Old Friends and Strange Bed Fellows

Recently I visited with a friend, Mel, who had lived across the hall from me in Stangel Hall at Texas Tech University 41 years ago.  I was working at the museum when she walked in.  I was transported back to those long ago innocent days in a moment.  It was like no time had passed.

Jan and Mel

Mel was the life of our hallway.  She was always laughing and playing pranks on all of us.  And right when you thought you had her figured out she came up with something else.  She was tall with long blonde hair, and enough confidence for three people. Never intimidated..…ever.  I envied her confidence.

We lived in all girl's dorm and by that I mean, men were not allowed on the hall at anytime.  Mel would walk down the hall with her hair in curlers, in baby doll PJs, her cigarette in a cigarette holder calling us for us to go to the Pancake House at 4 a.m. or something else equally outrageous.

 When the top on her Mustang convertible would not come up she told us to just use umbrellas and hold them down low so the wind wouldn’t blow them…didn’t work…but we all ended up laughing until we cried.

Mel and Stephanie never closed and locked their dorm 
room, consequently when a stray dog wandered on to the 2nd floor it went in their room. He obviously had some kind of intestinal distress because when they came back from class he had pooped all over their room, beds, desks and all.  Everyone on the hall heard the shrieks when they returned.   

We had to wait in line in the dorm cafeteria for every meal.  Mel had nicknames for all the people we saw everyday in line.  There was a very hunky guy who always wore plaid flannel shirts and when she saw him in the line she would burst into the Campbell soup commercial song, "How do you handle a hungry man," who also wore plaid flannel shirts.  The funniest was the couple who were always making out in the line, Mel could never resist and would say under her breath, "Kissssssssy kissy kissy kissy, huggggggy huggy huggy huggy,"  which made everyone around us either giggle or roll their eyes.

 There were about 4 or five of us who loved to ski.  We would pool our funds and figure out how to make a trip to Ruidoso on whatever amount of money we had. On this particular weekend Melanie had a sorority sister who parents had a cabin at Ruidoso.  She and her family were going up and she offered Mel and our hall mates the use of their attic, which was a bunk room.  It was strictly a place to sleep with a bathroom…we would have to eat out, which worked perfectly.

It snowed a lot that week and Mel was not sure she could drive the treacherous 12 miles up the mountain on ice.  Two guys she knew were going to hitchhike to Ruidoso.   They said to meet us at the service station where we had chains put on.   They would drive the car up.   However…there were two of them and 5 of us.  Her new Cutlass was a 5 passenger car. Normally it was about an hour drive but with ice it could easily be two hours.

We met the guys and reshuffled our seating to accommodate them.  Phil sat in the back with Molly, Stephanie and the other Melanie. Mel sat in the front with me in her lap and Mike drove. The wind was howling, and the road was slippery.   There was the occasional hold-up due to other cars not being able to make it around the steep switchbacks and having to be pushed.  We had the heat and defroster on high to keep the ice from building up on the windows. With the seating arrangements, we were uncomfortable at best.  About an hour into the trip, the most overwhelming fumes started to penetrate every inch of the inside of the car.  Stephanie screeches,   “Molllllly!!!! What are you doing???”  She had taken out her fingernail polish and begun painting her nails. Immediately, all the windows went down. Phil reached over, grabbed the nail polish, and hurled it out the window.  Now instead of being it cozy and warm we had a blizzard blowing through the car.   

After another hour we made it to the ski area. The day of skiing was great, it snowed most of the day providing the rare treat of powder in New Mexico.  We all met at the car when the lifts closed minus Molly, who had found her boyfriend and decided to ride back with him.

                                                           Melanie and Jan

When we got into town, we had dinner and headed to the lower canyon to find the cabin where we were going to stay.  Mike and Phil had met up with their friends in town and took off on their own.  Mel had told them about the attic bunk room and how to get there.  

The house was amazing.  It was all cedar inside with a huge kitchen and living area.  The hosts were all visiting, when we arrived, we said hi and all headed upstairs to go to bed.  The room was huge with bunks on every wall,  enough to sleep 15 people.  In the middle of the room were two double beds.  On the outside wall was a double bed, which had a twin bunk on top.  The extra part of the double bed extended into the eave of the roof with only a clearance of about two and half feet and got smaller the closer you went to the wall, the twin bed on top also touched the sloped ceiling wall. The other walls had twin bunks.

We were exhausted from leaving Lubbock at 4 am and skiing all day.  I grabbed one of the doubles, Mel got the other one, Stephanie and Melanie took the twin bunk by the stairs.  Molly was still out with her boyfriend and would be in later as would Mike and Phil. It wasn’t long until Molly showed up making noise, turning on lights, laying her sleeping bag out, picking out what she was wearing tomorrow, to which everyone told her to shut up, turn out the light  and go to bed.  She slipped into the double bed in the eave of the house and zipped the sleeping bag up as loudly as she could.   Several hours later Mike and Phil showed and asked the snoring room, “Where can we sleep?”  Sleepily Mel said, “Any bed that is empty.”

Early the next morning the hostess rang her bell and called to us that breakfast was ready if we wanted to come down.  Still drowsy from the long day before, we all just sort of laid there trying to wake up when we heard Molly’s voice.  “Who are You?!”  Then we heard Phil’s voice,

“I believe we met yesterday. Who are you? and what are you doing in my bed?”.

“Your bed? Well obviously I was here first since I am on the inside.”

“How do you expect me to have seen you in the total darkness…and you rolled up in that sleeping bag?   I thought that was a pillow.  You didn’t tell me to leave when I got in!”

Molly unzipped her sleeping bag, whacked her head on the sloped ceiling as she got on her knees, then started to stomp out of the bed stepping on top of Phil, dragging the sleeping bag across Phil's head, with him flailing his arms trying not to get trapped by it.  Then she headed down the stairs stomping like an elephant.  The rest of us, now wide, awake, were rolling around, laughing hysterically. 

Jan

We didn't see Molly skiing that day. We heard she rode home with her boyfriend.  I still laugh every time I think of that ski

trip......

New Skis

The Gossip Club

Watching The Astronaut’s Wives the other night on TV, I was reminded of a tangled web that happened in our lives in the 1950s.  When my parents married they bought a new house on 18^th Street. They were only 4 houses from the seawall and only 6 feet above sea level.  That meant major concern whenever a hurricane was heading our way.

Five years later they decided to move.  They moved seven blocks further from the bay, just a block off of the downtown area, on 13^th Street. The house was a bit bigger and higher above sea level.  My mother Faye had always worked.  She and Dad decided that this would be a good time for her to stay home with me.  I was two when we moved.

It only took a few days to meet the neighbors.  One of Mom’s good friends, Louise, lived only blocks away and could walk down to our house….which she began to do on an almost a daily basis. Opening the door without knocking and calling in, “Coffee ready yet?”  Mentioning the coffee with Mom to others, several more ladies began to show up. 

 Louise had a four year old boy, who was an absolute terror.  She allowed no one to correct him under any circumstances.  When Eddie was around nothing was safe…even me. Louise had an appointment, stopping by our house she told Mom,” It will only take about 30 minutes and I am absolutely desperate…could you please keep him?” Then, there he was, with us. Anything I played with he snatched it away and either broke it or threw it.  Mom was so frustrated she took us to play in the back yard.  While we were pulling out the trike and wagon to ride, Eddie disappeared.  Mom was frantic, until she heard him laughing.  He had climbed up on the roof and was running back and forth, taunting Mom.  She got the ladder, but by the time she got it set in one place, he took off running to the other side. Standing there looking up at him I could see her frustration mounting.  I was glad she was upset with him and not me.  Finally seeing her anger, he climbed down.  Mom got ahold of his arm and proceeded to spank him.  She told him he would never taunt her and do something that dangerous again.  In the midst of the whole scene, Louise drove up in time to see Eddie getting spanked.  She marched up to him took his arm and left without a word.  It was several days before she showed up at the house again.

But….the morning coffee continued.  Mom and I would be on our way out the back door to run errands when we would hear the front door open and people coming in for coffee.  Mom would reluctantly turn around, going inside to meet our coffee guests.  By now there were four ladies showing up every morning.  Pauline lived across the street, she was older than the rest of the group.  I loved her, she treated me like I was her grandchild.  She would color with me and talk to me.  She had worries far beyond my understanding.  Her husband was an alcoholic.  She never knew where he was at night and sometimes he would come home in a terrible rage.  It wasn’t uncommon for her to show up with a black eye or bruises on her arms.

In the middle of the night I woke up to loud banging on our door.  I could hear Mom and Dad moving through the house, the door opening, and crying…not just crying, but the crying of someone who was hurt.  I peeked around the door to see Pauline with blood all over her face…..I ran into the room asking, “What is wrong with Aunt Pene?” Mother shuffled me off to bed and told me not to worry.  

The next morning when I got up Pauline was folding up bed sheets from the sofa.  Mom was telling her to call the police and not go home.  She was more concerned with getting out of our house before the coffee ladies showed up.  She told Mom, “Can you imagine the stories about me they would spread all over town?”  Then she hurried out the door.

When Dad got home Mom was very upset.  She told him, “I just realized that these people showing up at our house for coffee have become the gossip center of town.  I don’t want our house to have that reputation. What can I do?” She burst into tears.  He asked her,
“What do you want to do about it?”

“I want to go back to work, I want to find a teaching job.”

“Do it then.”

“But what about Jan? I have to find someone who is willing to keep her.”

“Just give it time, Faye, doors will open.”

The next day, Dad was working the evening shift.  We all got up early and went downtown to the little café for breakfast.  We ate leisurely and then drove out on the dike to see the birds, not getting home until all the coffee ladies would have long been gone.  From then on the front door stayed locked every morning.

A few weeks later a lady came up to mother at church.  Her name was Mrs. Hudnall.  She told mom that she kept children for mothers that worked.  She told mom if she ever decided to go back to work she would love to keep me.  The next week a principal from Hitchcock called Mom.  He told her that a teacher had quit suddenly mid-year, “Would you be interested in the job?”  Of course she was.

When I was six, we bought a brick house, outside of town with, as my mother described it “wall to wall” carpet.  It was closer to Mom’s school and I was starting to school in the fall.  There was never another morning coffee group.  Louise and Pauline continued to be Mom’s friends. Louise’s kids (and me) grew up. Pauline’s husband Ralph quit drinking and became a very kind thoughtful man.

Not quite The Astronaut’s Wives, but…….