Chapter 2 ... Shattered Dreams

I'm sorry it took so long to start chapter 2.... when you go that deep into memory it takes a little time to absorb the shock of what you have suppressed for many years. I am thankful that I have someone that I can talk to about the emotional side of getting real.

Paragould Arkansas 1964, a culture shock to say the least. We move into a rent house two doors down from the White Way Inn, a local tavern on Hwy 49, while our new house was being built. Their where six women living in a two bedroom, one bath house! My mother, us four girls and my cousin Joan. Joan was 16 at the time and decided she wanted to live with us so she could help mom. I was her favorite, she let me stay up late, sleep in the living room with her, and would take me riding around with her friends. In exchange for not telling on her! Pretty fair trade off I thought.

I was still pretty rebellious and more angry, after we moved. Every time I didn't like what was going on or things didn't go my way I would scream " That's it, I'm running away!" I would go to my room, pack my run away bag... 1 pair of panties, 5 socks, my favorite stuffed animal ( pig) and my bank that had $ .79c and to the front door I would go, announcing that "I was not coming back! I'm going back to my Grandma Lil's and you can't stop me!"

One night mother didn't stop me. She told me that if that was the only thing that would make me happy, to go on. I walked out of the front door and walked up the hill to the White Way Inn and sat at the bar. The bartender ask was I lost? I told him no I was running away from home, he ask where I lived and I told him two doors down. He sent someone to my house to tell my mother where I was so she wouldn't worry. I'm sure as many times as my mother went into the taverns to get my dad, she never thought she would be doing the same with her 7 yr old daughter! She busted my butt all the way to the house. It was the last time I ran away from home.

I was a very mixed up, sad, child with a secret. I didn't feel like I fit in real well at school. All the kids seem to be so happy, and I felt so sad. I didn't have any friends until the school year was almost over. That summer we moved into our new neighborhood. I was a beautiful 4 bedroom bath and half, den with fireplace, formal living room, and a big yard. I thought we were rich.

My playmates were ALL BOYS! We were the only girls on the whole block and they hated us!!! Jimmy Lou Fisher was our next door neighbor, She was my mom's best friend, then there were John and Bobby Martin, Mike Malone, J.D. Stephenson, Danny and Steve Sparler, and David Smith. The first week we were there, they tied my feet and hands behind my back and left me a block from my house, I had to belly crawl home, shot all the windows out of our new home with a b b gun, and threw rotten apples at me every time I walked to the mail box. I was in the 4Th grade before they excepted the fact we were here to stay.

I some how managed to get past 3rd grade the second time around, and made it through elementary with very few friends. I wet the bed until I was 9 years old and continued to have nightmares until I was 10.

I started middle school and played in the band, I played trumpet. I started making new friends, that's when I learned that if I make people laugh they will like me, so I became the class clown.
Girls started inviting me over to there house to spend the night and eating lunch with me. I would do almost anything to get a laugh. As long as I could make people laugh I didn't think about how sad I was.

We grew up in East Side Baptist church, it where my mothers entire family attended every time the doors where open, I got involved with Girls Auxiliary, sang with a youth group.It was 1970.We called our group the Messenger's. We sang at all the youth rallies,and traveled to different churches in northeast Ark and around. I felt like I was finally starting to fell normal. Our group consisted of Diane Magg, Jackie Hunter, Dianna Wheeler, Rick Fry, Charles Cook, and Johnny Gibson, and me. I sang alto. It was the best time of my life. We were together for 3 years .

It was the summer of 1972, my sister Christi started dating a guy a couple of years older than her, Danny Wood. He was a bright, nice looking, country boy from Tech. He didn't swear, smoke, or drink and loved to race cars. He was head over heels in love with Christi. He joined the Army right out of High school and would come home every weekend to visit Chris. Danny was 3 weeks from getting out of the Army on a hardship so he could marry Christi and move home. His weekends where spent getting letters and statements from people he knew to help him get out of the Army, he got so desperate he shot himself in the foot while on leave so he could get out on a disability.

One weekend the fair was in town and he came in to take us, he brought a friend who was in the army with him for me to meet. We doubled that weekend. We came home with large stuffed animals, and trophy's they had won for us. That night at the fair on the top of the ferris wheel, Danny ask Christi to marry him and gave her a ring. You could hear her voice echo over the city as she said YES! That night Danny and his friend left late going back to the base in Ft. Lenard wood, Kentucky. Chris and Danny had words about him leaving so late. Christy and I laid in bed talking about what a great weekend we had and made plans for the wedding that would take place when he returned home for the last time in 3 weeks. She was so excited and I was excited for her. We feel asleep listening to their song on the radio, " Wild fire".

That morning at around 5 am the phone rang, it was Danny's friend. Danny was in a hospital in Jackson Tennessee fighting for his life, he was driving in access of 100 mph and feel asleep behind the wheel. He hit a concrete culvert and flipped his car 5 times, he was thrown from the car and it landed on top of him. Mother, Christi and I drove all morning to arrive at the hospital at noon that day. He was in ICU, his brain was swelling and they didn't expect him to make it through the night. Christi could not go in to the room to see him, so they hooked up a telephone and held it to his ear. When he heard Christy's voice his monitors would respond with activity. Danny died that morning of sever head trauma. I will never forget the screams that rang through the halls of that hospital. Christi was never the same after Danny died. She became very depressed and suicidal. It would take our entire family to help her through this very difficult time. I think it would change her life forever and mine too.


Moral of this Blog: Only the good die young...