Basketball Uniforms

When I was in high school girls work lovely gym suits which were kind of bloomers and had three buttons on the shoulder to fasten them on and men wore very tight pants. Now they both men and women wear decent outfits. They look much better. I wonder what made coaches wise up and fix things. Now as to football when my father played back in 1913 they wore cheap shirts that when they tried to tackle them they ripped. I think that it was 1913 the lasst time Washburn College beat KU at football. Somewhere there must be a designer who helps make these changes. This is short today because how much can you say about uniforms but I do wonder sometimes.

grandparents

We were to write about our ansectors this month in my writing class and I realized I did not know as much about them as I thought. My own mother was a twin and they say twins run in the family. I know she had a sister who I think had two sets of twins which did not live. My mother's twin only lived a short time. She named my oldest sister after her twin. My own children weighed a lot when they were born but there was only one of them. Just nice fat babies. I knew quite a bit about my mother's family as she let me interview her once when I was making grandparents books for my grandchildren. My dad's mother never talked much about her family, I knew she had a clever brother who became President of a college and convinced my father to get a college education but one grandfather died before I was born and the other one knew my name but did not tell me about his family but then I was 10 when he died and doubt if many grandfather have long talks with grandchildren even now. I knew all my dad's brothers and his one sister, He never talked about his uncles or aunts. When my grandmother Burkhardt died and was buried I know they buried her beside the wrong Burkhardt and my dad had to pay to have her moved by her husband, At the time our local minister said a few words over her and she was laid to rest beside the correct husband.

Boston Creme Pie

As our children were growing up my in-laws like to visit us most weekends and one weekend I thought I would make a Boston Creme Pie for dessert. It was not cooling very fast so I put it out in the garage on the car to cool. We had lunch and were ready for dessert and Sally said she would get it. Cindy went along to help. Cindy came back first and sort of picked at my sleeve. It seemed Sally had dropped it. Sally came in soon with a sad looking dessert. She had done a good job of picking it up and except for a little sand on it's top was okay. We ate it.

Three Musketeer Candy bars

When I was growing up along with 2 sisters and a brother the girls in the family washed the dishes. I stood on a stool as I was kind of young and short. After we finished we got a treat. My mother bought a carton of candy bars from my Uncle Percy who ran a drug store and after we did the dishes we were offered the candy bar to share, I always hoped I would get the chocolate one but the vanilla and strawberry were not bad. The candy bar now is just one bar but they still call it by it's original name. It is chocolate so you do not have to worry about getting the right piece. I wonder if it is still delicious, The commercials make it look delicious.

Dogs

I love dogs and I married a man who did not care for dogs as he thought they were unsanitary, among other things. My father-in-law was a sanitarian so maybe that is where he got his attitude. The first dog was named Skippy. I was about six but he was hit by a car so my Dad did not want any more dogs. The 2nd was named Tarbabby and belonged to my sister, Ethel. He was a black cockerspaniel and we were great friends. However she moved to San Diego and took her dog with her. Then my husband-to-be gave me a blonde cocker spaniel I named Cokey. He was great. However when Ray asked for my hand in marriage, my dad said "You can have her but not her dog." Then we had birds as I needed a pet. But they only chirped.

The week before our youngest son was born, a newspaper friend gave Ray a dog which we named Pogo. He was very smart and could trail anyone, even my mother-in-law when she went for a walk. We had him about seven years. Then he was hit by a car and had to go to a vet. It was near labor day and Ray drove a racing car and ran into a brick wall and had to go to the hospital. The day he came home I got him settled and then went to get the dog. When we got home from the vet, I opened the car door and let him out. He ran to the porch and dropped dead. I called the vet and two came out. Later they called me to say he had died of cheer joy.

Our next dog was named Snoopy. It was about the time that we were being interviewed to have an exchange student and we put the dog out when they came but someone let him in and he rushed into the front room and stood on his hind legs and played the piano then went over and threw up in front of the committee. They gave us an exchange student from Norway as they said if we could survive the dog we could stand anything.

After he died we had Bimbo and she was with us for 17 years. Ray still did not like dogs but when the dog died he was writing a column for the K C Star and he wrote a sad column about the dog. The kids asked why since he did not even like Bimbo. We were offered a dog which we got right before Christmas and named her Holly. That was fine until we got a granddaughter named Holly and we would yell at the dog and this cute little girl would turn up to find what she did. After Holly dog died we did not have one for awhile and then Scott had a great dog named Abe and was going to Washington for the summer and left the dog here which was a mistake as I did not want to give him back. He lived 14 years and died of a tumor.

After Ray died I was lonely and my granddaughter, Erin, had gone to California and left her dog with her parents who loaned me a black lab named Ashiki. She was named after a KU football player. Needless to say Erin came home and I did not want to give her back and Erin let me keep her. Then not being a good driver I ran into a building and did something to my knee so my daughter took Ashiki home to Wichita, where she died. She was seven years old and her brother had died just before she did.

I came home and was lonesome again and my daughter Cindy and my granddaughter Holly got me a five-year-old dog from Pet Smart that had been raised in the prison at Lansing, Ks. We named him Buster since he busted out of Lansing Prison. I do love having a dog. However I like cats also and have had a few.

PTA President

When my children were in grade school our school had a carnival to raise money. We had a President who had sticky fingers. One year after the carnival was over we found while we had checks the cash had disappeared. Since the vicepresident of the PTA was the wife of the Shawnee Police Deptartment we had no trouble getting help from the police. It was about $800.00. Her mother put up the cash so we did not have a trial and put her in jail. Then the women did not want anything to do with the PTA so my husband Ray and another father took over. At the same time I had the daughter in Campfire and they sold candy. The mother kept the candy money and the candy her daughter had. The first father ran the PTA for a year and Ray was the program chairman and then the following year Ray was president. The family moved away but always sent me a Christmas card. You meet interesting people in the PTA.

What I did in World War 2

My grandson, Taylor was told by his teacher to interview his grandparents about the War. This is what I wrote for him, I graduated from high school in 1941, I attended Washburn College in the fall. My family owned a family car and a pickup truck. I got to drive that the most as my sister had a boyfriebd without a car so she took that. On December was Pearl Harbor. I had known about the European war because our neighbors to the north had to move from the Nazis. He was a psychrist at Mennigers while he got a US license. His stepdaughter was half Jewish. The male students started leaving the school. My husband to be was in the ROTC. My mother became a driver for the Red Cross and wore a neat uniform. Every holiday we had soldiers as guests. We had gas rationing and gas and meat stamps. I worked for my father and he had a filling station so I took care of gas stamps. Everyone rode the buses or if it was nice I rode my bike. My dad put it in the pickup and I drove home with him. A lot of his customers used the barter system for that was a time when you had your groceries delivered and we shopped at whatever grocery had a bill. College classes went on as usual except men students kept leaving for the armed forces. I do not think any of my classes were with air force but were with the navy. They took over the dorm and the sororitys. We had to move off campus. We went back to playing KU and KState. On December 1942 they tried a blackout in Topeka. It was not successful but the Japanese never attacked. My sister's boy friend went off to war as did my best friends and they decided we should do more then be hostesses at the USO so we decided to be Red Cross nurses aides. We went to class and Martha gave up but Helen and I stuck it out and got neat uniforms. We worked every Monday night and every other Sunday morning. Helen alwas worked maternity but they moved me around. There was a registered nurse on every floor. Monday nights I put people to bed. I gave them the bedpan and put all their flowers in the hall so the flowers would not take their oxygen while they slept. If I spilled the bed pan which I did once. It was my job to mop it up. There were no emergency rooms then at least not in Topeka so sometimes we were there. My mother had always told me to wear nice underwear when I went out in case I had a wreck but I found my job was to cut off whatever they were wearing and I never noticed if their underwear was great. We did great as USO hostesses as we had grown up with a pool table so played good pool and knew when it was polite to lose. As hostesses once a month they had a dance in the city hall which was fun but you were not allowed to turn anyone downwhen they asked you. By the time the war ended we had an airfield in Topeka and they were just back from the war. They did not want to talk they just sat and looked at you. Also you had to ride in a canvas topped truck and it was cold. At college we had a war bond rally and I was chosen to represent my soroity, I got third. I wore my $65.00 fur coat and was gracious in losing.Ray who I was dating at this time and he was editor of the school paper wrote an editorial about the football team wasn't very good but we should attend the school dance anyway. The team shaved off his hair. It had grown back when he was called into service and they cut his hair again but better. I finally graduated in 1944 and went to San Diego to visit my older sister Ethel. My mother stayed on and I had to get back to teach school. They had blood drives and I always gave blood until they told me I needed my blood more than they did but I did get my gallon pin. (More another day).