Our Children in the Eighties (10)

Hey, You - Out of the Pool!  Now!

Ruby graduated from Washington in 1985. She enrolled at ACU that fall.  She eventually received a degree in human communication.  In 1987, I asked Ruby to drop out of college for a year because the financial pressure was just more than I could stand.   I’ve always felt badly about having to do that, but there just didn’t seem to be any way around it.

 Ruby spent the year back in Cedar Rapids.  She was quite active in church life.  She spent part of that year working for a law firm.  She was something of a “gofer.”  She would have to wear tasteful dress clothes to work because she sometimes had to deliver documents to attorney in the midst of a trial.  On those days, she would take both her sneakers and her dress shoes. She would head out for the court house with the legal documents in one hand, and her dress shoes in the other hand.  That was important because she had to walk to the court house, and that meant sloshing through the snow.  Once inside the courthouse, she would slip on her high heels and enter the court room looking like a very professional business lady.  

Later she worked as a lifeguard at the Y.  At the Y, she learned to be assertive.  Being a lifeguard meant that she had to corral a lot of bratty kids.  One day, I think she even surprised herself.  She caught a young man misbehaving, and she yelled, “Hey, you – out of the pool!  Now!”  That was a different side of Ruby that was emerging.  Today, she manages a business.  I wonder if she could have ever pulled it off had she not come down hard on that smart aleck boy.

During that time she got acquainted with fellow life guard, Susan Peter.  She brought Susan to church, and Susan found the Lord.  After we moved back to Cedar Rapids, a lady dropped by the church building one night to find out of there was anybody she still knew.  It was Susan (now Susan Kearney a responsible wife and mother).   We are still in touch with Susan.   She’s lives in Dallas and is still walking with the Lord. 

After staying out a year, Ruby returned to ACU, where she pursued her major in human communications.  She involved herself with the Hillcrest church in Abilene, and served as an RA.  As an RA (college dorm person who enforce the school’s rules in the dormitory, like curfew and other things, Ruby learned even more assertiveness, and also how to listen to people when they have problems.