Mom and Grace were such good friends. Grace introduced me to miniature white powdered sugar donuts and grape juice. This was in the day that we looked forward to watching The Miss America Pageant in 1965.
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| Vonda Kay Van Dyke |
I'd be 10 years old and counting. The powdered sugar would just m.e.l.t. in your mouth. Powdery and sweet. Ohhh the memories.
A sugar high like none other. If I could just quickly sneak one of these donuts and pop it in my mouth before anyone else saw this random act of kindness to my senses...I was able to swallow one of these treats without blinking.
At 10, I wasn't a fan of the Opera singers that demonstrated such TALENT as future Miss Americas. Vonda Kay Van Dyke was a ventriloquist and she won the title. I'd get a ventriloquist doll for Christmas. Danny O'Day Doll with Baseball outfit and Nelson Record. I'd teach myself to talk without moving my mouth.
The pageant program of 1965 seemed innocent enough and was the high light of so many little girls hoping to be Miss America one day. Innocent time in life. White powdered sugar donuts and thoughts of wearing a crown while holding flowers, waving to all and smiling as BERT PARKS sang, "There she is....Miss America. There she is...your ideal!"
There she is, Miss America
There she is, your ideal
The dream of a million girls who are more than pretty can come true
in Atlantic City
For she may turn out to be the Queen of femininity
There she is, Miss America
There she is, your ideal
With so many beauties she took the town by storm
With her all-American face and form
And there she is
Walking on air, she is
Fairest of the fair, she is
There she is - Miss America
As a 10 year old, I didn't know that there was a more serious side to things in Grace's life. The Grace I knew was friendly with a loud laugh and a smile that displayed a gap between her two front teeth. She wore glasses and had curly hair. Her small but tidied house was immaculate. I'd never seen such a tidy place in all my life when I entered her home. It was beyond neat. Picture perfect and charming.
She was married to a husband that wasn't so nice to Grace after he drank alcohol. He'd beat on her. Her husband seemed to be a hard working man, very nice and friendly. A handsome, clean cut man with a crew cut hair style and deep resonating voice when he spoke. A well educated man going somewhere in his career. Moving on up in the company he worked for.
Mom would tell me later that you'd never know he had a mean streak in him until Grace rolled her sleeve up to expose the huge bruise she was wearing on her upper arm that her husband decided to put there with brute force.
My Dad only went fishing one time with Grace's Husband. Coming from an upbringing where alcohol caused horrid damage to the Family Unit, my Dad decided he couldn't be around Grace's Husband when he drank beer from his camping cooler. As soon as the beer came out, the neighbor man began to verbally belittle his wife. In his eyes, Grace was someone to destroy with his slurred words and bitter speech.
Their third and youngest child, Judy was my childhood pal. We'd play in her backyard as youngsters and dance on the sidewalk in my front yard by the big elm tree that cast a shadow over us while in the hot Summer sun. We had such fun innocently making sand pies and singing childhood melodies that we loved to hear and imitate.
Judy was a well dressed petite child with straight dark hair. Energetic and fun to be around. We'd talk and talk and talk. Played with kittens and puppies that we dressed in doll clothing. Pretended to be Broadway Stars as we sang and danced.
Then Judy changed the way her name was spelled way back in the day when we became teen-agers in Middle School. From Judy she became Judi with an i.
She changed a great deal. After her Family moved across town from where we lived, she changed her entire look. Her bedroom went from being an all american girl interior to being relocated to the unfinished concrete basement with no windows. Her new bedroom was a boxed in area painted solid black with her mattress on the floor. She could close her pine door and the room would become pitch black. Posters that glowed in the dark became the wall paper and incense permeated the room. Music lyrics with dark subject matters lured her into a demonic state that no one should cradle their soul with. No one. Illegal drugs were part of her diet now and she smoked cigarettes. Sweet Judy was no more. Judi with an i made her dark appearance.
She broke her momma's heart when she ran away from home as a young teen and decided that men and drugs were for her. The last time I saw Judi with an i was when I was about 14 years old.
I was in our childhood home basement when I heard the strangest noise. Wailing. A wailing woman crying so loud with heaving sobs that it startled me. Though Judi returned home, her mother did not know what to do with her. As Grace shared with my Mom, I stayed put in the basement. Frozen and not willing to venture upstairs to see who that was crying.
Judi had returned home taking an interest in mentally spacing out while sitting in their living room glider in which she spent hours rocking. She wouldn't talk. Just rock.
She'd be admitted to the State Mental Hospital and later tell me that she had become pregnant, only to lose the baby after a fellow inmate punched her in the abdomen. To this day, I do not know if she was telling the truth or trying to shock me knowing that I loved those white powdered sugar donuts and watching Miss America Pageants for entertainment.
I was over the top innocent. She no longer was. Knowing what I know now, I don't believe she had an innocent childhood with a dad that drank and punched on his wife. What must Judi have seen when she was growing up just across the alley from me? Life wasn't so innocent.
Our friendship ended that day as we said our good-byes. We took different paths through out High School. Her family would relocate to Colorado. I'd stay in Kansas. Until Grace developed Alzheimers, Mom stayed in touch with her good friend that has since died.
This past week-end...Mom told me that my childhood playmate, Judi with an i died a homeless woman.
Time marches on and life is real. I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't saddened by the news of her passing. I can hear her young voice and see her smiling face. We're still making sandy pies in her backyard sandbox.
In my mind's eye Judi with an i will always be my playmate called Judy with a y and we're dancing on the sidewalk to the tunes we loved hearing. We're Broadway Babies that didn't have a care in the world. Sandbox pies for dessert and kitties to hold dressed in doll clothing.
Grace is still smiling in her small Kitchen getting ready to treat us to white powdered sugar donuts with grape juice on the side.
Miss America will be on soon,
d
