Onwards(?) to Lubbock, Texas ... Tedi and Jimmy very much enjoyed dancing -- both ballroom dancing and (after arriving in Santa Fe) square dancing. They would occasionally travel around to other towns in New Mexico, northern Texas, and even Oklahoma to attend square dancing get-togethers, and on one of these occasions they made the acquaintance of some folks in Lubbock, Texas (the Eubanks and the Wilcoxons). Over a period of time one thing led to another, and next thing we knew they were talking about moving to Lubbock. We had little or no input in these decisions, although Tedi would always try and include us in their planning in a pro forma way, asking us very caringly what we thought! By then, however, we knew enough just to roll with the plan of the day. These were all difficult decisions for both of them, as they each had separate careers which they would each like to have been pursuing. Ah, life ...
We were only about a month into Junior High in Santa Fe when the decision was made to move to Lubbock. We had made some good friends in Santa Fe, and the thought of picking up stakes and moving again was not something we were keen on doing, but such was life back then. The cost of moving from Los Angeles to Santa Fe two years earlier had really put a hole in the family bank account, so this time they decided to sell virtually everything they had rather than paying to move it (only the piano was sacrosanct!). We put signs up all around town and posted an ad in the local newspaper (The Santa Fe New Mexican!), and for about a week we had an "everything must go" yard sale. It was amazing -- there was very little left when we finished, and we gave away most of what was left to our Spanish neighbors. Kim and I had a great time playing hard-ball merchants, although in fact our "customers" got away with murder, especially with the mahogany veneer furniture we had brought from LA, which was quite good stuff. The piano alone was shipped through a consolidator who waited to send it off until there was a full load going in that direction. I still remember the movers coming into the house and half a dozen of them hefting the piano to see how heavy it was -- and having the legs fall off from underneath -- Jimmy had unscrewed the bolts so it would be easy to lift the piano up off the legs. The movers were so surprised that they almost dropped the thing, but they ended up just staggering around a bit before setting it vertically on their dolly. They finally drove off with the piano secured, after which we loaded the few sticks that were left, along with our clothes, etc., into a small trailer behind our 1937 Chevy and set off southwards.
Lubbock lies just south of the Texas Panhandle, and the layout of the town reflects a sense of its flatness -- the center of town (the so-called "Heart of Lubbock") is laid out in a rectangular fashion, with numbered streets running East/West and alphabetic streets running North/South. Its population in 1950 was about 70,000 folk -- only about twice Santa Fe's population at that time. Surprisingly, Lubbock is fairly high at an elevation of about 3200 feet, and its weather can be harsh -- frequent sandstorms, an F5 ("incredible damage") tornado in 1970 which virtually leveled much of the city, and in 2013 (after many years of being an "also-ran") it had the honor of being named "Toughest Weather City" in America. Despite the challenges of living in Lubbock (and being a Lubbockite!), however, the people were big-hearted and friendly, and we never felt uncomfortable there, nor did we have the feeling of being outsiders (of course, our skins had the right shading -- it's the first place that Kim and I ever saw two identical water fountains sitting right next to each other in a Sears store -- one labeled "White" and the other "Colored" -- we had penetrated into the "Deep Sooth").
House at Avenue M? and 32nd Street (O. L. Slayton Jr. High) ... Bruce/Kim When Small )Tedi and Jimmy had arranged to rent a house for about a month while they looked around for something that "would fulfill our needs" in a somewhat more priceworthy fashion. We started out in a dumpy little house 3 or 4 blocks from a Junior High School called O. L. Slayton, where we promptly enrolled and started classes (it was in the middle of one of the so-called "6-week periods" used back then instead of "quarters"). No furniture or anything was ever unpacked because we knew it was only for a month! We actually stayed there through Christmas, which was a rather strange one with everything still in boxes, but we survived ...
House at 2904 Avenue P (still at O. L. Slayton) ... After a couple of months in the temporary house, we made the big move to a house on the corner of Avenue P and 29th Street (2904 Avenue P). It was very handy for us, since it was right on the corner of the school playground, and we could run home for lunch every day. Nevertheless it was a real dump with serious gas leaks which I can still smell to this day! (This house was razed at some point, and only an empty lot remains!)
House at 1415 Avenue M (Carroll Thompson Jr. High) ... After a few nights of going to sleep wondering if we would wake up in the morning, Tedi started looking again and found a place we could move into on the first of the next month. The major problem was that it was in a different school district. I had become somewhat attached to O. L. Slayton, partially because it was the first school I had ever been in that had an escalator(!), but also because I had kind of got my eye set on a blonde Texas gal by the name of Bertha(!) and was not at all eager to change schools, but the smell of gas at night convinced me it might be a good idea. Kim tried to console me by telling me over and over that it was quite normal to date someone that went to a different school (Date? We were only about 12 years old!) and so I reluctantly gave in, and before we knew it we were starting up in yet another school! (Sigh -- I never saw Bertha again!)
Our year of 7th grade was off to a roaring start with our having already lived in four houses in two States and about to start in on our third school, and it was only halfway through the year! One of the amazing parts about it was that the Texans were very friendly folks, and we always had people at school to talk to and hang around with, although it didn't really carry over very much to our home life. Kim and I were basically very dependent on each other for companionship.
Tedi and Jimmy were probably very concerned about our progress through school, but Jimmy was so busy just trying to scratch out a living that he barely had any time for us. He would occasionally take us over to the Texas Tech campus on weekends and let us get behind the wheel of our '37 Chevy and rattle along the dirt back roads of the campus, driving past the fields of grain and whatever else it was that they seemed to grow in great quantities (they had a large "ag" school). At one point he accelerated that little old '37 Chevy up to 60 mph (Tedi was not present!) and told us in wonderment that we were now traveling at a mile a minute -- that made our eyes bulge! About that time, his Aunt Eva came up with $50 she sent us to buy two bicycles -- a major step forward in our mobility! Not knowing much about bikes, I stopped one day at a filling station to top off the air in the front tire and, never having used an air pump before nor ever having seen an air gauge, just let the tire fill up while testing it with my fingers (I'd watched some older kid do that once, but didn't quite know what I was supposed to be feeling!). Within about 5 seconds it exploded, leaving me with ringing ears and a long walk home with a severely incapacitated tire! When Tedi saw what had happened, she was sure that the guy at the used bike shop had sold us a lousy tire, so she took it back and made him give us a new one (saying to us "she would wrap it around his neck if he didn't"). The somewhat startled shopowner had probably never before encountered anyone quite like Tedi (who has?) and ended up actually giving us a brand new tire and tube! As we were leaving the shop, he said, "I don't normally like to discourage business, Ma'm, but I've done just about everything I possibly can do for you, and I sincerely believe we are now even. Just, please, please, never come back into this shop again!" At the time I thought it a curious thing to say, but with the passage of time (and a deeper appreciation of Tedi's strengths and weaknesses!) I have gradually came to understand the penetrating wisdom in what the poor man had to say ...
The dump (er,house!) we moved into at 1405 Avenue M had formerly housed some kind of advertising agency, and when they moved out (perhaps under duress) they had left behind a large collection of over-sized pieces of advertising, some mounted in frames, others free-standing, and all only partially completed or perhaps defaced after completion. Tedi and Jimmy had no easy way to dispose of this vast collection, so they moved all of it into a back room which from then on served as a fascinating play area for us whenever we got bored. As in all the houses we moved into, the first step was to rent a sander and polisher in order to sand, varnish, shellac, and wax all the hardwood floors (for their dancing convenience), then to paint all the rooms (in the style Tedi referred to as "Biedermeyer" -- long walls being one color, cross walls another color, and the ceiling a third color, making for very challenging brushwork at the long interesecting lines, something we perhaps never fully mastered!). Since we were moving rather frequently at this point, this was an exercise that was repeated quite often (although not always to completion) before we started in on another move -- sometimes leaving behind rather interestingly composed (or partially composed) spaces! (This house was also razed many years ago, and only an empty lot remains!)
The school at Carroll Thompson was housed in a large, older, multi-story brick building which to our chagrin lacked the escalator which had so fascinated us at O. L. Slayton. It did have a large gym, however, and, when the weather was too cold or windy for the PE classes to be held outside, the gym teacher had an indoor activity I had never seen before (or since), namely to divide the class into three groups -- one group in the center of the gym floor, and the other two groups lining the two sides of the gym -- and then provide the two groups on the sides with a large collection of old tennis balls which they would proceed to throw at the group in the middle. Whenever someone was struck by a tennis ball, that person would trade places with the one who had thrown the tennis ball (not always easy to track!), thus becoming a thrower instead of a target! This activity could become somewhat violent at times, although for the most part it was done in good spirit. There was a similar activity which was done out-of-doors when the weather permitted, in which (instead of throwing tennis balls!) an individual from one of the groups on either side would attempt to run across the field to the other side, while the people in the middle would try and tackle them (or in mixed groups simply tag them). There could be several people trying to cross at once, which could lead to a great deal of confused activity, something which seemed to amuse the gym coach to no end! The whole thing seemed very characteristic of the physicality which young Texans brought to any activity they pursued - something that could be either tremendous fun or simply terrifying, depending on one's level of enthusiasm for participating, as well as on one's physical size and/or speed!
This same enthusiasm for physical activity could be found in the square dancing activities which were pursued by large groups of participants -- huge halls filled with enthusiastic dancers of all ages, with non-participating members of the families sitting arond the sides of the halls watching the goings-on (and not infrequently eating something from the long tables piled with various kinds of edibles, almost always including large trays of deviled eggs with not always identifiable contents!). Every so often Tedi and Jimmy would accept an invitation to visit a square dance group out of town -- Texans are very friendly folk, and they love entertaining, especially guests from out of town! Childress, Texas was a spot that had a very friendly group of square-dancers, and we drove over there a couple of times (we usually went along, both because we also liked to square dance, but also because they felt uncomfortable leaving us at home in the evening). One time we drove over to somewhere in Oklahoma (just a wee bit farther than Childress), but another couple (the Wilcoxons?) were driving, and he had a habit of putting his arm on the driver's seat and looking back at us in the back seat while talking, and also while driving at a hundred miles per hour!! Whoa -- that was not to Tedi's liking, and things got a little frosty before we got there. Needless to say, that was the last time we ever drove anywhere with them. Texans also liked to drink, which was something that did not go over well with Tedi either!
Playing in swimming pools was also a very popular activity during the hot summer months, and Lubbock had at least one huge public pool with several diving boards which seemed to be in constant use and where we learned to dive from a high board -- something that at first can take considerable nerve! One lurking danger at the pools was the spread of various diseases, including polio (this was in the early 50s when the vaccine was just being introduced). I myself contracted a rather severe case of mumps which went undiagnosed even though I complained of it to Tedi (who simply treated it by consulting her Bible and Science and Health and sending me to a practitioner -- a great source of friction between the two of us during those years in which other kids were being treated by the new generation of "wonder drugs" -- penicillin, sulfa drugs, etc.)
After we had been in Lubbock only a very short time, Tedi got antsy about not having anything to do and began looking around for an outlet for her considerable energies! Very soon she came across a retail store in town that needed a fashion artist to do their newspaper ads, and right away Tedi had a job! She was what one might call "slick" at such work in that she could grind out a set of sketches suitable for inserting immediately into a printed ad for the next day's copy of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (!). She seemed to be able to get as much work as she wanted, but apparently it didn't pay all that well -- hey, fashion design in Lubbock, Texas in 1951 was not exactly the cat's meow ... She always seemed a bit antsy, as though she didn't really have an immediate goal, something that might have been one of the things that led to an inordinate amount of planning activities on her part, specifically activities which involved having us paint more walls and sand more floors ...
We ourselves were always a bit mystified by exactly why we were in Lubbock and what we should be doing as far as the "big picture" goes. In our perambulations around Lubbock we would wander in and out of various stores and now and then buy something like a colored pencil or two -- one of the few things that was within our affordable price range. Occasionally, however, we would spy a somewhat more desirable mechanical writing instrument that would stir some inner desire to actually possess it (even though it was quite unaffordable). On one such occasion, one or the other of us was seized by a bout of passion and, after having fondled the pen in question lovingly, proceeded to snap it onto a manila folder we were carrying as though it simply belonged there. As we nonchalantly made our way out the door without making any effort to stop at the cash register, the teenage clerk at the register called out to us asking if there were anything she could do for us. We looked very surprised, and even more so when she trotted over to us saying, "Oh, you had probably forgotten you picked that up. Why don't I just put it back in the bin for you?" After having slunk out of the store without actually having been taken into custody, we looked at one another and decided that it might be best to take that as a sign that a life of crime was probably not something we would be able to profitably pursue! That clerk would never realize the profound influence she had on both of our future lives ...
One very amusing incident I remember from Carroll Thompson Jr. High was the day we were sitting in English class just after we had turned in a required scrapbook with poems we had illustrated with pictures clipped out of magazines -- sort of a combined lit/art assignment! As teachers frequently like to do, the young (and rather attractive) Texas lass in charge of the class had given us ten minutes of "study hall" at the end of the class to get started on the next day's assignment, while at the same time she was able to get a leg up on grading the pile of scrapbooks we had all turned in. The class was very quiet for a few minutes, when suddenly the young teacher burst out into laughter. She then singled me out and said, "Bruce Craig, where in the world did you get this poem?" and proceeded to read the poem to the class, which went as follows ...
Three Chinese washermen there were,
Who toiled the livelong day,
Till one broke down from overwork
And went insane, they say ...
His yellow brethren deemed it wise
To take him down the track
And put him in a madhouse
Till his wits he should get back ...
A fast express roared by just then
And through the trio cut!
That evening on the tracks were found
Two washers and a nut ...
This is, of course, a genre of poem which contains a variety of stereotypes, but in the early 1950s (and particularly in Lubbock, Texas) the sensitivity to such stereotypes had not yet developed to the point it is today, i.e., the concept of "political correctness" was not yet widely recognized. The poem was, in fact, from a 1920s-era publication called "Captain Billy's Whiz Bang" which had been a favorite of my father's in his own youth and from which he had culled the lines for his own (frequent!) use whenever a suitable social setting presented itself. As a dutiful father he had passed it on to me as a part of the family legacy, and I feel as though I have fulfilled his intentions by continuing to have it always at the ready should a suitable occasion present itself. The scrapbook was one such occasion, and I have always felt that I did my sainted father proud by carrying on his legacy in this manner (one musn't aim too high in such matters!). In any case, I tried to convey these sentiments to my teacher in a manner which showed the great respect I held for my father, but she was too busy wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes to fully appreciate the details of the family relationships on which I was attempting to elaborate ...
The school year in those days was divided into six 6-week periods -- roughly three 6-week periods before Christmas holidays and three 6-week periods afterward. At approximately the end of the fourth 6-week period, something of a crisis occurred which caused us to miss almost all of the fifth 6-week period -- the school officials became aware of the fact that neither Kim nor I had a properly documented vaccination certificate (against smallpox), nor did we have any vaccination scars (common at that time) which might have confirmed a vaccination. The solution was simple -- the school doctor would give us each a cost-free vaccination! For Tedi, however, there was an even simpler solution -- waive the vaccination on religious grounds! The situation developed into a cause celebre with Kim and myself as the victims -- we were forced to leave school while the issue literally raged in the background with both sides obtaining legal counsel (Tedi's being provided by the local CS church). We simply stayed at home for several weeks, during which time we attempted to study on our own, started a garden growing a bumper crop of corn and watermelons (in the hot Texas sun), skated up and down the street (to the consternation of the neighbors who couldn't understand why we weren't in school), and in general got very bored -- even wishing we were still in school! The situation eventually resolved itself as both sides tired of the drawn-out conflict, and the authorities simply accepted the vaccination certificates we had in fact obtained in Santa Fe, despite their questionable legal veracity. We returned for the final 6-week period of school, although it was a struggle to compensate for the almost six weeks of missed classes! Such was the end of our schooling in Texas (including what should have been a year's worth of Texas geography and history -- a semester each, something we were never able to make up for and which sadly is still absent in our accumulated body of knowledge to this day!). Shortly after that time, we began packing again for our next move -- to Marietta, Georgia -- in our seemingly unending traverse of various centers of learning in the Southern half of the United States (and what we dreaded as being possibly another round of State geography/history, except with Georgia, instead of Texas, as its subject!).
Bruce/Kim When Small )Tedi and Jimmy had arranged to rent a house for about a month while they looked around for something that "would fulfill our needs" in a somewhat more priceworthy fashion. We started out in a dumpy little house 3 or 4 blocks from a Junior High School called O. L. Slayton, where we promptly enrolled and started classes (it was in the middle of one of the so-called "6-week periods" used back then instead of "quarters"). No furniture or anything was ever unpacked because we knew it was only for a month! We actually stayed there through Christmas, which was a rather strange one with everything still in boxes, but we survived ...
After a few nights of going to sleep wondering if we would wake up in the morning, Tedi started looking again and found a place we could move into on the first of the next month. The major problem was that it was in a different school district. I had become somewhat attached to O. L. Slayton, partially because it was the first school I had ever been in that had an escalator(!), but also because I had kind of got my eye set on a blonde Texas gal by the name of Bertha(!) and was not at all eager to change schools, but the smell of gas at night convinced me it might be a good idea. Kim tried to console me by telling me over and over that it was quite normal to date someone that went to a different school (Date? We were only about 12 years old!) and so I reluctantly gave in, and before we knew it we were starting up in yet another school! (Sigh -- I never saw Bertha again!)