February 28, 1959
I have never been so humiliated since I rode the mule down Highway 3! I went to see that idiotic doctor, and he told me to take all my clothes off but to keep my shoes on. Then he left. This nurse came in and said, “I’m Miss Skipper and I’m here to prepare you.” She made me pee in a paper cup and gave me this paper gown and told me to get up on the table. When I did, she said, “Now, scoot down towards me.”
I said, “What?”
She said, “I want you to scoot down here and put your feet in the stirrups.”
So there I was in brown high heels and earrings, with my legs up in the air. I should have left right then. The doctor came back in and sat down on a stool and started poking flashlights and all kinds of things in me. He even had the nerve to ask if it hurt. That was bad enough, but the nurse stood behind him watching everything. Then he started feeling my breasts all over and at the same time asking me how the weather was outside! Is he crazy? After he was done, I got on my clothes and left. The hell with the diaphragm! That doctor acted like he was a mechanic checking my spark plugs.
April 7, 1959
Ray and his group are going to Panama City, Florida, for a month’s engagement at the Lotus Club, but I’ll stay here so I can graduate. This is the first time we’ve been separated. It’s a big club and if they do well, they might get a record contract. It’s funny. All my life I thought it would be so great to be a senior and here I am about to graduate and could care less.
I hardly ever see Mr. Cecil anymore. I think he’s jealous of Ray. He shouldn’t be. I still like him as much as I ever did. I didn’t get mad when he found a boyfriend. People are funny.
Ray won’t be back until a week after my graduation. Daddy and Jimmy Snow will come watch me graduate. I already bought a lot of funny cards to send Ray while he is in Panama City. I am going to be miserable while he’s gone and he said he would be too. How could people stand it during the war when they would be separated for years at a time?
I got a letter from Grandma Pettibone. The whole group of Italian women that hit her in the head with a piece of fruitcake and called Ollie an old bat at the VFW bingo party one time finally got their comeuppance. Two days ago they were all on a second-floor screened-in porch playing penny bingo when this big fat woman yelled, “Bingo,” and the whole porch collapsed. Grandma said if there is bingo in heaven, she knows Ollie Meeks caused that porch to fall.
May 22, 1959
I should have known something was wrong when Goose called from Florida. He was drunk and not making any sense. He kept saying Ray was a no good son of a bitch. I thought they had been fighting over the act until Ray’s letter arrived.
It seems that Ann, Ray’s old girlfriend, went to Panama City and they’ve gotten back together. He wrote he would always love me, but he had never really stopped loving her either. It wouldn’t be fair to me because I was so great and he is sorry and so on and so on and so on.
P.S. I graduated and got a watch.
June 8, 1959
Ray’s and Ann’s wedding picture was in the paper today. It was so strange to see it. I have a picture of Ray and me and he has his arm around me the exact same way and has the same smile as the one in the paper. Is that what love is all about? Just changing a face in a photograph? Very weird.
June 17, 1959
Mr. Cecil came over to the apartment and told me he was tired of me sitting on my behind feeling sorry for myself. He says he’s getting me to New York if he has to kill me, and he’s entered me in the Miss Mississippi contest, so I can try to win a scholarship to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan. We’re going to write the funniest talent number ever. If Mr. Cecil had the money, he would give it to me, but he spent it all getting the Cecilettes out of jail. He will find me a job so I can afford to get my teeth fixed. His greatest wish was to be a dancer, but he never had the nerve to try and he doesn’t want me to wind up like him, always wondering what would have happened.
Mr. Cecil is the bravest person I know. People say terrible things to him and he still goes to work every day and goes out of his way to make people laugh.
We sat down and figured out I need $500 to get my teeth fixed, buy a real pretty gown and bathing suit, and pay my way to Tupelo, where they have the Miss Mississippi pageant. One of the Cecilettes has a secret friend at the television station here, and he found out they are looking for a weather girl. The one they now have is pregnant and they don’t want a pregnant weather girl. He is going to set up an audition for me. Mr. Cecil wanted me to get contact lenses. He is sure we can buy them at a good price because another one of the Cecilettes has a friend who is an optometrist. Never underestimate the power of the Cecilettes!
June 21, 1959
I got the job at the TV station! I am the new weather girl on the morning show. All I have to do is to show up at 6:30 A.M., fix the weather map and stand there for three minutes to tell everybody what the weather is going to be. I don’t know a thing about weather, but the other weather girl said not to worry, just to remember it always moves to the east. I am surprised I got the job. There were a lot of girls trying out, but Mr. Cecil said he knew I would get it because, in the words of Miss Doris Day, “A certain party was afraid that their secret love would be no secret anymore.”
I make $50 a week. If I can get a few extra jobs entertaining somewhere, I will have all the money I need for the Miss Mississippi contest. I go to the eye doctor next week. Ray’s mother sent me a long, sweet letter. She hopes I know that she still loves me and she wants me to come over and see her anytime. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about Ray, but at least Jimmy Snow is his old self again. He’s even been dusting crops. Daddy just won’t stop drinking. He’ll give it up for a few days, but then he goes back. His girlfriend left him, but he uses any crazy excuse to tie one on.
June 24, 1959
The entrance form for the Miss Mississippi contest came in the mail today. In order to enter, you must be of excellent character and background, talented, ambitious, attractive and never married. Well, I am ambitious and I’ve never been married. A week of judging will start at the Dinkier Tutwiler Hotel in Tupelo on August 3, and the pageant will be held on the ninth.
I like my job at the TV station. It’s pretty early in the morning, but Jimmy drives me in his truck when he’s home and the rest of the time I take the bus. At the station they have a big weather board that has these cardboard pictures of things like snow and rain and clouds you can move wherever you want. The job is easy. All I do is move the five o’clock weather girl’s weather a few inches to the right. When it all winds up on the East Coast, I start it back in California. The only bad thing is the gospel show that’s going on in the studio while I am fixing my weather board. When I come in in the morning, you should see those gospel singers making out on the couch in the makeup room. How they can do that so early in the morning is beyond me. No wonder there are so many Baptists in the world.
I’m in the next play at the theater, Oklahoma!, and I get to sing a song entitled “I’m Just a Girl Who Cain’t Say No.”
The eye doctor gave me some contact lenses and showed me how to put them in. I can only wear them one hour. They hurt like the devil, but I am going to stick it out come hell or high water and will wear them two hours tomorrow. Pretty soon I won’t even know they are there. Right now they feel like I have two garbage can lids in my eyes. These are just temporary lenses. I ordered blue-tinted ones. And guess what? Today when I was in the drugstore, a woman came up to me and asked if she hadn’t seen me on television. Then she asked for my autograph. How about that? I guess it will be pretty hard for me to go anywhere without being recognized. Now I know how movie stars feel. I like this television work.
July 1, 1959
Oklahoma! opened last night and here is my review:
Miss D. Frances Harper, an Azalea Playhouse regular, made her singing debut last night as Ado Annie, a role originated on Broadway by Celest
e Holm. This reviewer was lucky enough to have seen Oklahoma! in New York City, and I must say that Miss Harper, who resembles Miss Holm not only in looks but in talent as well, stopped the show last night as did her famous predecessor with the song “I’m Just a Girl Who Cain’t Say No.” I am hoping she will take a clue from her song and never say no to sharing her many talents with us.
I am up to eight hours of wearing time with my blue contact lenses.
Mr. Cecil and I are busy with my talent number for the Miss Mississippi contest. I came up with a character who’s a cross between Mrs. Dot and Grandma Pettibone. I call her “Susie Sweetwater.” I wear a funny hat with flowers and some funny glasses with jewels all over them. I pretend she has a TV show and use an exaggerated southern accent and act real ditsy.
I make believe I am in a TV studio putting on my lipstick and powder when the camera comes on and catches me. I am real surprised and say, “Oh, hi there. Good morning. And how was your morning this morning? And welcome to The News in the Morning, your friendly morning news program. Remember, here you get all the news while it’s still news. Anything else you may hear is just plain gossip. Well, I have a happy wedding announcement. You know people used to get married in June, but nowadays they get married whenever they have to … uh, want to … Mrs. Mosell Hicks announces the engagement of her daughter, Quantia, to Seaman Fourth Class Curtis Johnson. Miss Hicks, who attended Central Lee High School, is employed by the Roxy Theater as a candy girl and part-time ladies’ room attendant. Mr. Johnson attended New Mercle Grammar School.” I pretend to look for a name of a high school but can’t find it and give up. “The wedding will take place in the home of the bride and the bride will enter from the kitchen and Curtis and his father, Mr. Willis T. Johnson, will enter from the front porch. The bride will wear a white net ballerina-length dress, with shoes, hat, purse, gloves and ankle bracelet to match. After the ceremony, a reception for the happy couple will be held at the Trailways bus station, where the bride’s mother is an employee. After a short honeymoon trip to see Rock City, the couple will reside in the Orange Grove Trailer Park near Mr. Johnson’s naval base. Mr. Johnson plans a career in the Navy or one in the trailer park. Well, that’s all the time we have for today. And don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for Dateline Divorce and, as always, I leave you with a thought for the day: Protect your heart as you would your other vital organs. Bye bye.”
I just hope Amy Jo Snipes doesn’t hear my number. I took a lot of the stuff out of her wedding announcement.
July 2, 1959
It says in the Miss Mississippi brochure that if you get in the finals, you would be judged all over again, so I need two numbers. They judge you on talent and bathing suits and personality. I am too skinny to look good in a bathing suit and my personality is questionable after having been around Daddy all these years, so Mr. Cecil says we should concentrate on talent I asked Mr. Cecil if I couldn’t do my famous death scene from Yellow Jack for one of the talent numbers, and do you know what? He said no, because we only have three minutes for our talent numbers, not forty-five! Smart alec! Boo! Hiss! So I am going to do the one about the woman who gets shot as a second number.
July 3, 1959
I am very late with my period and I am scared shitless. If I am pregnant, I will kill myself. Surely I’m not. I can’t be. I’ve never been this late in my life.
Oh, shit!
July 11, 1959
It’s been eight days. I don’t know what to do, and just when everything was going so good. I asked Tootie if you could get pregnant the first time you did it and she said, “Yes, it happens all the time.” How could I have been so stupid? I don’t have anyone to blame but myself. I will have to tell Mr. Cecil. I don’t know who else I can talk to. I have been horseback riding every day and I have had about a hundred hot baths, but no luck.
July 12, 1959
I told Mr. Cecil I was pregnant and he was very upset for me. He called all the Cecilettes to see if they knew where I could go and get an abortion, but not one of them knew anybody. So we went to see Paris Knights and she said the only one she knew that would do it had died.
Mr. Cecil came over to see me last night and told me he had thought about it, and wanted to marry me and raise the child. He tried to make light of it by saying it was his duty because after all, he had found me the job as the weather girl and the last weather girl had gotten pregnant, too. He thinks pregnancy must be one of the hazards of being a weather girl. I was really touched he would do that for me, but I just can’t. I love Mr. Cecil, but not that way. I sat up all night trying to figure out something when I remembered someone!
I placed a person-to-person call to Peachy Wigham and told her. She said for me to hold the phone. And came back on after about two minutes and told me to get down to her as soon as I could. I am leaving tomorrow right after I finish doing my weather report. God bless Peachy Wigham!
July 15, 1959
On the bus I had some time to think about what I was doing. The idea that I might die down there on the abortion table scared me to death. I kept thinking about what was going to happen if I did live through it. How was I going to feel? Would I be sorry someday? Momma had said having a baby was the most painful thing in the world. I got to looking at her ring. Thank God she didn’t know I was in trouble.
I must have changed my mind about a hundred times about whether or not to go through with it. I wrote out a will, then tore it up. By the time the bus arrived in Magnolia Springs I was a nervous wreck and my brains felt like scrambled eggs. I went to the bathroom at the filling station and put some cold water on my face and sat down on the floor. Then I combed my hair and used the bathroom and guess who started her period! Me! I was never so happy in my life. I started screaming and yelling and carrying on until the man at the filling station banged on the door and asked if I was all right. And to think I had always complained about having my period! From now on I will have a party every month when I start. I couldn’t wait to tell Peachy, but when I got to the Elite Nightspot, only Ula Sour was there. After I told Ula my good news, she laughed her head off. She thinks I scared myself so bad I probably stopped myself from having a period.
Ula called Peachy at the mortuary and told her to come on home, that everything was all right. I was glad to see Peachy and she was glad to see me. I found out that Felix, my cat, had died of old age, but they had a new one they loved a lot even though it was ugly. I spent the night, and we had a wonderful time. Peachy serves the best fifty-year-old bourbon in the world.
When I was leaving the next morning, I told Peachy I was sorry I had caused her so much trouble and would be glad to pay whoever it was that was going to do the abortion. She said to forget it.
She wouldn’t tell me who the person was who would have performed the abortion, but on my way home on the bus, it dawned on me that the person was Peachy Wigham herself. That’s why she hadn’t been there when I arrived. She was down at the mortuary getting things ready. Now that it’s all over and I have had some time to think, I still don’t know if I would have gone through with it or not. God bless Peachy Wigham anyway.
Years ago Daddy told me the reason she never got arrested was because she knew a secret about the sheriff’s daughter. Now I know what it was. If only Pickle could have gotten to her!
July 18, 1959
I went to work this morning and the manager of the TV station, Mr. Baers, called me into his office right after my weather report. He said there had been the biggest floods in the Midwest in twenty-five years and asked what the hell was all my weather doing in California where they were having a drought.
I didn’t have a good answer for him, so I told him I had just been moving Miss Pat’s, the five o’clock weather girl’s symbols a little to the right, and it had always worked out OK before.
When he heard that, he turned red in the face! Can you imagine getting that excited over the weather? He buzzed his secretary and ordered her to get Miss Pat in there right away. When Miss Pat came in, he sa
id, “Did you know that this idiot has been moving your symbols every morning and that she doesn’t know a damn thing about the weather?”
She just looked at me all surprised and said, “Oh, no. This is terrible because I’ve been moving yours every night.”
You should have heard Mr. Baers! He pitched a fit and said, “How dare you screw around with the weather! All the farmers are depending on this station to give them the correct weather forecast.” He said we two were probably single-handedly responsible for the failure of crops all over the state of Mississippi. Anyway, we both got fired. Some man that plays Bozo the Clown in the afternoon is now doing both reports.
I felt real bad for Miss Pat, getting fired like that, because she is very nice. The only thing the matter with her is she uses too much hair spray. A newsman at the station told me that when a tornado hit Hattiesburg and Miss Pat went outside to get in her car right in the middle of it, her blouse was blown off but her hair never moved.
July 21, 1959
I have a new job at the A to Z Rental Company making $75 a week. I sit in a big warehouse and answer the phone, and if anyone comes in, I rent them whatever they want. We have everything … hospital and sickroom supplies, beds, and party supplies, punch bowls, silver, wheelchairs, crutches, even artificial legs and arms. Can you imagine anyone wanting to rent a wooden leg? I’ve been here for two days and nobody has rented anything yet, so it’s very easy. I just go in the morning and stay all day, and at five o’clock I close and go home. The only bad part is it is lonesome, but at least I have plenty of time to rehearse my talent numbers. Sometimes I get in a wheelchair and roll around the warehouse.