New Friends New Families

It was amazing and heartwarming how Apache welcomed me. The town, the school the Rotary Club. Right from when I landed in Oklahoma City I was made to feel at home.

I had four wonderful Rotarian families in Apache:

• Bob & Carol Crews with Rob & Jennifer; Rob was my first brother, I’d only had sisters before! I was an older bro to them.
• Don & Jackie Lehnertz, whose adult kids had left home; I was the spoilt only child!
• Danny & Mary-Joyce Swanda with Robbie, Kent & Dayne; I was equal older brother with two younger bros.
• Jim & Katie Patterson with Mary-Kate & Jimmy; I was the older brother.

At Rotary meetings I had twenty Rotarians willing and eager to teach me to sing America the Beautiful, and I have sung it on road trips ever since – my kids look at me weird – and show me around Apache and Oklahoma and beyond on their trips, business or leisure.

On my first trip out of state – to Paris, Texas – I learned to greet strangers. Being of faraway English, Scottish and Dutch extraction, I was insular and reserved. You had to formally meet four of someone’s family in person and know their grandma’s maiden name before you could say hello to them. Well, in Paris Texas I missed the first greeting and even the second. Surely strangers weren’t saying ‘howdy’ to me!? Then the penny dropped: They were, and Why Not? I have greeted people ever since. I get a lot of funny looks but what the hell, ignoring people is not on. I no longer have to meet someone’s grandpa before I say ‘Hello.’ After all, I’m not English!

I had a new ’73 senior class which would graduate soon, and then I’d join the ’74 senior class after the summer. They took me in and – besides American History and English, which were compulsory – let me choose the easy subjects. I was even in Annual Staff, the prize goof-off subject! And they bought me a class ring – how’s that? I had said no thanks, so they secretly chipped in and bought me one!

Few people are lucky enough to be in three high school senior yearbooks! I had ’72 back in South Africa – in the southern hemisphere we do it right – we start in January and end in December of the same calendar year! Then I joined the Apache senior classes of ’73 and ’74 for half a year each.

Robbie Swanda, Jay Wood and David Lodes showed me the ropes. As a seventeen year old I couldn’t drive back in the RSA and Rotary gave us strict orders NOT to drive as exchange students! But in the USA Robbie & Jay could, and I could be a passenger in their blue Ford Mustang and green Chev Camaro. Once Jay made the mistake of letting me drive. Bad. Again, I am genuinely sorry Jay, and you were amazing the way you forgave me and moved on! I was better in the passenger seat. You know: beer. That feature pic at the top is from fifteen years later when I visited Apache on honeymoon: Jay, me and Robbie At Jim n Katie Patterson’s new place outside town.

Jim let me drive a tractor and Ole Red, the WW2 Willys Jeep. But on the farm! And sober!

In Canada that summer Sherry Porter made the mistake of letting me drive on a Friday on the way to a TGIF restaurant, and I wrecked the rear fender of her red VW Bug. Thank goodness I hit a great big fullsize Dodge pickup with a fender the size of a cowcatcher on a steam train and didn’t leave a mark so we could drive off without guilt. You too, were amazing the way you forgave this African-who-wouldn’t-learn, Sherry! I was better on the back seat. You know: beer.

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– Dottie, tall Sherry, Dale sticking her head out right – the left taillight = my bad! –

In Rotary every Tuesday we’d have a pattern: We’d sing America the Beautiful, pledge allegiance to the flag, ask about what everyone had been up to the past week and ask a medical question of old Doc O’Connor who would reply – every single time – “Not that kind of doctor.” He was a dentist. We were big on rituals.

I became a farmer – A certified Future Farmer of America (FFA), and I can still hear how Schneeburger would say EFFIFFAY. I welded a cattle feeder on an axle and drum with birdshit welding which fell over in the first little breeze. I went to hog shows. I planted peanuts in Fort Cobb. Well, watched some Mexican fellas do it anyhow. I sprayed something on Jim’s lands. I drove in Walter & Pug Hrbacek’s (or was it Gene & Odie Mindemann’s) airconditioned cab in their harvester or tractor with an eight-track tape overhead. I took part in the catching, de-horning, branding, inoculating and castrating of the bull calves, then in eating the produce and washing it down with beer. ‘Mountain oysters.’ It was like this, but in Walter’s barn, not at the church:

I learnt to type – Peaking at a blistering nineteen words a minute with ten mistakes. I learnt to operate a Polaroid instant camera for the school yearbook.

I got hauled up in front of School Principal John Brown with Jay & Robbie and cowered as he read us the riot act for some misdemeanor, and then listened in wide-eyed awe as Jay said laconically, “You’ll get over it!” as John Brown turned bright puce. But Jay was right: He did.

Travel

I got taken to Paris Texas, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, the Wichita mountains, many surrounding towns – even Boone! Lawton, Norman, Anadarko for catfish, Lake Ellsworth and Lake Lawtonka, Fin & Feather on Lake Tenkiller, Muskogee, etc.

Out of state I went to Shreveport Louisiana, Cobleskill New York, Dubuque Iowa, Red River & Taos New Mexico, Las Vegas Nevada, the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, to Colorado, to Utah, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin – eighteen states in all. And we drove on parts of the famous Route 66 back from Vegas.

Then Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Lake Superior, Quetico National Park (canoed on the Lake of the Woods and got eaten by 40 million mosquitos) in Canada with Niagara falls on the way. Saw the Mississippi where you could throw a stone across it on an amazing trip: The Pattersons took me to Shreveport LA, where Larry & Ginny Wingert fetched me in a VW Bug and drove me to Cobleskill New York; Where Dottie & Dale Moffett and Sherry Porter fetched me in another VW Bug in which we drove through Canada to Dubuque Iowa, from where Don & Jackie Lehnertz drove me home to Apache.

How amazing is all that for a 17 / 18 yr-old from a small town?

I played football and track for school and basketball for a Rotary pickup team.

Somehow the teachers in Apache were all wonderful and friendly! Why is that, when the teachers in my first senior class were not so enamoured of me? OK, let’s be truthful, I was a bit hard-to-take in my home school and very co-operative and smiling in my second school! I was on my best behaviour in the latter and not my best in the former. That’s life. Sorry, Harrismith teachers!  Colonel Harold Dennis, Virginia Darnell, Bob Schneeburger, Dan Chandler, Jeanne Setzer, Billie McDonald and L’Roy Campbell were all very good to me – as were all the others. Sadly, memory fails me as far as names go. Another one was Jim Stanton from the lil school, who took me to a rock concert. And I wrote an apology-of-sorts to Rick Hulett too!

I Believe I Can Fly

Colonel Harold Dennis taught me how to fly – in theory – in night classes. “Ground School” he called it. Many years later I flew solo off a mountain in a paraglider. I’m glad I paid attention in his classes. It was stunning. And the Colonel’s knowledge really did help – I knew what was happening as I soared high up above the take-off point like a bird.

What a year! Thank you Apache!

~~~oo0oo~~~

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