1959 to 1964 Bicoastal Ownership
Child Theft, Salvation or Pawn
Recently, I started asking my mother about those years again, in specifics, how I remembered it, how I was told at some point in the past about it and now how did it really happen.
Originally Told or Remember:
I was a mere lad of seven having just turned so that April, school let out of course in or about June 6th. I don't know how that differs with today's school year, but it seemed long in Kentucky and it could have been we had to often make up days missed for the fun of playing in the snow. So sweet on that cold but snowplay day, so bitter with the weather all warm and ready for absolutely nothing except playing with my cousin Toto and in the old chicken coop, or watching storms come up every afternoon and then pass, sometimes with the most thunderous of effects, as well as bolts of lightening, and an occasional strike by one here or there. Except that would not be the summer I would spend between the 2nd and 3rd grades.
Whether it was the actual first summer day of or the first day my father left the house to go downtown after the start of summer vacation for me that this most wonderful event would occurred. With money that had been saved for my mother by some at the restaurant and money from her parents and borrowing, she had bought a car and trailer.
The fact that she suffered at the hands of a drunk little rich boy, not only helped raise some of the money, but also helped more importantly, for the whole thing to work, after all, today a parent can get into big trouble stealing the kid or kids, in this case, mainly me, since David was hers already and so my grandparents would not have cared nor my father either from the have left the state without forwarding address issue had it not involved me.
While she may not have been the very first, in the modern era, it wouldn't be till years later this behavior, what women should do and a whole host of issues that we take as understanding today, would become common behavior, or how best to deal with a situation. And recently when I was asking her about some of this, it was one of my first questions, where did she get this idea? Was it something she saw on the news? Heard on the radio, read or what.
And, now 1959 communications is becoming quite quaint compared to our modern world with TVs everywhere, news stations, high profile cases of what she did to those that are over the top or go beyond that to Amber alerts, missing kids, not only was it more easily missed evenif it was reported, but there was no general understanding of what to do in a situation like this, for the phonenomen was still way in the future. So I couldn't help but be curious. But, it seemed like the only opening she had, and she took and did the right thing for her family and never looked back..
She did the right thing, because it was the right thing to do, for her, for David and for me. I'm sure she enjoyed knowing how mad he must have been, I don't blame her nor would I if it were all about her and even if I were a pawn, which I was, in the game. And it seemed that everyone knew, except those who should have, what was going on, her abuse, even I saw her abused at his hands, his drunken womanizing reputation as local color as well as the fact that his parents were not only of wealthy means, but for Mason County, may have been close to the top, meant every cheap hussy as well as poor local girl who wants to make good chased after him, which only encouraged his despicable behavior, undoubtedly. (Actually, I know for a fact but those stories and comments come later.)
Having witnessed this myself, him beat my mother bloody, and lay around drunk, did not strike me as appropriate fatherly behavior even at an early age. In fact, I very distinctly remember offering to kill daddy for mommy and asked her if she wanted me to one summer day one or two years earlier, while mixing chalk up in the basement with water, thinking this was some poisonous concoction. I never understood why she didn't say yes, but I probably went on about my life with having to tolerate this wretch.
Thus, when my brother parked the trailer on the lane next to the house, which couldn't be seen by my fathers parents and swiftly filled it with all those things that adults know to bring, I was more than enthusiastic with excitement about leaving and probably for once behaved myself, but I better ask about that one. In what seemed like a short period of time we were packed up, in the car with our beloved dog Tippy and off we went. Now, I distinctly remember us stopping after we felt safe enough to take a couple of minutes and my mother turning to me and Tippy and asking whether we should go to California or North Carolina and of course Tippy and I both voted for California. Later my mother told me that they had already decided, then she finally told me David had picked a small town of about 15,000 people, about the same number as Mason County, Kentucky, but time and lots of it make a little boy's memory and adults memories two different beasts, and I have an above average memory. (continued on KS2.1)
