To say that
I had an idyllic childhood is almost to minimize how truly wonderful it
was. When I
was born, my parents bought a house “way out on the edge of town”
at 4901 Winnetka.
Our phone number was MI5-8598. Back then, phone numbers
started with
two letters, which were the first two letters of a word. In this case, it
was “mission.”
That word thing started about the time I was born. Before that,
there were
just 5 numbers for a phone number, but as more people started
getting
phones, the word became a necessity. Now, of course, numbers are 10
digits
long and we don’t use words at all. The house was a split level on the
corner
of Belvedere and Winnetka, right across the street from MacGregor Park.
That
area is practically a stone’s throw from downtown now, but back then,
people thought
my parents were crazy for building way out on the edge of town.
The house had
a big porch and a two car garage that was separate. We had a
big back
yard with a clothesline, a swing set, and a dirt basketball half-court.
The whole yard
was easily converted into a makeshift baseball, and later wiffle
ball field,
when necessary. Our front yard had a long sidewalk from the front door
to the
curb, which made it the perfect spot for neighborhood games of
hopscotch,
red light green light, and mother may I. We had two mimosa trees,
a mexican ratanda,
an ash, and a china berry tree in the front yard. We had two
bedrooms
and one bath when we moved in, but Dad turned the second level into
two rooms
and a bathroom. At first, that space up there was just for a pool table
and later
a ping pong table, but eventually, Mom and Dad took the big bedroom
up there
with the bathroom and at some point, I got the other room, which was a
great
room.
The only things I know about my infancy are things I’ve been told, of
course.
My mom went into labor on a Sunday while Dad and the boys were at church.
She called the church to tell them to come home. My dad always used to tell
me the story of how, after I was born, he wanted to see me and the first thing
he looked for was to see if I had eyebrows. His hair was so fair that his
eyebrows didn’t show so he always worried his kids would have the same
problem. I had a little difficult breathing and they put me in an incubator
and
my mom couldn’t see me. But Dad raised such a fuss that a nurse finally
came to her door and showed her to me and said, “Look, here she is. Now
tell your husband you saw her.” Then, as the story goes, they put me
in the
nursery on the very center of the front row because (my dad told me this and
he wouldn’t lie) that’s where they put the prettiest baby!
Except for the pictures I’ve seen, I don’t really have any actual
memory of
anything until I was about 3 or 4. I remember that I had a little sprinkling
can
and I was out watering the rose bushes in the back yard and my brother
Danny came over to me and told me I was doing it wrong. I was watering the
tops of the bushes. He explained to me about roots and how you have to
water the ground for the plant to drink the water. It was one of those moments
of grace, of fireworks and sudden knowledge. I can still remember even
the
smell of the roses as he told me, and thinking that he was the most brilliant
person who ever lived.
I also have a memory from around that age of playing with my dad’s father.
We
called him Pappaw. He had a green vinyl folding door in the garage apartment
on Greenwood where he and my grandmother lived. He would hide behind it and
sing a popular song at the time called “Green Door.” And
we laughed and
laughed. When I was 5, he died. He was at Lewis & Coker, a grocery store
in
nearby Palm Center, which he loved. They had a mobile x-ray van there to
take lung x-rays. He always had lung x-rays taken because he was really
frightened of lung cancer. While he was waiting to have his x-ray, he had a
heart attack and died really quickly.
I do remember my mother taking me into
the living room in the early morning and there was no light on. She sat
in the
rocker and I stood in front of her and she told me that God needed someone
to
help him take care of all the animals in heaven so he took Pappaw and that
meant Pappaw was dead. I don’t remember how I felt about that at the
time,
but it seems a kinda mean thing to tell a kid about a God she’s supposed
to
love. Forty years later, when my infant son died, people said God needed
a
little angel and that’s why he took Tyler. I still think it’s a
mean thing to say.
Our house was on a great block and there were lots of kids for me to play with
–
Faye Chippendale, Anitra Hughes, Janet Browne, Christy and Melody Lightfoot,
Adrian Finch, and Pam von Rosenberg. We were just two blocks from the
elementary school. We were one block from The Chuck Wagon, where we
bought hamburgers (wheels or hubs) every Sunday after church, unless we
ate at Bill Williams Restaurant. On the other end of our block was a little
strip
shopping center. It had a U-tot-em in it, which was just a little convenience
store. It had a dry cleaners and a beauty shop and a bar called Rays.
My only
memory of Rays is that one time a car ran right through the front of
it. My friend
Janet Browne and I went down to look and we saw pink elephants painted on
the wall. I told my mom about it and she got mad because there was a
rule that I
was not supposed to go down to the end of the block unless I was with
someone older. I calmly explained that I had been with Janet and she was a
full
three months older than I was. My mom laughed so hard that she forgot all about
being mad at
me. Across from the strip center, was a bigger strip center. It had a “five
and
ten cent store” called Madings, with a soda fountain that made the very
best
cherry cokes. It also had an A&P grocery store. We shopped there and we
bought our Christmas tree there every year that we lived on Winnetka. I think
I was 10 or 11 when the very first shopping center in Houston opened
less
than a mile from our house. It was called Palm Center. It wasn’t
a mall or
anything, but it was the first of its kind at the time. It had JC Penney and
Lewis & Coker Grocery store as its anchors. It also had Three Sisters,
Nathan’s, Brown Toy Store, Walgreens, Gordon’s Jewelers, a hair
salon,
and other stores whose names I can’t recall. Later, Gulfgate was built.
It was
just like Palm Center, only bigger with stores like Newberry’s
and H&H
Music, and Brown Book Store, and Bakers Shoes and Joskes and Sakowitz
and Weingartens. It later became the first air conditioned mall. In high school,
my friends and I went there every single Saturday with our hair in curlers
and
lacy hairnets. If your hair wasn’t in curlers on a Saturday, then
everybody knew
you must not have a date that night, so needless to say, everybody who
was
anybody had their hair in curlers.
I went to Lora B. Peck Elementary school and my kindergarten teacher was
Mrs. Holly. She was good. I remember only two things about kindergarten.
I remember that Mrs. Holly would always praise me for being good and I was
always telling her I was bad. Maybe it was just the arguer in me. Finally,
she
said that if I was bad she’d give me a spanking and she did right then
and there
in front of the whole class. It was more ceremonial than painful, but I sure
was
embarrassed and I can still see everything about that scene in my
mind. The other thing I remember is that we had a visit from the Chief
of Patrols,
which was a group of sixth graders who helped out at crosswalks before
and
after school. The Chief of Patrols was my very own brother Danny, and I was
so
proud!
I was what was called a “mid-termer.” Because my birthday fell
after
September 1, but before January 1, I started school in January. It seems
weird now because mine was the last class to do it, but we actually had
summer in the middle of the year’s grade. We called in “low first”
and “high
first.” Anyway, I was a mid-termer until the summer between junior
high and
high school. I went to school all summer and made up a whole semester
so
that I would be able to start high school in the fall. I never regretted
that.
In kindergarten, I had my first true love – Bruce Allen. I had actually
met Bruce
when I was four. His mother had a little deal in her house called “Rhythm
Band.”
Years later, when I had two kids of my own, I did the exact same thing that
Mrs.
Allen did. Anyway, Rhythm Band was a group of about 6 or 8 preschoolers
and we all sat around for a couple of hours three times a week and played
rhythm instruments like tambourines and triangles and bells and sand
blocks while Mrs. Allen played classical music. We listened to music and
stories about music or with music in the background. It was really my
introduction to music and I always credit Mrs. Allen with giving me that.
Bruce and I were both five when, while playing boat one day on a redwood
picnic table in my backyard, he asked me to marry him. I said yes, but that
we
were too young to marry so why didn’t we just go steady. He agreed.
He
wanted to tell his mom, but he was afraid he’d forget the term “going
steady”
so we asked my mom to write a note to his mom. It said, “We are too young
to get married so we are just going steady for now. Love, Bruce and Jackie.”
My favorite story about Bruce is that my dad took us to the Delman Theatre
to see “Old Yeller.” During the movie, Bruce started crying. According
to my
Dad, I put my arm around him and said, “It’s not real, Bruce. It’s
just a movie
. Don’t cry.” And then on the way home from the show, Bruce and
I sat in the
back seat and he put his arm around me. Very grown-up.
My first grade teacher was Mrs. Humphries and the thing I remember most
about her was that, when she would write on the board, the flab on her arm
would shake. I vowed then and there and I would never wear a sleeveless
dress after the age of 30 and I never did.
My second grade teacher was Mrs. Herring and I remember we were divided into
reading groups and I was in the blue birds, which was the best group.
Also,
I was in Brownies, which I liked.
My third grade teacher was Mrs. Havens. She was really old and should have
retired by then, I think. I was in choir in school and I started taking piano
lessons from Mary Starr. I loved piano and stuck with it throughout school
and
ended up majoring in it in college. My mother would fix my hair in the mornings
while I practiced the piano. She would put it in a bun with a pony tail coming
out of it or a french twist.
The most outstanding thing that happened in third grade, though, was that I
started having periods. I didn’t have any idea what it was at all. I
remember
that my Mom saw my panties in the laundry hamper and she was starting to
yell about what was on them and then she realized what it was and she
said,
“Oh, you’ve become a young lady.” So then she sat down and
told me what was
happening, more or less, and how to use sanitary napkins and a belt.
I
remember she wrote a note to my teacher, asking her to allow me to “check
on things” during the day if I needed to do so. I think she felt she
had to write
the note because I literally never went to the bathroom in school so the teacher
probably would have thought it strange. I was only 8 years old, which
is
extremely early to start menstruating. It took 2 or 3 years for any of my friends
to start.
Gloria Henze was my fourth grade teacher and she was great. It was her first
year of teaching and she had a twin sister named Gaye who was also a teacher.
Their mother was a sales clerk at Wards, where I got most of my clothes
and
I even met her one day while my mother and I were shopping. I made a
valentine card for Miss Henze that said, “I wanted to send you
a card with a
lot of feeling.” And when you opened it, there was a piece of sandpaper
with
the words, “so feel!” I was so so proud of that! I will never
forget what Miss
Henze wrote in my autograph book – “Keep that active and
creative imagination
of yours.” She was a teacher who really made a difference to me.
My best friends throughout elementary school were Donna Gore, Donna
Glasscock, Donna Lanning, Melanie Bailey, and Vickie Samuels. The guys
I was friends with were Randy Ranton, Johnny Walzel, Steven Wanstrom,
Gregg Jolly, and Bruce Allen. In the neighborhood, I played with Faye
Chippendale, who lived next door, and Christy Lightfoot and her little sister
Melody. In the summer before 4th grade, I met a little girl named
Gabriella
Nesson. Her mother was a German immigrant and had a heavy accent.
Gabby’s father had been injured in the war and died later of his injuries.
I
would go over to Gabby’s every afternoon to play with her for an hour
or two.
She was much younger than me so I sort of thought of it as babysitting. I’m
sure her mom enjoyed the break. When my birthday came, I invited Gabby
to the party and her mother wrote my name on the card as “Jacquie”
instead
of “Jackie” as I had always spelled it. I just thought it was beautiful
and have
been spelling it that way ever since.
There were two big events at Peck every year. We always had a big
Halloween Carnival and my mom was always involved in it. She was a PTA
officer all the time and so she was pretty involved in everything at school.
And
every spring, we had a May Fete. Each class did dances and had very
elaborate costumes. The sixth graders did a May Pole Dance. The boys
wore suits and the girls wore long flowing pastel dresses. I was so looking
forward to that, but it was not to be because the world was changing and we
were too late for the beginning of the change and too early for the end
of it.
We were right in the middle.
My 5th grade teacher was Mrs. Ashmore. I really don’t remember
much about
5th grade except that a new girl moved into the school and
her name was
Jean Kelly and we became fast friends. It was almost, but not quite, like a
“romantic” friendship. Later, when I was studying psychology in
college, I found
out that this kind of pseudo-romantic relationship between pre-adolescent
girls
is pretty normal, as it is when a girl has a “crush” on an older
woman. You
don’t think of it in those terms at the time, but only in retrospect,
of
course. And I think I went through that, too, at about this time.
Church played a very important role in my life growing up. My family went to
Central Park Church of God. As Protestant families in the 50s went, ours was
pretty liberal in terms of religion. We went to church every Sunday and
usually on Sunday nights, too, and Wednesday nights most of the time. Yet,
my parents did not think that we had the market cornered on religious truth.
In fact, my Dad was relieved on teaching Sunday School classes by the
minister because one of the kids asked him if there would be Catholics in
heaven and my Dad said, “Of course.” Ooops. Apparently, only saved
Christians
who went to church every Sunday would get into heaven and not statue
worshipping heretics who didn’t practice birth control.
My grandmother had helped to found this church. It was like an extended
family. It was a small church with the average Sunday attendance at about
100 adults. My mother was the Sunday School Superintendent during most
of my childhood and she was always in charge of Vacation Bible School.
The one life lesson I remember from my years of VBS is to always put about
twice as much sugar in the koolaid as the package recommends. My
mother said it would taste watered down otherwise.
Church gave me a lot of opportunities to shine. I started singing in church
at a
young age and I never felt afraid to get up to sing or talk in front of a crowd.
I
played the piano in church. I also really got to know my Bible. I always won
the
Bible Drills. I always memorized the most verses and could recite the
books
of the Bible, the ten commandments, the beatitudes, and the Christmas
story
from Luke. I loved all of it.
I made friends with people I would otherwise never have met. Our family became
lifelong friends with the Joneses. My parents met them at church when both
families had boys the same ages. I was born a little later. Andy and Louise
Jones were the only friends my parents ever had as a couple. They were the
only
family we ever had over to our house for dinner. They were the only family
we
ever visited. When I was about 6, they moved to Alabama, but we still got
together for vacations and kept in close touch. Even after the kids were
grown, my parents and Andy and Louise took trips together. When we had
a big party for my parents’ 50th anniversary, Andy and Louise
flew in for it.
Louise was quite sick by then. Both Louise and my dad died within a year
or
so of that. I thought maybe Andy and my mom might get together, but it
just never did happen. Another family with whom I shared some really different
experiences was the Langfords. I was friends with the daughter, Linda, but
there were seven kids in all. That in itself was different for me. And they
were v
ery poor. They lived in a run down old house near the church. I had never
known poor people and I guess I was kind of fascinated by their lifestyle.
The
mother took in ironing and the father fixed cars. I remember that velvet
bows
were the really “in” hair accessory back then and I must
have had a million
of them. I let Linda borrow one once and she just loved it. I told her
she should
get herself one just like it because it matched her Sunday dress. She said
that they couldn’t afford it. I kinda laughed and told her they
were only 10 cents.
I didn’t even realize she was serious. I let her have the one she
borrowed and
she wore it to church every Sunday for as long as I can remember. When I
spent the night at their house, there were four kids to a bed and everybody
slept “potatos.” After we got in bed, the mom came around and sprayed
Raid all around the floor surrounding the bed. The roaches were that
bad.
Once, they invited me to go spend the night at the beach. I was pretty
surprised when we got down there and I found out when were actually
spending the night ON the beach. We slept on the sand and when we woke
up, the tide was coming in and covering our legs. It was fun.
I can’t move on to the next part of my life without talking about something
that
became central to my life – music. My first experience with music that
I can
remember was called Rhythm Band. Mrs. Allen had it in her home on OST,
just a block from our house. Several preschoolers gathered a couple of
times a week and we listened to music, played rhythm instruments, sang,
and danced. It was my introduction to music and the start of a lifelong love.
Mrs. Allen put music in my heart. When I was 8, my Dad bought me a piano.
His ultimate goal was to have me play Rhapsody in Blue, which he had
first
heard at the World’s Fair in Chicago, when it was conducted by Paul
Whitehead. He told that story often. Anyway, I started taking piano lessons
from Miss Mary Starr. She played the piano at our church and taught at a
conservatory. I was her only “at home” pupil. My lessons cost $5
a month. If
Mrs. Allen put music in my heart, then Miss Starr put music in my hands. I
did not know one thing when I started going to lessons at her house. She
taught me for a total of four years before she told my parents that she could
not teach me anymore because I had surpassed her level. After that, we went
through a couple of truly awful piano teachers, including one who held a yard
stick above my hands and hit my knuckles every time I made a mistake.
About a year later, I quit taking lessons, but I never quit playing.
I
accompanied choirs all through school, even into college, where I majored in
music. And still today, music is the most magickal thing to me. It can take
me places where my soul would never go without the music.
There were some things that happened when I was in elementary school that
were unique to the times. Safety was never a real concern in school, or even
going to and from school. Of course, we were told not to get in a car with
a
stranger and things like that, but no parent worried about children when they
were going to and from school or playing in the neighborhood. But that started
to change while I was in elementary school. The first big event was the
“mad
bomber.” A man and his son went to Poe Elementary school and went out
on
the playground to talk to a teacher. He had a briefcase with him and
when
he put it down, it blew up, killing and maiming many students. The police
didn’t know at first what had happened and they feared he was on the
loose
and would go to other schools. We were not allowed out on the playground
that day. They finally determined that he had been killed in the explosion.
We
had a friend who lived across the street from that school and she said there
were arms and legs in her front yard from the explosion.
Another big event was the bomb drills. We learned how to duck and cover.
Every Friday at noon, they would test the sirens to see if they worked. If
we
heard the sirens, we were supposed to get down under our desks and put a
hand over the small of our backs. Apparently, this was to avoid any
spinal cord injuries. And obviously, being under our desks would save us from
a nuclear bomb. It’s so ridiculous looking back on it, but it was
deadly serious
at the time. I always thought the, if I were in charge of the Russian
Communists, I would strike America at noon on a Friday because then
everybody would just think it was a drill and no one would pay any
attention. During the Cuban missile crisis, things were especially tense.
The Cuban Missile Crisis marked a change in my family’s politics. Prior
to
that, my parents were staunch Republicans. We voted for Eisenhower and
then for Nixon in 1960. We didn’t like Kennedy at all. He was Catholic
and
there was actually talk that he would let the Pope run the country.
Seriously. Plus he had that Massachusetts accent. We didn’t like
Yankees all that much. But mostly, he was a Democrat. But during that
crisis, my parents found a new respect for him and started liking him.
I will, of course, never forget the assassination of President Kennedy. I was
in
school at the time. The principal announced it over the loud speaker. One
odd thing was that a cousin of Governor Connally was in my class. Her name
was Melanie Bailey and she was upset about him getting shot because it
was awhile before they announced how he was doing. When they a
nnounced that President Kennedy was dead, everybody was crying. I
wondered how Vaughn Meador felt because he had a stand up routine
in which he imitated President Kennedy. I guess I never really had been
exposed to political humor before that so I didn’t understand. Anyway,
school
got out a couple of hours later and it was so strange. Usually, there
was a lot
of noise as we all left school. Chattering and yelling and calling out
for others
to wait. But not that day. There was complete silence. I walked home
and
walked into the living room. My mother and Pat were sitting there watching
the
television. I dropped my books inside the door and joined them and none
of
us said a word for awhile. We watched TV all the rest of the day and
all day
Saturday. On Sunday, my Dad stayed home, but the rest of us went to church.
During church, the minister told us that Jack Ruby had killed Lee Harvey Oswald.
My Dad had seen it live on television.
Then Monday was a national day of mourning and the funeral,
which we watched on television, of course. I had never felt so sad.
The change in the world that I mentioned earlier that impacted our May
Fete was the advent of integration. America was largely divided into two
separate communities – black and white. I grew up in a time in which, at our
grocery store, we had two water fountains. Over one hung a sign that
said
“whites” and over the other hung a sign that said “coloreds.”
There were
businesses with signs that said, “no coloreds.” We had different
restrooms.
We had separate schools, of course. People sometimes called it “separate,
but equal.” Nothing could have been further from the truth. Houston
schools were ordered to integrate. They came up with a plan whereby they
would integrate one grade per year. In other words, first grade would be
integrated the first year and then as those kids moved through the grades,
the
other grades would be integrated. That way, those of us who had already
started school would not have to sit next to black students. So ridiculous.
Anyway, that was the plan. When that plan started, May Fete stopped.
The reason? There was a potential for a black person to have to dance
with a
white person or to at least touch hands. That, of course, was out of
the
question. So we stopped May Fete. Later, when I was in junior high, that plan
was abandoned and schools were integrated. Although we did not have any
black students in my junior high, the District cancelled all dances held
on
school campuses at that time. My last school dance was the Valentine
Dance when I was nominated for Valentine Sweetheart in 7th
grade.
At the end of sixth grade, out of 30 kids who graduated from elementary
school that January, 27 went to Cullen Junior High, where my brothers
had gone. But our elementary school had recently become zoned to Jackson
Junior High and I did not ask for a waiver to attend Cullen. Looking back,
I
can’t really remember why I didn’t want to go to Cullen like everybody
else, but
I chose Jackson. It may have been just to be different. I think my belief
that
there is little value to “normal” probably was in my core long
before sixth grade.
At Jackson, I would say that I was on the second tier in terms of popularity.
I was not in the “in crowd” when I got there since I didn’t
know anybody. Soon,
however, I became friends with people in that group and became part of it.
My friends there were Nema Frye, Candis Davidson, Patti Wimberly,
Augustina Cutaia, Carolyn Crawford, Sheryl Culbertson, Jane Turner,
Karen Rodgers, Donna Glasscock, Diana Thomas, and Susan Arto. I dated
Thomas Bennett and Gary North.
In 1964, the Presidential election was between Barry Goldwater and Lyndon
Johnson. Since my family was still quite Republican, we were for Goldwater.
I
didn’t know too much about politics, of course, but I became a “Goldwater
Girl.” I went to my first political rally, which was at the Astrodome,
and b
ought tons of Goldwater paraphernalia, including a sweatshirt that I still
have. In that election, Goldwater was portrayed by the Democrats as being a
warmonger. There is a famous commercial in which a little girl is singing
and picking a daisy and then it shows an atomic bomb exploding. Considering
that Johnson was responsible for the later escalation in VietNam, its funny
to look back on that political tactic. Of course, Johnson was an unbelievably
great President in so many ways, particularly in the area of civil rights.
The next year I wrote a paper
for English about Goldwater called, “I’d
Rather Be Right Than President.” I felt so smart and also so superior
when I
wrote it! I really wish I had a copy of it. I’m sure it would make for
hilarious
reading now.
When I was in junior high, my mother started working outside the home.
During my entire time in elementary school, I knew only one mother who
worked outside the home and she was divorced so there was no man in the
home. But back then, it was just the norm. Men worked. Women stayed
home. But that had started changing in the 60s. My mother got a job,
through Verda Harrison, at Ben Taub Hospital working as an admitting
clerk in the ER on the graveyard shift – 11 to 7. It was perfect for
her because
she would leave after I was in bed at night and then she’d get home in
time to
see me off to school. Then she would sleep while I was at school. She
worked for Ben Taub until she retired. She really enjoyed her work there. The
reason she went to work was the reason that most people work. She needed
the money. Both of my brothers were in college by then.
When I started high school at Austin High School on Dumble, I joined the
drill team, called the Scottish Brigade. Being in Brigade was something
that
nearly all of the girls in the “in crowd” did. There were
parts of it I liked –
the little traditions, the rituals, the friendships. Yet in spite of those
good parts,
overall, I hated it. I did not like the militaristic aspects of it. I did not
like taking
orders, even if it was just to dance a certain dance at a certain time.
But
mostly, I did not like the unflattering uniforms that we had to wear
on
Fridays and above all, the bobbie socks we had to wear as part of that
reserve uniform. I lasted about three weeks after school started and then
I just couldn’t take it anymore. It was actually a very difficult
decision and I
ended up crying about it a lot. I was a very loyal Brigade supporter after
I left, but I never really regretted the decision.
The one organization that held my loyalty during high school was, of course,
choir. I sang in the Choralettes, which was the girls choir, as well as the
Chorale, the mixed choir. I played the piano some of the time, too. I also
loved speech and wound up competing in lots of forensic competitions.
I did improvizational, comedy, poetry, and duet. My duets were with Bonnie
Weeks. We did scenes from The Miracle Worker. I played Helen Keller.
My
big claim to fame about that was that, during the really physical scenes
when Helen is wild and Annie Sullivan is trying to control her, I would bite
my tongue so that there would be real blood. My tongue would be SO
sore if we made it to the finals. I was also peripherally involved in the Future
Farmers of America. Actually, girls were not allowed in FFA when I was
in
high school, but I was an FFA sweetheart in my junior year and I was the
FFA Queen in my senior year. I dated a couple of guys in FFA and one of them
actually did become a farmer after he graduated, but only because his
family
had owned a farm. In my junior year, I made it to the finals for Most
Beautiful
Junior. I looked fine, but the real reason I made it was that I have
always been
excellent with people skills. I listened to the introductions of the
judges. One
had a degree in music from some midwestern school. One had a degree from
Rice. The third one was a teacher. So when I went up for the interview
and
they asked me what I wanted to do after high school, I said, “My dream,
really,
is to major in music at Rice and then teach in the public schools.”
Yep, I was
a shoe-in.
My family moved while I was in high school. We had lived on Winnetka since
I
was born, but Blacks were moving in and that meant that Whites were moving
out. For awhile our Civic Club distributed signs that said: “This is
my home.
It is NOT for sale.” But eventually, more and more people sold
their homes
and so did we. At the time, I didn’t hate leaving the house at all, but
my
parents sure did. It had been their dream house and they had helped in its
design and watched it go up and it was home. It didn’t bother me to say
g
oodbye, but ever since then, when I have dreams about home, they always
take place in that house on Winnetka. We moved into an apartment –
called the Beautiful Marlin Apartments – at 1617 Marlin and lived there
for
two years while I finished high school. It was a two-bedroom, two-bath
apartment. I lived in the master bedroom and my parents had the other one.
It was an upstairs apartment. I liked it, but I’m sure my parents
must have
hated it. Moving from a big split level into a tiny apartment had to
be
devastating. The apartment’s saving grace was that is was directly behind
Rettig’s Ice Cream Parlor. My dad went over there nearly every night.
We had always been a Rettig’s family. There was one on the way home
from church and we would frequently stop for ice cream if we were at a night
service. We would get banana skyscrapers or hot fudge sundaes. The
apartment was within walking distance of a Weingarten’s and was much
closer to my Dad’s office and to his mom. It also provided me with an
endless source of babysitting jobs.
There were three traumatic events that happened in high school that shaped
my experience. The first took place the first year, tenth grade. Just before
Christmas time, we were all standing outside waiting for school to start
and it was a pretty cool morning. I was standing with Butch Reid in front of
the school. He had on a cardigan sweater with pockets. I put my hands
in the pockets of his sweater. Miss Hart, the girls guidance counselor saw
us
from her window and just about stroked out that we were standing so close
together. She was a gigantic woman – probably close to 400 pounds. She
came running down the stairs to catch us, but fell. I didn’t find that
out until
later, but it really made me feel better about the entire incident. Anyway,
the assistant principal, Coach Katrola (honest, that was his name), came out
and we both got U’s in conduct for the semester. What this meant was
that I
could not compete in speech tournaments and I could not run for twirler, which
was my plan. It was awful for me. My parents tried to fight it, but there
was
really no way to turn things around. They considered just pulling me out of
that school and moving so that I could go to a different high school. I’m
glad
they didn’t because I wouldn’t have ended up with Danny and
Kendra, but I’m
sure it was tempting at the time.
My mother was working at Ben Taub and a former psychiatric patient came in
to
be admitted and he stabbed my mother. I got the call, right after I had
arrived home from a basketball game. I stayed at Nema’s house that night.
We stayed up all night long, waiting for word of how she was. It turned out
that
she was fine. She had to miss about six weeks of work, but she enjoyed
that. She was home for Christmas, which was nice. My brother Danny got
a
hardship leave from the Air Force and Bill Worrell drove him home. At that
time,
Pat was stationed on the Lexington and he did not request leave. He finally
wrote to us about it and he said that, when you work with animals, that’s
what
you should expect. His Naval years were not his best years, to say the
least. In fact, on his birthday each year, he says he was born __ number
of
years ago, but that he’s only lived for ___ (that number minus two) years
because he did not live during his two years of involuntary servitude in the
Navy.
On January 17, 1969, my friend Carol Cole fixed me up with a friend of her
boyfriend, Frank Parrish. The friend’s name was Lonnie Vara. We’d
been
in school together for nearly three years, and he had been on the football
team and was elected Most Handsome Senior, but I’d never actually met
him. We started dating that night and never really stopped dating until we
became engaged three years later.
I graduated from Austin High School in May, 1969. Graduation was really not
that big of a deal for my family. There was no party or anything. I graduated
in
the top quarter of my class. I applied only to the University of Houston and
I was
accepted there.
I majored in music at the University of Houston. Just about everywhere I’d
ever
been, I was the best musically. I had always played the piano for every choir
and I sang solos in front of groups. In short, I was pretty hot stuff. I thought.
Then I hit UH. I decided to major in voice. They had try-outs in the
summer
and I went in to knock their socks off. The only reaction from the professor
was, “So you sing a lot of pop music, do you?” The way he
said it, I knew
for sure it wasn’t a compliment. I was assigned to Jean Preston
as a voice
teacher. I really liked her. She was extraordinarily nice to me. I didn’t
have
the best voice in the school, but what I lacked in talent, I made up for in
volume. Not my voice, my music. I memorized more songs that anybody and had a knack for learning
the different languages of the songs I was assigned. We were also given a
theory placement test. I had never really been taught theory when I took
piano lessons so I didn’t know very much at all. I learned it all quickly,
though.
I loved it.
UH had orientation weekends during the summer. Bunches of incoming
freshmen stayed in the dorms for two days and learned about UH. The person
who roomed with me asked me if I was planning on joining a sorority. That
was the first time I ever really thought about that. I decided to see what
it was
like. I signed up for rush.
Because I had basically skipped a semester of school to keep from graduating
at midterm, I missed the last half of ninth grade, which was when Driver’s
Education was offered. Without Driver’s Education, I could not get my
license
until I was 18. The only problem was that I didn’t turn 18 until
two weeks
after college classes started. And rush was before that. I could not possibly
have my mom drop me off at rush parties, so I learned how to drive. Paul
Daigle, a dear friend from high school, taught me. He stayed in the car with
me while I drove around and around the parking lot at Gulfgate.
During that summer, we moved from the apartment into a house at 6029 Clover
Ridge. It had been built by the
Jollys, who were the parents of a guy who
worked for my Dad at the Houston Lighting and Power Company, where my
Dad was the supervisor of Stores Accounting. The house was great and it had
a swimming pool in the backyard, which I loved.
So it was a busy summer between moving, learning to drive, dating Lonnie
(my Dad got him a summer job at the Light Company), working part time at
Sears until I got fired because they thought I was stealing, and getting ready
to
start college. When rush started, I had decided in advance that I wanted
to
pledge Delta Gamma, but once rush started, I really loved Delta Zeta. They
had the best songs. I pledged Delta Zeta and loved the feeling of being part
of
a group like that. I felt such pride. During the first semester of college,
I
became a little less enthralled with Delta Zeta, mainly because of the arcane
rules. It was the end of 1969, meaning we had already been through the 60s,
and yet, as “greeks,” we were not allowed to wear bluejeans to
school. We
could not wear slacks at all, unless they were “pants suits,” which
meant that
the top and slacks had to be the same material and the top had to come down
to the fingertips. Just stupid rules like that. Then came the big one. Lonnie
and I were still dating and we had gotten “pinned.” Our big winter
dance was
coming up and I had my dress and Lonnie had rented his tux and the
sorority board called me in and told me they were kicking me out. I didn’t
understand why and their reasons didn’t make sense. They said I just
wasn’t
cooperative enough and I didn’t put enough work into the pledge song
I was
in charge of writing. They asked me to go to the Dean of Women and just
resign so that no questions would be asked. Looking back, I don’t
know
why I cared enough to make it easy on them, but I did as I was told. A couple
of weeks later, I found out that the real reason they “de-pledged”
me was
that I was dating a Mexican. I felt a lot better about the whole deal
then.
