FIRST HAND FACTS

 I don't remember if I sent this one before but I did check and couldn't find it so read on and enjoy.

   When I was a senior in high school I decided that I didn't want to play the trombone in the band anymore but wanted to sing in the choir. I sang alto and thoroughly enjoyed it. We were pretty good and for some reason I wound up trying out for State Choir in the Spring. When being interviewed at tryouts, they asked what I sang and when I said "alto" they asked how low I could go so I did and they chose me as a second alto. There were about 250 voices from all over the state of Texas and it was a great privilege. We gathered in Mineral Wells and practiced together for about three days. On the fourth evening we gave a concert and we sounded great. Our director didn't use his hands to direct,  but used his facial expressions instead. That was an experience!

   Mother accompanied me to Mineral Wells and she stayed in a regular hotel while I had to stay in some sort of boarding house. My roommate was from Wink, Texas, and we shared a very strange room. As you entered the two story building there was a large lobby with chairs and sofas lined up on either side and in those chairs were lounging some rather seedy looking men smoking, reading or staring. Each time we returned from practice to our room, these old men stared like they'd never seen young women before. Our room was the first one on the left right off the lobby, no hallway or separation and it had a screen door! Fortunately, there was also a regular door we could lock. Instead of a closet there was a curtain draped on a clothes line across an open space. There was one double bed with an iron headboard and this bed was situated in front of an old door with a transom. The transom is important....so pay attention.

   After we practiced each day we were free to roam around but who wanted to roam around Mineral Wells in 1952? Mother took us out to eat but we returned to the room early because we were tired. On about the second evening, my roommate and I figured out that we could see into the adjoining room if we stood on the iron headboard. This thought came to us when we began to hear a conversation from the next room through the thin walls. We began our snooping from that awkward position just in time to peer through the transom onto the bed directly below where we could see a couple "making out". We took turns watching this and would fall back on our bed dying laughing at the antics and the conversation in the next room. That was my first and, thankfully, my last experience at watching the "primal scene". Not a good introduction to sex for a naive 17 year old from Beeville, Texas. I remember the sound: squeaky, squeaky, squeaky, giggle, giggle, uhn,uhn!  This is not a school cheer!


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