The school change posed problems
for Kinley. Although she was a good reader, the new kids were just
automatically put in the lowest reading group. It was not called the
“lowest group,”. But kids know. Kids she had been playing with
now would have nothing to do with her. Barbara told the teacher about
her reading ability,(she didn't miss a single spelling word the year
before) and she was moved up. Problem solved.
The move was good for Corey. He
had been the leader in a group of very rowdy boys in McCrory. When we
got to Arkadelphia, Lon Vining was in his class. His father, Bill,
was the legendary basketball coach at OBU. When Corey found out Lon
had the keys to the OBU Gym, they became friends Quickly. Lon was a
strong Christian, and became a very good influence on Corey. He had
an image to uphold at McCrory, and may have had a hard time pulling
out of that.
Barbara always did all the
portraits. I did custom framing, some of the photography calling for
lesser skill, and all the darkroom, which was a pretty big job itself
before digital came along. Barbara quickly taught me the darkroom skills
she had learned from the old man while fighting him off, and she
never went back into the darkroom again. She had gotten enough
darkroom work in, that one day, to last a lifetime.
Barbara did most of the early
weddings alone, carrying a very big, heavy case. That finally ruined
her elbows, and we became a team. I had the mechanics down by then,
and I shot the pictures. Barbara posed the people, ran the show, and
hob knobbed with all the people. I was always amazed that, although
every person there saw who was taking the pictures, she always got
all the credit. “Oh, Barbara, the pictures you made were so
wonderful!” That was OK with me. As long as I only had to worry
about the camera, I was happy. I was never a people person anyway. We
never lost a wedding, but I once made a technical mistake just before
the reception started, and lost it all. The family was nice about it,
thank goodness, and the couple didn't stay married long.
Barb developed an uncanny sense of
which marriages would not last, and we always put a rush order on
those pictures. She was almost always right. The major factor was how
the bride treated her mother on the wedding day, and how the couple
reacted to each other that day. Selfish, self centered people don't
stay married.
We were a high volume, fairly
priced outfit. We once did four weddings in 24 hours. Friday night,
10, 2 and 6 on Saturday. And, we photographed 6 baseball teams in
between.
Running weddings close together
like that got me into trouble once. We were finishing up a 2 o'clock
wedding, and when the bride and groom came out of the church, some
of his buddies “kidnapped” the groom. I realized, that little
move was going to delay the “couple driving away shots”, and make
us late for the next wedding. Well, I guess I musta' made a face
about that, because the bride's mom saw it. The next day, we had just
mailed the film off when she called, complaining about how bad the
pictures were going to be. She just kept on and on in that vein, and
everything else she could think of, and the net result of that was
that I banned her from our business for life. We finally met at a
different location to exchange pictures and final payment, then we
parted forever. At least, I hope so. So far so good.
Barbara learned early on, it was
not a good idea for me to be dealing with our touchy customers. Once,
a very old lady kept instructing me about how her pictures we made of
her should show absolutely no wrinkles, and the net result of her
instructions were that she was to look 25 again. I just had to tell
her, “Well, we can't work miracles!” Barbara kicked me behind the
counter good about that. But even Barbara, the master of dealing with
touchy customers, had her limits.
Once, in the middle of high school
senior season, Barbara did a wonderful job of making an average girl
look beautiful. When the girl came to view the
pictures, she said, as many young girls do in that situation, “Oh,
I just know they will be horrible! I dread looking at them!”
Well, Barbara had seen that
attitude one time too many lately. That comment was made as she was
opening the folder to show her, but she just folded it back up, put it away. The girl
was too shook up by that to speak. “Well, if they're that bad,
there's just no need of me showing them to you,” Barbara said. The
girl had to get real nice before Barbara hauled them back out.
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