Date: January 5, 2010
Fleta - My Life So Far
Today is Monday, January 4, 1910. I am 62 years old today. It was sunny but very cold, topping out at
around 20 degrees. It snowed yesterday
and we still have about 2 or 3 inches of snow because it has been so cold none
has melted.
I have been off work since last Wednesday for the new year
and my birthday. I am not going back to
work until Thursday. It is supposed to
get really, really cold by t he week end.
Probably below zero. I remember
living in Anchorage, Alaska in ’77 or ’78 when it was so cold that it did not
get to zero for almost a whole month. At
least it is not that cold here.
We are remodeling the trailer and I have been cleaning out
closets and drawers, organizing and tossing things. I found a blank notebook in a box in the
closet. This is what it said:
November 27, 2004
Aunt
Fleta,
I was wondering if you would write
stories in here about Grandpa and Grandpa and about your growing up. Mom has done some for me so I will have the
stories to pass on to my girls. I think of you often and I am keeping you in my
prayers. Than you and lots of love,
Laura
Take
your time with it. No hurry. The $5 is to mail it back.
My plan is to write this on the computer and keep the
$5. Actually, it has been 6 years since
I got this so Laura has probably forgotten all about the $5. Maybe I will just keep it and not write
anything. Always have a backup plan.
My handwriting is so bad that I have actually been unable to
read my own notes, so writing in long hand is not really a good option. The computer is my domain, so I will write on
the computer. I am not really very good
at writing about real life because I have a very poor memory. My sisters often tell me things that happened
when we were young that I cannot recall happening. Just the same, here goes.
CHAPTER ONE
BEGININGS
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment