1970

1970

Every life has turning points; every marriage does, also.  We grew up in a time when the idea was that a good wife did everything to help her husband get ahead. I am not saying that I was good at doing that, just that it was what I was supposed to do, or thought I was supposed to do. I had some sort of vague realization that if Dave was going to “get ahead” in the world of work , he needed to get a degree. In what was not important, just a degree. We were, and probably to a great degree still are, woefully ignorant of how the world works. I had no intention of entering that world on any extensive basis—my participation to this point had been to do the sort of work that I could combine with taking care of the kids. We were houseparents at Juliette Fowler Children’s Home in Dallas, I did that short stint being a day care manager at the Methodist Church, kept kids at home, did ironing, and occasional sewing for people—the public, as the phrase goes. But to this point, I had never held a full-time job away from home.

Dave worked steadily, and tried numerous ideas on a part-time basis both to increase our income and to do the kind of work he would like better. Few of these worked out to much except being away from home extra hours. Some, like the job selling Wurlitzer organs, were different for him, and he enjoyed those. That one involved playing the organ in a mall somewhere, which was reinforcing for him. He also developed some other interests about this time. Some of these were bordering on the illegal—there was the Tussy scheme, the details of which are fuzzy, but it was supposed to make lots of money, but turned out not to. Big surprise there. Then there were interests that each of us developed in the process of change, like interests in reincarnation and other ways of looking at life. I think that once the process of exploration begins, it leads to a place where one has to make choices that become the settling point. Where that may be seems to vary for individuals, but it is almost never the place where one began. One of these that Dave pursued, along with a neighbor and friend, had to do with Mind Control, supposedly in a positive sense.

This was all very foreign to me, and what I saw was being alone (with five kids) a great deal of time, no increase in income, and not in tune with the events. What really happened is very fuzzy to me now, but I do know that I became frustrated and angry enough that I discarded much of that help-him-to-get-ahead point of view, and decided to go to school myself. That does not sound exactly radical now, but that was then.

I did take one college English course in the summer of 1963, when we lived in Murphy. I went to the Garland campus of Abilene Christian College. Loved the class, make an A, and would have gone back, but for some long forgotten reason, did not. May have had something to do with the pregnancy that occurred resulting in Russell’s appearance in the summer of 1964. Maybe that one class did not seem like really going back to school.

Along about 1969, when we lived in Caddo Mills, I kept thinking about going to school, but couldn’t quite figure it all out. I did know about correspondence courses, having taken second-year high school Latin from Texas Tech. ACHS did not teach second-year Latin, nor, for that matter, first-year Latin. Topeka High School did, however, and I could not get credit for Texas graduation without completing a second year. So I did. Latin by correspondence was matched in difficulty only by taking Texas Government by correspondence. That was difficult not because the subject was, as in the case of Latin, but because the instructor gave questions for the final from his class lectures. That resulted in my only “D” in college.

But I digress. One day in the Greenville Library I picked up a book and read a sentence where it fell open. The sentence, paraphrased, said if you want to make a change (I think it was actually talking about going to school) then DO SOMETHING. Take a correspondence course or something, but GET STARTED. Good advice. I decided to take another correspondence course, this time Business Math, from East Texas State University in Commerce, twenty-two miles away.

I struggled with that course. I learned, by much diligence, how to calculate amortization schedules. Not how to punch in interest rates and principal and number of payments, but how to actually calculate. This was before Dave’s cousin Jerry and his friends designed those neat little calculators, or even before we had any calculators. This was pencil and paper stuff. When I got through I understood how it works, which has been one of the most valuable practical lessons of my life.

At one point in the course, about the time I was saying I wanted to go back to school, Dave made one of those comments that spur determination, and are highly motivating, even though it was probably not intended to be. He asked how I thought I could pass in college if I couldn’t even finish that little correspondence course. That one cost him, or helped him greatly, depending on one’s point of view, because I would have done it then if it harelipped . . . oh, well, you get the picture.

The other motivator was Doodle. Doodle owned the beauty shop down the street. The beauty shop bore a strong resemblance to its former life as a garage, but it was Doodle’s livelihood, and I helped her earn it the same way many other women in the sixties and seventies did, by keeping my weekly appointment for a shampoo, set, teasing, and lots of hairspray, all done early in the morning before my trip to Commerce for class. Doodle predicted that I would never last the semester. Same reaction from here as to Dave. I probably owe those three degrees to Dave and Doodle.

At this time Richard was 13, Nancy 12, Randall 10, Amy 8, and Russell 6. They were in Caddo Mills schools. Caddo Mills had possibly the best schools they ever attended. There were some moments there that will be in the saga of the next couple of years, but we will get to those later.

Even though this barely scratches the surface for the events in 1970, I am posting it, and will add to it later.

If you read this, please add your comments, good, bad, or neutral. It is ever so much more likely that more will appear if I know someone out there is reading.