A Three-Hour Tour: A Lifetime of Memories

An episode of Gilligan's Island and a bowl of Cheerios with a toasted Cheese Whiz sandwich: my after school entertainment and snack as a child growing up in the '70's.

When my colleague Angie Boone linked me a set of Gilligan's Island facts due to my all-time favorite show turning 50-years old today, I decided to pay homage to the crew America grew to love.

I lived in Cheney three years before I could afford cable television. I was too busy creating lesson plans and coaching high school basketball anyway. So when I could afford it and learned that Gilligan's Island was on TV Land, boy-oh-boy!

My VCR recorded every episode. I found another VCR and dubbed them onto another tape to edit out the commercials. I think my dad still has those VHS tapes.

Suzanne and Jessica, two of my younger nieces who were grade schoolers during my college and early teaching years, enjoyed watching the dubbed shows.

Here are a couple of my favorite lines from the show.

"Movie star, you make glasses steam."

This must be said in dorky, throaty fashion just like the actor did when his pop-bottle-bottom glasses steamed over as Ginger approached him to release her castaway friends. Plot line: a Japanese soldier ends up on the island and believes the war is still underway.

I know, I know. I've re-worded the original quote a bit. It's called creative license.

"Yes, master. I hear and I obey."

This must be said in a choppy, monotone voice to imitate how the castaways said it because a mad scientist and his monkey hypnotized them with a magical ring.

Plot line: the man is training the group to rob Fort Knox. This episode, and a number of other ones around this time, show Gilligan driving, I mean peddling, a car. What little kid did not want a car like Gilligan's?

In another episode, this same fella with the monkey experiments with teleportation, but he is only successful with the voice. The man's beefy sidekick ends up with Ginger's voice and Ginger speaks with a manly voice.

"Like a harp needs a string!"

This must be sung half-opera-half-spoken style like Mrs. Howell. She, along with Ginger and Mary Ann, dubbed themselves the Honeybees to impress the Monkeys, a singing group who purposely stranded themselves on the island to get way and practice their music.

"Neither a borrower, nor a lender be. Do not forget, stay out of debt."

Again, sung with gusto just like Skipper and Mary Ann in the group's rendition of a scene from Hamlet. Probably the reason I became an English major.

How do I remember all these great moments? Because it truly is my all-time favorite show. It contains all the elements of a well-developed plot. The worst they ever said on the show was son-of-a-gun. And any sexual innuendo was just that, innuendo, nothing inappropriate. The show was clean fun, and I will always defend it.

My favorite episode: The Radioactive Vegetables.

And when my husband wanted to cheer me up a number of years ago when I had to put my precious Lexy doggy down right before Christmas, he insisted that I open up a present early. Guess what it was? A boxed set of Gilligan's Island DVD's. 

If I have just conjured up some of your favorite Gilligan's Island memories, please share in the comment section below.

Mom's Pestering Pays Off

Mom never asked me if I wanted to take piano lessons. She just told me I was doing it. I grew up with musical sisters, so this was no surprise.

Practicing the piano was a daily event for me--usually after supper. I play it about every day now too as an adult. It brings stability to my psyche.

I started piano lessons in 3rd grade, the year I got eye glasses.

When I first started lessons, Mom would sit in the black swivel chair in the corner of the dining room quizzing me on the musical notes and symbols with flashcards. As I practiced, I would hear her flipping through her favorite reading materials: Good Housekeeping and The National Enquirer. She hid The Enquirer and other Hollywood gossipy magazines in the China closet.

Mom with me in front of the black chair she sat in when I practiced piano.

If I went on to a different piece too soon, I would hear, “That was not five times hands apart. Do it all again.” And I did. Probably with a roll of my eyes.

And if Mom was not in the house due to plowing up some field for Dad, my practice time was pretty short. Then the next week I would be explaining to Mom why I did not pass it at my lesson.

Oh, to be a little girl again with Mom around in her silent pride of watching me develop into something she was never given the chance to become. Mom could play a couple pieces by ear, but she could not read music, so it was important that her daughters knew how. I do not know if she had the same expectations of my brother, 20 years my senior.

Clarinet lessons at school started in 5th grade. I think I am a 6th grader in this picture.

As I grew older, my practice time increased. I had graduated from the Dozen A Day warm-up books to Hanon, a rigorous set of exercises. When I play them today, my young-girl frustration returns. My fourth fingers are still weak--especially the left one.

But Hanon enabled me to play tougher pieces. My teachers, for I only had two throughout the nine years I took lessons, were both meticulous. Maybe that is why people today call me picky.

my first piano teacher, Lillian Horn

Through their prodding, I seemed to become an accomplished pianist who earned superiors. No lower than a superior-minus one year, and on two different occasions, I earned a superior-plus. But I still do not think I am that good. I just practiced a lot.

I cannot sight read. I cannot play hymns. I cannot accompany a singer or a musician. I play only classical.

Yes, I play the scores whose pages are often blackened with more than an octave stretch, pass overs and unders, trills, and change of key. But really, I am not that good. It took me forever to learn a piece--but I did learn it.

I auditioned and earned the privilege of playing in front of my largest crowd ever: 1983 Girls' State in Mitchell, South Dakota on the campus of Dakota Wesleyan University. More about representing my high school there in future posts.

Here is the note telling my Girls' State counselor I got the nod to play.

The type of persistence piano playing teaches is like none other. See, for those who know my rat terrier nature, I blame it all on the piano. One has to be tenacious to learn Holberg Suite by Grieg. It took me two years.

Even with success, Mom would still say, “You sure didn’t practice very long. Go do it some more.” The older I got, the more audible complaining she heard. But Mom never really argued back. She was good at ignoring my whining and griping.

Then my senior year came, and she did argue back. “You’ve only got one more year. Next year, you’ll be at college." I was not even thinking of the senior recital I had earned.

Ruby Matson, my piano teacher ~ Heidi Krutzfeldt & Lisa Brisco with me at our senior recital

So, I kept on a-playing. Kept on a-whinin' too. Only now I also complained about playing the prelude at church, playing the offertory at church, playing the postlude at church, and griped that Arlene Decker and Barbara Gross, our regular pianists, wanted me to do her job.

This self-centered teenager did not understand that those women were actually complimenting me when they allowed me to play instead of them. And Mom just kept on saying, "You're not gonna quit."

I am so glad she did not let me.

And today when I can still sit down and play, rusty--really rusty, I can almost hear Mom holler from another room like she did when I was a teenager, “That sounds just beautiful, honey. Play it again.”

Thank you, Mom. It seems you and Dad gave me a name that suits.

me on my sister Brenda's lap--eyes on the keys of the piano that I first learned on

Did your parents ever make you do something you grew tired of? How do you feel about it now? Share how it has shaped who you are today by commenting below.

Down in the Dip

My front LexiconGirl license plate is a little crooked due to a minor mishap in 2009 at Jerry and Elaine Gerber's in Garden Plain where I get my hair cut.

My step-daughter Brittany was with me, and she got out to take a look at what I had done. Silly me, thinking we were just stuck in a deep a pot hole, told her to lift up that end of the car. She kept telling me there was no way she could do that. I did not understand because the car seemed to be tipped only a little bit. It felt hung-up on something. When I got out, below is a picture of what I saw. 

The Alero Taking a Dip

I had backed up, turned too soon, and ended up with my front passenger side end down by the culvert. It seems I am not the only one to have done this, for Elaine knew who to call right away. Dan Stroud, local tow truck fella, lifted me out.

The Gerbers have since put up a cement guard on both sides of their driveway, but for months afterwards, I parked on the road. And I still have Dan's number in my cell phone--just in case.

Do you have any silly car mishaps? Or places you avoid because you do not trust yourself behind the wheel? Share them in the comment section below. It would reassure me to know I am not the only dumbo-driver out there.

Alero, the sweet lemon

My Alero has been kind of a lemon--but more sweet than sour since she is over 15-years-old, on her third set of tires, and still makes 27 miles per gallon.

I now pay more for the registration paperwork than I do the property taxes on this thing, but hey, she still works, and I'm not too proud to drive a tin can.

The Alero is not fun to sit in though. A towel covers the driver seat’s innards so they do not end up hanging from my rear. Switching from AM to FM or to change to a CD requires pushing the button three times. But oh, one thing works quite well: the cassette tape player.

Many other items; however, are out of commission or close to it. Here's the list.

The trunk lid requires a key and refuses to open with the remote or the inside lever. The plastic liner on the edge of the trunk is gone. Between my golf clubs and Brittany’s getting yanked in and out, it would not stay on anymore, so I duct taped the thin indoor carpet liner to the metal frame.

The cabin is far from sound proof with leaky windows—especially in the back--that is why she is a tin can. The sunroof stopped shutting, so we disconnected it. The back two windows are disconnected too because they did not know how to stay where they belong either.  
 
The driver’s side window started all these window issues in December 2006, a couple months after I married Chris.

What does love have to do with it? A snow storm, that's what! Fifteen inches in Oklahoma when it was all said and done, and I've got pictures to prove it.

Never a shy one around a camera, a 12-year-old Brittany with Pepper--ready to move to Kansas.

We traveled to Bartlesville from Cheney to sign for the closing on Chris' house. The road conditions turned a regular 3-hour trip into a 6-hour adventure. This time it was mother nature expanding the time frame--unlike my trip this summer in 2014 when I turned a 9-hour trip into 12. Read my blog post entitled, On the Road Again--Alone, for more about that nightmare.

Chris at his house in Bartlesville on the day of the signing.

Luckily for us, Brittany's grandpa and Chris had moved their belongings in a U-Haul to Kansas the day before, a Wednesday. They returned to Oklahoma that night. The plan was for Chris to come up with his pick-up on Thursday with the last of their belongings, and after I was done with school, we would drive back in the Alero for the signing, which was on Friday. Brittany's grandparents would see to it that she would wrap up things at her school.

But on the Thursday morning of the trip, even before a lick of snow hit the ground, Cheney Superintendent Brad Neuenswander made the no-school call. That was how dangerous and plentiful the storm was predicted to be. When I called Chris at 7:30 in the morning to say that he had better leave now--with no snow on the ground--he thought I was crazy.

Not the case when he finally got here late morning and told me he had hit the ditch due to ice near the the Belle Plaine exit on the turnpike. He was able to maneuver his red Dodge pick-up right back up out of it. Good thing no one was traveling too close behind him either. I could have been a widow before my husband even officially moved in.

What does all this have to do with the Alero? Ice and snow, that's what. On our drive back to Oklahoma, Chris had to keep opening the window, grab the blade, and knock the ice off the wipers.

Ready to head back to Kansas in the Alero--to finally live together as a family.

We arrived Thursday night in good shape, but the last 10 miles from Dewey to Bartlesville took an hour. The closing was postponed from Friday to Saturday, and Brittany never had school those last two days.

After we arrived back in Kansas on Saturday afternoon, the driver's side window kept sneaking down. It did not want to stay up. And I had no garage, so we taped a blanket over it.

So on that first Sunday, with my family finally together, we crammed into the pick-up to go to church. Large speakers took up the small back seat area, so Bee and I held the groceries on our laps on the way home from Wichita. Oh, the memories of beginning married life. 

We had to fix that window, of course, or no mailbox stops, fast-food drive-ins, or ATM stops for us. In the years that followed, the back windows began to slip too, so we disconnected them.

But that was the beginning of my car, only 7-years-old, turning into my tin can rat trap. I think she got her feelings hurt when Chris purchased a brand new Honda Accord later that month. Suddenly, the Alero was not driving us around like she used to, the Honda was. And the Honda is a smooth, quiet, luxurious ride. Brittany and I used to accuse her dad of loving the car more than us.

But I understand his affection for his car. I will probably cry when the time comes to retire the Alero. But for now, I'm hoping she makes it to 20-years-old like one of my dad's other Oldsmobiles. 

Chris with his Honda in December of 2010 when she is already 2-years old.