Many years ago, my best friend, Jo, asked me to write a memory or remembrance of an experience with her parents who were going to celebrate their combined birthdays for a total of 178 years.  Here is what I wrote:

 

Even though Jo will deny it or claim to not remember it, she once told me a story about her father, who was a Methodist minister, by the way, walking around the house in the nude, declaring how he deplored the way “today’s people have no modesty and no morals and think nothing of running around naked, even in their own homes.”  I think he was trying to “illustrate” a point.  Or maybe he was trying to get his point across, no pun intended.

That said, I will move on.

Ruth was the Big Cheese for Avon, Inc. In Southern California and the first “career” woman I knew intimately.  When she was going to work, she always dressed in a tasteful suit and sometimes wore a hat.  The best part of her job, to me, were all the blue carrying cases chock full of the most wonderful goodies and surprises.  Remember those cute little lipstick and perfume samples you could get from the Avon Lady?  I loved them, and she always kept me supplied.

I was invited to go many places with Jo and her parents, and they always made me feel a part of their family.  One of my favorite places to go was their very-exclusive-desert-resort cabin (read, “shack”). Once, when we were out there, a mother rattlesnake had hatched her babies in the bottom of the very-exclusive-desert-resort outhouse.

Since there were no bushes – only cacti – to hide behind, we had no choice but to use the outhouse.

Depending on who had to “go,” one of us would stand outside the little house, holding the other’s hand, bracing ourselves with our feet on the ground, leaning backwards.

The inside person would grasp the outside person’s hand and then lean one’s behind, ever so gingerly, over the hole, just about two inches beyond the striking distance of mama rattler, or so we hoped.  We could hear her hissing and rattling all the while.

We always sang lots of songs and even harmonized on our road trips with Ruth and Hubie, as I liked to call him.  Jo and I were usually in the backseat, sometimes with our heads under the back window, gazing up at the stars and talking about our dreams and whether or not God existed.  Ruth and Hubert always gave us our own space and pretended they couldn’t hear what we were discussing.  Very cool, I thought.

They had some dear friends named Ruth and Scotty. The couple managed a TraveLodge motel in El Centro, California.  One weekend the Duncans invited me to go along with them to El Centro to visit their friends and stay in that motel, which could have starred in a movie about the 1940’s or 50’s.  I’m sure I saw Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable wandering the hallways..

Jo and I were allowed to share a motel room of our very own.  This was the ultimate because it told us we had reached a new maturity in our teenaged years,

The motel had a swimming pool, which we practically had to ourselves, a vending machine, and an ice machine! Oh, the simple pleasures.

On that Saturday night, they took us across the border to Mexicali – a short distance in miles, but in terms of cultural differences, millions of miles away. Everyone across the border was celebrating on Saturday night.  The men were gathered on the street corners, all wearing their best cowboy hats, and the women and children were all milling around on the streets and having a great time.  It was such a festive atmosphere.

I always felt safe with the Jo’s parents.  They were such an intelligent, sensible and classy  (I’ve since learned better) couple, but most of all they were very kind and generous to me, and I learned much from them.

Congratulations on 178 years!

Much love, 

Jeanie