Chapter 10--Mixed Feelings

Note: Some names have been changed for privacy reasons.

As I came to the end of eighth grade, LeRoy and his family prepared to move to Idaho where his dad had a new job. I don’t remember my feelings at this enormous loss, but given my history, I must have been swallowed up by grief for some time. Missing him, I tearfully prepared to start high school.

Douglas County High met in an impressive, but very old brick building, now the Carson Valley Museum and Cultural Center on Gardnerville’s main street. I say impressive because of the high white columns and many stairs leading up to the high, heavy doors. It was designed by Frederic Delongchamps, a popular architect who designed the Reno downtown post office, Reno's Riverside Hotel (now apartments) and the Washoe County court house. It would be my campus until 1957 when as a Junior, we moved into the new high school building just behind the old.

            The upper classmen seemed so grown up; I held them in awe. They didn’t associate with lower classmen, so I admired them from a distance. Whitey Plimpton and Denise Aldax were my idols. To me they were as untouchable and fascinating as any movie stars. I had the same admiration for all upper classmen then that I have for Bill Gates and his wife today, assuming they were all smart and good. 

Instead of having one teacher for all my classes, we now went to different rooms where teachers specialized in various subjects like math and English. And of course there were new boys.  I was noticed by one boy in particular—Brad Parker, the son of a rancher who lived south of town.  He had an impressive 1956 Chevy, shiny black with a streak of green along the side. Brad was a few inches taller than my five foot two, lean and athletic, with dark hair in a crew cut. His muscles were primed by “bucking bales” during hay season.  I was pleased to be noticed by an upper classman, and I was flattered by the attention.

When he had some free time after school, he would come driving past my house and “rev” his engine a few times before going on down the street. My heart beating a little faster I ran to the window to see the car heading away.  Eventually we began to go to dances together. At one particular dance, the April Prom, we’d had a great time dancing and enjoying our friends. I wore a satiny formal that my mother helped me pick out at Learners, a women’s store in Reno.  The dress had swirling patterns of blues and greens with a harem skirt and rhinestone spaghetti straps. Mom was always there to find just the right outfit for a special occasion, often spending more than she planned, and whispering, “Don’t tell you father how much we spent on this!”

When Brad arrived at the door, I saw in his hand a transparent box with a fragrant corsage of gardenias.  Thrusting it into my hand, he seemed uneasy about what to do next.  Mom helped by taking the package, removing the flowers and pinning them on for me.  I went to the mirror, and standing on tip toes, smiled back at myself looking very sophisticated.  I handed my coat to Brad who held it while I slipped it on, and off we went.  I don’t remember if we had a band or just the 33 ½ vinyl rpms or 45s.  I suspect the latter.

When we came out of the dance, a couple of inches of wet, spring snow covered the trees that were just beginning to leaf out.  The street lights caused the heavy laden boughs to sparkle and my eyes opened wide to drink in the beauty.  I spun around with my arms open breathing in every last detail.  Then, with my feet feeling the cold wetness, Brad and I headed for his car.  It was only three blocks to home, and we laughed together as we remembered the dance.

When I got home that night something didn’t feel right, and Brad let me out after only one long, good night kiss. The living room was dark, and Mom was pacing back and forth in front of the plate glass window, chewing her nails and mumbling her worries to no one.  My heart sank. All memory of my wonderful evening vanished.

“Mom, what’s the matter?”

With pained words, she blurted out, “Your dad and I had an argument, and he hasn’t come home!”

I wanted to fix things. I needed to fix things. That’s the role of the “hero” in an alcoholic home.

“Mom, where do you think he might have gone?”

She shook her head.  I ran into my room, stripped off my dancing clothes, and pulled on my jeans, sweatshirt and some snow boots, at the same time scanning old memories as to where he might be…the store...the bar at the Minden Inn…some other place?  I wasn’t driving yet, so I could only walk the few blocks to see if he was nearby.  I pulled on my jacket with hood and headed out.  As I came to the CVIC Hall where we had been dancing just minutes before, I saw my friends still in their prom clothes getting into their cars.

 I contrasted my circumstances with theirs, and it didn’t compare favorably.  I was searching for my father who probably had been drinking. He wasn't a sloppy drunk, and I didn't know if anyone but family knew he drank. His outer life was filled with community service like head of the Chamber of Commerce. But that night I was filled with mixed feelings.  On the one hand I felt “put upon,” sorry for myself, and on the other, I felt proud that I was unique. I was acting as my mother’s champion.  I would make things better.

I didn’t find my dad that night.  I came home cold, wet, discouraged and apprehensive. Not a good ending for a “champion.”

“Mom, I’m sorry I couldn’t find Dad.” She just nodded sadly. I went to my room and somehow managed to sleep with what felt like a hole in my mid section the size of a cannon ball.  I wonder if experiences like this led to my taking on projects that were too difficult for me later on, still trying to prove my worth, and often failure came with my attempts.

Sometime in the night he came home, but it was too late to be the hero. I felt like the goat.

Brad and I continued dating, and one of the things he liked me to do with him was drag racing.  We would meet some of our friends after dinner out on Highway 88, a north-south highway out of Minden going over Carson pass and into California.  There was almost no traffic there in the 50’s.  The guys would line up their cars next to each other, two at a time, rev their engines as if they were getting read to blast off, and with tires squealing, charge up the road as fast as they could go, slamming the gear shift into first, second and third so rapidly, you could barely see their hands move.  I sat next to Brad, tense and nervous, wishing I was somewhere else and at the same time my heart beating fast with excitement.  Every ounce of male determination, energy, muscle, and grit went into this for the guys.  It was competition to the max, and I was along for the ride.  My role was to be a cheerleader for all this testosterone. Today I’m grateful there were no accidents, and I shake my gray-haired head at our daring.

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Chapter 9—Disillusioned and Learning

As long as I can remember I’ve been searching. What I was searching for I couldn’t say for many years. My search was passive and almost invisible until my Sunday school teacher shot holes in my simple faith the fall I turned thirteen. This marked an initiation into a totally secular way of life, a turning away from the little awareness of Truth I’d gleaned. That year our church class of eighth graders was filled with high energy, every class was a chance to socialize with all my best friends and my new boyfriend, LeRoy Nutting. But that youthful simplicity and joy in my faith ended on a fateful Sunday in 1954 as Mrs. Decker launched into her “enlightened” teaching on the debunking of the Virgin Birth.

            Now up until that day, I wasn’t any Bible expert. I hadn’t memorized more than two psalms and no bible verses. I had no opinion on other religions or who was in or who was out, what was acceptable and what was heresy; I just loved my little white bible with my name engraved in gold leaf—Nancy Lee Watson.  My childlike assumption about what that bible contained was that it was full of good stories from a long time ago, and these stories were fun to enter into in my imagination.  I could picture Daniel in the lion’s den, and I hoped my faith could stop the mouths of lions. I cheered at David conquering the giant, Goliath, with God’s help, and wondered if I could be so brave. I loved the baby, Jesus born in a stable in Bethlehem, and hoped that my family would love and help each other more.

Whether these stories were literally true or legendary, or inspired by God but not literally true, or something else didn’t enter my thoughts. I simply believed them as they were written. What was important and essential was that these stories inspired a sense of radiance, revealed a sparkling cosmos bigger than the one I lived in day-to-day, stirred a sense of wonder that drew devotion out of my inner soul for this God who mysteriously became involved in lives and accomplished miracles.  Sunday school, the bible, hymn singing all pointed to this light and luminous other world; and my undiscriminating heart resonated to its numinosity.

Enter Mrs. Decker. Mrs. Decker was an overstuffed, middle-aged woman who wore tweed suits and had an attitude that said, “I am so very informed and modern in my thinking!”  During one class, she launched into her version of the birth of Christ, “Now the bible says that Mary was a virgin, and that God gave her Jesus in a miraculous happening; but we don’t have to accept this ancient and superstitious tale.  Mary could easily have been a virgin, but contained within herself both male and female parts which could produce the child quite easily.  We can see this in nature.  Many plants have complete flowers with both male and female parts….”

Growing up in a ranching and farming community, you would think that I was well acquainted with the reproductive process, but I was a town kid, and the only sexual sight I had witnessed was the castrating of the male calves at branding time when I visited Sandra Galeppi, a school mate who lived on a ranch.  Oh, another classmate and I had sneaked a medical book from my parents’ bookshelves, had perused various genital diagrams, found them disgusting, and decided we would never have intercourse, but just swim in a pool with our husband and get pregnant that way, like fish, no physical contact necessary. (I have no idea how we arrived at this.) That was the extent of my sexual thinking. So with Mrs. Decker tying the Virgin Mary to a plant which could reproduce itself sexually my mental acuity began to fade. My mind kind of tried to wrap around her words, but I couldn’t make sense of her lesson. 

What really punctured my faith-filled heart was that God didn’t do miracles; it was all ancient superstitious stuff, something out of the wilds of time when the inquisition burned people at the stake for being witches. Some beliefs like the virgin birth were for these dark ages, and the bible stories were nothing more than stories. For several years I kept my religion on a shelf marked “Antiques.”

 In this crisis of faith, my relationship to the “numinous,” to God, would go underground in my psyche for years. Yet, the truth of supernatural events occurring in everyday life like I learned about in Sunday school became a holy bubble in my soul, and one day it would resurface. Perhaps if I’d been in a family that respected thoughts and feelings, I might have talked it over with them. I didn’t. I never went back to Sunday school.  I gave up believing in miracles…for a season. 

I am stunned at what serious harm was done in that few minutes. Mrs. Decker had absolutely no idea how her ideas could affect a preadolescent whose faith was simple and literal, quite normal for that phase of development.  Because I dropped out of church then, it left me vulnerable to cultural biases without the balancing influence of faith.

How important it is for churches to train their teachers rather than accept warm bodies to show up and “deal with the kids.”  But the Spirit of Life didn’t leave me there.  The faith still breathed in me and only waited for a kinder season to re-emerge.

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Summers in middle school were filled with 4-H, a youth organization that taught the farm and ranch kids about raising animals and the town kids about cooking, sewing, and crafts for the girls like embroidery, crochet, and knitting. At the country fair we would show our handiwork and get assorted colored ribbons depending on the excellence of our work. My mom was really “into it,” and pushed me to do and redo my work repeatedly, so I could get a blue ribbon, or even better, a purple ribbon. I boiled under her perfectionism.

One 4-H leader, Lena Neddenriep, a German woman who tolerated no nonsense, hand picked me along with three others and her daughter to be a select group of students.  Because I two of my friends were included, I continued to attend, even though it was exhausting trying to be faultless. We learned to knit the German way, which Lena felt surpassed the American technique by far. We learned to crochet and embroider, with She Who Must Be Obeyed looking over our shoulder.  I didn’t appreciate it then, but when I wanted to entertain myself during a long illness years later, because she was available and shared her expertise, my life was filled with quilting, knitting, crocheting and embroidering which helped me feel useful and created beauty and comfort.  Sometimes it just takes years before we reap the benefits of an unpleasant experience.

Another 4-H leader was Mrs. Scossa who knew how to make bread and anything made with yeast.  Various moms took turns driving us out to her ranch and dropping us off for the afternoon.  We learned how to knead the bread with just the right wrist motion, pushing and pulling the dough toward us and away, when to stop adding flour so the dough wouldn’t be too stiff, how long to let it rise and how to punch it down.  Everything from cinnamon rolls to a braided pineapple Christmas bread got baked in her ample kitchen. 

During one class, her large container of fat drippings was knocked off the stove.  At least a quart of old fat splattered all over the floor, chairs and wall paper.  Expecting the worst, a good bit of yelling and shaming, I cringed as she came into the kitchen to see what all the fuss was about.  She did the most surprising thing. With only the words, “Well, you’d better get to cleaning it up,” she turned and left the room.  Not a word of condemnation.  No yelling.  No shaming.  She must have known we felt bad enough as it was.  Instead of the usual condemnation my mother could heap on me, I felt relief.  I was pardoned. I felt respected, a novel experience. Within just a few minutes we had it all in hand and called her in to see.  Our lesson went on as if nothing had ever happened.

Toward the end of the summer we had the chance to compete in demonstrations of our bread making for a $50 savings bond.  I practiced and practiced making a Swedish tea ring with cinnamon, butter and raisins as filling. Needing some patter to go with the demonstration, I studied the theory behind why we combined the ingredients in a certain way, like adding the yeast before the oil so it would continue a quick rise.  

When my turn came, I stepped up boldly in my green 4-H headband and bleached white apron, began my story of yeast dough making, adding the various ingredients as I talked.  There were several stages of the dough, the dough I’d just made; the dough after the rising which I punched down and rolled out to fill, shape and cut; and the browned and decorated Swedish Tea Ring all browned and frosted with a white vanilla icing, maraschino cherries and pecans. Everyone applauded, and I was thrilled. 

It wasn’t until later when I was cleaning up that I discovered I had forgotten to add the egg.  No one else noticed either, and I won the $50 savings bond.  To this day I have no idea whatever happened to that bond.  My best guess would be that Mom figured she’d earned it buying all the ingredients over the summer, not to mention the gas to drive us out to Mrs. Scossa’s ranch.  What I was told, was that it took a number of years for the bond to mature, and by then I’d forgotten all about it. I would have preferred some kind of celebration when the bond matured, like, "Nancy, guess what? That $50 bond you won is ready. We were so proud of you! What would you like to do with it?"