Family Trips

We usually visited family whenever we went on trips. We visited Daddy's brother, Chan. He lived near Raymond, KS, on the farm where he and Daddy and all their siblings grew up.

We had to drive across a short, wooden bridge that rattled as the car drove over it. That rattle always scared me. So I think I always sat on the floorboards of the car so I couldn't see the bridge or the creek it spanned.

Usually there would be quite a family group who got together on the farm at Uncle Chan and Aunt Mae's. There would be my parents and brothers, Uncle Chan's kids, and other cousins with their parents.

We also visited Mom's sister, Ruby, in Wiley, CO. It was a very small town. I think it was smaller than Ness. There would be Aunt Ruby (my Mom's youngest living sister) and Uncle Darryl and their son and daughter and our family. One time we went there for the son's wedding. I am not sure I had ever been to a wedding unless it was my twin brothers' weddings.

We visited California where Mom's parents, brothers, and sister lived with their families. I remember the trip in 1942; I think we went out on the El Capitan streamliner. I know we went out in 1953. There may have been one other trip but I am not sure.

We didn't take family "vacations" where we went some place to see the sights. We always visited family. We saw what sights there were to see on these trips.

Society in a Small Town

I believe that most small towns had a "caste" system when I was growing up. Those who have money and/or social standing were the elite - my Mama referred to them as "the 400." The rest of the people were considered "common."

My family was not rich and, as far as social standing, - well, you could say we were members of the common folks. There were lots of folks in this group.

Sometimes a person could see that "the 400" and their kids were treated differently than the common folk and their kids.

Some school teachers were homegrown. They returned to teach in their hometown after they got their teaching credentials. Some were fair and square to all their students. Other teachers played "favorites" and their favorites came from "the 400." I can think of one elementary teacher in particular.

The only year Ness City High School didn't have a validictorian was the year I graduated. Those in "the 400" were not the very top students. So the school board (who were very aware of who was society and who was common) decided they would honor the "top ten" students in the class. The "top ten" were listed alphabetically on the graduation program.

This favored behavior often showed up in other areas, too. It sometimes happened with merchants who wanted to be sure that the common folk didn't have exactly the same "stuff" as "the 400." The more exclusive the store, the more it was visible. This behavior often caused bad feelings.

Even with the "caste" system, my little hometown was still a good place to grow up.

Friends

I have been thinking about friends lately. After Daddy died, I observed Mom and her friends. They were either married ladies or widows. They were all close in age to Mom.

I watched as she outlived each of her friends. It was then that I decided it would be wonderful and very wise to have friends of all ages.

People interest me. I like to get acquainted with many different people. I got acquainted with two ladies at the water department when I paid the bill. One lady became a friend and confidante. I believe she saw herself in me. I called her my Iowa Mom and spent many hours sitting on her sofa visiting with her. She enjoyed those visits and so did I.

I'm blessed with friends my age from my school days. It is fun to get together and talk about "old times."

Another lady and I taught school at Ft. Riley from 1955 through 1959. We often ate lunch together, played piano duets during lunch hour in her kindergarten room and sometimes went to movies. We have remained friends over all the years between then and now. She lives in Las Vegas; we have visited her there twice and she has been to our home.

Then there are those friends who were Patti and Tony's classmates. Some still call me "Mom Weber." They spent many hours in our home or else working with me in Band Boosters.

There is one more friend I'd like to mention. I've known him since high school. He had no sisters and I was very honored when he told me one day that if he had a sister, he'd want her to be just like me - and he calls me "Sis" to this day.

I am so blessed to have many friends. The younger ones help keep me young at heart and those my age keep me grounded. The ones older than I are a blessing still.

Friends come into our lives to fullfil specific reasons. Some walk beside us in the difficult times. They encourage us to hang in there and to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Some share joyful times with us. Some come into our lives and stay for a while and leave. Perhaps they move away and the connection is broken. Maybe I moved away, either emotionally or physically.

The blessing is that friends love us, pray for us, and offer wisdom that we may or may not heed. They don't get angry and give up on us because we disagree.

We have childhood friends, work friends, church friends. Some of these areas overlap. The best thing about friends is they accept us as we are and invite us to become better. They love us even when we stumble and fall. They give us a hand so we can stand up again.

Friends are blessings, indeed.

Things Were Different Back Then

Many changes occur from generation to generation! Things that folks take for granted in 2009 didn't even exist back when I was growing up. We didn't know what we were missing - or not!

I don't remember ever eating in a restaurant when I was growing up. There was no such thing as "fast food" places. Normally, we ate at home in the kitchen with all of the family sitting down together. Breakfast was the only meal we might not all eat together.

When I was really little, we took baths in a wash tub in front of the open oven door - the oven was turned on to take the chill off the air. The water wasn't changed after each person either! This was a Saturday night ritual.

My parents took out a loan to build our home. I remember the day Daddy came home with the mortgage papers marked "paid in full." That was worth celebrating!

My folks saved money until they had enough to buy what they wanted - a car, furniture, etc. There were no credit cards. They worked hard and saved. Daddy worked at the post office and Mom worked at home. He "brought home the bacon" and she fried it!

Working at home meant cooking, baking, cleaning, washing the clothes with a ringer washer, hanging the clothes outside on the clothes line to dry, roning those clothes and anything else that needed to be done.

We weren't allowed to wear slacks or jeans to school because they weren't considered ladylike. This changed when I was in high school. We didn't wear tee-shirts with stuff written on them. We didn't roll our skirts up at the waist to make them shorter - if we had done that, our skirts would probably have been a couple inches below the knee. So there was no point to it!

We learned to do math using our brains as there were no calculators back then - unless you counted on your fingers (and toes). We also learned to count change. Even with the cash register, we had to use our heads and not depend on the cash register to tell us that the customer should get 75 cents back or whatever amount it was. Now, when someone counts change back to me, I am always really pleased.

I think I saw my first TV set when I was a freshman at Kansas State in 1953. We gathered in the rec room and watched Fess Parker as Davy Crockett and other shows that were on TV then.

We had a phone until Daddy died. Our phone number was "one o" or 10. Mother had the phone service cut off because so many people called and she could not deal with it. So I never had an opportunity to talk for hours on the phone when I was growing up. Nor did I ever get asked out on a date by a phone call.

When we went to the "filling station," a man pumped the gas, checked the oil and water, and washed the windsheild. We paid about 25 cents a gallon for gas. The man did the other stuff for free - this was definitely "customer service."

We had an electric clock plugged in over the kitchen sink and an alarm clock in the bedroom. The alarm clock wasn't electric. We had to wind it to keep it running. There were no LCD clocks or LCD watches either. Daddy had a pocket watch on a chain that he kept in the watch pocked in his vest.

We didn't have "boom boxes" back then. There was a "console radio" in the living room with Mom's rocker setting in front of it. The radio was probably 3-4 feet tall. As I got older we also had a portable radio that we could plug into the wall outlet inother rooms or in the basement. We didn't have air conditioning so when it was hot in the summertime, we would go down to the basement where it was cooler. We did have an oscillating fan to move the air around.

I don't know that we had it hard back then. I just know that it was very different.

California Trip 1953

My brother Bob, his wife Inez, their son nearly two-year-old Richard, Mom and I drove to California to visit relatives. It was a long drive so we all had a turn at holding and/or keeping track of Richard - and keeping him entertained.

We spent time with Mom's mother Grandma Carrie, one of Mom's sisters, and several brothers and their families. Mom and I stayed with Uncle Charlie and his family. He took me sailing in the ocean in a very small boat. I don't remember being scared but I really got sunburned. Some vinegar helped take out the burn.

We spent time on the beach and at the Santa Monica pier. We went on some of the rides - the Log flume, bumper cars, and the carousel with Richard. I really liked the bumper cars but not the log flume so much because we all got very wet.

We saw Grauman's Chinese Theater and looked at all the hand prints and foot prints of the Hollywood stars on the Star Walk. We visited Forest Lawn Cemetery where many Hollywood stars were buried. If I remember correctly, they had a rendering of the Last Supper - a statue-type of thing. It was beautiful.

We also visited Catalina Island. We rode on a glass-bottomed tour boat there. It was interesting. We saw the ballroom there where Lawrence Welk and his orchestra often played.

I'm not sure whether it was this trip or not but we did visit Knott's Berry Farm. We enjoyed eating there. The berry jellies and jams were delicious!

I don't believe I recognized it them but I am a real flatlander! The ocean and the mountains are beautiful but all that water and the heights make me nervous.

It was a pleasant trip and the last time I saw Grandma Carrie. Grandpa Burt died in 1952 and Grandma Carrie died in 1957.

One of Life's Lessons

We always think it would be great to have everything in our lives go smoothly and remain on an even keel. We don't remember that to enjoy and appreciate the mountaintop view, we must first descend into the valley. I love rainbows but to truly see their beauty, it takes both the rain and the sun.

When I was 54 and single, I interviewed for a different job. The interview went well and I was offered the job. I started sometime in the early spring of 1989. It turned out the man who interviewed me was my boss' boss. This was not stated at the interview. My boss turned out to be fresh out of college and she seemed very immature to me. I won't go into detail about the job because that isn't the important part. Briefly, I was considered professional staff and so I had two years probation. At the end of 18 months, I was given the opportunity to resign - or be fired.

I have never been a quitter so I chose to be fired. I had never ever been fired. The dastardly deed was done Friday afternoon.

Monday morning arrived with rain. It rained inside, too, because I cried. I didn't know what I was going to do. I had purchased a condo after I got this job. So here I was in my lovely condo with no job to pay the bills.

When I finally quit crying, I walked from the bedroom down the hallway. The rain had stopped and the sun was shining. When I was even with the kitchen doorway, I saw rainbows reflected on the carpet. I went into the living room and there were rainboqws all around. The rainbows helped me know everything would be ok.

Now logic told me the rainbows came about because the butterfly with crystals in its wings was hanging in the kitchen window. I do understand about sun shining through crystals.

I had been living in the condo for about 18 months. The butterfly had been hanging in that window all that time - and I had never seen the rainbows reflected on the carpet, on the walls, reflecting off the mirror over the fire place. I know the sun had been shining on lots of those days I had lived there.

Isn't it interesting that when I needed to know everything would be all right, there were rainbows all around?

Senior Year 1952-1953

Forty-three of us returned to school, seniors at last. Our sponsors were Harry and Edith Linn. Four of our classmates chose to get married and did not finish school with us; five moved away; and we gained two new classmates.

My classes were English IV with Mrs. Linn, Typing II and shorthand with Miss Brungardt, and American History with Mr. Linn. We were required to take Phys Ed all four years. Classes were interesting and took a certain amount of effort to do all that was required. I liked school and was a good student.

Acitivites including band, clarinet quartet, mixed chorus, glee club, Y-Teens, yearbook staff selling advertising and cheerleading kept me busy. I continued working at Rexall Drugstore after school and on weekends.

The WKEA conference massed concert band clinic was held in Ness City and the WKEA massed chorus vocal clinic was held in Scott City. These were always fun because all the schools in the conference participated. The directors came to us from some of the Kansas colleges and universities.

I had a bit part in the senior play - the bratty tomboy little sister, of course. I always had stage fright. Eight of us presented a radio drama at speech contest; seven were seniors and one junior were in the cast. It was fun.

Freshman initiation was fun since we were the "distinguished" seniors. The boys had to dress like girls. I'm not sure what we forced upon the girls. It was a fun day for us.

The 1952 football team was undefeated in WKEA play. Only Dodge City defeated them. In ten games the team scored 320 points vs. 49 points for their opponents.

The basketball team took 3rd place in the WKEA tournament. The track team placed 2nd in the WKEA league meet. Dean Lyon, a senior, was undefeated in the 440.

The principal of 20% of the people do 80% of the "work" is very true in small schools. The guys who played football were also the ones on the basketball team, the baseball team and/or the track team. Many of the same guys and gals were involved in vocal and instrumental music, sports and drama. Some were more active than others and did it all. Others participated in a few things.

We sold our cow and what we made on the cow helped pay for our senior sneak trip to Rockaway Beach, Missouri. We chartered a bus and were gone about a week. Rockaway Beach was a fun place. Many schools went there for their senior trips. We swan, sunned, toured, danced and had a great time from the moment we set out until we returned home.

Graduation was held after we returned home. All in all, high school in that little town was a great experience. Many of my classmates are life-long friends.

The photo above was taken that spring in Dodge City. It is not the photo in our yearbook but Mom and I considered this my "senior" picture.