THE EARLY OKLAHOMA YEARS

After spending two months in Kansas with Grandmother Edwards and Uncle John in the summer of 1951 (while Dad and Mom finished up all the stuff at Ohio State), we moved to

 Norman  and rented in Faculty Heights while our first home was being finished at 1014 E. Idaho.

Faculty Heights. 

A little history of Norman for those who are not familiar with one of the best 

cities in which to raise a family in the country (a distinction which continues to this day): 

In 1870, the United States Land Office contracted with a professional engineer to survey much of Oklahoma territory. Abner E. Norman, a young surveyor, became chairman and leader of the central survey area in Indian Territory between 1870 and 1873. The surveyor’s crew burned the words “NORMAN’S CAMP” into an elm tree near a watering hole to taunt their younger supervisor. The Southern Kansas Railway (a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway) planned Norman as a station site in Indian Territory and in 1886-87 laid tracks  through the area. It wasn't settled until the Great Land Run of 1889. When the SOONERS” (those who headed west before the official Land Run date of April 22, 1889) and the other settlers arrived in the heart of Oklahoma, they kept the name “NORMAN.”As the 1889 Land Run approached, entrepreneurs formed the Norman Townsite Company to organize the town. The group had developed a plat before the event, but used the survey prepared by the railroad company. By 1890 the population stood at 787, and the burgeoning town held doctors,lawyers,  hotels, and all the amenities and retail outlets of a community that size, including a cotton gin. In July 1889 Ed Ingle established the Norman Transcript, which continued to report the news at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Back to Faculty Heights which was the second place we had lived where housing was specifically built for the post-WWII veterans to be able to find affordable housing. Because of the need for renters as well as owners, Faculty Heights which was constructed beginning in 1947 included almost 40 rental duplexes in the 170+ lots. The area was designed to discourage thru traffic and was an area which attracted many OU faculty families, hence it's name.

I remember several things about this house in particular and I think it was about this time that I really started putting away permanent memories rather than remembering stories that had been told to me about what I did. 

I remember jumping off the porch with my Dad's navy scarf flowing behind me as "Zorro" saved another damsel in distres

s.  I remember roller skates that clamped on the bottom of your shoes and had a leather strap to fasten them on and a key to tighten the clamp. I remember the basketball hoop on the front of the house with the driveway sloping into the street. I remember the floor furnace where I would stand on cold mornings in my "slipper socks" to get warm and the grid would lightly burn a pattern on the suede bottom.

We had many families on our block and the next block over who became lifelong friends of my parents. Dr. Merle Strom, directly across the street, was the principal of the OU lab school on "north base" where I went from 2nd thru 4th grade. I rode to school with Dr. Strom and his two kids. 

Officially sanctioned in 1917 by the Oklahoma State Board of Education and the Oklahoma State Legislature to provide experimentation, observation and practice for future and current teachers, UHS began as a junior high, grades seven through nine. Three years later grades 10 through 12 were added, elementary grades in 1935 and kindergarten in 1947, the same year that University School was moved from the Carnegie Building on the main campus’ Parrington Oval to several former Naval Air Station buildings on OU’s North Base. Also known as “the laboratory school,” University High and University School were examples of how major research institutions of the time tested the best practices of education and gave their education students teaching and research opportunities.

Those singular qualities were reflected in lab schools across the nation, where ideas once considered radical and now considered classic were fostered. OU’s own former dean of education, Ellsworth Collings (for whom Collings Hall is named) came to Norman in 1924 as president of the University School, bringing with him progressive concepts about how children learn. The late OU education professor John Renner led a five-state, nine-year study on improving elementary science education from University School classrooms. And the “New Math Movement” came to University School via instructor Eunice Lewis, who was selected to participate in the groundbreaking New Mathematics Program at the University of Illinois. “We experimented with a lot of things. That’s what the laboratory school was set up

 for—we were trying to improve curriculum,” says Lewis, who taught math to generations of UHS students from 1946 until 1973.

University School students, who paid tuition and were selected for their academic potential, enjoyed a nearly ideal setting. Every teacher held a master’s degree, and some had doctorates. At its largest, the school’s student-teacher ratio was only seven to one. Entire grades frequently had fewer than 40 students. 

Things I recall about University School are taking naps on our rug after lunch, falling in the "crawdad hole" (which was a pool of rain run-off on one side of a culvert under the street which happened to have crawdads swimming in it), playing capture the flag and work-up, having a student teacher have a seizure during class (freaked us out!), being in my first performance of A Christmas Carol, and the foundations of the buildings which had been blown away by a tornado before we moved to Norman.

Other friend families in Faculty Heights included Lows, Griffiths, Buschs and Urtons.  Amazingly, I continue to correspond with Cherry Kay Griffith and many years after I had come to California, Mary Alice Urton brought her young daughter to see me as a patient - one of many "small world"events that have transpired in my life. Other things I recall about Faculty Heights 

were the Johnson grass in the surrounding fields, where we dug "forts" and made secret trails; the empty lot that I burned off while learning that you can't light matches and put grass blades on top if the wind is blowing; the jeep that would drive thru the neighborhood periodically spraying DDT with us kids running down the street chasing it; the time I agreed to mow a ladies lawn without looking in back to see the weeds over 3 feet tall; the little store on Brooks street as you left Faculty Heights headed for OU where we would go buy candy and pop, and selling greeting cards to all the neighbors to get my first bike. It was in the Idaho house that Mark and I also got our first American Flier train set and put a 4x8 plywood on top of our dressers for the layout.

I'm sure that one of the things which prompted me to decide early in life to wear the doctor "costume" was that I had my fair share of medical issues. In Garnett, Kansas I was already having rather severe allergy problems. In Columbus I had both my tonsils and appendix removed. I remember the ether anesthetic smell to this day and I remember not thinking I would ever walk again after the appendectomy. 

 My medical history continued in Norman with swallowing a ball berring and later having to be taken to the hospital by my pediatrician because my mother was in bed with the chicken pox and my dad was out of town at a meeting. When I awoke

 from the anesthesia, John Low and Grif were there with my first transistor radio to try to make up for no available parents.

Another medical experience in Norman was not intended to be. It was during the 50s that the shoe-fitting fluoroscope was still in use, and we thought it was really cool to get to see our toes in the machine when we got our shoes. It turned out to be a lot of radiation for young toes. I also always hated that I couldn't wear my new shoes out of the store, because they had to be for Sunday till they got a little wear. Needless to say, I wear them out of the store now (but don't own a pair of regular shoes).

Needless to say OU football had a huge impact on my life - I remain to this day a dyed-in-the wool Sooner fan. I remember going to football games and for some small amount of change sitting in the end zone for so many exciting games. And then on Sunday Mark and I would take our gunny sacks over to Owen Stadium and crawl under the cedar spreaders to dig out the Coke bottles that had been discarded by fans as they left. The bag would usually be almost to heavy to drag back home, but we enjoyed the money we got in return. I was also in Owen stadium on November 16, 1957 when Notre Dame ended the 47 game OU winning streak 7-0. The stadium was so crowded that we had to sit in the isle. When the game was over, the Sooner fans just sat there stunned.

All the elementary schools in Norman were named for presidents at that time (and still are except for one). In 5th grade, I left the University School and went to Madison Elementary school which was very close to Faculty Heights. My main memories of that school are that they wind would blow the red dirt so hard that we would have to come in after lunch and clean off our desks with wet paper towels. Also I remember playing football at recess and tackling a rather large boy who had been "held back" a couple of grades - I got him down but I think I paid the physical price for several days thereafter. After sixth grade we moved across town and I started junior high and Mark attended McKinley elementary, where John Baumgarner (brother of local later to be famous James Garner) was the principal. (little tidbit - Madison Elementary is one of the few current day elementary schools to receive the Great Schools rating 8 out of 10 - could be because I was there in the early days or could be because it is only a few blocks from OU)

The two other large parts of my life in Norman started in the early years. I joined Boy Scouting as a cub scout in elementary school and I started playing the trombone in 5th grade. One of our neighbors in Faculty Heights was the High School band director and he gave me private lessons on trombone.  There is a lot more about these to subjects in the second part of the Norman saga.