they ain’t gonna give you the time of day. You might as well team up with me.”
She said her name was Lila. She had two teenage kids and a ex-husband that beat her up one time too many. I told her I was divorced too, and after that first day, me and her got to be real good friends even though we weren’t nothin alike. I wasn’t used to speakin my mind, and Lila was the opposite. She didn’t hold nothin back. If there was somethin she thought needed sayin, she said it. Didn’t use polite words either.
.
22
November 10, 1945 (Sabbath) [Max. 47°, Min. 40°.] High winds all last night, reaching 32 miles per hour, accompanied by a heavy, continuous downpour of rain which lasted all day. I have come to Grants Pass to visit my children and I took them to church. Veda and the children are living in a nice little apartment near her mother. Veda was working, as she has taken a factory job.
R AYMOND TOOK THE TWO older kids to church with him. It was rainin when they got out, but he didn’t have sense enough to ask for a ride, so they was soaked by the time they got back. Once Mama got the kids out of their wet clothes and give em some hot cocoa, she let Rosalie take her daddy over to Auntie Bea’s house. Bea was givin her piano lessons and Rosalie wanted to show her daddy what she’d learned.
When I got home from work, Raymond was gone and Rosalie was cryin like her heart was broke. Seems she had started playin “Clementine,” and her daddy got after her. Told her it wasn’t a Christian song and Bea had no business teachin it to her. Not only was she to stop playin it, but she wasn’t to go to Bea’s house ever again. Rosalie didn’t understand what was wrong with a song like “Clementine,” and neither did I. She’d been havin fun learnin to play that song, and she wanted to know why God made fun things if people weren’t supposed to do em.
Of course I let her go back to Bea’s and keep takin lessons. I let the kids do a lot of things Raymond was against. Like singin songs they didn’t learn in Sabbath School. Like actin silly, wearin bathin suits, playin in the sprinkler, and chewin gum. He even got after the girls for twirlin around in their dresses, said it was the same as dancin. He’d tell em that those things made Jesus sad, and “You don’t want to make Jesus sad, do you?” They was just little kids, for godsake. Good kids. I didn’t see a damn thing wrong with em havin fun.
Raymond had plenty to say about me goin to work. Not that he minded me earnin money, ’cause that got him off the hook, but I’d gone and took a job where I had to work on the Sabbath, and that was somethin he never would of done.
And I was wrong about the job not bein harder than takin care of kids. With all that liftin and twistin, I used muscles I didn’t know I had. But sore as I was, I felt sorrier for Mama. She was too old to be runnin after four little kids all day long. And to make things worse, my brother Laird had moved back in. He was drinkin real bad and got kicked out of the place he was rentin.
“I can’t let him sleep under a bridge, can I?” Mama said. “He’ll end up dead if I do.”
Laird swore he was done drinkin for good, but then he’d git his paycheck and be gone for two days. Mama’d git frantic and call my sisters’ husbands. They’d find Laird knee-walkin drunk in one of the taverns downtown, or passed out in an alley, and bring him home.
Six o’clock the next mornin, Mama’d start in on him. “Get up, you lazy bum. You’re not goin to lay around all day.”
“Leave me alone, Ma,” he’d say. “I’m sick.”
“You’re not sick, you’re drunk. You’re drunk and you stink. Get yourself cleaned up and quit actin like a heathen.” She threatened to kick him out, have him committed to a sanitarium, have his paycheck turned over to her so he couldn’t git his hands on it. She threatened all sorts of things, but she never did any of em.
So that’s why I decided to move
She said her name was Lila. She had two teenage kids and a ex-husband that beat her up one time too many. I told her I was divorced too, and after that first day, me and her got to be real good friends even though we weren’t nothin alike. I wasn’t used to speakin my mind, and Lila was the opposite. She didn’t hold nothin back. If there was somethin she thought needed sayin, she said it. Didn’t use polite words either.
.
22
November 10, 1945 (Sabbath) [Max. 47°, Min. 40°.] High winds all last night, reaching 32 miles per hour, accompanied by a heavy, continuous downpour of rain which lasted all day. I have come to Grants Pass to visit my children and I took them to church. Veda and the children are living in a nice little apartment near her mother. Veda was working, as she has taken a factory job.
R AYMOND TOOK THE TWO older kids to church with him. It was rainin when they got out, but he didn’t have sense enough to ask for a ride, so they was soaked by the time they got back. Once Mama got the kids out of their wet clothes and give em some hot cocoa, she let Rosalie take her daddy over to Auntie Bea’s house. Bea was givin her piano lessons and Rosalie wanted to show her daddy what she’d learned.
When I got home from work, Raymond was gone and Rosalie was cryin like her heart was broke. Seems she had started playin “Clementine,” and her daddy got after her. Told her it wasn’t a Christian song and Bea had no business teachin it to her. Not only was she to stop playin it, but she wasn’t to go to Bea’s house ever again. Rosalie didn’t understand what was wrong with a song like “Clementine,” and neither did I. She’d been havin fun learnin to play that song, and she wanted to know why God made fun things if people weren’t supposed to do em.
Of course I let her go back to Bea’s and keep takin lessons. I let the kids do a lot of things Raymond was against. Like singin songs they didn’t learn in Sabbath School. Like actin silly, wearin bathin suits, playin in the sprinkler, and chewin gum. He even got after the girls for twirlin around in their dresses, said it was the same as dancin. He’d tell em that those things made Jesus sad, and “You don’t want to make Jesus sad, do you?” They was just little kids, for godsake. Good kids. I didn’t see a damn thing wrong with em havin fun.
Raymond had plenty to say about me goin to work. Not that he minded me earnin money, ’cause that got him off the hook, but I’d gone and took a job where I had to work on the Sabbath, and that was somethin he never would of done.
And I was wrong about the job not bein harder than takin care of kids. With all that liftin and twistin, I used muscles I didn’t know I had. But sore as I was, I felt sorrier for Mama. She was too old to be runnin after four little kids all day long. And to make things worse, my brother Laird had moved back in. He was drinkin real bad and got kicked out of the place he was rentin.
“I can’t let him sleep under a bridge, can I?” Mama said. “He’ll end up dead if I do.”
Laird swore he was done drinkin for good, but then he’d git his paycheck and be gone for two days. Mama’d git frantic and call my sisters’ husbands. They’d find Laird knee-walkin drunk in one of the taverns downtown, or passed out in an alley, and bring him home.
Six o’clock the next mornin, Mama’d start in on him. “Get up, you lazy bum. You’re not goin to lay around all day.”
“Leave me alone, Ma,” he’d say. “I’m sick.”
“You’re not sick, you’re drunk. You’re drunk and you stink. Get yourself cleaned up and quit actin like a heathen.” She threatened to kick him out, have him committed to a sanitarium, have his paycheck turned over to her so he couldn’t git his hands on it. She threatened all sorts of things, but she never did any of em.
So that’s why I decided to move
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