Kids Raising Kids

Sometime during the day of April 30, 1968, in dawned on me that the next day, May 1, was the day I was to report to the military. That was, of course, before the events outlined in the previous story. So the welcome waves of relief that passed over me as I thought about it were great. I wasn’t totally in the clear with the draft but I’ll tell more about that later.

I don’t remember a lot of what happened that day except that it was warm. Late that Tuesday night Becky and I decided to go for a ride in our convertible. We enjoyed being outside and the fresh air. Maybe it was the fresh air that did it?

When we got back to 305 North Jackson it was after 11 PM. I was tired and headed for bed. Our baby was due in five days and Becky was quite uncomfortable. Sometime after midnight, Becky woke me up. She said she thought her water had broken and that the baby would be coming soon.

I was instantly wide-awake! We went to the Henry County hospital about 2 AM. I need to say here that this all happened before prenatal classes and the fathers getting to go into the delivery room. The latter was happening in some places but Dr. Rankin said it wasn’t an option in this hospital. In retrospect that was a good thing!

When we reached the hospital Becky and I were sent up stairs to the maternity ward. There in the reception area at the top of the elevator the nurse took Becky and instructed me to go down stairs and fill out some forms. Downstairs they really only wanted to know one thing. Who is going to pay for this? My Dad had already said he would take care of it sort of as a gift to us and the new baby, so that problem was solved when I put his name down. I think the hospital bill was around $160. Dad used to joke that Angie was his because he paid for her. The doctor bill for the birth and the previous nine or so months of office visits was close to $400. We paid that as we went along so it wasn’t so bad.

When I had finished at the registration desk I went back up to the maternity floor. Not sure what I was supposed to do I waited in the reception area near the elevator. The hospital seemed to be almost empty. Occasionally, I would see a nurse pass. I kept trying to get their attention because I wasn’t sure if I was to wait there or go to Becky’s room?

It was standing by the elevator that I first heard it. It was the most agonizing groan of pain I had ever heard and it went on for what seemed like minutes. It subsided and then started up again in a few minutes. I was horrified! I was sure it was Becky and I was powerless to help.

Finally, a passing nurse said, “What are you doing here?” and she led me into a room where Becky was. I told Becky I had heard her and she said, “That’s wasn’t me!” It was someone down the hall whose baby was coming breach. I was incredibly relieved!

Becky and the baby weren’t making much progress. Sometime around 5 AM the doctor decided that Becky was exhausted and needed to rest to get some strength. He gave her some medication to let her sleep and said they would induce the baby later that day.

Becky slept until that afternoon. In the meantime I called Becky’s parents and my parents. I went home briefly to shave and pick up some things and retuned to the hospital. When Becky woke the nurse gave Becky a pill to hold under her tongue. The contractions began soon after that.

Somewhere around 2:30 in the afternoon Angela Sue Ross was born. I stood outside the viewing glass as Dr. Couchman, the assisting physician carried her into an adjoining room where she weighed her. Angie was covered with some gunk and her head was pointed. I was shocked. The doctor turned her over in her hands and examined her like she was a toy doll. She looked at me from behind the glass, smiled and gave me a thumbs up.

Dr. Rankin came out of the birthing room. He said everything was fine and Becky was doing well and would be out soon. I was afraid to ask about the pointed head thing but decided if it was bad someone would say something. Becky later explained the reason for the pointed head to me.

That day I was convinced I was the luckiest man alive. In one short year I had graduated from high school, enrolled in junior college, married the girl of my dreams, avoided being drafted, and became a parent. The birth of a child, of course, pales the other four but they were all very significant positive events for me.

After we had taken Angie home we often got up in the middle of the night just to stare at her in her crib and marvel at our good fortune.

By the way, I still think I am the luckiest guy alive.

The Draft

The Vietnam War was raging in 1967 but I had a deferment (II-S) because I was enrolled as a full time student in college. The war was very unpopular by this time but there seemed to be no way out. (Sound familiar?) Many others and I were just hoping it would end before we had to go. My cousin Terry was enrolled part time in Burlington Community College. Part time students were considered eligible for the draft but Terry had an I-H deferment because of his weight.

Each county had a quota each month and the local draft board determined who would go. Darlene Taylor, at the local draft board office, checked on every deferred person regularly to see if their status changed. If you dropped a class and dropped below the full time status the college was required to report it to draft board. They kept close tabs on II-S students and even knew our grades and who was likely to flunk out.

In February of 1968 I received an Order to Report for Physical Examination. I didn’t realize it at the time but this letter is the first step of being drafted into the armed services. Other friends had gone for physicals so the only thing that really bothered me about it was being gone overnight and away from Becky.

The army physicals for Iowa were given in Des Moines. We all rode up in a bus one afternoon and checked into a barracks when we arrived. We were informed that we were in fact in the military while were there. I was bummed that they didn’t serve us supper or breakfast the next morning because of the tests. The physical itself was uneventful except they made me go through the colorblind test several times and finally determined that I wasn’t faking and I was actually colorblind. I asked the guy if that disqualified me from service and he said, “No, you would make a good sniper!”

On a gloomy day in late March while I was working at Glanzman’s Printing, Becky came in crying and holding an envelope. It was an Order to Report for Induction. I had been drafted. I was baffled because I was a full time student and didn’t understand what was happening but there it was. I was ordered to report for duty on May 1, 1968. The problem was amplified by the fact that our baby was due to be born on May 5.

I took the letter and went to talk to Darlene Taylor at the draft board office. She was stern and had no sympathy for me. She said I had been dully drafted by the board and there was nothing either of us could do about it. I protested and said I was deferred because I was a full time student and showed her my II-S draft card. She said I wasn’t a full time student so that didn’t matter. We argued loudly back and forth, but I made no progress.

Finally, she opened my file and pulled out a document from Burlington Community College. “Here!” she said. “Is the proof you are a part time student!” and she slammed the paper on the table in front of me. She pointed to phrase “part time” on the page.

I was speechless as I looked at the page. Then my eyes drifted to the top where it said “Name Terry D. Ross.” I could only point and finally stammered. “That’s not me!” Darlene was hysterical! Now she was the one who was upset. The county had met their quota with me and now she couldn’t send me, or Terry either because of his deferment.

My emotions that day had been on a rollercoaster. When I went home and told Becky of our change of fortune she almost didn’t believe me. We were so relieved!

On the day I was to report for duty, May 1, 1968, the greatest thing happened in my life. It has been equaled but never surpassed. It was the birth of our daughter, Angie. But that is another story.

Just Getting Started

Ok, enough about my high school years for now. I’ll tell about my high school initiation, parties at the cabin, the serious car accident, and trips to New London, driving the loop, and all kinds of other stuff another time.

A lot happened in the year after graduation! I certainly can’t do it justice in one piece so expect two or three. Up to now I have written about National Aquatic School. That happened the summer after graduation.

That summer I bought a white Dodge Dart convertible. It was a cool car! It had push button drive and a red interior. I loved that car and the girls did, too. Of course, by then I was a one-girl guy so it didn’t do me any good along those lines. But, after driving my parents uninspiring Studebaker it was nice to have a car that impressed. My Dad thought it was a little too flashy and expensive. He was probably right on both counts.

I enrolled at Burlington Junior College that summer and knew I would need a car to get back and forth. My Dad thought I could car pool with others. I probably could have but it just wasn’t very exciting for me.

The summer of 1967 was the summer Becky and I decided to get married. It was a huge decision. The wedding wasn’t until October 28 so we had plenty of time to get ready. I was 19 years old but still had to have my mother come and sign with me to get a marriage license. Becky, at 18, didn’t have to have her parents sign. I still haven’t figured that out almost 40 years later?

I wasn’t much into the preparation but Becky was. She took care of all of the arrangements. We were married in the Methodist Church in Winfield and honeymooned at the Holiday Inn in Burlington, Iowa. Probably not the most romantic place but we went there because I had to go to class on Monday morning.

When we returned to Mt. Pleasant we had to stay at my parents house for about a week before our apartment was ready. That wasn’t the best arrangement for all involved either but we all got through it.

We moved into 305 North Jackson with a bed and two dressers, a kitchen table with three chairs, some appliances we got as wedding gifts. The apartment had a kitchen stove and a refrigerator. It had a huge old oil burning heating stove in the living room.

Billy Jackson showed up about suppertime the first night we were there. He couldn’t seem to take the hint that we were about to have dinner or he was hoping we would feed him, too. I think we finally did. It wasn’t the cozy dinner Becky had planned.

Becky worked at Lauser’s craft and paint store. I went to school and worked part-time for Glanzman’s Printing Company. I made a dollar an hour and worked about 12 hours week. Becky made about forty dollars a week. Needless to say we didn’t have much money. We probably could have collected food stamps but never seriously considered anything like that. From time to time our parents did help us out with food or furniture and since my parents owned the duplex apartment we didn’t have to pay rent. We lived in that place the first four years of our marriage.

High School V

My senior year of high school went quickly. I took the ACT tests in the fall and it was determined that I really wasn’t college material. Community College or vocational schools were options as well as enlisting in the armed forces. That latter meant most likely a tour of duty in Viet Nam so I wasn’t too excited about that. Failure to enroll in some kind of school meant the draft was inevitable. Undaunted I applied at the University of Iowa and Iowa Wesleyan and was rejected by both. My years of a casual school approach to learning were now narrowing my options.

Burlington Community College was my choice. (It was renamed as Southeastern Community College while I was there.) That settled, I continued my pattern of enjoying high school but not doing much work.

I did take an elective from Roger Williams that year. The sole purpose of the course was to speed up your reading. They used a machine called a tachistascope that projected the text on the wall and gradually did it faster and faster. It worked I got so I could read very fast. I have retained that skill at least to some degree to this day, however if you don’t use it much you lose a lot of it.

My senior year in my regular English class with Roger Williams was the first time someone suggested I might be colorblind. The assignment was that we were to find an interesting piece of text to read aloud to the class. We were to paste a copy of the piece on colored paper that reflected the mood. I picked a blue piece of paper because it was a sad story. When I said that to the class they burst out laughing because the colored paper I had chosen was purple. That was an embarrassing and even humiliating experience! Someone said, “You’re a senior in high school and you don’t know your colors!” Mr. Williams just said, “You must be colorblind!” and we went on.

My class tied its first football game that year and lost the last two games of the season. Up until that time we had won every game from 7th grade on. It wasn’t the way we had hoped to end our football careers. I suffered what I now know was a concussion in the tie game with Fairfield and remember little of it. It was surreal the day after the game to watch myself on the video and have the coach yell at me. I didn’t start the next game for the first time in my career but was back in the starting position before the game was over.

I did have an offer to play football at Iowa Wesleyan. That lasted only until they looked at my ACT scores and then it was quickly withdrawn. I was way too small anyway and would have been way out of my class. Eventually, I will get to my days at Iowa Wesleyan and my experiences as a collegiate athlete.

High School IV

My junior year in high school was an up and down year for me. A serious ankle sprain marred a successful football season. It was the year I met Becky officially at a basketball game and I was fairly successful in school.

I was the long snapper on the varsity football team. During the Ft. Madison game I was injured. I watched it over and over again on the videotape but couldn’t really figure out why it happened. I had snapped the ball for a punt and ran down the field and made a great tackle on the star running back and in the process forced him to fumble. After the play the video shows me sitting on the ground rocking back and forth in pain.

I was on crutches for three weeks but still played in football games. Dr. Rankin came to the dressing room before each game and taped my ankle so heavily that it was like I had a cast on. I was helped onto the field to hike for each punt and extra point. Our opponents were aware of my injury and tried to tee off on me a few times but most of the time the guards on each side of me kept me safe. The injury, however, has plagued me the rest of my life.

After football season I didn’t go out for wrestling because of the lingering ankle injury. That gave me more time, which was not always a good thing. Idle time for a boy my age led to hanging out at the Princess Café and smoking cigarettes. I took great care not to get caught smoking by anyone from the school or anyone who might tell my parents. I was never caught. Too bad I didn’t because it might have caused me to quit sooner.

Academically, my junior year was not so bad except for chemistry. I had Roy Oliver as a teacher and it was kind of tough. I did enjoy the labs but needed all the help I could get in the classroom part of the course. Fortunately a friend took mercy upon me and often helped me with the homework. I think I failed the tests but my lab reports and homework were good enough to carry through with at least a C in the course.

We all had to do the dreaded research paper that year in English. To this day I am not sure what that entire exercise is all about but nevertheless everybody did it. It wasn’t really research but the rewriting of someone else’s work. The methodology of the whole process was something that was used in no other place than the school research paper.

I think I had U.S. History with Ron Statler that year, too. I enjoyed the class and Mr. Statler was a good teacher although he almost never left his seat at his desk in the front center of the classroom. I later did my school administrator practicum with Mr. Statler when I finished up my master’s degree. At that time he was principal at the junior high.

After meeting Becky in February that year I was hopelessly in love and spent all of my spare time in Winfield or on a date with her. We went to movies, dances, and even a few parties. The parties were pretty tame compared to the parties kids seem to be having now. We went to Winfield’s prom and then Mt. Pleasant’s together.