Remembering

My sister and I have just completed a project that has been such fun. We have jointly written a collage of memories of growing up in Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle during the 1940s and 1950s.

Interest in this memoir will be limited to perhaps only to our children and cousins, but we found such pleasure in  recalling and recording our childhood adventures.

Paula (my sis) did the bulk of the writing, and I added my tales and recollections to her well crafted piece. The most satisfying part of the endeavor was remembering our childhood: our adventures, our fears, our victories, and everyday living as we saw it. The daily phone calls, reading and editing the story, and our conversations about those post-war years when the world was very different was a delightful diversion during this time of self-isolation.

We wrote about how life was as we explored our world primarily unsupervised. Those times were different: we rode our bikes around neighborhoods free to investigate. We did the usual kid things typical of our neighboring friends, but we were also fortunate to have parents who allowed us to be a part of the family business: newspaper publishing.

My parents had 3 daughters, and from an early age we participated in that enterprise. We folded papers, ‘chucked’ papers, delivered papers, swept floors, dusted shelves, cleaned bathrooms, slept on stacks of papers, and learned the language of printers (much to the disappointment of our mother). We also were schooled in making money, employee relations, working hard, selling advertising, writing stories, taking pictures, and being the eyes and ears of our community.

We had a rich childhood, filled with missteps, many highs, multiple lows, but still rich in the experiences that made us the people we are today.

As I look back over the 78 years, I’ve inhabited this earth, I’m grateful for how I was reared, where I was reared, and who reared me. We were fortunate, and I would hope others of my generation found their growing up years filled with great memories too.