I started life as an accident of teenage lust in the front seat of a
4 door dark green 1969 Chevrolet Caprice Sedan, while Dad was home from college for Christmas break. If I asked, I know my Dad would also supply the exact address of their parking location, but I think it is creepy enough to know that it was in a car much less what kind of car it was! At 5 months pregnant, Mom was not allowed to graduate High School in the school ceremony with her peers -- gotta love the Catholics. One week later my parents were married on Dad's Mother's birthday 29 May 1970. They were not allowed friends at the ceremony beyond those who stood as Matron of Honor and Best Man -- again ya gotta love the Catholics. Words to the wise... If your in-laws are already not keen on the fact of your hurried wedding... getting married on one of their birthdays is not recommended! Both of my parents swear that they were planning on getting married -- eventually. Apparently, I just sped things up for them.
This is a representative photograph I found on-line.
I don't think this green is nearly dark enough, based on other photos I saw of the actual color.
According to my research, the color of the 1969 Caprice in question was called "Fathom Green".
I wonder if my parents FATHOMED the mess they were getting into that night?
I must've liked my living quarters, given my Mom's claim that I stayed in there an extra 10 days, finally making a grudging [read 25 hours of labor...] appearance on 14 October 1970. For obvious reasons I have no recollections of my infant and toddler years. From all accounts, I was a screaming baby and I projectile vomited with gusto and later became extremely constipated -- and yes I am aware that this explains how I came to be full of shit! My first word was FUCK and I understand it was quite a spectacular display given that I was with Mom in the grocery store and a couple of Nun's [Given their Catholic High School educations, it really can be no surprise that my Dad went to a Jesuit college, so there were bound to be a few around in those days...] happened down the same aisle. You can guess that Mom was mortified and made a hasty retreat. As I heard it... Dad's college pals who had previously been welcome to come hang out and "study" [read drink beer...] at our apartment were dis-invited from that point forward! LOL! It is probably no surprise that I still use FUCK on a regular basis...it's been in my head from practically day one!
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| The new ME |
Notable quotable:
Blessed are the constipated for they truly do not give a shit...
-- source unknown --
From when I was really little, I remember only one person. Mom's brother,
L.E.W., who died in an accident when I was about 4. He used to sit me on his lap in his big old brown tanker of a car and we would drive around with me
steering. Sleepovers at Grandpa and Grandma's were fun with
Uncle L.E.W. He and I would eat
Quisp cereal [do they even make that anymore?] together. At home my parents did not buy sugar cereals, so that was a treat. Obviously I now know what happened to him, but back when I was small, I only remember we went to the hospital and I saw him through the glass in the door. He died after a week of internal bleeding caused by a fall from several stories up on the construction site he worked at. My Mom says he jumped. She told me that she was given a note or letter or something by one of his friends after the funeral. I sure hope he did not jump, because I am selfish enough to be pissed off if I did not have my Uncle for such a shitty reason. I choose to believe that it was an accident. I was not at the funeral. I guess they did not take small children to these things. I did not know know where he went. I just know I never saw him again.
The internet has an endless supply
of photos of all things...
You have to wonder,
if there is not a photo on-line,
can we be sure it actually existed???
As a slightly older child, I remember sleepovers at my Dad's parent's house also being very special. Grandma let me have coffee in my milk, usually made something I did not generally get at home for breakfast and Grandpa and I made fresh orange juice. I happen to be the lucky grandchild that received his old juicer after he passed away. I now proudly display it in my kitchen. I got to have soft boiled eggs, which my Mom would not make cuz the gooey yolk gave her the creeps. [When we were older, we all took immense pleasure in making our food "bleed" when eating fried eggs for breakfast at home.] We baked and cooked and made stuff and gardened and went to her bowling league and read books and all manner of fun things. Grandma got me an adorable bikini bathing suit when I was 5. I remember it was it was red with little flowers. My Dad had a COW about it...something about it being indecent. Needless to say the bikini was kept at Grandma's and was happily worn playing in the rain or the sprinkler... About the bikini thing, I just have to say that my Dad allowed my 21 years younger 1/2 sister to wear a bikini far more revealing than the ones available in 1975... You KNOW I had something to say about that!
L E Mason Co hand crank wall mount juicer
[representative photo]
My parents added to our family in the year of our young country's Bicentennial, 1976, when they gave the world my brother #1 that February. He was a time taker from me and I resented him immensely. My princess-ness had been undermined! This according to my Dad and probably every mental health professional in the world too. Luckily for him they gave us #2 almost exactly a year later. If they had not had each other, I probably would have gone insane! Little brothers are holy terrors! Sadly around this time, my Dad and I lost our good[?] rapport. Maybe he wanted a baby boy more, maybe he resented me for having to get married in college I don't know. My mom says his change in behavior began because of a medically treated issue that, when he was taken off medication too abruptly, caused him to have extreme anger and mood swings. All I know is that small children are not mentally equipped to stand facing a corner for hours on end. Constantly having 15 minutes added for shifting position or leaning into the wall to keep from falling over was not uncommon. Giving a child the same food from an ill-fated meal every meal following until they either ate it or it went foul is not healthy for anyone involved and honestly if I did not like it the first time what the fuck made him think I would eat it again later? Reheated, older, even cold -- whatever, it was not happening. So I am a young child whose mother works at night, whose father is angry about seemingly everything and has become enemy number one. Can I tell you I lied about all kinds of shit, for no reason most of the time, but I imagine it was a control game. Dad thinks I wanted attention and even if it was negative attention, I was having it and no one else was getting any and he's probably right about that. Sometime or other the spankings began. First with the hand and later with the belt strap. Impact is always made better on a bare ass, so that was how I received my punishments... When the belt use started I was to stand in front of my bed and lean over onto it with my pants around my ankles and my pasty white ass sticking out. That way he knew I wasn't going to fall over and make him miss or something I guess.
One particularly bad week, my Dad whooped my ass at one point and then in a highly unusual fit of pique, my Mom got out of control angry, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to my room. Doing so, her fashionably long pointy daggers, I mean fingernails, made horrific deep marks that bled. Adding insult to injury, she left me only long enough to retrieve her biggest wooden spoon and proceeded to whoop my already whooped ass. Sadly I'd bet she did not know that because, her spoon usage came only from the fact that she was not looking to break any of said daggers while whooping me. I gather she was not the sort to make me drop trousers and show off my welted pasty white ass. Maybe if she had, my life would have changed a lot earlier. I don't know. You can't second guess your reality with what-ifs, right? I was in 6th grade that particular year. My sweet teacher Mrs. P happened to notice the dagger marks on my arms and we went to the hall for a chat, quickly followed by a visit to the girls room to see the rest of my marks. [Back then you could show your teacher your parents abuse and the teacher was not going to be charged with something seedy for it.] In her mind a lot of my behavior at school was suddenly explainable. She called the child services and reported my Dad. Given that I had a history of lying, known only to them as far as I knew, and that my Mom denied my father was doing anything, it was decided that I was basically full of shit. A Psychiatrist was sent in to the school weekly to help me work on my lying problem, though eventually he told me he believed I was telling the truth about being hit. Something that was really important to me was that he promised that anything I said to him would never be repeated to anyone -- least of all my parents. I could tell him anything and everything and it was not going to hurt me when I got home. Also of great import, Mrs. P told him exactly what she had seen on me and that she was on my side. Life at home did not improve much. My mom was horrified enough with her own actions that she cut her nails and never grew them long again that I can remember. I also never saw the spoon used for non-cooking purposes other than to make an idle threat to shape up.[ Eventually it became a kind of joke.] Maybe it all scared her pretty good. Mom told me that she never knew what was happening and did not believe it when they were called in about the charges levied by Mrs. P, but I am not so certain I believe that. I believe that my Mom lied; essentially because to agree with the charge of abuse meant destroying the whole family and the breadwinner would have been out of commission. I never knew how/why she was not also accused, but Mrs. P knew from me that she had never done anything like that before.
Mrs. P spent a lot of time with me after that. She tried to help and she was not the only one. Our next-door neighbors, an older couple with 6 kids -- mostly grown by then, called the cops at least twice because of Dad's incessant yelling. The police came and naturally I lied to them about what was happening because my Dad was RIGHT THERE and I was scared out of my gourd to say anything. After all, we know what happened when Mrs. P got involved, right? What did the truth get me anyway? I used to feed the animals and water the plants for an old man who lived across the street from us. I went over for my instructions one time and it hurt to sit. Mr. B figured out pretty quickly that something was not right and after quizzing me, he later had a conversation with my Mom. Sadly, it backfired and she instead turned the tables on him, called him a pervert because I showed him my marks and then threatened to charge him with something. That was the end of my job and MR. B never called the cops. He probably did what he could, but when he was faced with his own welfare being jeopardized, that was enough for him. They call that self-preservation my friends.
By the time I started junior high, my parents marriage was imploding. There were many loud arguments, many sleepless nights and lots of angry Dad to get on my case. Mom was less and less present at home. Naturally the new school figured out that I was having troubles and brought in the parents. Once they realized what the topic was to be, they decided they were not talking about it with Nuns, and left. I was set up with weekly counseling sessions at school by Sister R-M. Each of my parents has told me their version of it, probably dumbed down to be "kind" to me I suppose, but they both tell a similar story with similar details yet each clearly accuses the other of committing these wrongs. Needless to say, I am forever grateful for hitting it off practically on day one of 7th grade with my friend G, who maybe knew and maybe didn't since I don't recall the we ever discussed my home-life much, but was a great friend with whom I spent countless hours with and didn't worry so much about home. In all honesty, I wonder if any of my friends knew what was happening to me. A and I have been friends with since age 6 and is who I have the longest friendship with. We spent many hours playing when we were young, but once we were no longer in the same school, that time was reduced more and more as we got older. I cherish these 2 women for being my friends, both then and now, and whatever they did and did not know, for loving me anyway.
I started smoking in the summer prior to 6th grade. A couple other friends were trying it too and we all thought we were cool. We hung out all day at the public pool with our Hawaiian Tropics SPF 4 oil and our cigarettes. I was not so dumb as to bring smokes home with me but once our babysitter, who was also A's older sister, left hers behind and I stupidly hid them in my room. I was under the impression that my parents did not know she smoked. I'll always wonder how Dad suspected anything, because shortly after that my Dad went on a tear through the house and when he discovered them in my room, he decided I was smoking -- which I was, but naturally denied AND honestly denied those specifically were mine. That I was telling the truth about who the smokes belonged to likely never made it into his head, he was just too angry. So, I was made to eat them. Can I tell you that Kool menthols are not so yummy to begin with and they are even less yummy when eaten!
The end of this part of the story comes with the good news that late in 8th grade, the bad things mostly stopped. Particularly the hitting. The last time I remember being hit, my Mom and I were getting me ready to go to my first boy-girl dance at Dad's former High School. Anyway, Mom had gotten me all spiffed up -- made my hair look nice, let me put on a little make-up, got me some nice clothes and a new pair of pumps. I was so excited!! Dad decided I looked like a whore wearing make-up and pumps. Mind you I was wearing a white long sleeve blouse buttoned all but one to the neck -- with a camisole and bra underneath, pin-striped pleated tapered leg denim dress slacks [not jeans] with pantyhose underneath. I had on pale pink lip gloss, a touch of blue eye liner and some mascara. [Remember please that this was the early 80's so don't hold my clothes and make-up against me!] Nothing whoreish at all. Anyway, he came at me in my room when I was showing off my outfit to him, with my Mom in the house no less! When he knocked me onto my bed I was wearing the pumps and I cannot say what made me do it, but I kicked him -- in the balls -- hard enough to drop him. Mom and I left in a hurry and I went to the dance and had a great time -- in spite of him. After that night I guess he decided I was big enough to hurt back and unfortunately it was not long until he started on #1 who was maybe 5.
What happened after he went after #1 will be another installment. I think I need a little time to recuperate -- it is hard to write all this out, knowing I am going to post it publicly. For years I have written it out on paper and then burned it when I was done. Whether out of fear that people would find out or out of shame I am not entirely certain -- maybe both. Meantime, I hope no one will be too sad reading this because enough tears have been shed already to last a lifetime over it.
I will probably never ask him about it, BUT have you noticed a theme with my Dad? I mean for a guy who had no problems with having pre-marital sex, he certainly had some serious ISSUES where I was concerned at ages when pre-marital sex was less than likely to be an problem. It is not odd that he was so concerned that I was being exploited in a very basic bikini at age 5 and later when I was 13 and dressed quite chastely for a CATHOLIC SCHOOL DANCE he decided I was dressed like a whore? The summer before 8th grade, a boy gave me a hickey in the middle of my back while hanging out at the pool. It was done in fun, and was far from being a sexual act -- at that time -- and really it was nothing more than pre-teen horseplay. I was fully dressed when Dad came home from work and yet somehow he "knew" I had been "violated" and went to great lengths to inspect me until he found the offending mark. What I had to say was irrelevant and I got my ass whooped. My assessment of his crazed behavior regarding my attire is that there must have been some kind of guilt that manifested itself into a strange form of extreme parental protection. I imagine it must have come from becoming a husband and father well before he wanted/planned to.
Editor's Note:
Some photos have been removed and some edits have been made to this post.
