It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....

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.