by Jenny McGee
1/6/2014

Given this is the first year that I have not been with Susan, Shelby and Tyler for Christmas, since the kids were born right here in Oklahoma, I have not been in my regular festive mood. So please forgive my tardiness in my holiday wishes for you. I miss you all a great deal.

It is an understatement to say that this has been a year of major transitions and life events for me. I moved back to the house I own in Velma, Oklahoma that my grandparents owned, where Susan lived when Shelby came home from the hospital, where Mom lived after Dad died, and where I lived when I graduated from high school and then married the love of my life and moved to Massachusetts.

It is so weird to be back to the ways of living in Oklahoma. The weather is great unless it is tornado season or we are experiencing a major drought. The wind blows almost every day so forget nice hair styles, the windblown look is in. The sunrises and sunsets on the open plains are like nothing you have ever seen. Without the city lights (there are none in Velma) the sky is vast and the stars are bright. The songs of the coyotes are an evening ritual and the deer so bountiful that you have to be very careful driving day and night. They come in my yard and enjoy the pear tree fruit; I hardly get any for myself unless I want to climb up the tree, NOT. The new worry is the number of small earthquakes now occurring almost every week. There was one about 10 miles from my house but I did not feel anything. I hope it is not the oil industry’s use of “fracking” to squeeze out every drop of oil and gas left in the state. (Fracking is a technique where water is mixed with sand and chemicals and is injected in existing wells at high pressure to create small fractures to dislodge remaining oil and gas.) I may need to purchase earthquake insurance!

It is nice to be able to see my extended family more often; mother, my brother, nieces and nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles, many second cousins, and some family outlaws. But nothing fills my heart with joy without Shelby and Tyler. I don’t know if I can stand it much longer.

Mother is almost 85 and now in a nursing home along with several of her friends from Velma, and the parents of many of my high school friends. Although it took me over four months to get her back to a healthy state with better physicians in Oklahoma City, mom is doing well. Her memory is failing and we have the same conversations again and again. I spend a great deal of time managing her healthcare, staying on top of the nursing home staff, taking care of her finances, and taking her out often to give her the best quality of life that I can. I even took her down to spend Christmas with my brother and his extended in-law family. Being a caretaker is very hard and often depressing, but also very rewarding seeing her happy.

I found a perfect job at Universal Fidelity Life Insurance Company, headquartered in Oklahoma City with offices right here in Duncan (17 miles from Velma and the closest place to civilization.) They also sell Medicare Supplement Insurance and Self-Funded Group Health insurance. I am responsible for marketing and product management for all the medical businesses. It is a small, privately owned company and I am having fun and making a great contribution. You can see the new corporate web site I just launched at uflic.com. I used my HCAT experience to produce the video on the site using the local Cox Studio in Oklahoma City; check it out.

I’m in football heaven, Friday night is high school and a major event for all Velma residents (all 650 of them). Saturday is Oklahoma University (OU Sooners), and Sunday is Dallas! Some weeks I can also watch the Patriots. I cannot believe they let Wes go. But sad to say the season is almost over.

I hang with and enjoy time with a number of my graduating class mates from Velma-Alma High School. We get together often to eat, go on short trips, celebrate everything possible, go to rodeos and all kinds of activities you would not recognize. I also really enjoy all the Native American history, events, and heritage. But I miss my Holliston friends and activities more than you can know.

O yes, my political volunteering continues. I am now a member of the Velma Town Council, a group of five members and I am the only woman. The Council is like the Selectmen in MA, but the county is much more involved here. All real estate taxes go to the County and they in turn take care of roads and schools. The town’s only income is fees and sales taxes. It does not sound like much but with all the oil companies in Velma we do ok. I was appointed to judge the home Christmas lights display this year. It is called “Friday Night Lights”, cute, huh. We also have a Christmas parade with Santa (a classmate of my brother) and a community dinner along with chances to win many great donated prizes (from the oil companies). Being on the Council is Déjà vu, old boy unprofessional male dominated group needing to become bi-gender and more professional. At least I have experience in that area so I am not concerned. The chairman of the Council is a mayor, so who knows how far I can go?

If you would like to experience this lifestyle for yourself, May and June are the best time to visit. The first week of June is the annual Red Earth, Native American festival. It is beautiful and like nothing you will see outside of Oklahoma. Please be assured that we have very sophisticated weather tracking and early warnings for bad storms and possible tornados. There are shelters everywhere to take cover. Very few people die in tornados except for the rare cases like Moore, Oklahoma, last May. There were warnings, but shockingly most schools do not have specific tornado shelters. After Moore, the state and its residents are raising money to build shelters for every school in the state. Even though the state is only 106 years old, this should have been an obvious need. I am happy to say that Velma does have a school/community “safe-room” shelter. All school grades are together in one set of buildings.

I hope that you had a great holiday and I wish you, your family and loved ones all the best always. I hope that 2014 is a better one for all of us. I hope to visit Holliston later in the Spring this year and hope to see you then.

Jenny