Suburban Renewal (22 page)

In early November the Food Section of the
Tulsa World
wrote one little paragraph about Okie Tamales in Lumkee. After that, I quit my job and purchased the empty five-and-dime building next to the drugstore. Our new sign was created from three-foot-high neon instead of felt pen.

1996

T
he phenomenal success of Okie Tamales came as a big surprise to me. I guess it came as a surprise to everyone. One minute we were sitting around our kitchen making tamales for family therapy, and the next our product was being sold in grocery stores all over the state.

Well, maybe it wasn't that fast, but almost.

Sam quit his job and devoted himself full-time to the business. But he couldn't do it all himself.

Although I was proud and pleased, and Sam spoke of our streak of good fortune as a “true family venture” where everybody's efforts had counted, it was Sam who got patted on the back from people around town. It was Sam who was nominated for businessperson of the year by the Chamber of Commerce. It was Sam who was a guest speaker at the Oklahoma Grocers Association.

I found this vague feeling of jealousy haunting me. For so long now I had been the star player in our family. All the years that Sam was out of work, I was the person to keep things going. I was the one who'd pursued my education. I was the one who'd tried to better myself. I was the one who worked to get ahead. After
years of sacrifice and struggle, my master's degree was only a thesis away from completion. Yet the added income that it would mean was no longer critical to sending the kids to college. For ten years I had been the one to bring home the biggest paycheck. I liked that. I'd grown so accustomed to it. I was buoyed by it. Sam's sudden, seemingly undeserved, falling-into-a-pot-of-jam success was, for me, somehow deflating.

I found myself denigrating his achievement, minimizing his accomplishment. There was no one better to aid me in this unkind pursuit than my own mother.

“It's not like he's found a cure for cancer,” I complained to her. “He's making tamales, for heaven's sake. Any illiterate Mexican grandma across the border can do it.”

Mom nodded in complete agreement. “I just hope and pray every day that the children are not lured away from their potential intellectual achievements by the fast, easy money of their father's get-rich-quick scheme.”

I nodded in agreement. Although, the terms “fast, easy money” and “get rich quick” didn't quite jive with the reality of my husband tiptoeing around the house in the morning before leaving for work at 5:00 a.m.

“I just hate having the Maynard name associated with such a déclassé enterprise,” Mom continued. “It was bad enough when Sam was in the oil business. Oil is necessarily dirty. But food service? And not even a nice restaurant with tablecloths. He actually sells food in brown paper bags.”

It was true. Fresh tamales were sold at the door and the only change in the packing was that the bags now had the
Okie Tamales
name and logo. Even the vacuum
sealed packs that went into the grocery stores were designed to look like brown paper.

“And the jabbering that goes on in that factory,” Mom continued. “Well, I know that's as much your father's fault as your husband's, but it is just so off-putting.”

The jabbering that she referred to was Korean.

Though business in the drugstore was doing much better, my dad decided that he was as recovered as he was going to get and that he much preferred semi-retirement to the headaches of owning the store.

He sold Maynard Drug to Hye Won and her older brother, Song, a thoracic surgeon in Tulsa. They turned around and hired Dad to be her part-time, backup pharmacist. It was just a few hours a week and perfect for him.

Hye Won bought a nice big home in Lumkee and moved her parents and her two youngest siblings in with her. Mr. Chai had been a gardener and Mrs. Chai, a housewife. Sam hired them both to work for him in the tamale factory. It was mostly sit-down work and they were right next door to their daughter every day. As the business expanded, the Chais brought along relatives, friends and acquaintances. Sam hired them on as he needed them. Mr. Chai was the natural manager and kept everybody on time and on task. Okie Tamales was the only downtown Lumkee business where Korean was the spoken language.

The Chai teenagers, Jin and Chano, helped after school both at the tamale factory and in the drugstore. Jin was Nate's age, cute, popular and the brightest student in her class. Chano was just starting out in high school. He made good grades, although he was not
considered as smart as his sister. But he was athletic, which guaranteed him success at Lumkee High.

I liked the family. At the university, I'd met lots of different people and I thought diversity was good for our community. It was Sam who'd accomplished that. It was just another reason for me to be annoyed at him.

I tried to work through it—to rationalize my way through my irrational envy. I concentrated on my thesis: Designing Classrooms for Optimal Learning. My idea was to assess student-task completion in classrooms designed to be psychologically positive for specific age behavior and contrast those numbers with classrooms of traditional design that focused on workplace needs of teachers. It was a daunting undertaking, forcing me to create the test environment, formulate the assessments and then do them, both in the new classroom and the traditional one.

For the first time in all my studies, the Internet became my prime source for research. The computer had been part of the library for years now. And with a certifiable geek in our midst at home, I was certainly familiar with the World Wide Web. But it was not until this thesis that I learned so much of the latest and best was out there at the touch of my fingertips. I was able to contact teachers with experience in classroom design from all over the country. And by connecting with them, I quickly discovered that my ideas were in the forefront of new thinking on the subject.

I also discovered some software programs online that were used by dot.com home-decoration sites and could be modified for use in classrooms. In fact, I became very excited about some of the knowledge base I discovered in home decor and how flawlessly it could be transferred to learning spaces.

I quit competing with Lauren and Nate for computer time and went out and bought myself an updated, high-powered, high-dollar laptop. Doggedly I pursued my own interests and concentrated on my goals. And tried not to compare them to those of Sam or Okie Tamales.

I was rudely jerked out of my personal quest and preoccupation with a bombshell dropped by my daughter.

Lauren, with her perfect features and long, chestnut hair, had grown into a tall, lean beauty, the kind you see staring back at you from all the fashion magazines. She was not the number-one student in her class, but she was easily in the top five. A National Merit Scholar, she made 1420 on her SATs. We were thrilled. Along with her extra-curricular activities, volunteer work and social activism, she was as incredibly impressive on a college entrance application as she was in person.

Sam and I had high expectations. Certainly we expected a scholarship from some good local colleges. We might even get some from distant, more prestigious institutions. And we were both agreed that if she was accepted at some fabulous Ivy League school, we'd see that she got the education she wanted, no matter how we had to pay for it.

With all the paperwork in the mail, we waited to see what would happen, what she would decide and where she would go.

Sam and I were on pins and needles. And when letters came from all over the country from universities wanting her to attend, we were thrilled. All that was left was her decision.

I was torn between wanting her to stay close to home where we could see her often, and wanting for her the
adventure of a faraway school where the educational standard was phenomenal and everyone and everything was a brand-new experience.

“I've decided,” she said one evening when it was just the three of us at home.

“That's wonderful,” I told her. “Your father and I are so excited and anxious to hear.”

Truly, we were both on the edge of our seats.

Lauren hesitated, as if she was loathe to share the news with us.

“Mom, Dad,” she said, first biting her lip and then taking a deep breath for courage, “I've chosen the Latin American studies program at Living Waters Bible College in Earline, Mississippi,” she said.

For a long moment there was a complete stunned silence in our family room.

Sam and I looked at each other.

“Is this a joke?” Sam asked.

“No, Daddy,” she said. “There is nothing to joke about.”

“Bible college?”

“Earline, Mississippi?”

Our questions bordered on the incredulous.

“They have the most intensive program in the country,” she said. “I can get a bachelor of Bible degree in three years. And with my major as Latin American studies, well, the opportunities are tremendous.”

“Latin American studies?” I asked. “You're planning to teach?”

“Oh, no,” she said, and then corrected herself. “Well, on some level you could say that I am.” Lauren took another deep breath and gave us a bright smile. “I've received my call.”

I couldn't imagine what she meant.

“This Living Waters Bible College called you?”

“No, no, God has called me,” she said. “He's called me to tend his sheep, his poor forgotten sheep in countries like Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay. I'm going to be a missionary.”

“A missionary?” Sam and I responded in unison.

“I'm taking up my cross and following Christ's admonition to go unto all the world and teach the gospel,” she said. “I've been called to take the message of Christ to the people of South America.”

“I thought the people of South America were all Catholics,” Sam said.

“Catholicism may be the state religion,” Lauren corrected him, “but most of the poor people, the native peoples, still worship as they did a thousand years ago.”

Sam shrugged. “If it's worked for a thousand years, why mess with it?”

Lauren was in no frame of mind to appreciate humor.

“I knew that you wouldn't be accepting,” she said with a sigh. “I've put off telling you for months because I was afraid you'd be like this.”

“It's just such a shock,” I told her.

“Why is it a shock?” she asked me defensively. “Did you think that I would follow along in this clean comfortable place I've always been sheltered in? That I would never have the courage to look out to a broader world and say, ‘Where can I do some good?' Do you just want me to marry some nice fellow from the next suburb over, and drive a couple of overindulged, over-protected children around in a minivan? Is that what you want for me?”

“No, of course not, Lauren,” I assured her. “Have
your father and I ever suggested that we didn't want anything but for you to fly as high as you can? We want you to reach your potential. You are a bright young woman. Of course you want to make a difference in the world. But there are a lot of ways to do that. A lot of ways that don't involve Bible college or mud huts in the Andes.”

“Think of what a smart mind like yours might be able to come up with in a research lab or behind a telescope,” Sam said. “I'm not saying that what you're proposing isn't a good thing, but with all the brains and talent that you have, you could be put to better use in a broader way.”

“This is where God wants me,” she stated adamantly. “You're my parents, I love you and honor you. But I must go where God leads me.
The harvest is truly heavy, but the laborers are few.
”

There is never any way to have a rational discussion with someone who answers all questions with biblical quotes.

“You may think I'm wasting my life,” Lauren said. “But Gram would be proud of me. I know if Gram was here, she'd be proud of me.”

“She would,” Sam agreed. “She was always proud of you. And we are, too.”

That night as Sam and I lay in the bed in our new, spacious master bedroom suite at the back of the house, we tried to shore up our disappointment by being philosophical.

“She's barely eighteen,” I pointed out. “If we give her some space, then somehow she will find herself and her own direction.”

“Our children are truly amazing,” Sam said. “One tries to be so bad, we never know what he might do.
And the other one tries to be so
good,
we never know what she might do.”

“I'm afraid for her out in the world,” I admitted. “I'm afraid for both of them.”

Sam nodded. “Me, too. When they were little I thought that if they could just get big enough then I wouldn't worry. The worries get bigger as fast as the kids.”

“I don't think that ever stops,” I told him. “I remember having a talk with Gram after Floyd Braydon came to town. She was worried, but she had faith that you'd turn out all right.”

“I guess that's something to hold on to,” Sam said. “We haven't been perfect parents, but we've tried our best. I suppose we just have to hang in there and hope that it was good enough.”

I sighed in agreement.

“I loved what you said about her brains and talent being used in a broader way,” I said.

“I believe that,” Sam said. “I've never been as smart as you and the kids. I'm not an idiot, I read a lot and I can figure things out. I've got common sense and I'm a hard worker. But I just don't have the same level of intelligence as the rest of you. Making tamales is good, honest work. I like doing it, it keeps me close to home and it pays the bills. But I want more than that for my kids. I'd want more than that for you.”

“And I have more than that,” I pointed out. “I've wanted to teach. Now I've achieved that. I have my class and my little guys and girls. It's a real dream come true for me.”

There was a long moment of silence between us.

“Then why have you seemed so dissatisfied with it lately?” he asked me.

“I'm not!”

“You are,” he insisted. “At first I thought that you were angry at me for something. Then I realized I hadn't done anything. You're angry at yourself and I don't know why.”