Murphy and the Siren Sounds

 

my name is MURPHY DOODLE and i have a big backyard, that means i have to keep four legged animals that are not dogs out of my yard

sometimes i chase away the two legged squawking animals that like to eat seeds at a feed her...letty and jack seem to like watching two legged animals

letty says she likes the teeny tiny finches and wrens best because they talk and make music...i can not tell them apart but i do hear their high pitched chit chat

there is another noise that letty calls a siren that i do not like...it hurts my ears and i howl at the noise to go away and it does, or it used to go away until that night

one night when the wind was making a lot of noise and there was no sun shining i heard the same screaming siren sound...it hurt my ears and my head and i saw letty jump up and howl at jack to do something...i did not understand what was happening

i howled again and again and letty hugged me, put the leash on my neck and pulled me to the garage but i new we were not going for a walk in the in the wet wind

she made me scared with her voice, so i sat down and would not move

it was an awful time, finally the sirens stopped

then before i could eat the sirens came on again and i howled but they would not stop

no matter how much i howled or whined the noise would not stop, 

letty tried to get me to go down in a dark hole in the garage but i would not, i sat alone and we could not find jack

i should be with jack... i tried to tell her, he needs me to protect him

the last time the sirens went off letty told jack he had to stay inside and help her carry me into the hole, i ran to the bedroom and tried to hide under the bed but they could see me

jack carried me to the hole in the ground, i watched letty go down and then jack pushed my back end while letty held my shoulders, the next thing i remember is being on the floor of a cold small room with a light shining and letty sitting nearby...she quit shaking so i closed my eyes and rested

jack went away to look for the siren

later when he came back he stood like a giant at the top of the dark hole...i wanted to bark at him

he helped me upstairs and then we all went outside to look up in the sky...jack and my garden neighbor brent pointed up in the sky and i heard letty ask DID YOU STAND IN THE BACKYARD WHEN THAT WENT OVER OUR HOUSE  ... i think she growled ... i think jack and brent laughed 

circulation see in forward cloud never touched down

tonight i learned that letty could growl, now i love her even more

Golf Gypsy--The Lost Stories

This morning I awoke early with stories spinning in my head. At last I gave up and crawled out of bed, boiled some hot water for my morning tea and sat down to write. By then whatever seemed so important had drifted away and new thoughts and stories streamed through my visions faster than I could type or organize my thoughts.

I have piles of notes that are unlabeled but visibly show different resources, such as: newspaper clippings of interest, WOGA, Letty's writings and thoughts, and three piles of "golf" history.

Three tags in my golf history piles caught my attention: Mother's list and costs of supplies for our bomb shelter; a story about being pregnant for three years; and personal story that will not be retold in print.   

    

The rains began Monday and on Tuesday we drove through torrential rains too Shangri-la, Grove, Oklahoma for a golf vacation and history search. Waking up to more rain on Wednesday we explored the activity center at Shangri-la and spent  time playing ping pong and using the Track Master golf facility hitting into an automated golfing screen. Still no outside golf.

When it became apparent this would not be a golf trip, I began the phone calls and appointments with former Miami, Oklahoma, Golf and Country Club members. I've been collecting stories about the club for over ten years now.

We drove into Grove, Oklahoma and met Bev Jackson Moss, who I had not seen in over fifty years. At 88 she has outlived three husbands and played golf until recently when she began losing her eye-sight to macular degeneration. She has battled back from colon cancer and then nearly died two years ago from Covid. She has not lost her sense of humor and good memories of the old country club, as we have come to call it. 

After the hugs and laughter my most pertinent question burst forth.

 "Bev, please tell me about your pregnancies and golf games. I can recall looking out the golf shop windows as you teed off on number 6 and I saw your belly swing forward with force as you hit your drive up the hill and nearly to the bunker. It seemed like that baby is what propelled you to hit the ball so far."  

Before she could reply, I spewed another memory. "Keep in mind Bev that I was twelve when you moved to Miami and it seemed to me that you were always pregnant. I even heard people talk about you as years went by, pointing out that you were the only woman they knew who was pregnant for three years." Once again we could not contain our laughter.

"Letty, it felt like I was pregnant that long, too. Daughter number one, Sandy was born in 1960. Daughter number two, Debbie, was born in 1961 and son, Billy, was born in 1962." 

"No, wonder people laughed saying you had been pregnant for three years, and you played golf, too, didn't you."

Bev explained, " With Sandy, I gained too much weight. Dr. Highland insisted that I get exercise and said, 'You live on the golf course, get out and start playing golf for your health." Her husband, Wayman Jackson, a part owner in car dealerships in Kansas City and Miami, bought her a set of clubs and a pull cart.

"Letty, without even having a lesson I walked out the backdoor and every day played holes number 8, 9, coming into the club house, and then turned around and played numbers 6, and 7 that led back to our house. All the time I hooked a stroller type of a chair to the back of the golf bag and cart and pulled Sandy along while I learned how to play golf."

That summer of 1961 she began playing in the Friday evening Scotch foursomes, a couples 9-hole event. People began placing bets on when she would deliver that baby and on what hole.

That Friday night she recalled, "I played the best I have ever on the 9th hole. I hit four perfect shots and my partner and I, Charlie Trussler, won the night's award. The next morning I felt better than ever and set to work in the garden when suddenly my water broke. My husband panicked and Virgil Cooper, a friend and the undertaker!"

"Mr. Cooper also panicked and arrived at our house in the Cooper Funeral Home Hearst. They rushed me to the hospital and Debbie was born an hour later."

L to R: Beverly Jackson, Winner; Faye Berentz runner-up championship flight; Sue Barnes, 9-hole champion; Dorothy Schofield, runner-up 9-hole. 

"The good news is that I never delivered a baby on the golf course. Our three children all learned to play golf and I took lessons from your dad, which led to me winning the club championship several times. From the late 1960's through the 1970's I became a golf travel mom, taking the kids all over the four-state for golf tournaments. It's been a great and rewarding game."

**The story of the bomb shelter will be published soon.

Mr. Rogers in the Neighborhood

my real name is MURPHY DOODLE, but sometimes jack and letty confuse me and call me other names like mud foot and shaggy dog, i guess that is just how people talk

one day when it was windy enough to blow my tail, jack let me off the lease at the park to run because no one was there, no dogs to play with me made me sad and happy because i like to run free to chase squirrels

i like to play with other dogs, even when they hide behind brown fences i bark and say things like WON'T YOU BE MY FRIEND

sometimes they bark back GO AWAY, GET AWAY FROM MY HOUSE

at the park that day i ran all over chasing birds and squirrels and then i heard a dog bark saying  COME SEE ME, COME SEE ME, COME SEE ME

i ran all the way down a fence line and saw a little dog who has black and white hair but not curly like my hair, she has straight hair and funny hair cut

we ran up and down the fence line but she wore out after two laps, i think her short legs were tired

letty found out one day that her name was NOLA and i saw her pink collar, 

that day there was another small dog visiting NOLA, he could not run very well and sometimes he fell over, jack said he might be a puppy

one day NOLA did not want to run so instead we barked at each other through the black rod fence,

NOLA whined I WANT A FRIEND

i barked CAN I BE YOUR FRIEND

now sometimes when i go to the park we run together on separate sides of the fence, and sometimes we go the corner and bark at each other,

that is so much fun, she makes me happy

now letty calls me mister rogers when i bark at other dogs to play, i do not know what that means but her voice sounds happy

i have a lot of other friends, too

PENNY is my favorite fence friend, and we can play in her yard and swimming pool or in my big backyard,

when CASH  comes over he tinkles on all of my bushes and i have to go tinkle everywhere after he leaves, when i go to his back yard i tinkle on the trees and bushes, so i guess that means we are friends

my big brother OLIVER comes over sometimes, he tries to make me behave but i just run run run all around, finally he lays down and we get to roll around on the ground just like we did when we were puppies on the farm

i think it is the dogs we love the most that makes us the gladdest

**letty is trying to teach me punch uation about capital letters, now i use capital letters when i talk, she said it sounds loud like my bark