Betty Lou was a very young girl when the family packed up everything they owned and lit out of Prior, Oklahoma bound for California. They weren't alone...it was the early thirties and most "Okies" were leaving the dust bowl for better climes. The Doren family looked a lot like the folks in the movie "Grapes of Wrath"...all their wordly possessions tied on to the Model A truck, kids stacked on the back. Their destination was the work camps of central California but because of good luck and a friend of Grampa's, they wound up in San Diego. They settled into a bungalow type home on "J" Street and Grandpa and the boys went to work moving houses around San Diego County. My earliest memories are of that house and the garden Grandpa kept behind it

Since the boys' wives worked, too, Grandma usually had a house full of grandchildren. The family was close; they helped each other out and hid each other out, too...but that is topic for another post. What I wanted to share today is the story of how one of our family expressions got started. Every family has their own little sayings and expressions...we did, too.

One of my cousins was Phillip Wayne (Okies ALL have two first names). When Betty Lou was about 9 or 10, Phillip Wayne was about 3 or 4. He had gotten a pair of cowboy boots one year for a present and wore them everywhere. Even when his feet got bigger than the boots, he insisted on wearing them. Saturdays were movie days. The theater was about 10 blocks from the house and Betty Lou would round up the kids that were old enough to make the walk and lead the group to the theater...Grandpa provided the nickels required to get in. There were always the serials and cartoons and a double feature...Hoot Gibson...Johnny Mack Brown...Tom Mix...that sort of thing. Every week Betty Lou tried to talk Phillip Wayne into not going or at least to wear different shoes. But Phillip Wayne was going and he was wearing them boots. And every week about five blocks from the house, Phillip Wayne's whiny little voice would start in..."Betty Loooou...my peet hurt". Tough as she was, she could only stand it for a half block or so because he repeated it endlessly, then she would hoist him up piggy back and carry him the rest of the way to the theater. Hearing her tell it, it was every week for years...but reason points out that it wouldn' t be a year or two before Phillip Wayne could carry his bony little Aunt Betty Lou instead of the other way around. Any way, that is where it came from.

Betty Lou and her sisters Essie (May) and Mary (born in California...not required to use middle name) worked as car hops and waitresses most of my young years. I have vivid memories of visiting them at various establishments and getting special treatment. When Mary and Essie were at the soda fountain in the Thrifty drug store, I used to get chocolate sundaes and endless refills on the whipped cream. My favorite (though, NOT theirs) was when they worked at the Vaquero on Magnolia in El Cajon. They wore skin tight dark brown capris and roller-skated the orders in and out. Those skin tight pants were worth a lot of extra quarters in tips. But when they came home and sat on the sofa rubbing their calves and feet...Essie would mimic the whiny Phillip Wayne and say, "Betty Loooou...my peet hurt".