Go! Go! Go!

Lucy#1 loved professional football. The Dallas Cowboys were her favorite team, but she was a huge fan of the sport and loved to watch all the teams. Leroy was not a big fan; he would sometimes start watching a game with Lucy#1, but he didn’t really care and usually fell asleep in front of the TV. Football was a Very Big Deal for Lucy#1; she never missed a pro game if she could help it.

Lucy#1 worked in the office at a local sporting goods store. Most of the employees (particularly the college-aged guys) were serious football fans. Every year at the store, there was a football pool, and every year Lucy#1 paid her money to be in the pool. She was often the only female who participated.

She won, too – not every year, but more than once, and often enough that it bothered some of the guys. They didn’t like losing their money to a woman as old as their moms. (Lucy#1 was probably in her mid-40s at the time.) One year at the store Christmas party, a couple of the guys struck up a conversation with Leroy and told him he should stop helping her pick her teams since he didn’t work at the store. Leroy got a huge hoot out of the looks on their faces when he told them he didn’t watch football, that Lucy#1 was the football fanatic in our house, and she chose her own teams for the pool. Those guys were shocked! Lucy#1 became a bit of a legend at the store after that!

When I graduated from college, I moved back home for a year to build up a little nest egg. I was not a football fan, so at first when the football games came on, I would go to my room. Along about the end of the first quarter, Lucy#1 would come to my room and say, “Come watch the game with me.” I’d protest that I didn’t like football, and she would say, “It’s no fun to watch by myself. Your dad’s asleep. Bring your book to read and just sit in there with me. Please?”

Ugh!! I didn’t want to do it, but she was so persuasive that I would go to the living room to be companionable. Unfortunately for me, I could not concentrate on a book while the game was on, partly because for whatever reason my eyes were just drawn to the television when it was on, and partly because Lucy#1 was a very enthusiastic sports fan. She celebrated every good play and chastised at the players and/or coaches on every bad play. She would leap to her feet and yell, “Go! Go! Go!” when someone was running the ball down the field. She would excitedly say, “Did you see that?! Wow, what a throw!” or whatever was appropriate for an excellent play, and would make me watch the replay.

After a while, I gave up even trying to avoid watching football and would be in front of the TV with Lucy #1 when the game began. In the beginning, I had no clue what was going on or who the players were or what positions they played or the purpose of any position. (What’s a tail back? He’s the tight end? What??)  My ignorance did not last long because Lucy#1 set out to educate me on her favorite sport. She explained everything I did not understand; she happily answered all my questions. By the end of that season I had a decent understanding of the game. I would jump up and yell at the TV when the Cowboys were playing. I knew the name, number, and position of each and every Dallas Cowboy, and I knew their faces, too. I had learned the name and number of every single quarterback in the NFL, and knew every team by its city, mascot, and team colors. It cracked Leroy up to no end and it kind of cracked me up, too, in a sort of horrified way. Lucy#1 was very proud of me, and would quiz me, I think just for the entertainment of knowing she had taught me so well.

As planned, I moved into an apartment after a year of living at home. I never voluntarily watched another football game. I think Lucy#1 may have been a little disappointed that I didn’t become a fan after my year of total immersion, but she didn’t hold my lack of interest against me.

I’m still not a football fan, and at this point I’ve forgotten pretty much everything Lucy#1 taught me about the game.  To this day, though, whenever I see anything about the Dallas Cowboys, I remember that crazy year of football watching, and grin just a little bit while I think of Lucy#1 and me yelling at the TV together.

(By the way, the year of TwoLucys Football was so long ago that Tom Landry was the Dallas coach and Danny White was the quarterback. And Charlie Waters was mighty fine at the time. J)

It Happened at Lake Airhead

My dad was one of seven brothers. By the time Leroy retired from the military and we moved to Austin, my grandmother and four of his brothers were living in the Wichita Falls area.

Wichita Falls isn’t all that far from Austin, so our family would occasionally go up there for the weekend. When we went in the summertime, quite often the whole extended family would get together at the lake on Saturday morning and then we’d have a big fish fry there at suppertime. So much fun!!

A couple or three of the uncles had purchased adjacent lots at the lake, so while there were only two cottages, there was a lot of land to roam, and all the lots were right on the water. I don’t remember whether anyone ever went swimming there, but everyone fished, and there were trails to wander on.

The first time the Lucy family went to the lake, Colene and I were totally baffled because the cousins kept saying we were going to Lake Airhead. Colene and I thought we knew what an “airhead” was, but we could not figure out why anyone would name a lake that. We didn’t want to ask, so we just looked at each other and said nothing. Eventually, all became clear – we saw a sign indicating where to turn for Lake Arrowhead. Colene and I had not gotten the hang of the North Texas Twang, and what the cousins drawled out that sounded something like “arrah-head” we extrapolated to “airhead.” Even after we understood the lake’s correct name, we continued to say, “Lake Airhead” and no one except Lucy#1 ever gave it a thought or gave us a look.

One of the times we were at Lake Airhead, one of Leroy’s brothers who lived in West Texas was also there with his family. There were probably at least 30 family members there, and it was a real treat to see everyone. There was some sort of party or music festival or something happening farther on down the lake shore that afternoon, and it broke up around 9:00, just when it was getting good and dark. The family members, young and old, were gathered outside at one of the cottages finishing up our ice cream (another bonus to spending time at Lake Airhead – there was always homemade ice cream after the fish fry), when out of the darkness came a young man. He startled us because no one saw him coming until he was in our midst – which, by the way, is a good way to put the back up on a Texas man sitting around with his family. So, he was already off to a bad start with my daddy and the uncles, and he did not improve their opinion of him on second look because there was no question but that he was stoned. He wanted to know if we had a phone he could use to call someone to come get him because, as he stated it, he had been “disconnected from [his] party.”

All the cousins old enough to “get” it were giggling because he was so obviously stoned and was rambling on and annoying the uncles more with every passing second. Finally, his words ceased and someone told him where he might find a phone because we didn’t have a phone, and he wandered on off into the night. There was a lot more laughing at this poor, lost, stoned guy after he departed (aunts and uncles as well as the kids), but the best part of all was when the West Texas aunt said, “Well, why did he leave the phone anyway?” Her questions was greeted with curious looks, so she elaborated – “Well, he said he was disconnected from his party. Why didn’t he just call back on the phone he was using when he was disconnected?” Her teenage boys rolled their eyes mightily and cleared up her misunderstanding. (Note to anyone under 40 – this was in the ‘70s and the only phones were land lines.)

Another trip to Lake Airhead gave the extended family their first clue that my quiet personality had some hiccups. One of my uncles was an Assembly of God minister and my grandma was from the Church of Christ, and they were strict teetotalers. The other aunts and uncles (including my parents) were not quite as, shall we say, enthusiastic in their church preferences (we attended Methodist church when we went), and were known to drink a beer or two on occasion. Interestingly, whenever my preacher uncle’s family and/or my grandma were at the lake with the crowd, the other aunts and uncles “hid” their beer by putting it in paper sacks, and then drinking out of the sacks, much like the town drunks in old movies drank their beverages. My parents just went on drinking their beers (if they were drinking beer; Lucy#1 tended more toward iced tea) like normal. The paper sack thing mystified me, and the explanation I was given by an aunt was that they were hiding the beer to show respect for the teetotaler viewpoint. I thought real respect would have been shown by not drinking beer in front of them at all, but hey, I was just a kid.

So, being a kid, on one of the trips to Lake Airhead when every adult except my parents, my grandma, and the preacher was drinking out of a paper sack, I asked one of my cousins where to get a paper sack and he gave me one. I then put my Co-Cola into the sack, and wandered around doing my usual lakeside activities while drinking my Coke. My parents looked at me; my daddy gave me a wink and Lucy#1 rolled her eyes, but they did not say a word.

I went on about my business, which means eventually the older cousins and I retired to one of the cottages where I yanked a couple decks of cards (also forbidden in front of my grandma) out of my purse and challenged my cousins to a game of Spades. We were merrily playing our game and drinking our Cokes (still in the sacks) when my aunt came in to speak with me. It turned out that the younger cousins (I was the third-oldest) thought drinking out of a paper sack looked like fun, so they all imitated me and got Cokes and paper sacks, too, and by the time my auntie hunted me down, everybody except my parents and the teetotalers was drinking something out of a paper sack.

Aunt Shirley, the sweetest lady in the world, came into her kitchen where we were playing Spades and quite firmly told me this:

I get your point and you are probably right, but now all the little kids are drinking out of sacks, and it has to stop.

Then she gathered up the remaining sacks from the kitchen drawer we had raided, made us give her the sacks we had wrapped around our Cokes at the table, and left without another word. Poor Aunt Shirley! Lucy#1 later told me that Aunt Shirley thought I was hilarious, got a huge chuckle out of the whole affair, and was really sorry she had to chastise me.

On one visit to Lake Airhead, someone had brought a couple mini-bikes. There were plenty of trails to ride on, and it was good entertainment for the tweens and teens. I wasn’t very good with the mini-bike, despite my cousin Kenneth’s best tutoring, but Lucy#1 loved it. She had been riding all over the place and having a great time on the trails when some hill and she had a disagreement and the mini-bike tried to leave her behind. She lost her seat, but not her grip on the handlebar. It took her a minute, but she wrestled the bike to the ground. One of the cousins (who was even more quiet than I, and who had spoken so few words to me that I was uncertain he even knew my name) happened to be watching out the window and said enthusiastically, “Lucy, come look at your mom! She’s wrestling the mini-bike! Wow, she’s strong!” I think her stock went up tremendously with the cousins after that because none of their moms would even consider riding the bikes but Lucy#1 not only rode one, but wrestled it into compliance! 

Colene reminded me of this (in her words): My remembrance is that we had rarely if ever heard that cousin speak, and that day he didn't just speak, he practically shouted "Lucy, Colene, come look at your mom!" I wasn't stunned by Lucy #1's feat - she was always a badass - I was stunned he had spoken AND knew our names.

Those days at Lake Airhead – fun times!

Here's a photo of Lucy#1 on a mini-bike:

Big Ol' Texas Hair

Our family was not one to have formal pictures taken. We were all shutterbugs at one time or another, so there are tons of snapshots of everyone, but posed studio photos? Not so much. We had only one family portrait made, and I am reasonably sure it was taken the summer before I was a senior in high school. At the time, I remember thinking we were all looking p-r-e-t-t-y g-o-o-d, but when Colene and I came across this photo last month, a bit of shrieking laughter occurred. Quite a bit, actually, and not just from the two of us. If my memory serves, pretty much everyone with whom we shared the photo joined the laugh riot, along with a continuous chorus of “oh my gosh!” that was not exactly complimentary in its delivery.

Here’s the portrait:

Um, yeah. That’s probably one of the most unflattering family portraits Olan Mills™ ever produced, but I don’t think much of the blame can be laid at OM’s door. Really, the ‘70s are to blame. Lucy#1 is wearing a bulletproof polyester pantsuit that was actually in style and her glasses are not even hopelessly outdated (just a little outdated). Colene’s big wire-rim glasses are the height of fashion! I’m definitely stylin’, what with that awesome sweater-vest thingy, and I’m here to tell you that pink shirt was very fashionable, very shiny, and very polyester-silky, so much so that I wore it for years. (I actually wore it until the day this happened: I was in college and was wearing this same shirt, which I still loved and still received compliments on even though the buttonholes were beginning to stretch out a wee-tiny bit. I went out to lunch with my (female) coworker and as I climbed out of her low-slung car in the office parking lot afterwards, a (male) professor stuck his head out the second floor window to say something to us . . . . just as my front-closure brassiere flew open and caused my shirt to unbutton. Yeah, right there in front of God and Karen and Dr. McKee and a whole wall of windows at Oak Street Hall. You can bet I whipped around in a flash, and Karen and McKee both swore they never even knew anything had happened, much less saw anything except my back as I faced the parking lot with my hand to my chest, but that was the end of that shirt for me.)

The most awesome thing about this family photo, however, is the hair! Oh my goodness! Leroy looks just like the retired military guy he was, and Colene’s hair really isn’t that bad, just not cut well for her naturally curly hair. Colene really couldn’t help what her hair was doing, what with being in elementary school and being at Lucy#1's mercy on hairstyles and hair stylists.

But no one will ever be able to say what we Two Lucys were thinking. Lucy#1 hated getting her hair cut (obviously, no styling occurred at all), so she went to the most convenient, least expensive place she could find and got in and out as quickly as possible. As for me, I actually liked my hair, despite the fact that it looked like a helmet. (I didn’t actually see the helmet thing at the time, but I should have, I really should have. Earlier in the very summer this photo was taken, a boy I met in Florida told me that he had first seen me walking from my grandma’s house to my aunt’s house and wondered why I was wearing a helmet. But then, he said, the breeze had picked up a piece of my hair and he had realized that was my actual hair and not a helmet at all. True story.)

This photo being the product of a family-portrait session, it’s no wonder we didn’t have additional group photos made. At one point when I was in my mid-20s, Lucy#1 made Colene and me each have a portrait made during an Olan Mills™ special event. Colene’s came out fine, but thank goodness I don’t have those photos at hand because I’d have to include them and that would just show that I did not do any better with my hair after I hit 20 – in the portrait, I was growing my hair out from a crazy Rocky Horror Picture Show Magenta kind of perm, and after straightening it – since it was straight on top and frizzy at the ends – it was flat at the top and thick and wide at the bottom, very triangular, and I appeared to be wearing a wedge of cheese on my head.

Finally, FINALLY!!, in the mid-80s, after many pleas by Leroy and Lucy#1 for us to have our picture taken professionally again, Colene and I took a photo in which we were gorgeous! Yes, 100% fabulously, stunningly, gorgeous. No horrible hairstyles. No braces. No bizzarro clothing. We had finally grown up and we were lookin’ GOOD, baby! Behold the beauty, y’all:

Yowza! Really, there are not enough superlatives to describe how great we (thought we) looked here. Colene and I loved this photo! Woo hoo! A good likeness at last. We had this lovely photo framed and gave it to Leroy and Lucy#1 as a combined Mother’s/Father’s Day gift. They loved it! They hung it on the wall in their living room because they were so proud of their incredibly beautiful girls.

The photo stayed on the wall until long after Leroy had died, when Lucy#1 sold the house and moved to another town. She didn’t hang the photo on her living room wall in the new house because 20 years had gone by and she had better photos – of her grandchild! –  that she wanted to hang instead. The photo of the Big Ol’ Texas Hair Girls was stored in a closet.

Then, ten or so years later, Lucy#1 had to leave her house and move in with me. When Colene and I were helping her pack up her house, Colene’s son found the photo in the closet. He did not recognize us. (Can you believe that?) We all three laughed long and hard over the photo, and over how slam-dunk perfect we had thought we were. We propped the photo up on a dresser in the guest room where it could not be missed and went on packing boxes.

Later in the day, Lucy#1 came into the guest room and saw the picture standing at attention in front of her. She asked, “Where did you get that?” We explained that D had found it in the closet.

Lucy#1 asked, “Where did that come from? Did one of you store it here?”

“No,” we replied. “This is your photo of us. We gave it to you and Leroy when y’all lived in Bryan. It used to hang in the living room.”

And Lucy#1 declared in a firm voice, “I have never seen that picture before in my life.”

That’s the heartbreaker of dementia. We propped our Big-Hair selves up on the dresser so Lucy#1 would get a laugh when she came into the room and saw us, but she didn’t get to enjoy the joke after all. Don’t you just hate that?