Sock hop, Convention Hall, Hutchinson, Kansas , 1957

Back in 1957, a boy walked up to me and asked me "What is your front name? "  I thought that was strange, but I told him "Louella ".  His front name was "Corky."

Oh, to return to that year!  I was 16 years old.  American Bandstand was the goal of everyone of us little teeny boppers back then.  The most important item of attire back then was a clean pair of bobbi sox, a full skirt and crinoline petticoats.  My dancing partner was Corky Dipman and we won every time we danced.  I loved Corky with my whole heart and had I died in my 16th year, I would have left behind the perfect world.  The highlight of that summer was when Corky took me to Wichita to Joyland amusement park.  The fact that we rode so many rides that I ended up barfing from the top of the Roundup, was not enough to dim the memory of that day.  The fact that we skipped school to go and were the only ones there made it even more wonderful.

I went back to Wichita many years later and found Joyland abandoned and rusting.  The carousel  horses were gone from the Merry Go Round,  and the tracks for the Roller Coaster were rusted and twisted.  Tumble weeds grew where our feet had walked.  I could still hear the laughter and see Corky smile.  Ah, the days of sand and shovels!

I think he was my first boyfriend and I do not know why we broke up.  I think he actually started going with a girl who had more to offer then flying feet.  I think I may have become interested in home brew that my new friend LaVeta had to offer.  And she knew lots of boys from Sterling, Kansas and they were not jocks.  I never much liked the sports scene and the boys with the letter jackets even back then.  I did like the home brew and the cigarettes, though.

Shorthand was my favorite subject in school.  I envisioned myself being a secretary and I loved the shorthand tablets.  What I liked best was the size and that the back cardboard cover had all the shorthand symbols printed for me just in case I forgot.  I still have that kind of tablet for notes, but they no longer contain the shorthand symbols and that is kind of sad.  I never did master the typewriter.  One girl in class could actually type over 90 (?) wpm.  That means "words per minute."  I think 24 was the best I could do.  Sadly, to be a secretary in any place that mattered, one had to be proficient in both typing and shorthand.  Alas!

Sadly, school held little fascination for me and I envisioned a life full of rainbows and butterflies.  Well, you see how that turned out, don't you?  I started my restaurant career with my hands buried in a sink full of dirty dishes.  I dreamed then of being a waitress.  When I moved up the chain to waitress, I dreamed of being the cook.  I finally became the cook.  And the baker and cake decorator. Now I am a seamstress!  Go figure!

But, as I look back on my life, it was good.  It was all good.  Even the bad parts were good.  My name went from Louella Beth to Lou Mercer.

My oldest daughter always said "What don't kill you, will make you strong."  Lot of wisdom in that girl.  Maybe I never made it to American Bandstand with Dick Clark, but I made it this far in life and that right there is about the best I can hope for.  I figure American Bandstand made it a lot of years without me for a reason.

I think God had other plans for this little girl.  Not real sure what they were, but here's hoping I did whatever I was put here to do.  If not, I hope I get it done pretty damn quick!  

My very first marriage proposal.

It is now 4:20 AM.  I woke up about an hour ago thinking of my first marriage proposal.  Since that was 57 years ago, I thought I should lay there until that memory faded, but it did not, so I thought maybe the kids would get a kick out of  knowing I actually remember their father!  Not only do I remember him, but I remember him fondly.  He was my first love.  From the time I met him until we were married was a total of maybe 6 weeks.  To say it was a whirlwind courtship would be an understatement!

Back in those days, we still wrote letters.  Earl Duane Seeger and my brother Jake were good friends.  Well, they were drinking buddies, any way, but friends nonetheless.  I always called my first husband Duane.  Earl always sounded so formal and I had a brother named Earl, so he was Duane.  Duane worked for a man who traveled the state trimming trees.  Later in life Duane studied and got his license as an Arborist, tree trimmer, and licensed sprayer.  That is all beside the point.  What is important is at that time he would be out of town all week and only home on the weekends.  So we wrote letters.  It was too expensive to call on the pay phone and I think a stamp was like three cents back then.

So one day I got a letter from Duane and a lot of it was in German.  I showed it to my brother and asked him  what it said.
 
"Ich libe du means 'I love you'.  Ich libe du zer fiel means 'I love you very much'.  Wollen zie hie rauten mit mer?  I think that means 'Will you get married with me?'  I am not real sure, but I think that is what it means."

So being the starry eyed 18 year old girl that I was, I knew this was true love.  We were married at a church on the corner of Sherman and 5th street in Hutchinson.  His mom came from Jetmore with her husband.  My mom was there  as were a couple sisters, I think.  It was October 30, 1960 (I think) and it was the first snow fall of the year.  I borrowed my little sisters prom dress so I kind of looked like a bride.  At least I felt like one and I embarked on what I thought was the rest of my life with my husband at my side.

I kept his letters  until we had one of our many fights and I threw them in the sink, covered them with gravy and announced that the marriage was over.  Back then it was a simple matter (in my head) of just walking out and not looking back.  I did that many times until 10 years and 5 kids later, I never went back.  I loaded the kids in the back seat of a 1959 Chevy and filled the trunk full of clothes.  It was a trip I will no doubt remember to eternity, because it was the end of life as I knew it and I had no idea where my next meal was coming from.   (He sold every thing I did not take (including my house plants) at the weekly storage auction in Garden City, Kansas.)

He did not want a divorce, so he refused to participate in the court or paying for it.  Of course he refused to pay child support as well, but he did share in custody, but we went by our own rules.

Do we ever forget our first love?  I think not.  Are the memories always pleasant?  I think not.  My mother once told me that we all have different perceptions of what we go through in our lives.  Mother was very wise.  Over the years, my memories have changed.  I have mostly forgotten the bad parts and only remember the good.  I remember a blonde haired, blue eyed Greek God with a beautiful smile.  I remember how special he made me feel.  If we could have lived in a vacuum it might have lasted, but we couldn't and it didn't.  

He and I both moved on, but did we really?  In my mind he will always be 23 years old.  We will always be dancing to rock and roll music and we were good!  Fishing.   Coon hunting.  Watching the moon from a river bank.  Seeing the sun come up.  Memories.  Who knows.

That ship sailed a very long time ago.

Corky was a dancing fool!

I woke up this morning with Corky on my mind.  First let me go on record as saying it is always both a surprise and a pleasure to actually wake up.  It becomes more of a surprise as each year goes by.  But this morning I was thinking about Corky.  Must have dreamt about him, because he was very vivid.  Corky dates back to when I was 16 or 17 and still in high school.  I do not remember how I met him because I lived in Nickerson and he lived in Hutchinson which was 11 miles away and I had no car.  Now I can set here and try to guess how he came into my life or I can tell you about him. 

Corky was the coolest guy in the world.  He came with lots of friends and while he did not have a car, his friends did.  And he loved to dance.  And I loved to dance.  At that time there was a dance every Saturday night at the convention hall.  If you know your history, you have surely heard of Dick Clark and his "American Bandstand". (Now my facts and names and such may not be completely correct, but this is what I seem to recall.)  It was held back east in some big city and it was all the rage.  It was on television and all that.  So ours was held at the convention hall with some disc Jockey and to save the floor we all checked our shoes at the door and it was called a "sock hop".

Corky was always my dance partner and we were good.  One of his tricks was to face me and at the precise moment  he would cross his arms,  I would squat, he would step over me and some how I ended up behind him and we never missed a beat.  Another was to put our backs together and link elbows and he would lean forward which flipped me across his back and I lit on my feet facing him.  We did the stroll, and all kinds of things he learned on watching bandstand.  Several times we ended up winning for the evening.  It meant nothing, just that we were the winners.

Corky and I were a "couple".  Back then being a couple meant absolutely nothing, just that we danced together.  Then we decided to take it to the next level.  He borrowed his brothers car, we skipped school and went to Wichita to Joyland Amusement Park.  Being a school day, the place was deserted with us and a few other kids skipping school being the only ones there.  We rode the roller coaster.  We rode the Ferris wheel.  We walked in the hot sun.  We made a recording in a booth.  Then we rode the roller coaster and the Ferris wheel again.  The only thing left was the Roundup.  That is the round thing where you are strapped in standing up, spun around, and tilted on its side and that is when I threw up!  Luckily the operator saw what was happening and leveled the ride out quickly so the only one was lucky enough to have my vomit hit them in the face was me.  Corky was very caring and compassionate to me and decided maybe it was because we had not eaten, so he bought me a hot dog and we left Joyland, never to return.

Of course he got in trouble for skipping school as did I.  When the whole truth about our day came out, as the truth always will, we were both grounded.  Since we had no real emotional connection, and mileage being a detriment, we drifted apart.  We both found new friends.  Our dancing days were over, but I still have not forgotten Corky, or Joyland, or the sock hop at Convention Hall.

Hutchinson, Kansas is actually a very small town at heart.  Idle curiosity made me wonder what had become of Corky.  And Jimmy and other friends.  Most of my friends had married and led rather mundane lives, but some of my dance partners had remained single.  I had married and moved away, but moved back in 1967 with a string of children in tow.  I left Hutchinson again 10 years later for the fertile fields of Colorado and have been here ever since.

In 1980 the AIDS epidemic began.  It was known in the early years as "The Gay disease."  My very dear friend, Gibby, was one of the first to fall.  I took up the banner and became involved in the fight very early in the game.  I was to learn many years later that both Corky and Jimmy had been lost to that disease.  Such a waste of life.  The hate back then was palpable.  There was talk of "rounding up all the queers and locking them up" so they could not spread the disease.  What a lack of compassion! It took people like Rock Hudson dying and Elizabeth Taylor standing up in his memory to finally wake up our country. 

When December 1 was declared a day of remembrance for all the artists and actors lost to the disease, it was a giant step forward.  The first one held in Pueblo was attended by one man with AIDS and a woman who had lost her brother to AIDS.  It was at the Arts Center.  The next year I was there with 2 friends.  Now it is a very open celebration and is held at Rawlings Library on December 1.  Our little Pueblo AIDS Memorial Quilt hangs in the 4th floor for the month of December.  Quite a step from huddling in the shadows to this.  The quilt has been featured in the newspaper with full page coverage 2 times.  

I never made a panel for Corky or Jimmy.  I made one for Gibby.  

And there you have the workings of my mind this morning.  Damn!  I sure hope it rains soon.

Now it is back to High School at Nickerson, Kansas.

Well, I did digress there a little, but I am sure had I stayed on the ancestry I would never move on with this little tale.  Sooner or later you are going to know a very lot about me.  May not all be good either!

Ok, so now I am back in Nickerson and I must go to school, like it or not.  In Nickerson one class was as large as the whole high school at Plevna.  I came from a city where everyone knew everyone and now I was adrift in a sea of faces, very few of whom I had any idea who they were.  I very promptly fell in with the "wrong crowd".  Never knew there was such a thing, but there I was smack dab in the middle of one.

Now, you are probably going to wonder about this paragraph, but I swear it is all true.  At about this time Nickerson began building a new High School.  I think I went to the old building and the new building at the same time.  I think, but I am not sure.  I remember very little about the 2 1/2 years I spent at that school.  I remember that I flunked sewing (Home Economics), scraped by Algebra, English, History, Latin and Speech was a complete disaster.  I do remember that one of my new friend's dad made home brew!  As I recall, that was a tasty concoction.  I do recall sleeping through a lot of my classes.

I recall dating once or twice, but never dated anyone the second time.  I recall that Hutchinson Naval Air Station was still in operation during my Junior year and the neighbor girl married a guy from there and moved back to Indiana or some such place.    Her sister dated one of the "swabbies".  Not me man!  Those guys were way to smooth for this little hick, although I did meet one who was here from France and I let him kiss me! Mama mia!  That's a spicy meatball!  Also about that time something was going on overseas and several Polish guy wound up in our circle.  That is all I recall about that business.

Sorry to disappoint all ye who had faith in me, but this is the way it was.  I know there are those of you who recall every moment of your existence, but I am not sure of dates and events enough to elaborate.  I am pretty sure I was there and I am pretty sure I behaved fairly normally.  I do recall the "sock hops" at Memorial Hall (?) in Hutch and I recall a guy named Joey and winning several dance contests.  That Joey was into what ever we danced to back then.  I guess it was just plain old Rock and Roll. He and I were a perfect match and we had lots of fun together.  I do not recall ever kissing Joey and years later I learned why.  Seems he was the first gay boy I ever knew.  (You do realize names have been changed to protect the innocent?) Joey actually died from AIDS many, many years later, although this is all through the grapevine.  I never seen or talked to him again after our sock hop days, oh and the fiasco when he took me to Joyland in Wichita and I threw up on the Round Up.  We made a recording in a booth there and I kept that for many years.  Wonder where that went?

During my life at Nickerson High School there were several memorable events.  Elvis Presley hit the scene on the Ed Sullivan Show.  Oh, that was love at first sight for a lot of girlies!  My brother joined the Army, went to Germany and came home from Germany.  Momma finished secretary school and we moved to Hutchinson. 

I think my head is going to explode!  I better go let the ducks and geese out and do something mundane for a while!  Hopefully see you tomorrow!