Talking to my mother on Mother’s Day, she mentioned that she had recently written a memoir for her college class reunion. I asked if she’d send it to me. When the email arrived, I realized I’d been given a wonderful gift — chance to know my mother better in a different time and place. She said I could publish it, because I thought others might be interested in these memories of college life in the late 50′s.

Washington University had an awesome reputation for a young, naive woman like me in 1958. We began with Freshmen Camp at Potosi and then rode buses back to stately Macmillan Hall with its paneled walls, well-worn wood floors, and creaking stairs. From the window of my third-floor room, I could see the post-WWII faculty housing across the drive. My possessions were minimal: a manual typewriter, lamp, clock, dictionary, clothes for a year, hatboxes, and head-sized hair dryer. In the hall was a phone for receiving inside calls, and pay phones were downstairs…

For breakfast I got in the long line oozing down the stairs to the double doors of the kitchen to give my order to the maitre d’. He called my request in to cooks who were making toast, frying pancakes, or scrambling eggs all to order. Dinner was different. In the wood-paneled dining room, at square tables for eight, we had china and linen table cloths and were served family style by fraternity guys in full dress. Out for the evening? Be sure to sign out telling where you were going, who you were with, and what time you would be back – 10 during the week and 12 on weekends.

The campus was dead after 8 o’clock unless you were a University College student. When I pulled an all-nighter, a little arthritic lady making the rounds would come in, pat me on the shoulder and say, “Try to get some sleep, dear.” The 1959 tornado blew by Wash U taking off the roof of the Arena, mangling the Highlands Ferris wheel, causing devastation in Forest Park, wrecking tenements and killing 21. In the dorm, most of us slept through the storm.

Another year and another home, the South Forty. The longer walk to campus was on a sidewalk built through the losing Battling Bears practice football field. The Hawaiian Club donated a newly-designed flag to fly over Brookings to celebrate Hawaii’s entrance to the Union as the 50th state. One Saturday morning, Angel Flight met at the ROTC building to see John F. Kennedy’s motorcade come down Big Bend. Kennedy, in an open convertible, gave his famous smile, and I understood what charisma meant. There was a new student center where we discussed Castro’s visit to the U.S. We watched in black and white as Ben Hur won 12 Academy Awards, and we saw the power of TV imagery in the Kennedy-Nixon debates. There was talk that Wash U was expanding to Chicago to recruit students. If that were successful, the University might try New York.

St. Louis was a great recreation place. The Esquire provided entertainment, and Parkmoor provided the chicken dinners that we took to Forest Park. Art Hill was a favorite spot day and night. I could travel the clang-clang trolley downtown, passing the flower shed on Skinker, on through the backyards of the rich and famous who lived on Lindell, to the Central West End, Gas Light Square with the Crystal Palace and finally to a downtown that always smelled like a licorice factory. The Climatron was a new venue, and the Arch an idea on paper.

It was always crowded by the main library on the quadrangle with its huge study hall. Not being trusted in the stacks, we would submit our call numbers, and runners went up to collect our books. I learned about growing up in New Guinea, the sermons of the Puritans, the salvage laws from Moby Dick, the importance of fruit flies, parabolic curves, and the dark side of Victorian poetry.

A rumor was whispered that, in the middle of the Cold War, there was a card-carrying-communist professor in Poly Sci. I wondered how I could have signed up for field hockey as the girls from Mary Institute were out to kill me on the field. At Graham Chapel Wednesday Lectures, I heard Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, speak of the United States responsibility to third world countries. She was assassinated in 1984.

Those were happenings 50 years ago when I received my LA (Liberal Arts) degree. The world and the University are different today.

Thanks Mom – and Happy Mother’s Day again!

Regardless of what most people thing, Halloween is not just about ghouls and goblins — it’s all about spontaneous creativity. It’s the one time of year that most people think it’s perfectly acceptable to dress up in costumes and become someone or something else and walk around on public streets.

Just think about it. Most of people don’t ask what you’re going to “do” on on Halloween, they ask you what you are going to “be” ?

There are no rules about what you can become, and the idea that you can totally transform yourself through mask, costumes, makeup, wigs, cardboard, foam, or spray paint is very empowering.

When we first moved here, we were completely unprepared for the amount of Trick or Treaters that come to this neighborhood.We get hundreds of kids dressed creatively as superheros, food, animals, rock stars… some people dress their dogs too.

Maybe it’s something about the old neighborhood, old stone gates, narrow streets, friendly neighborhoods — I don’t know but it seems to draw a lot of kids. That first year, I think we had to make about 5 emergency trips to the neighborhood Smillie’s grocery store for more candy.

Since then we’ve started to doing concept installations for the one night on our lawn and driveway. There has been a Haunted Sushi Bar, Domestic Nightmares, Beastro Market… like Brigadoon, these places appear for one night only, then disappear.

This year we’ve gotten a lot help from our fabulous “Candy Construction Crew!” Here’s a few photos from the candy making party yesterday. We’re making big candy for “I Dig Candy” — a big candy road construction theme, complete with a zombie crossing.

I had a lot of fun doing this drawing – Yoga 101: The Mistletoe Pose, with the crazy tree, the lunar eclipse, and Russ meditating on a peace rug between two extension cords. I think it’s more fun to draw trees than to decorate them in real life:)

Merry Christmas to everyone, or whatever special day you celebrate. I hope you get to share time with your family, friends, and furry family members!

As the earth passed between the sun and the moon, the moon turned a strange color of orange. Russ got some amazing photos with his camera and tripod, but I can’t really take good moon photos with my camera.

So I took a different kind of photo towards the end of the event of moonlight through winter branches. There’s something about cold winter air, leafless branches, and moonlight that gives me a sense of stillness and clarity of thought.

Here’s what we did on New Year’s Eve.

When you dress for 5 degree outside weather, there’s a little problem with standing around in 70 degree theaters. So during the first part of the video when we were taping the live music and theater performances,  I was sweating. (p.s. I’m not complaining, because since then, we’ve had sub-zero temperatures.)

But it was fun, all of of it. And like regular blogging, video blogging sometimes takes you to places you wouldn’t go otherwise.

I haven’t mentioned it here before, but earlier this year I suggested that the Springfield Regional Arts Council on which I am currently a board member, needed a Technology Committee. So when the committee was formed, guess who was named chairperson?

If you don’t want to do something, don’t open your mouth! Anyway, since then, I’ve been working on some projects to fulfill what I see as the mission.

I heard somewhere that since we are always changing and adapting, every two years, we are completely different people. What do you think about that? True, false? Maybe?

Actually the photo came after the drawing, because I felt I hadn’t fully captured the pathos.

]]> http://pamdora.com/blog/2009/12/26/the-day-after/feed/ 9 http://pamdora.com/blog/2009/12/25/merry-white-christmas/ http://pamdora.com/blog/2009/12/25/merry-white-christmas/#comments Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:05:04 +0000 PaMdora http://pamdora.com/blog/?p=2233

I’ve been drawing stuff in the sky this week and looking at photos of space, astronauts, and the Hubble…. animations of fireworks….

Today we woke to a gift from the sky – snow!

This the first White Christmas I can remember in a long time. Mochi and I went on a very early morning walk. It was a bit surreal, and we didn’t see a soul out except for some squirrels, so I let her run off her lease, much to her joy.

For someone who likes to work with color, I’m awfully inspired by some whites — moonlight, starlight, and snow. Wondering how to draw snow, I decided to just draw the stuff around or behind it. It’s kind of like space in sculpture and architecture, defined by the stuff around it.

my new winter hat

Merry Christmas everyone!

(And how come with all the art supplies I’ve bought in my life, when I want to do a quick ink sketch, all I can find is an old box of Prang and one old brush??)

This year, with help from two of our Chicago artist friends Mary and Charlie, the theme is “Domestic Nightmares.” It’s a work in progress as we’re working on the spotlighting for after dark, but here’s a sneak preview.

Bad hair day.

ET meet Psychic

Naughty knitting

(or happy hands are healthy hands)

Housework kills

Potluck

Hmm, I always forget which fork to use first….

Robin and his mummy

Lighting one of the scenes. From here you can’t see the 15-30 foot stuffed snakes in the trees and other crazy stuff, so we’ll try to take some photos or video after dark. In between passing out loads of candy and eating some ourselves!

4th of July weekend is usually pretty big around here. In our neighborhood, we like to dress up in red, white and blue, decorate our bikes, dogs and cars, and parade around the block in a mob-like fashion, then end up in front of someone’s house who is kind enough to provide brownies and lemonaide.

Then go out to the lake, swim, eat and wait for sunset and fireworks.

Magnificant end to a holiday huh? Only took me about a hundred tries to get this photo, but I’m having a blast (no pun intended) using my new iPhone. And trying to learn to send photos to Facebook and Twitter.

Sorry if I’m behind on email replies, but it’s been a mad dash from anniversary, to Mexico for brief anniversary trip, to home for folks arriving for the 4th. Hope to catch up with you all this week and get ready for the Modern Materials opening talk next weekend in Oklahoma City.

In the meantime, here’s my 4th of July holiday set of photos on Flickr. (more beautiful firework refections on the water.)

Twenty years ago we were married on a cliff called Battleship Rock, the place where Russ proposed to me. It was a hot late June afternoon, and climbing the backside of the cliff in a tux and wedding gown was a challenging affair.

It’s also difficult to find a minister who wants to do this sort of thing, but Russ had a friend who also happened to be a gymnastics teacher.

On the cliff we awaited the arrival of assorted family and guests on pontoon boats, having been given a map and time on cartoon wedding invitations that were sewn to a cover of hand-made paper that we had sent out a few weeks earlier.

Meanwhile, our friends in the Celtic Band played music in the nearby cove, on a handmade raft made of all found materials (an artistic idea, but a little risky considering their delicate instruments.)

Kids who happened to be jumping off the cliff into the water were happy to give us a few moments of quiet for the actual ceremony.

And then, being such a warm day and a little nervous about the whole affair, and just luckily having a blue and borrowed swimsuit on under the wedding dress, we peeled off the wedding garb and leap into what we like to call “a life of art together.”

Then it was back to Big Cedar Lodge, a happy reception, and the best twenty years of my life!

Footnote: The photos in this post may seem a little dull. They are antique (pre-digital) and also all our photo albums got water-soaked during a flood a couple of years ago, and though I’ve tried to restore them, they are not what they were.

We visit the rock where we were married each anniversary, and the landscape and nature there is still just as beautiful and inspiring. It’s great to live in the Ozarks and be able to enjoy the natural beauty that surrounds us here.