Redneck part six.....not all work, some play.....Last week I had finally gotten my long promised Work Study job and it was as a janitor in the Student Union...I was honestly embarrassed by it and hated it at first , but I grew to like the perks that came with it ..Mr. Veach was a good teacher of custodial skills and I would ask for a janitorial job when I later transferred to NSC. Later in my Senior year , while doing my Intern Teaching, the college would not let me have a job.. They thought it would interfere with my studies, well they were wrong ..My custodial skills got me a job at Grace Baptist Church in Tahlequah for the 67-68 school year as their one and only custodian and man Friday...All went well at school, so what they didnt know paid my bills for that year...But back to 64 and my life then...It was not all classes and work that year... It seems I had something to do each and every night of the week that usually turned into fun.. The college put on dances every Monday night in the ballroom in the Union and my circle of guys almost always went to them... Most of us didnt dance but the girls sure did and it was fun to watch them do the dances of the day... We didnt have a live band to play, just some other kids playing records, yes records, as tape wasnt in general use at that time... One of our guys did dance tho , and if you guessed Steve Brown, you would be right...He was popular on the dance floor as most of us only danced the slow dances, and the girls wanted a guy to twist and/ or two step with them....The guys with sisters in their age group it turns out, could dance as their sisters taught them...My sweet, beautiful sister Margaret was 13 years older than me and was married when I started 1st grade, so no dance instructions there... One of the girls was a really good dancer and had all the moves that kept the guys eyes on her...Her name was Betty Jane Wyatt and she was from Millerton, down by Valliant,Ok...I danced a few slow dances with her and we talked about classes, hometowns and boyfriends [ she didnt have one ]....Later she came and asked me to two step with her and I had to say no... I didnt know how but I didnt tell her that on that first night...More on Betty later,yes...... Tuesday nights were for playing pool or snooker in the game room of the union just after dinner [supper for me ] for a couple hours...I wasnt very good at that either as I didnt play my first game of pool until I was a junior at Smithville High School.. I hate to share this next part, but it has been 50 years and it is the truth.. That first game of pool I played was in the Tavern, at the Narrows south of Smithville, on the banks of the Mtn. Fork River...I believe it was Gene Wall and Garland Owens, both seniors on our Basketball team that introduced me to the game of pool, they were skilled and looking for a sucker...lol.. They introduced me to a lot of things that year....good guys, still see Garland at our school reunions.....Anything we were doing on Tuesday nights in 1964 had to be finished by 9 pm...You in my age group, rack your brains for a minute...Where were we all at 9 pm ?? In front of a TV somewhere, watching the most popular show on TV!! You younger ones dont know, but we were looking for a one armed man who had killed the Doctors wife and he got the blame.....THE FUGITIVE, best show ever... We could not have TVs in our rooms and each floor had a TV lounge ,100 or so guys would crowd into that room to watch that show on a big 21 in. black and white TV ...Pity the poor guy that was watching a movie or something at that time, we took the TV over..lol........Now Wednesdays were different for me.... Wednesday was the night I went down to the BSU with Charles Sampley from Springer and his girlfriend ...They were a good Baptist couple and knowing I was a Baptist they invited me to go with them...The BSU was a fun place, they had food, always a good thing and we played good Christian games...The young folks that ran the place tried to relate to us college kids and I guess they did Ok...Some of those Baptist girls were really pretty, hadnt seen them before as they didnt come to the dances, sinful they said....I later found out Baptists back then did NOT believe in dancing, drinking, smoking, dipping or playing cards or pool.....Later on I would get around to asking one of the real pretty ones that didnt dance out on a date....I told her I didnt dance either, which was true, believed in it, just couldnt do it...lol....I had to rent Cappy McGoodwins [ from Woodford ] old blue 54 Ford to take her out for a coke...Cappy was a nice red headed boy who was real close with his money, which is why I had to rent the car....Ill just say this about all that and then move on...She might not have believed in dancing, but she sure believed in kissing....Yes I really liked that BSU on Wednesday nights.... Thursday nights we as a group had set aside to study for the usual tests on Fridays but that had to be during the quiet time in the dorms after 10 pm...The dorm was a madhouse of activity each night , music of all kinds blaring; from my George Jones to Hermans Hermits and the Beetles...Showers were not in the rooms, so there was a constant stream of guys to and from the showers and they were singing or yelling as they went by.....The rooms had no AC, so we mostly kept our windows and the doors open to keep a draft of air coming through from the hallway.. The only phone we could use was a pay phone and it was just about 20 feet from our door and it had a steady stream each night...When it rang, which was often, someone had to answer as it was usually someones girlfriend or mother and there would be yelling for so and so to come to the phone....so you see no serious stuff til after 10 pm....So we needed something to keep us occupied from about 7 to 10 pm on each Thursday night...We , my roomie Butch Rollins and I, came up with wrestling matches...A room by room challenge of those in our circle, me and Butch against the two guys in each of the other rooms....We would turn our beds up on their sides to get them out of the way and put the two mattresses and box springs on the floor for our wrestling mats....By the end of the semester we had quite a crowd coming to watch and or participate in the fun ..If anyone got mad or tried to really hurt someone they were banned, which I dont think ever happened.. We would just throw each other down and try to pin them or hold them til they gave up...It was lots of fun and burned lots of calories and kept us out of more serious trouble, which by second semester would happen to some of these boys , sad to say.... Friday and Saturday nights could get lonely in the dorms as most of the guys went home on weekends to see their girlfriends, parents or go to their High School games....Only two of us from my circle were in the dorm on weekends ,John Kozlow from Newark, New Jersey and me....John never went home the whole year and I only went on Thanksgiving and Christmas that first semester....At Christmas, they made John leave, told him no one could be in the dorm...Trouble was, John had no where to go and could not afford a motel...So my room was on the back side of the dorm and he asked me to leave my window unlocked, which I did...He was then able to go and come thru my room with no one the wiser...I really felt sorry for John as he was worse off than me on being lonely, it was his first time to be away from home also....Later on I would go home with some of my friends for the weekend....a couple weekends I went to the Goddard ranch south of Sulphur with Charles Dunlap whose stepdad Joel Coffee was the ranch foreman, Charles had gone to HS at Dickson...When I found out Butch had a sister [ Barbara ] who was a senior and not dating, I went home with him, to 604 E. Comanche in McAlester on several weekends.....more on both these excursions next time.....it is my bedtime...
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 02:21:12 +0000
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