All I Know I Learned From ME

Growing up in the 40's led to a strange childhood. My Dad left to go to war and i hardly ever saw him until i was 7 .He was the person in the middle of the night that came in , wearing olive drab clothing, and caused me to be moved from my Mamas bed to my own..We children of that time, wore dog tags to school with our name, blood type and our Dads name and rank on them, learned about blackouts, ducking into a hallway in case an atom bomb was dropped(?)and doing without some staples because they were needed for the war. So we played war in the neighborhood, tramped through woods and creeks..seriously, we stayed outside all the time. From early to dark and ran across everything you can imagine from snakes, spiders, poision ivy, anything and everything that moved or didn't move we learned about. We climbed trees, carved our names into tree trunks with little knives (yep, real ones) played in the dirt with our cars, made roads, had mudball fights (you were out if you put a rock in the middle of your mudball) and pine cone fights..those hurt....hide and seek, tag, free for all(in this a huge pile of kids just jumped on each other and I was always on the bottom) and King of the red mud Hill...(ha, our parents didn't like this one because no one had washing machines back then)we owned animals, found animals, brought home animals and always wondered where our prizes of turtles, frogs, and lizzards went. I was such a tom boy and life was so simple. My mother wondered if I would ever get sissified, she even asked my Daddy sdoctor(back then they came to the house for you) asked, in front of me because I was hanging by my knees from a tree in the front yard..he told her not to worry I would change in time enough..sure enough when i became a "woman" in the 7th grade, I changed..I loved reading, drawing, and horses..had a boyfriend who walked me home, carrying my books and we rode bikes together all over the neighborhood..you could ride back then everywhere and still be safe, caught fireflies at night, went to the neighborhood swimming pool and walked , Yes, In the woods.... Still , changes had to come, tv came to our house, black and white and a roundish screen, and we got to watch Bonanza and Ed Sullivan. My parents expected me to do good in school..it was a given, you do good all a's ..no questions..they didn't praise me..teachers did and other people..but they just expected it. I visited my aunts and uncles and grandmother in the summers..stayed most all summer. My grandmother lived in Springfield, SC and it was a big ol wood house with tin roof..she had the best stuff to play with, an old upright piano, pigs, chickens, cow, mule, huntin dogs, a windmill and a puddle of cold water always under the windmill...broken pottery and maypops, toothpicks, sticks, corn dolls and even a stick doll my friend made me. She had black women that helped her put up vegetables and peaches and they were my best friends. "Duck" taught me how to fish, "ol essie" made me the stick doll and I got a pickled pigs foot to have as a treat....there were NO all day suckers, so I was probably about 5 or 6 and carried the pig foot all day long, just puttin it down on the back steps long enough to eat dinner(lunch now) and didn't even question anything they gave me to eat. If we had "brains and eggs" for breakfast, I ate and didn't even ask.."whose brains?" Man, I can remember one Christmas at her house, it was soo cold and the only heat was from little fireplaces in each room..so we all ran to the kitchen to dress in the mornings where the wood stove was...freezin my feet off....we had a cut out of the woods cedar tree and I made a paper chain for the tree..it was War Time and people did what they could. my grandmother had one son left at home and he was at war as was my daddy and other uncles..so all the women came home and helped out. When the war was over and my Daddy home for good, we got more things and even got a new 1950 car. Never lost my love of drawing, reading or horses . Times got more complicated and harder and i always wondered why it didn't get easier as you got older. But my Aunt, when she was 84, told me "You got to get tough" otherwise you won't make it.

Who the hell wants to get tougher and tougher just to make it...by that time you just feel forgotten, unloved, alone, and distanced from all that use to matter..Life Sucks

SPRING 2010

This is a milestone for me. In April I will turn 70. I keep up with a lot of my classmates who will also turn 70 all this year..they look good and active, they tell me i look good too but I wonder. I am doing ok with the aches and pains i have acquired due to very hard work for 35 years. I don't think I want to see them and I am kinda glad I have not been to any of the reunions. Some of them i envy and some i feel comfortable with. Maybe it is taking a good look at all the successes and failures you have accomplished since you graduated in 1958...phew, who knew that we would be going through all that we have. All the changes and all the inventions and all the social, economic and personal trials and walking on fire that we endured. We use to be called the greatest generation. Now I think it is the forgotten generation.. how many of us have outlived our money and our usefulness.??? huh? you think we don't think about that when the month is longer than our income? When the bills come due and you know you are going to have to put those extra medical and tax and dentist and presents bills on your charge card that is already maxed out? Yes, we all do. And it is so bad that sometimes you wish you had Dr. Kervorkians number. Most days are good and happy and fantastic, you can find things to do, people to help, be there for someone..but who is there for you? Really? and it can come over you like a ton of bricks and you find yourself overwhelmed, totally destroyed, fighting the sadness and despair that is like a ton of bricks dumped over your head. You can't fight it, so you let it cover you, take you, let the feelings happen and then shake it off and continue, still wondering what the hell you are here for. Last year my birthday passed quietly, no cards to flowers. My son called but we didn't get to go eat until later that week. So , we feel forgotten, disposable, not useful for anyting anymore and ready to give up...what is there? No one cares, no one calls, no one send cards , everyone is too busy and challenged with their own business. Don't work so hard, Happy Spring..my birthday is April 19, 2010 and I will be 70.

Icy cold Jan and Feb 2010

I admire the women of today..a lot. They have the ability to express themselves through work, home, play, on the internet, write for a publication, meet technology and embrace it completely. I was a product of the" greatest generation" where women were squeezed into a mold that didn't exactly fit. I watched my mother, aunts and grandmother supress their opinions (except when they got together), blend into the background, take second place to the men, and rule the household without letting anyone know they were the actual ruler. Come high school and i got a slightly skewed view of the world and walked slightly on the left of center. I questioned, broke some rules, got sent to detention, was chewed out by our counselor (again the women walk behind rule), and was so excited to graduate I was the only one happy and laughing admist the sea of sobs..I went to college only to find out the bonds were deep and hard to break from. Your choices were secretary, nurse, or teacher..none of which appealed to me. So when i got married at 21, the mold was almost set. It was stay home, cook, clean, keep the kid clean, go to the beauty parlor once a week, be quiet and i couldn't do it. I was stiffled and felt like i was in a prison. I would rather cut grass than clean house, wash my car instead of cook supper..gosh, i was insane! I think my mother and my aunts were the same, but their pholosphy was, be the leader but be quiet about it! As soon as i got pregnate, i quit work because everyone told me too..now it was 1963 and from work at the state house in Atlanta i could see the marchers on the civil rights marches..they were brave.
I must have packed up and left my household 4 or 5 times, running where, i didn't know..i even packed my wigs one time! My mother told me i couldn;t come home so i always went back because a single woman just didn't check into a motel..and my stepford friends thought i was crazy! I had already stepped to the left of center at the university. I dated a young man from Iran, and we had a good time..until the dorm "Mom" called me in and discussed the improprity of dating outsie my "religion" wha??????????? when my first husband and i started a small business together in 1970, again my place was the grunt work in the background and following ..when my second husband and i opened a business again, i took my place(?) my salary was less even though i worked more, my hours were longer but i got paid just enough to pay the bills and buy food..it got so bad that when i wanted to go to the first mall that opened in town, my second husband would take me and come pick me up to see what i had bought!!damn, my rebellion then consisted of taking a cab home one time, putting up my things that i had bought and then taking a cab back to work..hahahahaha , i got repreminded..of course. But the arrangement did a horrible thing to my self esteme and i got uncertain and unsure. plus the fact that i made less, a lot less than the boss , even tho' i was vice president and my ideas were the better and made more sense..again that mold just didn;t fit me..never had, never would. That came to hurt me in many many ways after we divorced..my lawyer told to (and he wrote it down to the other attorney) that my salary was to be equal and i was to have access to all the books and finiancial transactions going on.and i felt for the first time, really liberated and equal. The divorce did what my rebellion could not do: It Freed Me", i took classes i had always wanted to take, took family on vacations i had always wanted to do, changed things at work to suit me and my ideas all of a sudden were good ones and taken into consideration and some were actually implemented..but it took until 1990 for that to happen. I also bought the kind of furniture that i liked, the clothes that i liked ,the car i wanted, ate the food i wanted to (without someone lurking and asking me "if i really wanted to order that or if i really was going to wear that ) there is a very real danger in passive agression and it causes one to strike back hurtfully because you are not aware all the time that someone is demeaning you or clawing at your selfesteem until you feel everything you do is wrong. It hurt badly at my age of retirement because your salary determines what you get in soc. sec. so for years, being in the background, taking less money and sometimes no money when the business did poorly, hurt my ability to fend for myself at retirement..i wasn't able to save as much and put aside as much and i make the dire mistake of loaning my business, Bums Factory Outlet, over 60,000 which i would never recoup. So yes, I do admire the women of today for their guts, for asking for what they are worth and for demanding respect in business and at home, because for so many for so long the respect wasn't there for us. Go Women, Run With the Wolves.......