Writing Contest, life lessons

In between editing the pet magazine, preparing the library budget and grandmothering, I have entered the over 60 PEN Texas contest. As background, I remember leafing through a book in the library at the Theta house in Austin in around 1964 and being fascinated with an account of a life told in checks. The series of checks revealed a life in Hollywood in 1931 (writen by Wuther Grue) and published in a big book.

Last year I came across the same book ( Vanity Fair 1931) and thought that this could be adapted to Dallas from the 70s to 2006 and tell the life of a privileged young woman. It was harder than I thought to organize the events and the different banks (there were lots of bank changes in the time)! Anyway, I sent it off and we'll see.

I used events from my own daughters' lives (the OB/GYN, the ballet school, cotillion) but other events (obviously, since my daughters grew up to be perfect, unspoiled, intelligent and beautiful) are made up or drawn from friends or acquaintences who weren't so blessed. Looking at their lives makes me realize that you can do everything you think is right and still be wrong.

Family history

In my spare time I've been organizing the mound of family papers - putting them in binders titled with family names;
Egan
Dean
Camp
Flanary
Armstrong
Stroud
Camp
Walling
Breeding
Crozier
Smyth (or Smythe)
Kuhn
Denton
and others.

It has been fascinating and I've been lucky to be the family historian. Most of the men in my husband's family have left a personal record of who they are and from where they came.

Here's mine:

I was born in Pecos, Texas December 3, 1943, the second child of John Robert "Bob" and Nancy Elizabeth Camp Dean. My older brother was born October 31, 1939. My younger brother was born July 25, 1949 and my younger sister born September 1, 1952.

Pecos, a town of about 15,000 people at the time, was a great place in which to grow up. We had prosperity from oil, gas, cantaloupes (the World's Best) and cotton. My father and grandfather operated an abstract office - very important in determining ownership of mineral properties - and Daddy and his cousin Marcus Dingler operated cotton and cantaloupe fields.

Our high school provided us with exemplary education with outstanding teachers and many of us went off to colleges. I went to Christian College in Columbia, Missouri (which a cousin had attended) then transferred to the University of Texas (at Austin - a suffix not required in 1963).

My father's family moved to Pecos, Texas in 1918 (when he was 8) from Carlsbad, New Mexico. (He was the youngest of four siblings - Jane, Bill, Jr, Katherine).

Mother was the youngest of her family, as well. She had two brothers, Hilliard and Keith. She was born in Pecos in 1916 and was delivered by her father, Dr. Jim Camp.

More fascinating family history later.

black pants, braces

Ok - I've ranted about maternity clothing. Now I want to rant about grown women's clothing. Have you noticed that all the "new" looks (tunics, empire waists etc) look like maternity clothing? I'm 63 - I don't want to look pregnant! I want to look put together and stylish (not to mention, this) - if I can achieve that without itching, holding my stomach in, or sweating.

I looked at the mall today for plain lightweight black pants - cotton blend. It's too hot in Texas to wear heavy polyester or even microfiber. We need cotton with a little spandex for shape. We older women want a little camoflage of the bumps and rolls - no thin fabric - and give us a little room, for goodness sake! Anyway, no luck with black cotton-blend pants. I think the Chinese look of black pants and jacket would look great. I'm looking online.

In other news, I've decide to get braces to correct the overcrowding of my lower teeth. So far, ouch. The benefit of orthodontia at an advanced age is wine.