Now as all good kids do, your Dad sits you on his lap, and
lets you steer while he does the pedals, but other than that, I had not had
much experience behind the wheel until I was a teenager. I learned to drive on my family’s 88
Oldsmobile. It was white with this gold
metallic vinyl top, that we had to have re-toped at some point. Daddy took me down the Bogle Road, out close
to where my Great-Grandmother’s old place was, where we used to go fishing, and
taught me to drive. Oh I was the worst
at getting the pedals mixed up. The
Bogle Road, for those of you who don’t know it, is this long stretch of black
top, undivided, that goes for many miles back in the woods, on the outskirts of
Logansport. Few houses and lots of oil
well sites, and lots of trees. I think
most of that land out there now is owned by Dow Chemical.
Daddy pulled over to this well site and had me get behind
the driver’s seat and then we eased off.
Driving that car, was like driving a tank, that back end was just huge,
it was also kind of like driving a truck.
You have to remember your butt is extra long and trailing behind you,
and you need to remember that you have to calculate for a bigger turn radius
and parking. Kind of like wearing a
wedding dress or anything else that trails behind you. We pull out of the site and on to the road,
and Daddy is screaming at me to break. I
finally remember which one it is and apply it, about a foot from hitting the
embankment in front of us. Daddy, ever
so calmly takes out his snuff and makes himself a dip. I think he was shaking over the fact I had
nearly killed us. It took us a few more tries,
before I was going down the road smoothly.
I did a lot of over correcting, but there were no cars coming so we were
okay.
We had a few more of these sessions, with a lot more
yelling, before Daddy finally handed me off to Mom to teach me to drive. She taught me the finer points like driving
on the highway and how to pass another car.
Scary stuff for me back then. I
still drive on the shoulder too much, when there is one to drive on around
here.
So it was a while before they would let me out on the
highway by myself, in my Comet. I was
told to practice in the front yard. Now
we had a big place about 5 acres total, but only about 2 or so of that I could
drive on, and only when it was dry. I
remember driving between these great big pine trees. Still don’t know how I didn’t end up in the
ditch.
One day I am practicing backing up and PAWYAH! I hooked this little Pecan tree with my
driver’s side fender. It kind of stuck
out a few inches from the car anyways.
The car was hanging, oh a good 6” to a foot off the ground, and Daddy
had to come and pull me off with a chain on his truck. None of them was too pleased with me. Grandpa was mad I had hurt his tree, Mom was
mad I had hurt her car, and I was embarrassed about the whole thing. Now the body was solid metal, and I had bent
in a section of car, so we just took a hammer and beat it back out. You hook a tree today with one of these
plastic cars and you will have to buy a whole new side of your car, if you
don’t total it. Yep metal cars were
great, sucked on gas millage, but you could put them threw just about
anything.
Not long after I started driving I got my first job, outside
of the family, babysitting Dobermans, for Phil and Ardella Browning. I think I met them through my local
library. Either they knew me from my
volunteer work there, from the community in general, or from a genealogy
workshop I had taken from them. I don’t
remember and both of them are long gone now, so I can’t ask.
They had been raising championship Doberman Pinschers for
many years, but now only had two females left from their years of
breeding. Ardella and Phil wanted to
travel, but needed someone to watch their dogs and their house for them. They knew of my passion for animals and asked
if they could hire me to watch over their dogs while they were gone. I said sure!
Ardella thought it was best that I should meet the dogs
first, and have her go over everything with me.
I will never forget driving up to her place. There was a long drive way of the road to
their house and at the end was a big gate.
Inside was a 2 story house, a rare thing in my neck of the woods, a
greenhouse, and a pond out back. Running
lose in the front yard, with a florescent green color, was what I thought at
first was a deer. I got out of the car
and said, “Ardella you have a deer running in your front yard with a collar
on.”
She said, “Actually that is Bambi. She is a fawn colored Doberman.”
I was dumb struck. I
didn’t know Dobie’s came in that color.
I had on only seen black and tan.
I was a bit frightened by these dogs.
All I knew was they were aggressive and used for dog fighting, but
Ardella and Phil were not like that.
Suddenly this monster started to charge me, but I held my ground. This massive black and tan Doberman, with
cropped ears and tail, is coming at me full speed. I’m terrified but when she gets to me, she
doesn’t bit me, she swings her butt to me.
Confused I looked up at Ardella, who calmed me by saying, “This is Ursa,
and she wants you to scratch her butt.”
She explained to me that Ursa had been taken from her mother too early,
at 5 weeks, and she constantly wanted to be petted. You could not stop petting that dog. I’d be sitting in the swing, petting her, and
my arm would get tired from so much petting.
I would quit and she would bump me with her nose to make me pet her
more. She was such a silly girl. I loved her so.
I was paid $5 a day to come out, get the mail, check the
answering machine for any important messages, feed, water and play with the
dogs. I was given the numbers to where
Phil and Ardella would be and I was to call if anything happened, and they
would come home instantly. I am happy to
say that I worked for Phil and Ardella for many years, and became good friends
with them. Only once did I have to call
them home from a trip, when Phil’s sister became very ill and soon thereafter,
I believe, passed away.
To keep myself straight on what day was what, and when they
were coming home I kept a log of my time at their house. On an old yellow legal note pad, I would
write the date, and what happened that day.
If I had given medicine to one of the dogs, what the weather was like,
any animals I saw, or what new dead thing had been drug up in the yard. I always started it with something like,
“Today was a great day.” I always tried
to use a new descriptive adjective every day, and never repeat myself. It got quite tricky there when they were gone
for two or three weeks at a time. I’d
pull out words like groovy and keen. Ardella
told me one time, “I look forward to coming back, just so I can read your
little notes. I didn’t know you kids
even knew what keen meant.” I just
laughed.
Phil and Ardella were married for more than 50 years. They had met at a dance at a town Phil and
his buddies had randomly chosen to go to.
Phil worked in the oil business, for Shell Oil Company, most often off
shore. He still wore the jumpsuit
uniforms that lots of oil field works do.
He was the nicest guy, big and tall and with very broad shoulders. Ardella was bright in her own right. She was strong and independent. She had obtained a HAM radio operators
license, so that every night her children could say ‘Goodnight’ to their
father. This was in the 70’s. Long before cell phones kidos. She still had all her equipment and tower
when I knew her 20 years later. They had
traveled all over the world and Ardella talked about learning to speak
Portuguese when they lived in Brazil.
I’m tearing up now just thinking about her. I miss her a lot.
By the time I knew both of them, their children were all
grown, and moved away. Being in their
house was like a refuge to me. It was
full of books, that I was welcome to read.
They helped me with my genealogy. There was this huge wind chime that
was hanging between the dining room and the living room. I loved to ring it, and hear it’s sound. Ardella had her own art room with her sewing
machine, and an organized yarn stash like you would not believe. I think she was a knitter.
My favorite part of the house was this little sunny area, on
the other side of the kitchen sink. It
had two comfy chairs facing each other and two book cases, a his’ and her’s if
you will, beside these very large windows.
This little cozy space looked out on the pond and Ardella’s bird feeder
on the deck. She used to sit in that
chair, watching the birds and try to identify them. While Phil sat and read his paper or did his
crossword. Happy to be together, and
each still doing their own thing. I
loved this idea, that a woman did not have to give up being who she was in,
order to be married. That she could have
interests outside church, cooking, cleaning, sacrificing for her children, and
gardening. I think that was new for me
back then.
I kept that job until I went to college. I even worked for them the summer between
graduating high school and starting college when I worked for McDonald’s in
Center, Tx. I handed the job off to a
friend of mine, who worked for them for several years as well.
Ardella battled cancer in the end. She died when I was working at Fort Jesup. My mom called me, at the Fort, to tell me
that she had just found out. It had been
some time since she had passed. I was so
upset that I burst out in tears, and was inconsolable. I handed the phone to the other ranger
standing behind me, who had never spoken to my mother, and had no idea what was
going on. I had to sit down, before I
fell down. Although it had been many
years since I had seen her, I still loved her very much. She was my good friend. Finally the other ranger hung up the phone,
and I sat and told her most of what I have told you here.
Phil remarried and died some years back. I miss them both dearly and wish them well on
the other side.
Ilsa
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