The Early Years

My father must have been just as overwhelmed by my arrival as my mother because when I was about a year old, he and a friend drove halfway across the country and robbed a bank (Dad drove the getaway car). The responsibility of a wife and, now, four children, along with manic-depression drove him to the edge. I still have the letters that he wrote to me from Danbury Federal Prison. One that comes to mind has a sketch of Linus with his blankie on the front (I, too, was very attached to my yellow blanket, "bagee bagee" (emphasis on the "gee")). It's funny how I see that sketch in a different light now that I've worked in a correctional setting. I know that inmates "pay" (in cigarettes or food or protection) for those sketches. In that way, I guess, artistic prisoners get lucky. Incarceration is such an ugly thing, when letters are sent to loved ones, they want them to see past that ugliness. They hope that the art on the letter or envelope will ease the pain at the thought of their loved one in such an undesirable place. I was four when Dad came home from prison.

While my father was away, Mom worked long hours at a local laundromat to support her four children. I went to a preschool run by the Salvation Army. My siblings were all in school by this time. Since my mother didn't drive, I was transported to and from school daily by taxi, which the Salvation Army also paid for. Needless to say, I never miss an opportunity to drop any extra money I have into the bell-ringing Santa's bucket.

As most people, I remember very little about my early childhood. My three most vivid memories are of helping Mom clean the lint out of the industrial size driers at the laundromat, singing Helen Reddy's I Am Woman while flexing my scrawny arms, and finally, I remember our orange tabby, Simba. Simba slept with my brother Dave who, incidentally, was the only family member who ever acknowledged my presence--he even played with me on occasion.

The first thing I remember about Dad coming home from prison was his hatred for Simba. And Dave. My two favorite things in the world. Simba was afraid of Dad (with very good reason) and Dad reacted with intense anger. He would trap her under a bed and use a slingshot to hit her with shelled walnuts. One day she was just gone and not spoken of again (in front of Dad anyway).

Simba taught me my first lesson about Dad's rules. She littered kittens on Dave's bed. We were instructed not to touch the kittens. One day I witnessed Dave pick up one of these precious bundles and, like most four-year-olds, ran to tell on him. Lesson number one: There will be no "rats" in Dad's house. Dave was spanked for the holding of the kitten but I was spanked doubly for being a "rat". Lesson learned.

I guess I was lucky in one respect. I only got a "spanking." Spankings quickly turned to beatings. As a matter of fact, that is the only spanking I remember receiving from my father. He must have decided after that day that spankings were either too easy or too average. He loved face slaps, belts to the palms of the hand, and punches in the center of the abdomen that knocked the wind out of us. After knocking the wind out of us he'd ask us a question that had to be immediately answered. When we were unable to answer due to lack of breath, he'd revert to the face slap, telling us to "stop playing games." Hmmmm... As Roger Waters once said, "All in all it was all just (rocks in the brook)."

What did I learn from all of this? I still don't rat or like rats, I keep my stomach muscles strong so I never have to feel the wind knocked out of me again, and I still love to clean the dryer lint from my dryer.

Jen ;-)