Copyright, 2021. Marilyn A. Hudson
[1407 N. Jefferson Street, Wellington, Kansas; Washington School], 1962-63, 2nd Grade]
I ran across a class photo from 1962-1963 for Washington Grade School, Second Grade with teacher Mrs. Long and a total of ten students. Some of the faces look familiar but I can’t recall any names. I remember sitting at my desk listening to a story being read by the teacher. I recall working through copies of the “Weekly Reader” newsletter we used to improve reading and comprehension. I recall the fun little cellophane wrapped ‘bricks’ of gray art clay in class. I had a colorful collection of ‘Capri Pants’. I walked blocks to and from school. I remember the playground on the west side of the school but not a lot more. I was given my first ‘perm’ that year and went from a shoulder length straight bob with bangs to a curly head. With bangs; my mother seemed to feel a naked forehead was mortal sin. My mother continued her work as a Nurse’s Aide, a brother married and joined the Army, and I enjoyed going to the roller rink to practice falling down. I became very good at that part. The skating not so much…
I do remember, however, playing with neighborhood kids at this address, they were both energetic and creative! One had found an open ended oil drum and we rolled it across the billiard table flat yard into the ditch with one or more of us laying inside. If you were lucky it stopped in the ditch and if you were really lucky it bounced across the street and into the empty field there. Crawling out, staggering like a drunk after a long weekend, you joined the whoops and hollers and felt proud to have answered the dare.
A few weeks later, in a fit of anger at my mother, I “ran away” from home and sat in my hiding place with a hobo scarf filled with crackers and cookies and listened as my family called for through the neighborhood. I got thirsty and decided to go home and face the music. Another time, our “leader” – who wanted to design things when he grew up – led us in collecting bricks, pieces of boards, and anything else to craft a futuristic city. When completed the city was a least ten feet long and five feet wide. The streets were wide enough to drive all sizes of toy cars and trucks. Landing zones for airplanes and helicopters noted our awareness of the aerial craft flying over our heads all the time with Boeing Aircraft and McConnell Air Force Base just thirty some miles to the north. Many of the parents in town worked for one or the other. Our leader-architect created tiny trees from weeds and twigs and he found a piece of blue flooring and created a “lake”.
Then, one summer evening, several family members were present. I remember catching fireflies earlier in a jar with holes cut into the top and watching them glow.
We had gone inside from visiting outside so we could enjoy some ice cream. A sound or a light drew our attention and they went to the side door that looked out into the yard. I recall standing behind them, craning, trying to catch a glimpse between jean clad legs of older males at whatever they were seeing through the old wooden screen. I could see, high over their heads, the dark of the sky and a something else.
Then as they moved further from the opening, I saw – the light. A red light. Similar to the dark room light used by my brother. Red, but muted with hints of yellow or orange, shining down on the back yard. I recall the squeak of the screen as first one and then another of the adults moved back to the yard to stare upwards murmuring words of wonder and confusion. The light was a soft but very bright red and seemed low to the ground but taller than my height. Once outside, I sensed others but see only shadows in my memory.
The drawings are some attempts to capture the sense and the scope of the event remembered. These are close-but-no-cigar as the saying goes.
Then it was gone, like a light being switched off. Details of the source were not visible; you could only see the red-orange round source of the light itself. I remember looking out the screen door, walking outside, looking up and then the next thing I remember is looking back into the house with the light gone.
That is where the memory ends and the next memory is being back in the house. People are gathered round the small kitchen table and eating slightly melted ice cream or making ice cream sodas from bottles of soda. No one in the family ever recalled that night. They never accused me of making up tales or dreaming. They just moved on as if I had not spoken. I admit that I was used to that. Being the baby in a family spread out over three decades I was conditioned to being “seen and not heard.”
Not until later did I realize that they did not have any memory of the light. When I asked them, right after and then years later, they vaguely recalled an evening together…but nothing of what I saw.
Fearful Dreams
One of the worst punishments was to be sent to bed with no television or fun times outside. At some times it could be a severe punishment indeed. An odd thing during this year was the extreme – almost phobic – reaction I had when school started whenever I saw the deep red cover on the “Big Chief” writing tablet.
This red covered notebook filled with lined newspaper print paper was a staple of every school child’s life. This red covered tablet was sold in department stores such as the local Woolworth’s, the office supply store and small local mom and pop stores (they were sidewalk walk-in convenience stores minus the fuel pumps). I had begun to have dreams featuring the “Chief.” I do not recall the content of the dreams merely the anxiety and fear they engendered. My mother was working nights in a local nursing home and this might have been worrying to me somehow.
I do remember that after weeks of these night terrors that something gave me the key to making the nightmares stop. “Something” told me that I had to confront the scowling, serious faced man in the headdress. I had to say I was no longer afraid of him. I had to let him know he had no power over me anymore and there would be no more bad dreams about the “Chief” on the red cover of the tablet. Ever.
The next dream was different. It was as if part of my mind remained awake to remind me of the advice. The dream surged back to the camp, with a raging fire, and a circle of tall, pristine white tepees. The “Chief” stepped forward but this time I was awake (in a manner of speaking). I looked at him, held up my hand, and repeated the directions I had been given. Suddenly, the entire dream morphed into a calm scene where the Chief and I were sitting in a friendly manner on a log beside a blazing fire, the tepees around us and misty lavender mountains with tall pines in the distance. All about us people were talking, eating, and having a good time in a normal manner.
The dreams stopped that night and never again did I ever have nightmares of the serious faced man on the intensely red tablet. No longer did the very sight of a “Big Chief Tablet” bring a wave of alarm, anxiety, and apprehension.
It was not until many years later that I realized that prior to this time red had been a prominent color in my life. When my grandfather asked me to select a small wooden chair from several he had made and painted, I chose the red chair. I loved my bright red rain boots and wore them constantly. I loved my bright red corduroy jumper dress, a sweater, and many other items of red. Yet, strangely, at the start of this particular school year, I had a such deathly fear of the red writing tablet I would walk away from it in the store, even, going around aisles, to avoid getting too close. My clothes turned drab with my once favorite red sweater becoming one I detested.
It lingered too, I recalled in sixth grade music for a concert my mother had purchased a trendy dress with gold buttons and draping chain detail in a red so infused with yellow it bordered on orange. Wearing that dress – every time – made me ill. An anxiety so fierce it made me feel nauseated resulted. I ended up wearing it only a few times and then pushing it to the back of the closet.
I never did go back to loving red the way my younger self did. Now, well, now I wonder if it is connected to the night when the red glow filled the back yard.
Reports from 1962-1963 [2nd grade school year]
The next two years (1962-1963) would continue accounts of high strangeness over the skies of Kansas, Oklahoma and elsewhere.
Two from Oklahoma are especially interesting given how they reflect elements of my own accounts and their proximity to where I lived in Kansas. I did not discover them until recently as I began to pinpoint dates of the events. In June of 1962 (an approximate date) a person in the Bartlesville, Oklahoma area reported that they had been visited and had experienced a series of strange thing. These included a “possible implant”, “small creatures”, an intense “light” and a “scar” (MUFON/NICAP reports). Another report for early June or late May of 1962-1963 was from Pittsburg, Oklahoma of a red, circular, silent object (MUFON/NICAP). Also, in Oklahoma City that year 3-5 objects buzzed over the city (MUFON/NICAP).
August of 1962 was a time of sightings across several states. One in Liberal, Kansas on 2 August 1962 was of multiple objects, initial report of blue-green moving west at terrific speed in sight for a mere 3 seconds. The second report was an extremely bright light comparable to landing light brightness only stationary in eastern sky. Comments on the summary page indicate the objects were “probably meteors” and the stationary object was deemed as “Jupiter”. That planet, it was noted, was at the time at its maximum (-2.4 magnitude). As repeatedly is the case while pursuing these files, a look inside showed there was both more and different inside.
Inside the report it was noted that similar reports had come in from Pueblo in Colorado, Garden City, Kansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. The objects were moving E-W at great speed. As part of the file was a newspaper clipping from an unnamed source, “Liberal, Kansas Sighting” that added details absent from the report. The event occurred at 8 p.m., the objects were higher and faster than airplanes and lights were auto headlight size. The colors varies from blue, white, green and orange but brilliant. There were four objects seen at the airport in Liberal with one object becoming stationary over the airport with a landing light type of beam under it. One description was of a silver object with white lights extending out in all directions. The summary page of the Blue Book file read a “single object” and it was labeled with ‘insufficient data” and a probable sighting of Venus ‘except for the - -.’
No comments:
Post a Comment