BUDDYITIS

Buddy

My longest running crush lasted more than three years and was a wild-eyed obsession with a guy named Buddy. I met him when I was twelve and was focused primarily on him until I met Greg, the guy that I would eventually marry. Buddy moved away once, and I dated other guys while Buddy was out of town or involved in romantic relationships of his own. He had steady girlfriends and so I would "go out" with other guys, but at nearly any time he could have called and asked me to be his girlfriend, and I would have dropped whomever like a hot stone. I was only days away from being sixteen when Greg and I met and at last Buddy's unintentional spell was broken.

Buddy had chocolate hair and warm swarthy skin. He had pretty eyes and probably the biggest bottom lip I had ever seen. I thought he was gorgeous and so did almost all my girlfriends. At one time or another: Nancy, Shan, Ramona, Jutannia, and Angie had deep crushes on the guy. I think Michelle fell prey to his charms as well. Only Cindy seemed immune to him and whatever she had I envied it. I felt trapped by my affection for a guy that found me only marginally interesting. I told Cindy it was like the opposite of an allergy. I was drawn to him and could not fully explain why. My mom said my friends and I all had "Budditis", and that made us laugh. I thought Buddy was very cute and he did have those interesting muscles that I had discovered I liked. He played several sports, so it was fun to go watch him keep his muscles in good shape. But the things that really pulled me to him had nothing to do with his appearance. Buddy was kind. He was confident and bold without being reckless. He seemed more mature than most guys. He smiled a lot and he laughed easily. He had a great sense of humor and he was pretty smart. He made me laugh. His mom had died and his dad worked a lot, so Buddy was alone much of the time and he admitted to me that he was lonely. I was maternally pulled to him and hoped to dispel the loneliness. When he moved back to my home town after being gone for several months, he told me he had missed me so much that he wrote me a long letter telling me how much he had appreciated all the times I had talked to him on the phone while his dad was at work and he was lonesome. Then, he said he realized he did not know my address and so he threw the letter away. I could have cried for want of it!

We spent literally hours on the phone with each other on a daily basis for, quite honestly, years. Our daily record was fifteen hours. We were on the phone from 9am until midnight that day. Keep in mind, this was before call waiting, so no one else could call either of us or either of our families while we hung out and clouded up the phone lines. We talked, and shared songs, ate our meals in each other's ears, and said, "hold on while I go to the bathroom." I invested so much time in that relationship that sometimes I could not fathom marrying anyone else. But, though he loved me as a friend, Buddy did not return my romantic affections. Sure, he was interested sex and willing to experiment in that direction with almost any decent looking girl (and perhaps even indecent looking ones) but he did not look at me and see anything permanent. I finally got a grip on that when I asked him, "What if you get married and I get married and our spouses don't like that we talk to each other on the phone every day?" In my heart that was a no brainer. I would never let anyone tell me I could not talk to Buddy, but I was so afraid of his answer that I held my breath.

He said, "Then we will have to stop talking on the phone."

I think he heard my heart breaking across the telephone lines because he added, "You know? I'm sorry, but marriage is a big commitment, and once we make that sort of commitment then we need to be respectful of our spouses." He paused for moment and then added, "No one will ever come between me and my wife."

I nodded, though he could not see me. If I were his wife I would not want anyone to come between us. I swallowed the lump of pain in my throat, "That's as it should be, I suppose."

"Yeah." He said.

The other thing that distanced me from Buddy was a cute little red headed guy named Peter. Pete became Buddy's step brother, and I was never quite happy with how much Bud seemed to dislike the kid. "How could someone dislike any child that much," I would wonder when Buddy would talk about how disgusting the child was. He told me that Peter was spoiled and "sissyfied", a real "cry baby". I would argue that I saw no sign of that, and Buddy would say that Peter kept it together pretty well when company was around. It was my contention that even if he were everything Buddy said, that would not be Peter's fault; It would be his mom's. But Buddy could not be enticed into cutting the kid an inch of slack, and I could not be enticed into seeing him as anything but an adorable little rid head with quick eyes, bright ideas, and a sweet smile. I wanted to someday have a son a lot like Peter and I wondered, "Would Buddy be so hard on his own kids?" Not seeing eye to eye on this created distance between Buddy and me.

I started calling him less and spending more time away from the phone. In my mind, I tucked Buddy away as a "buddy" and began looking more seriously at the other guys I knew. I was not wife material in his eyes, and I knew that had to go both ways. I also knew that all I was looking for was something gentler, something serious. Unlike my sister Sandi, who sometimes skimmed a book and just read the conversations, I was not the "just read the dialog" kind of girl when it came to books. I also was not that kind of girl when it came to boys. I was in it for the entire package and the long haul, whole heartedly ready to give all or nothing at all.

Not long after I met and fell in love with Greg, my future husband, Buddy started seriously dating a girl I had gone to school with at LFE. Lisa was one of the nice ones, and though a part of me still hurt enough to wonder what she offered him that I had not, I wished both of them every happiness. And I still do. They married after graduation. They are still together and have two very cute kids. I hope he meant it; I hope Buddy gave his whole heart to his marriage his all to their life together. I hope he has never let anyone come between him and his wife.

JIMMY MY OAK

Jimmy Then and Now

THEN:

We met when I was twelve or thirteen. Jimmy was two years younger than me, but never for a moment did he let me think I was too old for him. As a matter of fact, he made a real habit of forgetting that I was even a day older than he was. I was on his radar from minute one, and I did not mind a bit! He had very touchable soft brown hair and the greenest, most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen. Like my sister the Pound River they could suck you in and drown you if you let your guard down. He had freckles, a contagious smile, and a rotten sense of humor. Jimmy was thin but solid strength, and he knew the same thing I had discovered. If you are angry enough you can beat hell out of a bear and walk away. His temper was lighting and his fists were thunder. He was famous for fighting and it was known that he was fond of me. No one ever said a word out of line to me when he was near, and if they looked at me funny they did not do so for long. He would have never have fought a female, but he would even call girls out for it if they seemed to be disrespectful to me. He was sometimes loud and occasionally crude, but no one ever treated me with more respect or kindness than Jimmy. He would have given me the shirt off his back, his last morsel of food when he was hungry, and I knew it. He won my adoration on the first day that I got to know his rambunctious but loving ways. I was still in the shy stage then and did not know how to tell him I was interested, and before long, he was dating a girl named Suzie. I did not like Suzie very much, and looking back, that was probably just because my friend Nancy did not like Suzie much. I tended to trust my friends' judgement, perhaps more than I should have. Jimmy and I became fast friends and soon he started telling me horror stories on his girlfriend. He told tales of how she lied to him, "cheated" on him (which in elementary talk meant dated, kissed, or flirted with other guys when she had promised to be his girl.) He told me that she and her family were disrespectful toward him. I did not doubt any of his stories, but it annoyed me to no end that he would not break up with her, that he took this abuse and gave her another chance and another chance. I lost respect for him and found my romantic affections for him waning. When at last he and Suzie were through, he asked me out and I turned him down. For months I had wanted him to break up with her and ask me out, but by the time he did it I had lost all romantic interest. For several years, Jimmy made it clear that he was more interested in me than anyone, but I could not get the image of him taking crap from Suzie out of my head. We went skating together a few times and Jimmy gave me my first real kiss, but I never took my relationship with him into the "going out" zone because of those frustrated months of listening to him complain on Suzie. Looking back, I know this was very judgmental of me and I am regretful for that, but at the time I just could not feel romantically interested in him.

Once I threw a Valentine's party. I invited several girls but the only ones that came were my cousin Ramona (who had expressed mad adoration for Jimmy) and my friend Cindy. (She was dating Ramona's brother Dennis.) Dennis came, of course, and we made sure everyone was paired off by inviting Jimmy (for Ramona) and Brian (for me.) The party was very romantic and rather quickly became a make out session. Every time I raised my head from kissing Brian, I found Jimmy's eyes on me. He looked sad and I found it very disconcerting. Later he told me, "It broke my heart to see you kissing him. Please don't invite me to any more parties." I tried to explain that Ramona was crazily in love with him, that I just loved him as a friend, but nothing consoled him. I never felt exactly ignored by guys, but I was certainly used to Ramona getting her pick and me choosing from her castoffs. Getting someone's attention over her was new, and I wasn't even sure how to react to a guy that would rather be with me.

Not much later, Jimmy ran away to find his mother in North Carolina. He lived for years under bridges and stole electricity from porch outlets to cook stale grits or whatever food he could find in abandoned homes. He came back to my town twice. Once when he had just started a full time job that had gotten him off the streets. He was working at a Tyson chicken farm and was dating his bosses daughter. He took me to Hardee's and bought me a milkshake. He then told me he wanted me to run away with him and move to North Carolina. I was not yet eighteen (so Jimmy was probably fifteen or sixteen) and I was in a serious relationship with Greg. I told Jimmy I would not run away with him for several reasons. I loved Greg and planned to marry him. I also knew my daddy would find me in North Carolina. He would probably find me if I were in Russia, another state would not even slow him down. I pointed out that Dad's anger would be something I would not want to deal with. Besides, I loved my family. I did not want to hurt them, and Jimmy had a girlfriend anyway! I did not want to go somewhere and be girlfriend number two, or the adopted sister, or whatever third wheel situation he had in mind.

I told him all this, and he said, "You will never be second place to anyone in my heart." His eyes looked sad, older than they should look, and tired. Most of all, he looked sincere. But I shook my head. He said, "If that boyfriend of yours, if anyone, ever hurts you, you come to me. Find me and they will never hurt you again. You understand me? I will kill them." He spoke the words as a matter of fact, and I did not doubt them for a moment.

I nodded. Many years later, after my relationship with my first husband became horribly abusive, I toyed with the idea of finding Jimmy. I was certain, if I could find him the abuse would end. Period. There would be no more pain in my face that forced me to eat nothing but mashed potatoes and pudding for days. No one would ever put a gun to my head again, pull the trigger, and laugh when I urinated on myself. Never again would I be in fear for my life. My affection for Greg slowed the idea down. He only hurt me when he was drunk. He loved me when he was sober. I did not want him hurt, let alone dead. Once he had beaten all my affections for him out of me, pride slowed the idea down. Shouldn't I be able to handle my own problems? I didn't need a big, strong man to come save me, did I? My affection for Jimmy also slowed me down. I did not want to see him living the rest of his life in prison. But, after a while, all that was eclipsed by the pain and the fear and there was only one idea that truly stopped me:  My sons. My boys deserved to have a decent mother, the best mother I could give them, not a conspiring murderess! Still, my life had become so unbearable to me that I confess my brain ran through every plan I could drag up that might help me escape the abuse. I did think about it. I did consider everything from killing Greg myself, to finding Jimmy, to committing suicide. I looked at every option I could imagine. But like so many times before and after, the very existence of my sons saved me. In the end, I knew I had to do what a good mother would do, and I found the courage to leave Greg. Few people will understand when I say: this took much more courage than living with him.

Jimmy came back one more time to try to take me away. This time I was twenty, married, and no longer living in my home town. But he did not know any of that until my sleepy and angry father told him so when Jimmy knocked on the door at 3am in the morning. (Jim never let my dad scare him off like so many other guys did. He looked my Pop in the eye like an equal and never backed down.) Jimmy had just gotten a very good job at an ink factory and would for sure be able to support himself and me as well. It had occurred to him that I was over eighteen now and that, if things had not worked out with Greg, I might be more amenable to the idea of moving to North Carolina with him, legally, and without completely abandoning my family. He tells me he was broken hearted to find out that I was married.

I never gave Jimmy a corny nickname in my head, but always just thought of him as Jimmy or even just Jim. He told me when we reconnected as adults that men reminded him of trees and that he always tried to be an Oak. That made perfect sense to me. Jimmy was my Oak.

Many times I have wondered how different and likely easier my life would have been if I had not gotten up on my high horse about Suzie. Jimmy and I would have probably ruled the world, at least our world. Still, I needed my sons, those sons, EXACTLY those two! No one but Greg could have given them to me, and no amount of hard times would have been too much to go through for them. Also, the husband that I have now is my heart. Not only that, but using the good brain God gave me, I have to admit that Olin is the best match I could have ever made for myself. I've never met another man that suits my heart and my life the way he does. He and I laugh and learn together every day. We huddle over writing projects and show each other the awesome photos we recently captured. We cuddle in front of murder mystery shows. We make films together, and toss books at each other "You have to read this one!". We argue over silly things like the definitions of words and where doors are on a building we've driven past and walked into dozens of times. We agree or we agree to disagree on religion, politics, money and all the big scary things. When times get tough, we pull together like the old plow teams my Daddy used to work with. Olin and I cry together and watch each other's hair turn gray and the lines slide into our faces. I am reminded that the Bible says all things (that means even hard things) happen for the good of those that love the Lord. I bless the broken road that got me right where I am today, loving my husband, my family. This is what I was meant to do, but I sure am glad that Jimmy was part of that broken road and part of my heart and life to this very day.

BOYFRIENDS AND BULLETS I DODGED

"Making Mother Dizzy"

THEN:

For the longest time, boys were just not my thing. They were fine as friends, but if they wanted to get all googly-eyed and talk about kissing or being my boyfriend, then I, in turn, wanted to beat the sappy out of them. I was about eleven years old before I finally decided that a boy was interesting enough to look at if he didn't catch me looking and maybe, just maybe, daydream about a little bit every now and then.

I had been reading romance novels since I was nine, but all that mushy stuff was not for me. It was for grown ups, I supposed. I read my sister Sandi's romance novels when I had already finished all my own books and all our comic books before we had made it back to the library. I read the romance novels mostly out of desperation and for the adventures that they packed in between the love making sessions. I did not skip any pages or even any words, not a one. I was concerned I'd miss something, and I did not like to miss things. But reading the romance books often went something like this in my head: Kidnapped by pirates? Hurrah! Seduced by pirate. Okay, whatever. Escaping from pirates! Hurrah!

Once, I was reading on my bed and Sandi was reading on hers, when I somehow noticed that my sister was turning pages in an odd manner. I continued to hold my book up, as though I were still reading it, but really I was counting the seconds between her pages. Sixteen seconds went by and she turned a page. The next page was up for seventy-two seconds. The next page for ten seconds. The next page for sixty-eight seconds. The next page for four seconds.

Four seconds!?

"Hey!" I made the word sound like an accusation. "What are you doing?"

Sandi jumped. "I'm reading. What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Well, you sure are reading funny! You read one page for over a minute, and the next one for ten seconds, and the next one over a minute again. What are you doing?!" I shook my head and grimaced. I was clearly appalled.

"Oh." She said, "I'm just reading the dialog."

"The what?!"

"The dialog. You know, the part in quotation marks."

"I know what dialog is! Why on Earth would you ever do that?! You'll miss something important!" I felt like I'd just caught my sister cheating on her book. "Do you do that all the time?" I was thinking she wasn't really a reader, not a real reader. She'd been putting forward a false face for years, all my life! I did not even know my own sister!

"Not all the time, no. But if a book get's kind of boring then I just flip through it and skip all the boring descriptions and read the dialog."

I looked at her like she had suddenly grown an extra head. "What?" Sandi laughed nervously. "Don't you do that?"

"Nooooo!"

She laughed again.

It took me months to get used to the idea that my sister cheated on her books. I either dumped them (threw them down) or I read every word. I'd only been able to throw aside a couple of books in my short life because even a boring book was better than no book at all. Most often, I remained true to the book and read every word. I could not imagine any wishy washy reading like my sister was involved in. I consoled my shocked nature by pointing out that Sandi had read every word of every book that she had read aloud to me, which was a ton of books. I often followed along with her as she read, so I knew she did not cheat on those.

The feeling of loyalty that I gave my books would be very similar to the loyalty I gave my boyfriends. If I was through with you, you knew it. If I was with you, I hung on every word. It was all or nothing in my world.

The first boy that I developed a romantic interest in was named Billy. I tended to rename lots of people in my head and he soon became Billy Boy. He had shiny black hair and arresting blue eyes. He was not tall, but everyone was taller than me, so what did I care? I was twelve years old and in my last year at LFE. In music class we sang, "Oh where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? Or where have you been, Charming Billy?" And I wondered where he had been in his life and where he would go. I imagined myself offering him a chair, and baking him a pie, and my family and myself moving right in with him and his family. If I was "A young thing and cannot leave her mother" then I wasn't leaving my pop or my sister either. We were a package deal as far as I was concerned!

Only a few girls in my grade had open crushes or claimed to have boyfriends, and for years I had rolled my eyes at them. I could not suddenly turn into that which had made me roll my eyes for years, now could I? I tried to make sure no one saw me watching Billy Boy, especially him. If he had caught on to my fascination, I was sure the Earth would swallow me up. I was pretty sure that Billy Boy was not the nicest of kids. He hung out with some of the bullies and he acted like he had more money than I did. He tended to be loud and a little cruel, in my opinion. So, I did not delude myself that he would return my interest. I just hid my affections until they finally, blessedly, landed on someone else.

Someone else happened to be twins that were about a year older than me. They were named Gary and Larry. I called them Mike and Ike in my head because my mother had often dressed my niece, Tanya, and me in similar clothing and then tell us, "Mike and Ike, look just alike." Gary and Larry were not identical twins. They did not "look just alike" but neither did Tanya and I. She was seven years younger than me and almost as brown and tan as I was pale and blonde. I did not care if they looked just alike, Mike and Ike were both cute as buttons with wild hair that bordered on afros. Gary's hair was light brown and Larry's was dark blond. They had sweet, bright eyes and scandalous ideas, and I wanted to grow up and marry both of them at the exact same time. I could see it in my head, a bride with a groom on each arm. Either that or I would marry my old pal Randall's uncle Gary. He would do almost as well, though there was only one of him. I wondered if I would ever meet a Gary I didn't like. It just seemed to be one of the cute guy names as I was growing up.

Otis Outstanding was a neighbor that I had a crush on. Most of the people in his family were underachievers, but Otis stood out as a shining exception to their hard living and poverty. He had ambition and sweet secret dreams. You could see them in his eyes. He spoke as though he thought about things that none of his siblings ever bothered to think about. I developed an intellectual interest in him. I wanted to know what was going on in that head of his, and I featured him in my romantic daydreams for a while. But Otis was quite a bit older than me. We were destined to go our separate ways. Wherever he is, I sure hope he's alive, well, and happy.

Once I switched schools I was all about Mike Sexy. He was another dark haired, blue eyed guy, but I found him at my new school. He was much nicer but had a full following of girls that I was not sure I wanted to compete with. He had muscles, and suddenly muscles seemed like a very good thing for a guy to have! At CES, almost all the girls in my grade seemed interested in boys and I had never rolled my eyes at any of them, so I felt like less of a freak for noticing boys. Still, I was two years older than most of the other kids, and that in itself left me feeling a bit freaky. I did not mention my interest in Mike, especially not to Mike. Would he think I was too old? Would he think I was some old lady pervert? But I did learn to flirt with lots of the boys. Flirting was a fun new game and I soon found out I was decent at it. I remember being very relieved when Mike Sexy finally started the flirting game with me. Apparently, most of the boys in my grade, did not think I was too old for them. I never found myself lacking in the attention department in all my years at CES. Guys liked me and now I really liked guys! The headaches I must have given my poor parents!

I met Gentleman Joe at the county fair. If I ever knew his last name it has been swallowed up by the years that have since washed over me. We spent an evening courting, old fashioned style. It was like something out of a novel. He asked permission and then held my hand gently on the Ferris wheel. He stood back so I could get on the rides first. He held doors open and made sure my safety harness was latched. He bought me some cotton candy and tried to win me a stuffed animal. He talked about going on other dates, but we both knew we would probably never see each other again. We did not. We had that one magic evening. It was my first openly romantic date and I still think of that night fondly, especially when I'm at a county fair.

On my new bus I discovered a guy named Greg. He was not the Greg I would some day marry. This Greg was probably a good three or four years older than me, closer to the age of my second husband than my first. He had curly blond hair and reminded me a lot of Rex Smith, a serious heartthrob for that day! Greg had a girlfriend and they were both very kind to me. In fact, he was so sweet to me that my head took to calling him Greg Sweet. I don't think I was good at hiding my little crush on him, but I was twelve, and short, and very guy-awkward. I looked closer to ten than twelve unless I was wearing something that accented my bosom, which I was usually careful to avoid. I was not  comfortable in my new skin for several years after getting it. I don't think Greg Sweet's girlfriend saw me as much of a threat, and she was correct. I just wanted to look at her boyfriend and maybe hear him speak to me once in a while. He did talk to me often. He called me "Pretty" like it was my name, and then laughed when I blushed. One morning as he and his girlfriend made their way off the bus (the bus dropped off the high school kids at the high school and then took the rest of us out to the elementary school) Greg Sweet whispered in my ear, "Do you wanna screw?" My mouth fell open and I was trying to decide if I should give him an earful of outrage when he laughed, grabbed my hand, and dropped a shiny metal screw into my palm. I shut my fly catcher, utterly speechless, and he and his girlfriend laughed all the way off the bus. I was mortified, and scandalized, and yet flattered. I kept that screw for years!

Brian and I had a nice kissing session at a St. Valentine's Day party that Ramona, Cindy, and I threw at my home. We also claimed each other as boyfriend and girlfriend a few different times. I often thought of him as Sir Smiles-a-Lot. He had a huge grin and a great sense of humor. I did not usually find myself drawn to blond guys. Probably because I was blond, I thought of it as "girl hair" and was not often attracted to blond men. But the blonds I did like, I liked a lot. Brian was blond and adorable! He and I gave one of our math teachers what was likely the most uncomfortable class of his life. We sat in classroom "holding hands" in plain view, but our hands did not just hold, they caressed, they glided over each other with sensual joy, they made wild hand-love with sweet abandon. And poor Mr. Spear was watching and trying to give a math lesson. I'm not sure, looking back, what we hoped to prove, but Brian thought it was fun and hilarious. I loved holding his hand, so I went along. We sat together in the back seat of the bus and held hands, we scrunched down for privacy, and we kissed a few times. It was fun but never amounted to anything serious.

Brad the Liar thought he had the tiger by it's tail. He had an interest in me and I, for a very short time, returned it. I agreed to "go out" with him, which was our way of doing what our parents had called "going steady." Then I heard that he was whispering the exact same words in Nancy's ear, in Ramona's ear, and in my friend Shan's ear. It was one thing to flirt with lots of people. Most of us did that. It was well accepted unless or until you had claimed a boyfriend or girlfriend that claimed you back. But he had asked all of us to "go out", to be his ONE and only girlfriend!

My friends were outraged and wanted to confront him right then, but I had an idea. Yes, we would confront him. We would tell him what a jerk he really was... But first we would show him what happened to guys that messed with us, and this would have to wait until the weekend when most of us could converge at my house. We had discovered this womanizing boyfriend through our phone conversations, but I had a plan that was better acted out if most or all of us could hang out at my house. I filled them in on my plan and they were elated. Somehow we all managed to hold our peace and continue the ruse of a relationship with Brad until the weekend rolled around. For my part, I avoided him like the plague. I was convinced I would lose my temper and give us away if I did not.

The next weekend Nancy and Ramona came to my house and so did my young niece Tanya. My mother often told us Tanya was my little shadow. Shan had not been able to get her parents to bring her out to visit me, so we spent much of the day on the phone with her. It rained hard that Saturday. It was late in the fall and the day was gray and cold. I called my "boyfriend" up and told him I had to see him now! It was very important, and could he please meet me at Hardee's fast food restaurant right away? Brad was still too young for a driver's license and so he biked everywhere he went on his own. He agreed and Nancy, Ramona, Tanya, and I watched from my living room picture window, snickering evilly as he rode his bike up the hill in the pouring rain to see me, though I was not at Hardee's and was instead dryly ensconced at home with my girlfriends. We kept Shan abreast of what was going on, but she lived up on one of the ridges and was missing out on the live show that we were getting. When he got home he called me and I apologized sweetly, telling him my parents had made me come home. Two more times we dragged him out in the rain and past my house for false romantic rendezvous. Though by the time Ramona called he was feeling a bit jaded and she had to promise favors he was never going to get from her! We enjoyed watching him suffer. When he biked past the last time, his head bowed in the rain and his exhausted legs peddling slowly, I whispered, "Ride, Brad. Ride!" in the same manner we had all read "Run, Spot. Run." in the first grade. The other girls laughed until their sides hurt.

Then Ramona and I got on one of my phones and Nancy on the other. I called him and let them listen to him tell me how much he loved me and that I was the only girl in the world for him. An hour later he told Ramona the same thing. Nancy did not wait for her turn to call him. She had heard enough! She interrupted his love talk with Ramona and surprised him with her sweet but very angry little voice. She was furious and let him know exactly what she thought of him. He was so shocked to hear Ramona and me chime in and tell him how much we disliked him too. I told him that he would never date a decent girl in our town again because we would let everyone know what a liar he was. After we all "broke up" with him and told him off, I gave Shan the news and she did the same. Poor Brad the Liar was broken up with four times in one day and got soaked to the bone as well. I was sure it was a town record. What a hard day for Brad!

Cindy and I dated a couple of friends for a while. Gorgeous Neal and Rowdy Ronnie were old enough to have driver's licenses and Ronnie had his very own truck. Neal was one of those simply gorgeous guys. Soft brown hair, bright eyes, muscles, and a charming smile. Ronnie was light skinned, light haired, heavy set, fun, and loud. Cindy and I wanted to go on double dates, so I suggested these two friends that were always hanging out together, just like she and I were. Cindy agreed, but only if she got to date Neal and I dated Ronnie. My interest in Neal was the real reason I'd suggested such an idea in the first place, but I had this habit of bowing out if my friends were attracted to the same guy that I was. I did not figure any romantic relationship was worth the risk of ruining a friendship. Friendships were supposed to last forever. Whereas a romantic interest, the majority of the time, was going to end. Ideally, I thought that romantic interest should end in a friendship, but I knew that would not always be the case. Besides, interesting guys seemed so much easier to find than interesting girls! I had to hold on to the few females I truly felt comfortable with. They were few and far between. This stepping aside idea of mine had worked brilliantly with every guy but my great interest -- Buddy. All my girlfriends just had to share Buddy with me because I was not bowing completely out! I would not show a romantic interest in him if you and he were dating, but I could not stop my heart from revolving around him, and I would not stop talking to him. Buddy and I were friends if we were nothing else.

Ramona, Nancy, Cindy, Shan, Jutannia, and I often dated the same guys, just not at the same time. Sometimes we seemed to trade them almost like baseball cards, back and forth and repeatedly. It was a very small town we were in! My mother said it made her dizzy trying to keep up with which boy was with which girl. I think the only guy Michelle and I both had an interest in was Buddy, but I'm not sure if she was very interested in him. She tended to like a type of boy that I was not attracted to. I figured I could easily beat most of them up and that kind of killed the romance for me. They were often light haired and skinny. I was convinced I could beat any of the boys up if I had to, but I did not have a romantic interest in the guys that I thought would be an easy win for me. For the longest time, she dated my third cousin, Dean-o. I figured a stiff wind could beat that skinny little guy up, and I was unsure about the cousin thing anyway, so I had no interest in him at all. In the end, Michelle married a guy that looked pretty formidable, so I guess that was all that really mattered. I had no idea who Angie dated, as we lost touch more than Jutannia and I did as the years went by.

Cindy and I shared Gorgeous Neal. I remember being boyfriend/girlfriend with him at school and standing all hugged up at the top of the outside staircase, overlooking the motel where I sometimes played hookie. (Always all by myself, solitude was kind of the whole point). But he and I had tapered off when I came up with the idea of dating Ronnie and Neal, so Cindy was well within her rights to call dibs on Neal. I bowed out and Cindy dropped the hints that got us asked out, then we started dating Rowdy Ronnie and Gorgeous Neal. Ronnie and Neal liked to take us to the steak house and to the movies. We loved those dates, but I dreaded being picked up by Ronnie unless Cindy or Neal were already in the truck. Ronnie liked to wax his truck seats right before picking me up. Then he would do donuts in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, causing me to slide across the seat and slam into him, then slide back across the seat and slam into the door, then slide across the seat and slam into him again. I guess, it was some primitive mating ritual and/or he was simulating sex and working on his technique, but I did not appreciate the gesture! I found myself contemplating wearing a seat belt, which was something I had never done before in my entire life! Ronnie and Neal also liked to hide moonshine in the creek bed and drink like fiends! The 'shine was luminous by the soft lights from the dash board, and it went down like hot silk. I loved it even more than Gorgeous Neal. One night Neal got so drunk he could barely walk. Cindy had told me earlier that day that she and Neal were not going to work out. She knew I had been interested in him originally and told me, "Go for it, if you want to." So, I let Neal kiss my moonshine lips in the moonlight, but it was not at all like when he and I had been dating. I found out that drunk people, even gorgeous drunk people, kiss very poorly! Gorgeous Neal's sloppy drunkenness concerned us both, and Cindy and I moved on to other guys.

I had been bullied at church for years by a guy we will call Johnny Mac Maybe. I landed on the Maybe name when he decided that I was suddenly more interesting as a love interest than a victim. He asked me to date him and I thought, "MAYBE this is a chance to show him how biting goes." Which is a saying my family used when we wanted to take revenge. It came from my dear Crit biting a possum because the possum bit him first. Before he chowed down on the rodent's nose, Crit yelled, "I'll show you how biting goes!" And it became my family's battle cry for justice.

As I hung out with Johnny Mac Maybe, my heart softened. I soon decided that Johnny Mac had bullied me out a very uncomfortable and false sense of how to flirt with girls. He treated everyone with more respect than he had a few years before, and he really was a sweet but very awkward guy. He was genuinely shocked when I told him he had frightened me when he chased me all around the church house for hours while his dad preached fire and brimstone sermons inside. I soon did not have the heart for any more plans of vengeance on this poor guy, and thus I set him free. But Johnny Mac did not want to be set free, and I accidentally found the revenge I had set out for. He cried on my shoulder. He sent me multiple letters asking me what he did wrong and begging for the opportunity to try again. MAYBE, he guessed, I was angry because he didn't try to kiss me? MAYBE I was angry because he didn't buy me gifts? Or beat up other boys for me? Or take me to movies? Whatever it was, if I'd just tell him then he could fix it. I eventually told my girlfriend Jutannia what had happened and she smiled a secret, sneaky smile. I always suspected she distracted him for me for a bit because the letters stopped, and eventually he and I both moved on to other interests.

At the skating rink and at school sock hops I had certain guys that would search me out for "couple skating" or "slow dances". Most I welcomed; all I gave a "yes". I had made a deal with myself when I was thirteen. I don't remember what inspired it. Was it a Sadie Hawkins dance that left me speechless? Was it a particular episode of The Brady Bunch that highlighted some boys great fear before asking out a girl? I don't remember. What I do remember is that it occurred to me that it took a great deal of courage to even ask a girl to dance or skate, especially if you were not a wildly popular boy. I admired courage greatly, and I vowed that day to never turn a guy down unless I had already promised the next song to another boy, or I was sick, or injured. So, at the sock hops and the skating rink, I accompanied any boy that found the nerve to ask me. I danced if invited. I skated if invited. In the event that I had that song promised, I would tell them they had dibs on the next one if they wanted. I did not have a dance card, but I was not so popular that I couldn't keep my promises straight.  Sometimes the other girls teased me just a little for dancing with the unpopular boys. "He picks his nose!" Or "He's such a nerd!" But CES was much kinder than LFE had been, and someone else usually put any thoughtless teaser in their place before I felt I had to. I told my best friends about my deal with myself and challenged them to do the same. As far as I know, Nancy and Michelle danced with every guy that found the courage to ask them from that point on. Now there were three of us doing in and it became less noteworthy.

If I felt comfortable enough with a certain guy or interested enough in him I would sometimes be the one to seek him out. I often pointed at my sweet friend Jimmy and said, "You're mine next dance!"

Jimmy would grin and say, "Yes, ma'am." He enjoyed being claimed that way. He was a wickedly free dancer and he did not put girls off until the slow dances. Most boys would only brave the dance floor when the song was slow. They would stand in the shadows and watch the girls dance with each other during the faster songs. But Jimmy was bold and wild. He lived on the dance floor. I often wound up sharing him with Nancy and sometimes even a bevy of other girls, but if I had started the dance with him and decided I wanted to catch his eye, hold his hand, or cuddle up to his chest, there was always a path made for me. There was an unspoken understanding: If we had started the dance together then I was his dance partner and he was mine. If he had started the dance with some other girl, I would never have challenged that, but I would feel free to claim him for the next one. I suspected that I could have even gotten by with being a big jerk and pulling him away from most any girl there, but I did not want to be a jerk. And the girls in my grade hardly ever had hard feelings over boys. Groups of us danced together with the sort of joy and abandonment that only comes with being young and having your whole life ahead of you. All the world is new and beautiful when you are that age.

There was a guy named Max (I called him Maxy) that grabbed my attention at the skating rink. He had a brother whose moniker was much more common and I may have forgotten. I think it was John. He was every bit as good looking, but a little more shy and so I did not get to know him quite as well. These brothers were not from my home town. We had the only skating rink in several counties. Often one of them accompanied me for the couple skating. I was a bit uncomfortable skating with them though, because when they were not holding my awkward little hand they were twisting, and looping, and skating backwards. They were much more adept skaters than I was. They looked like joy in motion on the skating rink when not tied to my hand, so I felt as though I was holding them back. I often skated with a couple of brothers named Matthew and Billy. And Brian and Jimmy were skating rink regulars that I found myself whizzing around the skating rink with while the disco ball turned and Joan Jett belted out over the speakers. Good times in the 80s!

Once, Ramona and I brought a couple of boys home that we had been hanging out with out town. It was getting dark and much colder. They only wanted to come in an warm up by our wood stove. I jokingly said, "Look what the cat dragged in," As I brought them through the door.

Without missing a beat, my daddy said, "Yeah, and the cat can drag them right back out too!"

Poor John and Walter were destined to freeze that day.

I dated Psycho Wayne right before I met my future husband, Greg. Psycho Wayne was the brother of this really sweet guy that I had known for years. The sweet guy's nickname was Trigger. (Yeah, like the horse.) I don't remember what his real name was, though I used to know it. But I made the mistake of thinking that, since Trigger was a very sweet guy, his brother Wayne was probably a very sweet guy too. My sisters and I, though separated by ten and twelve years, were very similar. Surely Trigger and Wayne were similar too, right? At first things went fine. Then I found out Wayne had a penchant to kiss and tell. I was unhappy about that and voiced my opinion. He talked me into forgiving him, just this once. When he did it again, I tried to break up with him, but he cried and begged me not to. I probably would have followed through anyway, but Wayne pulled Lila into it and she suggested forgiveness, so I forgave again, but things were not the same. I just did not care for him like I had. I did not trust him and I did not really like him. I gathered my sand and told him so a few weeks later. He cried again, but this time I was prepared for it. Psycho Wayne pulled out another ace in the hole though and threatened suicide. "How could I live without you?" He asked me, and I found myself wondering what I would do if someone killed themselves because I broke up with them. Surely, he must love me a lot to be that desperate. I caved once more and we were back to dating. A few weeks later, the misery got to me again, and I tried to break up with him. This time he threatened not only to kill himself but to kill me as well. This one simply threw me, and I was back on the dating horse. He was huge and strong. I had never had a death threat and was not sure what to do or where to turn to. But it only staggered me for a couple more weeks. Again, I tried to end the misery and when crying didn't work, and threatening suicide did not work, and threatening to kill me did not work, Wayne threatened to kill my much adored niece, Tanya Lynn. This time I was not thrown into pity or confusion. This time I was thrown into rage and I knew exactly what to do! I told him to wait right there for just a minute. I marched into my house (we'd been having the break up conversation in the back yard because I did not want my family to hear his crying or threatening.) I grabbed a giant butcher knife from the kitchen drawer and tucked it into my clothing. I took it outside and brandished it his way, asking him to say that again.

He did not, but I then surprised him by putting the knife handle in his own hand and saying, "Okay, now kill yourself if you want to!" I pulled up his shirt sleeve to show him his wrist. "Or kill me if you'd rather." I pulled back my hair and threw back my head, exposing the soft white skin of my neck, "God knows I'd find relief from you either way. But if you EVER think I'm going to stand around and let you threaten my niece again you have got another think coming! I will take that knife away from you with my bare hands in a hummingbird heartbeat and shove it up your ass if you EVER... PRETEND... to THINK about threatening a hair on her head again! You and I are not worthy of her little fingernail, and it's best that you never forget that again. Do you understand that?!" He nodded in shock and perhaps awe or fear. I will never know. I then took back my mother's knife and ordered Wayne off my dad's property telling him to never come back. I stood shaking with anger while he walked down the steps.

Soon he was dating my cousin Herletta. She and I had struggled with differences, and she and Wayne would snigger my way in the movie theater. I knew who was happier in that situation and did not let it get to me for an instant. I was glad to be shed of Psycho Wayne. A few months later I heard through the grapevine that he was threatening suicide on Herletta, so I told my story to a mutual friend hoping it might get back to my cousin and help her get away from Psycho Wayne. Herletta and I had a strained relationship but I did not want anyone stuck with that crazy guy. She eventually managed a successful breakup and I was relieved for her. Shan dated him briefly and had similar problems with him. After that, she and I warned all our friends to stay away from Psycho Wayne. These days, though, I wonder if I wasn't a tad more psycho than Psycho Wayne was. I guess he wondered that too. Possibly he still does.

Many of these guys were fine individuals and would have made good and interesting life mates. Some of them could perhaps even logically consider themselves "too good for me". And some of them were bullets I am quite happy to say I dodged.

GIRLHOOD GIFTS GALORE

The Richest Little Poor Kid

THEN:

The best gifts cannot be held onto. They slip by like the grains of sand under your toes when the waves rush in over your feet. They are the Great Ones like Love, Time, Thoughtfulness, Forgiveness, Peace, Patience, Tenderness, Understanding, Appreciation. These types of gifts are the truest and most beautiful ones of all.

My greatest gifts as a child are memories of these.

Sometimes, we receive a gift we can hold onto. A book, a toy, a letter. Usually these gifts are kept and cherished best if they represent one of the Great Ones. Someone showed their Love for me. Someone spent Time with me or dedicated their Time to making or finding something for me. Someone envisioned how much I would like this and brought it to me.

I have been blessed to have many tangible gifts as well as millions of intangible ones. For a child that grew up in some pretty significant poverty, I managed a lot of memorable and wonderful gifts, and I cherished them and took pretty good care of them most of the time, because I knew another one would not come along if I lost or destroyed this one.

One of my earliest and most precious gifts was a used doll named "Cuddly". I did not name this doll and I don't know if that's the name she came with or if my cousin Anzie gave it to her.

Anzie was helping make a bed and I held up a doll that was on the floor near the wall.

"What's this dolly's name?" I asked. I was less than three years old, possibly even one year old.

Anzie answered, "Her name is Cuddly."

"I like her."

"You can have her if you want."

I was struck by how simply the doll went from being Anzie's to being mine. I'd never been very interested in dolls before but I loved Anzie dearly and was so impressed with her generosity that I vowed to deserve it. I would take care of Cuddly FOREVER! She became my near constant companion for many years. I cut off almost all her hair (because I thought new born babies were supposed to be bald.) Then her eyelashes went, just because I wanted to see what she would look like without them. I painted her nails and put "permanent makeup" on her (also nail polish.) She's had a hard time, but I still "like her" and my grand daughter has played with her many times.

I had a few other dolls. Drowsy was my second favorite doll. She wore a pink polka dot sleeper and said things like, "Mommy, I'm sleepy," and "I want another drink of water!" She had a very pouty voice for that last phrase. Daddy and Momma bought her for me. She was brand new, and  I did not get many new dolls. I loved the polka dots, and her whiny little voice, and her sleepy little eyes. She was tucked under one arm and Cuddly under the other, for many of my youngest years. I did not often play with them the way other little girls did. I was more into riding horses and climbing trees, but they went where I went, and woe unto anyone that held them by their foot or tossed them around carelessly. I was furious if they were, in my young eyes, "mistreated". I once got excited and ran inside when it started storming, only to realize that Cuddly was still out there in the rain. My mother would not allow me to go back out to get her.  I looked out the window and cried until the rain stopped. When I brought her in, she was soaked through and her cloth body had absorbed a lot of water. I was petrified as I watched mom take her apart, make a new body for her, and put her back together again. Sometimes, my mom amazed me breathless!

I still have "Ella", a rubber elephant toy that I've had since I was, my mother says, about six months old. Ella too is in sad shape, but I love every inch of her. She has a big grin and she wears a backpack that I always imagined was full of the best books.

I was given a tricycle when I was about two and I logged many hours on that toy. My dad rode it under the table and bumped his head trying to show me how to ride it. My parents tell me they were amazed at how quickly I took to it and whizzed all over the house endangering every knee cap and shin in the house. My older cousin Becky was given a trike at about the same time, but she did not take to hers as well as I did to mine. I can remember running laps around her as we rode around the pot bellied stove. I could hear the family remarking that I was younger and smaller, but faster and fearless. Becky soon tired of her contraption and went back to her dolls, but my dolls had to sit and politely watch while worked on being a speed demon.

When I was six my favorite toys were plastic farm and zoo animals. By that age, I also had a Mother Goose doll that said nursery rhymes when you pulled her string. She was well loved, and so was my Barbie doll complete with extra clothing and shoes. I also had a View Master Viewer and several coloring books and some crayons. I was getting toy rich! My favorite pastime, though, was playing with the plastic animals. I would pull the narrow drawers out of my mother's sewing machine and place them on their sides. If they had anything in them, I would empty the contents into a certain spot and tell myself that I would fill the drawer back up later. (Likely my mother filled the drawer back up, but it was always my intent to do so.) Those drawers would then become barns and homes for my animals and I spend hours acting out dramas in which the zoo would lose a monkey and all the animals would go in search of him or the cow would fall in a ditch and have to rescued by the elephants and the bison. Drowsy, and Cuddly, Mother Goose, and Barbie just watched me play. They were the audience for these stories.

My parents bought me a plush monkey. He was brand new and wore vivid colors. I adored that monkey. I did not have him long, however, because my little niece, Tanya, cried for him as she and her mother (my sister, Lila) left one day and Mom and Lila talked me into "loaning" the monkey to Tanya. I never got it back and it was years before I let any of them forget it. Since I'm writing about it today, I'm thinking maybe I never did. But the only thing I have left of that awesome gift is the memory, the story. So, I will not lose that as well. I will be true to the memory of the awesome monkey.

At about that same age (six or seven) I was given a Big Wheel. I'd outgrown my tricycle and this was my parents answer to that problem. The Big Wheel was low to the ground and maneuvered better than the tricycle ever had. This was amazingly fun! I was soon spinning down the dirt drive way and throwing dust and gravel all over the place.

When I was eight and we moved to a more remote area, the roads were not even the slightly-flattened graveled driveway type and the Big Wheel became a lot less practical. There was only a few flat patches that would allow me to ride it. Most of the time it stuck in dips or the wheels would spin as I peddled my frustrated little heart out.

My dad saw that I needed a new diversion. He climbed so high in a tree that my mother had to shout out her dire warnings about falling to his death. He strung chains in a sturdy limb high in that tree and removed any other branches that were in the way. Soon I had a swing that was very much like a low trapeze. In the middle, my feet could touch the ground. On both ends of it's swoop it was high off the ground.  At it's highest point I could jump onto the hood of the old International Truck that stood nearby. My dad had given me for the truck for a playhouse. If the truck had been moved a little, I could have jumped off my swing and onto the top of the cab. That's how high the swing went. The truck and the swing became my two best toys. I was into Sci Fi and usually pretended that truck was a spaceship. I would go rescue Tom Swift from eminent peril. (Sandi had only read dozens of Tom Swift books to me.) Or I would "land" in that truck/spaceship and discover some strange planet with odd animals and danger around every corner. Only my "spaceship" was safe! I can remember reading in the old truck on rainy days. Once my sister, Lila, gave me a book of cowboy ghost stories and I read them in that truck with the rain hitting the cab in lonely, metallic plunks. Now and then I would look at the house and wonder if I should make a run for it, since the book was making me a bit jittery, and I was longing for the familiar sounds of my home, and maybe a mustard sandwich or a biscuit with mayonaise. But the rain was cold and constant and deterred me. Eventually I fell asleep tucked up into an old blanket that I kept in the truck. I must not have been too scared or too hungry after all.

One day I came home from school and my mom and dad surprised me with my very own am/fm radio! I had been playing mom's radio and her records for myself since I was five or six, but this one was portable! I could put batteries in it, or stretch out a long extension cord for it, and listen to music while I played in my truck or while I swang and sang on my trapeze-like swing. There is nothing like music to help you remember there is no need to feel lonely.

Mother saved up S & H Green Stamps and usually she bought household items, pots and pans, dishes, towels, small appliances, etc. with them. One day though, she told me, "You can have my Green Stamps. What do you want to get with them?" I always flipped through the S & H catalog, using it as a "wish book", so I knew just what I wanted. I excitedly went straight to the page in the magazine that had dolls and pointed out "Jody, an old fashioned girl". Jody was a cowgirl doll with hair down to her boots. When she arrived, I went to my mother and asked if there was a way to keep her long hair from frizzing up and being destroyed the way a Barbie doll's hair usually was. Momma braided Jody's hair and told me to keep it that way and it would stay pretty. Jody was a great toy and I had fun with her for many years.

My mother found Raggedy Ann and Andy sheets for my bed. I'm not sure if they came from a yard sale, the S & H green stamps catalog, or a bag full of hand me downs. I am sure that my neice Tanya, my cousin Ramona, my sister Sandi, and I all spent many happy hours snuggled on and under them, enjoying the pretty sheets and the warm electric blanket that kept us toasty in the winter. I remember looking in pure wonderment at the doll's magical faces and being delighted with those sheets. Tanya wound up with the originals, or at least with a pillowcase from the originals. I have a pillowcase from an identical set that I still sleep on from time to time.

Another day, Pop said, "You have a present at the house." He told me this when he and my mother picked me up at the bus stop which was miles away from home. I asked now and then on the way home what the present was, but Daddy kept saying, "You have to find it when we get home."

When we got home, I ran through the house (my parent's gifts were always awesome and I was very excited.) I began looking under things and tearing around rather wildly. Momma said, "Don't make a mess! It's not under anything. It's out in plain view."

Daddy said, "Don't give it away!"

"Well, she was getting ready to tear the house down!" Both of them laughed.

Eventually, Daddy had to point it out. They had hung my present on the wall, high over my short little head, and it was a brand new B.B. gun! The fun I had with that! I had never had a B.B. gun but was soon shooting clothes pins, and bulls eyes on cardboard, and pine cones, and walnuts. No one had to warn me not to shoot living creatures with it. I would have cried my eyes out if I'd accidentally hurt a beetle, let alone one of my dear chicken friends!

I had two teddy bears that were precious to me. One of them was Professor Bhaer. My daddy bought The Professor because I had wanted him very much and had not asked for him, thinking he was much too expensive. I was more than aware that money was tight in our home. My sister Sandi, had been reading Little Women to me, so the bear was quickly christened "Professor Bhaer." It made perfect sense to both of us and the Professor is still among my most prized possessions.

My other cherished teddy was given to me for Christmas when I was about 13. He was a fat, fluffy, golden fellow that I named Ted. E. Bear after the little bear voiced by Tom Smothers in the animated Christmas show, "The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas." I lost Ted. E. Bear in one of my many moves and of all the toys I used to have and have no more, I'd like him back best of all, even more so than the awesome monkey or my sweet Jody!

When I had my tenth birthday my cousin Teresa Kay Kinder made a very big deal out of it, "Double digits!" she told me excitedly. She spent a lot of time and energy decorating, inviting people, and planning games. It rained and no one showed up except family, but we still had the best time! Theresa gave me a Quiz Whiz that I had hours and hours of fun with. My sister, Lila gave me a pair of skates. This opened up a whole new world of fun for me and eventually led to my going skating every Saturday that I could manage to come up with the money. Skating became one of my favorite pastimes.

Four dresses were given to me and became listed as favorite childhood gifts. The first was a big flowing blue dress that was much too big for me. I think Lila gave me that dress. I called it my "Princess dress" and I wanted to wear it all the time. Every day after school, I shook off the stress of teachers and rules and slipped into the peace of my Princess Dress. It played a pivotal part in surviving a teacher that hated me for no known reason. It made me feel safe and important.

One dress was brown and black and looked just a little like Jody's cowgirl dress. I believe Momma picked it out for me at a yard sale when I was about twelve years old. I wore it over and over, often with cowboy boots. One day I was wearing it and feeling just a bit pretty when a dear friend, Shane Hensley walked by with another boy that I did not know. Shane said, "Hi!" He smiled happily and asked if I was doing okay in the new school. "I love it! You?" He and I had both been at LFE before. He said he loved CES too, then as he was walking away, he spoke quietly to the other boy, "Do you know her? That's one of the prettiest and nicest girls in the whole world!" You don't feel pretty or noticed much when you are twelve, but that quiet compliment, that I wasn't even supposed to hear, stood out in my mind, encouraging me for the rest of my life.

Eventually, my Aunt Nancy suggested it was the cowgirl dress that might be the cause of many unexplainable sounds and sights my mother and I had been experiencing in our new home and not long after that the dress went amiss. I don't know if my mother gave it away or if my Auntie took it with her, at mom's suggestion, but I missed it greatly and the unexplainable sounds and sights never stopped. Strange things happened in that house even when I was an adult living there with my own sons and my first husband.

One dress was a sundress my Pop picked out for me that Mother thought I would not like. The dress itself was a white sundress with pink and red birds all over it, parrots I believe. It had elastic all around the bosom and two wide, sturdy straps that kept it from falling off when I ran or played. I was twelve years old and it was the perfect dress for a young lady that was one part princess and one part adventurer.

The last dress was bought for my seventh grade graduation. It was purple and cut very prettily. It made me feel sort of pretty and very grown up. I wore it for many years, even after I was married, but eventually it ripped. I missed it everafter.

I had always tried to hog the cameras in the family, either behind or in front of them. I was fascinated with the process of taking and then seeing a photo. I was beguiled by the art of it. I was destined to become an avid photographer. When I was about thirteen, Mom and Dad gave me a 110 camera and I officially became the family photographer. Somehow my parents found the money to help me get film developed rather regularly. What a gift that was!

For my birthday when I turned thirteen, Lila gave me a record player and two 45 records, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band and Dr. Hook. I still had and  adored my radio, but now I could play what I wanted to hear exactly when I wanted to hear it, as long as I could come up with records. I asked her, "How am I supposed to get any more records?" I did not get an allowance, and had no way of making money that I knew of, so this was a fair enough question.

"You have birthdays, and Christmases, and Just becauses." She smiled at me. This cheered me some. Lila would bring me more records!

"And you can check records out at the library too." Sandi added. That cheered me a lot!

"Oh! That's right! I can!" Now I was intensely excited and my sisters laughed at my joy.

True to her word, Lila bought me records for birthdays, Christmases, and 'just becauses'. She handed me The Eagles, John Lennon, Jim Croce, Linda Ronstadt and so much more that I soon had a stack of 45s that kept falling over.

Sandi and I shared a room and there was only one inside door in our whole shotgun house anyway, and that was for the bathroom. So, for her part, Sandi helped me keep the records I checked out of the library from being overdue, and she listened to me play those and my own records over and over as much as she could possibly tolerate before begging me to, "Switch out the record and play something else, anything else, or turn on the radio for a bit, or silence! Silence is good! What's wrong with a little silence?" She gifted me Patience and Understanding, and then life gave me MTV!

I knew growing up that I was the richest little poor kid in the world!

FATHER PAIN AND MOTHER PANIC

THEN:

Looking back on my girlhood, I think of my parents as experts on many subjects. Not the least of these are pain and panic.

My pop never seemed to be afraid in his life until something happened to my mother or to one of their daughters. In a blind rush of what could only be called panic, he broke the ice over a frozen river and dunked Lila's head under the water to stop a nosebleed that seemed even more stubborn than Pop was. It worked and both my daddy and my sister began to calm down and breathe again.

He told me after giving birth to my second son, "No more babies for us, little girl!"

I looked to my mother for an explanation and she grinned, "Both times you've been in labor we've had to take your dad to the E.R. He can't take any more babies, so that's gotta be your last one." She laughed and I helped her. It was funny. Dad was so rarely afraid that we could not help but chuckle after he had recovered from a fright.

Mother knew some pain. She grown up more malnourished and sickly than any of her daughters. She had her share of toothaches, stomachaches, child birth, and almost every pain imaginable to womankind except headaches. My mother had one headache in her entire life and it came when she was in her 70s and it was drug induced. I was the headache queen around our place and I think my frequent headaches puzzled her as much as her lack of headaches puzzled me.

But my parents were only novices floundering around now and then in each others field. We girls knew, Daddy was the expert on pain and Momma was much more adept with panic. Sometimes she handled panic in ways we preferred not to emulate. None of us wanted to go to bed and practically stay there, but often we gleaned good examples from her when it came to dealing with fear.


PAIN:

Dad lived for many years of his life with large and constant issues from ulcers. The exit to his stomach was blocked by the boils, and he was in near constant pain. His stomach was "sick"; he belched and scowled a lot; he held his gut; he sucked down the plop, plop, fizz, fizz medicine like candy. And yet, all of this was such a small part of who he was. He didn't let the pain slow him down much, let alone stop him. We caught a glimpse now and then of the scowl before he wiped it from his face. We saw him clutching his stomach when he did not yet realize we had walked up on him. We knew he vomited more than once on most days. Usually, if he ate it was only a short time before he would lose the contents of his stomach. Often he put off eating because it was such an unpleasant experience, full of pain and the revolting act of vomiting. There was always a place on our land that we stayed away from because we had discovered that it was where Pop went to spill his stomach. He tried to hang on to the food he ate for as long as he could, hoping to pull some nutrients from it, hoping some of the food would make it out of his stomach and into his intestines before he got too sick. He didn't weigh much over a hundred pounds, but we girls knew, it was a hundred plus pounds of pure determination.

He told me more than once, "Any pain that I can hold my breath through, I can take. If it lasts longer than I can hold my breath, then I might groan a bit." To my Daddy, groaning or any verbal reaction, was the opposite of "taking". I learned to do the same. At three years old I held my breath through injections and the nurses told my pop with wide eyes, "I've never seen a baby that little take a shot and not cry." I could see the pride in my daddy's eyes any time someone praised my strength and it happened more and more as the years wore on. He would tell them my maiden name, as if that explained it all. They often nodded and so, in my mind, the name became synonymous with "tough".

When I was twelve, Dad had surgery that finally freed him from the ulcers but not from pain. Since that time has had brain surgery, open heart surgery, many bouts of strep throat, pneumonia, bronchitis, and almost constant and often sever headaches. If he says he is hurting, we all jump, knowing he was hurting ages before he admitted to the pain. He is now in his 80s, and to this day, the nurses marvel over how well he handles pain. My Pop cornered the market on dealing with physical pain.

In his shadow, I have watched and learned. I've made it through not only a blue dozen needles at the doctor's office, but also stepping on countless nails and cigarette butts, being thrown from horseback, losing teeth from blows, meningitis - complete with two spinal taps, shingles at the ripe old age of fourteen, a spinal injury, two pregnancies, two natural deliveries, kidney stones, arthritis, an ectopic pregnancy, three surgeries, a myriad of procedures, migraine headaches, an abusive marriage, and much more. If I had not been gifted with his example, I might long ago have given in and groaned! Okay, I have groaned a bit, but much less than you might expect.

A nurse once told my first mother in law, Nina (after I had just underwent surgery) "I've never seen anyone get up so soon after this kind of surgery."

I looked at Nina and my eyes asked, "How well do you know me?"

My mother in law said, "Well, let me introduce you to E.R.'s daughter... She's a strong woman. Nothing keeps her down very long."

And I smiled. She knew me pretty well.


PANIC:

My mother was the expert on fear. She grew up under threat of almost every abuse known to man, and I'm betting that sometimes the dread of it was as bad as the event itself. She lived and grew with fear in her heart, in her eyes, in her thoughts, in nearly every minute of her day. She conquered it when she could. She went to bed and relied on Poe's "little slices of death" to escape it when she had to. Mother knew fear.

Her strength came with her anger. She had taught herself to channel any fear that came and roll it into a fierce and furious rage. How dare they try to hurt her! How dare they try to hurt her sisters! Her husband! Her daughters! Righteous anger saw her through many a panic and she taught that fury to her children as well. We were apt pupils, especially Lila and myself. Sandi can channel rage when she must, but Lila and I nearly bathed in it.

"I can't stand to see anyone pick on someone smaller than they are!" Momma said.
And quick as a wink, her daughters became the defenders of the underdog.

"You don't believe an adult over a child, just because the child is a child and the adult is an adult. That child is probably much more truthful than any adult is!"
And my sisters and I became fierce advocates for children.

"You are sisters! You fight FOR each other not WITH each other."
And we became a unit that only God could tear apart, our strength more than tripled. Synergy became a beautiful thing.

She said, "You might be little, but you are LOUD!"
Pop added with a wry grin, "Dynamite comes in small packages."
And we stood up for ourselves as well as the weak and innocent. We faced, seemingly without fear, bullies of every size and fashion. Our tempers became a known and dreaded thing.

I watched my mother lose her mind with rage, and then (filled with a sort of frightful anger) I emulated that insane rage when the biggest of them came at me. It scared off every female bully that came my way and most of the male ones.

Mother's channeling panic into fury got me through every bulling experience of my life, which was considerable. It got both Lila and myself through abusive relationships. It helped with many other fears, though it's much harder to channel anger when you can't figure out who to be angry at. When I lost my baby, I raged at life. When I had viscous nosebleeds, I became angry with myself for not taking better care of my health. I was afraid and furious!

Momma taught us to deal with fear, to survive it as she had survived it. That's the good side to her expertise with panic. On the flip side, she taught us to worry, to predict fear and negativity in order to be prepared for it. In a polar opposite of Dad, she voiced everything. It were as though she thought that talking about her fears might lessen them. If that ever worked for her, I could not tell that it did. And it firmly does not work for me! The soundtrack of my life was often the voice of my mother worrying aloud, predicting the worst, bracing herself for the disappointments and heartaches that she considered unavoidable. I resented and rejected that. I made up my mind early that I would deal with pain and panic without talking about it. But her spoken fears became my inner voice, like it or not. Her pessimism became the little red guy sitting on my shoulder whispering horrors in my ear. I heard all the dark, dangerous, possibilities roll over and over and around and around in my brain. I still do. I look at the worst case scenarios, while trying to make a more optimistic person of myself. For many years, I resented her negative voice hanging out inside my brain. I still do sometimes, to be quite honest, but I now realize that my mother gave me what she thought I needed; she gave me the best she could, the best she had. Her words and example told us: "Brace yourself and get very angry." I think it was the motto that helped her survive life, and she hoped it would work for her daughters as well. In many ways it has.

In great part, it backfired on her though. Two of her daughters turned our anger on the motto because it so frightened us. And logically enough, turned our anger on the voice the motto used, the source that it sprang from. I spent years angry at my mother, with neither of us understanding that she and my dad had both taught me to reject and rage at my weaknesses, at the things that frightened me, at the words of doom that spoke in my head using my mother's voice.

These days, I try to laugh away the worst of my imaginings (no small feat that!) so that I can tell myself, "I'm just a realist, not a pessimist." I put on such a good show of being an optimist that most people consider me "bubbly," and "happy," and even "sweet". They do not know the battles I wage inside my own head, the negativity I try to drown with The Beatles, and Johnny Cash, and Barbra Steisand, and stiff cups of green tea, and long sessions with words.  I have learned that mother gave me the voice, but she also gave me the strength to face it and so many outside forces. Through the years I've worked on lessening the devil on my shoulder that says, "What if the car wrecks?" But, I must admit, I still hear him, and I've got a plan B for most disasters. Is all the wear and tear on my psyche worth it? Probably not, but I can't seem to make the little guy go away, or hush, or even whisper. As a result, I'm as ready for the rejection of friends and loved ones, the zombie apocalypse, the crash of society, and the death of any (honestly, of all) family members, as I suppose anyone could ever be. I still resent it because it's like pseudo suffering through things I may never have to suffer through in reality. But the little guy drones on, and so does the strength my parents taught me, and my now giant adoration for both of them.