It was the
best of times, it was the worst of times; my childhood.
I grew up in
a household of six children. Mom should have stopped at one. Dad could have had
15! Dad worked swing shift which meant there were days we wouldn’t see him
either because of his work schedule or his sleep schedule. Mom was left to
‘raise’ us alone for the most part. A job she was NOT up for so when we got old
enough or at least when one of us got old enough, she took off. She took off a
lot. Yes, she did have bowling every Tuesday and TOPS every Thursday and once a
month on Mondays she had card club (oh how VERY 60’s) but for the most part,
she just took off! Can’t say as I can blame her for leaving when she could.
I was number
four. My parents had three children, very close in age; took a six year break
and then had three more children, very close in age. So my family had teens
& toddlers. Something I myself experienced when I remarried at 29 but I
only had one sullen teen and two toddlers. She had three teens & three
toddlers. She also came from a long line of crazy women. It was really best when
she was gone but that is for another time.
Six kids,
alone, without adult supervision; yeah the neighbors have stories to tell! I
remember Saturdays, before my sister got married. They were full of ‘Shock
Theater’ (horror flicks, 60’s style) Big Time Wrestling and lots of black and
white movies. They were also full of shenanigans of all sorts. David was the
youngest. He was a pretty mellow kid with incredible strength. He is probably
the closest in temperament to my father. That boy can STILL lay line of B.S.
that would put Frank Abagnale to shame. I do remember
the older three playing with camera effects. They were very good at trying to
line up shots where it would look like Sharon was holding Michael in her hands.
Our mother couldn’t really cook. She was nineteen when she got married. Her
mother died shortly after that. My grandmother was very non-traditional in the
grandmother sense. She never made cookies but she knew how to make a meal of
squirrel, raccoon or another other life form. Her perch was out of this world
but one learned to never question what you were eating at grandmas. If you
couldn’t tell, it was best you didn’t know. Sharon tried her hand at cooking.
Once she made biscuits SO hard, we ended up throwing them at the walls! She
wasn’t the oldest but she was the oldest girl and she was born responsible. She
had a lot of pressure put on her at a young age with our crew.
I was
usually outside with the dogs or wandering in the back yard. The younger two
were still in diapers. One of my earlier
recollections of one of our ‘Saturday events’ was when David got angry at Mark
and threw a green toy Volkswagen Bug at him. It missed Mark but sailed through
the closed living room window.
No one
wanted to anger our mother so there was quick business going about getting it
cleaned up. However, John, the oldest, cut his hand on the glass. My sister had
a friend over, Nara, and Nara took off running to my sister, ‘Sharon, come
quick, come quick!!” That led to an ER trip, several stiches and groundings.
There was always stuff like that happening. The door to the sun porch from the
living room was broke SO many times; my dad finally put plywood over the
opening. I think at one time or another, all of us had a hand at breaking that
glass. I was ‘playing’ with David one day. He did this thing called, Rhino
Charge where he ran at you, full tilt, with his head down and butted you in the
stomach. We weren’t fighting and he wasn’t coming full tilt but it was a Rhino
Charge. He barely hit me but it was just enough that I was knocked off balance
and I went through the glass door. My father was reading the paper. He put the
paper down and said, “Shit.” He wasn’t mad at us, he was worried about her
being angry.
Sharon got
married in 1974, John did as well & Michael, well he got thrown out,
allowed back in, thrown out again, allowed back in and eventually married. That
left ‘the three little kids’ with me being the oldest.
I have NO
idea if John, Sharon & Michael fought like Mark, David & I did but Holy
Moly, we had some drag out fights!!
One fight in
particular initially took place in the kitchen. For SOME reason, Mark decided
to set up his record player in the kitchen. It was 1970’s fancy as you could
tape directly to a cassette from a record! However, Mark didn’t understand the
process and insisted on TOTAL silence while this was recording. Both parental
units were gone and I had made pork chops and mac & cheese for dinner. Mark
kept making angry faces at me if I clinked my fork on my plate or chewed too
loud. Mark & I NEVER got along, from the beginning of time. He just always
rubbed me the WRONG way. So, of course, his pain brought me pleasure. I started
giggling at his frustration. Yes, that only made him madder. It was working
both my nerves and David’s. What I didn’t know, was what David did. Mark and I
were squabbling over his demands and my demands of WHY are you recording in the
kitchen during dinner? Mark was never very reasonable. David took a piece of
pork chop and dropped it in Mark’s milk. After our squabble, we sat down to
eat. Sure enough, when Mark took a drink of milk, PLOP, right in the face with
a soggy piece of milk sodden pork chop. Well of course I started laughing. Mark
immediately accused me of doing it. We both launched from our chairs. I bolted
for my room, a locking door! As I raced through the kitchen, Mark, realizing I
was going to reach my room before he could reach me, grabbed the full jug of
milk off the table and threw it at me, hitting me right in the middle of my
back. Let me tell you that a gallon of milk, hitting you square in the back,
hurts. It also explodes. I stopped for a moment. My reaction to getting hit in
the back with a full gallon of milk sort of looked like I was doing a Captain
Kirk impression when he was hit with some sort of unseen ray. I recovered and
tore up the stairs with Mark hot on my heels. I barely rounded the corner and
was about to clear my doorway when I felt Mark’s hand on my shoulder. But
suddenly, he let go. David had tore behind Mark, no doubt riddled by the guilt
that I took a gallon of milk to the back when HE was the one who dropped the
pork chop into Mark’s glass. David had Mark on his back on the floor. Mark was
red-faced and thrashing. David was trying to apologize and kept asking Mark to
be still and ‘don’t make me hurt you;’ which is truly a line from our father.
But Mark wouldn’t calm down. He was NO match for David’s strength and
eventually David had to pop him one.
It was
always Mark and I fighting with David trying to keep the peace. Once Mark threw
a mustard container at me. It missed me and hit the wall, exploding. The thing
is; we couldn’t tell where the mustard was. My mother had and has HORRID taste
in home decorating. Most of my childhood was spent in a robin egg blue living
room with nasty orange striped couches, in a bright mustard yellow kitchen that
had chocolate brown appliances, red linoleum countertop and blonde cupboards,
in an avocado green bathroom. My parent’s room was a nauseating lavender and I
like purple. When the mustard bottle exploded we all stopped and stared at the
walls. We literally could not see where the mustard landed unless we looked
along the wall sideways. Well, that ended the fight because we were in fits of
laugher as we all tried to clean the walls.
Once Mark
and I got in a knock down drag out fight and since HIS bedroom door didn’t have
locks, he ran to the bathroom. Well, there is NO escape from our bathroom as it
has no window so I decided I would wait him out. I held onto the knob so he
couldn’t get out! I was patient. Eventually, he panicked when he realized he
was trapped. He was thrashing about, pounding on the door, screaming and
yelling, which only made me hold on tighter and with such a sneer of satisfaction.
Suddenly, something shot by my head. Mark had hacked at the door with the dust
mop shoving the end of it through the door. I let go and took off out the front
door. Mark was in hot pursuit, mop in hand. We were running down the middle of
our road. I would REALLY love to hear the neighbors version so the stupid
Sermon kids.
Dad fixed
the door by covering the hole with a large diamond shape. He thought that would
please our mother and let the whole thing blow over. HOWEVER, we repeated our
same argument a few weeks later and this time, Mark hacked through the door
with a toothbrush and not in the center of the door. Since he had to replace
the whole door this time, Dad was a bit angry. Groundings were had by all.
My father
never hit us, never. He would rarely be angry with us. He was always, “So, what
did you do this time to piss your mom off?” “Don’t make me have to give you a
what for.” He was a great dad. I only saw him angry a few times in my life.
He had been
working midnights and was sleeping. It was Sunday morning and all six of us
were still living at home. Sunday mornings sucked at our house. She was always
yelling at us to get moving, hurry up and get dressed. My mom never learned the
skill of laying out our clothes the night before. We always spent Sunday
morning trying to locate everyone’s shoes. Now, six children had a LOT of
shoes. They were all tossed in the front hall closet, with NO organization. ALL
of our shoes, our tennis shoes, our dress shoes, our snow boots, ALL of our
shoes. Well this particular morning, Mom could not get the stupid closet door
open. That set her off on one of her Sunday morning warpaths. She was making
some serious noise. Then we heard it, we all heard it; the thudding sound from
upstairs of a 6’3”, 225lb man, getting out of bed and stomping down the hall.
He came down and demanded to know what the problem was. My mother, still very
hysterical about the door, explained herself in an expressive high velocity
manner. My father looked at her and looked at the closet. He said, “This door,
THIS door right here. THIS is the door you cannot open.” And with that he
PUNCHED his massive fist through the closet door, grabbed it with his hand and
pulled it open. “THERE, NOW It’s OPEN!” and then he went back upstairs. NO ONE
said a word, nothing. We all got our shoes in stunned silence. We drove to
church in stunned silence. We sat in church in stunned silence...until we got
the giggles. Mom glared from the choir loft. Yeah, did I mention she sang in
the church choir? Six children who couldn’t handle being home alone, sat in a
church pew without a grown up. Again, I’d LOVE to hear the stories of those who
witnessed our behavior.
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