Taken from an email to Amanda:

Went to grade school with a boy named Titsworth.

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And a girl named, I swear to God, Frankie Lookey*. She had flam­ing red curly hair. I have a won­der­ful story for you about her:

Her brother lived in the attic, pull down stairs so it was lit­tle more than a crawl space… he was high school age, we were in 7^th grade. 1967 or ’68.

Once, when I spent the night at her house with friend Roberta Turner — we fre­quently had “slum­ber par­ties” in her family’s camper trailer where we opened up all the fold­able beds like the kitchen table one and the couch one and made the whole trailer a giant flat mat­tress — we’d play “holy roller” and “save” each other by rolling into the sides of the trailer walls and pre­tend­ing to speak in tongues.

Any­way, this one night, we were play­ing holy roller and Frankie’s grand­mother came out and started scream­ing at us to “GET OUT OF THE TRAILER NOW!!!” and we thought we were in trou­ble for mak­ing fun of her grandmother’s church but no –

there was a tor­nado headed toward Fort Smith and we all had to go down to the ‘fraidy hole. I kid you not. There was a mound of earth in the back yard with a door in it, we had to go down some rock stairs into the hole that must have been maybe 6 ft square and 10 feet under ground and sit on wooden planks while her grand­mother held a can­dle and her mom had a dimly lit flash­light, her dad a kerosene lantern.

Some slum­ber par­ties you just never forget.

*name changed to pro­tect my faulty mem­ory banks…

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