Janice Carter

I have been having fun raising my children, 6 grand-children and 4 husbands. The husbands wern't all that much fun. Just kidding.
I spent 30 years waitressing and I really did enjoy that. I started my career at the downtown airport, and wouldn't you know, everyone was in a hurry. It seemed they always had a plane to catch. I took a break for a while and went back to school when I was 34 and became a Medical Assistant. Not fun and games. I went to work for the KC Community Blood Center the day that the Hyatt colapsed. Baptisim by fire at that job. If any of you remember, people were lined up clear down the block for three days. God bless America.
I sure saw a lot of the human spirit.
I worked at this job(I was called a vampire by my friends). Great friends huh. I did like it but I couldn't support my children on the pay so I went back to waitressing. In 2000 I couldn't take the pain that waitressing was doing to my body any longer. I came back to the KC area from Branson, Springfield and Cape Fair for a job. Been here ever since. I worked for an MRI facility for 5 years until the company had to downsize. Guess who didn't have a job anymore? I have learned to put most of my faith in God. I still thought that I knew what I needed to do. Anyway, that is why I am semi-retired. The cream of the crop is getting what there is out there, not the old folks.
I love my life, and just hope someone pops into it, but I love my family and couldn't be more pleased for my children and grandchildren.

My best friends in school were Joyce Hart and Linda Bowie. I still see Linda Bowie every year on Memorial Day weekend. She and her husband live in Austin Tx. Her family is nice enough to share her with me.
I see Joyce Hart less than that, but we talk on the phone often.
The three of us were together about 5 years ago for the first time in 33 years. I am proud that we have kept in touch and try to see each other when we get the chance.

I had a lot of fun times in school. After school, we walked or rode the bus to my house and had baloney sandwiches or peanut butter and jelly and danced to the good ole music on WHB. One of the things that we liked was to stand on the corner uptown and people watch. We loved stopping in at Beggs Pharmacy to have a soda and chips. Do you remember Jerry Bush? He worked the soda fountain and grill. He and my stepsister Martisua were dating, so that's why we spent many afternoons there.
On weekends, Joyce, Linda and I would usually walk uptown to meet and then find something to do.
One summer, we talked Tom, the owner of A&W rootbeer stand, into not hireing anyone other than us to work there. We covered all the shifts and sometimes we all worked together and had a lot of fun. Not a lot of money, but the fun was worth it.
My best friends moved in our sophomore and junior years. I married in Nov. of our senior year and school as I had known it was over. I did manage to graduate though. Boy was that a story! Was I the only one who went across the stage to get my diploma only to get back to my seat and open it to find no diploma. I shut it very quickly. I thought that I didn't graduate. My dad was going to be furious! He only let me get married if I promised to graduate. Then I looked around and to my profound relief no one had a diploma! Well, then I had to sweat it out until I turned my cap and gown in to get it. Silly me, I probably wasn't listening when we were told of that routine.
Anyway, I did like school, I wasn't the brightest bulb, but I did learn from Mrs. Pugh.
Some of my favorite classes were Home Ecomonics, Math, American and World History. Does anyone remember the rain dance. Who was the teacher? I also enjoyed any class when the teacher would let us go out on the front lawn of the school. I was proud to go to that school.
One of my funny memories from gym class was when Linda Sales pretended to loose a contact. Does anyone else remember that. A bunch of us were crawling around on the floor pretending to look for it.
I absolutely loved our Homecomming parades when we all would walk to the square and meet there for the huge pep ralley. We were sure something then. Huh?
There are so many times that I remember about that time of our lives that was just the best. I have six grandchildren and they can't believe some of the things that we had in school, like the fact that we had to buy our books or that girls couldn't wear jeans or slacks.
One thing that I know for sure was that we never had our 45 year class reunion on our minds at that time.