There are so many things to tell I hardly know where to begin. So will start at the boardinghouse. We were up stairs in two bedrooms 4 in one and 2 of us in one. We had the front bedroom. I know we must have run that poor woman and her husband nuts with thw noise we made. She was kind enough to post the rules on big pieces of white paper in each room the bathroom was wallpapered in them. And duly laughed at and disregarded. Yes I was the ring leader. One rule was only one girl in the bathroom at a time. So I had two get in a tub of water, one on the toilet, one at the sink washing clothes and two at the mirror. I then drew a picture of it all had it a good many years wish I knew where it is. I was writing a letter one days sitting on the bed and in those days you didn’t have ball point pens you had an ink bottle, Oh no!! [cringe] I spilled the bottle on the sheet. That ment rushing to the little dime store and buying a bottle of clorox,[ plus toilet paper to carry back to Roswell where it was scarce. ] And washing it in the bath tub a no, no. We strung a line over the tub and hung it to dry. She never came upstairs if we were there so we all stayed in that night.
We had quite a walk to school each day so we had to leave very early however we were directed to keep our rooms clean even through cleaning every Sat morning. We did follow that directive. One day we got caught in a rain storm and all got soaked but went on to school anyway. That was the day we lost our fear of Mrs Craighead our first class teacher. If you were a second late she docked you, I forgot to tell you we were paid for going to school. We hated the ground she walked on but after the way she treated us for coming to school like drowned rats she showed her true colors and we all loved her from then on. Because I had worked at the Roswell office two weeks I was the highest paid in the school. Got $7 a week. Lunch time was fun we all ate together at a shop around the corner. I began noticing some thing that made me feel embarrased all the girls finished everything on their plates something I never did. So I began a lifetime of putting it on and taking little off. Cleaned my plate. Going to town was great especially with a little money in the pocket. I bought shorts with a skirt my first, a slip that had a bra and was white at top with black skirt. Pinks were popular then. Bet you have no idea what pinks were. They were pants fashioned like the pants of lieutenants in the AirForce, they wore pinks as they were called because they had a pink hew. We all loved them because pants were new to girls. There were other buys also but cant remember them all. Sat. we spent the afternoons in the movies. However we passed a Spudnut shop on the way. That meant each girl bought one doz for herself and ate them during the movie. No we never did get sick. God watches over the foolish!
The Ozard Lake Park was a neat place to go so one of the girls and I went together and we always rented a boat and glided over the water. It was so peaceful. One day some guys tried to harass us and much to our surprise the man we rented the boat from started yelling at them threatening them with taking them off the lake for good if they didnt leave those nice girls alone. How wonderful it is to know we have friends everywhere.
We rarely stayed at the park after dark but one night we were approached by a soldier who was leading around a guy whose whole head was wrapped in bandages. He wanted to know if one of us would take his friend onto the dance floor. He explained the boy had no face and was also blind. I have no idea how he breathed. I was no dancer so had an easy out my friend simply took my arm and said lets go. I always have felt guilty about that, how would you have reacted? Next installment school days.
