You can write!

By the time I was 12 I was settling into my new family well.  I knew all the players and all the places.  When I was nine, Pappy, Dad’s dad, died.  Although we did not have many years together, I was always sure he loved me and wanted me in the family.  By the time I was 11 I started doing genealogy on my new family.  Mainly I was trying to keep all the family stories straight in my head, but I also hoped it would appease Novelle.  It never did. 

My father, used to tell me the most extraordinary stories, of his Great-Grandfather who fought in the civil war.  I began to take my new families history as my own.  I was also hungry, to learn anything about Oma, that I could.  History was always alive and present in my life.  Both my Dad and my uncles were great history buffs.  I went to a historic church and lived in a very historical town.  Grandpa would also tell me wonderful stories, about the sea and all the different countries he had visited.

In 6^th grade I had a phenomenal teacher named Debbie Pace (now Debbie Silver).  She always had a smile, had bright red hair, loved science and lived every bit of her craziness and reveled in her wonderful weirdness.  She is the kind of teacher, that had a dramatic impact, on every student she taught.  She LOVED to teach.  It was not just a job to her, it was her calling. She gave us the beautiful luxury of letting us be ourselves, and never chastising us for it.  I remember speaking with an Australian accent for about 6 week and she never asked me to stop.  She just let me, be me. 

Many of us are still glad to call her friend today.  She would eventually leave our little school, and Louisiana for better opportunities in Texas.  She now teaches other teachers how to teach.  May you all be blessed, to have a teacher like her, in your life someday.

Ms. Pace taught all 6^th graders science.  But that year, I happened to have her for homeroom, which included literature and spelling as well.  She was also gifted in these departments.  Every day we started the day in the same way.  The pledge was followed by a few moments of silent meditation.  Before the meditation everyone was encouraged to say if they had, for lack of a better term “prayer requests.”  Although it was never called that.  You know pray for my mom cause she has cancer, or my dad pulled another drunk last night, or I am really scared about the test we are going to take today, etc.  You would not believe what came out of our mouths.  Kids talked about family members being sick, about being bullied, and I think even once or twice abuse was implied if not downright mentioned.  What’s tough about being that age, is that no one will listen to you.  The silent meditation helped us to get our minds off of what they were on, and onto our school work, and it showed in our grades. 

I am vehemently apposed to prayer in school.  You may think everyone should be fine with shoving Christianity down everyone’s throat, cause you think everyone should be Christian.  But what about the little Buddhist boy in the corner or the Jewish girl sitting at head of the class? Everyone’s faith should be respected and I believe in the separation of church and state.  I, however, see no harm in a few moments of daily meditation and stillness. You could pray or simply sit quietly, it was your choice.

Also you have to remember I went to small school.  No nurse, no security guards, no councilor, no art and no sex ed.  A loving teacher was a godsend to us.  She listened to us.  And not only did she believe us, she believed in us.  I was not a writer until that year.  She had us working on stories for something and I started getting upset.  She came over to me and I said, “I can’t do this.”  She held the pencil in my hand and said, “Yes you can write.”  She was the first to believe in me.  I know many others who felt the same way. 

Although it was widely known in my family that I wrote, it was never encouraged.  Nor was it ever mentioned, to me that I should or could write for a living.  Even when I was in college, I was not encouraged by the family, to study more about writing.  I always believe I was not good enough.  I knew my spelling was awful and my grammar was not the best.  I believed no one wanted to hear what I had to say.  I still struggle with that.  I have even had moments of that this week, where I thought about deleting this blog, because I feel no one wants to listen to my boring, and ordinary life story.  I have resolved I must soldier on, at least for the moment.

I was having trouble with boys about that time as well.  The year before I had been put in braces and developed breasts, now they didn’t just come in as A’s, no they couldn’t do that.  I never remember being in a training bra.  Nope mine grew in as B’s.  By the time I was in 6^th grade they were C’s.  So having large breasts has always been part of my identity.  Boys began to want to touch my breasts, and pop my bra.

I had braces, so I had to go after lunch every day and brush my teeth.  I don’t know if you remember the first pump toothpastes we had.  I think mine was Aquafresh.  It was in this hard ass plastic bottle.  Now I used to care that pump in my blue jean purse, along of course with my book.  The boys would go to touch me, and I would wind up my purse like a sling and PAWYAH!  I would hit them with it.  They would just start screaming!  “What have you got in there a brick!”  Serves them right.

About the time I got breast I got my period as well.  Thankfully my mother had had the talk with me, and I knew what was going on.  In those days I would often hide out in the bathroom after brushing my teeth, because I did not like my 5^th grade teacher, and did not want to go back to class.  I often heard girls go in the stall and begin to scream.  They had started and had no idea what was going on.  Many of the believed they were bleeding to death.  I would calm them down.  Explain this was natural, that they were not dying, and that they should talk to their mom when they got home.  I would them give them a Kotex and show them how to use it. I would continue to carry extra protection with me, until well into high school.  I became know as the one to come to for such things. 

As gross as the above story may seem, I want you to understand that women often do not understand how their bodies work. For many of us in Louisiana, we were denied that right to learn about our own bodies in school, by people who put their morals ahead of our education.  Some girls never got the talk about their bodies, or much less about sex.  The hormones that accompany puberty were never explained to me.  I remember, that even the encyclopedias that contained pictures of sex organs, were not on the shelf at my local library.  They were kept under the desk, and you had to be a specific age, or be researching something in that particular book to even see it. 

In 6^th grade I had my first official boyfriend.  His name was Melvin.  He had lovely dark black hair, light eyes and little ears that stuck out and turned red when he was embarrassed or cold.  He was so cute.  We were set up by friends.  He was a very nice fellow, but I didn’t feel anything for him.  He was terrible shy.  I don’t even think we held hands.  It lasted all of 6 weeks.  Melvin gave me two bracelets.  One was metal and one was some simple black beads on a string.  To break up with him, I public cut the bracelet off my wrist, in front of him on the bus.  I was not really mad at him.  I was mad at my friends, who kept whispering in my ear about the two of us.  I could not stand the pressure. 

I did not know until much later that Melvin was very poor.  I have no idea where those bracelets came from, or what they meant to him.  I also did not know until years later, when one of my guy friends told me, that Melvin had been in love with me for a long time.  Finding out somebody loves you changes you’re perception of them.  I began to develop feeling for him a few week before we graduated, but by then it was too late.   

I was attracted to dysfunctional, bad boys, who used, abused, or worse ignored me.  The kind of love Melvin offered me was quiet, and slow, and healthy.  Things I was not used to.  So I passed him by.  Something I almost did with Jay as well.  When I married Jay, I realized that he and Melvin shared many characteristic.  I finally understood how much I may have hurt Melvin. 

I had the opportunity, at my 10 year reunion to apologize.  But I was so nervous I could not do it to his face, and so I instead apologized to his wife.  She carried the message for me.  I saw him recently at our 20^th year reunion.  We hugged and we were glad to see each other.  He has been happily married for many years, to the same woman, and has a family of his own now.  I continue to wish them all the best.

Ilsa

 

Dirty Laundry

There will be those of you who feel that I am airing my dirty laundry in public.  That I am telling family secrets, things that should stay secret.  That I have some kind of hidden agenda for my family.  Let me now lay all of this to rest.

Am I airing my dirty laundry in public?  That Is for you to decide.  But I can tell you this having been a house wife for most of my life.  That at some point dirty clothes start to stink.  And if you are not careful the wet ones will start to grow mold, make heat, and make you sick.  Honey at some point you’ve got to get yourself a box of wash powder and go to work!  It’s just the facts of the thing!

Yes I have dirty laundry.  Some of it is mine and some of it has belonged to other people over the years.  It has just been dumped in with mine.  I am now sorting thru what is mine, what’s  theirs and deciding what I can salvage, and what needs to simply be thrown out or burned with the trash. 

I sat down to write and put a few ideas on paper, for a few friends.  It has ended up being a book mainly about my life.  I have spent these last few months retelling these tales to yes warn you, to show you the goodness of the Gods and their affect in my life.  Yes I have set out to publicly humiliate a few people.  Those are the ones’ who’s full names I have listed in my works.  Because I could find no other way of ever getting justice for actions they did to me.  Others have had their names changed or only partially mentioned, as I am trying to protect them and those around them.  But I still want you to hear the story. 

In writing these stories, I have also been going thru old pictures.  I use the pictures to trigger old memories and remember what I was feeling back then.  I am trying to look for the origins, of why and when I began to feel anxiety about the world around me, and when I began to have my first panic attacks.  Writing this has been cathartic and therapeutic for me.  I have found there is not one beginning but many, like warp and weft when you weave.  It is all built upon each other.  Each strand having it’s own starting point, and an end point.  All of this lends itself to the final work.  It is my guess your stories will be similar in their mechanics. 

I learned long ago in 12 step programs that our secrets keep us sick.  And it is true.  To keep something secret, I feel in many ways poisons us and sets us up for illness in our life.  Since I left Mike I have vowed to tell the truth about life, and the whole truth.  Even if it hurt the ones around me, because I never wanted another person to suffer as I have, with abuse, being used or being repressed in such a way that their mind begins to betray them.  The way in which some people behave, to others they say the love or care for, should be criminal.  We must all learn to seek enlightenment and change how we treat our fellow beings.  Every day I wake up, I try to do better, to say I apologize when I am wrong, and to learn from not only my life experiences, but the experiences of others.  I think that is why it so important to listen to the stories of those around you.  You never know when it will become a teachable moment.  I am not perfect, I never have been and I never will be.  I have my flaws and inconstancies just like anyone else. 

I have no hidden agenda in my writing about the people in my life.  My father will never enter AA.  My mother will never have a clue.  Michael Liberto will never apologize for what he did to me.  Paige will never give me Jelly back.  And I hold no hope that any of the above will ever happen.  I have not written all of this, to force them into anything of the sort.  These ships have long since sailed.  No matter how much I may desire such a thing, I have long ago had to give up hope that any of these people will ever change their ways. I must accept my responsibility in each and every thing that has happened in my life.   I must accept each person in my life where they are.  I have encouraged them where I can.  And in many cases I have moved on.

I recently received a message from D.  She wished to speak with me and apologize. And also to let me know, where I misconstrued some of the things that happened between us.  I know her.  She is a snake.  Trying to slither back into my life and convince me, that the truth as I understand it is flawed.  I hear her rattles and know enough to stand my ground, so as not to be struck again.

I decided early on, that should I have people come back to me, and wish to revise MY truth that I would not allow them.  You cannot speak for me!  You cannot interpret the world for me!  This is my truth as I have experienced it.  No one can experience my life for me.  The way we interpret our lives is filtered through a life time of experiences, good or bad.  No one has the right to come to you and say, “I am sorry, but the way you understand what happened is wrong.”  They will have their own way of seeing their life, and it will not be the same as yours.  Our culture, the period of time we lived threw, those around us, our demographics, our gender, hell even our religion plays a part in the way we color our world. 

So in conclusion, no one has the right to tell you that, how you understand your world is wrong.  We are all different and we will all see our lives thru our own lens.  You have every right to feel and believe the way you do, even if someone believes it is wrong.  Keep writing, keep talking and keep fighting.  You will get thru this. 

Ilsa

 

 

The family secret

No family is perfect.  Every family has secrets.  Every family has demons.  My new family’s secret, besides they were dysfunctional, was that all the men were a bunch of drunks.  My father Jef, and both his brothers, just like their father and grandfather before them.  We can trace alcoholism back several generations in our family.  It was simply the way we handled our problems.  Now in my Dad’s defense he was never a mean drunk, unless he was on the hard stuff and Mom told him he could not have that in the house early on.  It is not my intention to shame my father into going to AA.  I simply want you to understand that being an adult child of an alcoholic is also part of my story.  It is nothing to be ashamed of, it is just fact for many of us.  I want you to see my father as I do, wonderful, intelligent, funny, loving, heroic and flawed. 

My Dad is what is called a Binge Alcoholic.  He would go a week or two of being sober and then pull a big drunk.  He once told me it took him at least a 6 pack to feel anything, and a good case before he got drunk.  Now you have to remember my Daddy is a big man, he is 5’11 and about 300lb.  And as a kid a lot of that was muscle.  Daddy is a happy drunk.  When he drinks he wants to dance and would put on his Motown records.  He would contemplate putting on his Barbara Streisand albums, and then he would say, “You know I love her voice, but I just hate her politics.”  Daddy is a dyed in the wool, Fox News loving, gun caring, Conservative Republican.  He is the definition of a good old boy and I love him for it.  All though he has never been homophobic and believes in a woman’s right to chose. 

I would inevitable get sick with Bronchitis and be on the couch with my vaporizer.  He would get drunk and come in wanting to hang out with me, drink and play music.  We passed many nights like that.  Later in my life I would share a glass of beer with him on these nights. 

My Dad’s brothers were his very best friends.  His middle brother, Drew and Ashley’s father, died a few years back.  He has really grieved his death.   I think he lost one of his real reasons for drinking, hanging out with his brother.  I also think he lost his best friend.  I remember the days of my uncles all standing around Daddy’s truck, drinking.  Each one took a side.  They had a cooler in the middle and they would talk late into the night, especially if the weather was good.  Sometimes I would go hang out with them, and listen to their stories. 

My personal favorite story is when Daddy would not come home.  Now this was in the days before cell phones kids.  We would call all over tarnation for him.  We would finally find him at one of his brother’s houses.  Daddy would get on the phone and say, “Yeh baby I’ll be home in about 30 minutes.  I’m going to drink one more beer.”  He’d show up 4 hours later.  I always knew when he was drinking ‘cause when he came home to kiss me, his lips were cold. 

Mom tried for the first few years to fight this.  We went to Ala-non trying to convince him that he should join AA. Mom never got that the program was for her.  We left the Big Book around for him to read.  That never happened.  She would have dinner hot on the table and ready for him when he came home.  We would wait, until long after he said he would be home.  Finally it would get cold, and it would be late, and we would be tired of waiting and we would have to give in and eat without him.   Mom finally quit that after a while and when she knew he was drinking, we would just go ahead, have dinner and go on with our evening plans.  I think she learned somewhere in there to just let him be.

No matter how drunk my Dad or my uncles got, every morning they got up and went to work.  They never called in for a hangover.  I think it comes from all those years of having had the dairy.  They had a hell of a work ethic.  No matter what they did the night before, come 3 o’clock in the morning them cows had to be milked regardless of how you felt or the weather.  People and animals were depending on you. 

My Daddy taught me to love books.  He eats books.  He can read a book in a day if you let him.  He probable reads 2 or 3 books a week.  He is very much like Jay in that fact and I love it.  They like many of the same books and often trade them back and forth, and introduce each other to new authors.  I don’t do that.  Yes I am a book worm, but I read for detail and often with a highlighter.  I like my mother prefer non-fiction.  I used to love fiction, but it is hard to find an educated, animal and livestock loving, country witchy woman who is not in bed with the hero by page 4 and is in command of her own life.  I am still looking for good authors.  I had hoped to be a fiction writer, but I am just no good a plot lines.  Stories don’t have endings, they just meander and change, like this paragraph.

I will never forget the first time Daddy took me to the library in Logansport.  I had never seen so many books, and the idea that you could read any of them you wanted just fascinated me.  I am still in love with libraries and book stores. I was still young enough and light enough to be picked up.  Daddy sat me on the counter and said, “Hey y’all watch her for just a minute.  I’ve got to get a few books.”   And they did.  Libraries frown upon such things now.  

My library was tiny. My little trailer probable has more square footage then that library did.  But it was a beacon and outpost of the world beyond for me.  Daddy and I would go and I would just get lost in the books. I also loved the librarians.  They were knowledgeable on so many subjects. If they didn’t know they either had a book they could recommend, had one they could get for you, or had a vertical file (news clippings) on that subject.  They were like compasses.  They could always point you in the right direction.

I was always a good student, but my Dad demanded excellence out of me.  Homework was a priority, and to be done right after school and my snack.  My parents helped where they could.  Math was always my weakest subject and I suspect that along with my ADD I have Dyscalculia as well.  I am always turning numbers around, not letters, unless I am really tired.  I remember bringing home my grades and C’s went on the top, then B’s and then A’s.  Didn’t matter how many A’s you had.  You were going to be fussed about the C’s.  Daddy told me an A is an A, a B is like a C, and a C is like an F.  And when he was done fussing and me about my grades or my report card, then it was time for my Grandpa, Novelle, and my uncles to fuss me about them.  High grades and great things were expected out of me.  I often feel guilty that I have disappointed them. 

So the feeling of never being good enough, never measuring up, and striving for perfection were drilled into me from an early age.  My guess is the family hoped by doing so, I would not have to live the way they did.  Instead it made me self conscious, and terrified of disappointing them.  I still feel that way.

I knew from an early age my family expected me to go to college, just like my Dad and his brothers had.  My Grandpa was a “self made man,” and had left school at about 16 or 17 to go to sea.  We all believed the lie that if I went to college I would have a better life.  Go study what you love.  You can be anything you want to be, they told us.  I just wanted to be a Mom, but that was not good enough for anybody.  So I was encouraged to study.   I am naturally pretty smart, so I did good in school.  I excelled and won awards, but I was never smart enough to get into our gifted and talented program.  That’s what I always wanted, but it didn’t happen.  I had the grades but not the test scores.  I am not the best tester.  I have too much anxiety about the time aspect.  You know back in the day before you could get a waiver for such things. 

What we should be telling our kids, is that long before they decide what they want to be in school, they should decide where they want to live.  If you are a woman and a want to live in Louisiana it is best you do something in the medical field or teaching.  Despite what you may want, these are really the only two industries that want to hire women.  Even today there is little else for women here.  If you are a man and want to live here, you must have a strong back and be willing to work long hours.  What work there is for people here, is not what we would called skilled.  People who wish to live in Northwest Louisiana should also consider a trade: electrical work, truck driver, plumbing, contracting, mechanic, dog grooming, vet tech, etc.  Nothing that requires you to have a 4 year or more degree.  Even people we educate here, cannot get work here. 

If you do feel such an urge to obtain a college degree, you need to go ahead and be ready to leave this state for work in another place.  Louisiana puts no stock in it’s young people and there is nothing here for us but heartache, and trying to scratch a living out of the dirt.  It is always feast or famine around here.  When I was a kid there were plenty of jobs in the oil field, most of the fields are played out now.  Even the great boom of the Haynesville Shale is almost over with. 

It is simply a fact of life here.  Our smart and different people must move away to make a life for themselves in places like Dallas, Austin, or Houston.  No one comes to Louisiana, except New Orleans, (and that might as well be Mars for all most Louisianans care) voluntarily.  If you are in Louisiana you are here for a few reasons.  You are from here and got stuck here.  You came home for family.  You married someone from here.  You got stationed here.  My prayer is may you never be smart, and stuck in Louisiana. 

As for me, why did I stayed?  I got stuck, and I stayed to be close to my family.  I am an only child and know I will be the only one to care for my parents as they age.  Why move away, have a life, home and career and know I would have sell it all to come home and take care of my family?  As much as I talk smack about Louisiana I am also very much in love with it.  No, not the Louisiana you see on post cards, books and television.  I am in love with North Louisiana, all it’s terrible and wonderful flaws.  I love it’s people, who are warm and giving, as long as you are a certain type of person.  Even if you are not, they would give you the shirt off their back, and hope they could lead you to the Lord. 

I feel in love with the towering pine trees, the wild flowers, the muddy red waters of the river, the deer, the possum, and the armadillo.  I feel in love with the green pastures of Keatchie, its stately old buildings, and its Holstein cows.  I even love the smell of cow shit on a warm day.  It smells like home to me.   I love Louisiana in all her seasons: hot, warm, cool, and back to warm again.  I even love it here when it is 110° with 90% humidity.  Louisiana gets in your blood.  It is in my blood, my family has been here for so long now.  What every way you want to trace my family tree, my family has been here for more generations that anyone cares to count. 

Yes I have lived in larger cities, and I like the slow path of life here.  Like my Dad, passing time standing around his truck, drinking beer, visiting with his family and watching the world go by.  Does it get any better than that?

I must say though I hate our state government.  Most of them are so crooked, and have screwed the Louisiana population and land so much, “They are going to have to screw them in the ground when they die.”  I hope, above all hope that with each passing election, my state will get better and a little less screwed.  Never happens.  I guess I will eventually have to give up that ghost.

Ilsa

Adam

There were 5 of us cousins in my new family, me, Melissa, was the oldest girl who lived in Texas, Drew and his baby sister Ashley.  She was born a week after my parents met.  And Adam, he was the step-son of one of my uncles.  But no one, except Novelle, ever treated us any different. 

There are a series of incidents in my life that involve Adam.  I have often wondered if they crossed the line of abuse, but after all these years I still don’t know.  Adam basically used me as kissing practice.  I was 6 and he was 12.  He was 6 years old then me, old enough to know better.  There would be several events that started when I was 6 or 7 and would not stop until I was 16. 

Let me first say I never had a time in my life when I did not feel like a sexual being.  I have been attracted to boys, and wanted to be with them since I can remember.  I was spending the night at Adam’s house, one night and I could not sleep.  I called him into my room.  We sat on the floor for a while and played cards.  The next thing I know we were kissing.  I don’t know who kissed who first, but I kissed back, and I liked it.  The next thing I knew it was hot and heavy.  We broke it off when Adam left the room and went back to his bed.

I believed for many years that Adam and I were in a secret relationship.  That he secretly loved me.  I brought it up to my circle of girlfriends who agreed with me.  I like most kids in the South, learned about sex from the other kids around me.  Much of that information came from their own experimentation, or from their own abuse.

I knew never to bring it up with Adam.  It was our secret.  I tried when I was about 10.  We were in Drew’s pool and I started asking Adam either when he was going to kiss me again, or when we were going to tell people we were a couple.  He told me to be quite, not to mention it and then pushed my head down under the water.  I remember being alone with him and giving him a back massage.  Not sure if there was kissing that day or not.

The last time we were in his house.  I think I was about 15 or 16.  Everybody else was outside drinking, and we were alone in the house.  We started wrestling, and he stopped on top of me and had my arms lightly pined above my head.  We were kissing, but I knew this was wrong.  Although he was no blood relation, he was my cousin.  He had this look on his face, like kissing was not going to be enough.  I thought, “I have to figure a way out of this or I’m in trouble.”  So I told him I had to go pee.  He was a bit upset but let me up.  I ran to the bathroom and he went to take a shower.  When I was done I ran outside and refused to go back inside. 

On the ride home, after 10 years of this back and forth, I finally had the courage to tell my father.  I don’t remember what he said, but I do know that by the next First Sunday it had become a running joke in the family.  Something that was so private to me, even now, something that had been sacred to me, that took me years to get up the courage to say, was now a joke and I was openly being laughed at.  Adam was met at the front door and slapped on the back and told, “Why don’t you give her another kiss?”  It would take me years to ever trust my family with any of most deeply held secrets again. 

I hesitate to even write and publish this now as I wish no harm to come to him or his family because of this.  I loved Adam for many years, and I was extremely jealous when he took a girlfriend.  I was mortified that when he went to fight in Desert Storm, she cheating on him.  I wrote him regularly when he was in Iraq. 

I don’t think Adam ever loved me.  It was just another case of a man using me to get what he wanted from me.  It’s sad, but it’s true.

The moral of this story is if your kid, or anybody for that matter trusts you enough to tell you their secret, no matter how trivial it may seem to you.  At least respect them enough to know that secret has caused them pain over the years and not to laugh at them.  It is hard enough to trust anybody anyways. 

Ilsa

Only child

Because of Mom’s surgery she has to take very powerful anti-seizure medications.  The Doctors advised her to never have another child or it would have complications because of the medicine.  So she never did.  I was raised an only child, although I no longer define myself as such, having found my half siblings.  I know what you are thinking.  That being an only child means I was raised spoiled.  No not really.  That only works if your parents have money to spoil you.  I grew up living as we say, “pretty close to the bone.”  Meaning I watched my mother cry as she tried to figure out what bills to pay that month.  She “robbed Peter, to pay Paul.”  I will give them credit, I never went hungry and I never remember a time when the water or electric got cut off, but I always worried about all of the above happening.  As the old Alabama song says, “we were so poor, but we couldn’t tell.”

There were basically three groups of people in my school.  The jocks and cheerleaders all seemed to be a bit better off then the rest and acted as such.   They tended to dress a little better and more fashionable then everybody else.   Had you taken these same kids and put them in the Caddo school system, they would have been seen as poor.  So they were just well off by our standards.  The other group was those of us who were dirt poor.  Most of this group were sexually active early on, some of their own choosing, and some not.  This group did not follow fashion and dressed in whatever was available to them. 

The third group, I am sad to say were Black.  When I went to school there was no mixing.  We were self segregated.  There were no mixed relationships.  Yes you could be a Black football player and / or track star, but you did not sit with the white football players and cheerleaders.  It’s not you were not welcome, it was just not done. 

I am not trying to sound racist here.  I am simply telling you the way in which I experienced my world growing up, call it White Guilt or whatever you want, but I do not mean to offend anyone.  Please understand this is how I was raised, and I have worked very hard to grow beyond that, as many in my generation have. 

In the town I grew up in there was the white section of town and the Black section of town, over the railroad tracks.  This area of town was known as the quarters.  White kids, especially girls, knew not to go down there.  If you did, we were told there would be trouble to follow.  You damn sure didn’t go down there by yourself.  It was my understanding you went down there for drugs, but little else.  It was considered too violent.   I was told it was a good place to get shot.  I don’t know.  I did as I was told and other then being lost down there, I have never been in that section of my hometown.  Honestly I am still a bit afraid to go.  Maybe it is time I conquered that fear and changed my opinions.

I referred to myself as a floater.  I moved between both the poor kids and the jocks.  I was known to “hold court,” as I called it, during lunch with all types of people.  I would today consider myself a nerd, even though that designation did not exist in my school.  Neither did Prep or Goth. 

You also have to consider that Logansport was a very closed minded, evangelical town.  It is still run by the church today.  You were Black or you were white.  If you were mixed, and I knew few of these people, you were considered Black.  I knew of a few white women who married or had relationships with Black men.  They went on to live in the Black community.  Often the rumors about these women were they were so fat or so ugly that no white man wanted them.  It was never seen as being a choice. I never heard of a white man with a Black woman in my community. There were no Creoles, Asians, Middle Eastern people and very few Mexicans sent their kids to school.  There were very few Latinos in Logansport at the time, and fewer of Native American blood.  Our town seemed to be about 50 / 50 Black and white. 

In Logansport you could be any religion you wanted.  You could be Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, A.M.E, C.M.E., Assembly of God, Pentecostal, hell you could even be Jehovah Witness if you wanted to.  Catholics were tolerated, but called “Mary worshipers.”  As long as you were some kind of Christian it was okay.  Oma was a Lutheran, but that was not good enough for the town’s people.  Nope she had to be of a proper faith and I think became a Baptist because of the pressure of those around her.  I mean this is the kind of town that played, “Just as I am,” until somebody got up to be saved, even if it was just to make the damn music stop. 

Everyone was Christian in my town that I knew of. Oh I knew of other cultures, that had other religions, in other lands, but that was not in the United States.  As far as I knew, everyone in America was Christian and if not should be.  My Grandpa had been an avowed atheist prior to marrying Barbara.   Mr. Gingles, my 8^th grade Earth Science teacher was an Agnostic.  I don’t consider Agnosticism to be a religion, as it does not have traditions and customs.  A belief system, or a non-belief system if you will, but not a religion per say.  Y’all please correct me if I am wrong.

I meet my first real non-Christian, when a group came to town that were walking and protesting the 500^th anniversary of Columbus coming to the Americas.  They were trying to bring environmental awareness as well as awareness of what was going on with indigenous cultures in the Americas.  Among them were two Buddhist monks, in their beautiful orange robes.  First United Methodist Church was opened to feed the group and give them a place to stay that night.  I remember sitting and talking to all of them, but the monks in particular.  I was fascinated with them.  One of them gave me 2 pieces of origami that he had made, a flower and a crane.  I still have the picture of them that I took.  I wonder where they are now?

I am also sad to say that there were no “out” gay persons in my school.  I know of at least 4 men I went to school with who later came out.  There were men who acted effeminate in school, but I never saw an open gay relationship in my school, or in my community for that matter, growing up.  If you were gay you kept it to yourself, and never went out with your partner, much less held hands and kissed in public.  Logansport was the kind of town where gays were not welcomed and most kept it quiet, or I am sorry to say moved.  Logansport was the kind of place you survived. 

Everyone dated.  Everyone dated everyone else.  Some people were just passed around.  The boys tormented me in school, they didn’t want to date me.  Other then Sean, who I’ve already talked about, Melvin and Brett, who I will talk about later, I had very few boyfriends.  The longest relationship I had in school I think was Melvin, and that was an arranged relationship and it lasted 6 weeks. 

I was sitting in one of my girlfriends bedrooms one day with the rest of my friends and I mentioned that I thought a boy was cute.  They all looked at me funny and laughed.  I didn’t get the joke. They told me they had all believed I was a lesbian.  I didn’t even know what that was.  Once they explained to me what the word meant I said, “No I like boys.  I just don’t like any of the ones here!”

I had trouble making friends.  I often felt like an outsider in my school. I was often very lonely.  I think the other kids felt that and I was called weird or crazy to my face on a daily basis.  Logansport was a very small town and everyone was intermarried.  You went to school with your 1^st, 2^nd, and sometimes up to 5^th cousins.  You were often judged by teachers and administration by who you were, and who you were related to.  Some of our teachers not only taught our younger siblings and cousins, but our parents as well.  One of our favorite games was to look in our school books for the names of people we knew.  You won if you found your parents. 

I stayed as close to my family, as I could.  When Daddy married Mom he bought her a new trailer, but it stayed next to Oma’s house. With my new dad and new house, came new family.  Everyone in my new family loved me and immediately accepted me as their own.  Well all of course Novelle.  The first time I met my new grandfather, Pappy, he pulled up the chair closest to him and told me to sit.  That became my seat, and if anyone dared sit in it I would make them move.  I felt Pappy had given me that seat and no one could take it from me.  I had been offered a place at the table and that was powerful to me. 

I became very close to my new cousin Drew who was a year older than me.  He was warm, funny, and most of all welcoming.  I will never forget the first day I met him.  I gave me this little statue of a white poodle. I still have it.  I always felt it was a welcome to the family gift.  I was even offered to be part owner in the paint horse, named Shasta, that all the cousins would ride. 

Now all of Daddy’s family was from Keatchie, they had been for more than a 100 years.  Keatchie is a little town about 15 miles north of Logansport.  All the kids from Keatchie went to Logansport School.  Keatchie quickly became my adopted home town.  You ask me today where I am from I will tell you, “I’m from Logansport, but all my people are from Keatchie.”  I remember making quite a few trips in the bed of the pickup truck from Logansport to Keatchie.  You learned real fast not to keep your mouth open ‘cause you would be catching bugs. 

We lived in Logansport and during the weekends we went to Keatchie, either on Saturday or Sunday, depending if we were going to church or not. Keatchie has three churches, a Southern Baptist, a United Methodist, and Presbyterian.  The population of the town was meant to support all three churches.  The first Sunday you were Methodist, the second Sunday you were Baptist, and the third Sunday you were Presbyterian, the fourth Sunday you were Baptist again, and if there was a fifth Sunday you were Methodist again.  When I grew up there was even still a community bible school that met prior to church.  This is what is called a rotation cycle.  It goes back to the days when you had the old circuit riding preachers, who traveled on horseback.  They would have several churches under their care and they would travel from church to church.  This is also why Louisiana has Parishes instead of counties.  A Parish was all the Catholic churches under one Father.  It was intended to be the distance he could ride on horseback in one week.  Until recently, in the vows a United Methodist Pastor took to become ordained, he or she was asked if they had a good horse.  So I grew up very connected with the old ways.

On First Sunday Novelle cooked a huge meal and the whole family would come to eat after church, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  After Mom and I washed the dishes, then we went to Drew’s to swim in his pool.  He was a little better off than me, so he had a pool, a satellite, and an Atari. I never had a video game system.  We could not afford one.  I think that is why I am still not a gamer today, it was not part of my early life, and I never could figure out all the buttons.    

I was, until I started coming down with Bronchitis, the kid who was forever outside.  I’ve told you I used to be a runner.  Mom would kick me out of the house and say, “Go Play Outside!”  and I would.  I loved to make mud pies.  I remember Mom yelling at me to come in the house to take off my church clothes, so I didn’t get them muddy.  Sometimes she got to me in time, and sometimes she didn’t.  She used to bribe me with ICEE’S to be good in church.  I remember standing under our big oak tree, and pretending to be a witch.  In my cauldron, a #10 wash tub, I would stir up rocks, chains and bottle caps, and make my little incantations and curse who ever had been mean to me that week.  Little did I know I would one day grow up to be a witch. 

Ilsa

Starting School

When I started school I knew I was different then the other kids.  Way different.  When Oma brought me into have me tested for placement in Kindergarten, I could read, I could write a little, I could count to ten in English and German, and I could sign my name in cursive.  There was discussion about putting me in 1^st grade, but they decided to put me in Kindergarten, because I lacked social skills. 

I remember being shocked by the stupidity of the kids around me.  Sorry if I sound arrogant here.  They did not know their numbers, their colors or shapes, and could not read.  Much less they did not understand German.  I thought everyone spoke another language at home.  I remember walking into the cafeteria and watching some of them eat with their hands.  These were not kids that were from ethnicities that ate with their hands.  These were American children, who should have known how to use a fork and spoon.  I was shocked and appalled. 

My first week of school I understood I was different than the other kids.  Some of my clothes, were what was hot that year in German fashion.  I didn’t care a back pack, I cared a satchel.  Oma had gotten it from German for me.  I knew I was different, and I desperately wanted to fit in, make friends and be liked.  Instead I would be singled out and called crazy or weird for my entire schooling. 

Angie was my best friend and Sean was my boyfriend.  Sean had been in my life as long as I could remember.  He was this beautiful little boy with blond hair.  His mother and grandmother cut Oma’s hair.  I have this memory of Sean and I being in the closet together and getting caught.  When they found us,  Oma and them had shocked looks on their faces.  Neither one of us remembers what we were doing.  But I am sure the two of us were up to now good!  LOL! 

Sean and I would get married in the morning, on the play ground and then divorced by lunch.  I remember lying in this ditch birthing his imaginary babies, while my friend I nicknamed Doc attended.  We did this every day.  Sean and I would sleep next to each other at nap time and cuddle.  I would even throw my leg over him.  Oh the teachers did not like that and had to separate us.  It really upset me.  I felt like I was all alone.  Sean remained my on-again-off-again boyfriend until the 3^rd grade, when I caught him holding another girl’s hand.  That was it for us.  I avoided him after that.  It helped we were also in separate classes.

Sean and I found each other on Facebook several years ago, and I got to see him on a trip into town.  He is just as beautiful as ever.   I was just as attracted to him, as I was when we were little.  He has a beautiful bald head, now that all his lovely blond hair fell out.  I got the chance to apologize to him for ignoring him all those years, we were still in school together.  He told me I am still his longest relationship to date. 

I attended Logansport Rosenwald Elementary School.  Now the Rosenwald here is a bit of a misnomer.  Julius Rosenwald built 5000 or so schools across the country to help educate mainly African-American children in the early 20^th century.  These schools were 1^st -12^th grade.  Our Rosenwald school was opened in 1952 and used as a segregated high school until the 70’s.  I remember going to school and seeing large photos of all black graduating classes.  Now I lived in a very small town.  There was only one high school.  It didn’t make since to me as Rosenwald was then used as an elementary school up until 6^th grade, and then you went to the high school.  I just kept looking at those pictures wondering where all the white kids were?  What was Rosenwald High School?  How do you explain the past of the segregated south and Jim Crow laws to a kindergartener?

My school was very small.  Maybe a 1000 kids from K-12.  The year I started school we had 90 in my class, by the time I graduated there would be 47 of us.  We were all a pretty tight knit group.

In May of 1982 Mom would met the man I would call my father for the rest of my life.  I talked about that in Novelle. They married that summer.   Daddy loved me almost instantly.  He picked up the gauntlet of being my father, long after Beau had thrown in down.  I think the great thing about Daddy was that he always considered me.  I remember going on family dates.  We’d have a picnic or go to the zoo.  When Mom got to go on a date, I got to go too.  I loved that.  I was a bit confused.  When Dad married Mom I thought he was marrying me too.  I used to go around and tell people, “well you know I got married this summer.”  LOL! 

They married in the same church, I would marry in 20 years later.  I was Mom’s Maid of Honor.  When they kissed I was so embarrassed I put my hand over my face, and just shook my head.  There is a picture of this.  I could not believe they were embarrassing me by kissing in church!!

Daddy legally adopted me that fall.  He never had any natural children of his own.  I am the closest thing he has.  Now let me have you understand, Jef is my father, Beau is my biological father.  Jef fed me.  Jef clothed me.  Jef disciplined me when I did wrong.  I was accountable to Jef when I screwed up in school.  Jef taught me to dance, love Motown, and read.  It was Jef I confided in and drank my first beer with.  It was my conversation with Jef and his offer to move me home, that got me to leave my abusive relationship.  It was Jef that gave me away at my wedding.  Beau did none of that.  So by everything that a father is measured by, Jef is my father and will be heralded here as such. 

Oma loved my Dad, Jef.  She found great comfort in him I think.  I remember we would have a big dinner, and after coffee they would sit and drink peppermint schnapps.  My dad is the only man I have ever seen stand up to my Grandfather, James Parker.  And the only man I ever saw my Grandfather back down from.  My dad was a godsend for all of us, a father, a husband, a lover, a son-in-law, but most of all, an advocate and a fighter for both my mother and I. 

During my first grade year they would diagnose Oma with Multiple Myeloma, a terrible form of cancer.  She would die before I started 2^nd grade.  She was 57.  By the time they found the cancer, she was already in the advance stages of the disease.  It had metastasized to her bones.  The end was not pretty and made me an advocate of euthanasia. 

Oma was shuffled back and forth between the hospital and home.  There was no hospice in those days.  My Mom and Dad did everything for her.  The rest of the family refused to help.  Perhaps they thought it was my Mom’s place because she was the girl?  Perhaps because she didn’t have a job?  During that year period I would spend a lot of time with Novelle and the rest of my new family. 

My last memory of Oma coherent is hard to put down on paper.  I was in the kitchen standing by the refrigerator and Oma was laid out in her brown leather recliner in the living room, not 20 ft. from me.  I suddenly hear this very loud, ragged, sucking inhalation.  I look up at her and a few moments later I hear her utter, “It was so beautiful.”  I know now she was traveling between worlds and had just come back into her body.  The Gods and The Dead were preparing her for her death.  She turned and she saw me standing in the kitchen.

 “Oh Ilsa, when I die I am going to be your garden angel.” 

I was confused.  I told her, “Well when you die tell Elvis I said Hello then.”  She and I were big Elvis fans back then. 

She smiled and told me to bring her some grapefruit juice. 

The last time I saw her we were in her hospital room.  They must have called all the family in, because they were all there.  I was the only kid in the room.  I am sitting on Mom’s knee and she whispers in my ear to take a good look, because that may be the last time I ever see Oma alive.  I wish to the Gods she had not.  That image is still stuck in my head of Oma laying there with a green oxygen mask on, moaning in pain, and finally she started screaming and I was ushered out of the room.  The morphine had long since quite working. 

I remember the whole family standing around her bed arguing who was going to take care of her.  My Mom begging my uncles to come and give her and Dad a break, as they were caring for Oma all the time and were exhausted.  One uncle said flatly, “I have a daughter to raise.”  I know made no since to me either.  Grandpa never hired a nurse.  I wonder if he thought, “why should I pay, I have free help in my daughter and her husband.”  Grandpa did take her at night after Mom and Dad left. 

When you have a family member come down with an illness that requires round the clock care, you really start to see the families true colors, and who you can depend on.  Usually one family member is singled out, just as my Mom was, to “handle it.”  I guess so the rest of the family isn’t inconvenienced. 

I was not allowed to attend Oma’s funeral.  I was only 7, but other kids in the family did.  I know my parents were trying to shield me.  I don’t know if going would have better or worse on me.  I will never know.  I understand Oma’s funeral was so packed that the men stood outside, to let the women and children have a place to sit.

My mother took Oma’s death very hard.  She nearly grieved herself to death, she became depressed and suicidal, and she also became anorexic.  Those were tough years for me.  I had lost my Oma, in my little girl heart my mother, and then to watch what my Mom loose her mind.  I had to become my mother’s emotional protector, both Daddy and I did.   Every word I said to her had to be measured, as to whether it would make her breakdown in tears.  For years I walked on eggshells around her and others.  I have often felt, too much was placed on me too soon.

I did not know that I was also in a deep depression at this time.  It became like second nature to me.  For most of my life I forgot what real true happiness felt like.  I hated myself and felt like a burden to my family.  So depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts became my norm. 

The first time I remember wanting to kill myself was not long after Oma died.  I walked into Mom and Dad’s bedroom and told them I wanted to be with Oma.  Mom said, “You want to die?”  I don’t remember what I said but it was in the affirmative.  My Mom lost it and I was pushed out of the room. As far as I know no one ever discussed with my Mom getting her any kind of mental help.  She refuses it to this day even though she is plagued with Panic Attacks and Anxiety a well.  I wish to God they had, for both of our sakes.

Ilsa