Just Another Day In Life 3

I’ll layout the crazy mixed lineage on his side (and people wonder why I am off kilter) in my next segment. As well, as my mother’s people. Right side of the tracks vs. wrong side (my Father’s).

Am I boring you yet? I’m boring me so I’ll take that as a yes. Don’t worry, we will get back to the brain and Announcer and all the bizarro whatnot’s in there. I just ran out of steam again and needed rest. I often need rest throughout the day, life drains me so badly. Ah, get to that later too.

“Oh My Heavens, What are the neighbors going to think? How could you? Your sister being pregnant by that service man wasn’t bad enough?” Said My maternal Grandmother to my mother when she first caught her going through morning sickness and realized it was not flu.

My mother was made to wear a corset for the remainder of her school year and tell anyone that asks, “ that you have a tumor,” (Hi, I’m a Tumor, I guess) “and you’ll be going away for the summer at a retreat.”

Yes, that is how it started. I am A Tumor. My mother and father were taken by her parents to Green Bay, WI, 10 hours drive away. They lied about my mother’s age so she could get married. All done at the court house. Nice way to start out, right? Squeezed from about 2 months, maybe 3 until six and a half months When she became a married woman.

Her parents put a down payment on a house there; on land contract. She was close to the hospital since neither of them had a car. My father was driven to job interviews and my mother went to a second hand store with my Grandma for clothes and furnishings. My father would drive taxi at night and my mother would do waitress work. Her disappointed parents left to go back to the home town to explain the missing daughters somehow, I assume. My Aunt gave birth 4 months before. My cousin would spend the first few years living with the maternal grandparents because my aunt was “a wild girl” This child was her second; her first was adopted out. Hard to believe this was the good side of the tracks.

My mother went to the hospital, on foot. Alone. My father hadn’t come home from work yet, as usual; in other words he was at the bar. Back when taverns could be open at 6 am. staying open until 2 am. My father showed up at the hospital finally, a neighbor brought him, and he snored away in the fathers waiting room. He was barely awake to be told he was a father. I doubt if he asked boy or girl. Maybe they just announced it to the fathers.

Obviously I did not know all this until I was told by my mother and others in the family.

I met my father at 2 days old, sober at the hospital. Because my father drank up his check, he didn’t pay any bills like he said he had. My mother with me, walked home to discover no electricity. They had an electric stove. So she turned on the heat even though it was hot out so she could heat the water for the formula; no nursing done back then. She would drain some of the hot water from the radiator to make bottles and put cans of soup on the heater for food. My father lost his job because he over slept without my mother there to shove him out of the door. My mother went to work with me at a week or so old. Her boss told her she should be at home taking it easy. She told them she needed to work because her electric was off and she had bills due. Bless that boss of hers; he paid everything up to date plus and said it was his baby gift.

My maternal Grandparents came when I was a month old. They brought food and baby clothes and my cousin. The next couple months I guess went okay. My father was working at another cab company and my mother had a neighbor watching me so she could work. She worked days and My father worked nights. The sitter would leave and he would sleep most of the day until a neighbor realized that I wasn’t being taken care of. She pulled my mother aside that day and told her what she suspected because I would be crying a lot off and on. I guess I was a screamer. Sure enough, same diaper that was put on by my mother and a very hungry kid that managed some how to get out of the crib or playpen and was sitting in the kitchen on the floor, eating something from the bottom cupboard. I think my Mom told me it was graham crackers. She cleaned me up, went to Mrs. D (The tattling neighbor) and thanked her. The older woman told her anytime she needed help that she was there. Good people in this world.

By the time I was a year, my Mom was pregnant with my brother and she was right back with no electric or water, the house was being taken from them and Mrs.D had called the maternal grandparents to let them know the situation. My maternal grandparents came down took one look at the state of my mother, feeding us any leftovers from her work place; if there wasn’t enough for both of us, she went hungry. She would be this way about food and her kids and any kids; for the rest of her long life. The fact it was long gives encouragement to me.

All she’s been through and she survived it all. She came out on top like the lady she was meant to be, and still is. She’s not happy with my writing here but I informed her I need to do this. She is living in my house with me and my two sometime three adult disabled children. She’s in a wheelchair now but still sharp as hell, and a pretty good friend to me when she’s not being a Mom.

To Be Continued……..