One Selfless Act

And the story began, our adventure. Or perhaps it continued. But let me tell you about one decision that changed the course of a life, and then many lives because of the ripple effect.

I was born and raised in a small town in Iowa. I have wonderful memories of that town when I was very young. I remember street fairs, speed boat races, stock car races, Puckashetuck parades, city park where we rented bicycles and listened to bands while we ate ice cream (the ice cream might be an incorrect memory but it’s real for me). I remember riding my bike to the city pool where my mom purchased a membership for me every year. It opened at 1:00 and there was always a line waiting to get in. It closed at 9:00 and I often was one of the last ones out. When I got older, I would spend the day at the pool, ride my bike home, and then get ready to go hang out with my friends at Pizza Hut in the mall (where we looked longingly at all the kids who already had their driver’s license and were dragging Main Street all night long LOL) That’s back when the mall actually looked and functioned like a mall. I remember fishing tournaments in the middle where they would bring in a huge pool, stock it with fish and then provide fishing poles so you could catch your fish. I believe this was outside of the JCPenney anchor store. Montgomery Wards was the anchor store at the opposite end, and Woolworth was smack in the middle with it’s great cafe. My mother-in-law worked at that cafe for years. My brother was the manager (or perhaps assistant manager) of the Woolworth store for a time. Osco Drug was another significant store we frequented. Four seasons flowers... I could go on. my point is that it was a pretty decent mall at the time.

We had a beautiful theatre on Main Street called The Iowa until it burned down May 12, 1975. We also had the Grand Theater, which was also beautiful but not quite as breathtaking as The Iowa. Doing a quick Google search to fact-check, I discovered it was called the “hippodrome”. Guess I was too young to remember such things. The Skylark Drive-In was a draw every weekend. It’s where I was subjected to the Exorcist as an eight-year-old :-0 It was not unusual to look at the cars nearby and see grown men climbing out of the trunk. Sneaking into the drive-in - is that just a thing?

I say all this to present a clear picture of my childhood memories, because they were not bad memories. Like most people, I would say that I had my share of good and bad all tangled up in the brew of life. But things definitely changed in that small town. Maybe she knew that was going to happen. Maybe she saw that it already was in progress at the time. Maybe it was just God’s way of showing me a different path.

Because this small town sat on the bluff overlooking the mighty Mississippi, it grew to be primarily an industrial area. Factories could enjoy a good source of power and have access to the transportation of both the river and land via main highways connecting the Midwest. It drew people from many rural areas from Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. It also provided jobs for those who were no longer farmers, or those who found they needed to supplement their income from farms that could no longer provide fully for their families. It seemed pretty much everyone worked in one of the factories, and it was common to have several generations working together. It seemed that it was just what you were born into. Finish high school, maybe - maybe not, and go to work at the factory/plant where your parents worked or are still working. My mom, several sisters and my brother all worked together at some point. My dad - nope. That’s another story for another day LOL

I was a good student. I got good grades and learning seemed to come easy to me. My fifth grade teacher once pulled me into the hallway to go over my standardized testing, which I performed exceedingly well on. She told me that day, “You have a gift. You need to do something with it. One day a boy is going to come along... “ I honestly don’t remember exactly the rest of what she actually said, but I remember the gist of it - don’t get tangled up with a boy, get pregnant and get stuck in this sad little town like so many of the girls do. Fifth grade. That was my fifth grade teacher, so how old was I? 10 - I must have been ten years old. She wasn’t the only one who encouraged me to do something different with my life than what others around me were doing. My sister, who had long before moved to California, encouraged me in so many ways to seek something bigger for myself. She gifted me with books and other gifts that exposed me to a world bigger than the one in which our little midwestern town existed. I still have a book she gave me for my eighth birthday. I’ve never read the book from cover-to-cover, but I’ve kept it safe all this time. (Perhaps that would be an awesome thing to do for the grandkids!!! I can tape me reading it!!)

On October 15 of my Senior year, I had my first date with my husband. We had met during the summer between junior and senior year when my friend turned around in his driveway. There was a herd of cats prowling all over this very sharp silver car. It made an impression. We pulled over in the local grocery store parking lot and hang with some of the kids from “across the river”. Before we could exit my friend’s car, that sharp silver car pulled up next to us. My friend looked over and asked the driver - “Hey are you a Lawson?” Apparently she knew his brother and since they looked nearly like twins in high school, she wondered out loud. “Yeah,” he answered with a grin. Then he stepped out of his car, barefoot, gray short and bright yellow sleeveless shirt with a gorgeous middle-of-the-summer tan. Done.  I was done.

We were both dating other people at that time. We all chatted for a while and then went on about our business.  I didn’t think much more about him until a Saturday night in October while my friend and I were doing our usual Main Street “dragging”. I had just broken up with the idiot I’d been dating because he was out with another girl. My good fortune as it turned out. That sharp silver car and it’s driver along with his best friend pulled alongside us at the stop light. We laughingly called out, “Hey, you guys want to get a pizza with us at Happy Joes?” And that was the beginning of our love story. Inseparable from that moment on. We were engaged the following July, and married the next June.

He was the boy. But I didn’t get “tangled up and pregnant”. The summer following our high school graduation, two important things happened. I applied for a job at the plant where my mom worked and where I guessed I’d be going to work as well. I had a tour of the plant and an interview. I felt pretty good about it, and started waiting on a call to start. But that call never came. If memory serves me correctly, I started getting a little frustrated and wondering why I wasn’t good enough to go to work there. At some point my mom confessed to me, it’s not that I wasn’t good enough. She asked them not to hire me. She wanted something different for me. She saw something different in my future.

Later in the summer, I joined my then fiancé when he went to the college he was attending in the Fall to get some details taken care of. It was the first and only college campus I’d ever seen. I fell in love with the idea of college life, moving away from that small town, doing something different than pretty much anyone else I knew. In his family, going to college was absolutely not optional. It was happening, come hell or high water. In my bare feet and short-shorts, he took me to the guidance counselor’s office and introduced me. We talked about the possibility of me attending that college in the Fall also. I’d never taken the ACT, SAT or done ANY preliminary work towards attending college. I had never really even considered the possibility beyond the blips I allowed in during those encouraging moments from that fifth grade teacher and my sister. But we scheduled a day for me to return to campus and take the ACT, filled out the application and the financial aid forms, and went home to tell my mom.

“So you want to go to college?”

“Yes.”

“What do we need to do to make that happen?”

And then we made it happen. I took the ACT, was accepted, got the financial aid and student loans. Mom paid off the balance on the clothes I’d put on lay-a-way during the summer and helped me pack my bags. We drove to campus, met my roommate and said our first ever goodbyes.

She never hesitated. Not one single moment that was visible to me. I am her youngest, the baby. And I was moving away. A mere two hours mind you, but I was moving away from the only thing I’d ever known my whole life. I grew up in the same house she lived in when I was born. In fact, she still lives in that house. It’s home. She never hesitated to write the check for our share of tuition. She worked to support our household and now she would do whatever it took to pay for me to go to school.

Now, there is another story I will write about the year that followed. The story doesn’t end with me finishing college, let’s just say that LOL. But I had been given a whole new door to open on my future.

We did get married the following year, despite all the warnings that it was not a good idea to get married so young and while in college. We lived in college married dorms, had our first baby and joined the Army. Life altering decision; one we have never ever regretted. And so our adventure continued - in a direction no one could have imagined. Our life has been one crazy roller coaster ride of love and faith and friendships. And I believe with all my heart, that none of it would have happened if my mom had not made one selfless decision and asked that I not be hired at the plant. It was a watershed moment, it changed the course of my life, my husbands life and every friendship we’ve encountered along the way.