According to https://www.blogger.com/ this is my 2060th post for my blog, A 1961-65 Park College Diary, which can be found at http://parkcollege1961-1965.blogspot.com/ or by finding me on Twitter - @BarbaraMcDWhitt - and clicking on the parkcollege1961-1965.blogspot.com link in my bio.
It has been said that good things happen to those who wait. I waited until I was 28 for the right man, and yes, Park College had had plenty of them - but not for me - to come into my life.
While my third graders played dodgeball on the Oakwood Manor school playground in Kansas City North, I watched planes approaching the airport adjacent to the Missouri River and downtown Kansas City in the years before KCI.
I reasoned that the likelihood of an eligible bachelor strolling across the playground was nearly nil. But perhaps, I thought, if I obtained a job where I could fly in those planes, the chances of meeting one would be a lot better.
Three years later while at UMKC, two other graduate assistants in the school of education and I went to lunch with two woman staff members. "I would think that working as a consultant for a textbook publishing company while still single would be a good job to have." The staff member seemed to be looking my way as she spoke.
When we returned to our work area, I went directly to my advisor's office. "Do you get letters from publishing companies wanting someone to work for them as a consultant?"
"Oh, sure. All the time. Here's one right here." I approached the front of his desk where a Xerox copy of a job description lay waiting for someone to ask.
Sitting down, I read and thought, "I want this job." I smiled and asked, "May I borrow this?"
"Oh, sure. You can have it." [It was only recently that it occurred to me that I may have been set up - in a good way.]
Beginning in 1968 I worked as a consultant in elementary education for the Allyn & Bacon publishing company in nine states - Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri - from my apartment in Kansas City.
And yes, I flew in those planes.
In June 1971 I went to Swope Park, one of the nation's largest city parks, to play softball with a singles group from Second Presbyterian Church.
Lying on the ground waiting for the game to start was a cute, slender guy who had come with the Broadway Baptist singles group.
"Hi, my name's Barb. What's yours?"
"It's Bill Whitt."
"Bill what?"
"That's what everyone says. It's Bill Whitt."
"Oh. You should say 'My name's Bill Whitt, not Bill What.'"
That's how I met my guy. We were married one year later, on June 17, 1972, the same day the Watergate Break-in had occurred. Nixon's presidency didn't last. Bill's and my marriage has.
About the diary writer
- Barbara McDowell Whitt
- Kansas City, Missouri, Alexandria, Virginia, United States
- ~ About: A 1961-65 Park College Diary ~ As a high school girl and then a college coed in the first half of the 1960s, I wrote nightly entries on the pages of one-year diaries. In January 2010 I began transcribing the entries into a blog and gave each one a title. I grew up on three farms within 30 miles of Iowa City and the University of Iowa with its Iowa Writers' Workshop. As the oldest of four daughters, in my diaries I sometimes referred to my sisters as "the kids" or "the girls." We helped our parents, but we also had good, wholesome fun - a characteristic I took with me to Park. Park is 300 miles southwest of West Chester, Iowa, in Parkville, Missouri, on the Missouri River 10 miles northwest of Kansas City, Missouri, and across the river from Kansas City, Kansas. In 2000 Park College became Park University. Today Park's flagship campus is in Parkville and there are an additional 41 campus centers across the nation. Park was one of the first educational institutions in the United States to offer online learning. My last post was on May 22, 2018. I may be followed on Twitter @BarbaraMcDWhitt.
2 comments:
Barb, I love this post!
Ron, I'm glad you did.
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