#52stories - Week 12 (Mar 22nd - published late)

Early memories in Buena Vista. 1961-1962.

And that's pronounced like B-you-na Vista (not Veesta).  So not the Spanish pronunciation.

We only lived in Buena Vista for a year, although it seems longer somehow.  I was in the 4th grade at Mountain View Elementary School. We lived in a building that was the old school house. It was at the corner of what is now Borden Grant Trail and Mountain View Road. It had a very large flat yard on one side, which was probably an athletic field when it was a school. (I'm pretty sure Cathie had the chore of mowing that yard!)

Below is an aerial view from Google maps of what it looks like now. The house is obscured by trees, but you can see the field in the upper left.  The house with the green roof was next door and a younger girl named Linda lived there.  There was a steep hill on that side of our yard leading down to her house.  We liked to roll down that hill through the grass.  I also found lots of four leafed clovers there.

This is the only time period that I remember owning a dog.  He was a boxer named Sigmund Otto Von Dom, Sig for short.  He was a great dog, but he liked to chase cars.  Unfortunately, he chased one down Mountain View Road to the T intersection and into the next road where a car hit him.  He didn't survive.  It was the only time I saw my mother cry.

I got my first bicycle when we lived here.  It was a used bike; blue with relatively wide tires.  I had a hard time learning to ride and remember skidding on gravel and getting scraped up quite a bit.  We would ride a long way up Mountain View Rd.

There was a creek on the other side of our neighbor's house that we explored; it's called Marl Creek.  Graham and I found a large wooden bowl half buried in that creek.  Cathie raised a steer that was kept in a field across the creek.  I sometimes helped her carry feed over the creek to the steer.

That winter, we had the deepest snow I could remember.  I searched for this storm on Google and found that it was quite historic.  Here is an excerpt from This Day in Weather History: March 6.

"1962: The strongest nor'easter of this century struck the Mid-Atlantic Region on March 5-9, 1962. It is known as the "Ash Wednesday Storm" and caused over $200 million (1962 dollars) in property damage and major coastal erosion from North Carolina to Long Island, New York. In New Jersey alone, it was estimated to have destroyed or greatly damaged 45,000 homes. The Red Cross recorded that the storm killed 40 people. It hit during "Spring Tide." When the sun and moon are in phase, they produce a higher than normal astronomical tide. .... Heavy snow fell in the Appalachian Mountains. Big Meadows, southeast of Luray, recorded Virginia's greatest 24-hour snowfall with 33 inches and the greatest single storm snowfall with 42 inches. ... Roads were blocked and electrical service was out for several days. ...The Ash Wednesday storm is noteworthy for producing devastating tidal flooding along the Atlantic Coast as well as record snows and the interior of a Virginia. The extremely high tides and massive waves caused tremendous damage -worst in many of the hurricanes that have hit the region. Along the Atlantic Coast tide ran for 2 to 6 ft. above normal with 20 to 40 ft. waves crashing ashore. ...Other snow totals included 15 inches at Richmond; 23 inches at Culpeper; 26 inches at Charlottesville; 32 inches at Winchester; and 35 inches at Fort Royal, Virginia and Big Meadows on the Skyline Drive top the list with 42 inches of snow."

I didn't realize the storm's significance until just now.  What I remember is my Dad shoveling a path to the car and the snow was about 3 feet deep.  My sister, Sally, who was 3 years old, could not be seen above the snow when she walked down the path.  My Dad helped us roll a huge snow ball down the yard and we carved it into a fort.  It was probably 4 or 5 feet in diameter.

An aside:  I was telling my husband about this memory and that I found out the storm was significant and caused flooding along the coast in addition to the snow.  He replied, "That must have been the Ash Wednesday Storm."  He knew of the storm because of photos of it that were posted in a store in his small town, where the Gum Neck community had flooded.  He said he would tease his friends in Gum Neck that they didn't need cards, they needed boats.

I started wearing glasses while we were living in Buena Vista.  I think I mentioned that in my school discussion.  

One day, we heard our neighbor Linda screaming very loudly.  We ran over to her house to discover that one of her parents had chopped off a chicken's head and the body was running around the yard headless.  It's no wonder she screamed.  

Here's a picture of Mom, Grandma Barnett, Sally, Linda, Graham, and me in the yard of the Mt. View house.

 

#52stories - Week 11 (Mar 15th published late)

Early memories in Fairfield. 1954-1961.

My memories are pretty much distinguished from one another based on where I was living at the time, rather than how old I was. My earliest memories are when we were living in the brick house in Fairfield.  We moved there when I was 2 years old and moved away when I was 9. These memories are snippets more than stories, so I thought a bulleted format would suit them.

• One of my earliest memories that I can tag to a specific age was my 5th birthday.  I remember getting a coloring book that had a black Cocker Spaniel on the front.  I generally had birthday parties every other year, because Kathy Martin and I had the same birthday and we alternated who had the party.  She's a year older than I am.  Whoever hosted the party, blew out the candles first; then we would relight them and the other person would blow them out.
• I remember helping my Dad plant the garden, which was huge.  Specifically, he showed me how to plant corn by taking three steps heel to toe, digging a small hole, depositing three kernels, and covering them with dirt.  If you've never seen corn seed, they're basically dried corn kernels. We bought the seeds from the feed store and they had a white dust on them, which was probably fertilizer.
• We ate tomatoes straight off the vine, sometimes sprinkling them with salt.
• We pasteurized our own milk with a metal machine that was set up in the spring house.  My dad and sister milked the two cows that we had.
• We had a playhouse in the backyard that had an upper level, but wasn't completely finished.  It didn't matter to us.
• We would burn trash in a burn pile behind the play house, not close to the house.  One time, my brother and I were playing around the ashed with sticks and he ended up burning my toe...because of course we were barefoot.  My Dad said to put butter on it, which my brother teased him about later in life.
• When it snowed...and we had deep snows...my Dad would take us with a toboggan that he had made to a high hill behind the barn and we would sleigh ride. The toboggan was big enough for two and was wooden with a metal bottom.  Dad would wrap whoever wasn't riding down in his big thick coat to stay warm.  I think my son has that coat now.
• We had neighbors that were a field away in each direction.  The Goads lived in one direction and the Howards in the other. Eddie Howard was my closest friend while we lived on the farm and we played together frequently.  W.D. Goad and his sister were a little younger than I was, but my brother and I went there many times to play. Here's a picture of us with Eddie Howard, Feb 1958.

• The creek across from the house was good for swimming in the summer and "skating" in the winter.  We skated using rubber boots.  The first time I had the breath knocked out of me was when I fell backward while skating.  It was scary to realize that you weren't breathing.  After the first time, it wasn't so scary.
• We explored the woods that were on the other side of the creek.  
• We picked and ate paw paws from a tree that grew in the woods, as well as raspberries, blackberries, and currants.  I found the following picture online at http://www.hartapiaries.com/Pawpaws.htm.  This is exactly how I remember them. 

• We grew strawberries near the barn.  When we "picked" them, we ate about every other one. I remember seeing a black snake there and screaming. By the time my Mom got to me, it was long gone.
• We climbed on the ears of corn in the granary.  The bin they were in was deep and narrow, so it was fun to climb up with the cobs rolling out from under you. I never saw mice or snakes in the corn, but I saw my Dad pick up a blacksnake more than once and take it to the granary to eat the mice.  So both must have been there.
• We picnicked on Mary's Creek and/or Irish Creek, usually on Sunday afternoons.  Dad always seemed to find a place where we could easily wade in the water. Here's one of several pictures of us on a picnic, spring 1957.

• I remember getting our first television in 1958.  It was black and white andt here weren't many programs to watch.  We watched Winky Dink, Howdy Doody, and Romper Room
• There was a sawmill on the farm that my Dad operated.  I only remember watching him do that once. Years later my sister and I walked to the sawmill to see if it was still there, and it was.  But it was very overgrown. Here's a photo of my picture standing next to the main saw blade.

• I remember when my baby sister was born when I was 6 years old.  Mom went to the hospital; and when we went to visit her, we were not allowed to go back to her room.  We could see Sally through the window in the nursery of the hospital.  My Mom was brought out in a wheelchair so that we could see her.  That's about all I can recall.
• Because Dad taught school, the farm was often pranked, usually on Halloween.  Many times a gate would be removed and placed in a different location.  One time, the message "Poor Jack Is Stupid" was painted on the side of the granary.   Here's a photo I took in the 1980s.  The writing is still clear.  We always joked that we wish we knew what brand they used, because that lasted a LONG time!

• The first movie I remember seeing was South Pacific (1958).  My Mom took me (and probably other siblings) to Lexington , VA, to see it.  I recognized Mary Martin as Peter Pan's Mom. I saw Sleeping Beauty (1959) in the same theater; that has always been my favorite Disney movie.
• My first and maybe only Ferris Wheel ride was at the carnival in Fairfield.  I rode with my sister Cathie on the ride.  I was terrified because I'm afraid of heights.  I closed my eyes and asked her to let me know when we were down.  The ride stopped and she said I could open my eyes. We were at the very top!  The ride had stopped just to change passengers below. I can't remember going on another one since then.

I wrote about some other memories on the farm in an earlier post.  See this page.  I may add more later if I remember other things I want on the record.

#52stories - Week 10 (Mar 8th - published late)

Undergraduate School. 1971-1974.

During my senior year in high school, I decided to apply to three schools in North Carolina: NC State, UNC, and Duke.  All three offered degrees in math.  I didn't have a preference and decided to choose the one that offered me  the best financial aid package.  I filled out application and financial aid forms for all three schools.  UNC asked me to come to campus for an in person interview for the James Johnston scholarship, which was new that year.  I remember answering questions confidently, but near the end, the person interviewing me asked, what will you do if you don't get this scholarship?  That had never really occurred to me, so I'm sure I fumbled that answer.

In any case, I heard from NC State first as they offered me a student loan.  UNC offered me a Johnston scholarship of $1400 per year.  At that time, tuition and fees were $500 per year and a dorm room was $500 a year; so this would pay all of that plus books and some meals.  Duke offered me a Reynolds scholarship of $3600 a year; which would cover approximately the same costs as the scholarship at UNC.  I accepted at UNC mainly because I was concerned that the rising costs at Duke would out pace the scholarship.  I declined the other two schools.  While I never heard from NC State again, I did hear from Duke.  I got called out of class to go to the principal's office in the middle of math class.  When I got to the office, I was told that a a Duke official was on the phone asking for me.  They asked me to reconsider; and when I said I had already accepted at UNC, they assured me that I could change that decision.  But I stuck to UNC and have never regretted that.  Especially tonight as I have just finished watching UNC win the NCAA men's basketball championship again!

I went to UNC during the summer after graduation for placement tests in French and math.  We stayed in Morrison dorm, one of the newer, suite-style dorms.  I met other incoming freshman there and we talked about our experiences and uncertainties.  I expressed concern about getting a roommate who didn't want to take her studies seriously.  One of the other students, Virginia Stewart from Nashville, TN, suggested that we room together, so we wrote the University and asked to be roommates.  We ended up being assigned to Cobb dorm, roomed together for 3 years in rooms 252 and 248, and are still friends today. In fact, she is the person who introduced me to my husband in 1971. Here's a picture of Rex & me at his graduation in May 1973. We're standing in the Pit outside the student stores.

I hated early classes, so mine were usually between 10 and 3.  I took a few night classes that met once a week for 3 hours.  I started out taking Honors classes and then realized that I would be better off taking regular classes and making higher grades. I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics, which involved taking a LOT of calculus classes.  So, I accomplished the goal that I had set in the 8th grade of getting a college degree in math.

My extracurricular activities were mainly social activities.  I did serve as dorm treasurer my senior year, but I don't remember doing much else.  I regularly attended football and basketball games.  And, my senior year, I was in Carmichael when UNC beat Duke after being down 8 points with 17 seconds left.  If you missed it, you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO445W4mtZI

I saw some great performances at UNC, and they were free to students.  Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and Chicago are two groups that I heard in Carmichael.  My freshman year, UNC still held its Jubilee in the Spring.  It was a multiple day, round the clock (or nearly so), Woodstock type event.  Performers in 1971 included Chuck Berry, Spirit, Cowboy, Muddy Waters, the J. Geils Band, the Allman Brothers, Tom Rush, and Livingston Taylor.  Livingston & James Taylor were from Chapel Hill, so we seemed to see them often.

We also had talks from some pretty famous people, including Roger Mudd and Jane Fonda.  My senior year, my dorm hosted a pot luck dinner for a singer who was coming to campus to perform...Holly somebody.  My dorm president received a call from Jane Fonda asking if she could come with her friend Holly.  So that's how I had a pot luck dinner in the basement of my dorm with Jane Fonda.  Here's a picture of Cobb dorm.  It is a huge H shaped brick building.

When I was a freshman, women had to be in the dorm by 1 am and the dorms were locked.  So to get in after that required a call to campus security.  This wasn't usually an issue for me, but second semester, a was working at the computer lab trying to get my program to run correctly and didn't get back to the dorm until about 1:30 AM.  Fortunately, my parents had signed the permission to allow me to come in late or I would have been in trouble.  Cobb is now coed, by the way.

My senior year was the year of streaking.  The Daily Tarheel  advertised a big streaking event aimed at setting a record for the number of streakers at a university.  The title of the article was "All The Nudes That's Fit To Sprint".  The men met in one location and the women in another.  The spectators formed lines on either side of the path and the campus police blocked traffic on the roads that needed to be crossed.  I remember that I had a terrible cold but wanted to witness the event, so I went with others from my dorm to watch.  We stood near the student union.  It was quite a spectacle to see over 200 students streaking.

#52stories - Week 9 (should've been Mar 1st)

Secondary school - part 2.  

I am behind schedule on my stories because I got hung up on what to say about high school.  I didn't have any bad experiences in high school, so the mental block is confusing.  I'm just going to start writing.

West Forsyth High School - grades 10-12: I attended these three grades at West Forsyth in Clemmons and generally rode the bus to get there.  It is literally around the corner from Southwest.  In fact, when I was in high school, we played our football games on the field behind Southwest.  West did not have it's own field as it does now. And, yes, high school was only 3 years--sophomore, junior, and senior.

West opened in 1964.  I remember touring it the summer before it opened because my sister was going to go there.  It is a campus style school, meaning that there are separate buildings for different departments that are connected by covered walkways.  But you go outside to change classes in most cases.  Harold Simpson was our principal and now has a building named after him.  Mr. Anderson, one of my English teachers, also has a building named after him now.

I had decided in the 8th grade that I wanted to major in math in college, so I continued my pursuit of that by taking algebra II and calculus.  All of my math classes were taught by Mrs. Greene.  I felt fortunate to have been exposed to calculus in high school; most of my college friends did not have that option.  I also took English each year and some sort of social studies/history--whatever was required--as well as P.E.  Electives included creative writing with Mrs. Clarke, Contemporary Affairs with Mr. Robinson, and French III and IV.  I don't remember what else.  For science, I took chemistry, physics, and Advanced Placement (AP) chemistry.

A word about AP classes:  All AP classes for the county were offered at Reynolds High School in downtown Winston-Salem.  To take AP, you had to be recommended by a teacher.  My teachers recommended me for history, chemistry, English, and one more, I think; but I could only take one of them. I remember having to choose from among four. They were offered first and last period.  That way, you could have the period after or before to commute to or from your assigned high school.  I chose chemistry.  My classmates included students from Reynolds, Parkland, Mt. Tabor, and maybe more.  My teacher was laid back and we got away with a lot.  Of course, I was not an instigator, but I learned a lot from the other students.  Like, you can take the gas hose and put it in a beaker of soapy water to create bubbles; then touching a flame to the bubbles creates an atomic bomb shaped flame.  Also, if you fill a dropper with acetone and squirt it through the burner flame, it will burst into flames on whatever surface it lands, usually a desktop or the floor.  The guys also taught me to shoot spit wads through a straw...a skill I think I have lost.

My first year, I tried out for majorettes and was selected.  I hadn't twirled in a couple of years, so I was very nervous about try outs.  My senior year, I was selected as chief. That meant that I had to choreograph all of our routines and teach them to the rest of the squad.  We would get the music from the band director. We performed at halftime for all football games, performed at pep rallies in the gym, and marched with the band in parades.  We twirled regular batons at most events, but twirled fire batons at least once during football season.  We always tied our hair back on fire baton nights; and we pre-soaked our uniforms in a fire retardant solution.  Nonetheless, we always lost the hair on our forearms and smelled singed after the performance. The fire batons were owned by the school and consisted of a staff with a "wick" on each end that was about 3 or four inches long and wrapped around the staff.  We would soak the wicks in kerosene and light them just before the performance.  To douse the fire, we would swing them very fast, one end at a time.  More recently, I have seen majorettes use a contraption that looks like a tube that smothers the flame; that would've been nice.  I still have the recipe for the fireproofing solution.  I don't know if you can still get the ingredients.

I also was in the National Honor Society, Y-teens, the yearbook staff, and served as student government treasurer my senior year. 

We had lots of student teachers from Wake Forest University.  Proms were held in the high school gym and were decorated by the students. Students could smoke in a designated area if their parents gave them permission to do so.  Female students who became pregnant were not allowed to talk about it at school and usually finished their studies elsewhere. Female students were not allowed to wear pants; I remember one person being sent home for wearing a pantsuit.  And skirts generally had to touch the floor when you knelt, although that was not strictly enforced if the skirt was just above the knee. I'm sure I could say more, but I've said enough.  

Here's a picture of me with Bobby Binkley at senior prom. I made my dress...and I still have it.