Biloxi Mississippi

A short 2 ½ hour drive took me along the gulf coast to Biloxi Mississippi, where I was to look up a newly married sorority friend whose husband had been drafted and was training at the base there. They lived in vintage army housing much like my young parents did in 1945 - strange surroundings far from home. My parent’s war was against Hitler – they were fighting the ‘good fight’ – so unlike the Viet-Nam war of 1971, which cast a shadow across the land, bearing with it a constant threat of a purposeless death in a strange place. The young couples in Biloxi distracted themselves much the same as my parents must have, with training and work, partying and booze - making the best of an awkward situation and an uncertain future. My stay with them was idyllic; we basked in the sun, laughed and avoided adulthood for just a little while longer.
I write home –

Gang 11/22/71
Well have been w/ Pam & gene for 2 days now – quite a different life – they have a place right across the street from the gulf – ocean view but trees and grass around their bungalow – of course the place dates back to WWI but the setting is beautiful – they are pretty happy – much more so than most of the young couples out here – of course there is the period of adjustment for them & the added problems of the guys having to cope with being in the service – but very nice for air force – i.e. (with the) BX everything is cheap plus will all get pay raise in month like $2 or 300 more a month – they don’t have to live on base or dress up and be soldiers all the time – in fact only 6 hrs a day – 30 hr week no less – this Biloxi spot is a training center for radar etc stuff & most are in transit to another place – hard to have knowledge that you will be moved yet no idea where – well Gene found out they are to be sent to Pt. Arena Calif. – about 20 miles south of good old Mendocino right on the ocean – not bad. They are going to continue to live cheaply like now & the extra money will go in the bank & finance as Datzun 240-Z as the only car they have now is Pam’s 62 VW.

The life here is difficult – so they get together often borrowing mops, sugar, etc. Pam said that they got one of the nicest apts – a good air conditioner & refrigerator – other couples have the good stove or couch or whatever. Biloxi is also a seat of Jefferson Davis Home – must have been quite a place in his day – a beautiful area down here except for the muggy summers and hurricanes … weather has been stupendous- I’m lucky – bluest skies & sea green trees & grass – sun but 70’s in temp no humidity very nice – has been great talking to Pam – she’s settled down a bit & admits that she had visions of being married as all rosy & bliss & knows it’s not case but is having a great time … she’s a pretty practical person – has been great talking to both- Gene is good in electronics & engineering stuff wants to go into radio when through w/ air force radar stint but says may stay on awhile in service if gets over a few hang ups as money and benefits are hard to beat – it just may be the best place to be in a few years. Took me around base – which has a beautiful wooded lake marina where they get together for shrimp fries/boating/picnics etc. - not bad! – It has been pretty neat staying with them, a fun quiet time plus a good party – bought them the booze w/ windfall from Uncle Charles $20 unexpected so I figured I wouldn’t be practical with it – it’s been really fun & quite a different experience – will be moving on to Tuscaloosa, Alabama for tues night –picked it as I think it’s where George Washington Carver used to teach but not sure - anyway it looked better than Birmingham & will be nicely situated on the way – will call Ludy & be with them for Thanksgiving weekend – well today Pam & I will go look at old fishing boats & countryside – do some sketches & maybe wash car … – will be w/ Uncle Charley again later probably 2nd week of December – 10th -12th – … will write frequently as possible – Love Connie

Baton Rouge

As I approached Louisiana from the east end of Texas the trees snapped into bayou mode and were suddenly adorned with picture perfect hanging moss. I was ready for a change of scene and got it – in a letter home I wrote -

“I’ve had it with how wonderful Texas is, tho they are truly hospitable… crossing the state line on interstate 10 into LA is all that any traveler could wish for… immediately and I mean it, you pass from wooded hill country into open spaces chock full of swamps, bayous, and those neat trees with the moss stuff on them, was attempting Baton Rouge so didn’t stop for sketches but intend to do some while here, in fact I hope to do quite a few….also the old houses on Lafayette on the concrete blocks…really Louisiana looking, like Texas was Texas looking, guess movies don’t lie after all…”

Layfayette, Louisana was my destination for the night, I entered the town cruising around until I located the campus and found the dorms..this chapter just used a meeting room as their members resided in the dorms or off campus entirely…often the case – not every chapter had their own house like I had been used to at UCLA. I was able to camp out in the meeting room area for the night which worked fine for my budget. Spent most of my short stay chatting with various members and others about life…we called them ‘rap sessions’ in those days and they went long into the night often enhanced by candles, a stack of record albums and a bottle of wine. I was off the next day for Baton Rouge and to check in with an elderly widowed relative, Uncle Charlie . Our family had visited there in the late 60’s and I had fond memories of him and Aunt Rhoda. They were childless had hoped I would attend LSU and live with them since they were so near the school. They tempted me with a garage space that would have served as a studio and I admit I was drawn to the idea, but remained in CA for my undergraduate years. I arrived there to find a letter from home, filled with news about the busy activities of my family, I had some down time there and wrote home -

“ This being a bum thing is really neat, the thought occasionally passes my mind that I should gather together some money in January and February and then take off again in the Spring but th rough the North…haven’t reached many earth-shattering decisions that will determine the rest of my life, but then I wasn’t really counting on it, was thinking in Austin one quiet evening watching some people from a window, that if I did try to do this artist bit for a quote career,( it would be in the line of) the humanists who capture a moment of existence and make it last forever, a little of human folly, and some of its dignity…..people never seem to change – just their surroundings…. Uncle Charles really resembles NANA(my grandmother), esp. in the eyes and quiet manner, he…still drives, has his dog a wonderful tiny ball of excited fluff, good for him, walks him along the lake 4 times a day, sleeps with him, watches TV with him…”

I recall him fixing the dog’s dinner boiling some meat and carefully shredding it - that dog lived a pampered life and adored Uncle Charlie in return. I stayed with him on the way back as well and would paint in the kitchen from some sketches I did here and there - mostly oil on cardboard – (my sister has one of them still, a scene done from memories of a visit to Preservation Hall in New Orleans) I drove around the lake to LSU and visited the sorority chapter, where a letter from a friend awaited me. The LSU house was large, with over a 100 members had too many people watching soap operas and the only thing they seemed interested in was their Napoleon plates in the foyer. They were a wealthy fancypants chapter, so unlike my little UCLA chapter house of barely 20 members,who supplemented our expenses by taking in ‘boarders’. I didn’t linger. On the return drive I pulled over to draw some black folks fishing off of the bridge I was crossing, half wishing I could join them. Along with sketches, I jotted down some observations–

“Have and have nots quite distinct – incredible – but then the suburban sprawl is everywhere & the cities hold the ghettos – somethings bound to give eventually .... a local quote – ‘the grand houses get the gas, n****rs get the gas stations’ – Guns – common in Louisana – hunting, shooting, boys out off the highway with rifles, girls with bruises from kickback – pistol by bed and in porch at my Uncle’s - armed robbery all over, really kind of makes me nervous–“

After two days there I had regrouped, knowing I had a cushy base to return to on the way back. I was eagerly looking eastward to my next stop, Biloxi,Mississippi where I would hang out with friends my own age.

Texas week two Nov 7-16 1971

I left Alpine travelling with a passenger, Kaye, who I had met through the sorority while at UCLA. She was a field secretary for the sorority visiting chapters in the region, doing work for National. So instead of flying to her next job, she hitched a ride w/ me and used her expense stipend to cover gas and lodging to the Georgetown, Texas chapter. We drove South and East to Del Rio, stopping to take a walk over to the border town of Acuna, Mexico, which was hot and dusty and the only noteworthy event was buying some gum from a few little kids. On to Uvalde, Texas for our overnight and then away to the east the next morning to San Antonio for a visit to the Alamo and lunch along the river walk, an upscale and a fun change from our up-until-then low-budget ventures. From a letter home -

"they're sure aren’t many radicals out here – one hippie on a street corner – (LA look beard & embroidered levis) in San Antonio saw my UCLA decal as we turned the corner & started grinning and madly waving – its funny from a lot of the longhairs out here LA is a magic Haven – but I guess the grass is always greener – most of the folks (here) have their own plans for their future & don’t need to bother with any ‘isms’ – most people I’ve met are surprised at what I am doing ...– most are pretty open about their feelings ... and are eager to share thoughts and meet someone who is tied to them (thru ФM) but from a different world – I keep getting asked ‘what is LA really like?

We arrived in Georgetown later in the day where Kay was to stay at an elderly alum’s home while working with the chapter, I was welcomed to stay as well and gladly took advantage of that. We shared a room in their ancient house and laid awake at night listening to the critters crawling up and down inside the walls. Mice? RATS???? We got used to them after a night or two - even giving them names. The childless couple was lively and fun-loving, compensating their barrenness by taking care of an endless chain of college girls, perpetually welcoming them into their home. ‘Aunt Margaret’ and ‘Uncle Frank’ - It was better than staying with a relative, we were taken care of without parental ‘just when will you be getting home?’ I described them in a letter home

-" Aunt Margaret is pretty opinionated but I like feisty old ladies – took me out to the 40Acre Club – Texan High Class last night for dinner & as 2 of the ФM’s here dropped by & asked to go along they said sure – toured the fraternities and sororities at the university in Austin
as well as capitol had a great dinner - "

Georgetown was filled with older buildings which I happily sketched. Having grown up in the shiny new suburbs of Southern California I was enthralled by anything over 100yrs old. At the time I was fond of felt pens and drew on illustration-board, toning the back ink with orange felt pen - garish but effective and very 70’s. During the days, while business was being done, I drove around town and the surrounding countryside sketching. Aunt Margaret asked me if I was a ‘people painter’ and I’d have to say yes, although I spent much of my time on landscapes then. She was quite taken with a nearby locale that had bending trees “…that grew right back into the ground!” So I went out and sketched the area, doing a painting of them to leave with the couple as a ‘thank you’ for accommodating me. They had some spare storage rooms down the hallway and let me set up my easel and paints in one of them. An idyllic time, drawing and painting by day and being taken out to lunch and dinner by our generous caretakers –Georgetown became my new best friend. One night ‘Uncle Jim’ arrived. (everyone seems to have an Uncle Jim and this guy even looked like my own, they are all fat bald jolly and single) He asked us what we were going to do that night, “write up some reports and read” we replied. “Like Hell! It’s Friday night! I’m taking you out for a cool brew and some real sausages!” So off we went to Walburg (a little town settled by German Immigrants in the 1880’s with a population that never got over a few hundred) for sausages and beer at one of his favorite spots. I drew the bar scene later when we got home. Uncle Jim hated Star beer insisting anything but Schlitz “outta just be put back in the horse.” He entertained us with tales of his 30 year stint in the air force and how to make coconut hooch. a recipe I luckily preserved in a letter home (you never know when this sort of information might later come in handy)

– get some coconuts – drain the juice & store it in the icebox – then get the cheapest hooch – 2 bits a gallon & put it in the coconut – the meat will absorb the poison –(you plug the shell & store it about a month) & it will be really smooth – also you can put the coconut juice in your drink w/ ice & have a great highball

(I wondered if the GIs used rubbing alcohol – a lotta time on their hands in the Pacific - and a need to drink.)

I was enjoying Texas so much; I had been there for over a week. It was time to move on, Louisiana beckoned and I planned to be in Gatlinburg Tennessee for Thanksgiving with relatives. So off I went - the passenger seat empty this time, but my mind occupied to capacity.

Road Trip First week - LA to Alpine TX Nov 1-7 1971

Lots of kids have taken off on trips at a youthful age - what’s so different about mine? That I was a girl alone? That I kept a sketchbook and did oil paintings along the way? That’s not so unique for artists to do. By temperament I am a list maker and planner, doggedly sticking to whatever chart I have laid out, so I was hoping this trip would purposefully throw a wrench into that structured nature. Maybe I needed to not be on a schedule, to have some wriggle room for awhile before ‘growing up’ and settling down to some orderly future-yet-to-be. Some planner I am, I have impetuously jumped into this project before really figuring out how to depict it, how describe my journey in a way that interests anyone else. There are some of us who just plunge into the ocean only to gasp and realize !!@#**&#!! It’s freezing! We thrash around for awhile and then get swimming – so bear with me if I flounder for awhile.

I took off on November 1^st, safely staying my first night at friends of my parents’ in Phoenix and the next at a sorority chapter in Tucson. I was out of California and on the road! I tooled around the Tucson area getting my feet wet in the desert, doing my first few sketches along the side of the road. But Tucson failed to hold my interest –Arizona was just too close to California, too familiar. I needed to put more distance between myself and home. I headed East, briefly stopping in Tombstone and marking it for another look on my return. A mix-up in dates squelched an opportunity to stay with a friend of my Mom’s outside of Las Cruces, so I pushed on to Van Horne Texas and my first motel room alone. My family had taken many road trips, so motels were a common enough experience - but me being the one to check in without a pal along for moral support was a novelty. (For the life of me I can no longer picture the room – too many other trips and cheap motels have muddied the waters.) Up early the next morning, I headed east and up into the mountains to Fort Davis, stopping to draw a little and relish in my alien surroundings. Now I was really somewhere different and new. I parked along the road and drew an old farmstead which a crew of Mexicans was doing repairs on, innocent of any potential dangers in the situation. A gruff old guy in a Stetson pulled alongside me wanting to know what I was doing on his ranch and seeing that I was indeed drawing wished me good day. (Recently Googling Fort Davis, I saw that the ruins still bore a strong resemblance to my sketches!) I was raised on a steady diet of cowboy shows from Roy Rodgers to Bonanza, my childhood spent wearing six-guns and hats, what a fun surprise it was for me to come over a hill and see the real McCoy – not some Disney version. I stayed awhile and drew, then had ham and eggs at a local diner before pushing on to Alpine, Texas. Once there, I cruised around the little town until I was in the college area and then located the dorms and eventually the sorority chapter. Friendly conversation and my status as a sorority alum worked pretty well to acquire accommodations along the way and much of the time the cost for a night’s stay was next to nothing - in the case of Alpine nothing - a sleeping bag on the floor. At other places, a couple of bucks got me a bunk bed and dinner. Alabama even let me do laundry gratis-I loved that place! Here in West Texas at Sul Ross State College, things couldn’t be more simple - kids were there to learn agriculture, become school teachers, and find someone to marry. It was a very small town, very country, very Texan. Far from the West Coast, I had waded into some foreign, but friendly waters. I was adopted by the locals immediately, toured around with the celebrity status of being from California - a kind of youth Mecca for most of the country in 1971. Here in this remote little West Texas town, I glowed with a golden aura. It went to my head and I stayed on a few days, basking in their infectious adulation, openness and joy. There was little to do in their small town - I spent the days painting from the studio-trunk of my car, the afternoons going to the five and dime for a Coca-cola with the gang. A lack of entertainment venues hardly stopped restless reckless college kids in a state where driving 90 miles to another little town for a hamburger was common, gas was cheap and boredom levels ran high. One night we decided to see the notorious Marfa ‘ghost’ lights, well-known for their spooky and extraterrestrial qualities. Dismissed by skeptics as merely gas or reflected auto lights, their mysterious properties lured us out into the darkness. We drove for hours and waited fervently in a lonely cow pasture, eventually seeing some lights, whose glow was enhanced by a six-pack of beer and the fact that we were young and out late on a Saturday night.

The details of those past events in my cards and letters home are sketchy and my recollections piecemeal. As I rummage through them, do I jealously long that I was once more off on a youthful adventure? Maybe, but perhaps I am just as comfortable with the ease of an armchair tour.

Solo road trip 1971

Driving to an appointment at a strange new location brought back memories of my first experiences tooling around alone in a car and the sense of freedom it brought - on my own - calling all the shots! The joy and hesitancy of making all the decisions myself. I recalled my first big solo trip. I had taken several short jaunts here and there for a few days away from home either accompanied by a friend or a little sister, but the trip in November of 1971 that went on until late December was the 'biggie'. There was a sense of freshness in being alone behind the wheel. It's been 40 years, yet I still have all the postcards and letters home, a few photographs, some notes and a joy of joys! a sketchbook! Thumbing through them now as an adult with grown children, I wonder what worries went through my parents minds? Communication was not instant then, parents awaited weekly letters or the rare and costly collect call home. I hadn’t a camera at the time, or pocket moleskin notebook - much less a computer or smart phone. I wrote my impressions on a yellow ruled tablet and drew what I saw in a cheap sketchbook, my cash outlays notated on the back of a papersack.

After completing school at UCLA, I was discouraged about continuing, having abandoned the painting program and taken my BA in art history instead. I had worked at a couple of jobs that quickly revealed their shortcomings, so it was a perfect time in my uncertain-about-the-future young life to go on a road trip. My family had travelled cross-country together many times, so it was not a prospect totally alien to my experiences, and I had grown up in LA, driving its notorious freeways and was comfortable behind the wheel. To venture off on my own for several thousand miles and for more than a long weekend was a bit more intimidating a challenge for me. I made plans. I went armed with a list of names and addresses of friends, sorority houses and relatives, useful as potential stops along the way, figuring on cheap motels when and if those places didn't work out. I drove a shiny new orange 1971 VW Superbug, that would take me 200 mi on a full tank of gas, which in those days cost about $3. So off I went, my trunk filled with oil paints and canvasses ( I was always consciously an artist) a Styrofoam cooler, a variety of clothes in a suitcase, a pillow, and a couple of hundred bucks in cash. Now when my own daughters go we remind them to have chargers for cell phones and cameras, debit cards, and are worried when they don’t text us hourly….how did my Mom keep her cool? I think she was confident in my sensibility and the fact that as oldest daughter I had built up a resume of competency that was reassuring. My game plan was reasonably structured - yet had enough mystery to qualify as an adventure. When outlining my upcoming trip plans to a newly married husband at a party, I recall the jealously wistful look in his eyes. Stopping for gas in Meridian Mississippi midway through my journey, the kid pumping my gas waved good bye and called “take me with you!” – I knew I was doing the right thing taking this trip.

I completed it unscathed by tragedy with a little money still in my purse, and a slightly altered perspective. In the months following, I applied to graduate schools, got a job as a waitress, stockpiled my tips, and gathered myself up for the next chapter in my life.

I didn’t always date the sketchbook pages as I drew on them in those days, but they are still intact and sequential. The postcards and letters have fairly legible postmarks to compensate for my hasty handwriting. I was 22 years old, full of myself, both excited and wary about what lay ahead.

In the posts that follow, I will retrace my now 40 year old adventure through the sketches notes and letters home.

Ayla

I went to a Jane Auel reading in town to get an autographed copy of her latest and last volume in the Earth’s Children series for my younger daughter. If Elizabeth were in town, we would have been going there together – one of our little pilgrimages. I did drawings while listening and jotted down a few comments to relay later over the phone. I did snap a picture or two with my phone (I was reluctant to be the pest with a camera attendee, so I hadn’t brought a real one; my phone was probably just as distracting). I got a nice shot of the author inscribing Elizabeth’s copy. The Book signing was as usual, at the end of her talk. I was situated up in front, but alas, they decided to reconfigure everyone into a line starting from the side opposite to mine. The afternoon was uncluttered for me, so I just went to the end rather than be one of those butt-in-skis that I despise. Some of the attendees had several copies of books to be autographed; a few were even toting filled book bags. I waited at the end of the line with a couple of other ladies who had found themselves in the same situation of being displaced. We all made small talk, but one woman behind me was chatting up a storm. She needed to vent and I was happy to be - as Mom used to call me - a listening post. She was coping with a recent divorce and clutched a paperback copy of the first in the six volume series. Her ex had kept the entire set as his part of their divorce settlement. He had been mesmerized by them and read them all several times as had she. They had been so obsessed with the books that they had named their firstborn daughter Ayla – after the series’ central character. Getting an inscribed copy of that initial book to present to her became her mission. Her ex hadn’t unpacked everything since the split and when she told him she wanted to get one of them signed – couldn’t locate any of them. So she bought a paperback of the first volume, The Clan of the Cave Bear, and waited in line with it. She had come up from a small town south of Iowa City, where she kept horses and did rodeos, describing how she had injured her knees during barrel racing. She said in her day the barrels were steel drums and not the plastic ones they use now. Her daughters (I think there were two) rode and did shows and competitions and she had become the horse custodian – doing the prepping and brushing and whatever has to be done to horses before competitions - my sister Susie would know. Anyway she was adjusting to her new single status and had gained weight and was worried about an upcoming high school reunion and being fatter. She always had had a good figure and used to say no to a cheeseburger with ease, but now had drowned her sorrows in food for a year and was a bit hefty. She had tried to adopt a few new interests and bought a Harley - which she didn’t have to comb and shovel after - of course it didn’t look at her with big brown eyes and nuzzle her, but she liked how it stayed clean in the barn. She admired its shiny chrome and was getting acquainted with that new mistress reflected in it. So she chattered on, punctuating the conversation with alternating complaints about her former husband, her blossoming figure, and her eagerness to meet the writer who had been so critical a part of her life. She was excited about the opportunity to tell the author how they had named their daughter Ayla, how important the book was to her, and how fitting it’s presentation to her daughter would be. If I hadn’t moved to the back of that line, Ayla would have stayed just another character in a book, never stepping out from its covers, journeying into reality and leaving her footprints on my turf.

Shelf Life

My daughter was given a lovely red leather bound sketchbook by her boss, a souvenir of his recent trip to Spain. He knew she kept a book with daily entries and drawings and felt this was the perfect gift for her. I so hope she uses it and doesn’t save it for some special more deserving later point in time. I have always had a forward looking temperament, one that is preparing and planning and setting aside for the future. I have a fear of making hasty decisions and carelessly squandering anything. The downside of this nature is that too often the saved items are never used, never enjoyed - never have a life beyond their ‘newness’. They sit on the shelf, awaiting some more appropriate, more worthy moment. Over the years, we sent my Father’s Mother nightgowns and housecoats that she kept folded in tissue in their original gift boxes, occasionally pulling them out to look at, forever feeling that they were too ‘nice’ to wear, to potentially wrinkle, to possibly soil, to taint with life. It was as if donning them would deflower them. My other Grandma told me a story of setting choice parts of her dinner on the edge of her plate to savor at the end and lord over siblings who had eaten all of theirs first - only to see those treats snatched away by a sister, devoured and gone forever - the downside of hoarding. My husband Mike and I felt that way about ‘retirement’. We watched older friends and relatives save up ambitions and wishes for after they retired. By the time they did, they were too aged or tired or gripped with illnesses to embrace those dreams with the zest with with they had been envisioned. In many cases they had not done the necessary ground work to facilitate switching over to dream pastimes at that later age. So we decided to live as if we were retired now, doing what we truly liked - living scrupulously and sparsely so that we didn’t NEED a large financial support system for our lives. There was never ‘when we retire’ we’ll take up photography, paint, write a novel, garden or ‘when we strike it rich’ we’ll live in the country, travel, build a bigger house. We didn’t need a large chunk of money or time to pursue those goals we saw on the horizon. We live on that horizon. We told ourselves “it’s not getting what you want, but wanting what you have” that’s the key and if you don’t have it now –do you really want it? I think most of us do what we want to and if we put off things, maybe we don’t truly want them all that much, and if we put them off too often, or for too long, our desires wilt. So lest your ambitions fade - or be snatched away - live them now. I so hope my daughter’s new leather journal becomes filled with her life and not shelf life.