Settling Into Senior Year

Thanksgiving was really special because Grandma was living with us in Des Moines. The only way it could have been better would be to have Dad there. Uncle Albert and Aunt Helen telephoned us on Thanksgiving Day, and we had a short but loving exchange with them about all the events going on with me and the news we were hearing from Houston. Dad’s visit to the doctor was inconclusive. The doctor told him he may have been working too many hours for a man his age, so Dad told the boss that he needed to stop getting overtime hours on Saturdays. My parents were a lot older than the parents of my friends; Mother was thirty-nine years old when I was born, but Dad seemed like a pretty active and healthy fella and my mother had no serious health problems. All I know is that my parents did not seem old to me.

Dad told us that he expected to be in Houston for another month, and then he would be going to San Francisco to work on a skyscraper there. Those big cities out west were really growing and booming. I found myself wishing I could go visit Dad when he went to California. I knew it was just a fantasy, but I missed him so much. We spoke with him every Sunday, but it was not enough. Sometimes those phone calls only made me miss him more. Mother and I started doing some Christmas shopping for him. We had to get a package in the mail soon, so he would get it in time for December 25th.

Thinking about Christmas also made me wonder about how Grandma Von Dornum’s quilt was coming. Recalling all those gorgeous pieces of silk velvet I saw spread out on the bed when she was unpacking was exciting. To think that she was making something that beautiful, and then giving it away was a staggering concept for me. If I made something like that, it would be hard for me to give away. It said a lot about how much Grandma loved me. I know that makes me sound selfish, but I couldn’t help it. It was so glorious. Then I remembered she had said there would also be “a surprise” in addition to the quilt.

I admired people who could think up surprises for other people. It seems like such a thoughtful thing to do. Many times, I got so absorbed in what I was trying to accomplish that I didn’t take any time to think about other people. I had made that my New Year’s Eve resolution last year, to be more thoughtful. Maybe that would have to be my resolution again this year because I certainly had not kept it last year. I would just have to keep trying, and I was blessed to have a role model like my old German grandmother to inspire me.

Mother and I went downtown to Woolworth’s and bought three new pairs of work socks for Dad. I also helped her pick out a new denim work shirt for him, and a package of white men’s handkerchiefs. We didn’t have a lot of money to spend, so our gifts had to be practical; something he needed. I told Mother I would make a card for him and we could wrap them all up together. I wanted to bake some chocolate chip cookies to send to him also, but Mother said the chips might melt, so we decided I would make peanut butter cookies and snickerdoodles. Neither of those had much anything that would melt in them. Mother was right, of course, because although it was freezing cold and snowing a couple of times a week in Iowa at the beginning of December, it was warm in Texas. We didn’t want Dad to get a melted mess, as Mother called it.

As the end of first semester came closer, Mother was inquiring about my grades. My grades mid-semester had been all A’s and B’s, which satisfied Mother and Dad. I assured Mother the grades were still where they needed to be. I wasn’t going to tell her that I really didn’t think it mattered that much if one or two grades went down. After all, I had received my letter of acceptance from the University of Iowa. They also notified us they were going to pay half of the year’s tuition, each year, as long as I was on the swim team there.

I asked my parents if Dad would be able to come home for Christmas, since half my tuition would be paid, but they said he had made the commitment to those companies to work through February, and he needed to keep his word. They could build up a savings account to use in emergencies. I didn’t like that answer. It didn’t make sense to me. I missed Dad, Mom missed Dad, and Dad missed us. So why not just have him come home and let us all be together again? The adults made things so difficult sometimes.

Basketball was going well. We had won all our games so far, except for the East High game. Those girls weren’t as tall as we were, but they sure were scrappy. The rules didn’t allow players to touch other players to get the ball away, but those East girls were very adept at getting the ball the very second we let go of it. They would steal the ball when we dribbled and intercept our passes. They scrambled for rebounds. ‘Hustlers’ is what our coach called them and he said we should try to play more like them.

“You girls have to WANT the ball more than they do,” he’d tell us. He even put up a sign in the girls’ locker room that said, “Move with alacrity!” That sent us all scrambling for the dictionary! I found out that ‘alacrity’ means speed or quickness. If he wanted us to move faster, why didn’t he just say so?

While the girls’ basketball team was winning nearly all our games, the boys’ swim team was losing most of their meets. I went to some of them that were home meets, but Robert Dodd covered most of them. I was writing the girls’ basketball articles for the Oracle, Robert was writing swimming, Herbert was covering boys’ basketball, and Bill was writing the wrestling articles. The fellas on my staff were very easy to work with. They knew exactly what to do. I think all three of them were wishing they had not given up the sports editor job so easily. They never said that, but at some point, I know they all realized the difference between the reporters and the editor was that I get to delegate the assignments to them, and for that I got the title Sports Editor. I was going to get a separate picture in the yearbook. It was like being captain of the football team, only not sweaty.

Soon the first semester would be over. Basketball season went through March, so at least Dad would be able to see some of my games when he returned from California. I would just keep playing basketball, writing sports articles, and studying my books until Dad got home.