| Biographical Non-Fiction posted October 21, 2020 | Chapters: |
...69 70 -71- 72... 
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More Shelby family happenings in 1976
A chapter in the book Remembering Yesterday
Fall and Winter of 1976
by BethShelby
| Background The Shelby family, Beth, Evan, Carol, Christi, Don and Connie live in Metaire, Louisiana, where Evan is a drafting supervisor and Beth works for a printing co. The older three children are school. |
As the school days went by, Carol became more of a recluse. She stayed in her room for hours and studied. She sometimes mentioned Diedra, the one friend she had made at school, but neither of us ever met her. The girls didn’t meet outside of class as far as I know.
She did have a special friend from Church, however. Carmen was a Latino girl who had moved into the area recently, and Carol did visit Carmen sometimes on weekends. Carmen lived with her sister and brother-in-law, who was an airline pilot. I don’t remember Carmen having a Spanish accent, but I’m sure she must have, because she wasn’t born in this country. She told Carol that she learned to speak English from watching Sesame Street.
Carmen knew someone who had a dog with puppies. The mother of the puppies was a medium-size poodle. She hadn't been bred to a registered dog, and the puppies were a mixed breed. Carmen took one of the puppies, and Carol began to plead with us to let her have one of the other puppies. You were against it, since our yard wasn’t fenced, and we couldn’t let a dog run free. Since we were both away from home so much of the time, we couldn't be responsible for a dog.
Finally we told Carol that if she took the puppy, she would be solely responsible. She would have to keep the puppy in her room, and give it food, water, paper train it, and also walk it outside. She agreed to all of this, and soon brought home a cute puppy with curly black hair. She named him Bimbo after a popular song at that time.
This first experience in becoming a dog owner became a part of Carol’s life, that to this day, she cringes when she remembers Bimbo. As time passed, he would become a terrible burden to a girl, who really wanted to be a good dog owner, but didn’t know how. For the time being, he was a cute puppy, and we hoped this would turn out to be a good experience for her. Of course when puppies teethe, they chew on anything available, which happened to be the legs of her furniture.
*******
On Halloween night in the fall of 1976, a tragedy occurred for Miss Melanie, who kept Connie each day. She had a teenage son, who was a senior in high school. That night, he was involved in an auto accident that took his life. For a couple of weeks, Joe’s mother and I were looking for other solutions to find childcare for our children. We did find a nursery that was able to take them temporarily, while Melanie got her life back into some return to normality.
Since Joe and Connie were able to attend together, it worked out well enough, and Melanie was back keeping them again before the year was out. Connie told me that while the other children slept, Melanie would hold her and show her pictures of the son she lost and would cry. I know how heartbroken she must have been. I guess having the children in her home again helped Melanie regain some stability.
******
Christmas came with us going to Mississippi for the holidays as usual. Your mother always insisted on having all of her children there for lunch on Christmas day. Now that she was renting a small house in Newton, the place was often crowded. Since the family was large, we had started drawing names for swapping gifts, but each family gave gifts to the children as well as to your mom.
Your younger sister Nan's son was named Kelly. He was a year older than Connie. This year Nan and Kelly came without her husband, Richard. Ever since the Christmas when Richard and Wayne got into a fight, they didn’t dare ruin Christmas again by being together. Helen came late, since she’d spent the morning in the hospital with Joe, who was hospitalized because of cancer.
Rhomas and Shirley and their two boys were also late this year. There seemed to be some sort of tension between your brother and his wife that made us wonder if things might not be going well for them. As usual, everyone went home with a pair of multicolored crocheted house-shoes, your mom's usual gift to all of us. She must have spent months making all those shoes.
Back home in Metairie, many of our neighbors brought in the new year by dragging their Christmas trees to the Lake Pontchartrain levee behind our house and setting them ablaze. It was a New Year tradition in the New Orleans area. We had an artificial tree, so we left our tree up well into the New Year.
*******
In January of 1977, we begin hearing about personal computers becoming available. It hadn’t been long since the size had come down to the point of making that a possibility. Commodore was one of the first to introduce home computers. They were expensive and mostly used for word processing and playing games. The World Wide Web was still somewhere in the distant future. It never occurred to me that it was something I might be interested in having. I had just bought myself a used electric IBM typewriter, and to me, that was the ultimate means of writing.
The miniseries,'Roots' was airing on TV. Other popular shows were Love Boat, Chips, Fantasy Island and The Incredible Hulk. Star Wars was coming out in theaters.
*******
I was having to work a lot of overtime on my job, so I started assigning the older children jobs to do at home to help out. This was about the only way to get Carol out of her room. I bought ingredients for easy to prepare meals, so that they could start supper on days when I would get home late. There was a good bit of arguing about whose turn it was to start supper. I'm sure without someone to supervise, they did more goofing off than working or studying before we got home.
On days when I had to work late, you had to go and pick up Connie from Melanie's. By that time, you were tired and ready to sit down and watch TV. By the time I got home, I would be almost too tired to eat. I felt I was letting everyone down.
*******
New Orleans was seldom cold for long. But we did have a few cold spells that stood out. It snowed at least once, and while it was just a heavy dusting, it was a big treat for the area kids who had never seen snow before. It was the first snow for Connie, but she was still too young to remember it.
The worst cold we had to deal with was during a weekend in January when we had been in Mississippi. Since the temperature seldom got very low, houses weren't always built to deal with extremes. While we were away on this weekend, the mercury dropped abnormally low. The next day, things went back to the more seasonable range. We came back home to find the poorly insulated pipes in the wall of our bedroom had broken, and we had five inch deep water on the carpet in our bedroom.
You and I had to get the water cut off and move furniture around so that we could pull up the carpet and drag it outside. That was a bad ending to our weekend, and it didn’t end there. We had to find a plumber who could tear out part of the brick outside wall and repair the leak. Eventually the carpet dried out enough that you and I brought it back inside and tried to reposition it. Surprisingly, we were able to get it back in place without noticeable buckling.
(For those of you reading this, who have come to expect at least one disaster for each chapter, this is an extra one for you.)
She did have a special friend from Church, however. Carmen was a Latino girl who had moved into the area recently, and Carol did visit Carmen sometimes on weekends. Carmen lived with her sister and brother-in-law, who was an airline pilot. I don’t remember Carmen having a Spanish accent, but I’m sure she must have, because she wasn’t born in this country. She told Carol that she learned to speak English from watching Sesame Street.
Carmen knew someone who had a dog with puppies. The mother of the puppies was a medium-size poodle. She hadn't been bred to a registered dog, and the puppies were a mixed breed. Carmen took one of the puppies, and Carol began to plead with us to let her have one of the other puppies. You were against it, since our yard wasn’t fenced, and we couldn’t let a dog run free. Since we were both away from home so much of the time, we couldn't be responsible for a dog.
Finally we told Carol that if she took the puppy, she would be solely responsible. She would have to keep the puppy in her room, and give it food, water, paper train it, and also walk it outside. She agreed to all of this, and soon brought home a cute puppy with curly black hair. She named him Bimbo after a popular song at that time.
This first experience in becoming a dog owner became a part of Carol’s life, that to this day, she cringes when she remembers Bimbo. As time passed, he would become a terrible burden to a girl, who really wanted to be a good dog owner, but didn’t know how. For the time being, he was a cute puppy, and we hoped this would turn out to be a good experience for her. Of course when puppies teethe, they chew on anything available, which happened to be the legs of her furniture.
*******
On Halloween night in the fall of 1976, a tragedy occurred for Miss Melanie, who kept Connie each day. She had a teenage son, who was a senior in high school. That night, he was involved in an auto accident that took his life. For a couple of weeks, Joe’s mother and I were looking for other solutions to find childcare for our children. We did find a nursery that was able to take them temporarily, while Melanie got her life back into some return to normality.
Since Joe and Connie were able to attend together, it worked out well enough, and Melanie was back keeping them again before the year was out. Connie told me that while the other children slept, Melanie would hold her and show her pictures of the son she lost and would cry. I know how heartbroken she must have been. I guess having the children in her home again helped Melanie regain some stability.
******
Christmas came with us going to Mississippi for the holidays as usual. Your mother always insisted on having all of her children there for lunch on Christmas day. Now that she was renting a small house in Newton, the place was often crowded. Since the family was large, we had started drawing names for swapping gifts, but each family gave gifts to the children as well as to your mom.
Your younger sister Nan's son was named Kelly. He was a year older than Connie. This year Nan and Kelly came without her husband, Richard. Ever since the Christmas when Richard and Wayne got into a fight, they didn’t dare ruin Christmas again by being together. Helen came late, since she’d spent the morning in the hospital with Joe, who was hospitalized because of cancer.
Rhomas and Shirley and their two boys were also late this year. There seemed to be some sort of tension between your brother and his wife that made us wonder if things might not be going well for them. As usual, everyone went home with a pair of multicolored crocheted house-shoes, your mom's usual gift to all of us. She must have spent months making all those shoes.
Back home in Metairie, many of our neighbors brought in the new year by dragging their Christmas trees to the Lake Pontchartrain levee behind our house and setting them ablaze. It was a New Year tradition in the New Orleans area. We had an artificial tree, so we left our tree up well into the New Year.
*******
In January of 1977, we begin hearing about personal computers becoming available. It hadn’t been long since the size had come down to the point of making that a possibility. Commodore was one of the first to introduce home computers. They were expensive and mostly used for word processing and playing games. The World Wide Web was still somewhere in the distant future. It never occurred to me that it was something I might be interested in having. I had just bought myself a used electric IBM typewriter, and to me, that was the ultimate means of writing.
The miniseries,'Roots' was airing on TV. Other popular shows were Love Boat, Chips, Fantasy Island and The Incredible Hulk. Star Wars was coming out in theaters.
*******
I was having to work a lot of overtime on my job, so I started assigning the older children jobs to do at home to help out. This was about the only way to get Carol out of her room. I bought ingredients for easy to prepare meals, so that they could start supper on days when I would get home late. There was a good bit of arguing about whose turn it was to start supper. I'm sure without someone to supervise, they did more goofing off than working or studying before we got home.
On days when I had to work late, you had to go and pick up Connie from Melanie's. By that time, you were tired and ready to sit down and watch TV. By the time I got home, I would be almost too tired to eat. I felt I was letting everyone down.
*******
New Orleans was seldom cold for long. But we did have a few cold spells that stood out. It snowed at least once, and while it was just a heavy dusting, it was a big treat for the area kids who had never seen snow before. It was the first snow for Connie, but she was still too young to remember it.
The worst cold we had to deal with was during a weekend in January when we had been in Mississippi. Since the temperature seldom got very low, houses weren't always built to deal with extremes. While we were away on this weekend, the mercury dropped abnormally low. The next day, things went back to the more seasonable range. We came back home to find the poorly insulated pipes in the wall of our bedroom had broken, and we had five inch deep water on the carpet in our bedroom.
You and I had to get the water cut off and move furniture around so that we could pull up the carpet and drag it outside. That was a bad ending to our weekend, and it didn’t end there. We had to find a plumber who could tear out part of the brick outside wall and repair the leak. Eventually the carpet dried out enough that you and I brought it back inside and tried to reposition it. Surprisingly, we were able to get it back in place without noticeable buckling.
(For those of you reading this, who have come to expect at least one disaster for each chapter, this is an extra one for you.)
 Recognized |
I'm continuing to recall memories of life with my deceased husband as if I am talking aloud to him. I'm doing this because I want my children to know us as we knew each other and not just as their parents.
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