Patti's Affinity for Taxis

Well....it's been a while, huh? Blog-worthy events rarely happen to us, as you already know if you're one of our 3 faithful followers. I heard on the news tonight about a woman and her blog a1bout how difficult it is to be a military wife and not having your husband around for such long periods of time. She has over 19,000 followers! Can you believe that? Maybe we should visit her blog and then blog about that!

So Patti and I were in church a couple of weeks ago and started sharing childhood stories and teenage memories. She mentioned when she was in pre-Primary, she won the Best Dressed Cowgirl! Yee Hah! Somehow Daddy was supposed to take her to the rodeo with the tickets she won, and Patti remembered Daddy getting real mad about having to do that!  Daddy was easily annoyed!

I remember when Mother bought Patti and I matching dresses for "Go Western Day." Mine was turquoise and Patti's was bright pink. They both had tons of tacky, silver ric-rac all over them and the blouse was sort of a peasant style, with a scoop neck and lots of elastic! They had huge full skirts requiring blow-up hoop skirt petticoats to make them look especially bouncy and lovely (and ridiculous)!!. To top it off, we had white cowgirl hats, white boots and silver concho belts. Belts have never been a good look for me! We must have looked like the biggest losers, and we never won any prizes. No one even spoke to us, and it even might be the reason I got beat up once at school! It seemed those dresses lasted for YEARS, and they kind of did, because when we grew out of them, Pattis' was looming in the closet for me!

Back to the story as it relates to the title of this post!  Another memory from Patti was in pre-school when she was on the merry-go-round and got sick (like she always did whenever she moved. See one our older posts, "The Bear That Went to Cloudcroft!") She had to go home, and instead of coming to get her, Mother sent a taxi to bring her home.....which reminded her of the time when she attended Austin High School and she didn't have a ride home after the football game, so she called Mother who sent another taxi! "Why couldn't she just pick me up herself?" Patti whiiiiined!


In Mother's defense, she worked the night shift for over 25 years in Labor and Delivery at Southwestern General Hospital, and she slept during the day when we were at school. There were lots of other issues we won't get into now, but I guess it was just easier for her to send a taxi rather than getting up and dressed to run all over town after Patti!

I think the same thing happened when Patti graduated from high school. Our brother had joined the Marines so he wasn't available to attend. I couldn't go unless Mother went, because I was too young to drive. So no one saw Patti graduate. After it was all over, she must have called Mother again to pick her up, and soon after, roaring down the street, came another taxi!! I asked her if she had to climb into the taxi with her cap and gown on, in front of her friends!! Imagine! Poor Patti.

But to Mother's defense, Rocky reminded me of another taxi incident. We went to the Miner football game one Saturday night when the games were actually worth the price of the tickets. It was really crowded all around us, and suddenly Robyn got sick and started throwing up in the stands. Well, that cleared everyone out immediately, and suddenly we had great seats!! But back to the story. Robyn continued to feel pretty bad, and Patti, apparently hardened by her own sad taxi experiences, and following family tradition, called a cab to take Robyn home! Patti had more important things to do....like watch the football game! On the ride home, Robyn threw up again in the cab which really displeased the cab driver!!

I guess now I should say "Poor Robyn!"