Our Trip in Search of Jobs

We knew once we graduated, we would leave Lubbock.  There was no doubt in our minds.  That involved going on at least one job hunting trip. 

Zan and Carolyn were job hunting also, and had gone to Shiprock, New Mexico, to see about teaching on an Indian Reservation.  They were impressed with it.

So Bill and I set off on a trip to check it out, among other places.  We were driviing the Porsche, of course.  The road through the Reservation followed a creek, with lots of twists and turns.  More than once, as we rounded a curve, we came upon vehicles parked in the middle of the road, with the drivers having a “pow wow.”  We weren’t use to people not pulling off the road to have a chat.

Bill said there was no way he would take the Porsche there to live.  From that day to this, we have called it Shipwreck.  When people correct us, we tell them we’ve been there and we know what we are talking about.

We continued our journey to the Four Corners area where New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona meet.  While in Cortez, Colorado, we toured Mesa Verde National Park.  It was an amazing place to see.  

We toured one of the cliff dwellings, which involved climbing up a very tall ladder, with a drop off of several hundred feet.  I had never had a fear of heights until that day.  About half way up the ladder, I froze.  I couldn’t move.  Two little boys in back of me were poking me to go on.  I was finally able to get to the top, but suffered the effects for many years.  

I have learned to deal with my fear as the years passed, but I’m still not comfortable being off the ground.  When at Mesa Verde with JP and Natalia several years ago, I was able to climb the ladders without having a panic attack.  I must report, though, that things are safer now.  The climbing is still up ladders, but not over a huge drop-off.

On our job hunting trip, we saw many beautiful places, but none as beautiful as we remembered the San Isabel/Rye, Colorado area.  So after applying and getting jobs with the Pueblo County School District, we began making plans to move.  I was hired to teach second grade at the elementary school in Rye and Bill was to teach Social Studies and photography at County High School east of Pueblo. 

Our friend, Ann Smith, had given us a puppy.  Her parents raised Wire Fox Terriers and she wanted us to have a puppy because we had done so much for her while she was in college.  We named him Mister.  He was adorable, walking on his tip toes.

We put our house on the market, thinking we would have time to do the necessary cleaning out and packing.  No so!  The house sold very quickly and we were forced to move into an apartment, using the second bedroom to store our “stuff” until it was time to actually move out of the area.

Mister, being from a championship line, needed to have his ears taped a certain way when he started teething.  Ann showed us how to tape them.  In the apartment complex were several snooty dog owners who looked down on our pup.  When we explained that the ears were taped for show purposes later on, he was allowed to play with the their dogs.  Of course, we had no intentions of showing him.  He was just Mister.  But it was fun seeing the change in attitudes!

It was tough, with last minute exams, etc. for Bill and me finishing Graduate School.  I was also hired as a teaching assistant for an art ed class in the Art Department at Texas Tech.  But we really enjoyed the carefree life of apartment living.  With most of the packing already done, we had lots of time to swim in the pool and cook out with other residents.

We chose not to go through all of the graduation hoopla, but to get out of town.  At the time, some singer had recorded a song saying that the best view of Lubbock, Texas, was in the rearview mirror.  It became our theme song!

Neither one of us remember much about the actual move, but I’m sure my mother went along to help, with her car packed to the brim.  She did that for us on several occasions.  Maybe that’s who we learned it from!

Even More of a Hodgepodge!

While teaching second grade at Rush Elementary in Lubbock, I had a variety of “critters” come to the classroom for Show and Tell.  Clay’s parents had been to Florida.  At that time, baby gators could be bought and taken home.  And taken to school, it seems!  The tiny thing was on my desk as all the children crowded around to see a real live alligator.  Nothing would do, but for Mrs. Dane to touch the creature.  When I touched his back, he quickly turned around and bit my finger.  Another experience to add to my long list...I’ve been bitten by an alligator!

Someone brought a hamster.  He was cute and fuzzy.  The kids loved him.  So did I, until he used my grade book for a bathroom.  Not pleasant!

And then there was Charlie!  Joel brought his pet crow in a cage.  Charlie was perfectly happy to be in the classroom.  There was so much for him to see.  The only problem was when we left the room to go to lunch, Charlie spoke his one word loudly...”Help!  Help, help, help!”  Staff members raced to the classroom to see who was in distress!  Charlie was happy to see new faces, but when they left, he started yelling again!  Needless to say, Charlie had an early dismissal day.

After changing principals and going from a great situation to one barely tolerable, I went to teach first grade in a small farming community about 25 miles west of Lubbock.  Ropesville had a lot of non-English speaking students.  We referred to them as illegal aliens, because that’s what they were.  Now that isn’t politically correct...they are undocumented visitors or something like that.  But most of them would be there for a few weeks and then disappear as the crops would change.

The children in my class were sweet and respectful for the most part, but occasionally I would hear one say a “bad” word.  My Spanish was extremely limited, but I soon learned both good and bad words.  When I would tell them “no” to certain words, they would look surprised.  All of them believed I was bilingual.

One of the main, but most unpleasant, duties I had was to check for head lice.  Ugh!  Usually, it wasn’t a very difficult task.  One day, though, I needed some additional assistance so I took a little girl to the principal for help.  Her hair was very crusty, probably because it hadn’t been washed in months.  When we spread her strands of hair apart with throat swab sticks, lice were running around.  The little pests didn’t like being in the light.  I thought Mr. Redford was going to pass out!

In spite of unpleasant tasks like that, it was a great year after the stress of the previous year.  I remember four students specifically.  Orelia Cordoba was a cute little girl, with very dirty clothes and head lice.  I adored her!  I told Bill I wished I could bring her home, clean her up, and take care of the lice problem.  Bill turned ghost white.  He thought I was really going to bring her home.  Of course, that wouldn’t have been possible for many, many reasons, but his reaction was classic.

One day, a new little girl was brought to my room and her sister, a little older, was taken to the first grade room next door.  Each time I talked to her, she would cry and say, “No!  Hermina.”  I didn’t know what that word meant, but I finally figured out the problem.  The principal had given me the wrong enrollment card.  The child’s name wasn’t Hermina.  It was Cryselda.  Once I called her by the correct name, she was fine.  Poor little thing!

And I remember Frank and Joe, cousins, who were in my class the entire year.  Frank’s father worked for a local farmer full time.  Frank was bright and inquisitive.  Joe, on the other hand, was somewhat dull, but a very sweet little boy.  Several years later, someone told me that Joe had died of a brain tumor.  I was sad at this news and I’m sure Frank missed him very much!

I was originally hired to teach second grade in Ropesville.  The first day of school, there weren’t enough students for three second grade classrooms and I would be put in a room with first grade non-English speaking students who came and went like a revolving door.  The principal was very apologetic about the switch, but I was happy.  I was just glad to be there!  

Between the head lice and switched enrollment cards, plus a few other minor things, the first few weeks were interesting, to say the least.  When it came time for report cards, I was ready for the task, only to discover my cards weren’t printed correctly.  The inside part was printed upside down.  I checked with the other teachers and discovered I was the only one with the misprinted cards.

One of the second grade teachers. Imogene, was the wife of the principal, Terry Redford.  I ask her to go to the office with me to see what was going to happen.  With a very serious face, I said, “Mr. Redford, this is the last straw.  I didn’t mind being changed grade levels, and the head lice and wrong enrollment cards worked out OK, but this is the limit.  I am the only teacher who got upside down grade cards!!!!!”  I thought the poor man was going to have a heart attack, until his wife and I burst out laughing.”  It was one of my greatest moments!

Knowing we would be going elsewhere to teach when we both got our degrees, we sold the race car.  In need of a second car, Peewee, who worked for a foreign car dealer, suggested that I try out an Italian Alfa Romeo Zagatta they had for sale.  It was a high powered thing of some sort, with kilometers instead of MPH.  I wasn’t familiar with that, but thought it was about doubled.  I got to school quickly that day, so I found the figures I needed and calculated my speed.  97 MPH! No wonder it was such a fast trip.  On the way back home that afternoon, I drove the speed limit that I had calculated.  The car wouldn’t run at that low a speed.  I was in second and third gear all of the trip.  We told Peewee “Thanks, but no thanks!”

We still needed a second car, so we bought a Mini Cooper from our friend, Buddy Adams.  Buddy was a state senator so the license on the Mini had a State Official (SO) designation.  At that time in Texas, the license plates stayed with the car.  We could park anywhere we wanted to.  It was exempt!

Our Mini was red with a white top.  Our friends, Zan and Carolyn Smith, bought a green Mini, also with a white top.  When we would go to church, whoever got there first would pull up in an angle parking space, and whoever would get there last would park right in back of the other one.  And we still took up less space than the Cadillacs, which were the status symbol in Texas at the time.

Hodgepodge! (Dictionary definition...”confused mixture”)

During the next two years, a lot happened in our lives.  Bill quit his job with the City of Lubbock and enrolled at Texas Technological College to continue working on the degree he had started years before.  Since we were going to be tied down (as much as the two of us could be tied down), I decided to enroll to work on my Masters Degree.

We also bought a house.  It had three bedrooms and one bath.  A single car garage had at one point in time been unattached, but a previous owner had connected the garage to the house with one big room.  The house was too big for us, but we often had sports car friends there.

The garage was good to have, but sometimes limited on space to work on our cars.  We often took parts into the house and worked on them in the living room.  My specialty was the carburetor.  I worked them over to get more gas to flow through, but not so drastic we would get caught cheating.  The main engine work was done by Bill, but if there was a job requiring small hands, I stepped up to the plate.

The neighborhood kids thought the Porsche was a good slide, but Bill trained them very quickly that it was not a piece of playground equipment.  The Sprite was a different matter.  If you are familiar with the body style of a Bug-eyed Sprite, you know there was a space behind the two seats.  It was the trunk, but there was no “lid” to it.  Several times, we found little kids playing back in that area.

If we had to carry something big, we would put it on that back deck, Bill would hold on to it, whether it be a lawnmower or something else like that, and I would drive.  We were a sight to behold going down the city streets.

No matter what the weather was like, the cloth top was always off the Sprite.  In fact, I’m not sure we even knew where it was.  And we kept the windshield wipers in the side pocket.  When changing from the regular windshield to the racing windshield, it was easier to not have the wipers to fool with.  One time we were driving with our friend, Ann Smith.  I was riding on the transmission hump.  Rain started to fall.  I reached across Ann, grabbed a wiper, and stuck my hand over the windshield to wipe a place for Bill to see out of.  Ann just shook her head and said, “You two!  I never know what to expect!”

We decided a radio in the Porsche might be nice.  We were parked in back of the installation store and witnessed a dog being hit by a car.  The dog was severely injured, with no control of his front legs.  While waiting for Animal Control to get there, the dog was in mortal pain.  He was foaming at the mouth.  Someone yelled “Mad dog,” as suddenly, propelled by his back legs, he came ripping toward us.  I was frozen to my spot when Bill grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the building.  Just before getting to us the dog hit a curb and couldn’t get over it.  He was at the spot where I had been standing.  He stopped about three feet from us.  Bill truly kept me out of harms way that day.

World’s Fair Trip...continued...to Colorado

We left Wyoming on a back road and crossed into Colorado.  We drove to Colorado Springs and toured the Garden of the Gods.  It was an amazing place to drive through.

We took the Gold Camp Road to Cripple Creek, an old gold mining town on the southern side of Pikes Peak.  The road was a challenge with many curves and one lane tunnels and cuts through the mountains.  It was a road made for two young people in a Porsche, but it must have been a challenge back in the mining days.

Cripple Creek was an interesting place to visit.  Lots of very old houses, miner’s shacks, old churches, and a main street out of a western movie, complete with board sidewalks, hitching posts, and a dirt street.  We enjoyed poking around in some of the old shops and saloons.  It was all very interesting and quite colorful.

We went through Victor and onto an unpaved County Road 67.  It was a great road to head south on...a beautiful drive.  When we got to the Florence and Wetmore area, the road was paved, but still a pleasure to drive in a sports car.

We drove through the San Isabel National Forest to Lake Isabel on Hwy. 165.  It was an incredibly beautiful drive and the lake was picture postcard perfect!  We camped at the edge of a crystal clear stream, working its way over big boulders and small, and down to the lake.  We woke up with snow on our heads.  

The next morning, we drove on down the mountain to the little town of Rye.  It made a lasting impression on us!

All too soon we were on the last part of our journey.  We headed back to Lubbock and reality!  It was a shock, but we had so many great memories of our adventure.

As a footnote, I will report that we traveled 4,320 miles.  Keep in mind the low cost of gasoline in those days and the Porsche got great mileage.  We spent $36.00 on fuel for the entire trip!  Now that’s a story from “back in the good old days.”

World’s Fair Trip...continued..Return to the U.S.

We crossed back into the U.S. in the Eastern Washington area.  We didn’t see any roadside stands selling bing cherries.  We knew then we should’ve turned around in Canada to purchase them, but it was too late.  Oh, well!

After crossing the Idaho panhandle and clipping the southwestern corner of Montana, we entered Yellowstone National Park at West Yellowstone, Montana.  It was such a beautiful place to visit.  We walked the wooden sidewalks to the mud pots and some of the small geysers.

We went to the main part of the park where Old Faithful was located.  It is a huge geyser that erupts approximately every 91 minutes.  Bill checked the wind direction and we waited for the “show” upwind.  It was a good plan he had.  The people on the opposite side got very, very wet.

The performance Old Faithful put on was spectacular.  The force of nature is awesome.  The thing that baffled us then, and still does, is the timing...91 minutes.  It happened on a fairly regular schedule, give or take a minute or two.

Our next stop was Thermopolis.  There we enjoyed hot mineral baths...ah, so refreshing.  Two large public swimming pools were in the area, also.  We went to the Star Plunge, which had a tall water slide that went from outdoors to the indoor heated pool.  Mostly, we sat in the hot tubs built around the pool.

We were driving on a back road when we pulled into a small gas station in a little “one horse town.”  Neither one of us was aware that a large dog had laid down in front of the car.  Bill got in after paying and away we went...kind of.  We drove over a large “speed bump.”  Oops, it was the dog.  He got up, stretched, and walked away.  So much for our little foreign car.

While in Thermopolis, we heard about another mineral bath location at Saratoga.  Off we went, in pursuit of another adventure.  And it turned into that.  The campground in Saratoga was on the river across from the mineral pools.  

We were told that we could walk across the abandoned train trestle for a shortcut.  As we pitched our tent and tied it to the Porsche, we were hit by swarms of mosquitos.  As soon as we could, we walked on the tracks to the pools.  That was an experience because by then it was already dark.

After soaking, we crossed back over the bridge to our little tent.  Not a single mosquitos bothered us that night.  They must not like the mineral smell.  That was just fine with us.

The night was very cool, and as we got out on the highway, we encountered hundreds of little animals.  We weren’t exactly sure what they were, maybe ground squirrels, but they crunched as we drove by.  Ugh!  We stopped at the next car wash.

And then we headed for Colorado!

World’s Fair Trip...continued...Canada

After leaving the World’s Fair and the Seattle area, we continued our travels north.  Soon after crossing into Canada, we took a ferry to Vancouver Island.  The main city on the island is Victoria.  It was a really pretty area and a nice drive in the Porsche with the top down.

We visited the Fairmont Empress.  It is a well known, very old hotel that is famous for its Afternoon Tea.  We didn’t partake, for several reasons.  We weren’t “dressed to the nines,” the tea is rather expensive (at the time $36.00 each), we don’t drink tea, and we were there in the morning!  Afternoon tea is served later in the day.  But we did explore the hotel and the gardens.

While we were in the area, we visited the harbor, which had not only marinas and ferry landings, but also had a seaplane port.  There was certainly a lot going on there.

We visited Butchart Gardens.  It was a beautiful place to visit, with an enormous amount to see.  The gardens were interesting and so was the statuary.

After enjoying the many sights on the Island, we took the ferry back to Vancouver.  One of the places we visited was the Oriental Market.  The things I remember most about it...very colorful, extremely crowded, and loud.  We certainly saw many items in the food market that we didn’t see on the Plains of West Texas.

We decided we might need an extra fan belt.  There was a new Porsche dealer in Vancouver, but we had trouble finding it.  One man gave us directions and said in a British accent, “You can’t miss it.”  Well, we did!  Finally, after several tries, we were able to find the dealership.  And we solved a mystery...the amount of interest in our car.  Wherever we parked it we would find a crowd around it when we came back.  At the car place we were told there were only three Porsches in the entire city.  Our little powder blue car with a white cloth top was certainly a curiosity!

On our way back toward the US border, we stopped at a roadside stand and bought bing cherries.  They were so-o-o-o good.  When we were crossing at the border, we commented about how tasty they were and the border guard said we could turn around and go back to buy some more.  We said we would keep going and buy some when we got into Washington state.  Guess what?  We didn’t see any place along the way to buy cherries.  We were really bummed about it.

Oh, well! So long, Canada!

World’s Fair...continued...Washington State

We crossed the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon.  The river marks the state line between Oregon and Washington for about three-fourths of the way to the Idaho border.

We took I-5 north, which followed along the Columbia for about 40 miles before it turned west toward the Pacific Ocean and we continued north toward Olympia.  It was a beautiful drive...very green with lots of trees and some small rolling hills.  To the two of us from Lubbock, Texas...flat and brown and very dry and dusty...the drive was like Utopia.

While in Olympia, we ate at the Olympia Oyster House.  It is famous for the tiny oysters harvested from Puget Sound.  We ordered fried oysters and were served huge mounds of the little things.  They were so-o-o-o good!  There might have been raw oysters on the menu, but we won’t go there!

We went on to Seattle and the World’s Fair, our main destination.  As we got into the area, we discovered how expensive it was to park for an event like that.  All of a sudden I told Bill to follow that car.  The man driving it had a World’s Fair patch on his uniform.  He wound around through neighborhoods and parked.  We parked right behind him and followed him for about a block, to one of the entrances!

We probably took pictures, but over the years, with our lifestyle now, those things are mostly gone.  We do remember going up on the Space Needle and enjoying the magnificent view of the area.  The Space Needle was built as the main attraction for the Seattle World’s Fair, and still remains open.  

We also ate at the restaurant on the very top.  It revolved slowly, 360°...a very nice place to eat.  I can’t remember a thing about the food, but the view was awesome!

About all else we can remember was going to downtown Seattle, not far from the fairgrounds.  We went to Pike Place Market, one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers’ market in the country.  There is a fishmonger, where they throw the fish back and forth according to what the customers order.  It is a special attraction of the market, which is built on a cliff over looking the waterfront.  There are three levels of shops, artists, produce stands, and restaurants.

Before leaving the Seattle area, we went down to the waterfront area and walked around seeing the sights.  I’m sure we ate fish and chips, one of Bill’s favorites.  There were several good choices of fish places.

We continued our journey north toward Canada!

World’s Fair...Continued

Our tent was an Army pup tent.  The back of it was enclosed and was held up by a stake pounded into the ground.  The front was open.  We tied it to the Porsche.  There was no stake.  This was okay because it was a security thing.  If someone was messing with our car, we got a warning.

Some of our camping places have been lost from our memories over the years.  A few of them were special for one reason or another.  Those few we will share with you. 

We can remember driving into Winnemucci, just about in the middle of nowhere Nevada.  It was before the Interstate went through that part of the state.  When we got there, after dark, we were directed to the City Campground.  It was completely unsatisfactory for a little tent like ours, or any other size, for that matter.  The campground was grown up in huge tumbleweeds.  There was not a bare patch of ground in the entire area.

That night we slept in the Porsche.  It was an experience we hoped we wouldn’t have to repeat very often!

We went to the coast of Oregon.  At that time we thought it was one of the most beautiful places on earth...and we still do.  It is a drive we make whenever we get the chance.

We stayed at Sunset Beach State Park, outside of Coos Bay.  The ocean was especially beautiful at sunset.  The campground was really nice, with vegetation on three sides of each camp site.  Ours had lots of blackberry bushes, with lots of fruit.  We ate our fill.

It was about 9:30 or so when we set our tent up and went to bed.  At a little before 10:00, an Oriental family moved into the camping spot just across from us.  There were a mom and dad, plus two small boys.  Their tent was quite large, the kind with floor.  Wow, that was really uptown, compared to ours.  They first staked each corner in place, and then all crawled inside.  The wire structure inside must have been difficult to assemble.  Each time the tent would start to go up, the little boys would run across and hit the other side.  And down would go the tent, on everyone inside.  We laughed so hard, it is a wonder I didn’t wet my pants.  This “circus act” went on for over half an hour...the parents putting it up and the kids knocking it down.  It was so funny, and the parents not once raised their voices.  The experience is one of our favorite to tell over the years.  It still brings laughter into our lives.

We went further north on Hwy. 101 to Florence and stopped at Honeyman State Park.  It is at the north end of the Oregon Dunes National Rec. Area.  After getting our camping place we hiked up a dune at the edge of the lake.  It was a tough climb in the sand, and we were surprised at the number of people that climbed up, and ran down as fast as they could onto the lake to see how far they could slide across the water before they stopped.  Some of them were out in the water fairly far.  I can’t remember the two of us taking part in the “lake insanity.”

As we drove on north the next day we went off Hwy. 101 to Pacific City.  This area is home of the Dory Fleet.  It is made up of flat bottomed boats with tall sides.  A small motor pushes the boat out through the surf of the ocean.  When it come back to shore, it comes as fast as the waves and motor can bring it.  As it slides up onto the beach, someone on board raises the motor.  They can come quite a ways up onto the beach, at which point a person at the front jumps off and secures the dory with a rope.  It was very exciting to watch.

We took the road along the ocean to Tillamook, where we were able to tour the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  After the tour where we saw the cheese making process “up close and personal.”  (Remember this was 1962, when we were allowed to get close to the operation.  It has changed over the years.), we sampled the different kinds of cheeses made in Tillamook.

And then it was on to Portland!

Seattle World’s Fair

In the summer of 1962, we decided to go the World’s Fair in Seattle, Washington.  Our plans were to camp out all along the way.  That meant the Porsche had to have room for two people and their luggage, but also a tent, bedrolls, pillows, and an absolute minimum of other camping gear.

Our solution to the problem was a luggage rack.  Since accessories for the Porsche were very expensive and I had access to an acetylene welder, I decided to make a rack.  

The Porsche was rear engine so the rack had to be about four or five inches off the air intake grill.  I accomplished that with spacers.  We couldn’t chrome it so we painted it a light gray.  It was at a 45° angle so I put a small lip on the bottom for things to ride against.  It worked well, and solved our problem.

When we left Lubbock, gasoline was 19 cents a gallon.  That area of Texas was notorious for its gasoline price wars.  As we got further away we began to pay more, but it was a nice way to start a trip.

The first time we stopped for gasoline we had a catastrophe.  The fuel tank was in the front trunk where we stashed our camping gear.  The opening for the nozzle was very large to make it fast to fuel when racing.  The station attendant put the nozzle in, turned the pump on, and walked away.  When he came back, the trunk and our gear were full of gasoline.

The term, “not a happy camper” was first used that day to describe Bill.  Until then, I had never seen a guy with smoke coming out of his ears.  Fumes were not only coming out of the the trunk, but out of Bill’s ears.  From then on, he took care of the gasoline duties himself!  

Scuba Diving

Bill and I both liked to scuba dive.  Back in those days, there weren’t regulations concerning equipment or use of scuba gear.  

We made our own tanks.  There was a huge Army surplus place in Pecos, Texas, about 240 miles southwest of Lubbock.  Our air tanks were from a WW II bomber.  I think the material we used for the straps to hold the tanks on came from there.  We had quick release buckles that were Army issue, also.  We attached our regulators to all of this, filled the tanks with air, add our masks and swim fins and we were ready to go.

One of our favorite places to dive was at Balmorhea, Texas.  There was a clear lake with fish and interesting rock formations.  Several years ago we stopped by the place, which is now a state park.  It had expanded, but was still very nice.

Several times we drove to Santa Rosa, New Mexico, to dive.  One time we went with Bill’s friend, Roy Gladson.  He drove a Buick that loped down the road.  Add that to the fact that he wasn’t a very good driver.  He would speed up, take his foot off the gas, let it slow down, and then race back up in speed.  We both suffered motion sickness and never rode with Roy again. 

There was a place in Santa Rosa that had clear water.  It was a great big hole in the ground surrounded by large rocks.  It is now developed, with restrooms, picnic tables benches, etc.  

Also, at Golf Lake, a few miles out of town, was an interesting place.  We had to walk for about 1/2 mile to the best place to get in the water which was shallow and clear.  We were swimming along when all of a sudden, we were over a black hole.  I was so startled I nearly bit my mouth piece in half.  Bill said I was thrashing around in the water so wildly, he thought I had been attacked.  If sheer panic can be considered being attacked, I was...attacked!

We also enjoyed diving at Possum Kingdom, now a state park west of Mineral Wells, Texas.  We liked to dive toward a cliff, go down and into a cave.  People without air tanks would go down and to an air pocket, stay there until they had enough oxygen to swim back to the surface.  The first time Bill came upon legs dangling in the cave, he thought he had found dead bodies.

...And In Between...

Believe it or not, there were many other aspects in our lives beside driving around in little bitty cars.  A few of our extra activities included our cars, but not necessarily.

When we would have a free Sunday, which wasn’t often, we might drive around town with Zan and Carolyn.  She and I, with Tracy, their baby boy, would be in the Porsche.  The guys would be in their Austin Healey, following us.  If we came to a stop light and there happened to be boys in a car next to us, Carolyn would put Tracy on the floor, so two girls in a sports car could talk to the “hunks” in the other car.  Then Bill and Zan would drive up and claim us as their wives!

We also went on a camping trip with Zan, Carolyn, and Tracy.  We went up into the mountains of Colorado to the Cripple Creek area.  By then, Tracy was just learning to walk.  The slope of the terrain was quite a challenge for the little fellow.  While on that trip we went to the melodrama in Cripple Creek.  You know the kind where you boo and hiss the villain and oh and ah the damsel in distress and cheer wildly when the hero appears and saves her from the villain's dastardly deeds.  It was a fun trip.

Bill was on a bowling team, sponsored by Paul Ellis Automotive Parts, who paid for their shirts and bowling fees.  His team members were his dad, Harold, plus Roy Gladson, and Paul Ellis.  I was the score keeper.  Way back then the electronic scoring machines hadn’t been invented.

Every week, they would each put a dollar in the “kitty.”  Whoever bowled the most over his average won the “pot.”  Bill won every week, but always made sure not to raise his average too much.  It was our “eating out” money.

There was a Mexican restaurant that had a Monday night special...one enchilada dinner for $1.00, a second one for free.  That’s a “back in the good old days” story, eh?  We usually met Ronnie and Roberta there for dinner.  Wow!  What a deal!  And the food was really, really good.

Phase Three...Racing (again)

At some point in time, an event was held at Rattlesnake Raceway.  It wasn’t a sanctioned race.  It was a team event, with two drivers per team.  I signed up to be Bill’s co-driver.  I didn’t have a competition license, but could drive in this event.

From the back, it was hard to tell who was wearing the racing helmet and driving at that time.  I was in a very difficult part of the track when Peewee, driving an AC Bristol. came up behind me.  His car was more powerful than our little Sprite.  He was trying to push me into the corner.  I kept my foot on the “go pedal” and stayed in front of him to the straight-away.

Peewee said when he saw the Sprite in front of him he thought, “I’m going to push Bill into this corner and see if I can make him spin out.”  When he passed and saw me in the car instead of Bill, guess who spun?  Right...Peewee!  I think that day, he learned not to mess with me!

Some weeks later, we were back at the Midland track.  I was at the side of the track, watching the race with Ronnie Rone.  Just as Dave Fawcett, owner of the foreign car dealership in Lubbock, and a friend of ours, came into view.  Another car drove over the top of his open car, killing him instantly!  It was a sight I will never forget.  From then on, I had no interest in driving a car on a racetrack.

Bill drove in two more races that spring, but we can’t remember when or where they were.

Phase Three...Racing (continued)

We started the 1963 racing season in March at Green Valley Raceway, in Fort Worth.  Bill had his first DNF in the Sprite.  He had a broken rotor cap that sidelined him.  Shucks!

It wasn’t a weekend without excitement, however.  Our friends, Ronnie and Roberta Rone were at the race, also.  Roberta and I would watch the races from the stands for awhile and then go down to the hair pin turn, which was the last turn, and watch from there.  

We took Mother’s car and drove about a half mile to find a good spot.  There were about four dips, probably for drainage, and I drove very carefully down and back up each one.

We were watching one of Ronnie’s races when we saw a cloud of dust where his car should be.  The yellow flag went out and an ambulance went onto the track.  Needless to say, Roberta was stressed big time!  We jumped back in the car and took off for the pits.  Later, neither of us could remember any of the dips.  We must have been airborne.

We got back to the pits just as the ambulance arrived.  Ronnie had flipped his car and put his arm up to keep the ground from hurting his race car.  Dah!  Not a good idea.  We took him to a hospital where they set his broken arm.  

He was still in a world of hurt the next day, so Roberta and I drove the Dodge, towing the Sprite, back to Lubbock.  Ronnie lay in the back and moaned and groaned all the way.  Bill drove their car and towed their wrecked race car back.  Ronnie was about 6’5” and wouldn’t fit in the back of their car.  That’s why we used the Dodge as a make shift medical vehicle on the way home.

What a weekend!

Bill’s sixth race was back at Fort Sumner, New Mexico.  Because of the remoteness of the track and the fact that many of the drivers were single guys, Carolyn and I decided to poll the group to see how many of them would buy lunch from us.  We took all the makings for ham and cheese sandwiches, condiments, chips, homemade cookies, and a large cooler of sodas.

Our work station was the trunk of the Dodge.  I can’t remember how many lunches we served that day, or how much we charged, but we made enough money to pay for the trip, and feed the four of us.

Bill and I had purchased a slicer (kind of like an “As Seen on TV” thing).  We used the slicer for the tomatoes.  Peewee, who always had a comment, said we sliced the tomatoes so thin you could read a newspaper through them.  In spite of that, he came back for seconds.  

By the way, somewhere along the way, we got rid of the slicer.  Over the years, we have both wished we still had it.  It was a great little gadget and I think we paid a dollar for it.

Denise McCluggage raced at Fort Sumner, also, that weekend.  She had raced at big tracks like Sebring, but she drove at small places, too.  She also wrote article on racing for newspapers and magazines.  I can’t remember much about her except that she had a white helmet with dots on it.  Peewee, in his usual fashion, called her Dirty Knees instead of Denise.

The race was fun that weekend.  Bill was a very good driver and won both his Saturday and Sunday races.  He liked to experiment to see which lane on the track was the fastest.  In the process, he siked Zan out.  Zan thought he was as good a driver as Bill, but he wasn’t.  On every lap, Bill would be ahead on the last corner, but would let Zan pass him at the finish line.  When it was time for the last lap, I would signal Bill from the sideline and he would race across the finish line with Zan in second place, never knowing how Bill had set him up.

Phase Three...Racing

Phase Three...Racing

In the spring of 1962, Bill started driving the Sprite at the Sports Car Club of America level.  SCCA was the major sanctioning group for amateur racing  in this country.

Bill’s first driver’s school was in Midland, Texas, at Rattlesnake Raceway.  The track was built by Jim Hall where he developed the Chaparral, among other things.  It was fiberglass and had a wing on the back to help hold it down on the track.

Rattlesnake Raceway was a road course, built out in the middle of a sand dune area.  One time, another car went off the track and threw sand onto the pavement.  When Bill came around, being in the lead, he got into the sand and slid off the track  He rolled the Sprite.  The yellow flag came out and everyone else slowed down. The only damage I can remember was a scratch on top of his racing helmet and the radio antenna was broken off.

Bill had to have three driver’s schoosl before he would get his competition license.  The second one was in June at Green Valley Raceway in the Forth Worth area.  The school was on Friday and races were held on Saturday and Sunday.  Bill was allowed to drive the races as a novice.  The Sprite was marked with an “X” on back, to let other drivers know he was a ”newbie.”  The “X” wasn’t for “X marks the spot, hit here.”  It was to warn the “pros” this guy was new.  Watch out!  

There were 41 Sprites in Bill’s class (HP).  Because he was a novice he started from the very back of the field.  He couldn’t even see the front of the group.  The flagger dropped the green flag and everyone took off.  So did Bill!  He finished 17th one day and 19th the other.  Not bad for a beginner in such a large field!

For his last Driver’s School, he was back at Rattlesnake Raceway.  Jim Hall was a celebrity in the racing world and shared his facility and his knowledge with other racers.  And he was always in the pits with the rest of us.  One time, years later after we had moved to Colorado,  we went to see him race at a track north of where we lived.  When he saw us, he said, “Hi, Bill.  How are you?”  He was definitely a “people person.”

Bill’s second race was also at Green Valley in September.  

To say we were racing on a shoe string would be a gross understatement.  We bought his helmet, and his racing suit had to be fire proof.  They were expensive so we made some flame retardant powder out of Borax and a few other things, put it and water in a bucket, and soaked his suit in it.  My, how things have changed!  Bill remembers the suit being short sleeved.  It was the kind of one piece thing an old man might wear to work in his yard.  His shoes had to be leather so he wore his bowling shoes.  We towed the Sprite with my mother’s Dodge Dart.  She generously let us use it to go to all those races.  I think she secretly liked to have an excuse to stay home and work on her craft projects.

The third race was in Fort Sumner, New Mexico in October. It was at an old airport.  The course was set up on the landing strips.  All I can remember about the place was the remoteness of it.

The last race for 1962 was in November.   It was once again in Midland at Rattlesnake Raceway.  We enjoyed being there and it was the closest track to Lubbock.  The little Sprite had performed flawlessly all year long.

(To be continued.)

Phase Two...Weekend Events...Gymkhanas

At the time we were involved in crazy car stuff, a gymkhana was an event where cones were set up to make a course and one car would drive at a time.  Points were added to your time if you knocked a cone over.  If you got off course, you went back to the place you transgressed, as the clock kept running.  Otherwise, you were disqualified.

Nowadays, they might be called autocrosses or Solo 1 and Solo 2.  Times are changing!

Anyway, we had lots of gymkhanas..some complicated and some kind of Mickey Mouse.  Because Texas had what was called the Blue Law then, we were able to use business parking lots.  The Blue Law required businesses to close either on Saturday or Sunday. 

All of these events were fun, and our little Sprite preformed well.  We won more than our fair share of these events.  Most of the wins didn’t come with trophies, but we were awarded dash plaques, which we proudly displayed on the dash of our cars.

The Mickey Mouse, or out of the ordaniary, events were the most fun and memorable.  At one such event, the driver was blindfolded and the passenger would tell which way the car should turn.  Our friend, Carolyn, was teamed with Kent Clark, aka Superman.  She sat behind him, on the deck of “The Bird.”  She would turn his head in the direction he needed to go.  The only problem with that plan was the tightness of some of the turns.  I think she nearly broke his neck or twisted his head off.  It was interesting to see the different methods people used to finish this event.

Another fun event was wrapping a rope around a pole.  A rope was tied to a light pole.  There was a knot at the other end.  The passenger held onto the knot with one hand.  If the rope touched the ground there was a penalty.  Wrapping it around the pole wasn’t much of a problem, but unwrapping it was a different matter.  It was a challenge to see how high or how far away from the pole you could hold the rope.  Anything to keep it off the ground and still hold on to the knot.  Some people stood up to hold the rope high and hang onto the windshield with the other hand.  We remember one person climbing over the driver to hold the rope as far to the left as possible.

One time we had an event at a small dirt track a few miles outside of Lubbock.  We went out one at a time, so it wasn’t like a race, but it was a timed event.  As I was going around the track, Bill and PeeWee were standing on the edge watching.  PeeWee said, “I’d give $5.00 to see her spin.”  Just then I did.  Bill held out his hand to collect.

Zan, Carolyn, and the two of us went to the small town of Tahoka.  We met with the sheriff to discuss having an event in their town.  The downtown was typical of towns in those days...a court house in the middle of a square.  The sheriff arranged to have the streets blocked off on Sunday.  We were able to set up cones all around.b  We had a lot of spectators.  It was a unique event, but I don’t think we were ever invited back.

Phase Two...Weekend Events...Rallies (continued)

On one of the most unusual rallies we ever went on, the directions were written in Chinese.  Zan and his brother, Dale, planned it.  Dale was a graphic artist and quite creative.  The characters were written from top to bottom.  There were eight or nine pages of them.

We were the last car to leave the starting line. Zan told us this was one we wouldn’t win.  No one should ever tell us that.  We were more determined than ever.  

We drove for about half a block and decided we needed to take time to translate the instructions.  We had been given a key for the symbols.  By the time we had translated the first page, we had the symbols memorized.  From there on the translation was really quick and easy.  

Bill recalculated the time, distance, and speed, and off we went.  The checkpoint was a phone booth.  We were to call a number and report in.  Shirley, Dale’s wife, answered with “Lin Ling’s Chinese Take Out.”  In my best imitation of an Oriental accent, I ordered chow mein and several other things.  There was dead silence on the other end of the line.  Then, “Uh, uh, uh.”  I said, “This is Raymonda.  Please have my order ready when we get to the finish line.”

We continued to complete the rally.  The finish line was in the alley behind Dale and Shirley’s house.  We were right on time.  Only about half of the 25 or 30 cars in the event finished without opening their “panic instructions.”  Everyone else was late, some very, very late.  Zan said when he saw us stop a half block from the start, he knew we would win.

Once, Bill and I were in charge of a rally.  We can’t remember much about it except how the route was determined.  Bill and his tax appraiser partner had a city map and marked the proposed route as they went about their daily official business.  Your tax dollars at work!!!

Sometimes a rally would use unusual words and we would have to figure them out before we could follow the directions.  One was, “turn right at ustabe Cobb’s.”  Well, Cobb’s was a department store that had closed and the translation was, “turn right at use to be Cobb’s.  Depending on where  you put the accent determined what it meant.  We read it as “u STA be.”  To this day, we still include that word in our vocabulary. 

For the next part of this narrative about our rally days (or should that be “rally daze”), we are going to jump ahead in time, place, and family size...20 years, Casper, Wyoming, and four kids.

We were returning from Denver in our motorhome on a Sunday at mid-day.  As we went through Douglas, Wyoming, we noticed a group of sports cars gathered in a parking lot.  We pulled off the freeway to see what was going on, only to discover they were setting up a rally.  We hurried on to Casper, loaded snacks and water into the Honda, got the circular slide rule, clipboard, and stopwatch, and all six of us jumped into the little car and away we went, back to Douglas.

I really can’t remember much about the rally, other than the kids having a great time.  They had never been on a rally before and thought it was a lark.  And to top it off, we won the trophy.  Bill and I still had the “rally magic touch.”

Phase Two...Weekend Events...Rallies continued

The South Plains Sports Car Club had special local weekend events, usually once a month.  These events took a lot of planning.  We had rallies and gymkhanas.

The rallies were a competition where we drove a long distance over public streets and roads.  There were several stages and checkpoints, where we were sometimes given another set of instructions.  It was mainly a time/distance event and we left at two minute intervals.  If you finished under the set time, points were added to your score.  Too fast and you got double points per minute added to your score.

We usually did these events in the Porsche.  I was the driver and Bill was the navigator.  He had a clipboard to hold the directions.  All of the calculations were done on a circular slide rule that Bill had used in his old pilot days.  We also had a stopwatch.

Because Bill was very good at the calculations and I was a good driver, we usually won the rallies.  Some of the members were upset because of our number of wins, and some used us as their benchmark and strove  to beat us.

On a shorter rally, maybe 25 to 50 miles long, Bill would tell me how far I should go every minute.  Our directions told us what the average speed was to be and sometimes it changed with each section.  On long rallies 100 to a two day event of 600 miles, he would give me a reading every five minutes.

Sometimes the events were during the day and sometimes at night, but always on a weekend.  Before leaving the starting point, we were given a sealed envelope telling where the finish point was.  In case a team got lost, they would know where to go for the after rally festivities.  By the way, Bill and I didn’t ever have to open a “panic instructions” envelope.  That would have meant a disqualification, and to us, that wouldn’t have been acceptable.

Some of the rallies were fairly straight forward, but some were a challenge of one kind or another.  Once there had been rain in the area and we came across a bunch of cars stopped by an impromptu lake between two fields.  A big discussions was going on about what to do.  Since our Porsche was rear engine, to everyone’s astonishment, we just drove across the lake.  Our only concern was making sure the boats and water skiers going back and forth between the pastures knew we were there.  It was not a problem.  They gave us the right-of-way.  I think most of the other cars chose to follow us.  Some made it, but some didn’t.  Others turned around, opened their “panic envelopes,” and we saw them at the finish line.

We were good friends with a couple, Zan and Carolyn Smith.  Actually, Carolyn and I were good friends, and Bill and Zan were friends.  I was Zan’s nemesis, or would it be the other way around.  Zan tried as hard as he could to beat us at things and never did succeed.

Well, one weekend, we had a two-day 600 mile rally.  At about the 400 mile mark, the event planners had dinner on the grill and had set up big tents.  We all brought bedrolls and slept in the tents.  Some slept in their cars, but with the Porsche, it really wasn’t an option.  Two rolled up bedrolls was pushing the little car’s limits.  The night festivities took place at Palo Duro Canyon State Park, but in those days, there weren’t hotels or restaurants close by.  So tents and bedrolls it was!

Zan and Carolyn were scheduled to start two minutes ahead of us.  We were driving along and saw them.  We decided to play a trick on them.  We took a chance that there wasn’t a checkpoint coming up anytime soon.  We went flying past them.  At the time, Carolyn was balancing their checkbook as they drove along.  She started recalculating and they soon roared past us in their Austin Healey.  Then we slowed way down and got back on track.  See, we were “bad to the bone” even back then!

     (to be continued)

SPSCC Monthly Meetings

The South Plains Sports Car Club was our primary social orgazination.  It met once a month.  Different members would plan an after club event for each month.

There were lots of interesting after club events.  One was a “lime bag run.”  The cars left at two minute intervals, after giving the starter your odometer reading.  When there was to be a turn, the people setting up the event would put powdered lime in the intersection.  That alerted us that the route might go left, right, or straight.  A half block in the correct direction there would be more lime.  And so on and so forth.  

Most of the drivers would drive one way, if they didn’t find lime they would turn around and check out another direction.  Well, since it was a “distance traveled” event, Bill and I figured out another way to do it.  We would stop, get out of the car, he would run to the left and I would run to the right.  If neither of us found the lime, we knew we had to go straight.

I don’t think anyone else ever figured our why we won those kinds of events.

Another low mileage event was a scavenger hunt.  Well, we didn’t all go the same route.  One guy, whom we called Superman because his name was Kent Clark (Do you get it?) decided he would back everywhere.  At that time, a car’s odometer would take off mileage when the car was driven in reverse.

Kent had a small Thunderbird...a very jazzy little car.  He always called it “The Bird!”  After awhile, we nicknamed it “The Gooney Bird.”  I think it was a good fit of driver, car, and nickname!

Another after club event would take place out on country roads.  A person would drive away and set off a flare.  Every fifteen minutes, he would set off another one several miles away.  This went on for quite awhile.  The winner was the first one to find him.  It doesn’t sound like it makes much sense now, and I’m not sure it made any sense then, either.

These events are examples of one level of our “insanity.”

From One Sports Car Back to Two

We were members of the South Plains Sports Car Club when we lived in Lubbock.  They had lots of special events, though not actual car races like NASCAR.

We realized the wear and tear on the Porsche might be too expensive.  After looking at several cars, we decided that the Austin Healey Sprite might hold up to the rigors we planned to put it through.

We loved zipping around town in the little bug-eyed Sprite.  It was fun to drive, but rough to ride in.  For that reason, we nicknamed it Teddy Roosevelt, because it was a rough rider.

Bill installed an air horn and air tank under the front left fender.  I would say that every time we honked it, the little car shot backwards, but that isn’t true.  

Whenever the Sports Car Club went anywhere out of town as a group, we were put at the front of the line so we could “clear the road.”  One time we were in a traffic circle and a semi was beside us and a little bit ahead.  We honked and watched him in his mirrors as he tried to locate us.  Finally, he opened his door, looked down, and there we were.  The last car to pass him that day said he was still laughing.

Every time we filled with gasoline, we filled the air tank, also.

(More adventures to come!)

Our Delayed Honeymoon

Because I was teaching and couldn’t take time off for a trip, we delayed our honeymoon until June.  

We headed for California, with the top down, of course.  Our first destination was Yosemite and Kings Canyon in the central part of California.  As we drove through Yosemite, we came upon a forest fire.  Bedraggled fire fighters were sitting by the side of the road.  It was a quite a scene.

Also in Yosemite, but not in the area of the fire, was the famous Wawona Tunnel Tree.  In 1918, a tunnel was cut through the giant sequoia.  It was a popular tourist attraction, and we were tourists.  We took a picture of the Porsche in the tunnel.  See, I told you we were tourists.

Unfortunately, the tree, estimated to be 2,300 years ago, fell over in 1969.  Heavy snow on the branches was blamed.  Hm-m-m-m!  Do you think cutting a hole clear through the tree might have had anything to do with it?

As soon as we got to the coastal area we began seeing roadside stands selling fresh strawberries.  We stopped at one, bought a flat, and ate as we rode down the road.  They were so-o-o-o good!

We went on down the coast to the Monterey area.  The top was down most of the time so we were both very tan by the time we got to the Pacific Ocean.  Later, when looking at our pictures of the trip, we couldn’t remember taking a picture of a dark skinned woman standing by a Maserati.  Oops!  It was me!

Bill was at Fort Ord when he was in basic training in the Army.  He said that the entire time he was there it was foggy.  He never saw the sun.  Well, it was foggy the day we were there also.  Bill felt right at home.

While in the area, we drove the Seventeen Mile Drive which goes along the coast and through an area of very, very expensive homes.  While on the drive we stopped at Pebble Beach.  There was a Pro-Am Golf Tournament going on so we went to see the excitement.  The only celebrity we saw was Bob Hope riding in a golf cart.  It was a beautiful setting and interesting to be there.

We continued south on Hwy. 1 to Santa Barbara.  I think the only down side of the entire trip happened when we went for Mexican food one night for dinner and were served spoiled tamales.  Of course, when we complained about them, suddenly no one who worked there spoke English.  Bill hasn’t eaten a tamale since then.  It took me many years to get past that unpleasant experience.

We stopped at Hearst Castle.  It was a very interesting tour of a magnificent house and beautiful grounds.  Two young people from the plains of Texas had a hard time comprehending that kind of wealth.  And it is still not in our realm.

When we got to LA, we visited with my mother’s friends, Grace Brickley and Doris Bertrand.  Bill and I wanted to go to the beach.  Doris warned us about getting on the freeways and showed us a route through town.  It took us three hours to get to open water.  We enjoyed our time in the sand and surf, but decided to take the freeways back.  We got there in 45 minutes.  So much for “locals” recommending routes.

By then we were just about on overload of things to see.  Neither one of us can remember much about the return to Texas.  Maybe that’s because we really didn’t want to go back.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip...a great way to start “our life on a wandering road.”

The Great Car Shuffle

Sometime before we got married, Bill sold his Austin Healey and bought a new Porsche...a 1959 1600 Convertible D.  It was light blue and very pretty.  

There were only three Porsches in the state.  We often had people stop us and ask about the car.  It seems that they had come upon an old man driving a Porsche on the freeway between Fort Worth and Dallas.  Someone would pull beside the old man, challenge him to a race and off they would go.  They thought it was a VW, but soon learned their mistake.  He was driving a Carrera, which may have looked like ours, but was much, much, much more powerful.  He left his opponents in the dust.

After we got married, we decided the two of us had no business with two new sports cars.  It made sense, especially to Bill, that my TR-3 be the one to go.  The only good thing he ever had to say about it was that it was mine.  Otherwise, we might have never met.  

Only recently have I admitted how inappropriate my little red car was.  I loved it!  In fact, I loved it so much I let Bill drive it to work and I sacrificed and drove the Porsche to school.

After we got down to one vehicle, Bill’s partner at work would take him back and forth to work.

New Beginnings

Bill and I had rented a two bedroom apartment.  We scrounged around and got as much furniture as we could.  The one thing we didn’t have was a table and chairs for the kitchen.

So, after our wedding and before going to our apartment, we went to an auction.  Earlier in the day, we had found a small kitchen table and four chairs at an auction house.  We successfully bid on it.  Neither one of us can remember how we got it home.

Bill carried me across the threshold to our “new abode” together.  The fact that I weighed 109 pounds at the time was a big help.

There were local elections going on not long after we got married.  We got a barrage of mail from all of the candidates.  It all went into the “round file.”  Then it dawned on me that the envelope from the County Clerk was different from the other campaign stuff.  I drug it out of the trash and opened it to see if it was anything important.  Sure enough, it was...our marriage certificate!

Tying the Big Knot

We had chosen a date for a June wedding.  Well, why wait?  An Easter wedding would nice.  In those days, we didn’t have Spring Breaks.  For Easter, we were out of school Friday through Monday.  April 15 sounded good!

We planned a very small wedding.  It took place in my mother’s living room in front of the fireplace.  It was a pretty fireplace, even if it was fake!  We borrowed folding chairs from the school to seat some of the guests.  Not many attended.  Only family members were invited.  

I had a gardenia corsage.  To this day, it is my favorite flower.  The smell is heavenly!  (To my surprise, 40 years later that is the flower Meredith chose for her wedding.)

My brother, Jim, was in seminary at TCU at the time.  He was given special permission to perform our ceremony.   “Two I dos and an amen,” is how we’ve always described it.

We had a very small wedding cake and punch.  I really can’t remember if we had anything else.  Things were somewhat of a blur!

Our Work-a-Day World

When Bill and I met, he was working for the City of Lubbock in the tax appraisal department.  His job was to appraise both new and existing properties..commercial and residential.  Usually he worked with new construction, but every five years, on a rotating basis, all property within the city had to be reevaluated.  

As far as I know there were two teams of appraisers.  Bill and his partner put in a full day,s work.  Not so with the other team.  As soon as they left the office they headed for a donut shop.  When they would go back to the office at noon, they would put their finished folders in the basket along with Bill’s.  Then Bill and his partner would take some of the work files from the other team so they would have something to do in the afternoon.  

It was comforting to know Bill had a good work ethic.  I did, too.

I taught second grade at Rush Elementary School.  In those days, classroom aides or parent volunteers hadn’t been “invented.”  I had 36 students all day long, even during lunch.  There was no such thing as a break.  But taught them, I did.  As throughout my entire teaching career, I had very wonderful students.  Because we moved around so much, I don’t know where any of that first class is today.  I hope they think of me as fondly as I think of them.