My parents were great guys. My dad was a real romantic and I just loved having him take me to dancing school because… and I just found the other day that this friend of Debbie’s found the whole story of this. It’s about a cowboy and he and his girlfriend are coming across the plains, and she says, “Was that thunder?” And off they race down the line when the stampede comes, see. And she says, “The only thing is shoot your horse and crouch behind him.”

So I came down, and breast to my breast was pressed,
And over us surged that sea of steers,
And when I could rise Alaska was dead.
I gouged out a grave a few feet deep and
There in the earth I laid her to sleep.
And now I wonder why I do not care
For the things that are like the things that were.
Does half my heart lie buried
There in Texas down by the Rio Grande?

And it’s a whole story. But Daddy used to say that to me, and I learned it, and then darn if we didn’t find it on the computer, and I got the whole story there.

He taught me all the cowboy songs, and he taught me all the California songs, and, you know, it was really good. My mom was not a romantic. My mom was…practical. And she was very aware of what people thought.

She never got to go to school. She went a couple of days. And I wonder—and she’d quit, you know, she’d leave about ten o’clock and eat her lunch on the way home and Grandma never sent her back—and I wondered if she had dyslexia. Because my brother had it, showed signs of it in the early grades of elementary school. He’s overcome it completely, but it was there.

And I thought, “Jeez, I wonder if that’s what caused Mama not to continue in school.” Because we didn’t know spit about it even when I was an administrator. You know, we were just beginning to learn a little bit about it, that kids do view things differently. Some kids just see the top half of letters. Some kids just see the bottom half of letters. And they get all screwed up. You know, we didn’t know about those things then.

I’m so grateful because not very many people have that relationship with their dad. You’re with Mom a lot more. But I sure did with Daddy because he took me to dancing school so much. I loved that. And because who he was, you know, he shared those things with me. We’d play hide the keys in the car and all that stuff, and I loved that.

Highlights of my life? I had so many. I love it when Louie was called back after we left Washington, D.C. Louie was called back and I couldn’t go—I had just had cataract surgery—and so Debbie went with him. And he was pronounced the Educator of the Year. And I loved that, because he did some remarkable things. He was such a sensible, practical leader, and yet people loved working with him. He gave them their leeway; he drew them into the pattern.

Since then, since Louie died, I’ve had about eight different—nine different—letters from guys who went on to be administrators who talked about how much they learned from him being an administrator with him. Because he would take them out to be a principal, and he says, “Now, you’re not the one who counts toilet paper rolls, you’re the one who’s in the classroom. And these are the things you have to learn about being in the classroom.” And every principal learned that and became a superintendent somewhere, because they were—not very many people are as aware of the curriculum and what goes on in the classroom as Louie was. He just said, “You’re not here to sit in your office. You’re here to be in the classroom. And that’s how you learn how kids learn.” And boy, that really made a difference. They had good schools.

His award was for educators all over the United States. Of course, I’m sure he got it because he was with the American Association of School Administrators, but they might not have ever found out from him otherwise. But he deserved it. And Debbie got to attend with him and I was so pleased with that.

That was after he actually retired and quit. He took us to so many exciting kinds of adventures that we wouldn’t have had. First of all, if he hadn’t just assumed that I could do anything that he could do. It just never entered his mind that I couldn’t, you know, bring that boat in and sell it and bring that stuff back. (Laughs.) It never occurred to him. You know. And because of that, I got to be a lot more than I would have been otherwise. Because I had a lot of friends whose husbands just didn’t want that in their wives. They just didn’t want that. And didn’t believe it, I think.

I’ll tell you, I had wonderful parents who loved me. I think that anybody who starts out not being loved in a family is at a terrible disadvantage. I don’t know how they survive. And I think we see the problems in school. Jan, my daughter Jan, was mentioning it the other day. She said, “You know, Mom, if kids don’t have it at home,” she said, “it’s really hard to give them enough at school.” And she just tries her damndest to but it’s tough. She’s about the most outstanding teacher I’ve ever known in my life. She just kills herself doing it. And you have to. Things aren’t provided. It’s just, I don’t know what we’re doing in our country that we can be that disdainful of what it takes to be a teacher in the classroom.

That hurts, when you’re putting everything you’ve got—including your finances—when they’re low paid and they’re having to buy stuff to get by in the classroom. You know, it’s pretty hard to stay there. Jan has one more year, so this’ll be it for her.

The bad part was losing Louie. That really took the core, a big core, of mine away. Because we were good together. And that doesn’t always happen. And it just, I miss that, very, very much.