My Astrological Sign & My Cousin, Waurika, the Fortuneteller

Growing up as a child and teen, I observed my Northeastern Oklahoma Grandparents, Alta and Robert, planted the ever important yearly garden based on the correct phases of the moon. This was accomplished with the annual Farmer‘s Almanac. Now some way or another planting a garden based on planet alignment seems related to astrology and the alignment of planets at one’s birth. With this in mind, astrology had a family sanction from the get go for me.

My Grandmother Alta’s family including my Mom was very into anything to do with fortune telling, from reading tea leaves to you name it. My second cousin, Grandmother Alta’s niece, Waurika Shreve Porter (1921-1999) “a crusty tough Arkansan” was devoted to astrology, when not reading tarot cards for paying clients. In the 1980s and 1990s while in her sixties and seventies, Waurika could be found in Mexico doing paid readings for vacationing North Slope Oil workers during the winter and spring. Once she did a Tarot card reading for Joe and me in the early 1990s during our visit to her sister’s home Catherine Foster in Farmington, Arkansas. Waurika predicted from the reading, that Joe and I would soon be coming into some unexpected money. Within the year we discovered unbeknownst to us that we were to receive a sizeable federal tax refund in 1993, $2,717, a first and last occurrence. Waurika always said the cards didn’t lie nor do the planets.

The name Waurika is a Choctaw word that means “camp of clear water” however she was not Choctaw, but part Cherokee. She divorced her husband Wilson Ernest Porter in the 1980s. Waurika worked at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas with Vietnam immigrants in the 1970s and then with Cubans until she was laid off in 1981. Wilson worked as the County Agent in Logan County Arkansas. Waurika wanted to travel extensively and evidently he didn’t. Her sister told me that Waurika would call him regularly after the divorce to make sure Wilson was taking his medicine. Wilson lived to be 94 passing in January 2009 in an assisted living home in Booneville, Arkansas. Outliving Waurika 10 years he must have taken her advice about taking his medicine to heart. After their divorce Waurika traveled not only to Mexico, but places as remote as Tonga and as far away as China and Thailand while in her seventies. According to her sister Waurika wasn’t afraid of anything. In the summer of 1999 Waurika died while being treated for brain cancer in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She felt most at home there because it was the Cherokee Nation capital. She was cremated and “buried” in Farmington, Arkansas where she grew up and her sister Catherine still resides.

Catherine also told me in the 1930s when Waurika was a teen, that she and their Mom, Janie Belle once went to consult an Indian seer. Waurika noticed the seer had a book on astrology. She asked to borrow it. She was allowed to take it overnight but needed to bring the book back the next day. Waurika stayed up all night reading that book on astrology and thus the seeds for her love of astrology were sown.

As to whether I personally believe in astrology or not, it definitely played a part in my life, especially coming of age in the sixties. No matter where you turned in my day, one heard repeatedly the innocuous question, “What’s your sign?” It was an ice breaker, seen as a quick way to get to know a person, if you were compatible and would click.

In a nutshell the characteristics of a my astrological sign Sagittarius, November 23 to December 21, The Archer, a fire sign, are freedom-loving, jovial, straight-forward, intellectual, philosophical and on the dark side careless, tactless and restless. My birth year, 1948, according to the Chinese Zodiac is the year of the Rat that include the traits of being generous, imaginative, critical and somewhat of an opportunist. All in all these traits do fit me for better or worse. In a nutshell the characteristics of a my astrological sign Sagittarius, November 23 to December 21, The Archer, a fire sign, are freedom-loving, jovial, straight-forward, intellectual, philosophical and on the dark side careless, tactless and restless. My birth year, 1948, according to the Chinese Zodiac is the year of the Rat that include the traits of being generous, imaginative, critical and somewhat of an opportunist. All in all these traits do fit me for better or worse.

When I first moved to Alaska in 1978, I sent off and for a paid New Age astrological survey to help me determine “scientifically” the best place for one to live with my birth planet alignment and astrological sign, Sagittarius, born Dec, 14, 1948, at 9:30 p.m. in Chicago, Illinois. I mailed my information with a check of some $25 to the New Age scientists in San Francisco, (where I should have been) and waited for the results. After my check was cashed, I received the “valuable” report. It informed me that the best place for my birth sign to live was somewhere in Siberia. Well Alaska was close enough and I’m still here so maybe they were right and there is something to astrology after all.
Memoirs - Mary Buckingham - January 26, 2009; revised 1/23/2012

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF MARCHING AT MARTIN LUTHER KING’S APRIL 1968 MEMORIAL

In the spring of 1968 my second semester Freshman English composition teacher was a Black man. I can not remember his name some 44 years later but I do remember he wasn’t the least bit impressed with anything I wrote. Consequently my potential grade for the class looked pretty dismal. I was accustom to making As with an occasional B and considered a grade of a C equivalent to near failure.
This bad luck all changed after April 9^th 1968. Out of a student body of 18,000 plus, myself, along with a mere 400 other students and staff attended the Oklahoma State University memorial march for Martin Luther King, Jr. who was assassinated 5 days earlier. In a simple twist of fate my English Comp Instructor was there and witnessed my participation.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial March April 9^th, 1968, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma. Second in line on the right is my Freshman English Instructor in sunglasses.

In the few remaining weeks of the semester my grade rose from its lowly beginnings to an acceptable grade of a B. Nothing to be proud of, but a far cry from the shame of my grade prior to the march. I will always wonder if in some way my attendance at the event that day and being observed there by my Black instructor helped improve my grade and I might add thanks to Martin Luther King.

On the other hand I was dating a cowboy from my hometown and had met several of his cowboy colleagues studying animal science and agriculture. They also saw me at the march and for some reason after that many of them weren’t near as friendly. The good thing was school almost out for summer. By the time they returned in the fall, they forgot most of what little they learned the year before as well as me at the march and of course I would have a new boyfriend with new friends to put to tests.

On the back page of the O’Collegian newspaper photo of the April 1968 march is the following editorial, “From An Ivory Tower“:

In the past 40 some years since this editorial was written things have definitely improved for American Negros, now popularly known as African Americans. We even have a president who is part Black, the least of his worries. One thing I definitely like about the president and his race card is, at least he is married to another Black. Being “old school” I still think a Black person looks better with a Black person. (One reason I can not stand Justice Clarence Thomas.) I know to many that is not politically correct, but it is the way I am. Why do those that consider theirselves Liberals any more right that those that have their alternative opinion?  That being said, if it was all to be done over again and my Black instructor knew this conviction, I am sure I would flunk Freshman Composition. Nevertheless, I would still be for equal rights, just not pro intermarriage.

Mary Alta Buckingham - Jan 16th, 2012/updated 1/21/2013 - Martin Luther King Day
　

　

　

　

Remembering Rose

Last Gifts and Re-gifts

Ode to Rose
A true child of the nineteen sixties,
a free spirit,
the last child of a family of five and
the first to pass to the other side.
Jan 3, 2011

Angelica, Angie, Mary & Rose -
 Bloomington, Indiana - April 2007

In early December 2010 my middle sister Angie asked me to send Christmas gifts to our youngest sister Rose and her family in Bloomington, Indiana. Requested were a pair of size 8 winter boots for 13 year old Wendy, our niece, a warm sweatshirt for Thomas, our 15 year old autistic nephew and of course something for Rose as well as her husband, Will.  Because Angie was ill herself and unable to do what she’d always done so easily, I agreed reluctantly.  My relutance stemed from the fact that year Rose suffered from delusions as a consequence of a brain tumor.  She saw bugs that weren’t there. When she had a car wreck, she claimed it was caused by what she thought were contracts put out on her life to keep her from "Cherokee"  land she’d inherited in eastern Oklahoma. With this in mind, it occurred to me Rose might think whatever I sent was laced with poison or who knows what, thanks to the effects of that nasty brain tumor. Nevertheless, I decided to send Angie’s suggested gifts for them and re-gift a pair of green leather gloves still in the original gift box to Rose. My Irish friend, Siobhan gave me the gloves at Christmas in 2006. I enclosed a $20 bill between the palms of the two gloves and wrote a note to Rose that if the gloves were too small for her (as they’d been for me), to pass them down to Wendy, her daughter. Before it was over, I decided to send everyone in the family of four, inexpensive gloves, figuring they could all use a set, even if not leather.    

Rose & Mary - April 2007 - Bloomington, Indiana



                            

                                    Thomas Swank



Wendy Swank

A few days after the package arrived, on the 16^th of December, Rose left me a phone message saying she received the gifts and her brain tumor was bothering her again. She was dreadfully afraid of having the second operation, over 4 years after her first in 2006. The doctors advised her, she could go blind from the surgical procedure or worse yet she might be an invalid. Her husband doesn’t drive due to complications from serving in the Vietnam War. She might even die, which she did Christmas Eve 2010 at 6:25 p.m. at the age of 49 at the Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. Her fear of the second procedure turned out to be well founded when the tumor made an emergency operation inevitable December 20th.

If Angie had not asked me to send Rose and her family Christmas gifts, I probably would not have. This would have been a terrible mistake since it was my last opportunity to send a gift to Rose here on earth. Like the old adage goes, “you always regret what you don’t do.” I sure am glad I don’t have that regret.

The last gift Rose ever sent me was a birthday button when I turned 60 in 2008. The button says, “I’ve survived damn near everything”.  Now that birthday button has an extra special meaning, just like the re-gifted green leather gloves.

Mary Alta Buckingham - January 3, 2011/ Memoir Writing -

                                          December 24, 2011 rewrite

Free Range Christmas Trees

All my life I have been attracted to anything with the price tag of “free” and Christmas trees are no exception. During the 1970s my first husband, Lindy and I use to hunt for the best “free” tree in Cleveland county Oklahoma. The trees we found were too big, too bushy and flat out ugly. We did not begin to have enough decorations to make the tree look right, but the price was right, the tree was FREE.

Mary, me with our FREE Cleveland County Oklahoma Christmas Tree-1972
　　

When I married my Alaska husband Joe in 1982, I truly believed that despite living my Alaska dream, we needed to carry on this tradition of something for nothing. The FREE ugly Christmas tree was part of the picture. Our first Christmas together, Joe and I went south on the Seward Highway to Indian, where this part Cherokee felt right at home. We hiked through the snow to an “open tree cutting area” and found the best free tree to take and decorate. It was a bit scrawny, but in retrospect I think it was much better looking than it’s Oklahoma Christmas tree cousin ten years earlier in 1972. Our live Alaska tree wasn’t perfect.  In some ways it left me wishing we'd put up the one and only fake snow covered tree I ever owned and still do. The 40 inch artificial snow covered tree was bought at B & J Hardware in Anchorage for $16.95 in 1980.  I still have the box that it came in, so I know.  It was purchased in celebration and preparation of my sister Angie's Christmas visit after my near fatal car accident.
These days I have given up on free live trees. I usually settle for several mini metal ones instead. I keep my all time favorite fake snowed covered tree in its box in the crawl space, just in case I get that urge for another Freebie live Christmas tree. It can take its place and this year it did just that.  For the first time in 9 years we put up our old friend, the memory tree.  It waited patiently in its box for us to heal from our adoption fiasco and now is bringing joy to us at Christmas once again.   

old Christmas tree friend

64th birthday - flowers from Angie

Alaska Mary’s Christmas Memoir - December 18, 2012

What Was My Grandfather Phillips Real Name and What Was He Trying to Hide?

Genealogy Breakthroughs and Breakdowns:

The Search for My Paternal Grandfather’s True Identity and a Maternal DNA Mistake



Thomas Mathew Phillips
circa 1905-06
Auburn, NY



For the first 60 years of my life I believed and trusted that my paternal Grandfather’s surname was Phillips, as well as it being my maiden name, until the summer of 2009. After 40 plus years of hunting unsuccessful for my Grandfather Thomas Mathew Phillips’ family, I gave up and forked over $355 to Ancestry for a comprehensive paternal and maternal DNA test for my brother Mathew. In a nutshell we discovered once and for all, Thomas Mathew never was a Phillips and technically neither are we, although everyone in our biological family was born with the surname, Phillips.

This information should have been no surprise. Why? In 1992 after requesting copies from the Veterans Administration of my Grandfather‘s original 1899 army enlistment papers in Detroit, Michigan I discovered Thomas spelled his last name 3 different ways in his original enlistment documents. He claimed to be born in Buffalo, NY and was 5 foot 5 inches, the minimum height requirement to join the military. He was almost 23 years old so he should have been able to spell his last name unless it was a new last name. While serving in the Philippines Thomas taught English and the rumor was he would rather buy a book before worrying about what he was going to eat for the next meal. So again spelling was no problem for Thomas.

In the enlistment papers he started off listing his name as Thomas M. Phillipps. Then a little further down in the documents the name was spelled Philipps. By 1902 the spelling of his surname in his Army papers had morphed into the traditional spelling of Phillips which he died with in Auburn, New York in 1956 when I was 7 living with my maternal grandparents in Chelsea, Oklahoma. Thomas ? is buried in an unmarked grave at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, N.Y. He is entitled to a Veterans’ Cemetery Headstone or Marker. The paperwork sets in my office year after year waiting to find out what Thomas’ real last name was. I want it on the headstone in addition to Phillips, the name he served under for 26 years when he retired as an Army Master Sergeant in 1924.



Thomas Phillips to the right of white Pitcher
at Christmas party in 1924 at Ft. Benning, Columbus, Georgia

 My genealogy search for my paternal Grandfather and grandparents began in earnest in 1976 when I wrote his sister-in-law, my Great Aunt Edna in Cato, NY a letter asking for dates and names for my Dad‘s side of the family. My Grandfather Thomas Phillips’ wife Mary was my Grandmother and Edna’s sister.  Mary died a year after Thomas in 1957 in southern California while living with her son Howard, my Dad‘s only sibling. 

Thomas & Mary Phillips
circa 1905, Auburn, NY


My source to the past on my Dad’s side was my Great Aunt Edna and eventually my uncle Howard. In Edna’s 1976 letter she stated that Thomas had “one brother named McKay he met in Texas while serving in the Army”. Some of the closer DNA matches through my brother’s DNA have linked us to a McKay, a McCoy and a  McCabe, all of which after contacting have turned out to be dead ends. The closest DNA match was to Jimmie McKenzie in Montreal, Canada. Jimmie’s past is also a question to him. In August 2010 he emailed he was on to a breakthrough and a visit to a professional genealogist in Scotland. Unfortunately I learned that health problems required a delay in the trip.

Great Aunt Edna said Thomas’ father, my Great Grandfather ran a newspaper in Dayton, Ohio pre 1899. Years ago I contacted various newspapers in the area and no one had ever edited the newspaper by the name of Phillips. Now perhaps I should go back and ask about a McKay, a McCoy or a McKenzie being an editor of the newspaper.


After Edna passed in 1977, I began to quiz my Dad’s only older brother Howard who lived in California about his Dad, Thomas and family. Howard Phillips wrote in a letter August 15, 1991 saying that his father “ran away from home when he was sixteen because of his Catholic mother’s incessant attacks on his radical father.“ He also said, “Grandpa Phillips (?) went to work in the beet fields of Colorado and got in a gun fight and thought - mistakenly that he had killed a man. He fled and joined the army.” Perhaps this is when and why Thomas changed his last name. Uncle Howard went on to say, my “Great Grandfather (?) was fined $3,000 in 1856 for operating a station on the illegal Underground Railway that moved slaves to freedom in Canada. The fine ruined the family financially.” Howard said his Dad, Thomas was born in Toledo, Ohio, however his marriage certificate states Cincinnati, Ohio and his enlistment papers say Buffalo, NY. My uncle also claimed that Thomas’ Dad ran a newspaper, "The Toledo Blade". Research under the name of Phillips resulted in more dead ends here too, but perhaps again I should have searched for Mc names instead of Phillips?

In conclusion, my brother’s DNA test came out surprizingly different than mine on the maternal line! My test had been done a number of years earlier in 2002 by Family Tree DNA in Houston, Texas. For years I had no DNA matches, so I came to the correct conclusion that there was an error in my original maternal DNA test. I contacted the provider and asked for a new test explaining my questions about the results especially since it did not show my brother and I as siblings. They agreed to do a retest in 2009, 7 years after the original. They did indeed make an error in my original Maternal DNA test and yes my brother and I are siblings, darn it.


Mary Alta Phillips (?) Buckingham -
October 12, 2010/revised Nov. 28, 2011

Memory Jar

   - Gift from My Sister Angie on My 50^th Birthday, 1998

My middle sister Angie has always been crafty. In our Alaska home there are a multitude of crafts created by her in Oklahoma through the past 30 years. For example, on our kitchen wall is a framed needle point picture of a sheep that reads, “Ewes not fat, ewes fluffy”. (Think this quote might refer to me?) In my closet hangs a beautiful hand painted Southwestern jean jacket, a style very popular in the 1980s. Angie designed and painted one for both of us. We wore them on a visit together 2 years ago in Santa Fe.




Needlepoint gift from Angie



Angie in Santa Fe, NM - Oct. 2009



The 20 year old southwestern hand painted coats by Angie - Oct. 2009

                                                                             

On my 50^th birthday in December 1998 Angie sent me my favorite gift ever, a “memory jar”. She told me she got the idea from watching an Oprah show. The lid was covered with one of her needle point designs. Within the small glass canning jar she placed 50 typed “I remember” notes, one for each year.

“I remember the green dress with strawberries on it that you made me when I was six” (1963)
“I remember playing jacks on Grandpa’s front porch and the fun I had” (mid 1960s)
“I remember sending you my first letter from Villa Ridge, Il. I was 6 ½ or so. I mailed you 6 cents and a stick of gum. The 6 cents was for you to buy a stamp and write me back.”
“I remember everybody wanting to sleep by Mary when we came to visit you and Grandpa” (1964-67)
“I remember going with you to buy a new blouse to wear to the Chelsea Round Up Club and going to the rodeo with you and Grandpa” (1966)
“I remember Mom and Dad so excited that you were going to college” (1967)
“ I remember coming to visit you in your apartment in Tulsa, before you were married) (summer 1971)
“I remember the orange lunch box hot curlers you got for Rose and me for Christmas” (1972)
“I remember the time you came to Ullin, Ill. and I wanted you to help me learn to sing”
(early 1970s, unfortunately I never was much of a singer)
“I remember the day you and Lindy asked me if I wanted to stay and live with you all. I was so happy, yet so embarrassed that I had no home.” (1974)
“I remember the day you took me shopping in Tulsa with Debbie Clinger. That was the first time I had ever had any one do that for me!!!” (fall 1974)
“I remember the Talimena Drive (in SW Oklahoma) and float trips (canoe trips on the Illinois River near Tahlequah) with KFC” (fall 1974)
“I remember going bowling nearly every Friday night in high school” (1974-76)
“I remember you giving me the big green bomb of a car (1967 Olds)!!! 8 miles to a gallon” (1974)
“I remember you explaining to me that I would see dark skinned people and they were not Mexicans, they were Indians” (1974)
“I remember the heart cake you bought me for my 17^th birthday”(Nov. 1974)
““I remember shopping at Lerner’s and you getting mad when they called you Miss” (1975)
“I remember trips to the lakes in NE Oklahoma and cutting down a Christmas tree, only to get home and find out it was huge!!!” (1974-76)
I remember my first Christmas in Sapulpa, Okla. and spending all the money I made at Walmart on Christmas. It was the first time I ever had money to buy gifts” (1974)
“I remember going to Sonic in Sapulpa and eating chili cheese conies and onion rings”
“I remember you throwing a fit in Walmart like a little kid!!! What for? I don’t remember” (1975 - I wanted Angie to buy me something that day and it worked.)
“I remember us going to see Grandpa and stopping in Catoosa for corn nuts and diet Dr. Pepper. Those were the red Vega car days!!!” (1974-76)
“I remember you telling a little kid at the bowling alley that your shoes were magic and they could make you fly”
“I remember the time you pretended not to know how to hoe the garden in Sapulpa and I got to do the whole thing“ (summer 1975)
“I remember you telling your students that our family was in the circus and you were a midget wrestler” (mid 1970s)
“I remember the trip to Tahlequah with your high school History Class for a college history trivia contest and stopping at Bells to ride Zingo, the roller coaster, on the way home!” (1975)
“I remember the times we would spend all afternoon to Casa Bonita in Tulsa and eat all you could eat with Barbara!!!”
“I remember the time you bought me “Eagles tickets for my birthday!!! I love the “Eagles”
“I remember the jean jump suit you bought me for Christmas when I was a freshman in college. I was so afraid you bought me a velvet jacket. I was so happy when it was the jump suit“ (1976)
“I remember us sharing clothes when I was in high school in Sapulpa” (1975-1976)
“I remember playing tennis with you” (mid 1970s)
“I remember the Cat Stevens concert with you) ( 1970s)
“I remember you wearing my old formals to your high school reunion!!!” (?)
“I remember the 5 cent Eskimo Joe Days!!! Stories and all! (1977 - 20 mini beers for a dollar!)
“I remember taking swim lessons together in Shawnee!!!” (1977)
“I remember the night we drove all night to New Mexico from OKC, talking all the way” (summer 1977)
“I remember how frightened I was when you had your car wreck and they thought you may not live” (1980)
“ I remember going to the Alaska State Fair in Palmer and taking a picture of us with a clown. My true dream was to be a clown and make people happy!” (fall 1981)
“I remember dressing up for Halloween in Alaska!!! I was a cat and you dressed in pig attire” (1981)
“I remember skiing in Alaska” (1981)
“I remember Thanksgiving in Alaska (1981) and not feeling alone”
“I remember asking you to be my matron of honor in my wedding” (1987)
“I remember you fixing the neck of my wedding dress so it would stay up!!!)
“I remember going to Grandpa’s after he passed away and just hanging out in his back yard!!!” (1988)
“I remember you and Joe taking us to camp in the trailer on our trip to Alaska “ (1989)
“I remember the year you had our cousin Judy pick me up a birthday cake!!! That was very special for me! (early 1990s)
“I remember the joy you shared when I told you I was P.G. I remember you helping me through the miscarriage.” (1992)
“I remember finding the flowers you sent for Mom’s funeral service” (1998)
“I remember when our Grandmother Alta passed away. (1964) I remember seeing you cry. I tried to make myself cry as to do what I thought would be right.” (Why I always liked her, she tried to do what was right.)
“I remember as a child looking up to you. You were my mentor and role model. I love you!!! Here’s to another 50!!!”


Butterfly string art by Angie - gift to Mary, circa 1980s.

(Mary's Memoir - September 26, 2011)
　

My Employment Journey - Jack of All Trades, Master of None

1967 Chelsea Annual ad, proves I was a waitress.

My first real job to earn a paycheck was working as a waitress at Gliedt’s Café on Highway 66 in Chelsea, Oklahoma. I worked the graveyard shift on weekends during the summer of 1965 after my sophomore year of high school. I was 16. The pay was $3 for 8 hours plus tips which usually wouldn’t have been much more than $3 if I hadn’t been working Friday and Saturday late at night. The weekend partiers from the 2 local bars and underage car drinkers came in to eat something to sober up before heading home. Occasionally the customers were drunk enough to try and impress me with a really big tip, once as much as $5 dollars, probably their entire life savings.
The best part of the weekend graveyard shift was around 3 or 4 in the morning when it quieted down to no customers. The cook and I, both sleep deprived, each selected a red leather booth seat and curled up in it. We’d nap until we heard the first early morning customers arrive for breakfast and jump up and act like we‘d been up all night. Nothing like getting paid to sleep even if only 35 cents an hour. Now I’m sure the café owner Alvin Gliedt didn’t really approve of us sleeping on the job, but he was a big easy going single guy who wore a size 50 inch belt and love to eat. He was no doubt lurking somewhere nearby keeping an eye on his investment. Alvin also had a little mobile trailer called the “Chuck Wagon” that he took to rodeos and other events to sell food. That summer I went to one such event and now wonder if that experience helped lure me into the mobile food business 20 plus years later in the 1980s in Alaska.
Gliedt’s Café’s was built with logs. The front section could comfortably seat 60 people. In the rear was a banquet room that held space for 300. It was in that banquet room that our class held our Jr. and Sr. banquets and proms, but not with me as a waitress.
After that summer job in ‘65 I moved up in the waitress world, or actually down the road to Marie’s Café also on Highway 66. My salary increased to 50 cents an hour, a whole dollar more for an 8 hour shift. During the school year a school bus took all the high school kids with money the 3 miles out to Marie’s Cafe for a quick lunch. Myself and a few other willing poor hungry souls would write down their food orders on the bus, deliver the orders to the cooks (one being Maxine Miller), serve the kids and get a free very quick meal in exchange that we ate on the bus back to school. I worked at Marie’s for two years as a waitress until heading for college in 1967 in part with the help of my big fat waitress savings account. I’d spend the tips and save the checks.
During college I had a multitude of government funded “work study” jobs for struggling low income college students. These positions included the following: August 1968,
Interviewer of Claremore, Oklahoma Rotary Club members for a Rotary Club Scrapbook; Fall 1968 through the spring of 1971 during the school year I worked 15 hours a week at the Oklahoma State University Athletic Department as the sole office assistant to the OSU Athletic Department Secretary. It was revolting to me the way football players were cow towed and catered to. They were fed steaks nightly donated by OSU football team supporters and that was just the tip of the ice burg. Getting an education never seemed a football player’s priority. It was all about winning a football game, God Help! Eventually I developed a total distaste for organized collegiate sports, especially football. After I had the good fortune to leave Oklahoma, I still find myself appalled at the heartland‘s worship of sports, especially football.
The summers of 1969 and 1970 I worked in the Roger’s County Courthouse. In 1969 I reorganized and moved all the Rogers County Court files. It was amazing what I ran across to read such as my Mom’s first divorce and my great uncle’s murder trial (for which he was acquitted). I finished out the summer of ‘69 working at the court clerk’s counter. One marriage license I remember processing was for a young man of 16 and a woman of 45 both chewing gum, slapping their jaws. It was ugly, but usually the man was 45 and the gal 16, so that was refreshing. It was my favorite “work study” job and I got paid approximately a $1.50 an hour. During the summer of 1970 I was back at the Claremore court house working for the County Extension Office after spending the first half of the summer in Monterrey, Mexico going to school. It was boring, but it was a job.
When I graduated from Oklahoma State in 1971, jobs were fairly hard to come by and I wasn’t keen on teaching after my recent negative practice teaching experiences. I moved to Tulsa and got an apartment with a former college dorm mate. Although I had a driver’s license I didn’t drive or have a car, so any job I had had to be on a bus route. I landed a job through ORU, Oral Roberts University, as a typist processing donations to ORU from around the world in a downtown Tulsa office. Donators were sent gifts such as prayer cloths or some other Biblical type nick knack depending on the amount of money they contributed to ORU. Myself and approximately 25 plus other gals processed the paperwork. I usually got stuck with the hard to read ones from Jamaica but being a fast typist was my gift (up to 100 plus word per minute back then) so I was offered overtime, which I declined because it was on Saturdays. Lunchtime was the highlight of the day because I was standing, looking for a place for lunch and not stuck in an office typing my buns off. There was a Coney island spot with no chairs that worked for me.
Meanwhile I got married and we went back to school in the spring of 1972 to work on our graduate degrees. It was then that I gained a new respect for my old “work study” jobs, because I was no longer eligible. Granted my husband’s family owned a small oil company, but they were tighter than a bark on a tree and we were expected to stand on our own two feet. I got a part-time job in one of the dorm cafeterias while continuing my Spanish studies. It truly stank. We had Moslem men (affectionately called “towel heads”) that didn’t want to eat pork and Hindus that didn‘t want to eat beef. They wanted to know exactly what the meat was we were serving and 9 times out of 10 it was what I deemed “mystery meat”. We had no idea whether it contained pork, beef, chicken or a dead rat.
When summer came in 1972 I got a job working for Oklahoma Natural Gas in the collections department. I was great at all the clerical stuff but calling people and hounding them to pay their bill was not my cup of tea. We were due a raise that fall and I will never forget or forgive President Tricky Dick Nixon for the repeated national wage freeze. How could that crook get away with that?
In January of 1973 my first husband and I moved to San Antonio when Lindy was offered a job as an electrical engineer with the Army Corp of Engineers. Meanwhile I signed on with Kelly Girl as a temporary clerk typist and was placed at Trinity University typing numbers for the Accounting Department. Again I relied on my high school typing classes for employment, not my hard earned college degree. The head accountant loved me because accuracy was my focus. I knew with money that was much more important than typing speed. It was also in San Antonio I finally had to learn to drive myself to work when Lindy attended a week conference in Atlanta. I’d go to work an hour early and leave for home an hour late to miss the worse of the big city traffic. I survived against my will and been driving every since. That fall I found a teaching position in a Catholic Junior High, but we decided San Antonio was too big and dangerous for us two Okies. We moved back to Oklahoma in the May of 1973. That summer I took off and would go to Dunkin Donuts for a cup of coffee and a donut and look at the newspaper for a job. In August of 1973 I started a 3 year position teaching Spanish I & II, American History, World History and Psychology at Kellyville High School. The school was located on the Creek Nation in Kellyville and the area was deemed underprivileged due to economics. Consequently the government forgave 90% of my college student loan while teaching there. Those were the days of teacher shortages and money was made available for teacher training with added encouragement of 90% loan forgiveness if employed for five years in an economically deprived area. It was almost like getting a free college education after it was all said and done.
After three years of being a jack of all trades in my Kellyville country school we moved to a my first and only new house in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Lindy got a promotion with Oklahoma, Gas and Electric and my sister Angie who lived with us had graduated from high school in May of 1976. The rural new 3 bedroom home on an acre lot cost a bundle, $29,000 about $10,000 more than our first one 3 years before, but it had green carpet which I despised. My furniture was red, so it was like Christmas year around at our house. The good news was I returned to Graduate School to study Spanish at Oklahoma University hoping to eventually teach college. I was sick of teaching high school and dealing with the constant discipline problems was annoying. While attending Grad School I got a graduate assistantship and I taught freshman and sophomore level Spanish courses. It was a challenge, but at least one did not have to constantly tell their students to “pay attention“ or more precisely “sit down and shut up”. Maybe that was because the classes weren’t free and one wasn’t forced to attend, like high school. Despite the rewarding experience of the graduate assistantship and 4.0 in Grad School, I was restless. My marriage wasn’t turning out the way I hoped and I decided I wanted to get out and see the world and live my life outside the rigid confines of Oklahoma.
The summer of 1977 I headed for Niagara Falls, NY to try my luck. When I got there the area was suffering 14% unemployment and I was lucky to get a job even as a waitress at the Howard Johnson’s Restaurant near the Falls. It was a great experience for me as I learned how to uncork a bottle of wine something unheard of in Oklahoma at the time. Oklahoma locals only opened Bud or Coors beer and that was as exotic as it got. Some old folks might of drank Mogen David but that brand only had a screw top to remove not a cork.. The first time I uncorked a bottle of wine, I managed to end up with the cork inside the bottle. Despite my efforts I didn’t get a tip for my deranged service and wine opening fiasco. While there I also had the good fortune to meet Chief Iron Eyes Cody. He cried a tear for pollution in TV commercials back in the seventies. Our photo was taken together and it put in the local Niagara News as the meeting of two different tribe members. After his death in 1999 at 94, I discovered the Chief was of Italian Sicilian heritage. He lived his adult life claiming he was American Indian and supported related causes. Cody and his wife Bertha, who was, in fact, an American Indian, adopted several children, all of Indian descent.
I’d always wanted to live in New York and I had my chance, but I was still married and had unfinished business and possessions in Oklahoma. After a few months in upstate New York, I drove back to tornado alley. During the winter of 1977 to 1978 I tried to follow Jack London’s chosen professions. I desk clerked a few months at the University of Oklahoma hotel in Norman whose clients were almost exclusively visiting professors. Then for a few months into 1978 I help manage a new bookshop in Oklahoma City called Books Limited. It didn‘t last much longer than the time I worked there setting it up. The owner was driving cab in OKC the next time I saw him a year later, but having a bookstore continued to be one of my many working fantasies.
In the heat of summer in August 1978 I stepped on the plane in OKC and headed north to Alaska. Little did I know what lay ahead employment wise but it was never boring. My first job was temporary cashier at the University of Alaska bookstore’s beginning of semester fall rush. The neatest part about the job was running into a former high school classmate, George Baker and his wife a high school friend, now divorced many years later. Next I was hired by the Anchorage School District for a year as a bilingual tutor. It was a low stress job tutoring a variety of ethnic minorities such as Korean, Hispanic, Polish and Alaska Native to name just a few. I covered a multitude of schools from elementary to secondary including McLaughlin Youth Detention Center. Years later one of those students would call me from the local jail for someone to talk to. Those calls stopped once I eventually changed to using my new married name. According to what I found out from one of our local lawyer bookstore customers, it was best that those calls from the troubled young man ceased due to his capacity for being dangerous. In addition to my bilingual work, I also found time and energy to work at night at the local Anchorage Book Cache and additional bilingual tutoring with the older married night students at Save High School and the Career Center.
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In the summer of 1979 I returned to Oklahoma to finally get divorced. It was on my way back to Alaska after helping take a group of Alaska high school students to Valencia, Spain for summer studies. That fall I started work again with bilingual education until the first big Anchorage teacher strike. We were told that either we substituted in place of the striking teachers or be fired, so I subbed a week at Lake Otis Elementary, maybe 3^rd grade. One of the students had a very difficult time reading. Later I ran into him at Fred Meyers and he told me he had learn to read. Crossing the picket line was difficult coming from a pro union family on my Dad’s side, but newly divorced I needed the job. After the strike I was hired to teach Spanish and French at Bartlett High School which was my least favorite teaching experience. The school was huge, almost as big as my home town, the class period lasted way too long, an hour and a half and only met four times a week, I was teaching a subject I didn’t know, French and there was absolutely no school discipline and it was a transient school for military families. It made my rural Oklahoma country school of Kellyville look oh so civilized. The following summer I taught an American History class to all male group of Army GIs. There were absolutely no discipline problems and it was the last time I taught history. Fall of 1980 I began teaching just Spanish at West High, but I had no sooner started than I was in a serious car wreck on October 4^th. I returned to work in December 1980. My last semester to teach was spring 1982. Then I found myself returning to school to study Business Administration with the hope of one day opening a bookstore. Eventually I had my bookstore, but not until I had many other employment opportunities including bookkeeper for Down Home Guitar for six months in 1984 and clerk typist for the Engineering Group that handled the C Street Extension in the mid 1980s. During the winter of 1985 after we started our summer mobile food business the Alaskan Renaissance Café, I started a little at home typing service called Done Right Typing, an obsolete profession. It was for cash only, mostly for college students and I advertised it with posters on local bulletin boards. My favorite client was Mr. Standard Oil, a nickname for a retired single man from Spenard who last lived on Lois drive in a log cabin on an acre lot for the past 50 plus years. He returned to school after retiring, but didn‘t type. My least favorite customer was a man accused of being a pedophile. He needed his plea typed and had I known the charge I would have turned it down. I wouldn‘t let him in the house and when he paid and I our stern part wolf dog Cody accompany me to the door. Our tax preparer was impressed that I had made almost $5,000 that year. Now that I think back, so am I.
These self employment ventures kept me busy until Joe retired in 1987 at age 47 from teaching during the Alaska economic downturn of the mid 1980s. We brought a 1969 travel trailer and took a two month road trip. When we returned in October we started going to the Hess and Son auction for entertainment on Thursday nights (?) in Muldoon.
We drink their free rot gut coffee, listen to their corny jokes such as the “el manuel“ typewriter and bid on boxes of unknown items. Many included books that sold for next to nothing. We’d end up with all sorts of stuff that we’d resale at the Egan and Sullivan Flea Markets and home garage sales. What we didn’t sell we’d give away. The books we thought of value we would store in our travel trailer for our future bookstore. We cruised garage, estate and out of storage sales. One of the first bunch of older books we purchased in an out of storage sale belong to someone named “Eleanor“. She led us to researching and discovering the value of out-of-print books. We became acquainted with Eugene Short who owned the Alaskana Bookshop on Arctic and learned the value of Alaska, Polar and Yukon books and on it went. What started as a dream of a small hip bookshop similar to City Lights in San Francisco selling the latest new small press and avant-garde literature and poetry morphed into one specializing in out-of-print and book search services. We advertised the book searches in the AB Bookman prior to its demise and the Internet revolution. We’d receive a book quote usually on a post card describing the book and asking price and we would contact the customer with the info and our price.
If they were interested the customer would prepay and we would order the book. We found many books and had many happy customers, but there was one search and find that was a true pain in the butt. It was for an older edition of the Koran. The customer was a local Pakistani accountant. He paid and asked for the cheapest shipping, which was book rate and took several weeks. Despite knowing this, he came into the shop repeatedly to see if his Koran had arrived, saying he was sure of being robbed by us. When the book did arrive it was not as described and falling apart, nevertheless there was no way he would let us return it. He was a fanatic about his old Koran.
We opened our small quaint bookstore, The Alaskan Renaissance Bookshop in the heart of Spenard December 13^th, 1988 the day before I turned 40. It was the end shop down from the Denali Theater where my Joe and I went on our first date just a few 7 years earlier, across from REI where Jackie’s Restaurant is now located and the current home of the extremely popular Bear Tooth Grill. The bookstore was my lifelong dream that we closed in 1993 when lost our lease. We started paying $315 a month and ended at somewhere around $500 for 550 square feet. The shop morphed into a mobile book and internet business home business from 1993 until 2002. We converted our basement into an open by appointment shop of sorts. We bought a trailer, a big outside pop up tent and Joe made 10 wooden bookcases on wheels that we could wheel in and out of the trailer to events. We sold books at the summer Saturday Market, Fur Rondy and Christmas Shows at the Egan and Sullivan Arenas to name just a few places. We rented stall space in an Antique Craft Malls. Meanwhile our Internet Sales grew and in the end we made much more money doing the sporadic shows than we ever made in my dearly beloved mini bookstore. One day at the Saturday Market was as good as a week or two in the store. However, our biggest revenue was at the store with deep sales cuts the month we closed . We also got our first and only hot check. All in all the shop was a labor of love. The bonus was the numerous memorable book buying trips back East to book barns and auctions and everywhere in between searching for that elusive out of print rare book.
When Joe’s brother passed in 2002, we decided after 14 odd years to mark the occasion with the closing of the book business. Our hands were full with our severely emotionally disturbed adopted son and his predator. Plus the handwriting was on the wall regarding books. The times were a changing with the Internet and so must we. We also had grown tired of chasing books. We went back to sporadic tutoring from 2002 to 2009; first with the Educational Talent Search Program through the university for underprivileged Jr. and Sr. high school students for 3 years. Then three years doing independent tutoring starting briefly with a private tutoring agency. From my youth, I went full circle from wanting to teach the underprivileged to being lucky enough to land a job tutoring anybody, even the affluent. Never expected it. It had to be the Creator’s sense of humor at work, but I survived and actually enjoyed it at times. Now at 62, drawing a piddling bit of social security and a minimal annuity I wonder if my working days are over. Time will only tell if I will one day again need or even be able to rely on one of my former skills of waitress, typist, teacher/tutor, sales clerk… jack of all trades, master of none.

 written March 14, 2011/March 21, 2011/ March 28, 2011