| Biographical Non-Fiction posted April 2, 2021 | Chapters: |
...110 111 -112- 113... 
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Another summer in the life of the Shelby family.
A chapter in the book Remembering Yesterday
Summer of '89
by BethShelby
For new readers, who may not have read my author notes, this is written in a conversational way as I talk to my deceased husband. When I refer to someone just as "you" this means I am addressing my husband, Evan.
Connie continued to spend time with Lenny, and since he seemed to have a calming influence on her, we felt good about her dating him. Everyone seemed to like him. Connie’s best friend, as far as girls were concerned, was still Valerie. We still had our doubts about her influence, but Connie wasn’t giving us as much trouble as she had before, so we kept quiet concerning Valerie.
Then one day after being out with her friends, Connie came home acting as though her world was unraveling. It seemed that she had broken Lenny’s heart. He told her that he was in love with her, and she told him that she just wanted to be his friend. She had been in the car with him in front of his house, but Valerie had pulled up in her car as well. Connie got out and went over to talk to Valerie. Lenny started his car up and wheeled away so fast that he hit the open door of Valerie’s car and just kept going. Connie said he didn’t even realize he had hit it. They went inside and told Lenny’s mom what happened.
Lenny had gone to his best friend’s house. When he returned, he was crying, and he told Connie he never wanted to see her again. She must have been having second thoughts, because she begged him to call her. He called at 1:30 a.m. and woke us all up. They talked for hours. Lenny was so depressed that his dad made him talk to a psychiatrist. I'm sure it didn’t help matters when the estimate for fixing Valerie’s car door was over $1,000.
Lenny's parents sent him to Nashville to visit relatives and Connie was scheduled to go to summer camp. When she got there, she decided not to stay, even though we had paid for the week. She was about as frustrated and depressed as Lenny. She came back home sick with a cold.
********
Your vegetable garden was producing more food than we could handle, so while I was at work, you got busy freezing some of it. We bought an upright freezer and put it in the garage. The freezer part of our refrigerator was already too full to hold more.
You weren’t feeling well, because you were having trouble regulating your blood pressure, which was causing your heart to race. Even so, one day you took Connie fishing, hoping it would cheer her up. After Lenny got back from Nashville, his folks sent him to Pennsylvania to visit more relatives. I don’t know if they were trying to keep Lenny and Connie apart, but she was certainly missing him.
*********
We hadn’t seen Don in a while, because he had bought an old Porsche that didn’t run, and neither did his other car that constantly overheated. He decided he wasn’t coming home again until he sold both of those old cars and bought a motorcycle. That wasn’t something either of us wanted to hear, and we tried to talk him out of that idea. Don tended to be accident-prone, and we felt it was dangerous to be on I-75 on a motorcycle. The fact that Kimberly was always there with him was occupying his time and keeping him from missing being able to come home.
You and I decided to go to Atlanta to see Don and bring him home with us for the weekend. He wanted to show us everything, so he drove our car and used up at least a half a tank of gas, taking us everywhere. Some of the places in Atlanta were neat, but you got overly tired. We finally came home. Don was able to go back with Kimberly on Sunday. We learned that some of his grades weren't as high as he had led us to believe. He was probably going to end up having to be in school longer, to make up a class or two. Don was running out of money, so we gave him a hundred dollars and sent him back with bags of groceries.
*********
Mother called and told me she was going to be making a trip to Florida with her cousin, and she wanted to stay with Carol and Glen while she was there. Mom had never been to Florida before and she was excited about the trip. I called Carol and told them she was coming. Carol and Glen had bought a computer and since we talked last, they'd bought a new printer. Carol was excited about that, because it was more for her use than Glen's.
Glen had also bought a Boston Whaler boat. He always insisted on having the best. He claimed that this boat would never sink, because it was made of material that floats. He and Carol were taking the boat out on the Saint John River which was just beyond their new house. Carol was learning to drive it. Since she'd been married to Glen, she was doing many things she was never interested in before. They were taking diving lessons and swimming with the manatees.
*********
Things were slow at work, and I decided to take a day of vacation, so that you and I could go to Opryland in Nashville. At first, Connie didn’t want to go with us. Lenny's mother was taking Lenny and his sister out of town, and she was having them go with her to Broadway plays and concerts. Connie planned to spend the day with her friend Chris T. He was a guy she used to like when she went to Ooltewah High School. We didn’t quite trust Chris. I’d seen some of the notes he had written to her, and they were very suggestive and almost obscene. We told Connie that if she didn’t go with us, she would have to stay home by herself. She decided she would be bored at home, so she came, hoping not to be seen with her parents.
I'm so glad we went to Opryland a few times. It was a very neat amusement park with excellent musical shows. We didn’t know it at the time, but it wouldn’t be around much longer. They tore it down to build the fabulous Opryland Hotel and a big shopping mall.
You and I thoroughly enjoyed all the shows, as well as the rides. Connie acted as though she was miserable having to do things with her parents, but while we were waiting in one of the lines, she saw her friend Shane, from Ooltewah. He was with his parents too. Hopefully, that made her ordeal a lttle less painful.
*********
Christi continued to work as a receptionist and take classes for becoming certified as a massage therapist. She seemed to have no shortage of guys to take her out on dates. Still, she was cursed with an obsession over her looks and refused to believe those who assured her that she was beautiful. She fretted the summer away worrying about a few little spider veins that were showing in her legs, and she felt she could never allow herself to be seen in shorts or a bathing suit.
**********
The last day of August, Connie went to Collegedale Academy, picked up her transcripts, and went back to Ooltewah High to register for her junior year. Since it would be Lenny's last year there, she definitely wanted to be back at that school. I'm not so sure Collegedale Academy would have allowed her back anyway. Lenny’s mom took Connie, Lenny, and four other teenagers to a cabin near Cades Cove in the Smokies to stay a few days. It was the last big treat of the summer of 1989, before school started back for the fall semester.
This is Us:
Evan is 60 and a retired drafting supervisor from Chevron Oil.
Beth is 52 and has had a variety of jobs. She is presently working a new job with a local printing company.
Carol is 29, a nurse at Florida Hospital in Orlando. She is married and living in Florida.
Glen Egolf is Carol’s husband. He is 26 and soon will get his nursing degree from Southern College in Orlando.
Don is a twin. He is 27and at Life Chiropractic College.
Christi is Don’s twin. She works as a receptionist for a chemical company and is working toward becomming a massage therpist.
Kimberly Dye is Don’s girlfriend. She is a nurse working in Atlanta near Don's school.
Connie is our youngest daughter. She is sixteen. She has finished her second year of high school.
Others mentioned are Lenny P., Chris T., and Valerie, Connie's friends.
For new readers, who may not have read my author notes, this is written in a conversational way as I talk to my deceased husband. When I refer to someone just as "you" this means I am addressing my husband, Evan.
Connie continued to spend time with Lenny, and since he seemed to have a calming influence on her, we felt good about her dating him. Everyone seemed to like him. Connie’s best friend, as far as girls were concerned, was still Valerie. We still had our doubts about her influence, but Connie wasn’t giving us as much trouble as she had before, so we kept quiet concerning Valerie.
Then one day after being out with her friends, Connie came home acting as though her world was unraveling. It seemed that she had broken Lenny’s heart. He told her that he was in love with her, and she told him that she just wanted to be his friend. She had been in the car with him in front of his house, but Valerie had pulled up in her car as well. Connie got out and went over to talk to Valerie. Lenny started his car up and wheeled away so fast that he hit the open door of Valerie’s car and just kept going. Connie said he didn’t even realize he had hit it. They went inside and told Lenny’s mom what happened.
Lenny had gone to his best friend’s house. When he returned, he was crying, and he told Connie he never wanted to see her again. She must have been having second thoughts, because she begged him to call her. He called at 1:30 a.m. and woke us all up. They talked for hours. Lenny was so depressed that his dad made him talk to a psychiatrist. I'm sure it didn’t help matters when the estimate for fixing Valerie’s car door was over $1,000.
Lenny's parents sent him to Nashville to visit relatives and Connie was scheduled to go to summer camp. When she got there, she decided not to stay, even though we had paid for the week. She was about as frustrated and depressed as Lenny. She came back home sick with a cold.
********
Your vegetable garden was producing more food than we could handle, so while I was at work, you got busy freezing some of it. We bought an upright freezer and put it in the garage. The freezer part of our refrigerator was already too full to hold more.
You weren’t feeling well, because you were having trouble regulating your blood pressure, which was causing your heart to race. Even so, one day you took Connie fishing, hoping it would cheer her up. After Lenny got back from Nashville, his folks sent him to Pennsylvania to visit more relatives. I don’t know if they were trying to keep Lenny and Connie apart, but she was certainly missing him.
*********
We hadn’t seen Don in a while, because he had bought an old Porsche that didn’t run, and neither did his other car that constantly overheated. He decided he wasn’t coming home again until he sold both of those old cars and bought a motorcycle. That wasn’t something either of us wanted to hear, and we tried to talk him out of that idea. Don tended to be accident-prone, and we felt it was dangerous to be on I-75 on a motorcycle. The fact that Kimberly was always there with him was occupying his time and keeping him from missing being able to come home.
You and I decided to go to Atlanta to see Don and bring him home with us for the weekend. He wanted to show us everything, so he drove our car and used up at least a half a tank of gas, taking us everywhere. Some of the places in Atlanta were neat, but you got overly tired. We finally came home. Don was able to go back with Kimberly on Sunday. We learned that some of his grades weren't as high as he had led us to believe. He was probably going to end up having to be in school longer, to make up a class or two. Don was running out of money, so we gave him a hundred dollars and sent him back with bags of groceries.
*********
Mother called and told me she was going to be making a trip to Florida with her cousin, and she wanted to stay with Carol and Glen while she was there. Mom had never been to Florida before and she was excited about the trip. I called Carol and told them she was coming. Carol and Glen had bought a computer and since we talked last, they'd bought a new printer. Carol was excited about that, because it was more for her use than Glen's.
Glen had also bought a Boston Whaler boat. He always insisted on having the best. He claimed that this boat would never sink, because it was made of material that floats. He and Carol were taking the boat out on the Saint John River which was just beyond their new house. Carol was learning to drive it. Since she'd been married to Glen, she was doing many things she was never interested in before. They were taking diving lessons and swimming with the manatees.
*********
Things were slow at work, and I decided to take a day of vacation, so that you and I could go to Opryland in Nashville. At first, Connie didn’t want to go with us. Lenny's mother was taking Lenny and his sister out of town, and she was having them go with her to Broadway plays and concerts. Connie planned to spend the day with her friend Chris T. He was a guy she used to like when she went to Ooltewah High School. We didn’t quite trust Chris. I’d seen some of the notes he had written to her, and they were very suggestive and almost obscene. We told Connie that if she didn’t go with us, she would have to stay home by herself. She decided she would be bored at home, so she came, hoping not to be seen with her parents.
I'm so glad we went to Opryland a few times. It was a very neat amusement park with excellent musical shows. We didn’t know it at the time, but it wouldn’t be around much longer. They tore it down to build the fabulous Opryland Hotel and a big shopping mall.
You and I thoroughly enjoyed all the shows, as well as the rides. Connie acted as though she was miserable having to do things with her parents, but while we were waiting in one of the lines, she saw her friend Shane, from Ooltewah. He was with his parents too. Hopefully, that made her ordeal a lttle less painful.
*********
Christi continued to work as a receptionist and take classes for becoming certified as a massage therapist. She seemed to have no shortage of guys to take her out on dates. Still, she was cursed with an obsession over her looks and refused to believe those who assured her that she was beautiful. She fretted the summer away worrying about a few little spider veins that were showing in her legs, and she felt she could never allow herself to be seen in shorts or a bathing suit.
**********
The last day of August, Connie went to Collegedale Academy, picked up her transcripts, and went back to Ooltewah High to register for her junior year. Since it would be Lenny's last year there, she definitely wanted to be back at that school. I'm not so sure Collegedale Academy would have allowed her back anyway. Lenny’s mom took Connie, Lenny, and four other teenagers to a cabin near Cades Cove in the Smokies to stay a few days. It was the last big treat of the summer of 1989, before school started back for the fall semester.
This is Us:
Evan is 60 and a retired drafting supervisor from Chevron Oil.
Beth is 52 and has had a variety of jobs. She is presently working a new job with a local printing company.
Carol is 29, a nurse at Florida Hospital in Orlando. She is married and living in Florida.
Glen Egolf is Carol’s husband. He is 26 and soon will get his nursing degree from Southern College in Orlando.
Don is a twin. He is 27and at Life Chiropractic College.
Christi is Don’s twin. She works as a receptionist for a chemical company and is working toward becomming a massage therpist.
Kimberly Dye is Don’s girlfriend. She is a nurse working in Atlanta near Don's school.
Connie is our youngest daughter. She is sixteen. She has finished her second year of high school.
Others mentioned are Lenny P., Chris T., and Valerie, Connie's friends.
Connie continued to spend time with Lenny, and since he seemed to have a calming influence on her, we felt good about her dating him. Everyone seemed to like him. Connie’s best friend, as far as girls were concerned, was still Valerie. We still had our doubts about her influence, but Connie wasn’t giving us as much trouble as she had before, so we kept quiet concerning Valerie.
Then one day after being out with her friends, Connie came home acting as though her world was unraveling. It seemed that she had broken Lenny’s heart. He told her that he was in love with her, and she told him that she just wanted to be his friend. She had been in the car with him in front of his house, but Valerie had pulled up in her car as well. Connie got out and went over to talk to Valerie. Lenny started his car up and wheeled away so fast that he hit the open door of Valerie’s car and just kept going. Connie said he didn’t even realize he had hit it. They went inside and told Lenny’s mom what happened.
Lenny had gone to his best friend’s house. When he returned, he was crying, and he told Connie he never wanted to see her again. She must have been having second thoughts, because she begged him to call her. He called at 1:30 a.m. and woke us all up. They talked for hours. Lenny was so depressed that his dad made him talk to a psychiatrist. I'm sure it didn’t help matters when the estimate for fixing Valerie’s car door was over $1,000.
Lenny's parents sent him to Nashville to visit relatives and Connie was scheduled to go to summer camp. When she got there, she decided not to stay, even though we had paid for the week. She was about as frustrated and depressed as Lenny. She came back home sick with a cold.
********
Your vegetable garden was producing more food than we could handle, so while I was at work, you got busy freezing some of it. We bought an upright freezer and put it in the garage. The freezer part of our refrigerator was already too full to hold more.
You weren’t feeling well, because you were having trouble regulating your blood pressure, which was causing your heart to race. Even so, one day you took Connie fishing, hoping it would cheer her up. After Lenny got back from Nashville, his folks sent him to Pennsylvania to visit more relatives. I don’t know if they were trying to keep Lenny and Connie apart, but she was certainly missing him.
*********
We hadn’t seen Don in a while, because he had bought an old Porsche that didn’t run, and neither did his other car that constantly overheated. He decided he wasn’t coming home again until he sold both of those old cars and bought a motorcycle. That wasn’t something either of us wanted to hear, and we tried to talk him out of that idea. Don tended to be accident-prone, and we felt it was dangerous to be on I-75 on a motorcycle. The fact that Kimberly was always there with him was occupying his time and keeping him from missing being able to come home.
You and I decided to go to Atlanta to see Don and bring him home with us for the weekend. He wanted to show us everything, so he drove our car and used up at least a half a tank of gas, taking us everywhere. Some of the places in Atlanta were neat, but you got overly tired. We finally came home. Don was able to go back with Kimberly on Sunday. We learned that some of his grades weren't as high as he had led us to believe. He was probably going to end up having to be in school longer, to make up a class or two. Don was running out of money, so we gave him a hundred dollars and sent him back with bags of groceries.
*********
Mother called and told me she was going to be making a trip to Florida with her cousin, and she wanted to stay with Carol and Glen while she was there. Mom had never been to Florida before and she was excited about the trip. I called Carol and told them she was coming. Carol and Glen had bought a computer and since we talked last, they'd bought a new printer. Carol was excited about that, because it was more for her use than Glen's.
Glen had also bought a Boston Whaler boat. He always insisted on having the best. He claimed that this boat would never sink, because it was made of material that floats. He and Carol were taking the boat out on the Saint John River which was just beyond their new house. Carol was learning to drive it. Since she'd been married to Glen, she was doing many things she was never interested in before. They were taking diving lessons and swimming with the manatees.
*********
Things were slow at work, and I decided to take a day of vacation, so that you and I could go to Opryland in Nashville. At first, Connie didn’t want to go with us. Lenny's mother was taking Lenny and his sister out of town, and she was having them go with her to Broadway plays and concerts. Connie planned to spend the day with her friend Chris T. He was a guy she used to like when she went to Ooltewah High School. We didn’t quite trust Chris. I’d seen some of the notes he had written to her, and they were very suggestive and almost obscene. We told Connie that if she didn’t go with us, she would have to stay home by herself. She decided she would be bored at home, so she came, hoping not to be seen with her parents.
I'm so glad we went to Opryland a few times. It was a very neat amusement park with excellent musical shows. We didn’t know it at the time, but it wouldn’t be around much longer. They tore it down to build the fabulous Opryland Hotel and a big shopping mall.
You and I thoroughly enjoyed all the shows, as well as the rides. Connie acted as though she was miserable having to do things with her parents, but while we were waiting in one of the lines, she saw her friend Shane, from Ooltewah. He was with his parents too. Hopefully, that made her ordeal a lttle less painful.
*********
Christi continued to work as a receptionist and take classes for becoming certified as a massage therapist. She seemed to have no shortage of guys to take her out on dates. Still, she was cursed with an obsession over her looks and refused to believe those who assured her that she was beautiful. She fretted the summer away worrying about a few little spider veins that were showing in her legs, and she felt she could never allow herself to be seen in shorts or a bathing suit.
**********
The last day of August, Connie went to Collegedale Academy, picked up her transcripts, and went back to Ooltewah High to register for her junior year. Since it would be Lenny's last year there, she definitely wanted to be back at that school. I'm not so sure Collegedale Academy would have allowed her back anyway. Lenny’s mom took Connie, Lenny, and four other teenagers to a cabin near Cades Cove in the Smokies to stay a few days. It was the last big treat of the summer of 1989, before school started back for the fall semester.
This is Us:
Evan is 60 and a retired drafting supervisor from Chevron Oil.
Beth is 52 and has had a variety of jobs. She is presently working a new job with a local printing company.
Carol is 29, a nurse at Florida Hospital in Orlando. She is married and living in Florida.
Glen Egolf is Carol’s husband. He is 26 and soon will get his nursing degree from Southern College in Orlando.
Don is a twin. He is 27and at Life Chiropractic College.
Christi is Don’s twin. She works as a receptionist for a chemical company and is working toward becomming a massage therpist.
Kimberly Dye is Don’s girlfriend. She is a nurse working in Atlanta near Don's school.
Connie is our youngest daughter. She is sixteen. She has finished her second year of high school.
Others mentioned are Lenny P., Chris T., and Valerie, Connie's friends.
 Recognized |
I'm continuing to recall memories of life with my deceased husband, Evan, 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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