Comments:
Looking at 50 years in the rear view mirror is not a challenge that we often face. Sometime we see it as why did I do so many things that caused this body and mind to be a candidate for the first SILVER alert. For those who are not aware of this legislation it is a dragnet for old folks who are discovered as missing. Occasionally we like to think that to be missing for a while would be a cause with some merit since you could focus on personal wishes and wants, but with difficulties in remembering my PIN number it would be difficult to pay the bartender during this AWOL. On to issues of a semi-centennial of life in OKC without having a DUI or a divorce.
Following Harding OSU and Stillville was my home for three years. A not so pretty romantic breakup without a gunfight brought me back home where I finished at then Central State. Following completion I signed on for a two year stint teaching at St. Patrick’s Catholic School. From there I followed the larger money trail to teach at Rollingwood in the Putnam City System. During this time I performed volunteer work as a member of Junior Hospitality for about seven years. Then after nine years of marriage our daughter Katie was born in 1974. Katie, now 34 lives in Buffalo, NY and represents a large western New York liquor and wine distributor which funds her passion which is competitive sailing on the Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes. She will be in Boston in early May to help host the crew and sponsors of the final leg of the Volvo Open Ocean round the world race. Back to home life that lasted about six years at home with the daughter I returned to teaching. Those of you who pay tuition understand this move and this run of teaching lasted through our daughters completion of college and until my mother became so much in need of constant care that I retired to attend to her care. While teaching and during the time that schools were in need of teachers with credential for specialization the system provided the opportunity to complete graduate work in two areas, the first as a Reading Specialist and secondly in English as a Second Language. These were good years and all you Harding graduates who complained about Mrs.West’s Latin class. This core language skill helped me take students that couldn’t comprehend either their first language and/or English or bridge the learning gap with the nucleus of western world language.
Our spiritual life centers on services and activities with St. Paul’s Episcopal Church downtown. As seniors we can attend some of the events that younger members simply cannot do as a result of full time work and parenting. We recently took a three day trip to Subiaco Monastery in Arkansas. We truly had an opportunity to do the figurative “stop and smell the roses” thing. My life with Don, my husband, has afforded us some travel opportunities such as an extended trip to Mexico City when our daughter was in school following graduation from Loyola and prior to completion of an additional degree from the University of New Mexico. We did not go with her when she went to Havana for outside study as we were starting to think about locating someone that could explain to her the merits of getting a job and leaving “college as a career” to families that still had money. Canada is our other “across the border” point to visit. This is packaged in trips when we go to see our daughter. She flies to New York City and meets us. We stay for a couple of days, take in a play and see a couple of things that must be seen before you die and hop the train to Quebec City, Montréal, Toronto and back to Buffalo. By that time we are all getting a bit edgy and iffy with each other as start looking for the next flight back to OKC.
My time, following the passing of my mother, has been slowly swinging toward a little home based business that was started with a Hispanic contractor. He had a lot of work, he did very good quality work, he worked for OKC premier construction companies but he couldn’t prepare documents in English. I have Elizabeth Little Contracting Services, LLC. We can prepare construction proposals, invoices, arrange for legal services, set up job site training, prepare shop drawings, etc. My interest is in serving the Hispanic construction community and providing respectful and responsible service to this vital link in the OKC economic structure.
In closing and in trying to provide an overview of my life after Harding, it would be best explained that all of my friends want to come backing their next life as my dog “Gracie” who is my constant companion. It is amazing that a few of us still get together for lunch, and occasionally in the evening. I’m very interested in gardening and being in the yard. This so much so that this fall I am enrolled at OSU for their master gardner program. Additionally, I intend to pursue classes to improve my grasp of writing and speaking of localized Spanish as well as the comprehension of Spanish and the culture from which it is derived for our area. We plan on doing some traveling later this year and, of course, a trip to see our daughter is a part of that journey. We may need to borrow Joy’s big SUV to bring back what is now a two year stash of booze and wine that our daughter has put in storage from tasting, charitable events and lecture/learn presentations. It would be grand to think that the curtain on our lives was always opening wider and higher, but realistically the ugly truth of life that is lessening one day at a time is indeed the controller of what and how long we continue. But as a final thought we are assured of one thing of certainty and that is that we will live longer than our 401-K which is now a 101-K.
