Parental Influence

I tried to think back to the first time I realized something was different in our house. We had a safe upbringing. There was a lot of love and laughter in our home. Our parents, young and inexperienced, worked hard to provide a good place for us to grow up. Looking back, I think they were growing up a little as well. Our parents married when they were 17. Dad, I am told, was very much a student of the 50's. I remember pictures of him, a dashing dark haired Elvis inspired young man. Family history tells us that he was very popular among the ladies. Some of my earliest memories of my father was his ability to turn a womans head with a polite word and a quick wink. My father was also quick witted and a real mans man. His friendships ran deep. Family ties, specifically his side of the family, especially so. If there was a problem in the family, he was the one they called. My aunt with her daughter, my grandmother, his Aunts, Dad was "johnny on the spot". He liked being the hero. He liked the attention. I always thought it was a great attribute to believe that you are always right and that the universe traveled in tight circle that started at you and worked its way out. That was my dad, always right, always the most important and always looking out for number one.

Mom, was a easy. Her fair skin, blonde hair and blue eyes made her easy to look at. Her sense of humor and casual style made her fun to be around and great as a parent. She too was a teenager of the 50's. She liked the music, she liked the dances and she liked the era. It was always fun to grow up in the house with mom. Her family values were strong, as were her opinions. Mom was also busy managing the house. Managing my father. Her personality was strongest when it wasn't overshadowed by the more dominant personality in the home. I suppose this was a common occurence in this era. For the most part, he job and position in the house was to maintain dads mood swings by attending to all the details of the house, bills and children. Mom had a tough side. You have to remember that by the time she was 22, there were 4 children in the home to contend with. Mom did not hold a job outside the house. She was capable of managing just fine. I am drawn to a memory of my mom and a neighbor, several houses away, having words. Although my young mind flashes pictures of a chunky woman with curlers in her hair with missing teeth and a screech when she talked, I am sure the neighbor was not as intimidating as my minds eye remembers. At some point, this venomous creature called out my mom with some choice names. I think our dog may have wondered into their yard. The exchange must have lasted, hit and miss, for days. The entire event culminated as I remember it with my mom, Divine Entity of 23rd St, marching her 4 small children across the Hardin's front yard for a face to face over the property line of the chunky curler lady. My best recollection of the event (I must have been only 9 or so) was of my mother and this woman spewing out expletives at one another trying to solve this problem once and for all. The soup continued to rumble just below a boil until the chunky curler lady thought she saw one of the wee ones step over the property line into chunky curler lady land. It was at that point she told my mother, to keep you damn kid off my yard. Now my mom, who always kept things on the nice, must have had a switch flipped. The rage in her eyes, the tone of her voice changed from mild mannered mommy to wicked evil monster neighbor lady from hell. She blasted chunky curler lady with an explosion of expletives that would have made Lenny Bruce proud. At the end of the tirade she gave one more warning. She said "lady, I don't know when, and I don't know how but one day you are going to have to leave this yard and when you do, I am going to beat you" It must have been believable, because we watched chunky curler lady retreat to her house. She spent the next 2 years running from her house directly to her car and then back to her house again. At some point a few years later, chunky curler lady made her way to our house. She came with an apology,explained that she had been going through the change of life and called a truce. Mom, ever gracious, accepted the apology and never spoke of it again. This was the first time I realized something was different in our house.