Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hi, everyone, this is Dawn Klem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs.
[00:00:07] Today I'll share a story with you about my childhood and a great memory that I have about myself and my brother when we were growing up in the early 1960s.
[00:00:23] So when my mom married my dad, he already had two daughters and they wanted to have two more children. He wanted to have two children with her. But since he already had two daughters, he definitely was looking to have a son with my mom.
[00:00:45] So she got pregnant with me when she was 24, and I was born in October.
[00:00:55] Then six months later, she got pregnant with my brother.
[00:00:59] I. I mean, she was happy. I was a happy, healthy baby, and so there was no issues there. But she was disappointed, of course, that I was a girl and not a boy. The craziness that goes on in people's minds, honest to God.
[00:01:18] But anyhow, ultimately my brother was born 15 months later after me.
[00:01:28] So she was really happy that she was able to have a son for my dad.
[00:01:37] And of course they named him after my dad, which was no shock there, and it was kind of a great thing.
[00:01:45] But my brother was sickly. It was during a time when women smoked during their whole entire pregnancy. My mom did not drink alcohol very rarely, but she definitely smoked cigarettes. She smoked cigarettes all the way up until she died at the age of 85, almost 86.
[00:02:07] And so she smoked with my brother.
[00:02:09] And my brother started out with health issues like bronchitis, and he was always under a troop tent. I remember that.
[00:02:21] But eventually he became a roly, poly little two and three year old kid.
[00:02:28] And he and I were together all the time. I think it was a little much for my mom.
[00:02:35] We were so close together. He had been sickly, and I know there were times where she felt like, oh, my gosh, I just need a break. And this is before we started to school, because actually I started kindergarten when I was 4, so she didn't really have us alone too long before I started school.
[00:02:59] But one of the things that she started to do in the fall when we were probably three and four, four and five years old, is she would take us down to the field house of Hillsdale College.
[00:03:17] So we lived on the end of River Street.
[00:03:21] If you went to the very end, which was like three houses down, there was a woods there, and you could walk through the woods and it would bring you to the football field of Hillsdale College.
[00:03:37] So we lived really close to the college if you went the back way, but she would walk us the front way down to the corner of Oak street and then down the sidewalk all the way to the field house, which was on the right hand side. And there was a giant hill there.
[00:03:55] That hill provided us kids with a lot of fun in the winter. We would go sledding down that hill, if it was a steep hill, and then it would just go into a lane, a plane.
[00:04:11] So you would go as fast as you could straight down the hill, and then you just shoot across the field. That was just like a plane.
[00:04:21] So we spent a lot of time there for winter, we spent a lot of time there during the summer. We would roll down the hill screaming and yelling. I mean, we just used that hill for a lot of entertainment.
[00:04:35] And it was kind of a good babysitter for my mom because if she was starting to get a little annoyed with us, she would walk us down to that hill, she would leave us there, and then she'd say, I'll come back and get you. And she would leave us for like an hour, hour and a half, and then she'd come back and get us. We didn't think anything of it back then. That was the days when kids weren't kidnapped out of their yards, for heaven's sakes. My gosh, the world is nuts now. How do we even get here?
[00:05:05] Okay, sorry. I digress. But when I look at the innocent childhood I have, I can't help but feel some sadness about how things have gone for our kids and our kids. Kids in this crazy world.
[00:05:27] So anyhow, one of the best things, though is when the college students came back to school in the fall.
[00:05:37] I think I was in kindergarten, but my brother wasn't yet.
[00:05:42] And so she would still take us down there just to have a break from us.
[00:05:49] So I was probably four and he was three. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's true.
[00:05:54] And she would bring a blanket, and she'd lay the blanket out, and we would sit on the blanket and we would watch the football team have football practice.
[00:06:06] This was like a babysitting thing for my mom. She didn't have to get a babysitter to watch us because we were completely entertained watching the football players.
[00:06:20] It was so much fun. And of course, my brother and I'd be up there hooting and hollering, yelling at them, clapping, or we would just roll down the hill for attention.
[00:06:33] We're just trying to get them to see, do you see us up here? Do you see us up here? You know, typical kids.
[00:06:41] It was a lot of fun. And we really, really, really loved going there, too. It Was not a hardship for us.
[00:06:49] We were both raised to be outdoor kids.
[00:06:53] I spent most of my time in that woods growing up. And he spent most of his time sitting in the neighbor's dirt driveway playing in the mud puddles using a stick to bat stones.
[00:07:09] I kid you not. I mean some such a simple upbringing.
[00:07:14] We were never home. I don't even think she knew where we were half the time because we would just go off on our own.
[00:07:23] And we learned how to entertain ourselves relatively quickly because of that.
[00:07:29] But the field house was a great source of entertainment and we loved watching the football team especially.
[00:07:37] We would start to memorize the names on the backs of the jerseys so that if somebody did something that we liked, we could yell out, you know, go Taylor. That kind of thing.
[00:07:50] And we were having so much fun with was at a time when nobody really thought about black and white in college or we didn't think about it at all in Hillsdale. We never thought about race in Hillsdale. We didn't have much there, but we did have the college and there were a lot of black football players on the team. We didn't think a thing of it.
[00:08:16] My brother and I were completely colorblind. I guess it just wasn't in our purview.
[00:08:24] But slowly but surely, every fall the football players would look for us to show up.
[00:08:33] I think they got a kick out of a little brother and sister duo rooting for them.
[00:08:39] And it didn't take long for them to start venturing up the side of the hill. If they had a timeout or a break, they're taking a break, they would come up and they would start to talk to us.
[00:08:55] After a couple of times we started to make friends with them. We felt like they were our buddies, you know.
[00:09:02] They loved my brother, there is no doubt about it. He was a little. I was a little quieter than him. I know that's hard to believe, but he was pretty talkative and he would ask him a bunch of questions. And sports in my mom's family was a big deal.
[00:09:22] If we had a major holiday like Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter, whatever. They were all talking sports about their favorite teams, the Tigers, the Lions.
[00:09:37] I remember watching many, many Lions football games at Thanksgiving at my grandparents house.
[00:09:44] My mom was always in the the living room watching the TV with all the men.
[00:09:51] All the women were in the kitchen preparing the food. But not my mom. My mom was right there and until the day she died, she was an avid Tiger baseball fan. She's been to many Tiger games and she could talk Sports with the best of the men, believe me.
[00:10:14] So she was thrilled at the idea that my brother loved sports as much as she did.
[00:10:21] I mean, I liked him, too. When I was in the sixth grade, the Tigers won the world championship for baseball.
[00:10:29] And it was a big deal. And matter of fact, in my afternoon class, we watched the game instead of doing social studies. It was such a big deal.
[00:10:39] But it made her so happy that my brother, really, he could talk to her about any trade, any, you know, member of the team, any other team, what was going on here, there and everywhere. And they could spend hours together talking about sports, especially baseball and football. Those were their two loves of life. Unfortunately, the Lions hasn't always had a great football team, so that less likely to talk about that.
[00:11:16] My mom was so happy that I lived in New England because then she came to love the New England Patriots, and she could easily give up on the Lions. But because the Lions, let's face it, they have been plagued over the years. It's only been in the last couple years that they've started to rally. And maybe it's because my mom's over there in heaven now and giving them a boot in the butt. That would not surprise me in the least.
[00:11:45] So when we would come home or she would come and get us from the field house, and my brother would yammer on and on about all the players that came up to see us and how wonderful it was, my mom was overjoyed. She thought it was the greatest thing that the football team was paying attention to us.
[00:12:08] I don't think she really realized that a lot of times the players that came up the side of the hill were black players. There were black and white players there, but a lot of the black players would really come up and talk.
[00:12:21] So we had been telling her about it for a while, couple weeks, about how they came up and talked to us and how great they were and how much fun we were having and how much we really enjoyed ourselves. And aren't we so lucky that we get to live near a college? And we just were enjoying it immensely.
[00:12:42] So she was kind of happy about it, too. She's like, oh, this is a great babysitting setup for me.
[00:12:47] I get free time and the football team is babysitting my kids. Right.
[00:12:53] When you think about it, it's so crazy, because would that ever happen today? Probably not.
[00:13:00] So one time, though, she had come to pick us up, and one of the players from the team was up there, and he. She walked in on a situation that I don't Think she was anticipating.
[00:13:20] He was talking to me and my brother, of course, mostly to my brother. And they were kind of jawing at each other. I think my brother was probably about four at this point.
[00:13:31] And the football player was drinking a Coke out of a Coke bottle.
[00:13:37] And he looked over at my brother and he goes, hey, you want a drink? And my brother goes, yeah, I do.
[00:13:43] So he hands him the Coke bottle, and he drank from the Coke bottle, and he handed it back to the football player. Football player took another drink, and they just ended up passing that Coke back and forth between each other. And my mom walked up and just in time to see what was going on, she didn't say a word, though. She was good.
[00:14:09] And she talked to the football player for a few minutes, too, and said, thank you so much for talking to my kids. And they've really been having a great time here. And I apprec. Appreciate you, you know, kind of looking.
[00:14:23] Looking over at him. And the football player was really so nice. I think his name was JJ I don't know why that stuck in my head. But he. He said to my mom, oh, don't even worry about it, ma'. Am.
[00:14:36] It's a pleasure to have these two little kids on the side of the hill yelling for us.
[00:14:41] I mean, I think they had gotten used to us being the rebel rousers up there, and they really enjoyed it.
[00:14:48] So with that, my mom folded up the blanket and we ended up walking back to the house.
[00:14:54] I thought that was the end of the story. I never really thought much about it, but I was getting ready to go to bed that night, and I. We only had one bathroom. That's another thing. Nobody had five and six bathrooms like we do now. I mean, in my house with my husband and myself, we have three and a half bathrooms. Bathrooms. So absurd. But anyhow, we had one.
[00:15:21] And I went downstairs to get my nightgown, get changed, and brush my teeth. And when I came down the stairs, I heard my mom talking to my dad in the kitchen.
[00:15:36] And she was saying, oh, my gosh, I didn't really know what to do.
[00:15:42] And my dad was saying, well, I think it could be all right. She goes, they were sharing a Coke bottle.
[00:15:48] And my dad goes, well, I think it's fine. I don't think it's anything to really get worried about.
[00:15:54] And at the time, I didn't really understand what the big deal was.
[00:16:01] You know what I mean? We shared everything with everybody. That's what we did. We had popsicles, Creamsicles, fudge, sickles, Pop all the junk food you can imagine.
[00:16:13] And every single one of my friends ate half of my Popsicles or I ate half of theirs. We shared the Cokes, shared everything.
[00:16:21] I didn't understand that what she was saying was because he was black, this was something different.
[00:16:32] I didn't get it at the time. And that's what you think when you think about kids.
[00:16:39] They don't come with these pre.
[00:16:42] Prejudicial beliefs.
[00:16:45] They like everyone for who they are. They have no real understanding that there's bias and prejudice out there.
[00:16:55] And so when she was talking to my dad, I was still trying to figure out, what the heck is she even talking about. Why can't we share a Coke bottle with JJ that seems fine with me, but when I look back now, I realize that the big thing is that was the beginning of, really, Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in the US and we didn't have very many black people.
[00:17:27] Though probably the only real black people we had in Hillsdale at the time was at the college.
[00:17:35] And so I think she was feeling a little bit uncomfortable about it, but not my dad.
[00:17:46] My dad was like, that's the most awesome thing. I'm sure he didn't say awesome. That's our word.
[00:17:54] But my dad was like, really? This is nothing.
[00:17:59] This is absolutely nothing. And as a matter of fact, I think it's the most wonderful thing.
[00:18:07] What a great way for our kids to be introduced to people of different colors in such a positive way without them even knowing there's a difference between black and white. Because we really didn't even think about it, my brother and I. It was nothing. What we thought about was a football player came up the hill to talk to us, which made us feel like we were movie stars, right?
[00:18:38] We're the star of the show because the football players are talking to us, not vice versa.
[00:18:45] And it was the greatest thing.
[00:18:48] And when my dad said that to my mom, that's when I started to really understand that there was a difference between black and white.
[00:19:00] I didn't know what the difference was, though.
[00:19:03] I just knew that something wasn't sitting well with my mom and that my dad was trying to tell her this couldn't be a better situation because the kids don't see color.
[00:19:21] And neither did the football players.
[00:19:23] They didn't see color. They just saw two little kids, two little crazy kids rolling down the hill, yelling, screaming and hollering at them, cheering them on when they're busting their butt during training.
[00:19:39] I mean, when I think about was such a time of innocence.
[00:19:45] And it was fantastic.
[00:19:49] And you see everything that's going on now, and it's so disheartening.
[00:19:55] Like, how did we get here?
[00:19:58] I don't know.
[00:20:00] I don't understand it.
[00:20:03] But I know one thing.
[00:20:07] Sitting on the side of that hill, watching them scrimmage is a memory that's burned into my brain and a memory of joy, happiness, freedom.
[00:20:25] My brother and I were over the moon about it, and my mom was very, very lucky to have an entire football team be her babysitter. I mean, what. What more could you really ask for?
[00:20:44] The coaches never came up to see us, only the football players. I'm sure the coaches are down there. Like, where are your parents at? Why are those two kids sitting up there?
[00:20:56] But they didn't care either, because you could tell the football players were kind of excited to have a little fan club up there.
[00:21:05] And for all that were there during those times, it was absolutely fantastic.
[00:21:14] And now that I flash forward 60 years later, I think back to a time of innocence, a time of simplicity, a time when things were at face value and nobody was really judging anyone.
[00:21:40] And I think, wow, how lucky was I to be raised so close to Hillsdale College and that football field?
[00:21:57] Really, really amazing.
[00:22:04] Thank you so much for listening to my story today. I hope you enjoyed it.
[00:22:10] If anything, I just hope it makes you think about where we are right now in the world, and could we ever get back to a time of simplicity like that, A time of innocence where we could share a Coke.
[00:22:28] Pass the Coke bottle around. Right?
[00:22:32] Wouldn't that just be an amazing thing for.
[00:22:44] Until the next time?
