1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE

Once I saw Dallas Love Field airport, it became clear to me that it was a picture of our household. Planes coming in, planes going out, people trying to create order, loud noise, lots of people,  doors opening by themselves, hot air swooshing past outside,  passengers hurrying in all directions, rushing here and there,  others ambling slowly toward their target,  and people greeting each other with big smiles, hugs, and kisses, like they hadn't seen each other in years.

Surely someone was in charge at the airport, but I never saw that person.    My mother clearly filled that managerial  role in our family.   Daddy could have fixed the planes, or directed them how to park within an inch of the gate, but we all knew it was Mother who made the critical decisions. Sometimes she let him think he was in charge. That kept down conflict.  But she kept everyone on schedule, made things work,  kept things spit clean and tidy, made the amblers speed up and the hurriers slow down, and greeted everyone with a kiss like it'd been a long time since she saw them, even if it had just been overnight.

And if there was a difference in opinion between our parents about something we wanted to do, we always knew we'd get our way, within reason, by appealing to her.
She was the arbitrator, the fair appeals court judge who overturned the whims of the Daddy judge, who usually acted on emotion and sometimes selfishness. She would make sure things came out in favor of  the plaintiffs, otherwise known as the children.

The constant activity in our home was like the comforting activity of an airport. We felt secure and loved. Everything done in and about the home was for the purpose of keeping  things running smooothly.

Daddy went to work each day, his khakis neatly pressed, his cotton shirts ironed and starched. We kids traipsed off to school, hair combed, teeth brushed, handmade dresses worn as proudly as purchased ones.

Our day always started with a huge breakfast, usually eggs with bacon and toast or biscuits--sometimes pancakes.  Every meal had some form of meat.

Being the fifth of six kids, I tried to copy my older sister Neila. All three of us, "the little girls" as we were dubbed, did. We watched how she dressed, how she treated other people, how she behaved,  how she handled Daddy, and how she did in school.

And above that,  I didn't want to disappoint Mother. None of us did. She was the absolute authority. She ran her own crazy version of an airport, and we liked her being in charge.  

Still, somehow everything got done, even with all the noise and confusion. There was so much going on every day, it was just hard to take it all in.

While we were at school during the day, once everyone had reached school age, Mother finished things at the house, fixed lunch for Daddy, and started supper for the rest of us. All the floors had to be mopped. There was no carpet, only linoleum. She also sewed many of our clothes, and always made our costumes for dance recital. Laundry was hung outside on the line, and there was sure lots of it . She helped with 4-H, school events, and church activities.

She didn't seem like a one dimensional Susie Homemaker, as she rode horses, mowed the yard, helped Daddy repair fences, and read. She read most nights, books that interested her, lots of different genres. Sometimes she read what the older kids were studying in English class. She had started studying law at a night program at the YMCA in Dallas, but quit when she married my dad.   And she read the Bible.  She wasn't showy about her faith, but it was solid.

She just seemed like a giant rock that waves crashed against but couldn't move, or a deep cave that you could hide in looking out at a storm, watching it pass, knowing you were safe. Life was simple and secure with her as the buffer between me and the world.  That was Purdon.  That was my first nine years.  The next nine years would chip away at that security and put my mother through tests of faith.

In 1959, we left Purdon and moved to the outskirts of Corbet, a tiny community (even smaller than the one we left).   We lived on a cattle ranch a mile from the Bittner's general store which  along with the Corbet Gin was about all there was to that little outpost.

The  Purdon school closed, and we attended  a much larger school district in Corsicana, a town of about 20,000 twenty miles from Purdon, ten from Corbet.   Instead of walking to school, we now rode the bus.  Instead of 4 students in my grade and 10 in the two grades that occupied the same room, there were about 25 students in my fourth grade classroom.  And there was a second class of fourth graders, too.  I'd never known there could be so many kids my same age.

My oldest brother had married two summers earlier, and I became an aunt this year on June 13th, when my niece Janet was born.  Neila had moved to Austin to attend college at the University of Texas, and Stephen had started staying in Corsicana with Nettie, our grandmother, the previous year so he could attend Corsicana schools when he started the 10th grade, his first year of high school.   Once we moved to Corbet, he stayed with us some of the time, but still stayed with Nettie when he wanted, which seemed to be more often than not.

There were other changes, big ones, but my parents talked about these in whispers, and we weren't included.  My mother would be going to work at a fulltime job for the first time since we kids had been born.  She had always helped with the bookkeeping during ginning season, but she was never gone all day every day like she would be now.

 I cried when I realized she wouldn't be home when we got in from school.  I don't remember anyone else crying about it though they may have.

"But you won't be here when the bus lets us off," I wailed.

 Mother tried to minimize the change.  She was uncomfortable seeing her kids cry, and I seemed to be the main one who did.

"Well, that'll give you time to dance with American Bandstand, and by the time you finish that, it'll almost be time for me to be home," she laughed.

My dad would be working for Murray Gin Company during the off-season.   They had sold the two gins at Purdon and Corsicana, but still had the Corbet Gin in partnership with my dad's uncle Sam Skinner.  Pretty soon, though, that gin would no longer be enough to support a family, and my dad would be off working "on the road" for Murray, "troubleshooting", as he called it, repairing gins and installing gin machinery all over Texas.  He'd be gone for weeks at a time, home on weekends sometimes.  In the summer, we'd make trips to see him wherever he was.  That was as close to a family vacation as we ever got.

They sold the cabin at Lake Whitney, the boat, and the fancy Buick and bought instead a stripped down new car, a 1959 Chevrolet with "fins" that had no heater, no radio, and no armrests. 

I could tell all this was a huge change, but I didn't really understand what was happening, or why.

My dad had his own flaws, but he was a man of his word.  And he was generous.  I overheard him talking to my mother about a man whom he had admired that loaned them money to run the gins.  It seemed that they owed the man's company a great deal of money, now that much of the cotton acreage had been taken out of production by something called the Soil Bank.  All I understood was that the government had something to do with it.

"There just won't be enough cotton to gin around here to make a living," my dad told her one evening.
"Bill promised me that they would assume their share of the loss," my dad in an oddly sad voice.  "Now they aren't going to do it." 

"What will we do, then?" my mother asked.

"We'll pay it all off," he said.  "It'll take a while, but that's what we have to do.  We'll pay it all off."

And that's what they did.  Declaring bankruptcy was never mentioned.  In those years, it was the ultimate admission of failure. as a provider.  My dad was a "man's man".  He didn't cry, whine, or point fingers.  He got busy and did what needed to be done to dig out of the financial hole in which they found themselves.

For the next six years, it was mostly Mother and "the little girls" living on the ranch at Corbet while my dad travelled, home on weekends, but not every weekend.  Stephen was in and out and Neila was sometimes home in the summer.  It was a big change.  A monumental change.  But we adjusted and found that we liked school in the larger district.  And now, we had a new baby to play with, Janet.  Elton and Deanna brought her out to see us often, and I was still getting invited to their house to spend the night, so I looked forward to spending time with the baby then.

One day we had put Janet on Susan's large bed to play with her.  The family probably trusted us more than they should have, or perhaps they trusted Susan, but somehow, she either became inattentive for a few minutes or left the room.  The house was large and long, so the bedroom where we were playing was a long way from the kitchen, where the adults were gathered.

 I was trying to make Janet, who was about eight months old, and sitting up well by herself, laugh.  She was stationed in the middle of the bed, and I would run across the room, hop lightly onto the bed, and say something original like "peep eye, boo!", causing her to giggle uncontrollably.

 When she stopped laughing, I rushed back across the room, then ran toward her again, jumping up on the bed next to her.  In all the jumping on the bed, I suppose she bounced each time I landed and slowly, without my realizing it, she had moved over about a foot on the bed,  closesr, much closer, to the wall.  On my next bounce, she chortled happily, bounced up a little, fell over, and fell face down into the ten inch space between the bed and the wall.

 I momentarily panicked, but wiggled down in the crack and retrieved her..  She looked a little scared, eyes wide, not sure what to do, but she wasn't crying.

 "Boo!" I said,  lifting her into my arms, and she started cackling.  I don't think I ever told the adults what had happened until many years later.  She seemed okay, and why worry them?




Installed

1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE/WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS

My oldest brother Elton married on a hot July day just after  turning 18.  My parents, of course, probably thought he was too young.  It should have counted for something that Deanna was already 19,  a year older than he, and exactly the same age as my parents were when they married. 

My brother seemed  hyperactive, but quite mature.  He liked to amuse us, saying things like, "Daddy says-me king, you slave,"  laughing hysterically, and causing us all to do the same, acknowledging our shared  opinion that our dad thought children were miniature workhorses, made to do his bidding.

Elton's middle name should have been "work".   Once he was old enough that Daddy didn't worry about his getting hurt on the machinery, he became a regular gin hand when he wasn't in school.    Neila still held bad memories on her own and Elton's behalf about another job, the cold, messy and just generally awful work Daddy made them do taking care of the ill-fated mink operation when they were not even ten years old.

 Elton never said much about it.  He moved perpetually and endlessly, so maybe cutting up and grinding frozen meat for the vicious furry animals was just one more thing to take up his time and energy.  At any rate, this all took place before I was born,  and he got his picture in an agricultural magazine with  Daddy, smiling like he enjoyed the mink project, though that was far from the truth.  We could get Neila started on a righteous tirade about child labor just by saying the word "mink", which we did on days when we needed stimulation or wanted to get her riled up.

Ever since the older kids  fended for themselves two years earlier while our parents and the three younger kids went to California for the summer, Elton had seemed like a grown  man. 

I saw him so little his senior year in high school, I almost forgot he lived with us.

He rushed into the house at sporadic intervals, grabbing food on the run,  changing clothes, hurrying either to work, to get Deanna for a date, or just to her house to visit.   Sometimes he'd kiss Jan and I on the head as he passed, or scoop one of us up for just a few seconds and squeeze us affectionately. 

"Gotta go," he'd tell Mother, who more often than not, was standing in front of the stove cooking.  "Be back later.  Not too late."

Mother might not always agree with him, but she knew he was as headstrong as she, and whatever he decided, he would do.  So, when he graduated high school, he immediately got a job at Chattanooga Glass Factory, where he earned a decent wage working in temperatures that were not for weaklings.

He somtimes brought us glass Coke bottles that had been purposefully misshapen in the production process.  Some had long looped necks, others looked like a squatty version of the real thing, and still others were enormous, at least three times the size of a regular bottle.  The production line turned out thousands of coke bottles every day.  It was hot, gritty work, but Elton seemed to thrive on it; I thought he liked it because it kept his energy properly drained to a normal level.

Once he had a job, talk of marriage was not far behind. 

Everyone dressed in their Sunday clothes, except Stephen, who dressed like a rural Elvis, and on that blistering July day, we drove to the Fulton's house, the whole family.  The preacher was there, and Deanna wore  a lacy white dress that accented her tiny waist and  slender frame and a dainty little hat, of a popular style.   Happiness made my lungs feel tight because I felt like  another person was being added to our already large family, and I was thrilled.

 She was an only child, whose parents seemed to never speak above a whisper, but she didn't seem too shellshocked by our robust family.  A Purdon girl,  she had attended school and church with us for years, so she knew pretty much everything about us.  Once they settled into their apartment, they promised me that I could  come and spend the night with them.  I knew not to ask if I could go with them tonight, but I hoped it wouldn't be too long.

They stood holding hands in the Fulton's living room,  their soft  vows carried through the open windows on the breeze that gently stirred the lace curtains.   The drone of buzz fans masked the outside sounds of crows squawking  and cars speeding down the dirt road in front of the house, spewing dust  behind them like tornado tails. 

The fans' sound was familiar,  hypnotic.  It was the background hum to all the vows pronounced that day by the preacher and  the  participants.   And it was a good thing the  ceremony was short,  because I started getting really sleepy just before the preacher said "you may kiss the bride."  I perked up at hearing those words;   I sure didn't want to miss that part.  We ate wedding cake and drank punch in the dining room, and later, everyone gathered for pictures in the front yard. 

Shortly after the pictures were taken,  Elton and Deanna got in his, now their,  1949 Plymouth coupe, and sped away toward their new life.  A few months before,   practically the whole town gave them  a huge wedding shower held in  front of the Purdon School on the lawn, with folding chairs lined up for what seemed like blocks.  But today, it was only family and a few friends to share their joy.  I never thought of it as them starting their own family.  It just seemed like ours got bigger, and that suited me fine.

Today was only the second wedding I had been invited to,  having attended one in Smithville, Texas a few months earlier, in March,   when my uncle, Bo Newlin, married JoAnn Hart.  He was my mother's baby brother, twelve years younger than she, and had graduated from Texas A & M,  a member of the respected Aggie Corps, then enlisted in the Army, where he became a helicopter pilot.  My mother worried some about this.  Their brother Johnny was a navigator aboard a plane in World War II that never returned from a mission in the Pacific. 

The family piled into two cars for the trip south, and when we got there, Mother let us go in and see the bride, who was getting dressed in her lacy dress and veil.  Mesmerized would be the right word.  I had never seen anyone who was going to get married in a church, much less in a "real" wedding dress and veil.  Mother shooed us out soon enough, and we left our soon-to-be aunt alone to finish her preparations. 

My Granny Newlin, my mother's mother, had arrived and was getting out of their light green Chrysler.   I wondered if my soon-to-be-aunt had noticed how quiet she was or that she sometimes just smiled at you when you asked her something, never answering, making you wonder whether she heard you or just didn't care to respond.  It confused me, but I'd learned not to ask her any questions.  I just kissed her on the cheek when I saw her and  tried not to bother her further.

"Hi Granny.  Glad you got to come." we each said, standing in a line of three to kiss her on the cheek.  Me first, Susan, then Jan.  Kiss, kiss, kiss.  She stood smiling, looking not at us, but at some unseen place beyond our shoulders, a  place we would never share with her.

"Granny," I offered, trying to make small talk, "I'll turn "Lassie" on for you after the wedding when we come back to the house."  I knew she liked to watch Timmy and Lassie.  I then remembered it wasn't Sunday, though, and "Lassie" wouldn't be on, but I didn't say anything to anybody.  Maybe Granny would forget by the time the wedding was over.

"Let's go, Mother," Granddad said in his mellifluous voice, taking her small hand gently and guiding her toward the church.  "It's almost time for the wedding."

As it turned out, our uncle, whom we all loved dearly, had chosen a girl who liked little kids too, and pretty soon, Susan and I were being invited to spend time with them in Mineral Wells, Texas which seemed like exotic territory to us.  We felt so fortunate to get to visit with them.  Jan was too little to come.They  made each visit special by taking us skating, to play miniature golf, out to eat,  or to buy ice cream or  another summer treat.

 In the same way we had drawn the questionable White family's kids in California to us--  like snake charmers, we managed to attract a couple of girls who wanted to play with us within hours of landing in my aunt and uncles' home in Mineral Wells.   My aunt let us visit them, but spent the next five days making them get away from the screen door where they pressed their noses each morning until she let them in or made them go home.

She expressed  surprise at how we attracted kids like magnets. "You girls haven't been here 24 hours and you've already made friends," she said, glancing toward the screened door where the two Hedspeth girls peered in.  "Do you want me to let them in?"  We bored of them quickly and preferred to play with each other, so we didn't care if she made them disappear.  We got where we'd run to the bedroom and hide till they went away each day.

 I should have warned her.  At home, there were always kids in and out of our house.  It was like a clown car house, with no end to the number of kids coming out on any given day.  No one ever seemed to know where they all came from, how they got there,  who invited them, or when they'd stop coming.

All in all, the weddings came out in my favor and provided me with more activity, places to go, and people to impress.  Failing impressing them, I just tried to be on good behavior so they'd invite me over to their house again.  Those invitations usually meant I got taken for some sort of special activity or treat.

I was going to talk about funerals, but although my parents faithfully attended visitation times for families who had lost someone, and usually the funeral too, we never went, at least Susan, Jan, and I didn't.  I think the older kids went to the funerals of our neighbor Evelyn's boys, both of whom died tragically in accidents. 

But we, the "little girls",  were shielded from those events, and somehow by the time we moved from Purdon several years later, we still had not attended a funeral, something my dad thought was a rite of passage and my mother wanted us to avoid as long as possible.  My parents could see some good in everyone, and they attended the services for the errant among the Purdon population as well as the saints, always finding something decent to say about the deceased.

Elton and Neila sometimes mimicked Mother's genuine, sometimes slightly odd, expressions of concern.

"He wasn't mean when he was drunk," Elton said, patting an imaginary shoulder.

 "And he was really funny, even when he was drunk." Neila piped up, taking over imitating our mother.

"Yes, yes, I know," Elton said, nodding slowly, now playing the role of the deceased's relative. 

I never wanted things to change.  I wanted to remain anchored in place, but even though the weddings were welcome events for me, they reconfigured my world.  My brother would leave our family and start his own;  shortly, my uncle and aunt would move far away to Washington state. 

Neila would soon leave for college, and who knew what other changes would happen?   I just prayed my place remained secure.  I had layers of family around me, and I liked it that way, wrapped in a family cocoon, spun by countless threads: years of visiting one another, caring about one another, celebrating births, birthdays, weddings, hospitalizations, traumas, knowing one another in that raw way that families do.   I was content to remain a worm as long as I had that security.  I had plenty of time to break out on my own and become a butterfly.  Much easier to stay here protected and shielded.

There were dark moments-my dad's temper sometimes flared, and we skittered away like  rabbits running from the headlights of a car.  But we were never afraid of him.  In fact, we knew his tantrum would just run its course and flame out , a short rope burning on gravel, curling up harmelessly, blackened and damaged,  causing no serious harm.    We just tried to stay out of his way so we wouldn't have to deal with it at all, sometimes laughing among ourselves behind his back about the trouble he caused himself through his little fits.  And through everything, we had that cool, serene, calmness and strength that was mother.  And it was enough. 



Installed

1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: STATE FAIR OF TEXAS

 Big Tex, a 52 foot tall cowboy dressed in Dickies blue jeans, a red  shirt ,  a gigantic cowboy hat, and bright red boots,  always greeted us in the best Texas fashion when we skipped through the gates at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas.  We anticipated  the daytrip, a yearly tradition, as soon as the leaves started to change from green to yellow and red in the fall.

"Howdy folks" he'd boom in his lilting baritone, smiling down benignly on us as we hurried into the fairgrounds.

"Welcome to the State Fair of Texas. Have a gooood day." His voice followed us even as we three girls zipped past, trying to get out of range of his all-seeing eyes.

"He started out as a papier mache Santa Claus made in Kerens, Texas," my mother told me one October day as I ran past him, fearing he'd topple over.

"Then he became Big Tex," she finished, her long strides allowing her to catch up with me, "so he gets a lot more exposure this way. Besides, it's too hot in Texas at Christmas to wear that Santa suit all of December. This is definitely better for him." The way she talked about him, you'd think he was her kid brother.

My dad liked to tell about the time he took my mother to the fair for the Centennial Celebration in 1936, sometimes known as the first world's fair south of the Mason-Dixon line, and  she nearly got arrested for picking a flower from the large landscaping display at the entrance, even though my dad warned her sternly not to. She loved beautiful plants and wanted to take just one petaled flower so she could figure out what it was and buy the species to grow for herself. "What will it hurt?", she argued with my dad., though they were newly dating.

 They had met at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Ennis, her hometown, where his band was playing at a dance she attended.  She had been home for the weekend from Dallas, where she was living and working after graduating from high school. Because she loved to dance so much, and some Baptists apparently thought you shouldn't,  later, she'd tell us kids, "I'm a Baptist, but I've got a Methodist foot."

The policeman who spotted her bending over and plucking the pretty bloom took it seriously, blew his whistle, stormed over, and gave her a withering tonguelashing. My dad turned away, suppressing a laugh, but Mother was properly chastised. The officer threatened to arrest her when she kept talking, trying to win him over to her way of thinking.

"Lady, if 50,000 people attend the Centennial today,and they each pick a flower from the displays, the fair would be bare of color and plants," he had snarled, turning on his heel, crushing the tiny bud under his substantial weight.

As soon as the policeman left, she sniffed, "Well, I don't know why he got so mad over one little flower." And she picked up the tiny petal, now lying crumpled forlornly on the pavement, and dropped it quickly into her purse.

My dad opened his mouth to respond, but she ignored him and was already walking quickly toward the Women's Building to see the crafts and clothing. He probably should have realized what a strong personality he would be up against, but he liked her energy and optimism, so it would not be long before he proposed.

We looked forward to the food at the fair,  and as was always true, my dad put no restraints on us.  Just about anything we wanted to eat, he'd buy with no complaint.  My mother didn't like our eating all that food.  "You'll founder," she said laughing, knowing we'd realize she was talking about what horses do if left alone with too much food, but we ignored her completely on this day and ate everything we wanted, or thought we wanted. 

There were perfectly fried corn dogs with mustard, beautiful red candied apples, rich brown carameled apples, pink cotton candy, multicolored and flavored salt water taffy (we always talked Daddy into buying several boxes to bring home with us), fried chicken, hot dogs,  and other enticing treats.  We ate, rode wild, spinning rides, then ate some more. 

We must have had stomachs made of castiron, for we never got sick like some people who hurled their recently consumed treats upon other patrons of the rides and those below on the midway.  The most spectacular examples of this were often those on the top of the huge ferris wheel who were unable to wait to be sick until their car made the gentle ride down to the asphalt below.  They could be seen,  heads hanging over the side of the car, while unsuspecting fair attendees below wandered aimlessly, unaware that their day was about to be ruined.

Once, while riding between Susan and I on the Octopus,  a spinning ride with seats at the end of extended metal arms that resembled the sea animal, Jan decided she wanted off, and each time we passed the man operating the machine, she yelled "Stop right now.  I want off!!"  She wasn't sick, she just thought it was going too fast.  The man looked at her like she was invisible, and he certainly made no move to stop the machine.  It spun and rotated madly, pressing us hard against the side of the car and each other. 

"Get off me!!" I yelled at both of them like they could help it,  as the centrifugal force pressed us all against one side.

Susan and I alternately laughed and gritted our teeth,  hoping just like Jan that the ride would stop, but too controlled to scream out or show our abject fear.

"Why didn't you stop?" Jan whimpered quietly in the operator's direction as we exited the ride. 

He glanced at her, a cigarette drooping loosely from the side of his mouth, the tattoes covering his arms and chest visible around the boatnecked sleeveless undershirt he wore.  My dad wore the same kind, but much cleaner.  We were scared to look at his tattoes too much, with too much interest, though we wanted to read them.  They made him look hard and dangerous.  We ducked our heads, glad to be off the ride.  Taking up our concerns that he didn't stop the ride soon enough, somehow didn't seem quite so important now that we were on solid ground.

"Let's go to the 4-H Styleshow," Susan suggested.

Jan and I agreed, but only on the condition that we not stay very long, and that she go with us to the showbarns to see the animals afterward.  She reluctantly agreed.  Those smelly barns were not her idea of a good time, as watching the style show was not mine. 

"I pledge my head to clearer thinking," I began, mimicking repetition of one part of the 4-H pledge. 

"That's not possible," she said, dismissing me with a wave of her hand. 

Sometimes on the Midway, you had to hold hands, and push hard to stay with each other because of the crowds.  There were always carneys trying to get you to come in and see the smallest woman in the world, or the bearded lady, or the blue man.  It was always tempting, but there was a lady in Purdon who had a pretty advanced beard, and we didn't even have to pay to see her.  Besides, that wasn't too appetizing, and we were focusing on eating, trying our best to "founder".  I wondered if my toenails would come off like I heard horses' hooves did after they overate. 

We managed to push our way until the path cleared a little going toward the 4-H Styleshow.  We walked into the cavernous building and seated ourselves on the metal bleachers up about six rows.  We could easily see the young girls enter, model their sewn creations, and hear the moderator's dull comments.  Most people sat at attention, but you could tell they were bored lifeless.  I thought we could have done a better job of announcing, creating a little excitement. 

"See, here is Jodie in her summer sundress, all ready for vacation," the moderator intoned dully.

"See, here is Jodie," I whispered,  leaning against Susan, "all ready to prance around in front of the boys showing off her..."  Susan gouged my leg hard with her sharp nails. 

"I just thought I could liven it up a little," I pouted, already bored beyond my capacity to tolerate. 

The girls entered in denim jackets, pink seersucker shortsets, frilly blouses, cotton plaid dresses in pastel colors, and dressy organza Sunday school dresses that must have taken hours to make.  I wished the emcee would tell how many times each girl had to rip out the side or shoulder seams, and how many fights she and her mother had before she got the zipper in right.  They should also really tell if the mother or someone else actually put in the zipper rather than the girl modeling the clothing.  That would have disqualified them though, so it was sort of like scout's honor, only it was 4-H honor , that the kids were supposed to do the work themselves. 

Susan had gotten a red ribbon for the dress she entered in the Navarro County 4-H Styleshow, but she didn't advance to state.  She did a good job of modeling at the local contest, coming to the front of the stage, hesitating, and turning around and walking back like a queen.  I don't know who went on to state from Navarro County, but I would bet it was some girl whose mother stood over her for months and made her redo every seam and zipper three or four times.  

Susan made several  items for styleshows,  but I never did.  My shoulders started aching as soon as I sat down at the machine.  And I could just as well have stood on my head, which I loved to do, and looked at the pattern upside down and made more sense of it than looking at it head on.  Mother made so many things for us:  dance recital costumes, school clothes, evening gowns for Neila - that I thought I should want  to do it too.  But it just wasn't in my genes.

 I got the "no-sew" genes, probably from both my grandmothers.  My paternal grandmother had a treadle machine, but if she ever used it, it was long before my birth.  It sat abandoned in her back bedroom, but it made a great diversionary toy.  We could get that treadle going fast by pumping it with our foot.  She didn't like for us to do it and would stop us if she heard or saw us because, as she put it, " It's  a good way to get a finger mashed  off."  And my mother's mother, well, the only domestic thing I ever saw her do was fold a handkerchief that she had in her lap.

The girls modeling the summer clothes wore white patent leather shoes or tennis shoes.  Some of the girls showing school clothes wore penny loafers with white bobby socks. Just about all of them wore frozen smiles as well, making me wonder if anyone really wanted to be there. 

"Let's go," I poked Susan in the side with my index finger.  She shoved the digit away and heaved a loud sigh. 

Three or four more girls walked across the stage, turned on their heel, and sauntered toward the back of the stage where the curtain swallowed them.  I wished it would swallow the monotone announcer.  Where did they get her anyway--behind the textile factory?

"Ok," Susan whispered.  "Let's go on three....1,2.3...." and she rose and walked demurely down the steps and out the door of the Women's Building, toes pointed, head held high like she herself was modeling.  I limped along behind her,  pulling Jan, who was still trying to eat a sticky red candy apple that had left pieces on her face and hands.

"We need to meet up with Mother and Daddy at the livestock barn," I reminded her. 

"I hate that smelly place," she said.  "I'll wait out here for you."

"Okay, but we might be in there a while," I warned her.  "We want to look at the cows."

She made a show of rolling her eyes.  Jan and I traipsed inside and found Mother and Daddy admiring a hereford bull, the kind of bulls they had at Corbet.  I loved their squat red bodies and white trim.  They seemed kind, not like Brahama and other types of mean cattle who looked like they would rather butt you than walk past you.  I was never scared of the Herefords, even the bulls, with their long, wide horns.  You could shoo them away if they got too close in the pasture.   They might give a little snort, but they'd amble away, like they were humoring you.

Jan somehow got some hay stuck to the red sticky stuff on her face, and it looked ghastly, so Mother took out a tissue, spit daintily on it, and rubbed her face hard until she got most of it off, leaving just red streaks in several spots. 

I'd begged to raise a lamb to show in the livestock exposition for 4-H, but my dad steadfastly refused, saying that the wolves would get it.  "You'll get tired of feeding it," he had said, but Jan and I had fed his dogs for years.  And they weren't even cute, like lambs.   "You won't want to sell it at the end of the year," he went on.  I didn't oppose him on that idea, knowing it was probably the truth.  Anyway, I gave the lamb raising idea up once I saw that he wasn't going to give   He knew how attached I got to animals, and he probably knew it would break my heart for my lamb to be sold, possibly for slaughter.

Our parents were soon ready to leave the livestock barn, and we picked Susan up outside the door, making our way down the crowded midway, pushing past the carnival barkers, the enticing games you could never win, the brightly lit food stands and the trailers with their garish lettering that housed all those people with various oddities.

I really never liked to go in there much, though once we did, to look at the headless lady.  Actually, we looked at her head, so she wasn't headless.  We looked down on her, and her head seemed to be sitting on a board, a small hole surrounding her neck.  She insisted on greeting everyone and trying to make conversation which made me feel very uncomfortable.  We spent approximately 30 seconds in there, so at the rate people were parading across the little platform in front of her head, I figured, she should be rich, judging by the cost of the tickets.

 I felt ashamed to stare at the human oddballs, and I felt sorry for them.  It didn't seem like much of a life, but I thought maybe they got to ride the rides for free when no one was around.  That was at least some consolation.  Maybe they could have some fun with the other carneys.  And  I mollified myself by thinking that  maybe they got to eat salt water taffy and cotton candy any time they wanted.  How bad could a life like that be?















Installed