Baking Cookies and Remembering the 1960's...

Family coming for a visit jarred some memories from over fifty years ago.
I was inspired to make some of my 'Chocolate Chipper Cookies' for the occasion.
Funny really how something as simple as making cookies can bring about a whole train of thought and with those thoughts come memories.

Early 1960's I was a seventh grader in Junior High School when our Dad was stationed at Little Rock Air Force Base which was located in Jacksonville, Arkansas. While we were stationed there quite a few world changing events took place. Those events during those years changed my perspective about life as a 13 year old.

Linda, Andy, Jim and the neighborhood kids off to the Little Rock Air Force Base Library

The Johnson family summer 1964, Tennessee at Aunt Nina's at Sinking Springs

Several major events stand out:

1962 Jacksonville Junior High School second week of school 6th grade. We got a new student, her name was Linda, she was heavy set, brown skinned, with sad brown eyes, that showed she was scared and uncertain. The principal brought her into our classroom, introduced her and asked if anyone would show her around and take her to her classes. I raised my hand and said yes I would, and I did, but it was not an easy task as we made our way around the school. She was made fun of, spit at, pushed and treated poorly. I was young, naïve and color blind. All of my school years I had lived on bases, attended school and played with our brown skinned neighbors. I did not know any different. Our parents never ever made race an issue. The only thing our Dad ever said in regards to race was that was the N word would never be said or used. That was a definite and we abided and honored that steadfast rule always. To this day if I hear that term used by anyone it makes me heart sick. I did not know about segregation or desegregation. Jacksonville Junior High School was in the heart of the south, Blacks and Whites did not mix period. In 1959, because of Martin Luther Kings work in the south, desegregation was tried in Little Rock it was a slow an uphill battle. In 1962 when my friend Linda's father was stationed at Little Rock AFB, her parents enrolled her and her siblings in the same school's all military dependent's attended. I now know that Linda and her siblings were the first blacks to integrate the Jacksonville school system. They were not wanted and were treated terribly, especially the sister that attended the High School up the hill from the Junior High. I became friends with Linda, she was funny, athletic, which I was not, and she was an excellent dancer. Our school use to play music over the loudspeaker during lunch and we were allowed to dance. That was the year 'The Monster Mash' came out and Linda taught me and my two left feet how to dance to that and also the Mashed Potatoes. The kids at our school soon grew to accept her as one of us and we had a good time together, but I have never forgotten her expression, or the attitudes displayed by our classmates on that first day I met her.

1962 The Cuban Missile Crisis came to a head. I really was not certain about what our Dad's actual job was at that point in his career, but I knew it was something to do with C 140's and C 130's military aircraft. When the crisis hit our Dad and many other military were put on strategic alert, they were all of a sudden missing in action from the base where we lived. I remember our Mom and the other women in our neighborhood sitting around talking and I could hear the fear and the concern in their voices and attitudes. I know it was at least two months and possibly longer that there was no word from them, then one evening our Dad was home again. One funny story happened while Dad was gone. Brother Jim, who was around 8 at the time had also listened to the neighborhood gossip. My 3 brothers slept in the back bedroom in bunkbeds. One night our Mom, who was a night owl, was getting ready to turn in and as she looked into the boys bedroom she saw a light that would go off and on in through the bedroom window blinds. She woke me up and we watched and it would come on and go off. She thought it was someone trying to break in so she called the Air Police. They came and checked everything out, there was no sign of anyone out back, but they did also see a light going off and on. They came in to find the source of the light. They soon discovered that brother Jim sleeping in the lower bunk, had taken a cub scout flashlight with him to bed to catch a prowler if one broke in, and when he would breathe it would shine on the window and when he did not it would just shine in the covers. Case solved. When Jim was asked why, "he said Dad wasn't there so he had to protect the family. Ironically enough Jim has  taken on the role of the family protector to heart and he is known for this in our family, as well as being generous, but thrifty and good with numbers, I guess that is why he became a CPA!

C 1 30

1963 President John F. Kennedy made a visit to Little Rock AFB to thank the troops for their role in the Cuban Missile Crisis. The whole family got to attend the stop over  and listen to his speech, which was on the flight line of the base. We were right in front of the podium. I remember the sun was shinning and it glinted on his auburn hair, and I was fascinated by his Boston accent. Our Mom was totally smitten with him, and later those years coined the phrase 'The Camelot' era of the White house.  Most American's at that time and place were fascinated by the entire Kennedy clan. In November of that same year, I was sitting in the school cafeteria when the announcement came over the loud speaker that President Kennedy had been shot In Dallas, Texas, and it was fatal. I can still remember the stillness as shock and disbelief descended. We were dismissed from school, we went home, and we mourned as we watched those next days play out on television and in the newspaper. Our parents kept those newspapers for years in a scrapbook. That was the first time the term death had meaning. I then understood the meaning of living and dying. For years after that event my greatest fear was that our parents would die, I remember praying and asking God to not let that happen, if  He had to take someone let it be me.

My Autograph Book of friends from Florida, Arkansas, Idaho. I gave it up when we moved to Wyoming.

1964 The Beatles descended upon America on The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, February 9th. I remember my friends and I laying on the living room floor in front of the TV and when Ed Sullivan introduced them and they starting singing and playing "I want To Hold Your Hand" we went absolutely crazy, dancing and singing becoming instantaneously in love with that mop-headed foursome from Britain. Mom was  watching and laughing with us and I remember we connected on a different plain for the first time that I can recall. She was a Elvis Presley fan and she understood what an affect that can have on a young girl. I am sure she thought 'ah yes I understand how you feel Linda.



Tried and true Linda Sue Johnson Lane recipe circa1962

Back to the reason I started writing this piece...The making, baking and smelling of cookies fresh out of the oven. In the 1962 era our Mom for some reason, probably because our family needed the extra money, Mom went to work. I think she worked the evening shift at a factory. Anyway being the oldest and the daughter I was turned loose in the kitchen. I do not remember making anything but dessert's but I was given the okay and the supplies from the commissary to try my handy work. I made cakes, I made pralines because we were studying Louisiana and The Louisiana Purchase and I could earn extra credit, after several fails, a messy sticky kitchen floor, and 4 kids on a sugar high, I finally mastered them.

Hot out of the oven, they spread out a little too much

Ready for company...I did a poison check with a glass of milk just to be on the safe side

Last but not least I made Chocolate Chip Cookies. Our Mom made cakes and pies but never cookies. I became a master at Chocolate Chip Cookie baking, and my brothers became my slaves as I would dole them out three at a time, which would result in them whining to Mom that I was being mean, which actually I was because I was wanting to make them last longer. Three brothers and friends can finish off a plate of cookies in no time flat! I have been making the same recipe for 56 years and counting. It is the Johnson/Lane favorite everyday go to cookie. Our children, their spouses, and our boyo's and girlyo's have been raised on them. I very rarely make them anymore, because they now use my recipe and make their own. It is one of my legacies that will keep on going long after I have headed off to bake a little something sweet in heaven. Today I thought, 'got some family coming, got a little great niece and little great nephew needing to share and taste the Aunt's legacy', so I made some "Mom's Chocolate Chippers" all we need is some milk. Yum Yum!