PART I: SCENES AND STORIES FROM LINDEN, TEXAS, 1960-1968
Click to see: My Personal Saga / Spanish Club / Jr-Sr Banquet 1964 / Miss Linden Pageants 1963 & 1964
**A SPECIAL NOTE OF APPRECIATION TO LINDEN AND DON HENLEY**
After Bernie arrived in my life: Our first posed photos together / Our wedding
Two Miss Linden Pageants
My mother took the photos shown here. They’re the only ones I have of these events — which always were a big deal in Texas — and Mama only focused on me.
But please know that other contestants participated in the pageants, and I didn’t win either one. Books were more my thing than beauty pageants.
The three shots below show the parade through downtown Linden for contestants in the 1964 Miss Linden pageant.
In the first one, my friend Judy Simons (on left) and I (on right) enjoy a top-flight ride in a convertible.
Spring 1963, when I was 16
These photos show me in the 1963 Miss Linden contest. (The lower one also catches the top of some guy’s head.)
For reasons that I explain in detail in Chapter 7 of Betting on Bernie, that was not a happy event for me. And even aside from those issues, I was nervous since it was my first time to “parade” in a swimsuit. I also was scared of the “talent portion,” when I would have to play my violin before a large crowd for the first time ever.
Spring 1964, when I was 17
The picture below was made at the end of the 1964 pageant, when I was a senior about to graduate. I felt a lot more confident in the “talent portion” since I had just given a solo piano-violin recital.
I was also flushed with happy surprise, because I’d just learned that my fellow contestants had voted me “Miss Congeniality.” That award shown in my hands below touched me at the time and still does.
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