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But It’s a Dry Heat
Nice to Be Needed

Most of the old sayings have an element of truth to them. The one that comes to mind at the moment is, “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy”.  The fault with this expression, as written, is that it is gender-selective, and should be rephrased to include country girls, too. Both times that we resided on the Kennedy farm, Mom joined right in on whatever the current agricultural activity was, whether in the garden or in the fields. She had grown up with that and was completely comfortable with it. Since, in the Kennedy household, there were seven hungry mouths to feed, and sometimes there was “company” for Sunday dinner, Mom decided to raise some chickens to help with the demand for chickens to fry. When E.V. McCollum & Co wanted Dad in Tulsa right away, the chickens were too small for frying, and with the Smiths gone, the demand was reduced by at least half.  A conference was held and a decision made.  The Kennedys wouldn’t need that many, so the chickens would go with us and be dropped off at Grandma‘s farm, along with the studio stuff! With everything loaded, and tarp flaps adjusted to ventilate the chickens, and good-byes having been said, we were on our way to Tulsa with feathers flying.

Summer of ’47 was off to a good start with a visit to Grandma’s, though we couldn’t tarry; we had  learned our destination was Memphis, Texas, in the southeast corner of the panhandle. Birthdays had come and gone for my brother and me, and we both got our wrist watches, though mine was just for decoration. I still didn’t know how to tell time. I didn’t know it then, but help would be on the way. Within six months, I was to meet Beverly, who would be my teacher of time-telling. Though our visit to Grandma’s house was short, we didn’t waste a moment and filled our days with memories. J.B.’s bb gun came out of the closet for some serious target practice, using the stacked cord-wood for a back-stop. Dad and Mom were busy nearly every moment, sorting and finding suitable storage space for the studio items that had served their purpose for now, but would be needed again. The truck had been repacked, and the chicken yard had become a blended family, with the white youngsters joining the traditional Dominiques (dominickers). We were given a big send-off and a bigger sack lunch, and a supply of the best well water in northeastern Oklahoma. It was already hot, and dry, in west Texas.  

This would be a summer of firsts. Some of them were monumental milestones for a seven-year-old. This was the summer I learned to ride a bicycle. I did not own a bike, but a neighbor kid did. We lived in the north side of a duplex and the other side was occupied by John McCauley and his wife and two children. Paula was my age and Swain was a couple of years younger and had not quite grown into his bicycle. I think it had been in the family for a while. I would push him around on it, but his legs were too short to reach the pedals. I earned a little “bicycle time” helping Swain, and eventually learned to ride it, but my coordination was such, I would try to push both pedals at the same time instead of alternately. My guess is that this was somehow tied in with the dyslexia, unless my primer teacher was right.

This is also the summer I got vaccinated against typhoid fever. I remember how relieved I was to find this was not done with a needle. All the paraphernalia for the vaccination was supplied in a tall glass test tube, that when emptied, could double as a glass whistle, and a reward for the youngster receiving the treatment, as well as the incentive for being vaccinated, and becoming one of the tooting-tots with a new toy. My extreme dislike of needles nudged the border of being a phobia. Later on, while in the sixth grade, we had received our “Weekly Reader” newspaper, and our teacher was having us take it topic by topic and discuss each subject. I was distracted by the illustrations accompanying an article on medicine. Right next to the headline was a drawing of pills, capsules, and a hypodermic syringe. I was focused upon it like an arsonist at a fire. The next thing I knew, I was being gathered up off the floor by the school nurse, assisted by the teacher. I suppose we could go ahead and call it a phobia.   

This was the summer we discovered Kool-Aid. There was a large shady spot on the driveway on our side of the house by mid-afternoon every day, and we four children could be found there, playing quietly; it was too hot to be running around. Paula would have her colored chalk and would draw on the concrete driveway pavement, the same thing repeatedly, a long-haired blonde lady, in profile, wearing a coarse hair net to confine her tresses. Each one would have the name of a current Hollywood starlet, though they all looked the same to me. The three boys would have a supply of small gravels to outline a system of trails and roadways along which we would push our Jeeps and trucks to the accompaniment of our repertoire of engine and gear-shifting sounds. When the time seemed right, a delegate would be selected to go to the moms and petition a nickel to go to the corner neighborhood grocer for a packet of Kool-Aid. On alternate days, one of them would spring for the nickel. The other would furnish the pitcher, ice cubes, and sugar, stir it into a cool beverage, and produce a tray of jelly-jar glasses that were permitted outside. You could almost set your watch by this ritual. Why else would a lady have a nickel in her apron pocket ?

This is the summer I first found a dollar bill! I was sitting atop the corral gate, pretending to be in the saddle, astride my cow-pony, when I glanced down inside the cow pen and saw George Washington glancing back. At the back of the property, in the alley, was a cow shed with a pen and a corral, and, yes, a cow. It was apparent that the bill had somehow gotten baled with the hay, and managed to survive the recycling event, though somewhat the worse for wear, which is a good recommendation for the printing stock used by the U.S. Treasury Department. With the application of some foamy soapsuds and delicate restoration, it was deemed redeemable by the bank, and Dad brought me home a nice fresh one.

This was the summer I made a corsage for my mother. With my macho reputation at stake, I am here and now revealing that one of my hobbies, for over six decades has been flower design and arranging. Since I “went public” about my doll sculpting and porcelain doll making in the 35-year reunion yearbook ad for my Indian doll, I guess it can’t hurt anything. I had learned what a corsage was from Paula; she always put one on the “Starlets” she drew, so we each started trying to fabricate one out of materials at hand. The results were definitely not something we were going to take to the fair, and Paula got disheartened and found something else to do. I, on the other hand, was just getting started. Trumpet vines were blooming profusely on a telephone pole out back and some elm sprouts had some nice symmetrical foliage. Mrs. McCauley found me some crinkle ribbon in red: close enough! It wouldn’t pass muster when I was working seasonally for Mr. Tex Meyers at Brookside Florists, but mother was thrilled. My stint with Mr. Meyers was my only time to work in a shop and he talked with me about staying on, attending a school in Denver and managing his shop, but I was not in the position to miss the income and pay for the school at the time. I have done many weddings, including my own, and for friends and relatives, and at one time held a tax permit and business license so I could keep everything straight with “Big Brother“. It is so nice to be needed, knowing ‘someone’ cares!

This is the summer I met my first Jewish family. Mother had tried to explain in terms that a child could understand what had been going on in Europe under the Nazi regime. A lot of it was in the newsreels at the “show”. She also mentioned that this wasn’t the first time for them to have trouble with the ruling powers around them, that it was in the Bible. I mentioned that one of the kids from the neighborhood told me they didn’t use soap to wash their dishes. She explained to me that the kid had it all wrong: they didn’t use soap made from lard. Then she warned me not to believe any of the stories without talking to her first, and under no circumstances was I to repeat any of it for any reason. I continued to be friends with their son and play outside their home on its large corner lot, about five houses up the street from us. To mom, it sounded too much like the things said about her Cherokee friends,

This is the summer I attended my first Vacation Bible School and memorized my first “memory verse”. We had some very nice ladies helping us make things out of plaster which we would paint on another day. While they were helping us with our crafts, they would be telling us stories and would let us answer questions and win paste-on stickers for right answers. For another project, we rubbed the bristles of a toothbrush dipped in white paint to splatter “snow” on colored paper after laying a cut-out design on it. When the paint dried, we could pick up the pattern, but the design would remain, These were some clever ladies, and they had already discovered Kool-Aid!

This was the summer I learned to play “kick the can” and was allowed to play outside until the street lights came on; this would change when classes resumed at school. Then it would be, “inside, bath time, hit the sheets by bedtime“! Staying outside was a way to attempt to beat the heat. Our duplex faced the west and the sun beat down upon it from mid-afternoon until sundown and made it unbearable to try to sleep at night. Dad improvised and “home engineered” evaporative boxes for our fans to draw outside-air through and expel the heated air from inside the house. This could also be called “The summer that we didn’t light the oven and all our cornbread was the skillet-stove-top variety”!

Paula and Swayne McCauley; she didn't quite make it to Hollywood, but both did well with their future!