My life so far...

CHAPTER ONE - First Six Years

BEGINNINGS

My first grade picture, 1954.  The suit I am wearing is one from Winnie Jo.  It was shades of green and shades of tan.  The name is Mama's work.  Also, the haircut.

I was born January 4, 1948.  I do not remember anything about my first year.  From pictures, I know that I was a skinny, ugly baby.  The day I was born is most noted for being the day the British colony of Burma, now Myanmar, became an independent nation after more than sixty years of colonial rule.  Mine was not the most noted birth of 1948.  That distinction belongs to the state of Israel.
My first memory is a simple scene  of me standing with one foot on the base board, my elbows on the edge of the dresser in the front bedroom, Momma and Daddy’s room, watching Daddy shave.  The baseboards were one by sixes, so I guess I was about 3 years old as I was just tall enough to rest my elbows on the dresser with this added height.   I am sure this is in my memory because my Daddy was the most important person in my world.  Daddy held that position until the time of my first marriage.
I know that Mamma and Patsy must have had the day to day responsibility of taking care of the children, but I have no early memories of either of them or of my other brothers and sister.  My next real memory is of being dressed only in my cotton underpants, running down the road screaming and crying after Momma and Daddy leaving in the car.  Patsy and Richard were trying to reassure me and get me to shut up.  I am guessing I was 3 to 4 years old and probably this was the first time Momma went anywhere without me, or at least the first time that I was aware she was leaving without me.
My next memory is in the summer of 1953.  Me and some of the children and maybe Daddy are in the yard by the back porch shelling corn, for the chickens, I guess.  Loveta is driving by in her car and she stops and yells that she has been to school.  She said they told her I could not start school until the next year, because I would not be old enough that fall.  Daddy lied about my birth year and I started school  that fall.
Patsy took me to school the first day.  We got off the buss in town and Patsy bought me a sugar daddy sucker.  I had a zipper binder notebook with paper in it.  When I got to school, I put what was left of the sucker between the papers in the notebook.  It stuck to the paper and ruined the sucker.  This is all I remember of my first day of school.
I was painfully shy at school.  From the first, I always knew all the answers, but I never, ever raised my hand to answer questions.  I was so skinny, Momma bought me jeans with galoshes that buttoned into the waist band to hold them up.  I had a little green (at least I think it was green) sweater passed down from cousin Winnie Jo that I just loved to ware with these jeans.  Someone had the idea of putting the sweater over the galoshes to hid them.  I think this was my idea because I thought it looked more stylish.  But, this presented a problem when going to the restroom, meaning I had to remover the sweater to go pee.  I was embarrassed to take off my sweater.  The restrooms were in the hallway at the entrance to the room, one for boys and one for girls; both one stool affairs.  I am guessing the restroom door had a lock, but we had no locks at all on our doors at home and I did not know how to use the restroom lock.  My solution to this problem was to sit in my chair and wet my pants when I wore my favorite outfit rather than risk being caught in the restroom  without my sweater.  Momma and Daddy worried about me wetting my pants at school, because I overhead them discussing it, but they never talked with me about it.
At this time, Daddy was working at Turney’s furniture factory at Harrison.  I remember he road to work everyday with Hugh Magness. I think maybe others in the area road with them, but I do not remember any other names.  The only real reason I know Daddy worked at the furniture factory at this time, is that he used scraps from the factory to make me and Betty Christmas presents in 1953 or 1954.  He made us a little child’s size table, two chairs and a doll bed painted red.  This was really nice child sized furniture for our financial situation.
As I said, my memory is not that great with exact events.  The reason I remember the furniture so clearly, is that in the summer of 1954 we were expecting a new baby.  Betty and I had big plans for the new baby and our red, child size furniture.  We were going to take it all out in the yard and use the new baby for our play thing.  Somehow, this did not happen.
The day Helen was born, August 18, 1954, Daddy took me and Betty up to Delbert O’Dell’s on his way to get the doctor.  The doctor, Dr. McCurry I guess, came to the house for the baby’s delivery.  After she was a few months old, it did become my responsibility to entertain her.  I remember taking her to the back bedroom, putting her on the bed and bouncing the bed gently trying to rock her to sleep so I could go outside and play.  Although, we did take care of her in the house, we were not allowed to take her outside.