Author: bethdlayton

August 14 is one of those days of the year that has several birthdays and associated memories for our family. We didn’t have big parties- or even always make phone calls or send cards… but the connections were there

My mother’s oldest sibling, my Uncle Charles was born on August 14, 1920, almost 4 1/2 years before my mother. He passed away at the young age of 57. I am always shocked when I realize how young he was! Charles Matheson Hodges served in the Army in Germany during World War II. He started school at NCSU but returned to Watauga County and spent the rest of his life there, farming and running an abattoir. That was always an interesting and somewhat disturbing place to visit!

This story leaves the Hodges side of my family tree and moves to the Dixons, where 3 of our 4 birthdays lie. We’ll start with William Jeffrey Carnes, my cousin Jeff. All of the subjects of this memory are now deceased; Jeff passed away most recently, in early 2021. Jeff was the firstborn of all my generation, on both sides of the family. He was born a few months before my parents were married, the eldest of four children born to my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Luke. Aunt Ruth was one of my daddy’s four sisters. Because Jeff left North Carolina and moved to Florida as a young adult, we did not see each other often. I have a fond recollection of his being at our Papaw Dixon’s funeral. He comforted me as I wept (I was 23 but I did so love my Papaw!) and reminded what a wonderful long life he had lived. In the last few years of Jeff’s life, he and I reconnected over Facebook and had several long “chats” and even a couple of person-to-person telephone calls. I treasure that time of sharing and remembering. Jeff always enjoyed having been born our Aunt Betty’s birthday! And that leads me on to the next Birthday Boy, for we cannot celebrate Aunt Betty without first celebrating Uncle William Skinner.

“Uncle William Skinner” – I put that in quotes because that is ALWAYS how Daddy referred to him- was my Papaw Dixon’s uncle, one of his mother’s siblings.For many years we went to Dixon family reunions at Kadesh Church (KUMC) in what was always referred to as “upper Cleveland County.” A search of graves in their cemetery yields a whole slew of Dixons and other names of my relatives. I recall Uncle William being at those big dinner-on-the-grounds affairs; he died when I was eight. In my memories, he was a big man… but when one is a child, most adults seem pretty big!

My sweetest August 14 memory, the one I hold most dear, actually is not quite true. But that doesn’t take away from the memory and why it means so much. As a matter of fact, I only discovered today (August 14, 2025!) the slight error in the story.

In August, 1934, Papaw, grandma, Daddy, Aunt Betty (and probably Aunt Ruth) were headed to Belwood to celebrate Uncle William Skinner’s birthday. Aunt Betty piped up from the backseat and asked, “When’s MY birthday?” This was before children had elaborate – and sometimes multiple- birthday celebrations, so I guess it just never occurred to her or anyone else to have a party!

But bless my sweet Papaw’s heart! He didn’t miss a beat, replying, “Why today’s your birthday, too, Betty! You are four years old!” And for eighty-some years, Betty Jean Dixon Lail and her family celebrated her birthday on August 14. (I have discovered that Uncle William Skinner was actually born on August 12, so I guess the party was held two days later; those details don’t really matter!)

The truth is, Papaw and Grandma didn’t really know when Aunt Betty’s birthday was. She was left by her birth mother either at the courthouse or at my grandparents’ home (my memory is murky here and I will correct as I can) as an infant. My grandparents took that little baby and raised her as their own. Their’s was a welcoming home, and perhaps the birth family knew that. They had helped raise several of Papaw’s younger siblings when their mother died, a few years after their father, when Aunt Pauline was just four years old. They had two older biological daughters the ages of his siblings and later added my Aunt Ruth and Daddy, who were 9 and 6 when Aunt Betty joined the family. that wonderful old house on Grove Street in Shelby housed a lot of Dixons… and a whole lot of love!

Over the years, Aunt Betty married Uncle Arnold and together they had three sons, my cousins Eddie, Joey and Tommy. (Of course they grew up, as we must, and became Ed, Joe and Tom!) When I was a little girl, they lived in a wonderful white farmhouse that had the most beautiful long-stemmed violets growing out in the yard. It’s the first place I would go when we visited. Aunt Betty remembered me and the violets when I last visited her in a different house, not long before her 90th birthday!

A few years before Aunt Betty died, one of her daughters-in-law did some research, with permission. She discovered some long-unknown facts about Aunt Betty’s birth, including the sweet love story that brought her to this earth but times were different then and, while I won’t share the details, suffice it to say that she “came from good people” and I think that brought her some comfort. She certainly grew up in a home and with a family full of love!

But in a twist to THIS story, it seems that perhaps Betty Jean Dixon Lail was actually born on June 4! Doesn’t matter to me! In my heart she will always share a birthday with Uncle Charles, cousin William Jeffrey Carnes, and Uncle William Skinner!

(Footnote: I actually wrote most of this on August 14 but, as tends to happen, I never got around around to finishing it until now. And “now” happens to be the fifth anniversary of Aunt Betty’s death, so that is okay. Rest In Peace, my sweet aunt! I hope someday we will be picking violets together in Heaven!)

This story began 66 years ago, just before Tanya Lee Shook and Laura Beth Dixon turned six and were placed in Ms. Putnam’s first grade class together. Gasp! Yes, we are now 72… and still going strong.

Truth is we probably met a few years earlier, at our friend Sandy Kirk’s second birthday party. Sandy is quite a bit older; well, six months or so, but when you are turning two, that’s a 25% difference!) The Shooks and Kirks were neighbors, and the Kirks and Dixons went to church together. (All three fathers were great fishing buddies!)

Our lasting friendship began at Demonstration (Appalachian) Elementary School, when we began our long education journey together. From the freshly-painted red rocking chair to Calico the papier macho horse to “I never saw a purple cow,” we learned to read and write and so much more from Ms. Putnam.

As it turned out, first grade was literally just the beginning! We were assigned to the same teachers throughout elementary school: Putnam, Davis, Davis (yes, same one for two grades), Goodman, Buckland, Randall, Petrey/Triplett/Dietrich, Hamby/Day/Harvey! And then it was on to Watauga High School where we were in many of the same classes together throughout our four years. We also had many of the same friends and were in the same clubs, both in school and in Girl Scouts as well. Many stories could be told! (and more will in the rewrite!)

The Girls Scout memories stand out! All the bake sales and day camp. And the grand finale, our trip to the Bahamas during our senior year. For me, and perhaps for Tanya (confirmation needed), it was my first flight and my first cruise. Many from that group of friends continue to this day to be people on whom I know I can call if I ever need anything. The lyrics “Make new friends, but keep the old…” truly apply to us.

But wait! The TLS/LBD education journey did not stop with high school graduation! We both attended Appalachian State University and for two of the three years I was there we actually lived in the same dormitory! Tanya majored in Spanish and I, in Math so we did not have many (if any) classes together, but we saw each other almost daily. Part of our shared experience was the utter agony of finding long hair left in the sinks of the hall bathrooms. (We precede suites and more private bathrooms!)

And then, nearly 20 years after our first encounter, our paths diverged. Yes, adulthood struck. Jobs, families, moves, family illnesses/deaths, … but the friendship continued/s. There were years where we only saw each other occasionally, at reunions or the occasional wedding or funeral (those are becoming far too frequent). But the bond between us was never broken.

Now that we are both retired, we find ourselves drawing even closer. We had our children at about the same age, and now we have granddaughters born in the same year (2023). We message on Facebook, text on our phones, share an occasional email, and yes we actually TALK on the phone sometimes.

I have a letter (remember those?) Tanya sent me forty years ago next month. My mother had been in the hospital for exactly one month; what we thought was a “coma” was actually much worse, and she would pass away nine months later never having regained consciousness. Tanya was living many states away, but she took the time to write these words: “People who don’t share your past and know what you’re all about and where you came from sometimes don’t understand what makes you ‘tick.’ ” We know each other’s pasts- and our presents. We will always- ALWAYS- be there for each other. I love you, Tanya Lee!

It has been far too long since I wrote anything. Now is the time to come out of my slump. Family and friends said goodbye today to one of the best people God ever created. I came out of my partially-Covid-induced hermitage to attend her celebration of life. (So Covid was/is a very good reason to stay home or at least keep my distance from people; but truth be told, I’m pretty much okay with that MO anyway!)

But today I put on real clothes- yes, a dress and non-running-shoes- to attend a perfect celebration of life service. All that would have made it better was if the hero could have been there herself! My dear daddy helped get me there. You see, as I was out walking in 30-degree weather with blustery winds, my power went out at home. So I was going to have to go to the service without being able to dry my hair after my shower. And that little voice that said, “okay, so don’t go then” was silenced by the memory of Daddy saying to me and my sister in our teenage years as we agonized over what to wear (wherever we were going!), “It’s not a fashion show!” And he was right. My dear sweet friend would never have missed a funeral or a party or anything else because her hair hadn’t been fluffed by a hair dryer! And I don’t think anyone else there cared what my hair looked like!

Not only did I get to hear beautiful words from my friend’s family and friends and pastor, I also got to see- and hug!- other friends from years past. And I came away reminded how important it is to stay connected with people. It is far too easy for me to stay in my own small world. But I will- I WILL!- make more of an effort to take walks sometimes with others, to meet them for meals, to make that call or send that text. These are people who care about me and about whom I care. Would that I had another chance to speak to my sweet friend whose life we celebrated today.

Tonight I will go to bed with a book she gave me on my fiftieth birthday. The title is Gifts I’d Like to Give to You (edited by Douglas Pagels). It is inscribed with very sweet words she wrote just for me, and I will keep them to myself. But they show how very much attention she paid to ME! Because in her words, I see myself. At the time, I had 13, 16 and 18 year old children. I was working full-time and taking on all the extra jobs I could while helping with homework, going to games, chauffeuring, cooking, doing laundry (so much laundry!). I appreciated the book, but I did not fully absorb it. I wish I had. I think it has wise words in it. And so now I will take it up again.

I love you, my friend. I love you, friends I saw today. And thank you Daddy, for making sure I got where I needed to be today!

We baby-boomers might be the poster children for vaccines.

Let’s start with smallpox. I proudly wear a scar on my left arm from the smallpox vaccine. When’s the last time you heard about an outbreak of smallpox? Exactly.

The smallpox vaccine was usually part of the routine for children starting school in the 1950s. But not long before I turned 6, a girl in Watauga County had the vaccine and had some reaction that may or may not have been related to it. She ended up with a life-long limp but no other outcomes. The county suspended smallpox vaccines for awhile, and so I did not have the shot until my younger brother got his, three years later. I still have the scar, and I wear it proudly!

Because of this vaccine, my own children- now in their thirties-and those younger no longer even take this vaccine.

Measles. Remember the measles? If you are younger than- oh, let’s say 50- you might not even have heard of them. As far as I know children still get the MMR Vaccine ( My thirty-something kids did), but they don’t actually remember the measles. I do.

In the winter of 1956 , not long after my maternal grandmother died, measles hit my house. I was 3 1/2 and my sister was 7. We both got the measles. (Not sure if my little brother, barely 1, had it.) I remember the cool baths, which were meant to soothe the itching but didn’t. I remember the room where we slept with dim lights because bright lights might hurt our vision. I remember that our grandaddy came to help our mother, while our daddy worked.

And I remember my mother, the nurse, saying “If gamma globulin helped, I’m glad they got it, because they would have died without it.” Gamma globulin was the predecessor to the measles vaccine.

Polio. I remember standing in line to get that sugar cube with the polio vaccine. My husband had polio as a young child. Miraculously, he also stood in line to get that sugar cube. And decades later our children had that same polio vaccine squeezed into their mouths.

Tetanus. We all (I hope!) get that booster every ten years. My mother was a nurse. She often talked about the first autopsy she observed as a student nurse. It was a twelve year old girl who died of tetanus. Thanks to science and research, parents no longer have to worry about this happening to their child.

Flu. Yeah, I know there are people who get the vaccine and people who don’t and people who go back and forth. I get the shot. and I always get a pretty significant reaction- large, red, hot, sore spot that lasts at least a week. But I also have not had the flu in … forever! Last time I remember was about 40 years ago. So I will keep getting the flu shot. Without fail.

Which brings us to Covid-19. As soon as I was eligible (yes, I am 65+) I registered for a vaccine. I was kind of excited to get mine at Sears! But then they opened up spaces with the county health department so I ended up getting my first vaccine at the Education Building at the county fairgrounds. I’m good with that, even though there were no candy apples or cotton candy!

I have made more than a thousand masks. I wear one (or two, now) whenever I am out in public (which is rare). I use hand sanitizer. I keep a safe distance from people (and on the rare occasions when I am out in public, I am not beyond glaring at people who get too close!) But mostly I stay home.

And I got the shot! And I am excited to get my second dose in two weeks. Get yours. Please.

May 29. Seems like a pretty ordinary date. Sure, occasionally it is when we celebrate Memorial Day (not a trivial matter at all, but a celebration not set in stone for a particular date). But in this last week, I realized that there have been four pretty significant May 29ths in my life. I could do all sorts of math, of course, because that’s what I do. But I won’t try to figure out any odds. Suffice it to say that I can’t think of any other date that has four memorable events.

I haven’t gone back and checked all my calendars, but here are the four days to remember so far.

May 29, 1970: My graduation from Watauga High School with the greatest group of classmates ever gathered. I already “celebrated” this in my most recent post, but here are a few photos.

Fast forward 12 years to May 29, 1982. My wedding day, which definitely changed the trajectory of my life because before the end of that decade we added three children to the family!

And then, in a strange and uncalculated turn of events, May 29, 2010 was the day we celebrated Daddy’s 85th birthday. The party was originally scheduled for December, 2019, his actual birthday month. But there was a huge snowstorm- the party was in Boone, after all!- and we had to cancel. I don’t recall if anyone even realized, before or during or after, that it was our anniversary! But it was a fun gathering of family and friends to celebrate a most wonderful life. Daddy passed away before his 88th birthday, the day after a Dixon family reunion and his final birthday cake!

And the fourth big May 29th was in 2016. I had just been laid off (because of budget cuts) from my teaching job in Stokes County and was trying to figure out my “next right thing.” May 28th was a Saturday night. Rick was working in Greensboro and nobody else was here. I was looking at school system job opportunities and found one that sounded, um, shall we say, interesting. I sent an email and attached a resume. About 9:00 AM on Sunday morning, May 29, 2016 my phone rang. It was Walt Padgett, the principal of Ocracoke School! We chatted awhile; we arranged a time for a Skype interview a few days later. By that afternoon, I had a job offer, and thus began my Ocracoke Adventure.

 

May 29 seems like a pretty random date out of the 365 (plus 1 sometimes) we have to choose from, but in my life it seems to be rather significant!

Fifty years ago tonight 246 young people graduated from Watauga High School. It was a Friday, even! Fifty! Yes, 5-0! How can this be possible? Where have those years gone? And where have we gone during that time?

Where we have gone and what we have done is impossible to recount. But you know I am going to try!

We will start with where we came from. Ours was the second class to complete all four years at the county high school, opened in 1965 with students from all across the county: Appalachian, Bethel, Blowing Rock, Cove Creek, Watauga Consolidated had been the high schools… I think that is all of them. Watauga County, then as now, has only elementary and high schools. There were even more elementary schools involved (Green Valley and Mabel come to mind.) Many students had gone to school together for eight years (no kindergarten back then…) with the same kids who went to their churches, lived in their neighborhoods, often were their relatives. And suddenly we were all together in one big high school.

But you know what? My perception, at least, is that the divide was quickly bridged. I don’t recall thinking at any point about where anybody came from, which school they had gone to, and so on. Maybe I was naive. Okay, I know I was naive that age, but seriously! I was a “city” kid (Boone, 1967,… population about 8500!) but it didn’t take long before the “county” kids became my friends as well as my classmates. To this day, I have to think sometimes about where somebody came from, where they lived when we were growing up. Sure, there are people I have known since I was born; those are the friends who also went to Boone (United) Methodist Church (we weren’t “united” back then, and now that I mention it, Methodists aren’t exactly united right now, but I digress…): Greta, Sandy, and Douglas were there from the beginning. And then there are people like Tanya who was in my class at school every single year (every. single. year!) from first through eighth grade and in a good many of my high school classes and then (I’ll be darned!) if we weren’t in the same dorm at ASU our freshman year!

Who are we? We are children who practiced “Duck and cover” drills in our classrooms in the early years, preparing for possible atomic bombs. (Full disclosure: I do not actually remember doing this, but I have classmates who remember. I think I lived in a bubble. Did I mention that I might have been naive?) We saw (literally SAW, in replay) our President’s assassination when were in sixth grade. That I do remember, vividly. I was in Mrs. Elizabeth Randall’s sixth grade class. We had returned from lunch and Mrs. Pease, the librarian, came across the hall to share the news. (I also remember that I thought I should not have to go to my piano lesson that afternoon and my mother disagreed!) And before we would graduate, both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy would also be assassinated.

By the time we were in high school, the Viet Nam War was being played out across our television screens every evening. And guys who were older than we were already there, fighting and sometimes dying. And some of our class joined their ranks after graduation. I confess that the gravity of all that did not really hit me until decades later when I watched a performance by students at the high school where I was teaching. The spring play was “In Their Footsteps” which follows five young women in their service in the Viet Nam War. I wept throughout the performance and for the entire thirty minute drive home. Somehow, that night, I realized how horrific that time was. For those who served. For their families. And for our country.

We are children who had three television stations (if we were lucky) to choose from, on our one black-and-white console television. And on those TVs we watched shows where married people slept in twin beds, the word “pregnant” was not allowed (On “I Love Lucy” they said she was “Enceinte”!), mothers stayed home and wore aprons and pearls while they cooked dinner and cleaned house (although many of our own mothers actually worked outside the home), the Beatles stole the show, Lawrence Welk did his thing (not sure what to call that!), Perry Mason solved every case (while I polished my patent leather shoes with Vaseline), Sky King and his niece Penny took to the air….

We didn’t walk uphill both ways to school, as some of our parents claimed they did, but we did survive some pretty severe winters. The infamous winter of 1960, when we were in second grade, stands out. It snowed. And it snowed. And it snowed again. We missed weeks of school. But you know what? We survived. And I don’t think any of us suffered from that lapse. Yeah, we did go a lot of Saturdays. But we also moved on to third grade. And our teachers did what teachers do (and what they will do now, in the midst and aftermath of the Covod-19 pandemic) and they picked up the pieces.

A lot of amazing  things happened during our early years. We lined up to get sugar cubes that contained the vaccine against polio. And now that disease is almost a thing of the past. Man first walked on the moon in the Summer before our senior year. And now people are spending months on the International Space Station.

Calculators? Ha! Computers? BIG ha! For some reason we didn’t even learn how to use a slide rule in high school (note to former teachers: we should have gone there!). But darn it! We sure did know how to use those trig tables in the back of the book. And we could interpolate all day long.

As students at Watauga High School, we were blessed with some really great teachers. I won’t even try to name them, but I will post two pictures…. one of a Spanish class (and I believe everyone pictured was in our graduating class) with the amazing Mrs. Eppley, and one of our two driver ed teachers, including one of the first female DE teachers in the state. I’m pretty sure we all had at least one if not both of these two fine teachers as we learned to navigate the interesting roads of Watauga County. And WHS also had a strong administrative team during our time. My guess is that every one of us who went on to teach in the public schools wish that we had had the opportunity to work for someone like Dr. Miller.

Now for a little trip down memory lane with some pictures… on the left, the box that contained my invitations and other graduation items and a cedar jewelry box we received from (I think) The Stone; on the right, our senior class officers (credit to The Watauga Democrat).

Above our final issue of The Powderhorn and the staff that put together so many great issues that year.

The yearbooks from our four years, and the staff who put together our final one!

And so here we are… it is nearly 10:00 PM on Friday, May 29, 2020 and we were probably wrapping up (finally) the ceremony in the gymnasium fifty years ago. Before I close this out, I need to add a final chapter to the story. I started with where we came from. So where did we go? After graduation, if you look at that final issue of The Powderhorn, we headed in many directions: work, military, marriage, college (the majority to ASU, not surprisingly). We became husbands and wives and parents; soldiers; police officers; doctors and nurses and lawyers; teachers and psychologists; store clerks, business owners, and so many other things. We became adults. And for so many of us, we have remained friends. We have had lots of reunions. Lately we have had quarterly luncheons  with a handful of us gathering on Saturday afternoons. And one of these days we WILL have a grand 50th reunion party! So here’s to the party. And here’s to our future!

And that’s a wrap! Happy anniversary.

No, you are not behind (if being “behind” in reading my posts is even a thing). There have not yet been Sewing 1 and 2 posts. They are in my head. I was thinking about the first one and realized there needed to be two. And then… Covid19 happened. Pandemic. And the whole world changed. And so did my sewing.

Pretty soon after the talk about coronavirus turned to concern and then the need for action, I decided to start making face masks. I learned about a group called Project Mask WS (Winston-Salem) and joined. So I brought my sewing machine upstairs, hunted up the sewing basket my mother made me decades ago and dug out thread, bobbins elastic. And I commenced making face masks.My first batch of masks, these for ProjectMask WS.

If you know me, you know I love Christmas, so I really enjoyed making these masks for PMWS with this holiday fabric! Notice that these are made with ties instead elastic. I am branching out!

There is a brand new sewing machine in my basement; more about that in Sewing Part 2. But I decided I didn’t have time to learn a new machine before the face mask project began. Funny thing. This old machine had not been working well for quite awhile (hence the new one). The tension wasn’t right and I couldn’t figure it out. But suddenly, it works! I have been making masks for more than six weeks now and the only problem I have had is when I have to rethread the needle. And that’s a vision problem, not a machine problem. (And for the record- before someone points out my age!- the vision thing has been going on for a long time!) It’s as if my good old machine knows that what we are doing is a good thing and it needs to cooperate!

So I am part of this amazing group with over 3000 members (sewists- a new term, for sewing artists, cutters, runners, and so on) who have made more than 50,000 masks to date. These masks are approved and requested by major hospitals. They are going to the two large hospitals and many local health care providers in the Triad. Free. Totally free. People are giving time, talent, fabric, elastic (a commodity as valuable these days as toilet paper!), and money. And these gifts are supporting folks who are going to work every day to save the lives of those affected by Covid19.

I have also made dozens of masks for friends and family. I am not charging for my masks,  although many have donated whatever they choose to help pay for my materials. In the last six weeks, I have not gone anywhere except to the grocery store every 7-10 days, to a local fabric store to pick up mask supplies (ordered and paid for online), and to the post office to mail masks to family and friends.

My masks (besides the one for PMWS) have gone to Wilson (to Ocracoke friends), Boone, Raleigh/Triangle area, and here in the Triad. They are being worn by friends and family who have compromising conditions like lung disease, cancer, and diabetes. By children whose daddies are doctors or other essential workers. By people who just need one when they go out in public to buy groceries. By people who are being respectful of fellow citizens and wearing masks to protect all of us.

My daughter-in-law Ashlee and my brother Bill and sister-in-law Christal.

The best part of this little segment is my great-niece and -nephew Addie and Finley. Their daddy is a doctor and their mommy is, besides working in public health, pregnant with a little brother due next month. They were thrilled with their masks. Addie didn’t want to take hers off!

I have not spent nearly as much time making masks as have some amazing people. A group of Burmese refugees have made literally hundreds of masks in a single day. I took a break from PMWS to make masks for friends and family who also needed them, before the current market. I also had to slow my pace because of pain in my shoulder which I am still in the process of rehabbing from replacement surgery. But I am pretty good at multitasking, so several mornings I have combined sewing and tutoring. Another way to support the Covid19 effort, helping out the teachers and students and parents who are valiantly completely the school year.

Does everyone agree that masks are important? No. But I do. I know I cannot prevent the spread. But I can slow it. And as some have said, so what if it doesn’t help? At least it doesn’t hurt anything. Wearing a mask- and making masks for people to wear- shows respect for others. A (I would-like-to think … but I don’t really!.. well-meaning) Facebook friend commended me for my efforts but chastised me for thinking it would be helpful. Interestingly, the link he sent me to back up his opinion did caution that masks were not perfect protection but also gave directions for two different patterns! I rest my case on that one!

Wearing a face mask when out in public provides more protection for those I encounter in case I am carrying the virus and don’t yet know it than it does for me. But if I wear a mask and everyone I meet, on the rare occasions when I am out in public, does as well, both of our chances of contacting Covid19 are greatly reduced. I am in good health. But I am by almost everyone’s definition at greater risk because of my age. (As a slightly younger friend said recently, “I went from ’60 is the new 50′ to being ‘elderly’ overnight!”) So why wouldn’t I wear a mask? And why wouldn’t I make masks for those who need them?

(I donned celebratory accessories briefly on New Year’s Eve, although I had already taken off my slightly dressier shirt because I splashed barbecue sauce on it! And in the interest of full disclosure, my lights were off by 10 PM!)

How did it get to be a new year already? And a new decade? Are you kidding me? Fifty  (yes, 50!) years since I graduated from high school. That’s the roundest number that coincides with the date.

But as I have walked and otherwise spent my time this week, I have found myself reflecting and thinking about… everything. It seems only right that I would come up with a post this week, but somehow I find myself unable or unwilling, perhaps, to commit those thoughts to “paper.”

We had the typical Southern meal for New Year’s Day- black eyed peas (often the only time I cook them all year), collard greens (love me some greens but prefer mustard, kale, and turnip), barbecued pork tenderloin (not exactly part of the usual meal), and cornbread (real cornbread- no flour, no egg, no sugar).

But somehow I still wasn’t feeling it. So no year-end recap. No resolutions. Just these words to guide my new year and new decade: Brave. Health. Faith. Love. Hope. These things, always.

(My amaryllis bulbs are blooming earlier than usual this year. Maybe that happened to help soften my mood. When I was growing up in Boone, my mother always had one bright red amaryllis which usually bloomed in late January, in the depths of those long, cold mountain winters, bringing life and hope to the darkness.)

Again: Brave. Health. Faith. Love. Hope. These things, always.

With the recent passing of Mrs. Lera Britt Randall, I have given more thought in the last few weeks to teachers and what they have meant to me. As a teacher myself for more years than we need to mention here, I have obviously given a lot of thought to the subject already. And as someone who truly loved school almost all the time, from first grade through graduate school (although there were some hairy moments there at the end at NCSU… that statistics class when I thought he had given me the wrong exam and the ecology class final where I froze and forgot everything I knew, after being the one who led most of our seminar discussions…. but I digress), teachers and teaching have been an integral part of my life forever. Again, we don’t really need to give that a number, now do we?

It seems appropriate to start off talking about Mrs. Randall, since it is her passing that has prompted this post. “Lera B., as most of us called her– but not to her face, of course, although I am sure she knew!– was our Watauga High School librarian. They are called media coordinators now, but they are still librarians in my heart. I like to think that “Lera B.” was more of a pet name. (I’m not sure I can say the same about the drawing labeled “Mrs. Satan– hadn’t even thought about the rhyme there!– I found at extended day school one evening.) Mrs. Randall was not just our librarian and Beta Club sponsor, but she was also the mother of our friend Richard (who is one of the finest men I have ever known, I might add. Richard is brilliant, kind, witty, funny, and tactful. And a most devoted son. Just thought I would throw all that in, even though he is not a teacher in the strictest sense of the word. If you follow Richard on Facebook, you will quickly see that you can learn a lot from him.)

(In case you haven’t noticed, there will be a lot of parenthetical statements in this post.There usually are, but this one may have more than most. My thoughts are wandering here!)

She was also my friend Betsy’s aunt (more to come on Betsy’s side of the Randall story). And because Betsy was the youngest of three with brothers several years older, and Richard was an only child, the two of them — at least in my eyes– were almost brother and sister. And then Mrs. Randall was the “aunt” of my other friends Tanya and Myra Shook; the Randalls (both families) and the Shooks were all part of the 1950-60s growth of Appalachian State Teachers College (now ASU) and they became extended family.

So Mrs. Lera B. Randall was an important part of my growing up and remained a part of my life until this very day. I believe she is the last of the parents of my closest group of friends from high school. She was also a mentor in ways that I haven’t always realized. Mrs. Randall loved her students (and especially, I like to think, our class… not just because she was related to some of us but because we were/are a special group!), but she also had a reputation as being stern and strict. Not unlike myself, Mrs. Randall followed the rules and she expected others to do the same. If you have ever been my student- or even my colleague- you know that is how I operate as well. If you didn’t like or appreciate it, blame it on “Lera B.” And on “Katie P.”

Ah, Katie P. We certainly never called her that to her face, but again I imagine she knew. Katie P. was Miss Kate Peterson. Miss Peterson lived for many years with her blind, widowed mother. They were also members of my church, and our youth group would visit them especially at Christmas time in their small apartment near church and ASU’s campus. She was my junior English teacher. A stickler for grammar, spelling, punctuation… all the English class equivalents of what mattered to me in math class! And which to this day also matter to me. She did not like the fact that I bit my nails, had long hair that sometimes hid my face, and- most of all-  spoke softly and quickly! She couldn’t really “not like” me because I was a good student but was not above moving me to another seat at the back of the room (the combination of being short and being named Dixon usually gave me a seat pretty close to the front) and then forcing me to talk loud enough to be heard in the entire room.  (Which reminds me of the child in my first year of teaching, way back when, at Wake-Forest/Rolesville Junior High, who said, “Ms. Didson (sic) you talk fast!”) And even though she sometimes made me mad or hurt my feelings, I always loved Katie P.  and I appreciated what she did to make me a better writer and reader. And I knew she loved her students.

I love these pictures of Mrs. Randall and Miss Peterson. The first two make me laugh and remind me of good times in high school (Sadie Hawkins Day– look it up if you don’t know). They also help me to realize that perhaps some of my students will remember me fondly, when they think back on the costumes I wore for their entertainment as well as the rules I made them follow. Mrs. Pumpkin, anyone?

But back to teachers who have impacted my life and that of many others. I guess I will go back to where it all began…

Miss Putnam… Miss Charles Elizabeth Putnam. First grade at Appalachian Elementary School. I loved school from the very first day when I sat in Miss Putnam’s freshly repainted red wicker rocking chair (not quite dry as it turns out!) and got little red spots on my underpants! We worked on Calico (I think that was his name) the paper mâché horse in our spare time and we learned how to go to school! It was also in Miss Putnam’s class that I met my lifelong (and aforementioned) friend Tanya Shook. Tanya and I proceeded to be in every single class together throughout eighth grade  and in many of our high school classes as well. And then we even lived in the same dorm at ASU our freshman year! (If there are memory lapses in this narrative, Tanya can feel free to amend!)

My only negative memory of first grade (besides the red-speckled panties!) is that Miss Putnam tried to convince me that my real name was Elizabeth, not Beth. It wasn’t. Never was; never will be. I suppose I should have been flattered since that was also her middle name… but she went by “Charles” anyway! And I guess record-keeping wasn’t then what it is now, with computers and all, but I feel pretty sure they had something signed by my parents stating my name as Laura Beth Dixon. Minor glitch. Did not set me back on my path through school! And perhaps this is why it always has bugged me when a student says s/he doesn’t care when asked which name/nickname they use. It is your name. You should care!

Don’t worry. I’m not going to take you through every single year step-by-step with long stories about every one. I will name all the teachers because truthfully I loved them all. Mrs. Ennis Davis, second and third grades; Miss Clyde Goodman, fourth grade; Mrs. Grace Buckland, fifth grade; Mrs. Randall, sixth grade; Mr. Dietrich, Mrs. Triplett, Mr. Petrey, seventh grade; Mr. Day, Mrs. Hamby, Mr. Harvey, eighth grade. Did I get that right, classmates?

And this brings me to sixth grade and the other Mrs. Randall in my life. She actually came into my world three years earlier when her family moved to Boone, and her daughter Betsy became my friend. We were in Girl Scouts and Sunday school and many classes (but not 6th grade) together. Her husband, Dr. Robert Randall (brother to J. Frank, husband of Lera B. and father of Richard). Four things stick out in my mind about my sixth grade year with Mrs. Elizabeth Randall: 1) She did mental math with us every day after lunch. She would call out, rapid-fire, math problems- think 3×8+1 divided by 5 x 4…. etc.- If you know me at all, you know I LOVED this!  2) She also led us in a devotional every day, before lunch. I am pretty sure most if not all our teachers did that then, but for some reason – perhaps because we went to the same church- I remember it with her. We also had what were then called “chapel programs” regularly, and while not totally religious they were also not completely secular, throughout my time at Appalachian Elementary. 3) Mrs. Randall was the best finger-snapper I have ever known! She could snap her finger and point in one move and even the most innocent of us would sit up and take notice. Actually, I was probably always innocent (see “Rule Follower, above) and the perpetrator of whatever elicited the finger-snap probably kept on perpetrating and never even noticed the finger! I never did master that loud snap she had. 4) I was in sixth grade when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. November 22, 1963. If you were alive then (well, 4-5 years old or older) you remember that day. We had returned from lunch; Mrs. Pease, the librarian, crossed the hall and came to our door. When Mrs. Randall returned to us, she told us the sad news. We all grew up a little bit that day. We were already children who had lived through the drills of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our world felt even less safe that day. But perhaps typical of the eleven year old mind, it was also just about me. I remember asking my mother if I still had to go to my piano lesson after school that day. I did. And I am sure that was a combination of two things: Mother had already committed to the payment ($.50 per half hour I think; times have changed) and Mrs. Boone needed the money to support her family!

There is one other sweet memory I have of my year with Mrs. Randall. Remember, her daughter and I were friends. Betsy’s brothers were several years older, so by the time we were in sixth grade, they were excused from some family activities. I went with Dr. and Mrs. Randall and Betsy to a family reunion (I mean, there were cousins and all but Betsy needed company on the way there and back; right?). Betsy and I were in the back seat. Dr. Robert was driving and Mrs. Lib was in the passenger seat- what else?- grading papers. She’s a teacher, remember. It’s how weekends work. I don’t remember if it was a spelling test or something else, but when she came to my paper she held it up for us to see. I had made 100. And Betsy smacked me!

Before I leave elementary school, I need to mention at least a couple of others. Mr. Earl Petrey was our seventh grade math teacher. He also went to my church, taught me in Sunday school, and had a son Douglas who was in my class. Truth be told (you know I always loved math so there is nothing notable about that part of it), what I remember is that my sister also had Mr. P for 7th grade math and apparently he was much more entertaining (think going into rages when the students did not “behave”). Douglas was a friend throughout school but I always felt like we missed out on some of the theatrics because he was in our class! (I also remember that Doug told one of our Sunday school teachers, perhaps Dr. Robert Randall, that the “begats made for some pretty dry reading”! He was not wrong.)

And there was Mr. Robert Carl Day, our eighth grade math and science teacher. Full disclaimer: Mr. Day’s son was one Robert Brett Day. I probably had at least a little bit of a crush (… and I like to think it was mutual. We just never knew what to do about it.) on Brett. Brett and I had lots of classes together over the years. We sat side-by-side in Katie P’s (um, excuse me, Miss Peterson’s) class. Day/ Dixon. We did not get to walk into graduation together or even close because for some reason (I have never known this to happen anywhere else.) we marched in and out according to height rather than alphabet. It won’t surprise you that Brett was a good bit taller than I. Still is.

But we are talking about teachers here. I am sure that Mr. Day was an excellent teacher. Must have been. We all went on to do quite well in our high school math and science classes, after all. And many of us actually majored in math or science. But he was also a big talker. Lots of stories. Lots. And once again, I think my class lost out on some of the best stories because Brett was there to call his dad out, in case there might have been some exaggeration. Again, my sister was in his class three years earlier, and someone “did the math” and determined that if Mr. Day had indeed done everything he claimed, then he would be something over 100 years old. He wasn’t. Nevertheless, I loved him. And his son.

Before I move on to high school, I would be remiss if I did not mention three less positive things that had an impact on me. Things that teachers said/did. Things I wish they hadn’t. Not criminal acts, by any means. But things I have never forgotten and that had an impact on my own teaching. I will not name names. They meant no harm. It is possible that nobody else who was in those classes even remembers.

The first two incidents happened with the same teacher. Grade level not mentioned. Small town. Lots of history. This particular teacher told us all, very directly and unceremoniously (come to think of it, maybe it was ceremonious!), that we were too old to believe in Santa Claus. Perhaps we were. And I honestly don’t remember if at that point I still believed or not (it was about that time that I saw “Santa” coming down the pull-down attic stairs in my bedroom on Christmas Eve), but I knew even then that it was not this teacher’s place to tell me what to believe. And I was more than a little bit crushed. Clearly. I remember it.. well, let’s just say more than 50 years later.

And a couple of months later, in the throes of a long Boone winter, this same teacher spoke out when she shouldn’t. In my opinion. Then and now. Within a week or so, the mother of one of classmates passed away, leaving our friend and her two siblings motherless, and a baby, the child of family friends, also passed away. Think about it: you are a child. A child your age has lost her mother. Another child, a sweet little baby with siblings your age, has also died. Not a pretty choice. And I clearly remember this teacher telling us how much worse it was for the mother to have died than the child. It doesn’t really matter which is “worse” or “better.” There is no worse or better. Both losses are tragic. And real. But to tell a child, who is reeling over both these things, that what s/he feels/believes is wrong…. is wrong! Not the teacher’s place.

That was not a bad year in my school life overall, but it is telling that these are the specific memories- and no others!-  of that year. Oh, how I hope I never imparted such opinions during my time in the classroom.

And the other thing I want to mention is not nearly as traumatic, although it had a lasting impact on me. And it definitely carried over into my entire teaching career. Lots of teachers post top grades, high scores, super achievers, call it whatever, on their bulletin boards (let me go on record here as saying that I always say that if I wanted to make bulletin boards I would have taught elementary school!) but I never did that. And I never announced as I handed out papers who had the highest scores. Rarely if ever did I even give the range of scores even without names attached. And this goes back to the classroom of a teacher whom I loved but who always named the high scorers on tests as he returned them. For the most part, I think, students who are frequently the high scorers prefer to fly under the radar.

So, that takes care of elementary school (Watauga County didn’t and still doesn’t have separate middle schools), and I moved on to Watauga High School. All my Appalachian Elementary School friends went with me, and we were joined by new friends and classmates from the other elementary schools across the county. At this point, nearly fifty years after we graduated, I have trouble remembering who wasn’t with me for the entire journey. That is how well we meshed.

Possibly because of our proximity to and connection with Appalachian State, we were blessed with wonderful educators throughout our twelve years in school. (I like to think that most students everywhere get that, but perhaps we had a special set of circumstances. Education was certainly important in our county.) I can’t begin to name all the teachers I had in those four years. Well, actually, I probably could tell you every class I took and who the teacher was, but I won’t! So there are a few I will mention.

I’ve already talked about Mrs. Randall in the library and Miss Peterson in 11th grade English. Before Miss P were Ms. Hood and Ms. Kinney; I forget the order but I do remember the papers we wrote: full pages on “How” and Why” for example. These were young teachers, recently graduated, husbands probably in grad school at ASU; and clearly this was the newest, latest thing! And then, to our good fortune, Mrs. Elvey came along and joined the WHS staff. I had the good fortune to be in her classroom for both English IV, which we all took, and EnglishV (at the end of which we took the AP exam, but back then we didn’t realize that’s what we were preparing for!). In addition to being a lovely person, with many great stories to share, she was an excellent teacher and I know that I am a better writer because of her. (You might have reason to question that, or at least to be glad she made me better….)

Another teacher who deserves mention is Mrs. Patty Blanton. We all knew her as Patty; her family and her husband’s family were people we grew up with, went to church with, etc. We were among her first students. She taught me physics. And I entered college planning to be a physics major, so obviously she was convincing. (All due respect to Mr. Coffey, I also loved chemistry!) That physics major didn’t last long, since my first college professor insisted on teaching as if we had all had calculus and I had not (not offered at WHS at the time). For my second semester of college physics I had the amazing Dr. Walter Connoly, but by then I had decided physics was not for me.) Funny story, at least to me. And this is about me, after all! I recently saw Patty (at Mrs. Randall’s visitation) and she mentioned that Differential Equations did her in as far as math goes and changed her direction to physics, and yet that is one of the first advanced math courses I really loved after I left physics!

I haven’t even mentioned social studies, home ec, PE, … Heck! I even remember when study hall was a thing! For that matter,I didn’t specifically note my math teachers: Mr. Roten, Mrs. McConnell, Mr. Tester twice. I pulled out my old yearbooks to refer to, and I can’t help but laugh at a headline that refers to “modern math”! Not to be confused with the “new math” of our late elementary days and the Common Core of today. Some things never change. Even more laughable- and perhaps horrifying- are these two headlines from our junior yearbook (not the one I helped produce!): “Home Ec prepares Girls for Homemaking” and “C.I. and Auto Mechanics Solves (sic) Boys’ Questions.” Have times changed, or what?!

And then there was Mrs. Anita Eppley, our Spanish teacher. I only took levels 1 and 2 but in those two years, I became fluent enough that I could carry on long conversations on the telephone with my friend Joanna. Our younger bother and sister didn’t speak Spanish at that point, so we talked in Spanish as if our conversations needed to be private. For those of you who knew me and Jo, you know that we weren’t doing anything that needed to be kept secret! 🙂 I also learned enough Spanish from Mrs. Eppley that I placed out of college foreign language, a much more impressive imparting of knowledge from this delightful lady.

Worthy of special mention is Mr. John Moretz who somehow got the probably unenviable task of being the yearbook sponsor. And in the deal he chose two editors, the late Helen Robinson and myself, to be the editors. I don’t recall that any of the staff had much (if any!) experience, so I think the outcome was pretty good. I still love looking through that yearbook.

And then there were our driver education teachers, Mr. Bobby McConnell and Mrs. Nancy Penick. The latter was one of the few (and perhaps the first?) female DE teacher in NC! Both were not only knowledgable but infinitely patient. (My apologies to anyone who had to share a car with me, because I was a very timid driver at the time!)

Home Ec! Can’t leave that out. I have always been rather “domesticated” so I loved cooking and sewing. Our first project was a rather “tame” torn skirt. I had already been making my own clothes for awhile so that was pretty easy. I also remember the stuffed Humpty Dumpty I made. He was adorable, but weighed a ton (not really!) because of the heavy stuffing available at the time. We had a student teacher one year, and she taught us to make Mrs. Leonard’s Chef’s Salad- complete with raw hot dogs. I can’t believe I ate that and even saved the recipe for a long time. One recipe I still use is the spaghetti sauce, with lots of tweaks and additions, but it’s still what Mrs. Dougherty started me out with.

I would be remiss if I did not mention Dr. Andy Miller, my high school principal. Dr. Miller was not only my principal but also the father of another of my good friends, Susann. I have always said that I would have been blessed to work in a school where he, or someone like him, was in charge. (Now, I will admit that I never actually was a teacher in his school, but I feel pretty sure he had the respect of his teachers.) His soft, slow delivery was somehow encouraging, uplifting, inspiring. And even the students who were following the rules and doing well were a bit intimidated. And I don’t think that was a bad thing. We respected him. And we trusted him. And he had a sense of humor. Several years after I graduated from WHS, he and I were both at ASU and one of his responsibilities was overseeing the student teacher program. He told me that he would “only send me to Hickory High School with a baseball bat.” This was in 1974 and there had been regular disturbances (read “riots”) there for the previous 7-8 semesters; it was not a safe place. Imagine my surprise when I got a postcard in the mail (this was pre-email) assigning me to HHS for my student teaching. That might be the first time I ever asserted myself; I walked into his office, tossed the postcard on his desk, and asked, “where’s my baseball bat?” the assignment stuck and I survived. And as they say, the rest is history.

I could go on for a long time. So many other teachers in high school (not even going to talk about college and grad school). There are teachers who impacted me, some of them even more after I left high school, even though I never sat in their classroom. Folks who gave their lives to education, in spite of low pay and long hours. I do believe that at least in Boone teachers got the respect they deserved, which is sadly not universally true across the state today. I realized that more and more spending years in the classroom myself. I came to respect those teachers who did not always get the students who wanted to be in school, who did not get to teach their preferred classes, who taught the subjects students had to take whether they wanted to or not. Then as now, teachers worked hard. I hope that the ones I had know how much I value and appreciate everything they did for me.

I don’t feel like I have a good ending for this post. But for now at least, I am finished!

 

Almost exactly one year ago, I was pulling into the driveway here in Lewisville. My day began with the 7:00 AM ferry from Ocracoke to Swan Quarter, after a hasty final packing when I realized I needed to be out of the house a week earlier than anticipated. That was probably good, looking back. I would have loved the extra days on the island but maybe it kept me from getting too sentimental! So there was a 2.75 hour ferry ride for decompression and a 5.5 hour drive from SQ to Lewisville….

And here I am . One year out of the classroom and one year off the island. One year into retirement and life back on the mainland.

This has been a busy year. First of all, navigating through the paperwork of retirement, Medicare, Social Security. Then starting on the monumental task of de-cluttering, organizing, sorting, call-it-what-you will a big house with basement and attics housing nearly 25 years worth (plus what we moved in with) of “stuff”! Progress has been made, but it would still be embarrassing to me if you walked in and saw what remains. (Another story for another day. Stay tuned.)

And then there were a few other “things”: new houses for both Adam and Anna, with a hailstorm damaging Anna’s within five months of the purchase! New jobs/ locations for Adam and Daniel. Prostate cancer surgery (successful, thank God!) for Rick. Several short trips to Carolina Beach, so I at least got a little sand in my shoes. And four (yeah, really!) trips to Disney World (also another story for another day).

And perhaps the biggest news, Adam’s and Ashlee’s engagement and wedding. There aren’t a lot of pictures yet (not a good story!) but the event was lovely and full of love. We are delighted to welcome Ashlee into our family!

So what about me? What has changed? What do I miss? I miss math! I miss daily interactions with both students and colleagues. I miss the whispers of teenagers. I miss the exchanges with other staff members about both the good and the bad. I really miss lunch and playground duty (yeah, really!) and the chance to interact with “the little people” as I called them, much to the amusement of my high schoolers (especially one John Brodisch!).

I don’t miss having to be dressed and ready to go each morning (although I am not exactly sleeping until noon!), but I do miss heading to the beach to walk as soon as I have finished the day’s tasks at school. Walking on the paved streets of Lewisville is not the same as the paved streets of Ocracoke. And it’s a lot longer drive to Salem Lake than it was to the beach there. But I still get lots of walking in. Most of my birds are songbirds and perching birds, but there is an occasional heron to brighten my day. And I do love my goldfinches here! 

So I am a year out of the classroom and a year away from Ocracoke; I am a year into retirement and my new normal. I have not yet found my rhythm, but I will. Surely I will. The same sun and moon still rise and set. I will figure it out.