| Biographical Non-Fiction posted September 29, 2020 | Chapters: |
...64 65 -66- 67... 
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Some memories of the mid-seventies.
A chapter in the book Remembering Yesterday
As Our World Turned
by BethShelby
| Background Some of the memories of things that involved out family of six, living in Metairie, LA in the mid-seventies. |
Things with my job at Jordan printing had gone well, but as time went on, I learned more about the couple who owned the business. Klevey and Bobby had not been married that long. Bobby had been married before and had two estranged adult daughters by his first wife. Apparently, they hadn’t spoken to him in years. This was Klevey’s first marriage, and she wanted a child very badly.
She was in her late forties and had been told it would be impossible for her to have children. She had a friend at an adoption agency, who encouraged her to try that route. She and Bobby sent in an application, and one day, she was told that a two month old boy was available for adoption. Within a month, Klevey had moved a playpen into the art department so that I could keep an eye on him as I worked. She was too busy with her own printing duties to do more than run in and change a diaper, or prop up a bottle for him to drink.
As soon as they had adopted the boy, they became concerned about continuing to live in Louisiana, because of a Napoleonic law which made it mandatory for any existing children to be included in their father’s estate if he should die. Bobby had a heart condition, and he and Klevey wanted to exclude his older children from his will. They began making preparations for relocating their business to Memphis. It wasn’t a big shock for me. I’d gotten used to being shuffled from one job to another, so I wasn’t that concerned. There were enough printing companies in New Orleans that I figured I would find something quickly.
*****
Things seemed to be going smoothly with your job, and you seemed capable of handling the supervisor position. Still, we had a house in the country, which was almost finished inside, but without someone around to make sure things stayed secure. Several times, we’d gone back to find someone had been inside. They had managed to pry open a window and steal some things. We had lost two electric heaters and some boots and rain-gear you had left there. All that weighed heavily on you. You were concerned that, if the house should burn, our insurance might not cover it, since it was unoccupied.
*****
By the time Don was eleven, he had built and crashed so many model cars and airplanes that he was ready for a bigger challenge. He’d already been helping you with the working on the interior of our house in Mississippi. Now he was going through Popular Mechanics and other magazines looking for his own building project. He found directions for building a rowboat from a single sheet of plywood. He started begging us to buy the plywood so he could get started. You told him the project would be his alone and not to count on any help. He agreed and we bought the material, not expecting a lot.
To our surprise, he followed the instructions, and in no time, he managed to make a boat that would hold at least two people. When he finished it, he couldn’t wait to go back to the country to try it out in our cow pond. He painted it two shades of blue. It was almost too pretty to put into the dirty water. We all had a ride in it, including Connie. The only problem was he could have used some help when it came to sealing it. It leaked badly. By the time we’d all had a turn, we were dipping out so much water we were lucky to make it to shore in spite of the pond being small.
******
Christi had made friends with a little girl in the neighborhood and every day when they weren’t in school, they were usually together. On one particular day, Christi had asked permission to go to the child’s house to play. Carol and Don had gone off somewhere with you. Connie was coloring at her little plastic desk. I was using my time to vacuum the new gold shag carpet which we'd had installed.
In the middle of vacuuming, I got a strange feeling something wasn’t right. I switched off the vacuum for a second and checked on Connie. She was fine. So I went back to work, but again I got that uneasy feeling. I switched off the vacuum and walked outside. My car was parked in its usual spot. Everything seemed normal, and I started to go back inside. Then I heard a slight knocking sound, and a muffled voice calling from somewhere nearby. As I walked near the rear of my car, I saw my key was in the lock. I opened it to find a tearful Christi locked inside. She was hot and sweaty and very upset. She had been calling for a while, but no one could hear her. The girls had been playing hide-and-seek. Apparently, after looking for a while without finding her, the other girl had given up and gone home. I can’t imagine what possessed Christi to get in the trunk and pull the lid down. It made me realize how quickly a tragedy might have occurred.
*****
Halloween was a big deal in our area. Most of the houses in our neighborhood went overboard in decorating. In the past years, our older children had always gone trick-or-treating, returning home with enough candy to last for weeks, and whatever was left would melt together in a sticky lump. Last year there had been reports of razor blades placed in candy. Also there were rumors that Wiccan and other pagan groups considered October 31 as a high night in their calendar and used it for rituals and untold spells of evil doings. Some of the members of our church decided it wasn't a proper holiday for Christians, and that the church should come up with an alternate activity to keep our kids out of trouble. Some members voted to make Halloween into a fall party night. Everyone could dress as Bible characters and there would be prizes, food and games.
Since they wouldn’t be trick-or-treating this year, Don and Christi begged me to let them go to a haunted house which a local school was sponsoring each night of the week leading up to Halloween. I agreed to take them, but planned to wait for them in the parking lot. Connie begged to ride along. She was between two and three at the time. I told her she could go, but she'd have to wait with me in the car.
I parked the car, and Don and Christi went inside. Connie remained in the back seat peering out the window. Suddenly she let out a chilling scream, loud enough to be heard from a block away. I jerked around in time to see a person dressed as King Kong, fleeing away from our car like he was being chased by Zombies. I think Connie probably scared him as badly as he scared her when he peeped into our car's back window. He had been assigned the job of moving around the parking lot as part of the haunted house experience. Connie was totally traumatized and was still crying, even after the twins were back and we were safely home.
The night of the party, Dana, the preacher’s daughter, came home from school with Carol. The girls dressed in loose fitting garments which they put together by belting down some of my colored sheets. They covered their heads with towels and tied scarves about them. It was their idea of what women of the Bible might have looked like. Don made up a costume to look like a street beggar. He had smudges of black chalk all over his face and he hobbled around with a walking stick. He won first prize for the best costume. It wasn't the first time he won the prize for best costume. He enjoyed winning and always wanted to be the best.
*******
On one of our trips back to Mississippi, we visited your brother, Rhomas, and his family in the new house they had built in Brandon. Rhomas was working as a project engineer for the local utility company, and Shirley was giving home decor parties. Their cat had kittens, and they were looking for homes for them. Christi begged us to take one of them, and she managed to win you over in spite of your objections. She named the part Siamese, Skipper. The cat made a lively addition to our family. She kept trying to climb our Christmas tree that year. She turned it over many times and we had to keep replacing broken ornaments.
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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