Category: Nostalgia

Wise Fools

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

64-yearbookThe school year of 1963-1964 began typically enough for the Class of 1966. We were sophomores, the “wise fools” as the strict Latin translation proclaims. We entered our second year of study with confidence, perhaps not fully understanding how much we did not yet know. It was a year of change and those of us from the female side of the student body were excited about the new uniforms that appeared to be a tiny bit more fashionable than the dull brown pencil skirts that we had worn as freshmen. We arrived all decked out in our brown and white plaid pleated skirts, white blouses, and dark brown blazers. At least for a time we were glad for the opportunity to wear something different.

The Carmelite Fathers were celebrating their one hundredth year of service in America and it seemed fitting that we would rechristen our yearbook with the name, Zelo, alluding to the motto of the Order of Carmelites, Zelo zelatus sum pro Domino Deo exercituum, “With Zeal I have been zealous.” We returned for our second year believing that we had the whole high school experience figured out. Gone were the fears that we might be unable to meet the demands of our teachers. We had formed strong friendships and alliances with one another and we felt ready for anything that might come our way.

We were admittedly a bit less interested in academics than in the social aspects of school but that is rather typical of sophomores. Our teenage years were in full bloom with many preparing to earn driver’s licenses and make the grand leap into more independent lifestyles. We tackled the logic and proofs of Geometry with Mr. Maroney and became ever more proficient in Latin with Sister Wanda. Father Donald led us through the fundamentals of Biology and taught us how to dissect a living breathing frog and keep its heart beating even as we opened its body for observations. I have long suspected that my ultimate reluctance to pursue a career in medicine began inside the Biology lab when I was certain that I was going to faint from the stench of formaldehyde and the sight of that tiny heart fighting for a survival that was doomed.

Once again I had an English class with Father Shane and just as with the previous year it would be the highlight of my day. My biggest surprise came from Speech and Debate. I was then as timid as a little mouse but I somehow discovered the bold nature of my personality when Mrs. Lamping taught us how to use not just our words, but also our voices to communicate with strength and determination. I soared under her direction and soon found myself competing in debates with my partner, Claudia. We would never find the momentum to have a consistently winning season but I would learn so much about people and my interests would begin to take form.

Our handsome and beloved President Kennedy was proving his own mettle in national affairs and becoming ever more popular. He had faced down the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis and gained the respect of even his detractors. He was coming to Texas in the fall of our sophomore year with a short stop in Houston before traveling to Dallas. It was November and I had turned fifteen years old only days before. I remember sitting in English class when Sister Margit came to the door to announce that President Kennedy had been shot. She was always such a jokester that I at first thought that she had gone a bit too far with one of her impish pranks but the look on her ashen face told me that she was not attempting to fool us. Along with my classmates I felt as though someone had just punched me in the stomach. I remember sitting silently for hours waiting for the school day to end and wondering if the world as I had known it would ever be the same. This terrible day would become the defining moment of our sophomore year of high school, a turning point when everything that we had ever known seemed to suddenly change. I suppose that we all grew up just a bit on that day and lost the unfettered innocence that had once been ours.

We eventually carried on just as the country did. We relied on the rituals and routines of school to occupy our minds and our time. The newspaper and yearbook staffs preserved our memories, the sports teams represented us in combats with rival schools. I kept my membership in the Medical Careers Club even though I was beginning to doubt that I was suited for a life in medicine. I religiously attended the Saturday night dances where I enjoyed meeting up with my friends and watching the couples sway on the dance floor. My teachers and my classmates were feeling more and more like family and I found great comfort in being with them day after day.

It officially snowed in February and our teachers allowed us to run outdoors to catch snowflakes on our tongues. It was a rather pathetic but typical version of Houston snowfall but it got us temporarily out of our classes. Our basketball team celebrated its one hundredth victory that same month and I learned that the round ball was my favorite sport. There were spiritual retreats and Bunny Hops and more and more of my classmates driving to school for the very first time.

In the spring we had our annual fundraising drive. Each of us had to sell a case of World’s Finest Chocolate, a feat that was rather difficult given that most of the people in the neighborhood had children with their own cases of candy to sell. This meant that we had to use our salesmanship skills with strangers. My cousin, Ingrid, and I became a team, traveling with our moms to any place where we thought that potential customers might lurk. Our favorite spots were bowling alleys, ice houses, and trailer parks. We were thrown out of many establishments in our quest to sell our wares but usually not before we had managed to deplete our inventory just a bit more. Somehow we always managed to meet our quotas but it was difficult work. Mostly though it taught me that people are generous souls who are inclined to help even when they have little to give.

We ended our sophomore year far more knowledgeable and ready to become role models as upperclassmen. Many of us had moved up in the ranks of the various organizations and had made names for ourselves in academics and sports. We were halfway through our journey through high school but were yet to realize just how quickly time flies. We were anxious to move on and to be at the top of the pecking order. We had earned our places as school leaders and we felt more than ready to conquer the world.

The Beginning: 1962-1963

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

yearbookIn September of 1962, I entered Mt. Carmel High School as a freshman. I was not quite fourteen years old and looked as though I was only about ten. At under five feet tall and only about seventy pounds I was a tiny girl who didn’t appear to belong. I was both excited and terrified as I walked down the wide gleaming halls in the two story building that still looked as new as it had when it was built only a few years before. I had been warned that members of the upper classes might try to sell me an elevator pass and that I was to politely refuse to purchase one because there was no elevator in the building. It was easy to tell the fish from those who had already spent a year or more studying in those classrooms. We wandered with dazed looks on our faces as we attempted to take in the magnitude of our new phase of life.

The girls looked a bit uncomfortable in our brand new uniforms which seemed to have been designed to make us look as unattractive as possible. We would eventually grow to hate the brown and white pleated skirts, white button shirts, and brown flannel jackets that were our daily wear but in those early days it was all brand new and we did not yet understand how weary we would become of donning the same outfit every single day.

Our teachers were no nonsense as they outlined the requirements for each class. They insinuated that we would have to demonstrate our mettle or be left behind. It felt as though we were in a military boot camp as we wondered how it was even possible to read and report on a book each week while also writing two hundred word themes that would be due every Monday morning. It was difficult to work the combination locks on our lockers and still have time to rush to class from one floor to the next. There was so much to remember, so much to do and learn. I don’t recall much from the beginning because I felt as though I was in a daze but soon enough we all had adjusted to our routines.

The best part of being in high school was a new found freedom that we had never before experienced. Nobody was treating us like babies any longer. We became responsible for ourselves and it was exhilarating. There were also so many new faces with people coming from all over southeast Houston to join us in our adventure. At first I felt shy and self conscious, especially around the older students, but before long I was enjoying brand new friendships that would only grow as I worked my way through the next four years.

This was a year of profound change all around the world. Pope John XXIII died during that school term and would many years later become a saint. A little musical group from Liverpool, England would score a music hit with a catchy tune called I Want To Hold Your Hand. Rachel Carson would alert mankind to the dangers of polluting our environment in Silent Spring. Charles Schulz would introduce Happiness Is a Warm Puppy and Crick, Wilson, and Watson would earn the Nobel Price for Medicine and Physiology for determining the molecular structure of DNA. In my hometown of Houston Dr. Michael DeBakey used the first artificial heart during surgery.

I loved my teachers and my classmates almost instantly. Father Shane, my English teacher, would become a beloved icon and inspiration both for my writing and my career in education. Sister Wanda somehow made Latin fun and Father Bernard opened up the heavens for me in our Physical Science class. Father Franklin did his best to teach us Algebra I but I still suspect that I mostly self taught myself when I went home each evening to unravel the confusion that I felt after each of his lectures. Sister Francina was as sweet as can be but I often experienced stark terror whenever she began shuffling the index cards that contained each of our names so that she might randomly quiz us on the reading that we were supposed to have done the previous night.

Mostly though I loved all of the extracurricular activities associated with a high school. I joined the newspaper and became a cub reporter, although my contributions were minimal. I traveled with the Medical Careers Club on field trips to the Houston Medical Center thinking that I might one day pursue a degree in medicine. I loved our class journeys to the Alley Theater and to the Music Hall to hear the Houston Symphony. I became a member of the Student Council  and for a time marched with the Cadets drill team. Best of all were the Friday night football games where we all met to blow off the stress from studying and to just laugh and yell and be ourselves.

Mt. Carmel sponsored a dance every Saturday night in the school cafeteria. It was open to anyone willing to pay the small entry fee. Disc jockeys from radio station KNUZ played the latest music and sometimes even secured live bands. They advertised on the radio so we usually drew a nice crowd. I went almost every Saturday night and loved listening to the music and visiting with my classmates. I learned the true meaning of being a wallflower as I often found myself relegated to sitting in the metal chairs that lined the perimeter of the dance floor. Somehow I still managed to enjoy the evening even when I never got the opportunity to hit the dance floor.

I was in awe of the older students in the school. I thought that Gerri Gallerano was the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen and since she always smiled at me when she passed in the hallway I knew that she was also quite sweet. I formed a new friendship with a girl named Claudia who had gone to my previous school but whom I had never really known that well. Her sister Camille was a senior who kept us well informed regarding the dos and don’ts of high school society. She was so down to earth and would serve as a major inspiration for me for years. I never really got to know many of the juniors but since my cousin, Ingrid, was in the sophomore class, as was my next door neighbor, I felt more comfortable with them. I had major crushes on several of the sophomore boys but their names will go with me to the grave.

The freshman year of the Class of 1966 would prove to be quite wonderful. Somehow we managed to meet all of the impossible deadlines that our teachers set for us while we were being transformed from babies into bonafide teenagers. We had little warning that the our innocence and that of the world would soon be put to the test. For the time being we lived in a comfortable world where the halls were filled with our laughter and we were certain that the hopes and dreams that we whispered to one another as we walked from class to class would surely come true.

I now look at the cute little faces of my classmates in the yearbook for 1962-1963 and I wonder how I possibly felt intimidated and shy around anyone. All of the kids wear expressions that are so sweet and eager to please. Their smiles are genuine and inviting. It is easy to see that we were all good people beginning a four year journey in which each of us would be forever changed.

Tree

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

tree1024x1024There is a tree in Rockport, Texas that has been growing in the same spot for centuries. Some wise soul thought to save the old oak forever by declaring it an historical treasure and building a fence around it. People travel from all parts of the world just to stand under the shade of the sprawling limbs and to marvel at the girth of the ancient trunk. They snap photos of the wondrous image and try to imagine what the old tree has seen in its time on this earth. If only it could talk we might hear of native people pausing under its branches to rest after a day of hunting and fishing or learn of explorers from Spain who traveled along the Gulf Coast searching for cities of gold. Did the tree once see vast flocks of whooping cranes wintering in the area in their annual journey from Canada? How did it manage to withstand the forces of tropical storms and punishing hurricanes? What is its secret to long life?

We humans have love/hate relationships with trees. We plan trips to Vermont in the fall to marvel at the glorious colors of leaves but also cut down beautiful specimens to make way for factories. We plant trees in the yards of our new homes that once sat in forests that we eliminated to build our suburban communities. We enshrine trees in metaphorical poetry even as we topple them in real life. We use them for our own whims often forgetting that they are helping to provide the very oxygen that we breathe. They cool us and shelter us and we all too often take them for granted. When we flee from natural disasters we abandon them to bear the brunt of wind and water and fire.

Along the Big Thompson Canyon on the road leading from Loveland, Colorado to Estes Park is the dead stump of a once mighty tree. It is bent and gnarled into a contortion created by the power of the river that took homes from their foundations and turned nature’s bounty into piles of rubble. Somehow that tree has become a work of art. Its determination to hold fast to the rocks in which it once grew is a testament to its strength and flexibility. It stands as a sentinel as rugged as the huge boulders along the face of the canyon. It has somehow withstood the onslaught of both nature and humans.

We personify trees. They teach us lessons. We track our human history in their branches. We have a special kinship with trees, especially when we are hot and weary. We sit under their branches cooling ourselves and dreaming of futures that we may never see but they are more likely to enjoy. Trees remind us of ourselves as they travel along with us through the seasons and the years. They are our silent partners in a lifetime journey.

My paternal grandmother was a child of nature. Her father and her grandmother are buried in a national forest in Arkansas where their homestead once resided. It seems fitting that her ancestral home is now protected and allowed to return to a wild and unfettered state. She so loved to walk in the woods under a canopy of trees that sheltered the birds and critters that she enjoyed. When she died my grandfather handpicked a spot in the cemetery that sits under a grove of oaks whose limbs reach gracefully over her final resting place. She would have loved the serenity of the area. In life she marveled at nature’s wonders and seemed almost to be a mischievous sprite as she wandered in the forest behind her farm naming every tree, plant and bird that crossed her path.

Hanging on the wall at the entrance to my home is an image of an enormous tree spreading its limbs across a landscape of green. I have placed it there to welcome my guests and to remind myself of the glories of the natural world. The painting calms me and makes me smile. Gazing at it takes me to my roots. I think of the people whom I never met who had to live in order that I might now exist. Like the tree they once began with a tiny seed and then reached to the heavens with their dreams, becoming ever stronger with each new branch. I know their names but not their stories. I can only imagine what their lives had been based on what I know about the places where they lived. I wonder what they would think of me and the world in which I exist. I suspect that they would be happy that things have turned out as well for me and my extended clan as they have. After all, each of us wants the best for our children and grandchildren. We want to know that they will be safe.

One of my favorite books is Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. I have presented it as a gift many times over. I never tire of its story of unconditional love and sacrifice. I have now travelled through almost seven decades from the time when I was born. I have been the child, the teenager, the young adult, the middle aged individual and now the old person described in the tale. I have known both the exuberance and the drudgery of life, sometimes forgetting the people who have brought me to the place where I now linger. Like all humans I sometimes take my blessings for granted and even abuse the kindnesses that have been shown to me. I forget to be thankful and to simply enjoy the shade and the sound of the wind whispering through the leaves of the tree of life.

Trees keep me optimistic. They remind me that there is a continuity in this world that is bigger than our individual human efforts. We may falter and even become a bit full of ourselves but the ebb and flow of life remains essentially the same. We all benefit from being a bit more like trees. It is important that we “Stay grounded. Connect with our roots. Turn over new leaves. Bend before we break. Enjoy our unique natural beauty and keep growing.” (Joanne Chaptis) If we remember these simple rules we will surely find more of the contentment that we seek, especially in a world as seemingly mad as the one that we now face.

That tree in Rockport has seen more than we might ever imagine and still lives on. There is something rather nice about knowing that it is there and will be even when we are gone. Like the giant sequoias of Yosemite, the groves of Aspen in Rocky Mountain National Park and the countless shady lanes that soften the highways and byways across the land trees are the constant that we all wish to be in the world.

The Test

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

56750d678ee6c-imageFridays in the fall always meant one thing to me. There would be a test in on of my classes and a test of our school’s football team on the gridiron later that night. I was always feeling exhausted after a long week of assignments and high expectations from my teachers. Even though I was a Hermione of sorts when it came to academics I just wanted to get through the educational part of the day as quickly as possible and move on to the possibilities of the weekend, a time for taking a deep breath and avoiding the stress of study if only for a moment.

My school didn’t have a band but we did have an all girls drill team with a drum and bugle corps. It was considered a big thing to belong, a way of forming endearing friendships and being part of something revered by the student body. Surprisingly I wasn’t a member of the group. My decision was a huge disappointment to my mother.

My mom had spent money that she didn’t have to provide me with baton twirling lessons from the time that I was in the third grade. In my middle school years I had performed as a twirler in the drill squad and had eventually risen to the rank of Captain. Mama had assumed that I would continue the quest to become the drum major in high school but in an uncharacteristic fit of rebellion I had refused to try out for one of the coveted twirling positions and had instead chosen to become a lowly marcher on the team. Due to my then diminutive size I was in the very last row of performers, a kind of afterthought.

My downfall from the glory of leading the group as a twirler was more than my dear mother could handle and she announced that if I wanted to be on the team I would have to find a way to pay the fees and attend the practices on my own. Since I barely had enough money saved to purchase the many school supplies that I needed it became quickly apparent that I would have to drop out of the coveted drill team group and become a nameless member of the horde of students that freely trolled the stands under the Friday night lights. I chose the unconventional road and it ended up being not so bad after all.

I never had a car or a driver’s license. Such luxuries were not included in our very tight family budget. I bummed rides to the football games with anyone that I could find and thoroughly enjoyed our free and easy excursions. We had no uniform code or rules. We were just out and about for the evening. We’d crank up the volume on the radio which was always tuned to the popular stations of the time and rock to the songs of The Beach Boys and The Animals. We’d laugh and sing and swear that on this night our team was going to topple the opponents. We’d whisper our hopes of encountering  certain male someones from our classes and scoring romantic conquests of our own. It was all so glorious and magical.

Our football team always tried but never ranked with the greats around our state of Texas. I went to a Catholic school that was rather small by public school standards. Our arch rival was St. Thomas High School, an all boys institution that prided itself in both academics and a championship athletic program. During my high school years they dominated football, winning the state title several times. Still with the optimism that was mine in my innocence I always dreamed that my team would one day be David to the St. Thomas Goliath. It never happened but it was fun to keep the faith and cheer for our guys even in the face of defeat.

I was an enthusiastic supporter of my classmates who braved the gridiron. I saw them as superheroes, young lions strutting their physical acumen. I yelled so long and hard at those games that I often returned home with a voice so weak that I was barely able to relate my adventures to my mom. I never scored with any of the guys with whom I self consciously flirted even though I often tried. I should have been disappointed by so many of those Friday nights but instead I remember them as being the highlight of my week. Win or lose it was glorious to shed the stresses of studying and taking tests and just hang out with friends. Screaming for my team and laughing at the antics of my fellow students freed the pent up frustrations and emotions associated with my attempts to successfully meet the sometimes daunting demands of my teachers.

Our football team’s most successful year came when I was a senior. For a brief moment I imagined that we might actually topple the might St. Thomas Eagles but that was not going to happen. Back then I had no idea that I would one day meet a young man from St. Thomas who would steal my heart and teach me how to love my one time foes. We would become parents and then grandparents cheering new teams and still enjoying those Friday night challenges that light up entire towns across Texas on cool fall evenings.

Tonight we’ll be at the Pearland Oil Rig stadium to watch the clash between Dawson High School and George Ranch. We will be torn in our allegiance because the kids in our neighborhood attend Dawson. In fact the young lady next door is one of the cheerleaders. On the other hand our grandchildren attend George Ranch.  We’ll wear the George Ranch colors and sit on their side of the field but in the end we really can’t lose because we have grown to love all of the young people who live around us who catch the bus for Dawson each morning right in front of our home. It’s a win win situation all around.

I rarely have any kind of tests these days other than those to explain my medical ailments. I have left the stress of long academic weeks behind. I am retired so even work is no longer a worry. I have new concerns over which I have little control. I fret about friends who are sick and suffering. I tutor my grandchildren and students at local high schools and middle schools and often think of them taking a critical exam. I feel a bit nervous for them when I look at the clock and realize that they are in the midst of taking a test for which I helped them study. I pray that they will remain calm and remember the ideas that we discussed. I mentally root for them as much as I did for the athletes who represented me and my school so long ago.

Life is the ultimate test of our wisdom, courage and endurance. As I attempt to make the very best of what will inevitably be the final phase of my life I at long last understand that it is okay to be unsure of all the answers and to lose from time to time. We gain as much from defeats as from victories, from mistakes as from success. In the end we are tested not so much on our abilities as in how we have lived and treated those who have walked along beside us. I’d like to believe that most of us have passed with flying colors.

Kit Cat

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

kitcatclock-black-white-bgIt was an ordinary night when I walked into my kitchen to find a most disturbing scene. There strewn on the floor were eyeballs, a little black tail, and the broken body of my Kit Cat clock. My little treasure had somehow fallen from its place on the wall. I was so upset that I called for my husband to clean up the debris that lay from one end of the room to another. It was apparent from the number of pieces that my beloved little clock was forever gone. Even though the time piece was only an object made of plastic and a few carefully placed wires I was filled with great sadness.

To be honest I truly understand that there are far graver events unfolding in the world than the destruction of a silly little clock. I see the images of suffering, war and injustice on a daily basis and it most definitely bothers me. I know of family members and friends who are enduring frightening and painful illnesses or even the tragedy of loss of a loved one. A battered clock is hardly in the same league as these very real kinds of problems but that clock represented far more to me than might at first glance be evident.

Around the time that I was four or five years old my father went to Rochester, New York on a business trip. It was a rather lengthy affair and I recall feeling a bit lost without his presence around our home. My mom seemed distracted and lonely while he was gone. Somehow our lives were off kilter without him. Then as suddenly as he had left he reappeared bringing sunshine back to our days, along with a few gifts that he had carefully chosen for us. Among them was a delightful clock that made us laugh. It was one of the original Kit Cat clocks, a humorous black cat with a grin as impish as the one that my daddy so often wore.

My father proudly mounted the smiling creature on the kitchen wall where it kept up with the time and smiled at us with those great big cat eyes scanning one side of the room and then the other. A long black tail swung in unison with the tempo of the tick tock of time, telling us that life was going to continue merrily on now that our dad was back home. It was the perfect gift from our perfect dad and I so loved that cat who was as unique and funny as my father.

Our Kit Cat clock traveled with us wherever we moved. It was part of our family. It went all the way to California and back with us and maintained its vigil on the wall through births and illnesses and seasons. It was ticking away on the morning that I learned of my father’s death. It reminded me so of him that I found comfort in watching it continue with its duties even as I wondered why the whole world didn’t stop to share the pain that I was feeling.

The clock soldiered on with us and as I grew I found it to be less and less enchanting until the time came when I hardly noticed it anymore. At some point it must have finally quit operating properly because it disappeared from the wall. I never thought to ask my mother what had happened to the clock. It was just a silly old thing that could never have lasted forever. Besides, I would always have the memory of my dad grinning like a Cheshire cat as he so proudly presented his find to our family so many long years before. That was really all that I would ever need.

Just as we always do I went on with living, rarely thinking of the clock until one day I walked into a store and there on the wall was a display of Kit Cat clocks being as silly as ever. I think that my husband was a bit mystified at the sheer pleasure that I derived from seeing those happy little timekeepers. When I told him the story of the clock that had once lived in the memories of my childhood he listened with his usual respect for my quirks. Somehow he managed to realize that the clock had been a link to my father in a time when I most needed to remember how much delight my daddy had always brought to our family.

When Christmas came later that year I excitedly opened my gifts to find among them a brand new Kit Cat clock to hang on my wall. I was overjoyed and touched that my sensitive spouse had understood the significance that the little cat held for me. We began a new tradition with our clock that extended through the marriages of my daughters, the births of my grandchildren, and the years of change and growth in our family.

The clock kept perfect time but over the years the eyes and tail only moved sporadically, sometimes standing still for months and other times suddenly swinging back and forth as steadily as a pendulum. It still brought me the kind of joy that I had felt as a child. When I looked at that grinning little face I thought of how lucky I have been to be loved by a father that I hardly had time to know and a husband who has been at my side for over four decades. The clock was part of my history, a treasure that meant more to me than I might ever explain. When I saw it shattered into pieces the other night I felt a genuine sense of devastation. It was as though a part of me had suddenly been destroyed. I had to call my husband to dispose of the debris because I was unable to face that grisly task.

If I have learned anything in my life it’s that distressing things happen and we somehow find ways to carry on with our journeys. After briefly grieving that my clock was gone I came to my senses and logged in to Amazon where I found a replacement to order. My new Kit Cat clock will arrive sometime next week to bring a new generation of joy and laughter into our lives. It will watch over our celebrations and comfort us in times of sorrow. It will stand as a sentinel and a reminder that sometimes all we have to do is smile and be a little silly to get from one moment to the next.