My Dreams Fizzled

Yesterday, Helen spoke of a book written by my High School Business teacher. She’dchecked it out of the library in Green Forest. I own the book and looked on my selves for it but it’s a small volume and I didn’t see it. I ran across memories that took me back to my High School years,

I was editor of my a high School paper. I put out a little paper either once a week or twice a month. We had a sports writer, a feature writer, news page, proofreader. I did the editorial page. We had to have a good typist. Patsy Gardner on the left had that job. She typed the paper on those mimeograph pages that were thin plastic stuff and more than one layer. Then Kenny Harvey and I ran them off on one of those old machines with the purple fluid. The staff correlated them and went from to room selling the editions. They were a nickel or a dime.  I only have the last one we printed. On the feature page we did a bio of a senior. The one above is my interview.

Left to right and what happened to them.

Patsy got pregnant that year. By graduation she was showing. She had 2 boys and divorced. She was so smart, our valedictorian. She lives in Florida. 

Dortha works in hospitals in records. I met her once a a few years back. She was administer of records at a hospital. She married but later in life. No children.

Our teacher Mrs. Smith is next. She retired soon after this. Her husband taught science.

Kenny Harvey is next in the photo. He attended U of A on a scholarship and became an engineer. He passed when fairly young.

Patty Davis is next. She married Junior Norris after graduation. They had a dairy farm.

Steve Vowell is next. He’s a lawyer and bald headed now. 

I’m seated next. My life has not been the one I had dreams of.

Hope Arnold is my assistant. She’s the only junior on my staff. I don’t know what became of her.

Linda King is next and she was one of my friends. She went to U of A majoring in home economics. Her last job was home economics director for an Arkansas county. She lives in Green Forest. No children. She married but divorced. 

Steve, Patty, and Linda are all my distant cousins. I didn’t know this fact then.

Our last Tiger’s Roar was dedicated to me with a cover sheet. Fayenne Farmer, the lady who wrote the book I searched for, wrote this paragraph about me. I was surprised. I won editor of the year in Arkansas that year. I earned a scholarship to Ouachita Baptist University.  I was very poor. Going half way across Arkansas to a College with no money was frightening.  We just had an old truck to drive with a single cab. My parents were older and after me still had 3 children to support. I couldn’t go to Little Rock to accept my award. I didn’t really even have a way to get to Ouachita. So I let the first of many dreams fade. 

I choose a College in Missouri for poor folk. Everyone there was poor like me. My father went to high school there.  He delivered me there in his truck. All was well. It was about an hours drive from Green Forest. I worked 12 hours a week to help pay my fees. Someone rich sponsored me and paid the rest of my bill. You had to go year around. There were no summer breaks. Each worked more hours in the summer.

There weren’t many majors. So I picked education. My older brother was an athlete and had a scholarship for four years of college. He majored in physical education. I just picked the same major. Only sport I was good at was running.  I had no dreams of being a coach. I wasn’t even that interested in sports. I was into health, but they didn’t offer that degree choice. I stayed at School of the Ozarks, two summers and 3 semesters before transferring to Arkansas Tech.

 I don’t know how I even got to Russellville. Maybe Fleta or Clayton brought me. I don’t think Dad did, but I’m slipping in memory. I was at tech without a car and very little money. I survived, but I soon gave up more of my dreams to survive. 

I started earning my way at 14.  I was a live in baby sitter for 12$ a week. I got Sunday off. I turned 15 that June. That little money gave me better clothes and I started to dream of what I wanted in life. I was not dreaming of getting married and having children. I was different from most of the kids I went to school with at Green Forest. I found friends with like goals. Other groups were into boys and finding a mate for life. I wasn’t thinking of the same things. Some were drinking and searching thrills. Not me. Some of the boys were getting drafted and going to Vietnam.  Drugs were not a big issue in my little town. Kids didn’t get involved with drugs very often.  Alcohol was the drug of choice. Smoking was the “thing” a lot of kids did. I didn’t do either.

Here we are putting the paper together “by hand”.

I may forget everything soon. These a just some fading memories.  My dreams and how my life evolved were different, but I have Laura and Erin Marie. They are my greatest accomplishments in life.