| Biographical Non-Fiction posted September 6, 2020 | Chapters: |
...59 60 -61- 62... 
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Family activities during our second year in Louisiana.
A chapter in the book Remembering Yesterday
Life With a Family of Six
by BethShelby
| Background This chapter deals with our second year of living in New Orleans and the first year of life for our latest addition to our family, Connie, born in 1973. The twins are 10 and Carol is 12. |
For the first time since you and I were married, you were unable to have a garden. Growing up in the country and loving the taste of fresh vegetables, it was hard for you to give up the idea. All of the lots in the city were small, and in our case the Norwegian lady, who owned the house first, had planted so many trees, it was too shady for a garden. What wasn’t shaded by the trees would have been shaded by the wood fence.
We did have one spot that was exposed to the sun. It was on the outside of the wooden fence, and it faced the vacant lot. We had been given sprouts of a mirliton vine and also of the Chinese okra or luffa. Both were vines that grew well on fences. These vines soon covered the fence all the way to the back of our lot. The greenery on the fence was pretty with large leaves and gaudy yellow flowers. The vegetables were quick to mature, so you were still able to harvest some of our food. You were also a pretty good cook, so you helped with the meals on nights when these vegetable were on the menu. You seemed to enjoy peeling, slicing and frying them. With the right seasoning, they were very tasty.
*****
Our church organist, taught music lessons. She was a feisty little German woman, who easily intimidated people, but I signed the girls up to take piano lessons anyway. They had taken lessons in Jackson and I didn’t want them to forget what they had learned. I was hoping they would become interested and good at playing piano, because you enjoyed singing, and I wasn’t very adept in that skill.
A teacher at the school was teaching Don guitar. Since all the children had excellent singing voices, I might have been better off to find someone to train their voices. Neither of the girls enjoyed practicing piano. The teacher made Christi so nervous that she developed a habit of clearing her throat often and acquired a hacking little cough that irritated the teacher. In later years, Carol would lose interest in piano and Christi would learn to play by ear well enough to entertain herself.
****
The work I was doing at Jordon Printing was easy, and the people were a joy to work with. There was one customer that kept us busy and that was Al Copeland, who was part owner with his brother of Tasty Doughnuts and was in the process of starting his Popeyes Fried Chicken Chain. Al had a mansion on the street behind where we lived. His was lakefront lot several blocks farther down. Later, he would start a number of other enterprises and would have needed more complicated printing, but at this time, he didn’t have a problem doing business with a small company like Jordon.
One of the other clients for whom we did printing was more peculiar. I did meet quite a few of their group members. This was a cult that had a chapter in the area. The Children of God cult was started by David Berg. The members who came into the shop were mostly women. At the time, the women were encouraged to bring in new members by flirting with the men and enticing them with sex. They all lived together in a commune and practiced group sex. They used no birth control, so there were many children in the group who had no idea who might be their father. One of the girls managed to entice a pressman who worked in our shop to visit for the weekend. He never gave us the details of the visit, but at least he didn’t join the group. The brochures we printed for them gave me the creeps. I would have turned them down, but to Bobby and Klevey, it was income which was needed to keep us in business.
****
Not long after school started back for the fall semester, Carol began running a fever and was nauseated. She complained of stomach cramps, and we took her to a doctor. She was twelve and a half and had started having periods. The doctor thought it was a hormone problem having to do with ovulation. He gave her something to help with the problem, but several days went by with it only getting more severe.
We had to take her to the emergency room and this time the diagnosis was appendicitis. She needed surgery immediately. They operated just in time, because her appendix had already ruptured. She had to spend a couple of days in the hospital.
It also appeared that Carol was going to need braces. A dentist in Jackson had removed a couple of her teeth hoping the others would come in straight, but it looked as though that wasn’t happening.
Another thing going on with Carol, which bothered you as she neared her teen years, was that it was becoming apparent she had inherited your nose. I had no problem with your nose, but you'd always hated your prominent bridge.
The kids at school sometime called Carol "Nose’, but since they liked her and weren’t being mean, she didn’t seem bothered by the nickname. You, on the other hand, didn’t want your daughter to have what you considered a less than perfect nose. You suggested plastic surgery. She seemed okay with the idea, so we took her for a consultation with an ear, nose and throat doctor who did rhinoplasty. The doctor said we should give it one more year. He said he liked to wait until kid’s faces were fully mature, so at least that was on hold for now.
****
Connie was growing fast and was a joy to be around. It was apparent that Miss Dolly adored her. I was the one who dropped her off each morning and picked her up in the afternoon. As soon as she started having solid food, she stopped demanding the bottle every few hours, and we got more rest. Bath-time was her favorite time of day, and I enjoyed watching her kick and coo in the water. The older children gave her plenty of attention, which took a lot of the burden of caring for a little one off of me. I decided that having the last child ten years behind the rest wasn't a bad idea.
We did have one spot that was exposed to the sun. It was on the outside of the wooden fence, and it faced the vacant lot. We had been given sprouts of a mirliton vine and also of the Chinese okra or luffa. Both were vines that grew well on fences. These vines soon covered the fence all the way to the back of our lot. The greenery on the fence was pretty with large leaves and gaudy yellow flowers. The vegetables were quick to mature, so you were still able to harvest some of our food. You were also a pretty good cook, so you helped with the meals on nights when these vegetable were on the menu. You seemed to enjoy peeling, slicing and frying them. With the right seasoning, they were very tasty.
*****
Our church organist, taught music lessons. She was a feisty little German woman, who easily intimidated people, but I signed the girls up to take piano lessons anyway. They had taken lessons in Jackson and I didn’t want them to forget what they had learned. I was hoping they would become interested and good at playing piano, because you enjoyed singing, and I wasn’t very adept in that skill.
A teacher at the school was teaching Don guitar. Since all the children had excellent singing voices, I might have been better off to find someone to train their voices. Neither of the girls enjoyed practicing piano. The teacher made Christi so nervous that she developed a habit of clearing her throat often and acquired a hacking little cough that irritated the teacher. In later years, Carol would lose interest in piano and Christi would learn to play by ear well enough to entertain herself.
****
The work I was doing at Jordon Printing was easy, and the people were a joy to work with. There was one customer that kept us busy and that was Al Copeland, who was part owner with his brother of Tasty Doughnuts and was in the process of starting his Popeyes Fried Chicken Chain. Al had a mansion on the street behind where we lived. His was lakefront lot several blocks farther down. Later, he would start a number of other enterprises and would have needed more complicated printing, but at this time, he didn’t have a problem doing business with a small company like Jordon.
One of the other clients for whom we did printing was more peculiar. I did meet quite a few of their group members. This was a cult that had a chapter in the area. The Children of God cult was started by David Berg. The members who came into the shop were mostly women. At the time, the women were encouraged to bring in new members by flirting with the men and enticing them with sex. They all lived together in a commune and practiced group sex. They used no birth control, so there were many children in the group who had no idea who might be their father. One of the girls managed to entice a pressman who worked in our shop to visit for the weekend. He never gave us the details of the visit, but at least he didn’t join the group. The brochures we printed for them gave me the creeps. I would have turned them down, but to Bobby and Klevey, it was income which was needed to keep us in business.
****
Not long after school started back for the fall semester, Carol began running a fever and was nauseated. She complained of stomach cramps, and we took her to a doctor. She was twelve and a half and had started having periods. The doctor thought it was a hormone problem having to do with ovulation. He gave her something to help with the problem, but several days went by with it only getting more severe.
We had to take her to the emergency room and this time the diagnosis was appendicitis. She needed surgery immediately. They operated just in time, because her appendix had already ruptured. She had to spend a couple of days in the hospital.
It also appeared that Carol was going to need braces. A dentist in Jackson had removed a couple of her teeth hoping the others would come in straight, but it looked as though that wasn’t happening.
Another thing going on with Carol, which bothered you as she neared her teen years, was that it was becoming apparent she had inherited your nose. I had no problem with your nose, but you'd always hated your prominent bridge.
The kids at school sometime called Carol "Nose’, but since they liked her and weren’t being mean, she didn’t seem bothered by the nickname. You, on the other hand, didn’t want your daughter to have what you considered a less than perfect nose. You suggested plastic surgery. She seemed okay with the idea, so we took her for a consultation with an ear, nose and throat doctor who did rhinoplasty. The doctor said we should give it one more year. He said he liked to wait until kid’s faces were fully mature, so at least that was on hold for now.
****
Connie was growing fast and was a joy to be around. It was apparent that Miss Dolly adored her. I was the one who dropped her off each morning and picked her up in the afternoon. As soon as she started having solid food, she stopped demanding the bottle every few hours, and we got more rest. Bath-time was her favorite time of day, and I enjoyed watching her kick and coo in the water. The older children gave her plenty of attention, which took a lot of the burden of caring for a little one off of me. I decided that having the last child ten years behind the rest wasn't a bad idea.
 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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