A TRIBUTE TO JOYCE KLAPSTEIN HALL ON THE OCCASION OF HER 70TH BIRTHDAY
There is one person on earth who calls me “Mary” and gets
away with it. Joyce (Klapstein) Hall has been that person for 62 years! We met
at Bible Standard Institute (aka Bible Standard College, Eugene Bible College,
New Hope College) in Eugene, Oregon, when we were eight years old. No, we were
not prodigies who went to college at eight years of age! Our fathers were the
college administrators, Joyce’s the president and mine the vice president.
I was a few months older than Joyce (aka Jodi, Joybelle), so
we were a grade apart, but instant and forever besties.
Our first mutual memories are of running wild through the
halls of the tiny college building, jumping down flights of stairs and hiding
inside the knee-holes of teacher desks in the classrooms, as our fathers vainly
called for us after late events at the school. Not as reverent as we should
have been, we rolled on the thick red carpet in the prayer room and laughed
ourselves silly.
My parents both worked at the college, mother being the
librarian, and since I was an “only child,” with no siblings, I hung out at
Joyce’s house after school and on weekends, where there was always something
happening. Joyce had two sisters, one older and one younger, so there was a lot
of activity, laughter, arguing, competition and craziness in her house. (My
house was way too quiet!)
My favorite memories of Joyce’s house are the frequent
sleepovers. Joyce and I shared a big bed in the basement bedroom, sitting up
late at night to play Candyland and Uncle Wiggly, or just talking and laughing
ourselves to sleep.
Her little sister, Sharon, often joined us for those games
and seemed always to want to hang around us, the older, more worldly-wise
sisters. Sara Alys (aka Sally), Joyce’s older sister, was the sophisticate of
the bunch, and very pretty. I always admired Sally, wanting to be like her.
One of our fondest memories is of our “performances” in the
front picture window of the house. The floor length curtains served as our
stage curtains, and on cue, we would perform such show-stoppers as “Tom Dooley”
or other pop tunes, for the family, who were obliged to sit through the caterwauling,
as though they enjoyed it. Joyce’s mother or Sally sometimes accompanied us on the piano, as
we sang soulful, tear jerking renditions of “Where the Roses Never Fade” or “Precious
Memories.” What we never considered was how our performances must have looked
to the passersby on Willamette Street, the main street of town that ran right
past the window. Our nutty costumes and antics were visible from behind, as
well as to the living room’s captive audience.
I remember the evenings when we were left alone in the
house, when Joyce’s parents had to be away. Inevitably, some undecipherable
noise would spook all of us, and we would tiptoe through the dark house to the
kitchen, where we armed ourselves with butcher knives or other implements and
waited beside the door for some invisible intruder. Years later, we marveled
that we had never hurt ourselves, or some unwitting arrival, with those
desperate weapons!
When we were in Junior High, I moved temporarily to
Pasadena, CA, where my father took over a sister college. When Joyce and her
folks came to visit, we had such a rollicking good time, it is a wonder anybody
put up with us. Most memorable of that visit is our riding around in the back
of the Klapstein station wagon, feet out the window of the back-facing seat
with scarves tied to our toes, as we belted out “Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka-dot
Bikini.” No cop siren could have been more intimidating!
Joyce and I spent years together, but eventually, after high
school, life separated us to different parts of the country, interests and
obligations. We call the intervening years the “lost years,” and it is sad to
think how many experiences we were unable to share. When we had children, Joyce
named her firstborn the same as I had named mine, “Aaron.” We got together
every now and then, and found that, whenever we did, it was as though no time
had passed. We just picked up where we had left off, with laughter and sharing.
One such time, my sons and I visited Joyce and her family in
Fresno. My Aaron and I continued the performing habit by entertaining them with magic tricks, courtesy of Aaron’s
sunglassed, head-scarved pseudo-Arabic alter-ego, “Aarony-Baloney.” The
gut-splitting laughter is never to be forgotten!
A couple of years ago, we reunited, now as grandparents,
with aging bodies and somewhat creased faces. But, we are the same girls we
always were. Our laughter still pervades any house we are in, and our husbands
get a kick out of our behavior, which is unlike our behavior with anybody else.
We often consider how fortunate we were, to grow up when and
where we did, and with the parents we had. We were blessed beyond measure, to
be raised in households of faith and love, and we have done our best to pass
the favor on to our own children and grandchildren.
Joyce, you are now joining me as a 70-something. I want to
tell you how much you mean to me, and how much I hope we will always share the
same hearts we have shared all these years.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR, DEAR FRIEND!!
