What I Wanted But Didn't Get

By Celia Yeary

ME IN THOSE DREADED GIRL'S JEANS AT AGE TEN--

AT LEAST I GOT SADDLE OXFORDS

     The first thing I remember wanting but didn't get was a bicycle. My little sister and I hoped and prayed we’d get bicycles for Christmas in 1950. I was ten and she was eight, and we lived in a very tiny three-room stucco house in Levelland, Texas. It was our first year in that small West Texas town, and little did we know, we'd settle there after following oil fields for six years--moving at least once a year. We sneaked out of bed on Christmas morning and tip-toed to the Christmas tree. No bicycles. We peeked through the curtains at the front yard. No bicycles. Instead, Santa brought us identical dolls, identical packages of panties, identical lockets, and identical white New Testaments.
     In seventh grade, I got glasses, probably six years too late, because I could not see anything at a distance. I wanted to be like the other girls without glasses, but no, I was shy, wore glasses and cardigan sweaters, and skirts. So, I muddled through junior high, being the smart girl, the sweet one, the nice girl--not exactly what I wanted.
     During my ninth grade year, I had all four wisdom teeth pulled because they were pushing my teeth forward. This made a few a little crooked, but no one ever in my life mentioned my crooked teeth, so I figured they weren't that bad. However, I asked for braces. I begged for braces, crying my eyes out. No, we could not afford them. In fact, I think only one girl in the entire school had braces, but she was the rich girl. That made me mad because I never knew she had crooked teeth, and believed she only got them to show off.
      The Cold War was raging, and I became very fearful of an atomic bomb dropping on our town. It could happen, I told my daddy. Please, I begged him, build us a bomb shelter in the back yard. I'd read about them, so I knew how they were built, and the supplies we were to put down there. No, he said, we can't afford a bomb shelter, but he wouldn't build one even if we could. I loved my daddy with all my heart, but at that time, I hated him. He seemed unreasonable and stubborn about the request, so I decided he didn't love me.
     Later in high school, I asked Mother for boys' jeans. It was the beginning era of rock'n'roll, Elvis, and Bill Haley and the Comets. Some girls began to wear boys' jeans rolled up in wide cuffs, saddle oxfords, and their daddy's white shirts hanging out. I wanted that, too, but no, Mother said. You will not wear boy's jeans. You can wear girls' jeans that zip on the side....but no, that was not the point. I wore dresses to school every single day, until the day I graduated.
~~*~~
     But what happened concerning those things I wanted?
    In the end, I didn't care if I had a bike or not. After that year, a bicycle did not interest me because few others rode bikes, and those few were boys.
     Yes, in seventh grade I had glasses and was shy and wore cardigans. but in eighth grade? With the same glasses, and a pink sweater outfit, I was chosen Most Popular. Wow.
     As a wise and smarter adult, I realized one day I'd gotten every important thing I wanted with glasses and not so perfect teeth-a handsome, smart husband, a daughter and son, both brilliant, of course, three unique grandsons who are very big now but who still hug me and say, "I love you, Grandmother," and nice homes everywhere we moved.
      I'm pretty sure I forgot about that bomb shelter by the next week..or maybe the next day. Mother always told me that I woke up in a new world every morning. I was never sure what she meant by that, except now in my senior years, I think it means I don't hold grudges from the day before, I forget about arguments very quickly, and I'm most often happy.
     On the other hand, it might mean that I could never remember what happened the day before.
     The boys' jeans? Probably that was a good call on my mother's part. Some girls looked very cute and sexy in their outfits, but I have a feeling I wouldn't have looked so good. I didn't exactly have a straight up and down body like a boy's.
~~*~~
     I wonder what kind of a person I'd be now if I had been given everything I wanted. Some parents do indulge their children to such an extent that there's little left for the child to want. "Wanting" and "yearning" are character builders. This is my interpretation and conclusion. 
     What is left in this world if we have nothing to work for? To yearn for? To hope for?
     Writing romance novels has given me a chance to use my well-earned knowledge of the human heart. Our heroine must yearn for her hero, and our hero must work to earn her love. And together, they hope for a happily-ever-after life, even though the road might be a little bumpy along the way.
     In my newest release—All My Hopes and Dreams—with PRP, Cynthia Harrington is the beautiful daughter of the banker, the richest man in Nacogdoches, Texas. She has seen Ricardo Romero in town and wondered about him, but she had her sights set on the town’s “favorite son,” Jeffrey ‘Buck’ Cameron, one of the prestigious Camerons of Texas.
      But what she wanted…she did not get. Buck chose someone else. So, Cynthia tries a very amateurish run-away plan. In doing so, she encounters..who else? Ricardo Romero.
     He follows her and they meet on the dusty road she takes out of town.
      Excerpt:
     “May I ask how is it that you speak in a precise aristocratic tone one time, and at the other, you drawl as if you’re a Texan?”
     Ricardo chuckled as he shifted to lay on his side and prop himself up on his elbow. He looked up into her pretty face. “The way I was reared, I suppose. Formal speech for polite occasions; regular drawl for casual ones. Something like that.”
     “Excuse me, but you’re Mexican. No Mexican I know speaks nor dresses as you do.”
     Patiently he answered. “I am not Mexican. I’m a United States citizen, born in Texas where I’ve lived my entire life. I’ve never lived in Mexico and only traveled there once.”
     She cocked her head in bemusement. “I don’t understand.”
     Now, he sat up to talk earnestly to her. It was important to make her understand. “I am Spanish, descended from the early Spaniards, two hundred years back. My father traces his ancestry all the way back to Spanish royalty. My mother is half-Spanish. Her father was a Comanche warrior.”
     “What!” She placed her hand to her breast. “Your mother is half-Indian?”
     “Yes, and proud of it. She loved her father very much and grew up on a huge ranch and hacienda in far South Texas. He gave up his native ways and lived as the Spanish did, running cattle and sheep, and farming.”
     “My,” she breathed.
     “Yes, you see, a Mexican is a citizen of Mexico, just as an American is a citizen of the United States of America. Either might be of various ancestries, though, such as Spanish or Indian from Mexico or the U. S.”
     “So, you’re an American?”
     “Yes, of course. Most of the Spanish migrated to California a hundred years ago. They didn’t do well under their own rule in Texas, but they’ve been highly successful on the West Coast.”
     “But your family stayed.”
     He nodded. “My father’s family had some land, so they toughed it out, as they say.”
     Ricardo saw her open her mouth to speak, so he spoke first. “So, Miss Harrington, I answered your questions; now you must answer mine.”
     “What about?” she asked.
      “Just why are you running away? You have a perfectly good home, a father who obviously loves you, and you want for nothing.”

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A FULL-LENGTH NOVEL

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Celia Yeary-Romance...and a little bit 'o Texas

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