Our Shared Reality

 One late toasty-warm August afternoon when pancakes baked on the sidewalk, I stood in line at the post office, enjoying the cool air while waiting to mail a large stack of my Miami Golf and Country Club History books that I self-published. I was weary that afternoon but still my adrenaline flowed from the excitement of selling nearly 100 books. 

I only printed 30 to begin with and never expected more. It took two more printings to have 102 copies. Stepping up to the counter I plopped down the packages of books to be mailed with relief. With a tired but proud smile, I looked at the lady in white and blue and stated, "I'd like to mail these books in media rate, please."

She returned the smile, placed one on the weight machine, checked the location and zip code and while placing the stickers on the the package she asked, "Are you an author?"

The question caught me off guard. Two book signings, one in Miami, Oklahoma and the other in Tulsa, were most successful for me and for the people who dropped by to purchase the book, but I never thought of myself as an author. I was a writer, yes, but an author is well-known, has books in the public libraries, and makes money. 

After watching her weigh the second book and checking the address I finally replied, "Yes, I am an author and this is the history book I wrote about my hometown, the golf course where I grew up, and the people who were a part of my life."

Letty Stapp Watt, Vicki Martin Reynolds, Jonya Stapp Pry, Dobson Museum, Miami, Oklahoma

 

In full conversation by now she replied, "Oh, I wish I could write the story of the mountain in Washington state where I grew up skiing every winter and the lodge we called home." 

I saw her name "Cori" on the top left shelf of her post office station. It was a painted brick with her name engraved in stylish lettering. No one else could claim that station and her name. I liked her creative and individual taste. As she finished weighing and marking each package the doors to the post office locked, but we continued to talk about our shared histories and how people had come and gone in our lives. 

Even though we were separated in age by twenty years and 2,000 miles growing up in Washington state and Oklahoma, we found a common bond. 

Judy Woodruff said after a story she shared on PBS, 

"The need for a shared reality is one-way stories and history bring us together."

Authors, writers, journalists, storytellers, teachers, parents, ministers, historians, civic leaders......all possess the power of words to bring us together. We often look for stories that touch us inwardly, that connect us to others or another time and place.

I found this to be true, when a few days later I asked for help in the Hallmark store. I explained that I needed thank you notes for the many people who helped me publish the book and who encouraged and challenged me to finish it. The ladies looked at the various boxes that I had picked out and we talked our way through the best choice (I bought two boxes of Thank You notes.) 

One lady asked what I had written. I replied, "I've collected stories and created a timeline of the last seventy years of the people who built my town and the golf course where I grew up."

She lite up, "Are you a golfer?" 

I laughed, "Yes, I am and have been since the time I could walk."

"Oh, you lucky girl," she pipped. "I have always wanted to play golf, but never found the time. I watch it on television on the weekends and once went to a championship in Tulsa."  We chatted a few more minutes and then she asked, "May I buy one of your books?"

"Let me bring one in for you to see," I suggested. A few minutes later, she sat down with the book and thumbed through the pages. "Where are you in this story?" 

"Starting in the early sixties," I said, then turned a few pages until we reached a decade she recalled. "I want to buy your book. How much?" 

I was stunned. This lady didn't play golf nor had any connection to it, like I might have thought. "The book costs $35."

She took $35.00 out of her purse and asked, "Would you autograph it me."

As I was leaving the store, she said, "Thank you. I want to read about others who have lived during my time and understand what it was like." 

I beamed with gratitude and felt tears well up in my heart with her kindness and soft spoken words. 

I became a storyteller decades ago, thanks to a job at the Miami Public Library, because I saw people laugh and connect with the personal stories that I heard at the Miami Golf and Country Club, the stories my parents shared about the depression, the war, and the people who had come and gone in their early lives. (Some of the stories might be called "fishing for a good line or lie." I was never sure as a child how to take that.)

George Haralson and Thursday

One of my favorite memories to share is of an English bulldog named Thursday, who roamed the club in the late 1950's. His official home was on Yale Street and his backyard became the golf course and the clubhouse. One July 4, I witnessed Thursday run with his short legs and full body to catch an M-80 thrown by one of the club members. Oh, my... 

The rest of the story can be found on my history blog Thursday's story

My personal blog is "Literally Letty" where I often write as the 'Golf Gypsy'.  To read those stories go to <www.https://literallyletty.blogspot.com>  In the search bar type in Golf Gypsy or Miami Memories.

The homepage for my history blog is: 

<https://mgcchistory.blogspot.com/>

Miami, Oklahoma Golf and Country Club History

If you enjoy my stories please copy and share this website address with your friends. Blogging is becoming a thing of the past and I could certainly use help for my readers in sharing these stories with your friends and family.  

My Story--The Fire

          It was 4am before the flames were high enough to rouse the neighbors.  Sirens rang as truck after truck sped through the streets to reach the raging fire.  The neighbors stood in nightgowns and thrown together layers of clothes, starring in awe as the 1929 Tudor structured clubhouse burned out of control like an angry lady poking a stick at mad dogs.

          With water hoses surging full blast from all angles, photographers shot pictures of the fire in the night, while word spread throughout Miami, Oklahoma that the club was burning.  Shortly after sunrise it became clear that flames had reached the fifth floor and were screaming through the roof.  Windows had exploded floor by floor, and the town had turned out to see the event, like a circus train unloading lions and tigers.

          It wasn’t known how or when the fire started on if anyone was inside.  The housekeepers from time gone by no longer lived on the fourth floor.  Cars had sometimes been left overnight by members too drunk to drive.  Had the men gone home or stayed behind to win a hand of cards?

          For me, the club was like a home, my touchstone of who I was, who I could be, and eventually who I would become.  We moved to Miami, Oklahoma in 1954 a few years after the flood of ’51.  As a child of five my greatest regret was that we missed the flood, but oh did I ever soak up the stories and seek out proof of flood lines on homes at every outing.

Ladies on the practice green on the north side of the country club.1960's

          My dad was the golf pro at the Miami, Ok. Golf and Country club  and the greatest teacher I would ever know.  In turn, I played golf and loved the fresh air, but it took hours of my life to prepare for tournaments.  Practice was my life as a teen, whereas, my sister was a natural and still has an easy flowing flawless swing. (I must confess we both worked hours on the practice tee. Golf is never easy, even for a person with natural swing.)

 

1967 South-side main entrance with our blue station wagon that would take me to college in 1967 sits to the left of the entrance.

         I went to work in the golf shop at thirteen.  Tuesday through Saturday I opened the shop by sun up in those summer months.  From 2:00 till dinner I played or practiced my golf game. By the time I was a full-fledged teenager I had very little time to drag main, shop with friends, watch “As the World Turns”, or date. What I did have were the friends I made at golf tournaments in those years and the experiences of playing at the highest level of junior golf in 1960's before Title IX.

          Part of me always wanted to be like everyone else, but the other part was willing to stand alone and just be me.  I didn’t know who me was or would become.

          At nineteen, 1967, I left home for college at LSU to complete a teaching degree. Being immature, thinking I was smarter than my professors, I came home in the summer of 1968 married and left home for Ft. Hood, Texas.  Five years later I was a mother of a beautiful child, but divorced, uneducated, and alone. I left home again, and worked my way through college and degrees.  As a librarian, teacher, and mother I began to entertain and teach through storytelling and puppetry.  And we laughed.

          The stories told, laid the next layer of asphalt for the road I would take.  I found those universal truths of stories to be healing for the human spirit.  Listening to the laughter of the crowd rejuvenated me.  Listening to my daughter mimic me as she retold those stories to her dolls and friends, also made me realize how our children watch in detail our every move.

          It was the stories that led me home that weekend the club burned.  On a Sunday July 16, 1984 I drove from Norman, OK in a green Toyota loaded with kids, puppets and books and drove straight to the club.  I needed to feel the soil of my soul and show my children a part of me.  On the horizon I saw only two chimneys.  One four story chimney stood in the center of the broken brick shell, ashes smoldering, people still standing rows deep in the drive way watching. The second chimney stood alone on the west side of the building that connected the dance floor and porches to the main building.  Fire trucks and traffic blocked my entrance.

 

North-side from the putting green.

          I parked on the street and walked quietly cautiously toward the smoldering structure, my broken lady. My children ran ahead. 

 

July 23, 1984 Dad, Johnie Stapp, myself, daughter Katy Rains, and stepson Michael Watt.

     When my father saw me, the tears he had held off since the wee hours of the morning fell down his cheeks in rivulets flowing haphazardly.  The hugs and tears came from all directions.  All any of us could do was stand, stare, until at last we began to share.

          On Monday after teaching summer school at PSU, I returned to the club and parked near the yellow tape on the south side.  I followed the tape around a giant circle to the north-side and the entrance to the pro shop.  No lives had been lost, but, oh, so many memories danced in the clouds.  I stood outside the yellow tape. Then I heard a choking voice coming from the ashes that were heaped where the golf shop once stood, supporting the lofty building. From an angry grumble I heard these words,  “Where are you?  I know you’re here.  You’ve got to be here.”

          Quickly, I crossed the line and hollered, “Who are you?  What have you lost?”

          A deep angry voice returned, “It’s John.”

          “Dad?" I rushed through the door frame,  "I thought you were at home.”  

     Stepping into the ashes of golf shop door, I saw a bent over white-haired man swinging a rake wildly at a pile of ashes.  I thought for a moment his khaki jumpsuit was streaked in blood, but my imagination was vivid and dried red paint had the same effect.   Then I realized it was another man, named John, not my father. 

          “Oh my gosh, John, this is Letty Stapp, the pro’s daughter.  What have you lost?”  I asked fearfully.  He stopped, turned at me, and hollered,  “I’ve lost my putter.  She burned up, but I know I can find the mallet head.  Come here and help me, now.  You know where my bag was stored.”

          With two of us digging, and my clothes already covered in ash, we found the mallet head, no wooden shaft, no grip, nothing else to be retrieved.  With rake and mallet in hand we walked to the outside of the ropes and behind the yellow tape.  No words were spoken as we turned to look at shell.

          At last I said, “You know she was my home, my touchstone.  I can see myself and your children, all of us up there in the attic playing and spying on the world below.”

          “It was my home, too,” he replied.  “My father and George Coleman had her built.  I grew up there.  I know every nook and corner like the back of my hand.”  One by one we shared our stories through tears and laughter that spanned six decades.  Secrets had been shared.

          Then he placed his arm around my waist and said, “I’ve always said a man is just as old as the woman he’s touching.”  I laughed, for he was known to be a fox around women, but I knew that for a few moments in life we were both younger and shared a deep feeling for a burned out building called home.

 

*A true story by Letty Stapp Watt, as told for three decades on storytelling stages throughout the Midwest. 

**Later that week John Robinson drove to the farm where my parents lived and asked dad to remake his mallet head putter. It took a few weeks before my father found a wooden shaft that would work. 

***Sadly, my mother had finished updating the Miami Ladies Golf Association scrapbooks and delivered them to the ladies locker room a few days before the fire. Without pictures in that scrapbook I thought I had lost a part of me, but the memories floated back easily. In retirement, I took up the mantle (or mallet head) and wrote the history of my club from 1916 to 1984.

****Luckily, the club rebuilt and there are more stories to share.

A Collection of Personal Stories--Part 2

 

1970-1980 Sandy, Billy and Debbie Jackson share their personal memories and hysterical antics. (If only Johnie Stapp knew this.)

Sandy Jackson’s memories  

There was a huge cedar tree on the circle of the clubhouse where you turned into the club. Four or five of us would sneak into that thick tree and smoke cigarettes. I’m sure people knew because there was smoke floating out of the cedar tree. Worst of all, we would even hide our bikes in the tree so no one could see us.

   Several of us used to run down to hole # 1 by Elm Street. We would hook up the water hose, that was there for watering the green, and spray cars going by on Elm Street. Then we’d run to the woods and creek and hide. Some of the cars turned around and came back looking for us. They even drove to the club and told them, but we were sneaky and never got caught. (Billy and Tracy Bradshaw)

 

Billy’s stories:

 

1. John Mirjanich made up “Treasure Hunts” on the golf course for the neighborhood kids. He would even draw a map of the area with markings and distances in which we would find the treasures. Of course, all of this was done when there was no one on the golf course. 

 About 1973 John Mirjanich once dug, hand dug, a sand trap on the shag-bag practice range on the East side of the county club. Your dad (Johnie Stapp) even added sand to it so we could all practice. John then mowed an area down using his dad’s new Lawn Boy Mower. It was cool for us kids and the neighbors to practice on. It was located on the slight hill west of old #8 tee box and north of the Painter house on Yale Street.

 

3. Johnie Stapp put the fear of God in all of us, of any age. One time I got blamed for riding my motorcycle over the greens and destroying them. I was not guilty, and one of the club members even proved that I was at a high school golf tournament in Ada that day. My motorcycle never once touched the golf course. We were ornery not destructive. **We still don’t know who rode the motorcycles over the greens that spring night. Obviously, Dad’s presence made a difference in how we all behaved and knew our boundaries.  

 

4. We used to play Flash Light tag at night. Our boundary was on the east all along old hole #7 (16), north to old #6 (10) then west to the hump on that long hole, then down the low area of #9 (18) heading south to our houses. We did not get close to the country club, but I am sure those people sitting in the bar at night could see the flashlights shine and the kids running in and out of the trees and bushes.

 

5. I remember that old grumpy man who worked in the golf shop. (The Story of Old Bill The Story of Old Bill by Letty )

 I must have been about five years old (1967) I would walk up the window to the golf shop and ask for an Orange Coke. He would growl back at me and say, “Do you want an Orange, or do you want a Coke? We don’t have orange coke.” I didn’t understand. I only knew I wanted an orange coke, all drinks were cokes, I thought.  **When Billy shared this with me I wept, because that is exactly how Old Bill acted, but I learned that he was teasing us. His voice or tonality never shared that he was teasing. He always seemed deadly serious.)

 

6. One night Sandy and I were down on hole #1 playing with the water hoses and splashing cars as they drove by, and sometimes we threw water balloons at cars. But this night we splashed the car of ‘one of Mami’s finest’ and his window on his black and white car with a red light on top was rolled down. He felt the splash. He jumped out of his car and tried to get over the fence (Elm Street) to chase us, but he couldn’t get over the weeds and bushes.  As soon as possible he turned the car around and headed up the clubhouse. We knew it would take him a long time to go back down Elm and turn back toward the club.  We ran full speed ahead and climbed in the huge cedar tree on south side of the practice range, near the house where Kemper’s lived. It was a huge thick tree, the same one we smoked in. The police pulled in and shined their flashlights all over. Luckily, for us they did not find us that night, and eventually we made our way home.

 

7. When we were little, we loved to go up to the bar, knock on the door and order “Shirley Temples” to drink. The bartender was Bev Cox. Sometimes she let us into the bar to order and take out drinks back out. I can remember the colorful and bold eye shadow she wore like blues, greens, and bright reds or pinks. Bev was a good woman and people liked her and we felt like big people drinking our Shirley Temples.

8.  I must have been a teenager when “old Doug” a cook upstairs with Flo said, “See that Blue Maverick out there in the parking lot. It’s broke. If you can start it you can drive it.”  The challenge was set—I went out there and jiggled the broken ignition switch until I started the car. I took off and Doug came screaming out of the kitchen.

 

9. One time in a ‘horse race’ Joe Hankins on the first hole pulled a fifth of Jack Daniels and took a swig before he teed off. He then proceeded to take a swig before every shot. Much to our amazement he didn’t pass out and made it eight holes of the ‘horse race’ until someone yanked the bottle out of his hand and took a swig of the Jack Daniels. He discovered it was Iced Tea and not Jack that Joe had been drinking. We all had a good laugh over that.

 

1970-79

Debbie Jackson’s memories:

1. We often played flashlight tag at night on the golf course with the neighbors. We usually played behind the Wallace house, and we could go anywhere on the golf course to hide.

2. My friends and I love eating on the upstairs back porch after Jr. Golf on Friday’s. We ate grilled cheese sandwiches and onion rings. The best lunch was on a Friday.

Breaking my arm was a dramatic memory.  My brother Billy was jumping off the diving board of the old pool and I got on to go jump off and he decided not to jump and told me to move back. So, I did. Then he said move more, so I did, and I didn’t see how close I was and fell off on the back of the diving board breaking my arm and getting a cast.

4. Having the nice Easter egg hunts in the grass area in front of the club is a fond memory. One time I found the golden egg and it was amazing.   

    Playing jr. golf early on Friday mornings and having to get up and walk on the grass with all the dew still on it will always be a special childhood feeling. 

6. What fun it was riding my lime green QA 50 minibike. I was racing someone on the golf cart to the tee box behind our house. I won the race, but I put my front handle brakes on and went flying over the front of my minibike landing flat on the tee box. I thought I was dead, but just knocked the wind out of me. I was so embarrassed laying on the ground after winning the race. (not telling who but it was a boy I was racing. He was a real nice boy who worked at the club.)

    We always had such fun playing Bingo night at the Country club.

 I I loved when our family ate in the dining room when we would pass the toppings for our baked potato. It was a silver serving item that had butter, sour cream, and bacon bits. (Can’t do that anymore in restaurants). I wanted to have my wedding reception in that dining room and loved the fancy steps to walk up and go in there, but they tore the old building down and built the new one and it wasn’t finished in time for our wedding.

   I really enjoyed visiting with all the people. Especially the older ones. Now I am older ones!  When my mother would go play cards with her friends it was nice to say hello to everyone and then go swimming.

One time my sister and I were on hole #7 and I was teeing off. I told her she better move. She said she wasn’t and there was no way I could hit her. Well, I sliced it to the right and right to her. After she was hit by me, she always got out of the way from then on.

The golf course was always our big backyard growing up! We live on 200 acres now and our back yard of 5 of those acres looks like a golf course. My sons and I go tee it up out our back door and see who can hit the ball the farthest and over the pond. I now have a piece of my growing up in my own backyard.

 **Dear Readers, if you have some personal stories to share please send them to me by June 15.