Off we go into the wild blue yonder . . .

Lucy#1 grew up in a small Florida town, but didn't want to live her whole life there. She did not enjoy being a small-town resident. She did not like it that everyone knew who she was, who her siblings were, who her mother was, etc. She wanted to go places where absolutely no one knew her or her family and no one had any opinions or expectations of her based on her older siblings. (Not that her siblings were anything to be ashamed of; quite the contrary. They were bright, productive, successful people, but Lucy#1 was tired of hearing, “Oh! Aren’t you [name-any-sibling]’s sister? I went to school with him/her.”) She wanted to see the world!

Lucy#1 planned to join the Air Force as soon as she graduated from high school. However, at that time, anyone under 21 needed parental consent to enter the service, and her mother refused to sign. I’m not sure why Grandma was dead-set against Lucy#1 joining the Air Force, but her refusal to sign off on the application caused quite a strain in the household.

Lucy#1 was just possibly a wee-little-bit headstrong and determined to get her own way, so she applied her usual tactics to change her mother’s mind. Lucy#1 had a perfectly good job, a clerical position in a firm where she worked her last year or two of high school; she quit. She didn’t get a new job, either! She spent her days hanging around the house or hanging out with friends. If anyone asked why she wasn’t working, she said she was waiting to go into the Air Force. She made it clear to everyone that she was going to goof off until she turned 21 or her mom signed the Air Force paperwork, whichever came first. Eventually, her brother, four years older than Lucy#1 and wise to her ways, talked Grandma into signing the papers. Lucy#1 was happy that he talked her into signing, but not so happy when she found out his winning argument was that Grandma should let her go because maybe then she would grow up!

Lucy#1 loved being in the Air Force. Here’s a photo of her in her uniform during basic training. Doesn’t she look happy? What a proud moment!

Following basic training in Texas, Lucy#1 was assigned to Westover, Massachusetts. There she had her first experience with people knowing she was from the South as soon as she spoke. She liked to tell the story of the first time she ordered a cup of coffee (pronounced with that central-Florida drawl as something close to “kawl-fee”) in Massachusetts. The waiter immediately asked her, “What part of the South are you from?” Lucy#1 was not amused; she was trying to get away from the South and it was following her! She told the waiter, “I live in Chicopee Falls,” to which he replied, “You may live in Chicopee Falls now, but you’re originally from the South. Nobody from Chicopee Falls has ever ordered a cup of kawl-fee.” That was the beginning of the end of Lucy#1’s Southern accent. She learned to speak with no accent at all, and only after she’d been living in Texas for 30 years did a little bit of drawl creep back in.

Lucy#1 enjoyed being in the Air Force. She made friends from all over the country, one of whom was so special to her that my sister is named after her! That friend, Colene, invited Lucy#1 back to her home in Colorado; they hitched rides on Air Force transport planes to make the trip from Massachusetts to Colorado and back. That was quite a fun adventure for two young women! I think I am remembering correctly that Colene’s mother is the one who used the toast that Lucy#1 loved to repeat for the rest of her life: “Here’s to those who wish us well! All the rest can go to hell!”

Lucy#1 met Leroy while she was stationed at Westover. He was also in the Air Force, and worked with a team that traveled around the country installing mag card machines for Base Supply. Lucy#1 was assigned to Base Supply at Westover, so they met at work. Three months later, they got married!! They were married for 37 years, until Leroy’s death. As Colene and I got older and began talking about marriage, Lucy#1 would tell us we should not get married before we were at least 25 and had dated the guy for at least a year. When we protested that she married at age 20 after knowing Leroy for only three months, Lucy#1 would say, “Yes, but I saw your father at work every day, all day and sometimes into the night, under stressful conditions. You find out a lot about a person's character when you see them working like that. Besides, we came from similar backgrounds.” I always saw an implied “I knew what I was doing” in her reply, and I guess she was right because she and Leroy were a very good match.

Under Massachusetts law at that time, anyone under 21 years of age needed parental consent to get married, so Lucy#1 had to, once again, seek her mother’s signature. That time, Grandma signed right away when she received the paperwork. When we asked why she didn’t fight the marriage the way she had fought the Air Force, especially since the courtship was so short and she had never met Leroy, Grandma said, “I figured if I didn’t sign, Lucy#1 would just go to another state or lie about her age. I knew she’d figure out some way around my refusal, so I gave her what she wanted.” Hahahaha!

When Lucy#1 got married, the Air Force booted her out! She hadn’t planned such a short enlistment, but she was willing to give up her own career for Leroy’s. They spent the first two-and-a-half years of their marriage moving from base to base every 60 to 90 days! I can't even imagine moving that often; how exciting and yet how burdensome that seems. It was definitely tricky sometimes: I was born only a day or two after they reached a new base, before they had even found an apartment! As soon as I arrived, Leroy left the hospital and scrambled to find a place to bring the two Lucys home to.  Here’s what we looked like in the new place:

This is one of my favorite photos! Leroy and Lucy#1 are so young! I think they look like they aren’t quite sure what to do next. They figured it out, though, and Leroy's military career gave them many adventures Lucy#1 would never have had if she'd stayed in Florida.

Yay, Air Force! I'm glad Lucy#1 signed up!



And in case you didn't guess it's significance, "Off we go into the wild blue yonder . . . " is the first line of the U. S. Air Force song. 

The last line of the first verse of the song is "We live in fame, go down in flame! Nothing can stop the U.S. Air Force!" One of Lucy#1's cohorts at Westover was dating a Marine and at the end of the Air Force song, she would always add, "Except the Marines." hahaha!

The Trophy

When Colene was in high school, she won a UIL competition through her advertising class, The reward for winning was twofold – a nice, big, trophy and a trip to Hawaii. (Colene’s opinion of this: the trophy was nice, but the trip to Hawaii was the important thing. Duh. Who wouldn’t agree with that?!)

Colene kept the trophy in her room while she finished high school, but she didn’t take it with her when she left for college and then apartment life away from home.

Lucy#1 felt much more strongly about the trophy than did Colene. I suppose that’s the difference between a high-school competition and a mother’s pride! Lucy#1 treasured the trophy. It moved when she and Leroy moved, and after Leroy died, Lucy#1 took it with her to East Texas, too.

When we were sorting and packing for Lucy#1 to move in with me, Colene found the trophy. Her basic reaction was to roll her eyes and wonder why in the world Lucy#1 had that old – and by that time, broken – thing. She put it into the box of items to be trashed.

When Lucy#1 checked on us and found the trophy in the trash box, she was appalled! She immediately retrieved the trophy and declared it was moving to Oklahoma with her. Colene and Lucy#1 had quite a discussion on the merits of the trophy. Susan maintained it should be tossed since it was 30 years old, a piece was missing, and what was left didn’t stay together as it should. Lucy#1 countered that it was an important award showcasing Colene’s brilliance and should be kept forever. Eventually, Lucy#1 snatched up the trophy, and stalked out of the room.

Later, Colene saw the trophy in a box in another room and smuggled it out of the house and into Lucy#1’s big rolling trashcan, no doubt heaving a sigh of relief.

Fast forward to the next morning, when we were to leave East Texas for Oklahoma. The truck had been loaded the night before, locked up, and backed into Lucy#1’s driveway. In the morning, Colene and I went out to place the last-minute items into the U-Haul™. Colene was standing at the back of the truck as I removed the padlock and shoved the door up. As the door went up, Colene began to laugh in a way that I think can truthfully be described as “shrieking with laughter.” I turned with a questioning look. She kept laughing and pointed to the back of the truck, where I saw, standing tall and proud in the middle of the remaining space, the advertising trophy!

I wish we had taken a photo of that, but we didn’t. It was a hilarious sight, the broken trophy standing lopsided and all alone in the empty space. We have no idea when Lucy#1 retrieved the trophy from the trashcan or when she put it on the truck (or really, how she got it on there, because she was tiny and the truck was high off the ground). I suspect our friends across the street may have been her accomplices. However the deed was accomplished, we realized the trophy meant more to her than we had realized, and we merely moved it off to the side before throwing in the last-minute items.

When we arrived in Oklahoma, the trophy went into Lucy#1’s bedroom and I forgot about it until I was packing up her belongings after she died. I didn’t start on that task until she had been gone a couple months, so I found the trophy in the middle of December.

Here are a couple photos of Colene just after she opened one of her Christmas gifts from me that year. Yeah, I wrapped the trophy up and gave it to her for Christmas. She loved it! (Then she threw it in my trash.)

And here is a photo of the trophy itself. Note that it is all cattywhompus and Colene had to hold the top on so I could take the picture. I think there is supposed to be something on that metal spike between the crooked marble and the little man. 

My take-away from this series of events is this:

•  Colene is brilliant, and could have taken the advertising world by storm had she given two hoots about pursuing that career.
•  Lucy#1 was proud of her girls, forever and ever, and kept the tangible reminders of our brilliance and talent.
•  I may be a smart aleck. But even if I am, Colene and I share the same – possibly warped – sense of humor, and can have an amazing amount of fun together.

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:

Hello, Real World. Hello, 1970s.

You may have been wondering, as did the folks back East in Dancing with Wolves,  “Now, why don’t [s]he write?” In my case, folks, depression. I slept through most of 2014 and when I was awake, I mainly gazed vaguely out the window or read a book until I fell back asleep. I did a little knitting on easy-peasy projects, but I haven’t picked up a piece of my main hobby, cross stitching, since Lucy#1 died, because I have been unable to make my mind focus well enough to follow a pattern. I bottomed out in December 2014, clawed my way out of the dark, and have only been back to pretty much full-time normal function for a month or three. I started a more detailed knitting project, but I still haven’t tried to cross stitch. That may be the acid test, and maybe I can give it a shot next weekend.

At any rate, even while I’ve been one big emotional malfunction, I haven’t wanted to give up this family story – I’ve just been unable to write it. So, here we go, back to the life and times of the Two Lucys and our family.

Lucy#1 left me seven boxes of photographs. Some are great big packing boxes, and I haven’t opened those yet, but I took three smaller boxes to Austin a couple weekends ago so Colene and I could divide them up.

What a hoot!! It happens that many of the photos in the three boxes were scenery from various trips Lucy#1 took over the years, and while we said, “oh, pretty” a lot, those weren’t keepers for us. The photos we examined closely and divided between us were the ones with the people we knew. Those people photos are our gold!

Here’s a keeper:

I’m fairly certain this charming family portrait was taken in the early ‘70s, in our kitchen in Austin. It looks to me that I’m trying not to cry in this photo, which suggests my Uncle Gilbert took it. I’m crying or about to cry in nearly every teenager picture he took of me! I hated having my picture taken, would always try to get out of it, and he would eventually (by shame or by physical force) make me be in the photo. However dorky I was, though, man-oh-man, check out my cute family! Isn’t Colene adorable? (But why is she wearing long sleeves while the rest of us are in summer attire? I wish we had narratives to go along with these gems.) Leroy looks the same as always, handsome with a crew cut. And look at Lucy#1!!!! What a doll! It’s fun to remember her being so young and happy!

I sat at that very table every afternoon to do my homework. (Yes, I was the super-geeky teen who got the homework out of the way before suppertime, so I could have my evenings free. If only I were so good about getting things done now! Ha!) I did my homework at the kitchen table so I could talk Lucy#1’s ears off while I worked on the school stuff and she cooked supper. She was my sounding board, my spell-checker, and my problem-solving assistant all rolled into one. She taught me what turned out to be one of the most valuable lessons for life, while helping me with my algebra and geometry proofs, simply by saying, “Read that problem to me again.” She later confessed she had no idea how to do the proofs, but she knew that if she could keep me focused on the problem by reading it to her over and over, I would figure it out on my own. She was correct, with both the high-school math problems and the approach to life’s problems. I’ve learned a lot of things and solved a lot of problems in my life by reading and/or tackling the thing again and again until – presto! -- success.

I learned a lot and laughed a lot that kitchen table. Lucy#1 listened while I fought my way through algebra and geometry and taught me to figure them out (and grow to love them), especially the proofs. She listened to my tales of teenage woes and joys and taught me how to walk on. She told me tales of the extended family and of the people she worked with, their woes and joys, how they were walking on, and her take on their situations. Lucy#1 knew what I needed to know and hear and learn, and she taught me as well as she was able, all at that kitchen table.