Well it is Saturday morning. It is 4:00 and I have been up since 3:30. Another restless night. Sleep and I have never been best friends and last night we hardly spoke at all. But I am still sparky this morning. I am going to a few rummage sales again. As I said last week, I really don't need anything. I just like to go and come home, arms full of who knows what.
If you checked out the picture at the top of the page you will see two little girls. Dixie and Ruth. Dixie was my sister-in-law for almost forty years. Ruth her little sister. The Updegraff girls.if I had someone ask me what I thought I knew about Dixie that maybe everyone first meeting her would not know. I would say her sense of humor. Because I think sometimes not everyone picked up on the fact she was really a very fun person. Looking back at my memorys as I sit here at this computer. Eyes squinted as I try to see if what is coming out on the screen is what I meant to come out of my fingertips. Memories come surging up as I recall "Majors Highboy," and early 1957.
If you watch old movies you will know the drive-ins with their big fancy, flashing neon signs were a very big concept back then. Carhops with cute or not so cute uniforms, metal trays that slipped on your window. There was always a jukebox on the side of the building with speakers that blared out music onto the lot. If I close my eyes I hear the sounds of the Everely Brothers singing "Kathy's clown." . So many priceless songs filling the air. It was a time when I first began to really get to know Dixie as we scooted around the lot, bringing burgers, cokes and fries to all the cars that passed through our lot on any given night.
This was the place where Dix and I pooled our money and bought the first pack of cigarettes. I watched in amazement as she inhaled her first one and hardly coughed. I coughed, sputtered and finally after trying a couple of times just gave it up as a lost cause. But oh the fun and memories that old drive-in weaved for me in my mind. There is where I saw Dixie become a fun teen. Because she had a pretty heavy load on her plate as she grew up. There at Major's, surrounded by a large group of teenagers. Who I might add probably ate Lorianne Boles out of business. She learned to relax and just be young.
She was young, she was cute, she made good tips. But got to keep very little. So after about a month we made a plan. After about three hours into the shift she gave me a portion of her tips. I put them away, then when the person who almost always came about nine or ten came to collect her money, she gave him what she had. We would smile across the lot at each other as he pulled away. Both of us knowing in my purse was her money. Money I kept for her and soon she bought a new dress. Or shoes and a purse. Once awhile we went to the movies, things she hadn't done much. Not movies with a friend, where we laughed so much I was afraid at times we would be asked to leave.
Her and I would stay after work many nights to clean the lot, spraying each other with water and sitting on the curb of the lot. music in the background as she told me how her life would be someday when she married Bud. We would make the long walk home, each of us clutching a bag of bugers and milkshakes. We would work all evening and walk almost four miles home and never complained about being tired.
The drive-in become Dixie's world, a place where we laughed, shared secrets. Four or so of us girls going places together when we wasn't working and Dix wasn't babysitting. It was fun, it was a world all our own. I wonder sometimes what happened to all the kids that worked there. The tall slender boy who when I took a order for five icecream cones from a family parked out front. Where I might add they could see him from the car window. As he dipped each cone with hard ice cream and carefully took a lick off each one. Needless to say when I took the cones out on the little round metal tray that held each cone in a hole. The man of course refused the cones and was very irrate. I rushed in, threw the ocones away . I hastily made more as the man frowned through the windshield at me. The boy collasping with laughter along with about eight other teenagers. Mrs. Boles left us all alone way to much in the evenings. You can't let a bunch of silly teenagers run your business for you. I am sure she learned that lesson well. We all ate constantely, each of us making a bag of something or other to take home for a late night snack. Well, you have to understand she said to us, "Eat whatever you want." We did and then some.
There was certainly laughter back then, work didn't seem like work, you spent the evening with friends, acting silly, having adventures. Carefree I think is a good word. I wish there was places like that now, where kids could go to work and have the fun we did back then. Oh I know there is McDonalds but somehow I don't see the kids throwing each other in the trash can there, or dancing a fast dance on the lot in between waiting on cars. I smile at the sight in my mind. A different time, a different place. But there I made a friendship that lasted over forty-four years. I think I feel you smiling Dix. Those were the days, weren't they girlfriend? Yep those were the days.
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