I found adjusting to off-campus college life not so different from high school but more fun. I was quickly accepted by my classmates. A few of them were actually adults who felt they had been called to serve in the ministry. Those students had family and lived in rented houses off campus. After two years at Clarke they would go to a four-year college, now a university, in Clinton, a college town just west of Jackson. The college had an active recruiting program and pulled in students from other countries. Many of the foreign studens spoke Spanish or one of the Asian languages.

Each day, after lunch the students met in the auditorium for a musical session where we all sang together. Most of the songs were hymns or Christian music. It was called Singspiration. We ended the 30 minute sessions holding hands singing a prayerful song.

I was invited to join one of the campus sororities, but after meeting with them I found their agenda boring. I realized I wasn’t really a club person unless it is an art or craft club. Besides, I enjoyed hanging out with the guys. They seemed more fun and interesting than the girls. This college didn’t have an art program. Other than core courses like English, History, Math, and Science, I took courses in Speech and Accounting. Two Semesters of Bible were also required.

There were a lot of guys who appeared to be particularly interested in me. I was likely popular because it seemed there were more males than females on campus. I told them all we could be friends, but I already had a  boyfriend I dated on weekends. Maybe they didn’t see that as exclusive. I always had someone to walk to town with me, sit by me in class, eat lunch with me or write notes to me in class.

Evan decided it was time for me to pay back some of his extra trips from Jackson. He wanted to take me to the Mississippi State Fair. This meant staying in Jackson overnight. Mom said I could go, but she made arrangements for me to spend the night with her cousin who lived in Jackson. I rode the bus to Jackson and a very handsome guy decided to sit beside me. I’m sure it would never have occurred to Evan that might happen. He was on his way to go into basic training for the air force. We chatted all the way to Jackson, and I agreed to become his pen pal. I felt a little guilty, but figured there could be no harm in writing a lonely guy a few platonic letters. He was far to good-looking to stay lonely long.

I enjoyed the fair to the fullest. There was no way to see or do everything. Newton had small fairs with a midway of rides. I usually attended at least one night each year, but this one was much larger. On the return trip home, I found Jo Ann, my classmate and rival from high school on the bus. On the one-hour trip home, we enjoyed catching up. Away from the influence of others, we found it easier to be friends.  We had both grown up a little more since our May graduation.

As Christmas neared, Evan once again wanted me to come to Jackson to attend his company Christmas party with him. Mom made arrangements again for me to spend the night with her cousin. I bought a dress that looked perfect for this occasion. I’d never seen Evan happier and prouder to introduce me to the people he worked with. Evidently, I made an impression that elevated him in the eyes of his co-workers. He told me everyone thought he was a lucky guy to have found me.

Christmas that year was one of the best in my memory. Evan gave me a beautiful watch. I gave him gold cufflinks. He had some time off from work and the college dismissed us for Christmas break. We had several dates leading up to the new year of 1956. Much of the time we spent in my home living room with Mom serving us toasted tuna salad sandwiches, hot chocolate, and fruit cake. Mom’s fruit cake was the best I’ve every tasted. It was nothing like the stuff you buy from the specialty houses. It was chock full of nuts and aged just right. She had mixed fruit cakes in dish pans every Christmas for as far back as I could remember.

it is said that 1956 was one of the most remarkable years of the twentieth century. It was the year Dwight Eisenhower, a middle of the road American who had served as a general, would win reelection in the fall by a landslide. He was about making sure that political parties where not pitted against each other for political gain.  

In 1956 we had a year of smoldering international tensions. When first the Poles, and then the Hungarians, rose up against their Soviet masters, they challenged the United States to make good on all its recent talk about “liberating” the “captive peoples of Eastern Europe” and rolling back the Iron Curtain. France and Britain, already battling anti-colonial insurgencies in Algeria and Cyprus, now faced the humiliation of losing the Suez Canal. Ordinary people spoke out, filled the streets and city squares, and took up arms in an attempt to win their freedom.

In response to these unprecedented challenges to their authority, those in power fought back, in a desperate bid to shore up their position. In the Union of South Africa, black people risk their livelihoods, and their lives, in the struggle.

Also the year of 1956 saw explosive clashes all across the South, between African Americans, who were determined to overthrow Jim Crow, and hardline white supremacists pledged to massive resistance. Mississippi and Alabama were right in the middle of all of the heat.

Not only were political and racial riots occurring, but rock music was coming into its own. Teens were in conflict with the churches and parents over the music they craved. I was still a teenager but Evan was 27 and he kept me more grounded in traditional music by buying me records of Nat King Cole, Connie Francis and Kaye Starr. I was also into pop music like Pat Boone and Andy Williams and of course in the south, country music never lost its popularity.

It was the year Dick Clark started on American Bandstand. The Ten Commandments was the top movie and Cecil DeMille gave away thousands of stone-like tablets of the commandments, which is why so many court houses have them on display even now.

The computer hard disk was invented. It weighed 2,000 lbs. and held 3.75 mb of memory.

The year, 1956, is known as a year that changed the world. Evan and I weren’t paying that much attention to what was taking place outside our own drama, but it was certainly a year of changes in our lives.

This year was also a leap year. Traditionally this was a year in which the girl was supposed to be the one who could ask the guy to marry her. Ironically that would work out well for me, but in January that was still a few months in the future.