HOOD RIVER — Hello, here we are again with another “Senior to Senior” interview. This time, we will be featuring the lovely woman that is Betty Lou. Same questions, different answers. She led a very different life than our previous interview candidate, Joan — who battled sickness and promoted the importance of staying positive in life. Now we have Betty Lou, who values family and recalls her experience with marrying and having children young, alongside what that meant for her academic life and her ability to travel.
I found these candidates as I was walking around Parkhurst Place in The Heights, going from room to room and talking to several different people. Eventually, I settled down in a room with three women doing aerobics. I was drawn to this room because from it came some very lively conversation, and lots of laughter.
When their exercise was over, I greeted them and decided that these three women would be my three interview candidates. I was drawn to their energy, and I felt as though I could relate to them — that the years between us didn’t make much of a difference in our characters. I could see myself in the women before me, I could see my mother, my aunts, and my friends in these women, giggling and laughing with one another.
Together they embodied warmth and friendship, but to understand their dynamic and what makes them who they, are it is important to honor them individually, so here I give you Betty Lou, a woman of few words, but a story worth unraveling.
Betty Lou, age 90
Q: If you could swap bodies with your 18-year-old self, what is the first thing you would do?
“Graduate high school, ha ha, and go to college.”
Q: If you could sit down and have a conversation with a younger version of yourself, what is one piece of advice you would give, or something you would tell her to do differently?
“I don’t know … when I was 18, I got pregnant and raised a family.”
Q: How was that experience for you?
“It was great. It was beautiful.”
Q: Is it something you ever wished you did later on, or were you happy with when you did it?
“No, it’s what I wanted.”
Q: My next question is if you want to tell a story of any one specific life experience that you’ll never forget, that stands out when you look back on the things you’ve done, something that was really formative?
“I don’t know, I guess I don’t have one … I just enjoyed my time, all the time.”
Q: What should I prioritize as I enter the “real world”?
“Well, my crew … my crew all went to college, I remember someone went into the service, they all got jobs, that was a really good route for all of them.”
Q: My final question for you is if you just have any last words you wanna say? Any last stories you wanna tell, advice, favorite song, favorite movie, just kind of a note about anything, this is your moment to share anything you want!
“I’d say I’m probably addicted to the TV channel, Hallmark channel … and well, I married a man immediately after I came out of high school, I graduated in ‘53, and I got married and moved in, and had a kid … I didn’t have the chance to go anywhere.”
Q: Do you ever wish you chance to go out and do more?
“I think, evidently, yeah.”
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This is intern Anneliese Richardson’s second story to appear in Columbia Gorge News. See her introduction, online at columbiagorgenews.com, to learn more about this high school senior.
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