Leaving Oakmont

June 30, 2013 — 7 Comments

I spent my school career through the 8th grade in the small town of Oakmont, PA, a suburb of Pittsburgh. This tiny, close knit (nosey) community was about the Oakmont Country Club and Edgewater Steel, and some other stuff. For kids it was paradise with millionaire robber baron neighbors providing lavish recreational opportunities.  My parents were Republicans who disliked JFK and did not play golf.  On one hand they were non conformist, and on the other, very concerned with image.  I had a running battle with my mother for my entire grade school career about bangs, permanent waves, and white socks.  These symbols of culture and control were so important to my mother that my wishes were never considered.  She stuck my hair in the sink and put stinky stuff and curlers in it against my will, and with loud protest.  She always cut my bangs off, mullet style.  The most important symbol to Ruby Morse was the little girl’s need to wear white anklet socks.  This was truly the most hated of all conditions, the white sock purgatory. Ruby Morse believed that wearing stockings was a sign of loose morals.  I believed she inflicted the white socks as a crazed statement of micro management.  We had deep, basic irreconcilable fashion differences.

Management of any kind was about to fly out the window when the family moved to San Tomé, Venezuela in 1963.  My father became the general manager for Mene Grande ( Gulf Oil) for eastern Venezuela.  This meant that I lived in a big house with servants and my father was the boss of everyone in the town where I lived.  My teachers in school worked for my father, as did all my friends’ parents.  Strangers constantly gave me lovely gifts, and it was obviously too hot to wear white socks.  I was the lucky imperialist 13-year-old with everything.  I lived in a remote place so radio was a lot less available than it had been in Pittsburgh.  The strongest reliable signal came from Radio Havana.  Fidel would hold forth for hours and then they played some music.  Live music was everywhere.  I had a harp serenade at my window by a guy who wrote the song for me.  This could not have happened in Pennsylvania.  Although San Tomé had a golf course, there was no other commonality with Oakmont, PA.  Nothing could have been more drastic, really.  I loved it, but when given the chance to choose where I would go abroad for 10th grade, I chose PA because I still thought of it as my US home.  I have not visited Oakmont since 1964.

I will return to Oakmont to see some of my school friends in a couple of months.  We have all traveled different paths, but mine diverged drastically and forever.  I am bringing back memories and enjoying the stories that my classmates remember.  Some scenes are vivid as I think of them, and some are gone.  I hardly remember any of the parents.  Our personalities are in tact, from what I can detect on our Facebook page.  We will go and physically be in the building where we went to elementary grades together.  I think it will be amazing..our own versions of what we remember.  I look forward to it with great anticipation.