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When my friends ask about where I grew up, they find my accounts of
Phillips Texas interesting and quite different from the usual small town
stories. My small town was an oil company town built on the edge of a
canyon and a huge refinery. All the people were white middle-class, all
the fathers were company-men; all the houses looked the same, two
churches, but similar religions, and one school.
Even though the environment was homogenous, growing up on Lemp Street was
one adventure after another. There must have been twenty to thirty kids
living on our street. There were always plenty of kids to play with. The
canyon was our usual destination. Hiking to “Elephant Rock” provided
endless fun, plus a fair number of cuts and bruises. Summer evenings we
played outside until well after dark, and never once did my parents warn
me to be wary of evil lurking in darkness.
Yet, there was danger all around us. One hot summer day a bunch of kids
gathered on the Billingtons’ stoop listening to “Sergeant Preston” on the
radio, when there was a huge boom. The sky across the canyon exploded with
flames. The heat reached us in seconds. Our next door neighbor, Mr.
Powell, died in the explosion that day. I was just seven, but that day
changed me.
In
the 9th grade we moved to western Kansas to a farming town of
about 20,000 people. Leaving Texas as a freshman in high school and
returning to middle school as a 9th grader in Garden City was
only one of many shocks. There was a Catholic and a public school, lots
of Mexican and Black students, and we were all mixed up in our classes and
school activities. No two houses were the same. There was an obvious
difference in the “good” neighborhood and the “bad” neighborhood. I
experienced “Culture Shock” moving from my small homogeneous town of
Phillips to my small farm town in Kansas, but I adjusted.
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After high school I went to Kansas State University, earned a BS degree
and moved to Boston. I had been accepted into a Dietetic Internship at
the Massachusetts General Hospital. After the Internship I remained on
the staff as a Registered Dietitian for several years. It was there I met
my husband and completed my Masters degree. My husband, Tim Eisaman, is a
Radiologist. While at MGH a PhD friend and I formed a small nutrition
research consulting firm that developed some methodologies for nutrition
research that resulted in our publishing a few papers, but making very
little money. As media spokespersons for the American Dietetic
Association, I did radio and TV interviews for 8 years. I am now retired.
Tim and I have no children. Over the years we have traveled a little.
Last year I went to Italy, and this fall I’m going to Spain. I stay busy
playing tennis and bridge. I dabble in water colors and I throw pots.
Most of my ceramics are pretty primitive.
I
stay in touch with the gal-pals from Phillips: Carolyn Rhea, Carolyn Kidd,
Carol Groom, Sandra Stiles, Deanna Hein, Louise Chester, Martha Smith, and
Marjo van Patten. We try to get together every couple of years. I’ve
exchanged emails with Pam Proctor. She moved during our 7th
grade year. Both of my sisters, Wanda and Peggy, and their husbands are
alive and well. I hope the reunion is wonderful, and I look forward to
reading and hearing all about it.
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