I'm loving the complexity. Not all sweetness and light.
Book marking for later (heard there's a best seller in the making)
Betty Mom showed my brother and me which mushrooms to pick in the pasture and said she would fry them up for us. She said to only get the ones that looked like christmas tree sponges on a stick. The first ones tasted really good so we spent a lot of time after that picking mushrooms. We made our own gigs and got bull frogs from the pond and she would fry up their legs, too. They tasted like chicken. My brother shot a squirrel and a rabbit one time. I helped him take their skin off and got them ready for Betty Mom to cook for us. For some reason that didn't bother me. They tasted like chicken, too.
Dad wasn't home very much but when he was we would all eat dinner together. Sometimes that wasn't until late at night cause we had to get things done at the barn before we could eat. Dad sat at the head of the table and Betty Mom sat at the other end. I sat on Dad's right side and that was always where he started when we went around the table telling about what we had learned that day. One time my brother said he learned that you had to f@ck a girl to get her pregnant and asked Dad if that was true cause it was just what Billy told him. Dad was just real calm even though my eyes were very big and he said he would talk to us after dinner. I don't think any of us wanted dessert that night.
In the living room with the orange and red and yellow shag carpet Dad had a chair that only he would sit in. I think we could have sat in it when he was gone but no one ever did. After dinner that is where he went and he told us to sit on the floor in front of him. We all sat indian style except me. I sat with my legs turned out so my legs made a "W." I was more comfortable that way. We were anxious for him to tell us about girls getting pregnant. He took a long time to think and I had a hard time sitting still and waiting. When he started talking he said that when two people really really love each other they like to be real close. He said some more stuff but I was stuck on the really really love each other part cause he didn't say they had to be married and I thought everybody knew that was how it was suppose to be. I thought his Mom and Dad would be mad if they knew he didn't think people had to be married to have a baby. I was also embarrassed for Betty Mom cause we all knew Dad wasn't married to his secretary.
Oooh, foreshadowing and everything. (I was wondering about that secretary...)
I don't think I had ever met Betty Mom's family before but one year we went to their house for vacation. It was a long drive but we had a pea green station wagon with wood on the side so we took turns laying down. Her family lived in a very little house that didn't have a bathroom inside. I didn't like going in the outdoor bathroom cause I figured there were snakes and spiders and it stunk real bad. I never went to the bathroom after dark there.
I don't think it was a very good vacation. I closed Lori's fingers in the car door by accident and she cried. When we went to see the pony they had, my brother left the gate open and the other horse got out and ran away. My brother played baseball with some other boys and he hit the ball through the window. Dad just laid on the couch all week and listened to the news about the president who was in a lot of trouble for doing something at a hotel and people were trying to make him not be the president any more. Betty Mom's dad killed a pig and we watched. He gave my brother the bladder to play with and then later we left to go home. Betty Mom was very sad but I was glad.
Lori and Melody and I played outside a lot when I had to watch them for Betty Mom. We would play house but Melody didn't know how to play very good cause she would always leave her doll at my house. Lori got a book at the school library and Melody said she wanted to read it but she couldn't read so Lori said no. I said it was okay and for Lori to share so we could play house by ourselves and it could be played right. Melody tore one of the pages. When Betty Mom got home I went to the barn to work with my filly. Lori told Betty Mom about the book and Betty Mom came to me and used the thick cotton leadrope I had on Valentine to spank me real hard. It left welts on my legs for a lot of days and I wore koolots so people could see them and hoped they would feel sorry for me. No one said anything.
At Christmas we all got stuff to go camping. We each got our own sleeping bag and a little kit we could use that had a plate and fork and you could cook on a fire with it too. The next summer Dad said when we went to a horse show we would camp instead of staying in a hotel. The horse trailers had a place to sleep at the front so I thought it would be fun. That night all the kids stayed in the nose of one horse trailer and Dad and the new girl that helped at the barn stayed in the other one. I didn't like that one bit and I tried not to think about them being really really close to each other. Later Dad said Betty Mom was going back to her folks house and that he was going to marry the new girl Karen.
Yikes, Squinney, this is getting heavier and a little scary.
As it happened, my dad loved to sing "You are my Sunshine" to us, too. It is one of best memories of him. My sis and I later learned to harmonize and even later, dad sang it to my kids.
Best wishes to your sister -- and neat that you read your memories to her. There's a syndrome called Bell's Palsy which affects one side of the face. Not sure if that's what you meant by loss of control. If it is Bell's Palsy, there's usually a spontaneous recovery. I hope she's home soon.
I just discovered this thread. I've read the whole thing and all I can say is "Wow!" Squinney, get yourself a publisher, girl.
Seconding Swimpy. First a manuscript, then an agent, then a publisher.
(I said that too via pm)
I dunno. I'd copyright it so far. Print out the thread, send it to yourself with a postmark, and then don't open it. Maybe that is an old screenwriter's ploy.. and who knows whatever good that did them.
Squinney, you have a sure voice.
Great story Squinny. Waiting patiently for the next chapter.
Catching up................... I love the way you don't always give out all the details. It makes me go back and check and when I do I reinforce the narrative.
My brothers room was also in the basement, but it was in the unfinshed part that just had a little half wall that separated him from the laundry and the door that went to the downstairs garage. He couldn't put pictures on the walls cause they were concrete and he didn't have windows for curtains. I don't think he liked his room very much and I know he didn't like the door to the garage. One time I heard him tellin Dad that he didn't like his room. Dad said he would have someone fix it up like a real room for him, but he never did.
We liked playing hide and seek. One time I told Lori to hide in the dryer and when she did I turned it on for a second. She didn't like that.
Betty Mom used to make a fist and then raise her middle knuckle and use that to thump my brother on the head real hard. She did this if he did something bad while she was driving cause she could reach back and do it without having to stop the car.
Melody cried a lot to make Betty Mom do stuff to us. She would make stuff up sometimes or say we did something we didn't so Betty Mom would feel sorry for her. Then Melody would look at us from Betty Moms lap and smile, but not where Betty Mom could see it. One time we were in the car and Melody drank her soda real fast and then cried cause she was still thirsty. Betty Mom told me I had to share with her. I didn't want to but Betty Mom said I had to. Melody took a drink and then on purpose spit in the bottle so I wouldn't want it back. Another time she licked my candy bar so she could have the whole thing. That made me really mad.
Betty Mom used to say geeze Louise and what in tar nation a lot. She didn't say that kind of thing to Dad though. To Dad she would just listen and sometimes cry cause Dad was talking too loud to her. When he did that we all went to our rooms. On my birthday I found my birthday cake in their closet cause I was looking at the hole where Dad had gotten real mad at her and hit the closet door with his fist.
Grandma G found someone to help my brother learn to read. I think she paid for it too, but I don't know. She said maybe that was why he was so angry all the time and if he knew how to read maybe he would feel better. But, he didn't.
Betty took Melody with her when she went back to her folks. She may have taken Lori too, but then Lori came back cause she missed me. Or, maybe Lori didn't go for a little while. I don't remember. I do know I had to cook for everyone and do the laundry and keep the house up cause Karen liked the barn better. I never called her Mom cause she wasn't very old.
Am I the only one getting angry here?
No! I just spent an hour and a half between interuptions, the tv being too loud and more interuptions composing an entry only to find I was timed out when i hit submit. Then I couldn't go back and get it.
Oh frustrating! Hope you can recreate it without too much problem. (And yes, I'm definitely getting mad on squinney's behalf...)
Betty Mom was from a simple place and didn't have much schoolin. She loved my Dad a lot and tried real hard to be good so he wouldn't get mad. She didn't know how to cook a lot of different things so she fixed tuna noodle casserol a lot. After a while Dad didn't like tuna noodle casserol any more but I think she kept making it to help save money so he didn't have to work so hard. She tried to be nice to us too but we didn't always mind and she didn't know how to do anything different. I loved her a lot and felt bad that Dad didn't love her back so much.
Dad traveled and worked all of the time. I missed him most of the time but when he got home we all went to our room when we heard him pull in the driveway and waited to see if he was happy before we came to hug him. Most of the time he wasn't but that was because he was tired from driving so long and just wanted to eat and go to bed cause it was late. Sometimes he was gone most of the week. When he was home he would help us with chores so we could relax at night and all watch TV together.
We had a lot of chores to do. Sabrina and my brother and me had to get up real early to feed and water all of the horses and then get ready for school. In the winter the handle on the water buckets would freeze to my hand. I tried to call hay or grain so I wouldn't have to water, but sometimes I was too late. One time I had to water and it was cold so I asked Sabrina to help me and she did but my brother went to the house so he could have cereal before the bus came. I didn't think that was fair.
My Dad bought us a game called Pong that hooked up to the TV. We were the only people I knew to have one for a long time so I got to have a sleepover and my girlfriends and I made prank phone calls and played Pong all night. Lynette cried cause she missed her Dad so I let her use our green phone downstairs to call him in the middle of the night. Her Dad was always real nice and said he would come and get her even though it was late and he was asleep. I liked him a lot for loving her that much.
Dad had a new barn built for the show horses and an indoor arena so we could ride even when it was raining or snowing. I think it cost a lot of money cause it had heaters over every stall and tubes up by the ceiling that sprayed stuff to kill the flies depending on the time. It had warm water so the horses didn't have to be cold when they got a bath and I thought that would make them feel nice and maybe help them stand more still. I knew Dad had to work real hard and be gone a lot to do all of that. That made sense.
I had to hold the gate open when Sabrina went down in the pasture to bring the mares up to the barn to eat. Once it was windy and the gate pushed me back and I tried to catch myself but the barbed wire went in my hand. It got infected and I had to get a shot from the doctor and the needle was real big. Betty Mom held my other hand.
My brother got an Australian Shepherd puppy and named him Booker T Bueford the Third but we called him Booker. He was blue grey and white with some black spots and had blue eyes. My brother loved him a lot. He taught Booker to heel and sit and he learned it real fast cause he was smart that way. He waited by the front door no matter how cold it was and as soon as my brother came out of the house he followed him wherever he went all day 'cept for school. After a while he could tell him to go get the mares and Booker would do it all by himself and we just had to hold the gate and wait. Boy, he was good dog and I was glad my brother got him. He never hurt Booker cause he loved him and had someone to love him back.
I had to sell Valentine and get a new horse. Every year Dad made us get a new horse so we could train it ourselves cause we would learn more that way. My new horse was a sorrel gelding named Robbie. He was easy to ride and had already been to a lot of shows but I think Dad knew that and wanted me to learn to have more confidence. I won some trophies with him. Sometimes I would let Lori ride him since she was too little to have her own horse.
Laura Ingalls Wilder, eat your heart out.
