Ninth Grade: Tragedies

As I wrote last week, I began driving a tractor for my father the summer after I finished 8th grade. What I forgot to tell you was that I could also drive a car at that time. In Kansas, the age for a restricted license was 14. We country kids could legally drive to school and work errands for the farm. Plus, we could drive anywhere as long as a licensed driver over 21 was in the car with us. I realize how scary that sounds now, but we had little traffic with which to contend in my rural county.

A family tragedy happened when I was in 9th grade. My father had a near-fatal accident while cutting trees in our pasture. He made the mistake of cutting down one tree while another dead tree was leaning against it. I never quite understood the logistics of the accident, but the dead tree fell on my dad's head and knocked him to the ground. Fortunately, our hired man was with him. When he realized the severity of my dad's condition, he sprinted to the house at top speed. My mom went back to the pasture with him and told me to call the "Edna Corner", our local hangout for farmers to discuss world affairs, and ask for as many men as possible to come to our house. The Goodwin Funeral Home hearse--our local version of an ambulance--came in a hurry also.

When my dad's buddies arrived, I sent them to the pasture to help my mom. Since she thought that his back or neck was broken, she wanted him moved very carefully. She had 5 or 6 men around him lifting, and she held his head as they lifted him into the hearse in one coordinated move. Thanks to my mom's quick thinking he arrived at the Coffeyville Memorial Hospital in pain but with no paralysis.

After a thorough examination, the doctors determined that the first and third vertebrae--the ones which break in a hanging--were broken. Though he was fortunate to be alive, my dad had a grueling recovery ahead of him. Our family doctor drilled 2 holes in his skull to insert a device which looked like ice tongs. A rope from the device draped over the head of his bed and attached to a sand bag for weight. A delicate balance was necessary to provide the traction needed to hold his vertebrae in place without putting too much pressure on my dad's skull. He had to lie flat in a hospital bed for 6 weeks, moving only with the aid of several medical personnel.

When he was dismissed from the hospital, his muscles had atrophied to the point that he could do very little for himself. He wore a neck brace for a couple of months, but he was so happy to be able to move around by himself that he didn't mind. Miraculously, the only permanent damage was less mobility in turning his head from side to side.

Our country also experienced a tragedy that year. I remember well when someone from the school office came to tell my English class of 7 students that President Kennedy had been shot. When we later learned that he had in fact been assassinated, I think we all shed a few tears. We were glued to our televisions for the next several days, and my mom shed many tears for a President she loved.

Tenth Grade: A One Tracked Mind

My mind was consumed with one thought during my 10th grade year, and I remember very little else. The State of Kansas was consolidating small school districts into larger, unified districts. Everyone in my small town of Edna could see the handwriting on the wall that we would lose our high school; the only question was how soon.

Labette County Community High School in Altamont was ready and waiting to take in all of us small high school students because they had read the handwriting sooner and acted accordingly. Unfortunately, that didn't set too well with the other small towns. They feared that losing their high school would be the death of their town; this included Edna.

Since the larger LCCHS could offer a greater variety of classes with a higher level of difficulty, I really wanted to attend my junior and senior years there. I was a conscientious student who had college aspirations. My lifelong love of reading probably contributed to my love of education, and I wanted to achieve my best. I was not satisfied with the quality of instruction I was receiving at Edna High School, and I told my parents of my desire to attend LCCHS.

As the expression goes, "all hell brook loose" around me. My dad had been a school board member for the Edna School District, and he felt like he would be a traitor if he sent me to the county high school before our school closed. My dad also was not excited about my desire to attend college. Like many of his friends, he believed that I needed only enough education to be a wife and mother. My mom, on the other hand, held education in high regard. She wanted her 4 daughters to attend college, and she knew that the larger high school had a much better college prep program.

Knowing that there was already a lot of tension in my parents' marriage, I felt terrible about causing another rift between them, but being a normal teenager I also had strong feelings about my future. I knew that I would have more challenging academics in the county high school, and I yearned for that. Plus, I must admit, I was desirous of the greater social opportunities as well.

After several stressful arguments, my father relented and allowed me to attend LCCHS, but damage was done to our relationship and to their marriage. My 2 years at LCCHS were profitable academically and enjoyable socially, but I regretted the price we had to pay.

8th Grade

Well, 8th grade found me back in the same classroom with Mrs. Sisk and a new group of 7th graders. Since we had no girls' sports, I was a cheerleader in both grades. (I certainly noticed a difference in my cheerleading sweater in 8th grade.) I was very interested in boys, and I know I spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the boys in my class with the girls in my class.

An exciting event happened the summer before 8th grade. Our family purchased and had installed a brand new window air conditioner in our living room. Since it was the only one for the whole house, we used fans to direct the cool air. We probably wouldn't have purchased one even then, except for my sister Kim's allergies. The doctor said that she needed all the dust, etc. filtered out of the air she breathed as much as possible.

In our town, 8th Grade Graduation was a big deal. We all bought new white dresses for the event and had our pictures taken before the graduation ceremony. I remember that I had the privilege of wearing high heels, but we girls were a little nervous walking down the aisle in them.

Since I was 14 that summer, my dad let me work in the hay field with him. I drove a small, red Ford tractor (no closed cab and air conditioning) and raked the dried grass into winrows in preparation for the baler to pick it up and make square hay bales. I liked being out in the sun, working with my dad, and earning my own spending money.

My New Look: Seventh Grade

In the summer of 1961, right before my 7th grade year, my baby sister Mona was born. As is common for girls of that age, I loved having a baby around. I wanted to hold her, dress her, rock her, etc. When she got older, one of my favorite things was bathing her in the bathtub. She liked to play there, and I liked to cuddle her in the towel as I dried her off. I especially liked to powder her (I know that isn't done anymore) and dress her in clean clothes. Since she started first grade the year I left for college, I wasn't around much during her school years, but we have developed a sweet fellowship in our adult years.

My education continued at Edna Grade School, and as I had been since first grade, I was in a combination room. For those who haven't experienced this type of setup, it means that the teacher must teach most subjects twice--first to the 7th grade and then to the 8th grade. A few subjects like science, social studies, and penmanship could be combined; we alternated the 7th grade book and the 8th grade book. This arrangement also meant that we had to learn responsibility. In other words, while the 7th grade was having arithmetic, the 8th graders had to be working quietly on their assignments or reading a book. Since I loved to read, this worked well for me, except when I had trouble controlling my other love...talking.

I can still remember our quite elderly teacher, Mrs. Sisk. Her abilities and her memory were in their waning years, to say the least. Thankfully, I think we were her last class. I don't blame her for not liking me much because I don't think I was very respectful. When she made mistakes in explaining things on the blackboard, I just couldn't keep from correcting her. Needless to say, the parent teacher conference wasn't pleasant for my mom. After that, my mom talked to me often about respecting those in authority.

The exciting things about 7th grade were my new hairdo and my new body. For the first time in my life, I cut my hair short. Through my elementary years, my hair was long and straight but almost always in 2 long braids. Since I enjoyed playing hard, I liked it that way because I didn't have to mess with it much and it was out of my way. My mom helped me wash my hair and comb out the tangles once a week. When it dried, she braided it, and it usually stayed that way for a few days before it needed braiding again. As for my body, I started 7th grade with pretty much a flat chest, but by the time 8th grade started, I couldn't button my blouses anymore. What a transformation that was for a tomboy!

A New Fangle Telephone

Believe it or not, until I was in 6th grade we had a telephone that hung on the wall. That may not sound too unusual, but it looked like the ones you now see in museums. As a matter of fact, my mom kept it, refinished it, and has it hanging on her kitchen wall.

For you youngsters, let me explain. The phone hung on the wall so that the mouthpiece was at the height of a normal adult's mouth. Hence, you could speak into it in a normal voice; that is, most of the time. If the weather was bad, the reception was terrible and you had to practically shout to be heard. For us kids, we had to keep a chair nearby to stand on when we got the privilege to speak on the phone.

The earpiece was attached to the phone by a cord, and you had to hold it in your hand to hear the other person; that is, when the weather was good. Having to speak into the mouthpiece and hold the earpiece while standing on a chair was difficult enough as a child, but you also had to "ring up" the operator to place a phone call. You had to turn the handle on the side for a few seconds and hope that the operator in town wasn't too busy with other calls to connect you with the party you wanted. Needless to say, we didn't use the phone unless the message was important.

Another part of that phone system which is almost forgotten is the party line. How many of you have ever heard of that? I don't claim to understand the logistics of it, but we were told that they couldn't run individual lines to every home in the country. Therefore, we had a party line with several families on the same line--another reason why we didn't use the phone unless it was urgent.

Each family had their own distinctive series of rings (ours was 3 short and 3 long), but that series rang in every home every time a call was sent to the party line. Sometimes, it became annoying when the proper family didn't answer and the phone kept ringing. However, the enjoyable part of it was that we could pick up the phone and listen in on their conversation, and they couldn't do anything about it but tell us to get off the line. Technology was not available to let them know who was listening, so they didn't even know with whom to get angry.

The most fun I ever had with a party line was at Grandma Goodwin's house. Since they lived in NE Oklahoma miles from civilization, they had very little to do that was much fun for an ordinary kid, but I wasn't any ordinary kid. Whenever Grandma knew that a neighbor was getting a call, she was quite sly about picking up the receiver quietly so that no one would know she was listening. I can still remember her motioning me to be still so that no one would hear me in the background. Consequently, she always had news to share with others about her neighbors. I will be sure to tell you more about my grandma in future posts. She was a unique lady.

Anyway, it was some time in 1960 or 1961 when we had our first rotary dial telephone installed. How many of you remember those? We still had a party line, but we could place our own calls without going through the operator; that is, unless the call was long distance. For the first time, I could actually place my own calls, but if they became too long another party might interrupt to say that they had a more important call to make.

I Became a Royal Pain

As nearly as I can remember, 5th Grade was the year I discovered my love of softball/baseball, but I don't actually recall how it came about. At recess, I had begun playing softball with the boys around 4th grade because I found that much more invigorating and challenging that just running around the playground with the girls. I don't think the boys liked it at first, but gradually they accepted me because my abilities weren't too much of a detriment. I practiced with my sister at home as much as I could. After all, we had an acre or two of yard to play in.

Feeding my love of the game was the fact that it took several people to play, and I had become quite a social animal by age 10. Some of my best friends were a family who had one boy my age and twins--a boy and a girl--a year younger. They all liked to play ball, and they had a vacant lot next to their home in town. When I could catch a ride to town with my mom or talk her into letting me ride my bike there (about 1 1/2 miles), I called ahead to see if they could round up another kid or two to make the game more interesting. What fun we had!

Since we lived in the country and the closest town had a population of 500 and I needed social interaction, I liked to go into town on summer nights to watch the boys' and/or men's baseball teams play. The games weren't usually organized enough to be publicized, so we never knew for sure when there would be a game. However, over the flat countryside we could see the lights of the baseball field at our home. When Dad came in from work, sometimes I could wheedle him or Mom into taking me to town. I did like watching the guys play, but I must admit that I looked for my friends in the stands as well.

All of this, I suppose, led to my love of professional baseball. Somehow I discovered that a local radio station carried all of the Kansas City Athletics games. I was hooked! Any time I could listen, I did. I begged my family so much to turn the radio to KGGF in the car when the games were on, that my mom finally bought me one of the first transistor radios. The only problem was that the reception wasn't that good. Consequently, I had to hold the radio against the car window to get good reception. Plus, I had to put my ear right next to the radio so that the volume wasn't too loud to irritate the rest of the family. (For you younger readers, headphones for radios hadn't been invented yet.)

In later years, the Athletics left Kansas City and the Royals came in 1969. Hence, the title of my blog "A Royal Pain".

I Love to Learn

Last week I wrote about the work ethic I began learning in 3rd and 4th grade. This week I want to tell you about the educational part of my life at that age. My teacher for both grades was Miss Moore. She was an excellent teacher who had taught for many, many years. (I heard people call her an old maid, but I didn't care because I liked her class.) School has always been a highlight of my life because I dearly love to learn new things, but I think these years are when that love developed.

I wanted to sit in the front of the room so that I could see everything Miss Moore wrote on the blackboard. If I couldn't read it, I asked someone to tell me because I didn't want to miss anything. What Miss Moore soon realized was that I needed glasses. My mother said that she had also noticed my needing to be very close to the TV. Naturally, my observant classmates called me "four eyes" when I sported new glasses, but again I didn't care because I could see many things that I had missed before. Unfortunately, my pug nose doesn't hold glasses up too well so my mom and teachers were always telling me, "Push your glasses up".

These were the years when my voracious appetite for books developed. I remember being so excited when our classroom library got new books. I pored through them all. Whenever mom went to town, I would beg her to drop me off at the town library so that I could check out books. Since I had read most of the books at my grade level, the librarian would tell me when a new shipment was coming in. If anyone was ever looking for me, they knew they would find me holed up somewhere devouring a good book.

As far as strictly fun activities, I had those too. When I was 8, I joined the Leib 4-H Club. I took sewing and cooking as my projects and entered things in the county fair for the first time. At age 9, my parents started spending some summer weekends at Grand Lake. We soon bought a 16-foot aluminum boat with a 50-horsepower outboard motor, and I learned to water ski. Other weekends in the summer we went to rodeos with the Edna Round-Up Club. In our turquoise shirts, white silk scarves, white cowboy hats, and golden orange white-trimmed chaps, we definitely stood out in the downtown parades and the rodeo grand entries.

3rd Grade: I Learn to Work

By the time I was in 3rd and 4th grade I was helping with many chores on the farm both in the house and outside. Since I probably liked the outdoor jobs best, I will save them until last.

The first tasks I learned were helping with meals. My mom taught us how to "red up the table" (a country term) from the time we were able to carry dishes from the table to the sink. I can remember standing on a chair to reach the sink where we washed the dishes. I usually preferred washing to rinsing, drying and putting away. That was our division of labor.

Growing up before the days of polyester, we learned how to iron at an early age, but there was much more to the operation than just ironing. After the clothes were washed in a wringer washer and hung outside to dry, we had to thoroughly sprinkle each piece with water and roll it up so that it would stay damp while Mom was ironing other items. To keep me from ruining our good clothes by scorching them, I learned to iron by doing my dad's boxer shorts and handkerchiefs.

Most of my chores outside were much more enjoyable to me; that is, except for anything that involved our chickens. My mom loved to raise chickens for fresh eggs and home-grown fryers which meant that she expected me to help care for them. Have you ever tried to take an egg out of a hen's nest? Plus, when they were fattened enough to kill, my mom popped their heads off with a crowbar and had my sister and I pluck the feathers. Do you see now why I feared/hated chickens more than any other animal on the farm?

My dad had several hundred head of cattle which had to be checked even when they were turned to pasture to graze. Our pastures were fenced into smaller areas so that my dad could keep a count of the cattle in each one and be sure that each one was alive and healthy. Well, each fence has to have a gate for the pick-up to pass through. Dad took one of us girls with him to open each gate and close it after he passed through. Even though I liked being with my dad, the job was rather boring.

One of my favorite jobs was mowing the yard (the country term). Because we had to mow 1-2 acres around our house and I was a healthy, hearty country girl, I think I started mowing when I was 8. I liked the exercise, and I liked seeing the manicured yard after I was done. That was probably my first experience of knowing the satisfaction of a job well done.

I also liked to help my dad and grandpa "work the cattle". After they purchased a truckload of cattle, they had to be "worked" before they were put in the feed lot. This meant each one had to be branded and vaccinated. My dad de-horned and castrated those that needed it as well. My job was to keep the branding irons hot and hand them to my grandpa at the right time. (Kind of like a surgical nurse, right?) I learned where the expression "too many irons in the fire" came from. If I didn't keep the irons in the hottest part of the fire, they weren't hot enough to burn through the steer's hide and make a good brand. Then, my grandpa had to use a second iron to get the job done. He didn't seem to mind though. He always told me that I was as good a help as any man would be. Of course, that kept me coming back any time he needed help.

My sisters and I took turns burning the trash and slopping the hogs. We had a big barrel where we burned our household trash, and we took the garbage to the hog lot. (No worries about a landfill for us.) Other than a few aerosol cans which exploded in the trash barrel and a couple of hogs that scared us, we had no major mishaps.

I'm glad I learned to work and be useful at an early age.

A Carefree Life in the Country

In the summer after first grade, I believe my sister and I spent a great deal of time outside under our shade trees. We had a swing set, and we took our little wooden table, dolls, etc. outside to play house in our huge yard (We didn't call it a lawn in the country). Since we had no air conditioning, I assume it was more pleasant out there. The only thing I missed was more children to play with. During those years, parents were fearful of polio because the Salk vaccine had not been developed yet. Therefore, we had to go in and take a rest period in the afternoon so that we wouldn't get too tired and/or too hot. Doctors and parents believed that made children more susceptible to the disease. I didn't like to "rest", but I did love to read, and I think I was allowed to do that.

Second grade began much as first grade had because I was still in Mrs. Pritchard's room. I liked school and always did well academically, but I especially enjoyed being around all of my classmates. My teachers usually commented to my mother that I liked socializing too well because I talked too much in the classroom.

In November of that year, my next sister Kim was born. I remember staying with someone else while Dad took Mom to the hospital to have our sister. Paula and I didn't see Kim until they brought her home because we couldn't go to visit. Hospitals believed that children brought too many germs and too much noise, I guess.

I think we bought our first television when I was 5. The local stations didn't start broadcasting until later in the afternoon. I can remember sitting excitedly in front of the TV and watching the test pattern while we waited for "Howdy Doody" or whatever other black and white kids' shows we watched. When I was older, I stayed up until the stations went off the air, usually with a jet soaring through the air and music in the background...no 24-hour TV back then.

One of the chores my mom gave me to do was churn butter, definitely NOT one of my favorites. Since we drove to our neighbor's dairy to buy our pasteurized but un-homogenized milk, the gallon containers had 3-4 inches of cream on top. When we needed butter, my mom skimmed off the cream and put it in the churn. I had to crank the handle until it turned to butter. I can remember nagging my mom to check and see if it was about done because my arm was so tired. (The next time you are in a museum look for the glass butter churn with a handle on the outside and paddles in the container.)

My First Chance to Lead

Well, in September of 1955, I finally got to go to school. Because my mother had read to me so much and taught me the numbers and alphabet, I was possibly over-prepared for Mrs. Pritchard's first grade. However, since my small town school had 2 grades in each room, I could listen to the 2nd graders lessons as well as my own; I liked that. Plus, I enjoyed having some new books to read and riding to school each day with my mom in our new red and white 1955 Chevrolet.

My teacher was elderly and quite stocky, but I recall how soft her skin was when she touched me. I remember having a book named Phonics and doing exercises in it each day. I was especially excited when I saw my name in our reader. I think Penny was the friend or sister of the main characters in our book.

Living in the country with one sister, I was thrilled to have all of my classmates to play with at recess; I don't remember ever being afraid of new situations. I remember organizing the other children at recess, at least those who were gullible enough to listen to me. For whatever reason, we liked to play Robin Hood. I assigned the roles of Robin Hood, Maid Marion, Little John, etc. to grateful participants. (My little sister was probably glad to have me gone from home for a few hours because I bossed her around like that, I am sure.)

The only other recollection I have from that time period would be an incident that happened in the summer. We lived on a main farm road to our town's grain elevator, but it was not paved until 1956. Since my mom hated all of the dust that flew into our home's open windows from the gravel road, she was ecstatic when the county decided to pave it. My sister and I loved watching the big machinery in front of our house. That was fine until the day they put down the first tar layer. Evidently, we were watching so intently that we didn't realize how much tar was blowing onto us. My mom wasn't happy about our ruined clothes, and we weren't happy with the scrubbing it took to remove the tar from our bodies.

Life in the 50's

About a year after my birth, my parents moved to the farm which would be my home until I graduated from high school. The house was rather old and over a mile from town, but it met our needs. We had an outside well for our water, an outhouse for our bathroom, and a shanty attached to the house which we used for storage. I remember that mom told me not to go in there. (In case you were wondering, if I needed a bathroom in the middle of the night, I used a chamber pot and emptied it the next morning.) When I was about 5, my parents tore down the old house and built a new one on the same spot. We still had the well for our water source, but we had indoor plumbing then.

Right after I turned 3, my mom brought home a new sister for me whom they named Paula. I don't think I liked that very well because I was used to all of the attention. My most vivid memory of that time was when I dropped her. I was probably 4 years old. My parents were working outside, and Paula was taking a nap upstairs. My mom told me to come and get her if Paula woke up. Well, being an independent child, I thought I knew better than my mom. I tried to carry her down the steps and fell down with her. I think the fall hurt me worse than her, but I learned a valuable lesson. As she got old enough, we played together all the time, but we had our serious squabbles as well.

Since my small town school had no kindergarten, my mom taught me at home how to read and do simple arithmetic problems. I was very proud of myself. I vividly remember sitting on my grandfather's lap and having him give me addition and subtraction problems to do by myself. Of course, he complimented me profusely and that made me want to do even harder problems. At that time, a child had to be 6 years old by December 31 to enter 1st grade the next September. With my birthday on January 17, I was always the oldest in my class. I guess that is part of the reason why my mom taught me at home; I was VERY anxious to go to school.

A Penny From Heaven: My Birth Story

My mother, Wanda Lee Maxson, got married at the age of 17 a few months after her graduation from high school. My father Jack Goodwin, only a couple of years older, wanted to farm and raise cattle in the area of Edna, Kansas. Less than a year later, they discovered that, ready or not, they would be parents in a few months.

During her pregnancy, my mom pondered about what to name me but couldn't come up with anything she really liked. Then, she watched a movie entitled, "Pennies from Heaven". (Ever heard that song? An interesting side note is that many years later my husband enjoyed singing that song to me. :-) It was a moving story of a childless couple who adopted a little girl. They decided to name her Penny because she was a "Penny from Heaven" in their lives. That's when my mom decided to name me Penny. Since she chose my first name, she let my dad choose my middle name Diann.

About a week before I was born in January, 1949, a bad snowstorm hit our area of southeast Kansas. Because my uncle was afraid that mom wouldn't be able to make it to town if she went into labor, he suggested that she go to stay with her grandma in Coffeyville for a few days. Well, the snow melted, and still no signs of labor, so mom went back home to the country.

Two days after that, she was able to make the trip to Coffeyville and deliver a beautiful baby girl. I made my entrance into this world on January 17 at Coffeyville Memorial Hospital. We had to stay there for an extra 3-4 days because another snowstorm had hit, and the roads weren't safe enough to take me home in my mother's arms.

Perhaps, being born in the midst of a stormy month was a precursor to my personality, but you'll hear more about that in the following weeks.