I had a great childhood. I was fortunate, blessed, and loved by all. Every child should have it so good. I believe my daughters will say the same thing about theirs. I believe their children will say the same thing about theirs. What a heritage.
I loved my Grandma, and have so many great memories with her. Her sister Meda though carved out a special place in my heart.
Every family needs an Aunt Meda. She was Queen of the sleepover for four little Fournier boys. My memories with Aunt Meda are nearly endless and priceless. All great, all incredible. Though I do not have a photograph of her, her image will never leave my brain.
As a very young child, I remember when she would drive up from Bartlesville to visit us in KC with her gangster car and stay for days, which meant staying up late, drinking pop and eating candy until we were sick.
And then, when Phillips 66 moved us from KC to Bartlesville; well, that was heaven for me. I was going to get to see Aunt Meda all the time.
Her knowledge of anything history was fascinating to me; as I have always loved history. Her stories about Woolaroc, Philtower, Price Tower, Phillips Hotel, Osage Hills, Pawhuska, Tom Mix, Frank Phillips, Boots Adams, Phillips 66, and Will Rogers were all spot on exact, and entertaining.
She loved watching the space race with me in the 60's, and she loved the Kennedy's. David was less than 2 weeks old, and she was visiting us and the new baby in KC on the day that Kennedy was murdered, and I will always remember her crying with my parents, and where I was sitting in the living room when we were watching it on TV. She loved politics but hated the rancor it caused.
When she took us to 6 Flags over Texas, she would buy us anything and everything that we wanted during our weekend stay in Dallas. She never rode the rides, but her joy came from seeing us happy.
We would listen to Joe Buck announce Cardinals baseball games on the radio every night. I already had a love for baseball many years before this; but this certainly solidified it.
She would come and watch us play baseball, and cheer us on. She would take us to the park, and watch us play for hours on end. She took us kite flying, and even loved to walk the empty fields with us. She would take us to the fireworks stands when they opened on June 15th, and would most always be there with us on July 4th.
She never missed a birthday, a Thanksgiving, or a Christmas. Her presents were extra special, as she frequently would take us shopping and she would ask us to show her what we wanted. Shocking at the time, but for several years in a row, our exact toys that we had shown her; ended up under the tree!
We would take after-hours night time tours of The Examiner Enterprise where she was a reporter, allowing us to type at her desk the news of the day, or type our own 'stories'.
We would listen to the stories that she would tell us at bedtime to all of us boys on the pallet in her home or in her apartment, totally enthralled and waiting for the next word about: Aladdin and the flying carpet, or Bessie the cow, or Poncho the clown. I still remember those stories to this day; especially Bessie the cow which was my favorite.
Sometimes it was just Paul and myself, and we would sleep in her non-air-conditioned apartment in the summer time when it was 100 degrees inside, and not being hot because it was such a special time. She did insure though that her only fan was directed at us when we fell asleep.
During sleepovers, she would make smores, more smores, and even more smores until she ran out, and that was after we had polished off the home-made pizza's, the angel food cake, and the 24 bottles of Dr. Pepper or Root Beer that she had bought just for us.
I would always try to drink one of her Fresca's, which was her favorite pop, and not understand why she thought it tasted so good . . .
Sleepovers is not a real good name; as there is not a lot of sleep that goes on. Most nights we were up until well after the TV stations had signed off with their test logo on the TV screen, and that was always past midnight. That normally meant another round of snack time food, and the beginning of bedtime stories which she would read to us. But, the best stories were the ones that she made up, and she could spin a yarn for hours; but made it feel like only a few minutes.
As a tweener, many times on Saturday nights, I would stay up all night, and watch Mazzeppa or old movies, and always enjoyed seeing her drive up to my house at 3:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings (most of the time when it was raining), and she would help me fold newspapers, then she loaded them into her latest gangster car and she would drive me around the streets of east Bartlesville while I 'threw' my two paper routes.
As a family, we would devour her home made cinnamon rolls. So astonishingly good, they were a weekend treat. Also as a family, we also devoured fried shrimp at the Pawhuska dinner that she would take our family to eat at 1-2x a month.
She went fishing and camping with us a few times. I know she loved it, even though camping has never been one of those things I've enjoyed. And I promise you, nothing even remotely close to camping is left on my 'bucket list'.
Aunt Meda never married, though with the love she had, I am sure she would have made for a great wife and mother. Her 4 nephews were the apples of her eye, and she treated us like little Kings until the day that she died. Yes, she spoiled us. And did it ever feel great to be spoiled like that. She made us feel so special. She lived a great life to age 90, and was quietly a Christian in the Methodist church, much to the chagrin of her sister Grandma Beulah; whom was a devout Catholic.
I loved Aunt Meda; more than any person in this world other than my Mom and Dad. She has been dead for 35 years now, but I still think about her when we are building memories with our grand children during one of their sleepovers.
I look forward to seeing her again one day in Heaven. I know I will.
To be continued with the next installment of 'sleepovers'.
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