That Summer, Part 4

 

https://www.briewells510.com/single-post/2020/09/20/Integrity

Part 3 of "That Summer"

The Intruder: from book four of the series, Do the Wrong Thing.

 

Whistleblower

September 12, 2020

 

The divorce

 

Just a reminder that in an earlier post, I mentioned I was a whistleblower. Whistleblowers are righteous and that makes them slightly unlikeable. Why? They point out people’s lies, inconsistencies, and expose secretive behavior.

 

They’re the ones that say something such as, “Hey, you can’t do that.” In my experience, egos get ruffled when a lie is exposed. Lines are drawn and the need to retaliate takes over. There are people that back the liar, and ones that silently believe the whistleblower.

 

Remarkably more people back the liar, especially when the liar has power or charm. The more powerful a man the more likely he’ll be believed, the more beautiful the woman the more she will be believed. Curious isn’t it?

 

Proof doesn’t matter power and beauty sway belief.

 

And yet whistleblowers have to call out lies it is part of their DNA. I am that. Keep that in mind as you read this post.

In my senior year in high school, my class attended a lecture about career options. It sounds like it would be really dry. “Well, you can be a secretary and work your way up to executive secretary and be an important part of building a company.” Or “Become a registered nurse and help the sick.”  It wasn’t at all.

 

The lecturer was a Jesuit priest and told the auditorium full of fresh-faced seventeen-year-old girls, it was important to choose a career path simply because you loved it. In other words, you’d do it whether they paid you or not. Of course you’d get paid but that wasn’t motivation as to why you took the job.

 

He said, when guided by love, there is a freedom gained that people who choose a career to be rich, or powerful will never experience. He said it should be this way when you choose a mate. He reminded us of the marriage vows, to take this person and love them “in sickness or health, richer or poorer until death do you part”. He said when you choose someone with this promise nothing shakes your love, marriage is a path upon which to walk together.

 

It was one of the most interesting and inspiring lectures of my school days.

 

I talked with my father about it. No, I didn’t say the thing about marriage. That would have been crass to talk to a divorced man about his broken vows. “Hey, what about that richer or poorer thing, huh Dad?” Yeah, crass.

 

But I did ask him why he chose the law. He said his father was an attorney and he admired the skill it took to practice the law. I asked about money. He said “Money can’t buy happiness,” and then he quoted the bible, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

 

Timeless words even today.

 

Let’s travel back to just after WWII and consider career options for a young woman. High schools prepared students with typing and short hand skills to pursue office work. Literature and Religion classes assisted in writing and reading skills. Mathematics helped with the logical pursuit to an outcome.

 

 And with the war economy, such work as keypunch operators, sales clerks, newspapers needed editors, typists and society reporters. (There used to be an entire section in the paper detailing events in society that day. Announcements of engaged couples with pictures, what society events were held and who attended, and what they wore.See picture of society page in Pittsburg.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An intelligent woman could attend college. Career paths in medicine tended towards nursing, but many women became doctors during the war and encouraged others to take the same path.

 

Teaching, research, and writing were other paths.

 

 Obviously at this time, the ultimate goal was considered marriage and motherhood.

 

However, the young woman must marry a good prospect, a good provider, a ‘sure bet’ was paramount. Not much soul or love in the choice there.

 

When my mother graduated from high school in 1946, she was considered a pretty girl with an impulsive streak.

 

Compared to her younger sister the math genius, who at this time was considering her best scholarship options and Massachusetts Institute of Technology won, my mother didn’t seem to focus on her studies. If she’d only apply herself, her father would lecture her.

 

My mother rebelled against anyone who dared to tell her what to do, father, husband, or relative.

 

But she had a lovely singing voice and was a skillful cook. Her cakes and pies were a hit at every party and family gathering.

 

I like to think she would have enjoyed the competitive baking shows on television these days. The Australian baker Adrian Zumbo might have been her favorite. His drive to push the boundaries in desserts and his skill in layering flavors would have captivated her imagination.

 

But a career as a cook or pastry chef for a member of a nouveau riche upper class family wasn’t acceptable. They wanted to avoid any job that had no obvious prestige.

 

Music was a vital part of her family and she entertained the idea of a career in singing. Her father adored her singing voice but wanted her to attend college first and guarantee career options. They had an argumentative relationship.

 

That year, my mother met my father through a family connection. Her Aunt Mary knew a wealthy family with a son home from the war and introductions were made.

 

My father was twenty-eight when he met my eighteen-year-old beautiful mother. In those days the age difference wasn’t considered a bad thing. Men were supposed to be more mature and ready to support a family.

 

When Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, my father was in his last year of law school at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Like every qualified male in America he was drafted. When he was brought before the draft board, his induction was deferred to June of ‘42. He was instructed to finish law school and take the bar exam then report for duty. He felt honored to be given the time to complete his degree and studied hard to pass the bar on his first attempt.  He did and in the heat of July of ‘42 was sent to boot camp in Mississippi.

 

He’d never seen blatant prejudice as he did in the south. One night he told me how angry he got when he went into town on leave. He said he sat in the back of the bus with the ‘coloreds’ rather than stand with the stuck up whites in the front. He drank from ‘colored only’ water fountains and sat at the ‘colored only’ lunch counters. I cried myself to sleep that night. I can’t put into words why.

 

My mother and father bonded in the belief that all men are created equal and both worked in one way or another to stop the discrimination of people of color.

 

They had a storybook wedding, the satin and lace dress, oodles of bridesmaids and grooms men, ring bearers and, get this a free bar. My grandfather got a $2,000.00 bill from the bar tab alone. And that’s 1947 prices! It would be close to $24,000.00 today.

 

I don’t know much about their early years of marriage. When my sister was born she had colic and cried a lot. That was stressful for both my mother and father. My older brother was born and he was, let’s just say, demanding. He would wail the minute he woke up until food was set in front of him. He had temper tantrums and banged his head against sidewalks.

 

This added to the normal stresses every couple faces of money, parenting and cramped living quarters. My father’s depression deepened at this time.

 

I can only imagine what it was like for my mother with a depressed husband and not able to understand why. All she saw was he was as difficult as the children. She complained loudly to her sister and brother. They backed her, and the silent war against my father began.

 

The question I wonder is when did my mother begin to have affairs? She was a beautiful young woman who loved excitement and social events. A notorious flirt she liked attention from men. I know my father caught her in one affair and told her if she did it again, the marriage was over.

 

You could ask, should he have said it that way to her with her temperament of nobody tells me what to do? Was this the moment in which real communication between them could have opened up?

 

Well, hindsight is 20/20 and no they didn’t communicate. My mother heard my father’s words and thought, “How dare he tell me…” She had the affaire that cracked their marriage apart in a matter of weeks after his threat. A messy scandalous divorce followed.

 

My mother admitted years after their divorce, she didn’t marry my father because she loved him she married him to get out from under the thumb of her father and to avoid attending college.

 

So, not really surprising when things got rocky between them, and my father’s unrecognized, undiagnosed PTSD bled into their marriage, she balked.

 

And what of my father? Again, I have more access to his side of the story as I lived with him all of my high school years and two of my college years.

 

After he spoke about his war experience to me we’d speak of many things. In particular I wanted to know why he didn’t remarry. His answer was simple. The Catholic Church said only one marriage, and he would live as his word and have only one marriage. He had married for life and that was it.

 

We might laugh at his commitment but I understood it. He was a soldier. His word was his bond. There is power in living as your word.

 

So, when my younger brother and I went to Minnesota to visit him the summer before I was to enter high school, I knew I needed something different or I would slip into delinquent behavior.

 

I’d already been caught shoplifting at age 12. What was next Smoking, drinking and pregnancy? It was possible.

 

I’d seen boys at my middle school drunk, smoke pot and pressure girls to let them go farther sexually. I knew I was weak and easily swept up by charming personalities. I knew I needed guidance, parenting and structure. None of which I felt I was getting living in California. I asked to stay and live with my father and attend an all girl catholic high school.

 

My extended family saw my request as a betrayal of my mother. I was ridiculed. “Oh, you just want to live with your father because he spoils you.” And “You just want to be with your little friends in the old neighborhood.”

 

I was now included in the silent war against my father.

 My Father’s Service in the US Army 1942-47

 

Like many GI’s that returned to America after WWII, whether from the European or the Pacific Theatre, my father wanted to get married, have a few children and settle down to a quiet life. It was something servicemen asked one another as the war began to wind down.

“What are you going to do when you get back?”

“Kiss my mom, get a job, find a girl, and get married.”

“In that order?”

“Pretty much.”

With each wave of service men and women returning home, the weddings and children born months later began what we now call the baby boom. My father was one of those GI’s who came home searching for a job and a wife.

One night in a moment if nostalgia, as my father and I watched an old black and white war movie called “The Malta Story” starring Jack Hawkins, he told me how much he wanted to get married when he came home. He was twenty-eight and had put his career and life on hold for four long brutal years and couldn’t wait to get back to normal. When he met my mother with her auburn hair and green eyes, he was stunned.

How could either of them anticipate that my father had what they called shell shock and we now call PTSD?  How could any of the men who returned from WWII communicate what would creep up in the dark of night, or shake them watching fireworks on the 4^th of July, or of the backaches sleeping on soft mattresses? How could these men explain their bouts of depression most tried to cover with drinking, the tempers that would flare up over simple errors, and their need to be alone for long periods of time?

It was hard on many of these marriages. It was particularly hard on my parent’s marriage.

There is one more element for me to weave into this story, at this time, which was the 1950’s, Wisconsin Senator McCarthy searched for Reds, Spies and Communists under every rock. Conformity was rule one, don’t cause any trouble, and don’t speak out.  Think about it, anyone who went to a psychiatrist or went into therapy was labeled weak, soft in the head and a nutcase. If word got out he could be fired and shunned by society. One of my father’s closest friends suffered this stigma when he had a nervous breakdown. Where else could they turn?

My father found solace in speaking to priests.

I realize the Catholic Church has suffered scandals and disgrace in the last decade with child sexual abuse, rape and hiding the perpetrators. For that they need to both atone and change policy or risk losing everything in a generation. But considering the many good priests that stayed up all hours to speak with GI’s and most likely still do, for that I will be ever grateful.

It was another fateful night of watching TV with my father, ‘The Longest Day” was going to be shown over two consecutive nights as the movie was over four hours long. As we watched John Wayne gather his troops on the shores of Normandy, my father jumped up and screamed ‘It wasn’t like that, goddammit!”

In my fifteen years of stupidity I asked, “Well, what was it like?” Thinking to myself that there was no way he knew. And then he told me of his story.

He was a WWII veteran; he landed on the beaches of Normandy 6 days after D Day. (He called it D Day 6, sounds like all the action was over, it wasn’t.)  He fought from San Malo and to Saint Brieuc as he said rooting out desperate Nazi soldiers fighting bitterly for their lives.

He walked through the Arch de Triumph in Paris during the wild celebration when it was liberated. He marched to Niece protecting German POW’s from angry French citizens and retaliating American soldiers. The American soldiers were the worst because they didn’t want any German soldiers to recover enough to return and fight another day.

 When the Nazi Panzers broke through and the Battle of the Bulge began, he along with all the boys born in northern states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, South and North Dakota and Minnesota, fought under the leadership of General Patton. The northern boys were recruited because the December of ’44 was horribly cold and upper management felt these men would have a better chance of survival as they’d grown up with hard winters.

FYI, the Battle of the Bulge was a Hail Marry Pass. It’s a last ditch effort to turn the tide of a war. This one almost worked. If not for the tenacity of the 101^st Airborne and the savvy strategy of General Patton we might have a very different world today.

My father told me Patton was both inspiring and funny. Patton famously pissed in the Rhine River as he crossed it in March of ’45 to let Hitler know he was coming. He promised he’d do just that when the troops met him in Northern Italy to fight against the Nazi’s at the bulge.

After Hitler died, my father was assigned to a team of spies going behind enemy lines, finding German scientists, and helping them escape the onslaught of the Russian Army. Stalin had ordered a massive ‘search’ for them. (Read, kidnapping.)  My father and friends helped Werner Von Braun slip through the fingers of Russian soldiers. Later, I’ll tell you that story too.)

From 1942-47 my father saw more death and destruction than you or I can imagine. Dead cattle, horses, pigs, men, women, and children in every field, forest and bombed building. He said the smell of death was everywhere. He was cold, dirty and hungry all the time. And he learned how to drink in the Army, 'Dutch Courage' it was called. 

I was humbled that day and I don't think I did my father service in my fifteen-year-old capacity to listen to his suffering. But that night we bonded in a way we'd never done before. We were pals, soldiers together. He was my friend. 

No one else in my family understood what he went through, they just saw his strange behaviors and pitied my mother for putting up with him for as long as she did. I knew. I never told anyone until I was fifty.

 

Next post: My eighteen-year old mother marries for many reasons

 

           

 

   "I didn't do it!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That Summer part 6

 

Welcome to my blog. If this is your first visit, I am delighted you’re here, and a hearty virtual hug to my returning friends and family.

 

 

This is part six of a series on a summer that impacted my behavior. It’s about when I started to make stupid mistakes. If you haven’t yet, I recommend starting with “That Summer part 1” and read part 2, 3, 4 and 5. This blog expands on those posts. Also, it’d be great to hear from you, post a comment and share.

 

 I am able sit quietly for long periods of time. I like to think of it as my super power because it has saved my fanny many times over.

 

Growing up Catholic, I attended church every Sunday, Holy Days of Obligation and every Friday during the six weeks of Lent.

 

In case you are unfamiliar, Holy Days of Obligation all Catholic schools are closed so the students attend Mass. These were a way to honor a person or event from the bible.  Things such as the Feast of the Assumption, the Stations of the Cross, All Saint’s Day and the Epiphany to name a few. Our entire school had to attend Mass that day. (See the obligation part?) We were to dress in our uniforms and show up for the 9 AM service, which lasted almost two hours.

 

Let me say as a kid, having to go to Mass on a holiday ruined a perfectly good day. I mean what was the point of a day off? Am I right?

 

For those of you unfamiliar with the distinctions of Catholic Mass, there were two types. The normal hour-long services and the two-hour marathons called High Mass. The priest could spring a High Mass any time he wanted to, or felt like it. Usually, he liked to surprise the congregation unexpectedly with High Mass at the 11:30 AM services.  The 11:30 was the last service of the week, and people who perhaps celebrated a little too much the night before, tried to slip in for a quick dutiful attendance only to be thrown a curveball and get stuck until almost 2 PM. My mother got us trapped by that once. She never took us to late Mass again.

 

So, when I was caught shoplifting and placed in a small cell like room, I sat on the bench, folded my hands in my lap and prayed. I was in that room for over an hour waiting for my mother to show up and take me home. I didn’t wail or act out, as my friend Kathy did in the enclosed room next to me. She was quite disruptive. The whole station heard her.

 

When I was finally brought in to sit with my mother and the lady detective for my interview, again, I didn’t cry, but I sang like a canary and threw Tina under the bus so far she could have changed the oil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, I think I may have skipped a step. Let me back up.

 

It was the Saturday after Halloween and the stores at Del Amo Shopping Center were hosting a Fall Sale. The papers were full of advertisements announcing major price reductions. Every afternoon after school that week, we camped in Kathy’s bedroom. Syndi, Tina, Kathy and I, examined the advertisements and drooled over what we wanted. Tina had inspected pictures of jackets on sale at Lerner’s Department Store, and circled her favorites. She and Syndi lounged on the floor giggling about the dresses. The Harvest Dance was coming up in two weeks and Syndi needed a new dress.

 

I asked Tina to see the paper because I wanted to look at the shoe sale, but Tina and Syndi paid no attention to me. Embarrassed that I was ignored, I got a little miffed. Kathy rescued me and talked with me about shoes. But I felt left out in my friendship with Tina.

 

It was decided we’d go to Del Amo Shopping Center on Saturday. That morning, we piled into the station wagon, Kathy, Syndi, Tina, Kathy’s brother and his friend and myself. Kathy’s brother drove as he had gotten his driver’s license in August.

 

We arrived at the shopping center and it was busy. We agreed to meet Kathy’s brother at Woolworth’s counter for lunch at 12:30. The four of us girls set out to Lerner’s.

 

Syndi and Tina were inseparable that morning and skipped over to the dress section. Kathy grabbed my arm and we went to look at shoes. I bought a pair of two-toned slip on flats for $3.75 and Kathy purchased a blue and white shirt for $2.35 that matched the skirt she was sewing in Home Economics.

 

Pleased with our purchases, we strolled over to the jacket and handbag section where Tina and Syndi were standing. Tina had tried on an amber colored wool coat with double-breasted brass buttons, but Syndi said she should get the dark blue one with black buttons because it looked better on her. The amber one cost $4.00 more than the blue one and Tina couldn’t make up her mind. She set both jackets aside, and moved over to the belts and wallets.

 

Syndi pulled Kathy aside and whispered something. Kathy’s eyes widened. I walked over to Tina and asked her to see my new shoes. I felt a little excluded at this moment and wanted to reclaim my friendship with Tina.

 

I opened the bag I was carrying, took the shoes out of the box and held them out like Vanna White. Tina agreed they were cool. My chest filled with pride.

 

Syndi waved Tina over to where she and Kathy were examining belts. Left alone, I rewrapped the shoes in the tissue paper, placed them back in the box and slipped the box into its bag. The bag had little handles so I could carry it easily.

 

It took me a few moments to locate my friends. I suspected by her secretive behavior that Tina had been shoplifting.  As I said in an earlier post, she usually took little things every time we went to a store, a chap stick or a candy bar. This time I thought maybe she and Syndi had done it together and now it looked like Kathy was part of it, too. I wasn’t.

 

Finally, I heard Tina and Kathy laughing and saw them hold up a big belt. The sales lady came up to them and they put the belt back and moved away.

 

They walked over to me. I was standing near the wallets, leather key cases, and purses. Syndi and Kathy chatted about dresses and how much they cost. Tina came over to me and held up a wallet with a wicked look in her eye. I knew what Tina wanted me to do. I thought if I put this in my bag, I could be important, dangerous, exciting. Tina and I spoke no words. I took the wallet and slipped it inside my shoe bag.

 

“Come on, let’s go,” said Tina. I followed. All of us left the store.

 

“Stop right there, young ladies,” a strong female voice shouted at us.

 

Tina gripped my arm, I turned around and the sales lady told us to come with her.

 

 Syndi argued and the sales lady said she saw us leave and not pay for several items and she listed them. A sweater, scarf, lipstick and a wallet, she asked to see the sales receipts for all the items.

 

Syndi had a sweater in her bag with the tags intact and no receipt. Tina had several items of make up, a compact, small perfume bottle and a lipstick with no receipts. Although Kathy had the receipt for the blue shirt, she didn’t have the receipt for a scarf. The lady turned to me and asked to see my bag. My mouth dropped. I knew what she’d find. She claimed our bags and escorted us to the back offices of the store and called the police.

 

A woman detective must have flown to Del Amo. In the blink of an eye she appeared and we sat in the back of the police car and were taken to the police station.

 

This was a very different experience with the police than our last one when we told of the naked man in the van. This time they didn’t bring us cups of water, and they didn’t care that Kathy was upset and crying. We were separated.

 

I was put in my cell along a hallway of little rooms. Each of us placed in different rooms. That’s when Kathy freaked out and began to scream, they told her to be quiet. I sat quietly and prayed.

 

Finally, my mother showed up. I was taken out of the cell and we sat with the lady detective. She asked one question, “What happened?”

 

In all that time of prayer, you’d think I’ had time to reflect my criminal indiscretion and apologize for it. Nope! As I said earlier I sang like a canary. I threw Tina under the bus so far she would have come out the exhaust pipe.

 

I said it wasn’t my fault. It was all Tina. She gave me the wallet and told me to put it in my bag.

 

The lady detective held up her hand to me and said, “Hold it right there.”

 

My heart stopped beating. I looked up and finally saw the woman detective. She was young and very pretty. But there was hardness to her presence that all her soft hair and makeup couldn’t obscure.

 

Have you ever sat in front of someone who holds the cards to your future? Have you looked into the eyes of the person who can reduce you to a puddle of blubbering snot?

 

She said, “The best thing you can do in this moment is to tell the truth. Now, at any time did you ask Tina not to do this?”

I shook my head no. “She never said any thing to me. I put it in the bag.”

 

“Good. Now you need to think about your future and where you want to end up. If you keep going this way you’ll end up spending a lot of time inside a cell just like that one.” She pointed to the hallway of little holding rooms. The sterile rooms with cement brick walls painted a ghastly green.

 

Then she sent me to sit on the bench at the far side and spoke with my mother. I don’t know what they talked about. I didn’t want to know.

 

On the drive home, my mother and I didn’t talk. When we arrived, I went into my room and sat at my desk and prayed. This time I prayed for guidance.

 

I didn’t like what happened. More importantly I didn’t like how I behaved. I wondered how had I changed? Where was that girl who helped the different looking girl on the 3rd grade playground? What happened to the girl that was willing to shout down angry kids throwing rocks simply because she was different? Where and when did I get so lost?

 

I returned to school but my friendship with Kathy, Syndi, Tina faded. Luckily, a girl named Molly took pity on me and we became fast friends for the reminder of 8th grade. Mostly she told me about her crush on a boy named Todd. I was a good listener for her long-winded stories of how he looked at her, or didn’t look at her that day.

 

In the last weeks of school there were a few 8th grade parties I attended but they were tame compared to the one that exploded at Syndi’s house. Her older sister Monica was graduating from high school that summer and hosted an epic event. Her parents went back to Australia for a month and while the cats away...

 

Word spread of no adults in the house and several high school boys brought liquor and cigarettes. There were make-out sessions in every dark corner inside and outside of her house. A neighbor called the police to break it up. Monica was esthetic because her reputation as a bad girl skyrocketed.

 

Syndi was mortified.

 

The police called my house and asked if Syndi could spend the week with us given that her parents were still abroad. Of course she could. That eased the tension between us and we were friends again.

 

I completed 8th grade with slightly above average grades. I was planning on spending time at the beach that summer with Syndi and the old gang, when my mother announced that my younger brother and I were to spend the summer in Minnesota with my father.

 

I wasn’t unhappy about this. I could see my old friends, play basketball with the neighborhood guys, swim in one of the many lakes around the city, and take a breather from the fast paced life in California.

 

Next Week: I dig my heels in and don’t return to live in California.

 

“Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens,

you say,‘This is what I need.’

It may look like a wreck,

 but go at it as though it were an opportunity,

a challenge.If you bring love to that moment-not discouragement–you will find the strength

 is there. Any disaster you can survive is

an improvement in your character,

your stature, and your life.”

 

Joseph Campbell