time after they left. I remember their son, Red, more. I think I became interested in boys at a very early age—I remember Red and my kindergarten boyfriend, Dwayne Glase, who turned out to be the cousin of one of my first “real” boyfriends in college.
For kindergarten, we went to Deveaux, the public school, but in first grade, we switched to Blessed Sacrament, the Catholic School. Mom walked us to and from kindergarten; but from first grade on, we were on our own. Blessed Sacrament was at least a half mile from our house but we thought nothing of walking by ourselves—all the kids did it. We walked the half block down Portsmouth to Bellevue and left to the corner of Bellevue and Sylvania where the traffic light was. This was the corner that had the penny candy counter where Katie Secrest worked. We crossed Sylvania and walked down another quarter mile to the school.
Every morning the entire student body attended Mass before classes began. My first grade teacher was Sister Genevieve Mary, a beautiful soul who defied the usual description of the nun with the ruler ready to beat you into a “state of grace”. She was loving and kind and rewarded us often with stars on our forehead for a job well done. I only remember getting into trouble once and letting her down. She left the room briefly to run an errand and she put us “on our honor”. That meant we had better be good because God was watching—there was no getting away with anything. While she was gone the entire room erupted into chaos. Erasers were thrown; hair was pulled; and although everyone stayed at their desks, no one was quiet. When she returned unexpectedly to the mayhem, everyone quickly assumed a hands-folded, feet-on-the-floor, innocent aire.
Then Sister Genevieve Mary pulled something I will never forget. She asked us to turn ourselves in! She asked that all of those who had been “talking” while she was gone to please come forward. It didn’t seem fair. She hadn’t caught anyone specifically in the act so she asked us to confess. Of course, I walked forward with my eyes at the floor and my head hung low. I was the goody-two-shoes who never did anything wrong. I felt horrible. Many of the other kids who had been talking too, didn’t “fess up”. So those of us standing in the front got the talking to and got in trouble. I guess I was always honest to a fault. I couldn’t imagine lying—after all God knows everything. It just surprised me that everyone else wasn’t the same as I was.
The rest of first grade must have passed uneventfully. I still loved school as much as I had loved kindergarten. Religion was introduced to us as a subject. We memorized the catechism questions. The first one was: “Who made you?” The answer: “God made me.” Also, “I was made in the image and likeness of God.” There were questions at every level and each level was harder than the last. During my eight years in Parochial school, I spent hours and hours memorizing catechism. I remember thinking, who made up these questions and answers and how do we know they are true? I also remember when we got to the part that states, “Catholicism is the one, true religion”, I asked, “doesn’t every religion say that about their beliefs?” Nobody could give me a sensible answer except, “We know that it’s true by faith.” We were always told not to question our faith—I’m sure that’s how the religion kept a lot of its members—by telling them not to think too much. I attended Blessed Sacrament during the first, second and third grade.
After school, weekends and summers were spent playing with the neighbor kids. Elaine and Jody Aliopolis lived directly across the street. Elaine was a year older than me and Jody was closer to Terry’s age. We never phoned them—we just went over to their house, stood on the porch outside their door and called for them. We never rang the bell or knocked on the door. Elaine was thin and dark like me and Jody was short and heavier. Elaine and I realized one summer day that we owned identical short sets only mine was dark blue and hers was turquoise. I still remember vividly how they looked. We decided to put them on and “be twins”. We were twins all day—if someone didn’t notice, we couldn’t understand why. We really thought that putting on matching outfits made us twins.
Noreen and Beth Leyden moved in down the street and Noreen quickly replaced Elaine as my best friend. Noreen was a year younger than me and I guess easier to boss around. There were four Leyden kids altogether but the other two were much younger. Noreen and I hung out nearly daily. Their parents were really nice too—fun-loving and kid-friendly. Our families went on vacation to Florida together a few years after we moved to our house on Goddard Road. Joe and Jim Leyden continued to be friends of my parents’ even after they moved to Washington, D.C.
One summer the Leyden’s bought an above-ground pool and we had many cookouts and swam with them into the night. Another fond memory is of a Valentine’s Day when Noreen, Carla and I put candy hearts in an envelope, rang Kent Gardem’s doorbell and then ran. I don’t remember if he ever came out to see what the commotion was or not—but it was still a lot of fun. He was the 1950’s version of a “hottie” and he lived on our street. But most of our days were spent playing games or dolls and exploring the neighborhood. Nobody thought about the dangers unsupervised kids might face while they were doing their thing with no parent in sight.
Second grade was eventful for several reasons—I became a Brownie, I made my first Confession and received First Holy Communion. I can’t remember much about Brownies except it was another enjoyable activity where I got to be with my friends and do fun things. I also got to wear a cool uniform—all brown, of course, with a beanie on top. I looked forward to the monthly activities. Preparing for the sacrament of Penance, another name for Confession, and First Holy Communion was tedius and time-consuming but I was into it with my whole heart. I tried my best to be worthy of the great honor of receiving the host, our Lord, God and Savior made manifest in the Communion wafer. I was so devout and so sincere. There are many pictures in the scrapbooks of me in my Communion dress and veil. Besides the religious reasons that First Communion was cool, I also got money and gifts. I was “Princess for a Day.”
Another important event that happened during my second grade or 7th year was that Mom had another baby—a boy finally. They named him after Dad and Grandpa, Carl Welch, III. I don’t remember much about him in the beginning. I only remember that later, he got to be a nuisance. Mom had three miscarriages between Terry and Carl. We often talked about how if all Mom’s babies had lived, we would have had a family with 10 kids! I also remember feeling very motherly toward Carl. We all thought he was beautiful with long, curly eyelashes.
Mom got pregnant again almost immediately after Carl was born. Joseph Jay Welch was born when I was in the 3rd grade—not even a year after Carl. Joe was a goofy kid—funny looking and funny. He is still, to this day, the family clown. So we were a family of 7 living in a 3-bedroom house. When Mom got pregnant again, we knew we had to move.
My parents found a new house fairly quickly and much of the summer after my 3rd grade was spent with Mom over there. It was on Goddard Road and only about 3 miles from our current house. Mom cleaned the house from top to bottom. The house belonged to a doctor and was one of the nicest on the block. It needed a lot of cleaning because there had been a renter prior to us moving in. I remember hearing that it only cost $18,800. It had 4 bedrooms and quite a bit more square footage than the house on Portsmouth. I don’t remember helping Mom much with the cleaning. We mostly ran the neighborhood and made friends with all the kids. We couldn’t wait to move so we could play with them all the time, even though we were terribly sad at having to leave our old friends behind.
We moved during the summer and I started 4th grade at St. Pius X. Everyone was very friendly and I enjoyed being the “new kid”. Our house now was even closer to the school than it had been before so we always walked home for lunch. Mom would be there with our sandwiches of bologna pickle or peanut butter waiting for us. There was a time when the doctor told me I was so thin that I needed to gain some weight. I got to drink a milk shake everyday for lunch. I guess it worked because after awhile the milkshakes stopped and I am not that thin anymore.
Another memory of note--and I'm sure Carla and Terry will agree with me--was when Mom made us all get our hair cut short--pixie cuts they were called. I'm not sure how old I was but after that I was totally convinced I was down-right ugly. That is undoubtedly the time my inferiority complex took root. I can understand Mom's reasons for doing it--she had two new babies to contend with and she didn't have time to get the snarls out our our long hair everyday. But to not even be consulted--we were all irate! To make matters worse, she bought us all gunboat, black shoes that, although they might be stylish today, definitely weren't back then. We tried to give them a head start to the garbage can by scuffing them and dancing through every mud puddle we could find, but they remained indestructible.
1959-1964
The new neighborhood was colorful and interesting with huge trees lining the street. Debbie Webne was my age and lived next door. Her family was Jewish and eventually moved to Israel; we never heard from them again. Debbie and I were good friends and often played Barbie dolls in her bedroom. I remember once pretending we were going home to tell our husbands we were pregnant. At the time, neither of us knew anything about how a woman came to be in that condition. I said to Debbie, “Wouldn’t the husbands know? Didn’t they have something to do with it?” I was glad she didn’t know the answer either. We could play for hours and never get bored or run out of different scenarios. Because my family was Catholic and I had never known anyone Jewish, I was intrigued. It was fun to eat over on Friday night because her family performed a ritual at the dinner table, complete with candles and singing.
There were quite a few Jewish families in the neighborhood. The Fine’s lived next to the Webne’s and had very young kids. Rabbi Goldberg, who was very old, lived next to the Fine’s. The Jaffey’s, who had five wild kids and a jewelry shop, moved into the neighborhood a little while after we did. Carla babysat for them most of the time but occasionally I would fill in for her. One year they gave me a broach of a ballerina that l have to this day. Terry and I babysat for the Mann’s, who had kids named Gigi and Jeffrey. Terry saw Jeffrey at a party a few years ago and told him she used to change his diaper. The Benore family who had a boy, Neil, about my age, lived at the end of the street to the left of our house. He still lives there, although I haven’t seen him in years and I probably wouldn’t know him if I did.
Carol and Connie Detwiler lived across the street and at the right end. Carol was a year younger than me and Connie was a few years younger than Terry. They had older brothers who were in college at the University of Michigan—something that seemed so cool to me. I always wished I had an older brother and I envied my friends who did. Their brothers played football in college and my parents would talk about them when they had particularly good games or their names were in the newspaper.
The Waltman’s lived across the street and to the left. Joey Waltman was my age and was in my class at St. Piux X. There were quite a few Waltman’s because they were Catholic. Their older sister, Sarah, had been killed by a fire in their fireplace before we moved to the neighborhood. Her nightgown caught fire and, before someone could catch her, she ran through the house fueling the flames. Joey wasn’t someone I wanted to play with—he seemed worse than having another brother. He used to tease me mercilessly and I didn’t care if it was because he liked me. I didn’t like him. They moved out a few years after we moved in and were replaced by a family with three boys.
There were no African-American families on our block. Toledo was pretty segregated when I was young and I don’t think there were any African-American families in St. Pius X Parish. I think there were three black girls in my High School class but I wasn’t really friends with any of them. I do recall a conversation my parents had once about the possibility of an African-American family moving into our neighborhood. Of course, everyone was afraid the white people would move out and property values would plummet. I didn’t think my parents were prejudiced. They brought me up not to be; although later, I learned that my Dad just hid his prejudices well. One time my friends and I were singing the song, “Einie, Meanie, Miney, Moe”, and we used the derogatory term for an African-American. Dad heard me, took me aside and explained to me why that wasn’t nice. I admired him for that, especially after I found out years later he harbored prejudices passed on by his own parents. He didn’t want to do the same to me and I loved him for that.
I don’t remember when the Schlachters moved into the house across the street. Vinnie was my age and also in my class at St. Pius. We kind of hit-it-off right away and had a sort of love/hate relationship. He teased me too but I didn’t mind. I remember him giving me a fake engagement ring from the “five and dime” when we were in the 5th grade and I absolutely loved it. I believe we both thought we would get married someday. When he was in the 6th grade, he came down with spinal meningitis. I prayed fervently that he would recover and he did. He was quieter and more subdued for awhile after he came home from the hospital, but was back to his old self in no time. His mom and Mom were friends and later bridge partners. For the longest time, whenever I went outside, I would look over at his house to see if he was in his garage. Sometimes even now when I’m visiting Mom, I find myself doing that.
One fun activity in our new neighborhood was trading cards. Trading cards were kept in a shoe box and separated into categories like, flowers, ballerinas, horses, dogs, cats and scenery. They were basically the jokers or cards from old decks with pictures on them. The cards were placed in the shoe box on their sides except for the first card of each category that went the opposite way to signify the beginning of the new category. One of the girls in the neighborhood moved out shortly after we moved in and gave me her box of trading cards, so I started out with a very coveted collection. I can’t remember exactly how the rest of the kids got theirs but we would spend hours going through the different categories trying to make the best trades. Horses and ballerinas were the primo categories.
Another fun pass-time was smashing caps with a hammer on the sidewalk to hear them bang. We especially enjoyed this on July 4th when there were so many other bangs to compete with. The fireworks at Walbridge Park on the 4th of July were a must. We often played hide-and-seek in the neighborhood when it was dark. For this game, the neighborhood consisted of the entire block where hiding places were innumerable. Hiking through the woods at either ends of the grade school as well as following the creek were other enjoyable outdoor activities. Rain storms were still intriguing. The whole family would come out and sit on lawn chairs in the garage watching the rain.
Carla and I continued to take dance class once a week. We took the city bus by ourselves. I think at some point Terry started tap. Mom thought she would pay for me and Carla to take ballet and Terry to take tap. Terry would watch the ballet class and learn ballet and Carla and I would watch the tap class and learn tap. Knowing what I know today about dance, the idea was utterly ridiculous; but it seemed pretty smart of Mom at the time. I was afraid that the Hanf’s would discover our secret and bar us from watching each other, but they didn’t seemed to mind. At the end of every school year there was an endless and mandatory recital that I know my parents dreaded. Now, of course, I understand it was because of the cost of the costumes and the time spent watching less-than-talented kids for hours on end. But we loved it! For us, recital time was the best time of the year. It was our time to shine.
The year after we moved to Goddard, Carla told Mom and Dad she wanted to quit dance class. She was in Junior High and was starting to like boys. Our parents tried to talk her out of it. I think they knew she would regret it, but Carla was determined. They let her quit and she did regret it.
On many Saturdays, and to get some peace-and-quiet, Mom would take us downtown to the Catholic Club and drop us off. One of my favorite things to do at the Catholic Club was making religious plaques from plaster-of-Paris. We would mix and pour the plaster into the molds in the morning and paint them in the afternoon once they’d had a chance to dry. But the main attraction was the swimming pool with the diving board. Mom didn’t swim much and couldn’t dive at all so Dad taught us how to do that mostly during the summers and on vacation. But this was an inside pool and we swam there more than any other place. Mom got tired of Dad calling her a chicken so she decided to take lessons and show him. Mom’s Father was very protective of his children. He was afraid one of them was going to get hurt so he wouldn’t let them do anything. He passed that fear on to his kids. That’s why Mom never learned to swim. But after the lessons, she faced her fears and dove into the water head-first right in front of Dad. His jaw dropped and we all cheered.
During the summers, mostly on weekends, we swam at Sunset Acres. It was a long, thin lake and you had to swim the length of it in order to cross the rope into the deep end. I remember “passing” my swimming test with a lifeguard following me in a rowboat. It seemed to take forever but there was no doubt I would make it. Thanks to Dad, we were all strong swimmers. The diving platform was the most fun but scary because it was so high. Dad would wait in the water, watch us dive and then critique us. We would dive over and over again in an attempt to get it right. Some weekends we would take a longer drive Wamplers Lake. We would stop and get ice and picnic supplies and spend the whole day there. We would usually go with another family with lots of kids so we could play with them and stay out of our parents’ hair.
Another fun outing was going to Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio, about an hour-and-a- half from Toledo. We wanted to get there as early as possible and stay until the sun went down, although we usually left before dinner. Mom stayed with the younger kids and they would tire of it sooner than we did and get cranky. Dad would ride the Blue Streak Roller Coaster with us over and over, but Mom hated rides. It was that fear thing again.
We also spent some of our time during the summers at Ottawa Park. We hiked on wooded trails and climbed a 15-foot amphitheatre backdrop made of stones. If we had fallen while climbing, we most assuredly would have killed ourselves. If our parents had seen what we were doing, they would have fainted dead away. One year I went to a week-long, day-camp held at Ottawa Park where I learned all about trees and plants. We dug latrines but no one ever used them. During the winters Ottawa was where we sled down hills and ice skated on Walden Pond. Ice-skating was something we did regularly and it seems strange to me that none of my kids ever owned a pair of ice skates. We even built an ice rink in our backyard on Portsmouth one especially cold winter and ice-skated every day after school the whole winter long.
At some point during the summers we started putting on musical performances in our garage. Carla was the Director and usually played the part of the female lead. She had the best voice. I was usually the male lead. Terry, Debbie, Carol and Connie filled in the rest of the cast. Our first performance was a compilation of numbers from four different musicals including “Flower Drum Song” and “South Pacific”. After that we got fancy and did all the songs from “The Music Man”, “My Fair Lady”, and the final summer all the songs from “Mary Poppins”. Carla actually let me be Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins. I remember having trouble getting my voice to carry—we didn’t have microphones. It usually took all summer to learn and stage the songs, get the costumes together and make the sets. Dad usually helped with the set design and construction. I think he really enjoyed doing it and felt proud of our accomplishments. Everyone in the neighborhood came and sat out on the driveway. We actually charged a small admission price and once an announcement was even in the newspaper. We were called the “Goddard Players”.
The year after we moved to Goddard Road, Carla, Terry and I went to summer camp for a week on a lake in Michigan. It was free for us because Dad worked for the Jeep Corporation and the camp was put on by the Union, Local 12. I remember a lot about that week and most of it isn’t good. During that week I got my first asthma attack. It was also when I first started getting stomach aches. I spent a lot of time in the infirmary. Asthma is something I have battled off-and-on until I moved to Texas in 1979, and the stomach aches finally subsided in my early 50’s to be replaced by headaches.
Before we left for the camp, we had to get a series of three tenanus shots. The first one was extremely painful but each got progressively better. We were all in different cabins with girls our own age. Carla enjoyed the camp the most and made lots of friends. Her fellow campers gave her the nickname “Charlie” and she was very popular.
The week we were at the camp the weather was pretty bad—it rained most of the time and was very muggy the rest of the time. When it was raining, we spent a lot of time watching old movies or roller skating in a big auditorium. While at camp, we learned to make lanyards out of boondoggle. We also learned some hand games with chants (Did you ever, ever, ever in your long-legged life meet a short-haired man with a short-haired wife) that we would play with our friends while waiting in line for our food. Some of the songs we learned were “Sippin’ Cider thru a Straw”, “Hagdalena Magdalena”, and “Charlie went down in a bucket. The bucket went down in the well. His wife cut the rope to the bucket. And Charlie went straight down to ting a ling ling ling ling fa la la la. Sweet are the voices we hear from a far. Ting a ling ling ling ling fa la la la. He played on his Spanish guitar.” Carla tells me we did a dance in a talent show but I have no recollection of that whatsoever.
I tried to have fun but I was nervous a lot. Maybe that is what started my health problems. I remember lying on my upper bunk at night and wheezing. I was embarrassed and afraid I would wake up the other kids. During the day I remember playing medicine ball in the field with pains shooting through my stomach. I didn’t want to spend my time lying in the infirmary, but I was in pain. Terry didn’t fare much better. She was so homesick and cried so much that Mom and Dad came and took her home halfway through the week. I have other good memories of camp—washing and brushing my teeth in a big trough outside my cabin, swimming in the lake, campfires, playing egg toss and singing lots of songs. That was the only year we went to camp; I don’t know why but I guess it was just as well.
Fifth grade was memorable because that’s when I first noticed boys. Unfortunately, I had just gotten glasses and they didn’t notice me. I fared a little better in sixth grade. At that time, you could officially call me boy-crazy! My desk was in front of Vinnie’s and I flirted with him and he teased me constantly. One time our teacher, Sr. Eileen Mary, took me into the girls’ bathroom and told me she was very disappointed in my conduct. I didn’t get in trouble much so it bothered me a lot. I was better after that but I think it was because she moved Vinnie’s desk. I was even worse in sixth grade as far as flirting. I liked Chuck Seitz, although he later turned out to be gay. He was the first guy to kiss me but it wasn’t until the eighth grade right after graduation.
I went right from Brownies to Girl Scouts. When I was in junior high, Mom and Marsha Collins’ Mom were the leaders and it was a blast! That’s when I became best friends with Marsha, Judy Anderson, and Karen Ritter. Our first exciting adventure was sleeping in tents in Marsha’s backyard. We had a circle of pup tents with a big tent in the middle for the leaders. We, of course, cooked hotdogs and s’mores and sang around the campfire before going off to our tents for the night. At about 3:00 a.m. we were awakened by thunder, lightening, and wet pajamas. We all ran soaked and screaming to the big tent—the only tent that was water tight. So much for sleeping outside! We spent the rest of the night on the floor in Marsha’s living room.
Our big event of the year was spending the night at the Lodge at Oak Openings Park. We hiked, cooked, ate and sang but it was after “lights out” that the real fun began. Imagine a slumber party with twenty girls who weren’t the least bit tired. Sounds like a nightmare to me now, but at the time. . . Once I remember some friction among the girls and I was on the receiving end of a prank. I sat on a toilet seat smeared with Vaseline and I didn’t even realize what had happened. I just thought someone accidentally left something on the toilet seat. I even warned the person going in after me—one of the girls who was supposed to be getting pranked.
The highlight of the Girl Scout experience was going to Washington, D.C. Our troop stayed in the homes of Girl Scouts from D.C. whose leader was Lib Campbell, a college friend of Mom’s. The first night that I ate dinner with my host family, was the first time I had ever seen an artichoke. I didn’t like it—but mainly because I didn’t like the looks of it. Now I love artichokes but I was brought up on meat, potatoes and canned vegetables. I wouldn’t try anything that looked even slightly suspicious. After dinner we all met at the Washington Monument; but whatever else we saw when we were there, I don’t recall. I do remember a luncheon, right before we left for home. Our troop performed a funny version of “Othello” made into a musical, with words written by Mom and sung to recognizable tunes. We had done it a few times before and had gotten rave reviews. After the luncheon, I started my period and had terrible cramps. I also hadn’t brought any pads. I remember crying and telling Lib my problem. Sometimes it is easier to let someone else console you than your own mother.
A lot of my free time during 6th, 7th and 8th grade was spent getting Girl Scout badges. My sash was covered with them and I was very proud of that fact. Also a big part of Girl Scouts was selling cookies. I remember going door-to-door with my pen and order blank. I don’t think I was one of the top sellers but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Some of the girls’ parents sold cookies to their co-workers but Dad wouldn’t do that. He didn’t want to feel obligated to reciprocate. I am the same way and it has worked for me too.
Mom taught all of us to play the piano because she wanted to pass her knowledge on to us. We each had a one-hour lesson per week, going through the piano books one piece at a time. We started when we were young and continued until we started high school. I was good enough to accompany my eighth grade class in the St. Pius X School Song although I messed up quite a bit. I have always been glad I could read music although I wasn’t conscientious about practicing at the time. It has come in handy numerous times over the years as all my kids play piano. I gave my daughter, Ali, private lessons for a year so she could skip Level I and go right into Level II in second grade.
In 7th and 8th grades a group of girls and boys started hanging out in Marsha’s basement. It was finished out with a tile floor, and had a record player, a couch and chairs. We would dance, talk, snack and drink Cokes. I wasn’t allowed to drink soda pop at my house, so it was a real treat for me. I remember I liked this tall guy named Phil who had dark, silky hair. I don’t think he went to St. Pius—I think he lived in Hampshire Heights, the apartments behind the school. All the girls decided one night during a particular slow dance and upon hearing a certain line, to go limp in their partners’ arms. The guys freaked and the girls felt they had really done something wild. We would kiss down there too when the lights were turned down real low. I remember thinking if my parents knew what I was doing, they wouldn’t approve. But it was really very tame. Looking back, they probably figured we weren’t just holding hands.
When I was in junior high, Carla and I started taking acting classes on Saturday mornings at the Children’s Theatre Workshop. During the class, we rehearsed an excerpt from a play that we performed on the last day of the session. The play was The Little Foxes, by Lillian Hellman. I had a small, insignificant part but the lead was played by a friend of mine. The teacher tried very hard to get her to cry so she would get in touch with her feelings and bring that experience to the part she was playing. It seemed rather cruel to me. I don’t remember the teacher’s name but I remember hearing that she died of cancer not long after that. Later I played a lead in “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” It was so much fun—I loved being on stage and I loved the attention. I think I was rather good at acting—at least that’s what I remember. I didn’t have any fear or stage fright. That didn’t come until much later.
We continued at Children’s Theatre Workshop for some years. The first boyfriend I stole from Carla, Marty Brogan, hung out there and so did various other good-looking hunks. Coincidentally one of them later dated Karen Ritter although I don’t remember his name, only that he was a tennis player. Marty and I went on a few dates to the movies with his father driving when we were fifteen. I also remember going over to his house once or twice. But after a very short period of time, he started getting on my nerves. I saw a very different Marty than the one I had originally been attracted to. The last play I was in at the Children’s Theatre Workshop was Pinocchio. I was the Blue Fairy and it was filmed for television. Years later when I was in high school and at a slumber party at a friends’ house, her little sister was so excited that the Blue Fairy was there. I was famous at a very early age.
When I was in the 7th grade, Mom and Dad won a trip to Mexico in an Academy Award contest from the newspaper. Before that time, Mom had never gone anywhere and the only time Dad had traveled was during the War. They farmed each of the kids out to a different family for the ten days they were gone. I actually stayed with the Webne’s during the week and Aunt Arlene on the weekend. I remember talking to Aunt Arlene on the phone on Thursday night and asking her what they were having for dinner on Friday. She wanted to know if they should pick me up before or after dinner. When I found out they were having pizza, something I didn’t like the looks of but had never tried, I told them to come after dinner. Can you imagine a kid not liking pizza today? The parents had a great time in Mexico and brought us all gifts. Carla, Terry and I all got a sterling silver ring shaped like a snake from Taxco.
While at Gayle and Gary's we ran around like wild Indians. Behind their house, the city of Toledo was in the process of clearing land to build a freeway. We would leave early in the morning and trapse around all day--exploring. We also picked raspberries in their backyard and ate them with dinner. It was fun staying with Gayle and Gary because, to a city girl like me, they lived in the country.
After the Mexico trip, Mom wanted to travel; so we stopped going to the lake and started exploring. The first summer we went to Niagra Falls and got our sea legs on the “Maid of the Mist”. The next summer we went to the Mammoth Caves, “My Old Kentucky Home”, Gettysburg, and Grandfather’s Mountain, crossing the swinging, mile-high bridge. Mom often retells how she discovered little brother Joe crawling where he shouldn’t have been crawling when no one was looking and almost falling to his death or giving her a heart attack. By the third summer, we were going all the way to Florida, something we did often after that. While we were in Florida, we visited Busch Gardens, Silver Springs, St. Augustine, and Lake Wales, where we viewed a mosaic of the Last Supper during a rain storm. One summer Mom’s Aunt Elsie spent the time with us at Eleanor Village in a beautiful house that we should have loved. We weren’t appreciative as it wasn’t on the beach.
During junior high, I received Confirmation. I don’t remember having to go through much to prepare—just learning more catechism questions. I did realize that Confirmation was necessary because at that age I was ready to choose my faith unlike at Baptism when it was chosen for me. I didn’t question my religion; I was definitely indoctrinated like the rest of my classmates. The Confirmation Ceremony didn’t make much of a lasting impression although I do remember choosing the name Teresa and being tapped on the cheek by the Bishop.
Soon after that milestone, it was time to decide where I would attend high school. It was definitely the most difficult decision of my life so far. Carla had chosen to follow Dad’s footsteps and go to Central Catholic, the co-ed school. I think Mom was hoping I would go to her alma mater which was still all girls and quite far from where we lived. I ended up choosing Notre Dame Academy, another girls’ school but one much more convenient—it was within walking distance of our house, about a mile away. My decision was made easier because Marsha, Judy and Karen all chose it. Another friend, Linda Jackson, tried to persuade me to go to Central because that’s where she was going. A few years later she died of spinal meningitis and I was secretly grateful she wasn’t my best friend.
During November of my eighth grade year, President John F. Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas, Texas. My teacher, Sister Marie Raymond, was also the Principal of the school, so she got the call on the phone in the back of the room. When she told us, we were in a state of shock. How could this happen to our young and handsome president? The entire student body went to Church to pray. We were released early to watch the television coverage along with the rest of the country. We were in mourning and glued to the TV for days. Many of us, including me, were watching when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald.
A few other fleeting memories I have are of cheerleading for the St. Pius X football team. I must have liked it because I went on to do it in high school. I also remember being told in the eighth grade that it was my last year to trick-or-treat. Halloween was a favorite holiday of mine because candy and sweets weren’t something we had often at our house. While my friends’ mothers made cookies and pies for desserts, Mom usually served canned fruit. I attribute my innate thinness to her sensible meals and eating habits. We all practically starved to death but it has kept us thin. I also remember baby Johnnie living with us for a few months. His Mother, Ginnie, was one of Mom’s best friends in her couples bridge club. She died of breast cancer at a very young age and we watched her son when she was very sick. Her husband, Bob, married again and he and his second wife remained friends of my parents for years. I have always thought that Mom’s friendships with women bring out the best in her.
Graduation from eighth grade was a blur. I believe we had a ceremony at St. Pius X Church and I vaguely remember wearing white gowns although that could have been high school graduation. At any rate, I was excited and anxious for the next phase of my life to begin.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
