Aliens, Possibly Aliens

Thanks for all the feedback on Chapter 1. I'm going to keep all your suggestions and implement them when I complete this first draft and start the second.  So please keep those suggestions coming. Don't think I'm not paying attention if I don't implement your ideas immediately. My current goal is simply to get the whole story down from beginning to end in the coming months. When that's done, I'll begin the "crafting phase" when all your suggestions will help a lot!

Chapter 2 – Aliens, Possibly Aliens

My father’s return from the army in March of 1946 brought about my departure from all I knew, loved and belonged to. I now had a father I didn’t remember, my mother had changed dramatically—pregnant with my sister. My sheltering, nurturing grandparents disappeared in a puff of smoke from our car’s exhaust, and nothing looked familiar—no rose garden, no swing, no sandbox, no old kitchen wood stove, no Catalpa tree, no apples, and no chocolate pudding skins. But my curiosity was still with me, and it wouldn’t take long to get into a mess.

In order to find the messes I could get into, we moved into a remodeled chicken coop between the country towns of Gardnerville and Minden—Tietjeville--just 50 miles south of Reno. There I met my first boyfriend, Larry Taylor, a little devil disguised as a blond, smiling cherub. He taught me to swear. I can guess what words he taught me, and before I knew it I was plunked down in our dark, spider-webbed wood shed, the offending words washed from my mouth with Lifebuoy deodorant soap. I began to suspect that my parents were aliens, and this was a very foreign land. Thus began a multitude of experiences where I was just “being myself,” and then ended up in trouble.

While I was being a pest, my grandfather was helping finance a down payment on our family’s retail store called The Minden Dry Goods, and on July 1, 1946, it opened. The shelves were stocked with men’s, women’s and children’s clothes, all kinds of shoes and boots, toys, jewelry, notions, yardage and lingerie. It’s hard for me to imagine how my dad was able to accomplish this only four months after returning from the war. His sister, Marie and her husband, Lin, already living in Minden and aware of the store for sale, were part of the plan, so that must have helped.

The store would take all of my dad’s time and a lot of my mother’s. As I think about the store today, I imagine it as a wonderful enterprise. The owners were always on the premises taking customers’ interests to heart. Mom studied fashion magazines so when they went on buying trips to San Francisco, she could bring back the latest styles to our country town. Dad knew all the background of every item, explaining the wonder of some blouse’s material. He could sell the moon to any Scrooge.

My next jam involved a Rotary picnic at Lake Tahoe. My father, who had a taste for hops, spent some hours with me and his cronies in one of the tents erected for their meetings. Somehow he and his buddies (who knows where my mother was) vacated the tent, leaving my four-year-old self to my own reflections. Being thirsty, and finding many almost-empty beer bottles around within easy reach, I simply helped myself to whatever foam had settled to the bottom. At some point I passed out and was taken home in the back of our old Plymouth, the one with running boards that I could hop on and hold onto the windowsill while my dad slowly crept down our street. My inclination to fill my mouth with whatever was handy must have begun then. This time there were only guilty looks between my parents, and I escaped any discipline.

Looking back on the casual way I was raised, I can see a growing sense of a lack of security building in me. In my home, life often seemed out of control, and it wasn’t long before I began to take up the slack, learning from my mother how to be a “controller.”  Over the years I would learn to be god of my own life, but not an all-powerful one.

To be good community members, my parents joined the local Methodist Church. The meaning of life began to make itself known to me in that small, white wood frame building located in the 1940’s in Gardnerville at the south end of town. A gentle, older woman kept us children occupied while our parents attended the services. Tavie Howard was this first official face of God to me—a nurturing kindness, tenderness and sweetness, and the source of fun and games. Before View-Masters and 3-D movies, there was the Stereo-scope which I looked into and found a flat photo suddenly transformed into a 3-D experience. Although my philosophy of faith received no illumination, the fact that church meant Tavie, love and some excitement were enough to fertilize my budding interest in attendance.

As The Minden Dry Goods began making money, we moved into the downstairs of a large rental house just in front of our old one. Other people lived upstairs.  And it wasn’t long before my mother brought a new sister home, Susan.  I did my best to ignore this helpless creation, unless I was harnessed to hold a bottle for her while Mom fixed dinner.

            Larry and I continued our misadventures, catching crawdads in the irrigation ditch which ran into a sheep pasture nearby. Of course we had to climb through the barbed wire fence to play with the sheep, tearing our clothes. Coming home from my sheep-hugging adventure the first time, I shocked my mother with half-closed eyes and red welts all over me. I was allergic to sheep.  Who knew.

            To dissuade me from mishaps with Larry, Mom invited a little red-haired girl named Georgia over to play. My first look at her told me she was foreign, with a large red birthmark over her cheek and chin. I was sure she had some kind of disease, and, when left alone together in the play room to do whatever we wanted, I locked her in the closet and took off to find Larry. Just being myself. Another surprise punishment ensued without a clue to me of what my sin was. Withdrawal and separation became my pattern when I encountered new and uncomfortable situations in my life.