After-the-game dances were common at DCHS, Douglas County High School. I loved the music and dancing with the guys, gossiping with the girls, and generally hanging out. We wore our school clothes, which meant sweaters and skirts for the girls and shirts and jeans for the guys. Oxfords and ankle socks were in fashion. Trying to white-wash those shoes every day with the watery, white shoe polish available at the time was a chore I would have put off indefinitely except I didn’t want to be embarrassed by all the scuff marks I put on the shoes daily. The music was from 45 rpm records, little, black, plastic discs with a big hole in the middle. One of the students manned the record player.
We all knew each other because the whole school was only 150 students, thirty-some in my class of 1960. At one particular dance, which I was really enjoying, I was asked to move to the music by one of the Indian boys from the Dresslerville Indian Reservation. He was soft spoken, very attractive and kind. I loved dancing with him. I don’t remember ever having been asked to dance by an Indian boy before, and I smiled the whole time.
After the dance, I drove home in the old, soft-top jeep my dad let me use to get to and from school. It was basketball season, and the weather had turned cold, so I was glad the jeep’s heater put out a good steady flow of hot air. The dances were usually over early, about 9 pm, and I was tired from the long day. I probably said good night to my mom and went up to bed.
The next morning, my mother called me over to the floral, slip-covered couch to talk with me.
“Nancy, I heard you were dancing with an Indian boy at the dance last night.” (Word got around fast in our small, country town of 2,500).
“Yeah, Mom. It was great! He was a good dancer and a really nice guy!
“There’s something you need to know about Indians and non-Indians; they don’t socialize together. It’s just not something that is done. People who marry other races are never accepted on either side nor or their children. I don’t want to hear about you doing this again.”
As she talked, and being the compliant, pleasing child I was, I became embarrassed about having broken her social code. It never occurred to me that her code might be something I should question. I remembered her talking to me about the movie, Showboat, in which Ava Gardner passes for white when she is a mixed race. Mom talked about it as something disgraceful. It never quite got through to me what that was all about, but I picked up the tone of shame in my mother’s voice and adopted it as my attitude. I think it had more to do with how mother would be judged by her peers than what I was actually doing.
At another level, mom and dad were very respectful and polite to the Indians who shopped in our store, The Minden Dry Goods. At Christmas time the whole family wrapped dozens of presents for Indian children which dad delivered. Carolyn was the Indian woman who came in weekly to help mom with the ironing. Everything was cotton in those days and needed to be ironed. With two girls and one boy wearing different clothes each day, Mom's ironing really piled up. Mom had great respect for Carolyn and Carolyn for Mom. Carolyn even took Mom hunting for wild onions once, so I think they socialized some.
I’m glad this indoctrination of the separation of races disappeared as I rubbed elbows with many nationalities in college, and other venues. The social view has changed with me and my adult children. Racial identification, gender differences, these are far down the list on how we choose our friends. It’s much more important that we share similar interests and are honest and trustworthy.
