18

I’m eighteen and it’s early summer, steamy hot, and 1974. The Eagles are scheduled to perform at the state fairgrounds, an outside concert. I tell my boyfriend *Ricky, I want to go. He wants to go, too. His parents are out of town and he decides to “borrow” their pickup camper so we can be there the night before. Ricky’s best friend *Billy wants to go.

 

I’m the only one with a real job, so I contribute gas and buy some of the food. Billy also brings food. We arrive at the fairgrounds late afternoon where I see mostly pup tents, vans and people prepared to sleep under the stars. My boyfriend is nervous about using his parent’s camper and announces that we can’t use the camper bathroom; we cannot leave any evidence that we’ve used the camper. I’m not a happy camper about this decision.

The boys and I sit inside for a couple of hours talking until they decide to use the campground restrooms. I wait for them outside and watch hundreds of people morph into a thousand people, mostly under the age of thirty. Day is turning to night. Campfires light the grounds. When the boys return, we stay outside to talk and watch our new world unfold and the camp’s dynamics change.

“I’m going to the bathroom before it gets any darker,” I say. Neither boy offers to escort me. I go alone.

I find a path to walk on until it ends then change my course. I have to weave through people who are sitting and standing who seem high and happy. Some are clothed, some are naked. My upbringing tells me not to look, but of course, I do.

I walk into a thick haze of marijuana smoke that covers me and I cough. I hold my breath and realize that the building is still too far away and lift the lower half of my smock shirt to cover my nose and mouth. Now, my stomach is exposed which invites another problem, unwanted attention.

“Come here, baby,” one guy says.

“Where you goin’?” Another reaches for me.

I feel more annoyed than scared and let my shirt fall back down. I hold my breath again until I meet a group of people dancing around a campfire chanting something. For some reason, this scene reminds me of the book Lord of the Flies. I’m holding back my laugh when a man grabs my arm and motions for me to join them. I shake my head and pull away.

Ahead, I see the restroom and follow a skinny girl with long straight hair, wearing a tank top and jeans, into the women’s side. Once inside, the girl turns around and I see she’s a dude with a beard. I walk back outside again to see if I’m in the right place. I am. As stall doors open other men, as well as women, exit. I want to look like I’m ok with it, but I’m shocked. I hurry in and out vowing not to return to the restroom until morning.

Back at the camper, we go in and lock the door. I can’t sleep much because there’s lots of loud unrelated music playing and people noise. Around 1 a.m., I hear a scream and look out every window, but see nothing. A couple of hours later, the camp roar goes silent and I sleep for a couple of hours.

The next morning, the boys and I are up early. We eat our junk food and decide to visit the restroom. Most of the time, things seem to look better in the daylight, but this time it’s only different. Bodies still litter the landscape—lying flat and still. The fires are out, but leave behind glowing and blackened embers.

We need something to do and head for the concert area to claim a seat. Hours later we join thousands of people to listen to The Eagles in concert. It was worth it.

 

*Names changed.

Perfect Timing

by Teresa Powell Coltrin

My little brother is four. I am seven. I’m in our kitchen walking past my mom who’s been washing clothes all morning, in a ringer washer. I look out the screen door and push it open—slightly.  Flies are lined up on the screen waiting to come in, some fly up, but with perfect timing I close it before they do.

 “Stay in or out—the flies.” Mom reminds me again since I’d been running in and out, of the house, all morning.

Through the screen, I watch my brother jump off the low back porch to the grass and climb back on. He does this two more times. He has strapped around his belly, a holster. In the holster, he carries a shiny cap gun. He sees me, pulls it out of the holster and shoots. I’m not offended because he’s been shooting everything in his path all morning. He jumps off the porch again and disappears around the corner of the house.

It’s summer, mid morning and hot. I open the screen door again—wide this time. With my eyes squinting from the sun, I step out on the planked porch. I let go of the screen door and it slams behind me.

“Teresa, stop letting the door slam,” Mom says, emphasizing the syllables in my name. I hear impatience hovering in her quiet voice.

My brother jumps out of nowhere and shoots me again. “Play cowboys and Indians with me.”

I shake my head.

“Play with me.”

“No.”

He jumps off the porch and shoots the sky. I’m hot and walk back inside again, letting the door slam. “I’m thirsty.”  

 Mom frowns and stops what she’s doing. “Get a drink.”

I go to the water bucket on the table against the wall. We’re not allowed to yet, but my parents draw the water from the well outside the back door. They use a long metal cylinder attached to a rope and a pulley that is lowered into the deep well. The cylinder collects the water and after it is pulled up out of the well it is centered over the bucket and the water is released by pulling a lever at the top.

I stand on tiptoes to reach inside the bucket to grab the cold metal dipper full of water and lift it up and over. Familiarity helps me expect the cool crisp taste before it reaches my lips.  Later when we move to the city, I’ll discover how fresh our well water tasted compared to tap water. I try to steady the dipper and aim for my mouth, but it sloshes, spilling drops on my everyday dress and on the floor before I get to drink it. After I gulp down the water, I use the back of my hand to wipe my mouth and my dusty bare toes to wipe the floor, leaving a muddy streak where the water had been. I drop the dipper back in the bucket and walk to the screen door again.  This time, I remember to close the door carefully behind me.

When I step onto the porch, my brother shoots me again. “Play with me,” he yells.

I’m feeling annoyed, but say, “I’ll play cowboys and Indians if first you play dress up with me.”

My brother is thinking, probably remembering that dress up means dish towels tied on his head with a ribbon to simulate long girl hair. He shakes his head no. I’m thinking on how to convince him to play what I want to play. I hear a gunshot in the distance and watch my brother collapse to the porch floor, his little gun falling beside his body. I run to the door and scream that he’s been shot—that he’s dead. My mother shoves the screen door wide open and runs to her little boy lying on the porch. As I watch him, my arms become weak and tears have rushed to my eyes. Then I notice his mouth twitches slightly and becomes a grin. His eyes pop open. Then just as fast as he had fallen, he jumps to his feet.

Perfect timing for a four-year-old cowboy.


 

A Good Deal

As unwilling captives, we breathed in exhaust fumes mixed with dust and a little fresh air that blew through the open windows, in clouds. The school bus sailed along the gravel road until it hit a pot hole which sent its occupants half a foot in the air and back down again, in their seats. At the front of the bus, a small child flew into the aisle and sat there.

My friend, *Jack Tate, with his back to the bus driver and feet in the aisle, faced me from the seat diagonal to mine. I sat on the edge of mine leaning in, while holding onto the bar at the top, to hear what he was saying. I could see Jack’s mouth forming words, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“What?”

“I have baby rabbits for sale.”

We’d left childhood behind and blindly walked into adolescence without much warning. Jack was a year younger, a nice kid, easy on the eyes with dark blond hair and beaming smile. He was my bus friend.

“How much?”  

“Two dollars.”

“That’s a good deal,” I said, not knowing if it was or not. Our conversation ended when Jack waded through the kids in the aisle and got off the bus.

I don’t remember how much bargaining or pleading I did that night at home, to be able to buy a bunny, but the next thing I remember I was at Jack’s house buying one of his rabbits. I named her Suzy. 

Suzy was a doe with soft white fur and pink eyes. Her front feet were dainty, but her back feet were long with sharp claws. I learned fast how to hold her to avoid injury. For me, it was love at first sight. Suzy did her rabbit thing and I provided most of what she needed to grow into an adult. That summer, I planted a garden just for Suzy so she’d have fresh lettuce every day. When her trust in me grew, we bonded and soon I had introduced her to a leash (baling twine) so that we could take short walks together--girl and rabbit.

I spent hours sitting in shaded clover patches, my long skinny legs outstretched, with my rabbit grazing from the safety of a rope. Even though she seemed content, I recognized wanderlust in Suzy's pink eyes. Maybe she longed for another rabbit or a greener yard. I knew the instinct was there and how one clover could lure her to another, without a thought of me or the consequences.

One dew covered morning, I rushed outside to feed Suzy grabbing a handful of lettuce on the way. That day, I planned to do something that young pet owners often neglect, clean her cage and go for another walk after that. But, as I walked up the hill, I could see Suzy’s cage and that she wasn’t waiting for me at the door as usual. I ran over the slick grass to her hutch only to find that the door was not latched and Suzy was gone.

The door wasn’t mangled and there was no evidence of a struggle, only a door left unlatched by me. I believed that Suzy was still alive and with a racing heart full of panic I started searching, our mini-farm, high and low for my bunny rabbit. After that, my family helped in the search walking the open fields behind our barn and the woods surrounding us.

We didn’t find Suzy. But, for weeks after that and even the next spring and summer, I watched for white spotted baby rabbits that would give evidence that Suzy had indeed survived and was a part of the wild rabbit community, but there were none.

Rabbit love is complicated—but only for the human.

~~~

 

*Name changed

Rural Entertainment




When I was a kid, in the nearby town of Buffalo, MO, there was an outdoor movie theater—a drive-in. I know that doesn’t seem unusual since there were many sprinkled across the USA then, but our drive-in movie was special. The Autoscope did not have one large screen but somewhere around 120 screens (opinions vary on the number) positioned in a circle. Cars would pull into individual parking spots facing a screen that was about the size of the old projection screen—give or take. Next to the car on a post was a clunky box with a cord attached. You would hang this box on your rolled down window which would allow you to hear the movie.

The quality of the picture, for that time, was great. And the audio coming from the clunky boxes was good, too.

Memories of my Autoscope experience:

•     Hot muggy nights watching a movie from your car

•     Food smells from the concession stand

•     Cars cram packed with teenagers

•     First dates

•     Family outings

•     Kisses

•     Cats and dogs coming up to your car

•     My boyfriend (became my husband) wanting me to sneak him into the drive-in in the trunk of his car so he wouldn’t have to pay.  (He’d done it before. I declined. But, I thought it was funny.)

•     A violent second date with someone who took out his frustration (can't remember why) on the windshield of his father’s car and thankfully not me. (I can’t believe I dated him 2 or 3 more times before ending it. He was clearly unbalanced. I discovered the reason why—later.)

I watched many movies at the the Autoscope, but I only remember a few. The first (I think) was with my folks: Bonnie and Clyde. I thought the movie was very exciting. I found out later the movie didn’t cover all their murderous ways.

The thing I remember most about this movie was Bonnie’s (Faye Dunaway) hair.  If you know me at all then you may remember my curly hair woes.  I tried to make my puffy hair be smooth and fashionable like Ms. Faye Dunaway, but without the product and machines of today and it was not going to happen. Instead, my best friend who had  straight hair mimicked the style perfectly.   

I can only remember a few titles of the movies I saw at the Autoscope, but there were others.

•     Bonnie and Clyde

•     The Towering Inferno

•     The PoseidonAdventure

•     Deliverance

•     And a slasher movie .I can’t recall its title but I can remember the slashing--yuck.

Sometime in the mid (I think) 70’s the Autoscope’s individual screens were replaced by a big screen. We took our children to see movies on it, but it wasn’t the same.  

Read more about the Autoscope

Reminisce magazine has an article and photo of it here. 

You can see a postcard of it here.

An article (1954) from the Box Office Magazine seen here tells about the Autoscope projection process, shows an aerial view of the drive-in and a photo of the concession stand.

Missouri still has a few drive-in movies see here. One of which, I'd like to visit is the Sunset Drive-in in Aurora, Missouri.

Significance

You would think growing up in a rural community in the 6o's and 70's would mean a life without entertainment, but not at all. We lived within 30 miles of a couple of towns that held entertainment opportunities. The drive in movie theaters were just one source of fun.  

I will always cherish my childhood entertainment memories with one of those being the Autoscope Drive-In.

Sources: Wikipedia, http://www.reminisce.com/2011/03/autoscope-drive-in-movie-had-a-screen-for-every-car/, http://www.americandrivein.com/states/mo.htm,

Hurschel Powell - Grandfather

GRANDFATHERS

You hear about grandmothers all the time because they are awesome, but grandfathers are just as significant in a child’s life. Boys need their fathers and grandfathers, but girls need healthy opposite sex relationships, too. These relationships are essential to a girl’s emotional growth and often determine how they (females) relate to men as adults.

I feel connected to both my grandfathers even though they passed away years ago. Frank Dugan, my maternal grandfather, passed away when I was around six months old. We lived with my grandparents the first few months of my life. (You can see their home in my sidebar.) I’ve always felt a connection to my Grandpa Frank, but that will be a story for another time.  

Today, I write about my other grandfather Hurschel Powell who holds a very special place in my heart. He was a farmer. He was in the military. But, most importantly to me, he was an excellent grandfather.

MEMORIES

When I was 3 or 4 years old (I think) my grandfather needed to go to town 20 miles away. And he took me with him. I remember feeling happy that I got to go with him. I remember a couple of things about that day:

·         I rode in the middle of the front seat switching from standing in the seat to kneeling. I could see better that way. No seatbelts in the car then. Car seat? What was that?

·         I liked walking hand in hand with him, but my favorite part was when he lifted me in his arms and carried me. I could be right next to his heart and pleasant face.

·         He let me pick out a toy. I chose a tiny glass doll.

Other memories of my grandpa:  

·         He took my brother and me for rides on his tractor.

·         He was never cross with me. When my grandmother would scold me or tell me I couldn’t do something, he would explain why it needed to be that way.

·         He was very handsome.  

·         He was tall.

·         He took me fishing in a creek on the farm.  

·         He knew who I was as a child and let me be me.

INFLUENCE

I knew my grandfather loved me. His hugs said it. His attention to me said he cared. In the last months of his life when he was bedridden from Parkinson’s disease and I sat by his bed painting my fingernails, he couldn’t talk easily but the twinkle in his expressive eyes told me how much he loved me. I was 12 years old and was still a fan of his.

I've seen in my dad these past years reflections of my grandfather. That's a good thing.

SIGNIFICANCE OF FAMILY

The influence of family is significant to a child. We know that healthy family connections contribute to a child’s well being. Children learn some of their identity from their parents and extended family members as well.  Healthy family relationships teaches a child useful strategies for living life.  

Whether you're a parent, aunt or uncle, a grandparent or whatever your role is to a child, do it well.

  

Music Traditions in the Ozarks

by Teresa Powell Coltrin

I love music. Music lives in my soul and often determines my mindset for the day. I must admit, my music preferences are eclectic. I listen to everything from classical to country from rock to hymns. I love Reggae and Christian contemporary. I like it all—nearly.  Right now, two of my favorite artists are Adele and Francesca Battistelli.  

When I was a child, this country girl had a desire to play an instrument and more than one, if I could. I started teaching myself to play the guitar around the age of 16 and learned to play a little snare drum at school.  I still can’t read music.

Because I enjoy music, it was important to me that my children learn to play an instrument. I don’t know if I gave them a choice or not. (I may have bullied them into playing an instrument.) My son played the guitar and the alto saxophone. My daughter played the flute and the tenor saxophone. THEY learned to read music.

My family gatherings weren't laced with musical performances, but all around my rural culture families and community focused on music. The Ozarks tradition, like many cultures, has its assortment of music to enjoy and to pass on to their children.  During my childhood, music brought people together in many ways in our community.

Home

Growing up, my parents played Country Music on their stereo and radio. I remember the soulful sound of Hank Williams and many others. When I hit high school, I thought the music my parents listened to would kill my very soul.  It’s very typical of a teenager to disagree with their parents’ choice of music. I mean, how could they like Country {Western} Music (that was the label then) over 70’s Rock? But, Country Music is now on my list of favorites, too.

Community Gatherings

Often people got together on a Friday or Saturday evenings to play their instruments, sing, dance or just listen.  For the non-players, this was a way to socialize and be entertained.  Admission was nominal or free and there was always food available.  For the musicians, it was a venue in which to show their talent by playing their instruments and/or singing to express their love of music. People still get together in this area to play their banjos, guitars, and sing. Even today, our local musicians will often put on concerts to raise money for good causes.

Churches

I was no stranger to going to church. My mama made sure of that. And, I grew up following my grandma to church revivals. I don’t’ know why I frequently went with her, since it’s hard for me to sit still for long periods of time, but I did. I’m not sure there is anything more beautiful than church hymns. Hymns are imprinted on my brain.  I may have trouble remembering names, but I’ll always remember the words and music to Amazing Grace.

Churches also had their monthly “singings”.  Once a month, communities would come together in a church and take turns singing. This would go on for hours. The adults would show their love for the music by clapping their hands to the rhythm or singing along.

The Ozarks Traditions

Ozarks Traditions- Our Heritage is a web site dedicated to music of the past in our area. One area that interested me was Shape Note Singing where “four-shape and seven-shape notation systems were used by people in social settings, in “singing schools,” and in church congregations” (Ozarks Traditions-Our Heritage, 2010).

Recently, OPTV (PBS) aired a show Ozarks Musical Traditions that talked about preserving music traditions of the Ozarks.  In the past, people didn’t just play instruments and sing; it was a part of who they were and how they were recognized.  Music tradition often outlines a culture. You can watch it here.

Significance

Music has always been a part of me. As a teenager, I sang in a group of girls at “church singings”. When I learned the guitar, for a couple of years, I was in a rock band. As an adult, I’ve sang many solos in church and with my children. One man in my church compared the tone of my voice to my maternal grandfather. He died when I was six months old, but his musical voice and love for singing might be living through me. I feel honored.

I’ve only known one person who didn’t like music. But, for the rest of the world, music is a huge part of the culture we live in.  

Our music traditions might just be the tempo that drives our journey.

Images: My guitar.

Walking and Revelations

How times have changed. I wouldn’t dream of trespassing today on someone's property. But in earlier times…

I took a walk in the woods that led to a lone house in the middle of a field before No Trespassing signs were on every tree and every fence post, when you knew your neighbors extremely well and might have been relatives. No one cared much if you took long walks on their property back then. No one was hiding their marijuana crops, nor did they want to keep their land only for game hunting--then.

That day, I walked along a faded trail that led to a weather worn abandoned house that had once been a home that held a family, before my time. My imagination helped me consider that the tractor trail beneath my feet had been used for wagon wheels or an early made car.

From a distance, I could see movement in the glassless windows that looked like waving hands.  I shivered and wondered if I should continue, if I had discovered squatters or if I was entertaining figments of my imagination. So, I walked on.

It was mid autumn and with each step the cold ground crunched beneath my booted feet. The crisp clean country air hosted aromas of my childhood: trees, river and cows. Woodsy smells engaged my senses with tender intrusion and produced mental images from the past—some I recognized and some I did not.

Although my first impression of the ramshackle house was of decay and loneliness, I soon realized it was not isolated at all, but a house amid a life copious in nature.  My stroll allowed me a glimpse of three deer grazing in the meadow near the house. A young raccoon hurried up a tree startled by my interruption. A lone squirrel ran past me with food.  Several hefty crows scolded each other. And, high in the sky, buzzards circled with something in mind.

At that moment, I had a revelation. I had become an intrusion in an ecosystem of excellence.

As I neared the house, I could hear the river rushing its banks. The inundation of rainfall two days before my walk had filled the river banks. Although the river didn’t run through this particular piece of land, the roar of its travel reached my ears.

When I finally arrived at the old building, I looked back and realized how far I’d come to get to the house standing in the middle of a field. The waving that I’d seen earlier was strips of unrecognizable fabric that could have been a curtain, at one time. My determination to arrive at the house had scared the wildlife away and I was alone--nearly. Now, I felt out of place in a place where everything had its purpose there, except me.

I learned some things that day.

I learned it's ok to explore life, but there are places we don’t belong and that includes people we shouldn't entertain. And, my inflated self importance took a back seat that day to the revelation that I'm only a tiny speck on very big planet.

I finished my walk around the house leaving only my footprints in the frosted grass as my imprint and walked back home. AsI left that beautiful place, I breathed in the clean crisp air deep into my lungs one last time.

It's been a long time since that walk. My life then and my life now do not mirror each other. In fact that person is long gone and nearly forgotten.