For My Brother

My brother hardly ever requests a specific birthday or Christmas present, but he called me a couple of months ago to say that he would really like a hardbound copy of all my blog posts for his birthday in November. I found out a couple of years ago that it is very easy to turn your blog posts into a book--with the help of some online publishing services like Blog2Print. All you do is pick out a cover background/image and make some decisions about appearance and which posts you want to include, and Blog2Print does the rest. Even though he is tech-savvy and no stranger to e-books, my brother, it seems, would rather have a book of my blog posts that he can hold in his hands. So he is going to get his wish, and this is the dedication he will see in his completed book.

Recently, my friends and I have remarked that there are so few people left in our lives that actually remember our parents and specific occasions from our childhoods. I'm sure that most siblings share special memories, but I think mine and Tim's are all the more poignant because it's just the two of us. We remember the ordinary and the special--trips to the grocery store and Sunday drives, celebrations and funny jokes, family visits and sad times--and we're grateful for having the same memories.

Now for a small photo montage featuring my brother and me--

My grandmother has written on the back of this studio portrait:
"Rebecca Sue and Timothy Stephen
Daughter and Son of Jack and Ida Smith
Ages 4 and 7"

Tim and I with our grandmother at Aunt Georgia's

I've always loved these pictures of us
at the house on 42nd St.

Theme: Pets and outdoors
Love the expression on Tim's face in the bottom left pic
I've seen that expression lately!

Theme: Celebrations
I think I've recently seen that expression
in the top photo too!

Theme: Hats

Theme: General awkwardness

Even though we are three years apart in age and four years apart in school years (I was one of the youngest in my class and Tim was one of the oldest in his) we have always been pretty close--except for a brief period of time in which my most common response was to whack him in the back when he annoyed me. We played outside a lot together when we were kids, we took disco lessons together when we were young adults, and now we travel together. We've been to Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington D.C., North Carolina, South Carolina, and Alabama. (We just can't talk about politics.)

I think this photo (and what's on the back of it) says it all. 

My grandmother wrote on the back:
"Becky gave Tim this T-shirt for Christmas to tease him.
They go a lot of places together."

Love you, little brother!

Retirement Reverie

I just finished the first nine weeks of my last year of teaching. Last week I turned 65, and I plan to retire at the end of this school year. I'm sure I feel like everyone who ever retired. I am looking forward to it, and yet my job has been such a big part of my identity that I can't imagine how I will feel without it.

I think it might make it a little harder that I work in a school. School has been the setting for almost my entire life. I made a little chart this morning and realized that I have begun school, in one way or another, every fall since 1958. 

I was 4 years old when I started school. No preschool then, but the cutoff date for kindergarten was November 1, so my October birthday meant that I could start school at 4 and that I would always be one of the youngest in my class. Kindergarten is actually one of the clearest memories I have of elementary school. I attended kindergarten at Pleasant Porter Elementary School with Mrs. Mary Gold as my teacher. I remember a large room with big, sunny windows, easels for our artwork, and centers where we could busily play kitchen or build with blocks. Much, much later, when I began work in the Sand Springs Schools, I met Jill, Mrs. Gold's granddaughter, who was to become one of my best friends.

My first school picture

In the summer before my 5th grade year we moved to my great-grandmother's house on 38th St. just behind Park Elementary School. I attended 5th and 6th grade at Park--two of my favorite years with two of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Richardson and Miss Stewart. Funny what you remember from school; in the case of Mrs. Richardson I remember studying the explorers and admiring a beautiful hydrangea she had placed on her bookshelf. In the case of Miss Stewart it was mythology, The Secret Garden, and a Christmas tree made out of styrofoam balls and toothpicks. A lot of my memories involve the Park playground, too--riding bikes down the "big hill," climbing the jungle gyms, flying kites on the big field.

Off to school

Tim and I with neighbors at Park playground

Seventh, eighth, and ninth grade I spent at Clinton Junior High School, built on the site of the Clinton farmhouse, where my Castle family lived after moving to Red Fork in the 1910's. Having spent most of my teaching career in middle school, I have come to know that age group well. I recently observed to my colleagues that I remember hardly anything about what I learned in junior high--other than outlining, taught by Mrs. Kunsman, and some favorite pieces of literature, such as "Evangeline" and Ivanhoe, taught by Mrs. Cox in 9th grade--but I vividly remember what my friends and I wore and watched on TV and listened to on the radio. I know that we got a good academic background at Clinton, as our middle school students do now, but I also know that teenagers have other things on their minds besides school. I did start on a path in junior high school that would affect my later life; I became a library aide, and thought, even then, that being a librarian might be my future career.

Clinton

School pic from junior high

Mrs. Roberts and library aides at Clinton

I continued to start school every fall through my senior year at Daniel Webster High School in 1971, and then immediately began college at Oklahoma State University in the fall of 1971. Homesickness and a wayward boyfriend brought me back home to Tulsa to begin the spring semester of 1972 at the University of Tulsa, where I finally completed my bachelor's degree in 1977. In between I got married; took classes at Cameron University in Lawton and at the University of Maryland, Far East Division, in Uijongbu, South Korea; and had a baby.

Senior picture

Webster graduation 1971

Every year from 1958 to 1976 I attended school as a student; every fall since, for 42 years, I have started school as a teacher.

In the fall of 1977 I began my first year as an English and speech teacher at Mannford Middle School. When an opportunity arose to become the MMS librarian, I started library school at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, became certified as a librarian, and became a middle school librarian in the fall of 1982. Eventually, I received a Master in Liberal Studies from the University of Oklahoma. After 21 years at Mannford, I made a change of school district and age group, serving as a librarian at Pratt Elementary in Sand Springs for four years. Another opportunity arose, and I made the change back to junior high/middle school at Clyde Boyd in Sand Springs, where I have been for the last 17 years.

Various teacher school pics

Even more school pics

My grandmother's school life was both the same and different from mine. She began school in Kentucky in a one-room schoolhouse. One of her memories was that the school building had two back doors. If a boy went out to the privy, he put a book in one of the doors to signal to the other boys that the privy was occupied; a girl put hers in the other door. I know that she learned from a McGuffey's reader. Later I bought her a set of them when they were reprinted. The Castles moved to a farm between Davenport and Chandler, Oklahoma, in 1907, and my grandmother finished school there, graduating from Chandler High School.

Class picture from Kentucky, about 1902

Two back doors to the schoolhouse

My grandmother with her re-issued McGuffey Reader

In those days it only took a high school diploma to teach school, so my grandmother began her teaching career in a one-room school between Collinsville and Owasso, Oklahoma, in 1915. Her first years of teaching coincided with World War I, and I remember her saying that she spent much of her time breaking up fights between her German-American and Native American students. (I live in Owasso, not far from the corner of 116th E. Ave. and Garnett, which is still called German Corner. I often wonder how far I live from the site of my grandmother's first school.) Taking this job at Owasso was fateful. My grandmother boarded with Mrs. Walker at her boarding house in Collinsville, and this is how she met my grandfather, who lived there and co-owned the Candy Kitchen with his brother.

After three years at Owasso, my grandmother and grandfather married in June 1918, and my grandmother taught in the school year of 1918-1919 at Lynn Lane, a community east of Tulsa. (Lynn Lane is a road and community between Tulsa and Broken Arrow. I read online that a Tulsa Public Schools district school was built there in 1928 and closed in 1975. I wonder if it was on the same site as my grandmother's older school?)

My grandmother's family was firmly established at Red Fork by this time. My grandmother had taken the Civil Service exam, had been appointed postmaster of the Red Fork Post Office in 1917, and had turned over the running of the post office to her mother. So it was only natural that she would apply to teach at Red Fork School, which she did in the summer of 1919. She did this by walking out in a field to talk to the superintendent of the Red Fork Schools, O.C. Brooks. Mr. Brooks was impressed by her initiative--he said that not many applicants would walk out in a field to get a job--and my grandmother started teaching at Red Fork in the school year 1919-1920. 

After teaching through the 1926-27 school year at Red Fork, and after having been married for ten years, my grandmother was pregnant with twins. The twins weren't born until January 1928, but she didn't begin the 1927-28 school year, 'cause you didn't teach in those days if you were "showing." After taking two years off with her boys, she came back to teaching in the 1929-30 school year at McBirney Elementary, where she taught for two years.

Another thing my grandmother and I have in common is that we both went back to school after we began teaching. At some time during the 20's or 30's--I'm not exactly sure when--my grandmother finally received her teaching degree after attending classes at both Northeastern in Tahlequah and the University of Tulsa. I have her Teacher's Certificate, presented in 1932, that granted her the ability to teach "in any grade from the first to the 8th, inclusive, in the public Schools of Oklahoma for the term of Life." 

Life Teaching Certificate

In the fall of 1931 my grandmother changed schools to Pleasant Porter Elementary, where she spent the rest of her teaching career, retiring in 1960 after 30 years at Porter--43 years in all. I can tell you exactly what inspired me to follow in her footsteps; any time we shopped in Red Fork we were sure to run into one of her former students who told me that she was the best teacher they ever had. I wanted someone to say that about me!

Article in TPS magazine about my grandmother's
Land Run "special day"

In November of 1956 my brother Tim was born, and in March of 1957 my mother died from complications of lupus. My dad moved us home to his parents' house, and from 1957 to 1960 they managed, with help from my retired Grandpa Smith and my maternal Granny Altstatt--to raise a toddler and a baby. I don't know what the rule for teacher's retirement or Social Security was in 1960, but I know it had something to do with my grandmother's birthday on March 1, because that was when she retired at age 63. 

My grandmother on her last day at school

And home teaching us

She told me later that she wasn't really ready to retire because she loved teaching. The letter accepting her resignation from Superintendent of Schools, Charles Mason, says "I hope that this relief from school duties will give more time for your family and relieve you from the strain of several jobs." I have to say that this is one place where she and I differ--I am beginning to really look forward to retirement. The funny thing is, retirement for me may still involve school. While I won't be working in a school, I would love to take some non-credit courses at one of the local universities.

Retirement acknowledgement
from Dr. Charles Mason,
TPS Superintendent of Schools

When I started thinking about retiring, I really thought about whether I wanted to meet or exceed my grandmother's years of teaching--or let her beat me. I think I've come up with the perfect compromise. Including 120 days of unused sick leave, I will leave teaching with 43 years credit. My grandmother had 43 real years--so we tied, but really, she beat me.

What I can't say is that I ever taught for the Tulsa Public Schools, but my brother can! I think my grandmother would be very proud of us.

My last school picture

Playlist for My Life

I'm turning 65 in a couple of weeks. Signing up for Medicare and the prospect of retirement have made me look back at my life, and the accidental fact that I have recently subscribed to Sirius XM has made me very nostalgic--because music has always done that for me. My brother and I had lunch one day this summer, when I had Sirius on trial, and I asked him which stations he liked to listen to. We had a great conversation about songs we remembered from our shared childhood, especially the Motown classics that always make us think of summers past. That conversation was the inspiration for this blog post.

I have mentioned before how many of my passions were inspired by my grandmother, but this one definitely came from my dad. My dad loved to dance, and it was an activity he enjoyed until the very last day of his life.

Dance Club at Webster High School 1946--
Daddy is at the top of the right circle, his twin brother Mack to his left

Daddy grew up at a remarkable time and place, dancing western swing at the historic Cain's and Cimarron Ballrooms in Tulsa. Daddy wasn't a great fan of country music in general, but he loved the musicianship of Johnnie Lee Wills and his band, and I remember him singing Hank Williams songs around the house. In high school I was one of only two members of my class who could sing all the verses of "Hey, Good Lookin'." (Jimmy's dad was a western swing dancer, too.)  

I can't remember a time that I didn't love music, and I feel so grateful to have lived at a time when some of the greatest songs ever were being recorded. My growth in music appreciation parallels the changes in music taking place during my early years. Those swing music staples from the 40's and 50's--I was born in 1953--became the rockabilly of the 1950's, then the rock 'n roll of the 1960's and 70's. At the same time rhythm and blues gave birth to the soul music that was such an influence on the British groups that hit America in the 1960's, just when I was old enough to really appreciate them.  

I have a lot of memories tied to songs.

• Playing "Ghost Riders in the Sky" on the jukebox at Martin's Barbecue, one of my dad's favorite places to eat
• Playing a 45 of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" on a little record player on the porch of the house on 38th Street
• Singing "The Name Game" on a school bus going on a field trip
• Dancing to "Woolly Bully" at Teen Town at Reed Park and to "House of the Rising Sun" at a Rainbow-Demolay dance at the Red Fork Masonic Hall
• Singing "The 59th St. Bridge Song" and dancing around a lamppost ("Hello, lamppost, what'cha knowin'") with friends outside the Convention Center in downtown Tulsa while waiting for parents to pick us up from a concert
• Playing "Strawberry Fields Forever" backwards at a slumber party at my friend Jane's so we could claim to hear "Paul is dead" 
• Listening to Credence Clearwater Revival and Three Dog Night on the radio while shopping for a Christmas tree for Webster High School with the other Student Council kids
• Listening to Sly and the Family Stone on the radio while driving from the University of Tulsa to my part-time job at the Philtower Building in downtown Tulsa

But the ones that go on my playlist are the ones that I hear that take me back vividly to a specific time and place. I can't hear the song without the memory.

• I can't hear "Walk On By" by Dionne Warwick without thinking about softball games at the Westside YMCA in the summer between 5th and 6th grade. The memory is complete with the feeling of the grass under me, the whack of bats on balls, and the transistor radio in my hand.

• "Come Together" by the Beatles, recorded in 1969--my junior year in high school--takes me straight back to the Pizza Hut on Southwest Boulevard--the smell of pizza baking and the music from the jukebox rising over the noise of the post-game crowd.

• "Maggie May" by Rod Stewart was the song of the summer of 1971, the summer after I graduated high school and before I started college. When I hear it, I am transported to a car, sitting next to my then-boyfriend (later husband, later ex), cruising the back road to his grandmother's house, holding a cold Dr. Pepper in a glass bottle in my hand.

• "Black Water" by the Doobie Brothers takes me to the most exotic location--a "hooch" in Uijongbu, South Korea, in 1974, listening to Armed Forces Radio. I can almost smell the smells that define that time and place for me--burning charcoal and toasting sesame.

• I was cruising channels on Sirius the other day and heard the melody of a familiar song, "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" by the Allman Brothers.  It's hard to listen to--along with "Ramblin' Man"--because those were the songs we played at my second husband's funeral.  Price told me that hearing the Allman Brothers for the first time was a life-altering experience for him, so it seemed only natural to let their music play him out of this life. Every time I hear "Ramblin' Man," it takes me right back to his funeral.

What songs take you to a particular time and place? What songs make up the playlist of your life?