One of my daddy's things to say was if you asked him as question, he would ask if you were writting a book? My answer finally became, yes. His response to this was well, leave that page out. He probably never read the first book. He had all of a ninth grade education. The whole family seemed to have went to the nineth grade. Sixteen must have been the age quitting was accepted. My grandmother did not go that far, but she had a GED. She had even tried to go on and become a school teacher. I am sure she would have been the best teacher ever. I know this from all she taught me. She wasn't Garner, but sure did adapt well to the Garner way of life. The one person she admired most was her mother-in-law. She was a Barnett before marrying Mayorn Garner. Then again the hard working good women were not Garner's after all; they just became what the not so hardworking Garner men expected to become. Keeping on keeping on was normal. Men died, we had funerals and then it was the day after when we all went back to working on the job that had to be done. My grandmother got up the morning after we buried someone and told us, "get up kids we've got to go on."
It can honestly be said that there were never, and will never be men that defined drunk in a manner of these men. There was always an occasion for them to drink. Funerals were no exception.
The statement I have heard and repeated many times; the perfect crime can be committed if you do not tell a soul. Affairs can be gotten away with only if neither involved tell no one. All that went on in my home was one of those situations. As long as the outside world did not know of the meaness there, it was ok. The men were expected to have affairs. That is basically impossible for women, they have to tell at least one friend that they want to impress. Most of the time again back to my experience with people everyone has a disloyal bone in their body and will tell someone else. I do have secrets of my dear friends that I would never tell anyone. I would not tell mainly for fear of hurting someone I loved. I would also not tell fearing they would turn on me one day.
I did when my grandmother was older try to tell her. I wanted to hurt her. She had made this big deal out of six dollars in change. I had gone to the grocery store for her and did not give her change back. I got back to my house and my brother called. Grandmother had called him to tell him I had kept her money. I still want to cry when I think of him scolding me for taking her money. He was always a big defender of hers. She had petted him from the very beginning. She had a thing that men were to be waited on. His love for her still is deep, so deep that he never did see her faults. The grandchildren that have not given in to drug dependency or alcoholism still sing the praises of all she did for us. She made us what we are today. Whatever part of her that is in our genes can be that we watched the good; I am probably the only one with her blood that acknowledges she was not perfect. I am ashamed that when she was old I wanted to hurt her. A regret that bothers me often. She did do more for me than any of the others.
Her will to survive was enough to justify many of her beliefs. "You do what you got to do." was something she said often. It also a phrase that I have used many times. I have totally figured out what being abused makes you become. You become a person that no matter what you accomplish, happiness is something that is very hard for you to feel. I am blessed with a perfect job, wonderful children, many friends, and a realationship that works well. With all that is good in my life, there is still that nagging in my soul; A sadness that no matter how hard I try creeps up way too often. The stories I tell of the people that molded me are not all to blame, because I hand picked the one's that gave me the best advice.

Boxes

I have always made the best of each situation. It can be done. There is always the sky. It does not matter what is going on around you the sky is there for a great escape. From the sky there is the sun to give us warm days, adding wind to a warm sunny day just adds extra surprise. Even the rainy, stormy days escaping to notice the feel of the air can take away much pain. When I realized that my heart was so broken that I could not find happiness from the air around me is when I knew it was within me to discover the easy way back. Simple and free are the best gifts God gave us. Then there is snow, beautiful white snow. The air feels a certain way on a cold and snowy day. I have always been someone that could find something to make me feel better in the worst of times. Being a child may have made it easier to find a happy place.
I have mentioned walking home from school for lunch before. This is something I did even when the snow was up to my knees. Kindergarten is somewhat of a blur to me, but there are parts that I remember vividly. The teacher was old; she played an old organ to us sometimes. She reminded me of Granny of the Beverly Hillbillies. While we were up north I attended the school closest to Morley Street; where we lived before the fat banker came. The school name was Pageant. It had to be really close for me to walk to school at five years old. I had white boots with fake fur around the top. The boots I remember well because they were a treasure in a box given to us by some charity organization. Just like the ice skates the boots were one of my favorite memories of digging in those boxes that appeared at our house.
The boxes appearing made up for the fact that Santa did not come one year that I remember. The next door neighbor informed that Santa had brought her toys on Christmas Eve that year. I was so smart that at five she was wrong and I was right. Santa must have come on Christmas Night; I wasn’t sure, I must have forgotten was what I convinced myself into believing. Christmas Night I was sure that was when I would get my toys. On Christmas Night he didn’t bring anything, I was sure it was my fault. It was true if you are bad Santa will not come.
It was still freezing cold the day the box came with a pair of ice-skates in it. I grabbed ice-skates from the box like they had been placed under a Christmas tree by Santa. I had never had ice-skates. Making sure they fit was not important to me or Mama. That may have been why they wobbled so on my feet. Could have been why I hit the ground so fast. I had never skated and I was too young to realize that falling was something that would happen when I chose a frozen mud puddle just outside the house to skate for the first time. Somehow I made it down the steps onto the puddle without falling.

Once on the frozen mud puddle my feet went every which way. I hit on my knees and elbows skinning myself on every spot that the hard frozen puddle touched me. I still remember how bad that hurt. I was freezing cold, because getting a coat was not an issue as I had a new pair of ice-skates. The cold the sting of the cuts and the pain of the lick I took was awful. Getting back into the house was even worse. The trip down the stairs was a much happier trip. Climbing the three or four steps was much harder without the thrill of getting to skate. Then the pain added to the realization that skating on a mud puddle was not such a great idea after all.

Reason's Still

Of all the people I have known well there is not a single person that I can honestly say has not done something immoral at one time or another. Looking back the people I loved the most; I knew the most about. Be it just saying something mean to or about someone; there really is not a perfect person. Lets not talk about perfect then. How about just a good person. To me a good person, really deep in side has that heart that at the time you need them the most will give back to you. It may not be things; It may not be money. Being kind to you when you need it is probably the best thing anyone could give you. Give yourself to someone you have abused or mistreated and forgiveness may come your way.

Mama never changed the sheets on the bed when I wet it. That is why if I think of Detroit or hear it I think of being cold. I moved from one spot to another each night trying to find the dryest spot. It was still cold from the spot that got me wet to begin with. I should have just crawled in the floor. I don't think there was water in the floor of the bedroom. There was always water in the bathroom floor. I say this remembering at this moment the worst of times. There was a time in that house on Morley, before Daddy lost his job that everything was better.  Again was she lazy? Really what is so bad about being lazy? Not being lazy I think comes with living. When I was young I had the energy it took to get out of doing things. As we live and learn it is easier to just do something than to try to work your way out of it.
Many years later Mama did anything I asked her to do and I asked her to do alot. She was here because she had no place else to go. She gave back to me and I wonder if the reason she did everything I asked her was to make up for some of that stuff she didn't do.

Reason's?

People in general are lazy. There were many people that found work in the Detroit area in the 1960's. Daddy was one of them. He really did mean to have a better life. Meaning well and doing well seems is harder than it seemed. The boys that visited did not find jobs and stay. They were the boys that in later years would work for us pulling the big weeds out of cotton that was too mature to plow. On hot summer days instead of a water break, it was a wildcat whiskey break. My cousins and I thought one day it would be funny to put the whiskey in Mamas water glass and trick her into drinking it. Come to find out nobody, but us thought it was a bit funny. My grandmother thought it was mean. The hired help it belong to thought it was wasting his wildcat and Mama spit it everywhere. Even Daddy was mad and it took alot for him to even take time to notice what we were doing.
There was still something these boys that was not all that great. Everyone has a side that is a tad evil. It is what you do with the good in you that overcomes the bad seeds. I recall a mean grin that my daddy, his brother, their daddy had. When you are around anyone often enough you really see more than the real world knows. Taking things out on family seems to be more normal than not. Talking mean to the one's you love the most. I have heard this all my life, and still wonder, why?

There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found while journeying east and west-the only folks we really wound are those we love the best. We flatter those we scarcely know; we please the fleeting guest, and deal full to many a thoughtless blow to those who love us best.’~~~Wheeler Wilcox

Could this be be how abuse happens? Lazy comes to mind because, these people that hurt the one's they love the most won't make the effort to leave the house and be mean to someone else. Men that choose their daughters and grandchildren to molest are too lazy to get, maybe their wife or a slutty neighbor. No, the neighbor is out of the question because, they could say no and she would tell then everyone would really know that they grinned that mean grin and meant it. The people around us were really convienced that the perfect crime could be committed if you did not tell anyone and made sure the person you did it to didn't tell.

1960 Something

People in general are moody. Everyone has good days and bad days. The days for Mama were not all that great I am sure. Just being around someone drinking is enough to make a good natured person have a few fits. Women tend to have them. When Aunt Faye ran her new Continential Lincoln into Uncle Andy's car it was just a funny story that was told over the years. Mama was marked crazy from the beginning. Crazy for stress that would bring the most sane person to a breaking point.

I listened to her when the men that drank with Daddy were getting on her nerves. This made me want to do something to help her. I even chased one bum out of one of Daddy's abandoned cars in the yard. This guy slept there often. Daddy I am sure had given him permission. Mama could not stand the thoughts of him letting just anyone stay with us. It was bad enough that every stray from Alabama bringing the whiskey and keeping Daddy from going to work everyday. The times he spent drinking did gradually cause him to loose his very good job.

Loosing it is something that she was bound to do and do often. It did eventually come to a complete breakdown. The doctors at ECM's 400 ward seemed to think she needed mental health treatment. The day she went she had been whipped with a garden hose. It was in the hottest part of the summer. She had been picked on all morning by Daddy, Grandmother and Uncle Keith, because she was not picking up enough of the potatoes that had been dug that morning.