After 13 turbulent years of marriage, my parents finally got a divorce in October 1962, the very same month and year as the Cuban Missile Crisis I might add - how poetic, and within less than two months later both had remarried. My two younger brothers, Chet and Tom, and I had no clue whatsoever as to how soon our lives were about to change. Little did we realize that over the next 36 months we would live in six different houses, change schools four times and live in an environment that can best be described as sitting at the "cool" table in a cafeteria at some mental hospital. The woman our father married had a 9-year old little girl by the name of Katha and she wasn't exactly in any hurry to suddenly have three brothers and a new father, nor was the stepmother adequately prepared to take on such a task at this stage in her life. Let's just say this "new" family unit had the makings of a train wreck from day one.
Beautiful - just flippin' beautiful.
The first couple of months weren't anything to jump in front of a Greyhound bus over, but as the summer of 1963 rolled around the antic's and drama began rising to a boiling point. One hot, sweltering day my brothers and Katha were in the backyard playing and one of the older one's got the brilliant idea they would dig a
shallow grave and place my youngest brother Tom in it. Chet and Katha were then going to sell tickets to all of the neighborhood kids to see "a dead Indian baby" and make a lot of money. Tom was all for this idea until he was informed they would have to bury him up to his mouth to make it look real and this is when the wheels came off the wagon. He jumped up and said he wasn't getting buried for anybody and that's when Katha thumped him on the ear and called him Dumbo....
that's when the fight started. Chet and Tom tackled Katha down to the ground and proceeded to put hand fulls of dirt in her hair, down the back of her dress and shoot snot rockets on her glasses. As to be expected, she took great offense to this rough house behavior and went screaming in the house to her mother and proceeded telling how she had been "attacked". In less time than what it takes a gnat to break wind, our father was standing at the back door telling my brothers and I to get in the house right then. We knew from previous dealings with our father that when the veins in his neck pulsated with every beat of his heart, that meant his belt was coming off and the ass whoopin' was about to begin. Even though I had not participated in this humorous act of sibling delinquency, the stepmother was adamant that I should get my butt beat for not stepping in and stopping my two brothers. Little darling Katha started the fight to begin with, yet as the big brother I was supposed to stop them from retaliation?
Nah, I don't think so Gunga Din.
When school started in the fall of 1963 we had moved to another house that I thought was fairly nice. The only real draw back was that when Chet and I walked home from school (
yes boy's and girl's we really did have to walk to school in those days), we had to walk down the alley that ran behind our house and there was a little yapping dog that was a real nuisance. Sometimes the little fur ball would run up to us and sink those little sharp teeth into an ankle, sock or shoe and then run like the wind back to the porch. This whole dog biting thing got real old, real quick. One afternoon while walking home from school, we saw the dog bolt from the back porch in a dead run towards us and I grabbed him around the neck to hold him still while Chet reached down by the trash can and grabbed the nearest corn cob he could find. He raised the dog's tail straight up in the air and began scrubbing its' butt hole in rapid fashion as though he was buffing a shoe.
Wwwooo wwwee Deputy Dawg! By the time we let that little turd hound loose his round brown was smoking and he ran directly to the back porch where he commenced licking his burning butt to sooth the pain. Needless to say, from that day forward Chet and I never got bite by that little dog again. In fact, whenever he would see us walking, he would sit on the back porch, watch every step we took and gave us the "stink eye" the entire time.
By the early Spring of 1964 we had moved again and into what can only be described as a run down shack, and in a part of town that was well known to the police and sheriff departments - they weren't strangers to the neighborhood. There were no screen doors on the front or back doors, no screens on any of the windows and the only air conditioner in the entire house was a window unit in my parents bedroom; therefore, all of us kid's got fresh air from open windows in our bedrooms.
Living in the Texas panhandle there was always an ample supply of wind and pesky flies.
One Saturday morning my brothers and I decided to slip off for the elementary school without Katha knowing to play on the playground equipment. We were told numerous times to never go to the school after hours or on the weekend by ourselves. Why we weren't allowed is still a mystery to me even to this day, but nonetheless it was one of their rules. Anyway, after spending an hour playing we started walking back home when all of a sudden Katha makes her glorious appearance at the front door with her hands on her hips and said in a smirking fashion "
I know where you went and you didn't take me with you. I'm telling Mamma and she'll have Daddy use the belt on you again." That's when I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her off the porch and put her in a head lock. Tom put his arms around both of her legs so she couldn't run away while Chet made a fist and began scrubbing her head with his knuckles giving her what we called a
nuggie. I don't recall the exact words Katha said but it certainly pissed Chet off enough that he put his right hand all the way down into his underwear and scratched his nasty, sweaty butt. He then pulled the hand out of his pants and put two of those stinky fingers in each of Katha's nostrils and said, "
If you're going to act like a butt hole, then you need to smell what one is like." Between Katha screaming and all the noise's my brothers and I were making, it didn't take but a few seconds for our father to open the front door and leap from the porch like a rampaging silver back gorilla and commenced beating our asses as though we had stole a government ham.
Note to self: Attempt to get your ass beat inside the house instead of outdoors. The old man has got way more room to swing that leather cowboy belt in the open spaces. Besides, all your friends can watch you dancing around in tight circles while your dad is right behind you swinging his belt as though it was a $500 golf club.
It's embarrassing as all Hell when the entire neighborhood witnesses you getting an ass whoopin' in public.
I could always tell when it was getting time to plant a garden and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the Farmers Almanac. It's when our father and stepmother would reminisce on the food they ate during the Great Depression and some of the meals were just down right disgusting. Such as calf brains with scrambled eggs, pickled pig's feet and cabbage or chitlins (hog intestines to the uninformed) and corn bred.
Oh dear God, just gross me back to the Stone Age!! Thus, the end result of these unappetizing meal time moments was Jim and Chet digging a vegetable garden in the backyard. So why isn't Tom and Katha participating in this grand event? Tom was only five years old and the stepmother said Katha "
wasn't as strong as you older boys". In my teenage mind Katha certainly didn't have any problems picking up a knife and fork at the dinner table, so her taffy butt could certainly help plant the veggie seeds if nothing else.
Weak, very weak.
My father used to have a saying that "all a man needs is a strong back, shovel, sharp hoe, rake and seeds to feed a family". After us
three boy's weeded the garden we went back inside the house to our bedroom where we laid down on the bed trying to cool off from the summer heat with the window pushed up as high as it would go. Remember, we didn't have any ceiling fans or air conditioning in our room back then. Within just a few minutes Katha darkened our bedroom door asking if we wanted to ride bikes or go outside and play; to which a resounding NO was the reply. This was not the response she was looking for, because there was nothing on TV for her to watch and no other girls her age in the neighborhood to play with; therefore, she had to lower her standards and ask her sweaty derelict stepbrothers to entertain her. I need to point out that not one of us had what could be described as good negotiation skills at that age and it didn't take long until her request turned into verbal combat. Before God could get the news, my brothers and I had wrestled Katha to our bedroom window and proceeded to throw her out of it.
Ya' know, for a 10-year old she bounced real good! It was only 5' from the window to the ground, so she certainly had ample time to pull a tuck-and-roll maneuver had she so desired.
For reasons unknown to only the Almighty, my father and stepmother came to the glorious decision that we needed to move from Texas to Arizona. It wasn't until many years later that I was told the primary reason for this move wasn't because they wanted to broaden their horizons or seek their fame and fortune. It had to do with my stepmother's sisters being very, very angry over remarks and decisions she had made about their jail bird brother George or as my fatherly affectionately referred to him as "
peter shakin' George". There's no doubt the man was a pervert beyond help, but when he started waving his little Elvis at his own children, then he's off to the slammer where he can become Bubba's prom date for a long time.
The arduous drive from Amarillo, Texas to Mesa, Arizona is approximately 691 miles of hot, dusty plains and a very dry desert. Making that road trip in a beat up 1952 Ford pick-up and a 1957 Chevrolet, with neither vehicle having any air conditioning, in the middle of June called for pulling into roadside parks during the hottest part of the day and continuing our journey much later in the afternoon. This was back in the day when people traveling in the summer would have water filled canvas bags hanging in front of the radiators of their car to help keep it from over heating.
When we pulled into this flea bag of a no tell-motel in Mesa, the expression on that woman's face behind the counter was priceless. The only difference between what we looked like and the Beverly Hillbillies on television was they had better seating arrangements. Lucky for us Dad got a job fairly quick in Casa Grande and it was only a two hour drive south and across two Indian reservations - Pima and Papago. After living in a rental house in town for a few months, my father and stepmother took the leap of faith and bought an eight acre farm way out in the country and to them it was their piece of utopia. The house was very tiny - three small bedrooms and one very small bath - for six people.
Jesus, it was so small that you had to go outside to change your mind. The five acres of farm land was stacked over 10' high in tumbleweeds that had been collecting there for God knows how long. Oh, this is just getting better and better. I was sitting on the very edge of my seat in great anticipation of tackling this monstrosity of a nightmare.
What in the name of all that's holy and righteous was my father thinking when he bought this place?
So, here we were 30 months later after my father and stepmother have made the trip down the aisle of holy matrimony and we're living 10 miles out in the country where the hoot owls are fornicating with the roosters and chickens. When the truck finally died, we were left with only one vehicle and that meant us kids had to ride the bus to and from school everyday, which wasn't that big of an issue - we enjoyed it for the most part.
It was just a couple of months before school was going to be out for the summer that events on the bus ride home developed into some what of an athletic event for Katha. Track and field events come to mind. She felt the compelling urge to thump Tom on the back of his ear multiple times and whenever he would turn around to retaliate she would get the attention of the bus driver, who in turn would tell Tom to turn around and be still. When the bus finally let us off at our stop, Katha bolted in a dead run down the quarter of a mile dirt road towards the house, all the while we were
helping her in this race by throwing rocks and clods of dirt at her the entire way. Of course she got inside the house without too much damage, mainly to her pride, but she had no difficulty in frothing at the mouth and spewing forth all the deadly details of how we "threw rocks and hit her in the back and legs" multiple times.
God, she was such a snitch!
How convenient she neglected mentioning the ear thumping she gave Tom on the bus that resulted in her being chased and pelted in the first place. I didn't know at the time she was practicing her "selective memory" skills.
As to be expected, as we entered the house our 5'1" stepmother had both hands on her hips and proceeded to bark at us as though she were talking to a stray dog in the street. We heard the ever so clever remark of hers "
Do ya' think that's smart? Do ya' wanna slap?" to which Chet responded "
You ain't puttin' your hands on me bitch. I'll knock you flat on your big ass." I was not prepared to hear those lovely words spew forth from my young brother, but what the Hell, we're gonna get our asses beat anyway when the old man gets home,
so let the games begin!! My 12-year old brother was without a doubt in far better physical shape than our stepmother and he was known at his school that he didn't take crap from anybody - male or female. He blocked a couple of her swings to his head and within the blink of any eye Chet gave the stepmother a right cross on the chin and the next thing she knew she was going ass over tea kettle on to the living room floor. Chet was reaching down to grab her by the blouse and give her another "love tap" when I grabbed him from behind and pushed him into our bedroom. The stepmother, well, she was laying in the floor squalling about how she was having a heart attack and that when our father got home he was going to give us what we had coming.
She wasn't having any damn heart attack - she was out of breath from smoking three packs of cigarettes a day and getting her ass handed to her on a silver platter by a 12-year old boy.
In the 36 months that my brothers and I lived with Dad and stepmother, that was the one time that I truly felt sorry for him. After spending 10-hours out in the hot Arizona sun working his butt off to support his family, he was greeted at the front door with a rambling wife who was all too willing to inform him of how she was abused by his sons. And at that point in time the light went on in my head -
this is where Katha gets her snitching and drama talents from.
Note: My father and stepmother were married for over 30-years until his passing away on November 30th, 2005 and buried with full military honors at the veterans cemetery in Dallas, Texas. During those three decades of marriage, they loved each other very much and to that end, I'm very grateful to my stepmother for providing my father with the deep love and companionship he deserved.
