Tag Archives: Oklahoma

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month!

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A few opening lines from my novel A Three-Turtle Summer. Paperback and Kindle on Amazon. Paperback at Barnes & Noble.

1.   A Sister in Trouble

Fort Sill, Oklahoma, July 1949

         It was too hot to play cards, especially if someone was keeping score, and Vera was.

     “Ay, carumba! You can’t stand to go two hours without beating someone at something can you?” Grace Tyler playfully pouted.

       Vera ignored her little sister, and began shuffling cards as she gleefully announced, “Senoras, the game is canasta, and we’re going to play according to Hoyle.” She began to deal the cards like a Las Vegas gambler while Pauline laughed and pointed at her mother, a notorious and frequent card cheater.

          Everyone was hot, but in her long-sleeved shirt and long skirt, Grace was sweltering. Sweat beaded up on her forehead and neck and she kept stretching her legs out because the backs of her knees stuck to her skirt.

             “Gracie, for God’s sake, go put some shorts on,” Vera said.

          Grace ignored her sister, pulled her shirt away from her perspiring chest, and asked, “Anyone want more iced tea before Vera whips the pants off of us?”

             Momma and Pauline both nodded and Grace poured tea over fresh ice cubes while Vera got a tablet and pencil out of her purse.

             The room was almost silent as each woman arranged her hand. Only Momma barely tapped her foot and softly sang a song from her childhood under her breath:

          “The fair senorita with the rose in her hair …

          worked in the cantina but she didn’t care …

         played cards with the men and took all their loot … awh-ha!

        went to the store and bought brand new boots … ”

         “Awh-Haaa!” Grace’s five-year-old daughter Glory joined in.

          Unconsciously, the other two women started to hum along while they looked at their hand. About the second “Awh-Haaa!” Vera abruptly stopped humming and looked at her sisters with a raised eyebrow. Something was fishy; Momma was much too happy. Barely containing their amusement, they watched as she cheerfully arranged her cards.

          Finally, unable to suppress her laughter any longer, Vera jumped up, snatched the cards out of her mother’s hands, and fanned them face-up across the table.

          “Ay, ay, ay!” She cried out, “Momma, tell me how can you have a meld and eleven cards in your hand when we’ve just gotten started?”

          The fun escalated as Vera rushed around the table and ran her hands all around her mother and the chair she sat on to feel for extra cards.

          “Stand up!” Grace and her sisters said as they pulled their mother to her feet. They shook her blue calico dress and screamed with laughter as extra cards fell from every fold.

          “Glory,” Vera told her young niece, “crawl under the table and get those cards for your Auntie Vera, okay?” Grace moved her feet to the side so that Glory could scramble under the table. Her childish giggles danced around the women’s feet as she scrambled for the extra cards that dropped from her grandmother’s dress.

          “Momma,” Vera laughed, “you’re a born cheater. How did you know we were going to play cards today?” she asked.

          “I’m not the only one in this family who’s been caught with a few too many cards,” Momma said in her defense.

          “Yes, but you’re the family matriarch. We expect better of you than we do our good-for-nothing brothers,” Pauline said.

          “Huh! Matriarch, my foot. You girls never listen to a word I say,” Momma grumbled.

          “Maybe that’s because we can’t trust you,” Vera said.

          As another card dropped from Gregoria’s dress and slid across the floor, Vera added, “We’ll strip you down to your rosary before we ever play cards with you again, Momma.”

          “Yeah,” Pauline, chimed in, “the next time you’ll play in nothing but your lace step-ins and a bra made from two tortillas.”

          “Well, at least I’ll be the coolest one at the table,” Momma chirped.

          Vera reached across the table to gather all the cards and reshuffle them. “We’re going to start all over, and we’ll watch you every minute.”

          Grace felt a sharp pain in her stomach when she looked up and saw her husband’s scowling face through the screen door. Why was he home so early? She didn’t have to look at him again to know his normally handsome blond features smoldered with disgust…

See my books and stories here: https://www.amazon.com/author/janellehooper

Please share this post! My thanks, Janelle
Visiting my mother in Lawton, Oklahoma
A long time ago! A Three-Turtle Summer,
fictional autobiography,
was written about our life with my father.

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My Mom’s Date With Rod Stewart

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https://youtu.be/O-xHOR8_ZSU

(link above)

My Mom’s Date With Rod Stewart
Janelle Meraz Hooper

Years ago, I was visiting my mother in Oklahoma. It was too hot to sleep and we were up late flipping through the TV channels looking for something to watch. One of the shows caught my mother’s eyes instantly.
“Who is that?” (My mom didn’t watch much TV.)
I said, “Just some guy called Rod Stewart. You won’t like him.”
“No, stop!” she said as she grabbed my wrist. Instantly, Mom was hooked. The kid with the bleached, spikey hair didn’t put her off a bit. Mom was almost totally deaf in both ears but she often didn’t bother to turn her hearing aids on. That night, she turned both of them on and put her hand on the top of the TV cabinet so she would feel the music vibrating.

Rod must have sung every song he’d ever recorded and I couldn’t believe Mom’s reaction. We stayed up and watched the entire show. My mom, a Rod Stewart fan! She must have been in her early seventies.

Do you think you know your parents? Think again. I learned something about my mom that night…late on a hot summer’s night, with the crickets singing outside the screen door–and Rod Stewart singing inside…

If you like this story, please share! My Thanks, Janelle

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Fatigues and Fox-Fur Coats at Christmas

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Fatigues and Fox-Fur Coats at Christmas
A Snowy Day at the Airport

Janelle Meraz Hooper

   I love airports. Years ago, due to a family emergency, I was stuck at a Lawton, Oklahoma airport just before Christmas. Due to a sudden snowstorm, the weather was so bad that none of the commercial flights could get in or out. The airport was near Fort Sill, the Artillery Training Center of the World, and the floor of the terminal was jammed full of weary and worried soldiers hoping—desperately–to get home in time for the holidays.

   Just when chances of a flight were at their bleakest, two Lear jets, smaller than  commercial aircraft, landed on the airstrip. The door opened and two women in full-length white fox coats, and dripping with diamonds, gingerly tiptoed their way through the snow, hopelessly trying to save their high-heeled shoes. The soldiers watched the beautiful women deplane, then, lost in their own problems, turned their attention elsewhere.

   There wasn’t enough seating for the stranded soldiers, so once inside, the women picked a new path through the floor crowded with reclining troops. As they walked, they pointed at each soldier, smiled, and asked, “Where are you going?” When the soldier answered, one of them said, “Go get in that first plane,” or, “Go get in that second plane.” I don’t know why they could fly when the bigger planes couldn’t, but they took two planeloads of grateful soldiers home for Christmas that day.

   Like the rest of the civilians, I was stuck in the airport for another six hours or so before the weather cleared and my commercial flight could land. There was no snack bar there at that time, and I survived on a box of stale Crackerjacks and a half-eaten roll of Lifesavers that I had in my purse. But I had a big smile on my face the whole time. Not only would the soldiers get a free ride home, but they’d get there in a Lear Jet. Most of us would never have that experience!

   Over the airport’s intercom, I could hear the sound of Christmas music softly playing…God rest ye merry gentlemen…let nothing you dismay…oh, tidings of comfort and joy…

   A true story.

The End

Note: The Lawton Airport has now been renamed The Lawton-Ft. Sill Regional  Airport.

If you liked this story, please share!

Merry Christmas, from my heart to yours, Janelle

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Gramma’s screen door

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My grandmother and Uncle Ben in front of her screen door.

 My gramma’s screen door
Janelle Meraz Hooper

  I fondly remember the worn-out screen door at the house my mother shared with my grandmother in Oklahoma. Vulnerable to weather patterns that alternated between scorching Southwest sun and torrential rainstorms, the screen hung on its worn hinges, frame warped and hinges rusty. The old wood frame, warped and in need of repair, hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint in—well, never! The only mechanism it had for opening and closing was an old spring so stretched out that it sagged and barely functioned. Sometimes, it needed to be nudged to close. The door never had a latch; it stood unlocked, welcoming all who approached.   

That old door appealed to me because of what it stood for: family. Each time I visited, I heard the bottom of the door scrape on the wooden porch all day long as it opened and closed. Scrape, scrape…no one knocked. If we were at the back of the house in the sunroom, our friends and relatives called out a joyful hello as they came down the hall. During the day, any of number of relatives could come in to visit with us. The dress code was come-as-you-are with the women often wearing the latest casual fashions from the mall, and the men mostly in plaid shirts, jeans, and Western belt buckles.

They stopped by on their way to church.

They stopped by on their way to the store.

They stopped by because they were “in the area” to see if my grandmother needed anything.

Usually, the women brought something with them. In the summer, it could be strawberry ice cream or strawberry pop, both favorites of my grandmother. In the fall, they brought wild pecans or persimmons, harvested on the reservation.

During the week, the men stopped by on their lunch hour and brought their empty stomachs.

Most summer mornings, as a cool breeze danced through the rusty screen, my grandmother put on a big pot of coffee and an even bigger pot of pinto beans. If the screen door opened before the beans were ready, she’d whip up a quick batch of tortilla dough that she cut in strips, twisted, fried, and sprinkled with granulated sugar. Grandmother had made the coffee treats for years and she was so fast they seemed to appear magically on a big platter in the middle of the dining room table.

Once, Uncle Benny came in and found a living room filled with relatives. He quickly looked around and asked, “Where’s Inge?” Inge, the wife of one of my cousins, had terminal cancer. My cousin Hilbert had married her years before during a tour in Germany with the army.  Hilbert replied he had left her at home so she could rest. “Go get her. She should be with us!” my uncle urged.

Off Hilbert went, clear across town to pick up his wife. Inge walked in and my uncle greeted her as if the party was in her honor. He made a space for her to sit next to him in the crowded room and wrapped his arm snugly around her.  Without missing a beat, he reached into his bag of stories and had her laughing so hard she forgot all about her illness.

How I envied Uncle Benny’s and everyone else’s storytelling skills. Once, after one of our Hispanic-style powwows, my Aunt Norah pulled me aside and asked me why I had become a writer. She said we’d never had one in the family before. I told her that everyone in our family was a storyteller and the only difference between them and me was that I wrote my stories down. Laughing, she quipped, “We aren’t a family of storytellers. We’re a family of liars!”

The way I saw it, their tales qualified as an art form. Besides, in each story, at least a smidge of truth could be found—somewhere! And if not, what did it matter? My family loved and cared for each other, especially when things got tough. Who could want anything more?      

My Grandmother
Some of my grandmother’s visitors
More visitors!

Most of them are gone now. Whenever I think of them, I swear I can hear that screen door…scrape-scrape…lazily opening and closing all day…

Please share this story…my thanks, Janelle

My newest novel:

My newest novel:
“Trust your instincts. Then follow them.”

See a free preview on the book’s Amazon page.

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See my other books and stories on Amazon.
Free previews on the books’ Amazon pages!
Thanks for stopping by! 
Janelle

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Galoshes and IKE, a comment about growing up in Oklahoma

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Please VOTE!
Time is getting short!


Galoshes and IKE
(A comment about growing up in Oklahoma)
Janelle Meraz Hooper

I woke up this morning thinking about the first election I can remember. I was about twelve and we had moved into a new development outside the gates of Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where there was an Indian reservation. The Kiowas weren’t happy because the developers had cut a road through the new houses that went straight through the middle of the clay deposit they used for their pots. I walked that road to school every morning and didn’t see any difference between that unpaved road than any other except that the clay was a deep red. Then the rains came and I saw that clay with a new perspective. Before I went out the door that morning, my mother made me put on my new red galoshes. She’d bought them several sizes too big so they’d last a long time. Everything I wore was too big, even the hand-me-downs from my cousins. The boots looked dumb and I knew the kids would laugh at me. I was glad I had that I LIKE IKE button someone had given me to balance things out. I was the only one in my class who had one and it made me the subject of envy among all my classmates. I wore it every day. On my way to school the new road looked fine but, when I stepped on it, I sank into thick red clay that was deeper than the tops of my galoshes. About halfway to school I noticed that one of my galoshes was missing and the sock on the bootless foot was as red as the road and was half off. I clomped into school with one cold, wet and muddy bootless foot that stayed that way all day. I was sure glad I hadn’t lost my new sock (not realizing that it would never be white again) and I still had my I LIKE IKE button, so I thought I was in good shape. And I was–until I got home and mom noticed I’d lost a brand new boot and one of my socks. Not even IKE could help me then.

____________________Please share!_______________________

The author, Janelle Meraz Hooper, grew up in Oklahoma and is the author of The Turtle Trilogy (A Three-Turtle Summer, As Brown As I Want, and Custer & His Naked Ladies). See all of my books on Amazon. PB & Kindle.

Note: Geronimo, Life on the Reservation, is a one-man show I wrote for Rudy Ramos (Now on Kevin Costner’s Yellowstone (Paramount Channel).

My Newest novel
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Thanks for stopping by! Janelle

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