By BethShelby
In the summer of 1971, the rumors we’d been hearing came to pass, and we officially got word Chevron Oil planned to move it’s Jackson office to New Orleans, Evan looked for every excuse he could think of not to go. Not everyone in the company would have the opportunity to transfer. I think he hoped the decision would be made for him, and he would be one of the ones left behind. Some of the older employees were offered early retirement, and others chose not to go.
Personally, the move to a new location sounded interesting to me. New Orleans was a city with unique characteristics, and I was intrigued by the idea of experiencing life in a new setting. I don’t remember our children expressing an opinion either way. With Carol eleven and the twins, nine, they were still young enough to assume their opinions didn’t matter. That, of course, would soon change.
For weeks, we were in limbo not knowing whether to start packing or not. The fact that Evan had plans in mind for our country acreage, including building an airstrip, made the idea of a move even more painful for him. He’d recently taken flying lessons and had soloed and was working toward getting his pilot license. We had about thirty head of cattle on our farmland and a house that was partially finished and furnished with our early mismatched and now discarded furniture.
The country place was paid for and we were building the house a bit at a time so as not to add further debt. We still owned our first house in Jackson and were making payments on it as well as on the newer one, we’d had built and had lived in less than two years.
When we finally got word, Evan had been chosen to go with the drafting department, the move was about three weeks away. We left the kids with my mom and took a trip to check out possible places to live.
Renting an apartment was all Evan would consider since he had no intention of putting down roots. It made sense because we knew nothing about the city. We had to think about schools for the kids and where we might be working so as yet, we didn’t know what might fit our needs. We checked the paper’s rental ads for an apartment and were delighted to learn the rent seemed affordable.
We thought one place would be ideal, until we asked a city cop for directions. He looked at us like we’d lost our minds and told us even cops wouldn’t set foot in that part of town unless they were well armed and not alone.
After driving for hours, we finally agreed we liked the Metairie area best. We chose an upstairs apartment in a newer complex near a large shopping center and only a couple of blocks from Lake Pontchartrain.
I’m sure our move would have never taken place if I’d expressed the slightest reluctance to leave Mississippi, but with five mouths to feed, Evan realized being without a job wasn’t an option. He consoled himself by vowing it was only a temporary solution until he could come up with another plan. One year was the very maximum amount of time, he would spend in a spot which didn’t fit his country boy personality. Little did he know what fate might have in store.
We had to get in high gear because we had to find homes for three dogs, make arrangements for someone to look after our livestock and put our original house on the market with an agent. Also, I had to give notice, I would be leaving my job.
We would simply close our newer house since Evan was sure we’d be returning soon. The company would take care of the packing and moving. It was summer so we had to deal with finding a school for the kids once we arrived in our new location.
So it was, the decision was made and the Shelby family was about to begin a new adventure.
| Author Notes | Posting this has been a nightmare. I only hope there are no more problems. |
By BethShelby
As painful as moves always are, thanks to Chevron for sending in a moving company to do the packing, this one was less painful than any other move we ever made. Not being aware of their rules, I‘d already spent time packing fragile items I didn’t want damaged. The packers removed my packaging and completely redid it. The reason for that is if anything is already broken they have it on record in case I should file a claim and accuse them of breaking it. They made notes of every scratch on each piece of furniture.
Once we arrived at our destination, the kids and I were in awe of all the new things we would be getting to explore. Exploring our 3-bedroom apartment came first, and the kids were delighted that the large complex had a pool. Don was thrilled with his own room, since he spent so many years in our first house on a fold out couch.
It didn’t take but a day or so for my three kids to become acquainted with other children in the complex. It seems that dumpster diving was a favorite pastime. As people relocated from apartments, they often left behind items like posters and toys. The local kids saw moving days as time for a treasure hunt, and sometimes strange items would appear in our house. We cautioned our three to stay out of the dumpster for fear the garbage truck would appear and carry them away to the dump. Still, we weren’t always aware of who might have retrieved the various odd things, I sometimes found around the apartment.
Evan went to work the day after we arrived, but since I wasn’t working, the kids and I did a bit of exploring. We quickly learned if we were looking for a certain address and we found the street it was supposed to be on, it didn’t mean we could follow that street until we arrived. There were canals that stopped the street cold, and we’d have to go blocks out of the way to find the same street name again.
Sandwiched between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River and crisscrossed by canals, you can’t travel far in any direction without seeing water. Yet with all that water, most people either buy their drinking water or travel across the long toll bridge to the other side to bring back containers of spring water from a natural spring in a little Louisiana town.
Until weekends when Evan could be with us, we stayed out of the main city area. Metairie seemed a safer place. It was referred to as out in the parish. I think Louisiana is the only US State that refers to its districts as parishes. Although it's all like one big city, Metairie is in Jefferson Parish while New Orleans proper is in Orleans Parish.
On the weekends, the five of us visited several of the city parks and St. Charles Street, lined with beautiful antebellum homes. We also drove around the French Quarter and walked in St. Louis Square. We went into the St. Louis Cathedral and afterward walked around the square with the huge statue of Andrew Jackson on his horse.
Sidewalk artists lined the sidewalks around the square, painting and selling their art to tourists. Don was mesmerized by a grumpy old artist who was painting seascapes with a palette knife. While he painted, he kept an evil eye on my kids as they stared at the fresh oil paint making the picture appear almost in 3D. Don stood it as long as he could, before he stuck his forefinger into orange paint standing out on the canvas. The indignant artist rose from his seat and yelled out at my child “DON’T TOUCH!”. Don lowered his head and moved away quickly while staring at his orange fingertip through the tears forming in his eyes. Maybe this new city wasn’t safe for curious little boys.
We made our way down nearer the river and went into a famous old restaurant that served coffee, hot chocolate and beignets. A beignet is a French doughnut covered in powdered sugar, it is pronounced ben’yay. The children were fascinated with the large metal sugar containers chained to the walls.
One of the more famous coffeeshops which had been in the French Quarters for years had recently moved out into the Metairie area that was developing rapidly and was becoming known as Fat City. The coffeeshop was named The Morning Call. Since the children had enjoyed the beignets so much and the relocated shop was near our apartment, one day while Evan was at work, the children and I walked over to check it out.
To my surprise, there was a man in there I recognized from having seen him on television as the governor of Louisiana. He was one of the more colorful politicians in Louisiana, and Louisiana certainly had its share of unique political characters. Governor Edwin Edwards was part French Creole born in Cajun country. He was extremely popular and served four terms as governor. His later terms were rocked with scandal. He would eventually serve time in prison, but when we saw him he was on the rise.
He was surrounded by a lot of other men in suits. I whispered to the children that he was the governor. At age nine, Christi was especially impressed because we were sitting near a famous person. Before he left, he went around and started shaking hands with everyone. When he got to us, Christi surprised me by asking for his autograph. He was pleased and hugged her and wrote on her napkin. It was the only paper available. She would keep that napkin for many years. Important people would always impress her.
| Author Notes | None of you were notified when I posted the story that goes before this one. It is called Decision with Drawbacks and it is still active at 84 cents. |
By BethShelby
A couple of weeks after we moved in, we managed to find a church we felt comfortable with and decided we would start attending. We liked the pastor right away. Our first day to attend was his first day to preach at this church. He was as new to the city as we were, having just moved from Iowa. He and his wife were about our age, and they had three daughters. The middle daughter was Carol‘s age.
We learned that a sister church in another part of the city had just lost their pastor the prior week due to a horrible accident which occurred right in front of the congregation. He was performing a baptism. At the conclusion, he reached for the microphone. He was still wet and standing in water. He was instantly electrocuted. I guess if it’s your time to go and you’re in the middle of doing the Lord’s work, it could be good timing.
School would be starting soon, and we were encouraged to enroll our children in the church school. Since we were leery of what the public schools might be like in a big city, we agreed. Our children were accustomed to attending a small Christian school in Jackson, so it would be less traumatic for them to continue in a place with fewer changes. Since the school was many blocks away from our apartment, a family who lived near us in Metairie suggested we carpool.
We still had many things on our list of places we wanted to visit before I went job hunting. Evan had found parking in New Orleans to be expensive and inconvenient. I wanted to get used to driving in the city, so I began taking him downtown and picking him up after work. By having use of our main vehicle, the kids and I could continue to explore.
A tourist book I’d purchased suggested seeing the city from the 45-story office building known as Plaza Tower. One afternoon, the kids and I left home early, on our way to pick up Evan, with plans to do just that. We found a parking spot, but when we went inside, the nightwatchman at the desk told us the building was closed to visitors for the day. We chatted for a few moments, and he decided to make an exception and allow us to take the elevator to the top deck.
Once we reached the top, I was a bit alarmed, because the railing around the deck didn’t seem high enough and openings were wide enough a small child could slip through. The views of the city and the surrounding crescent-shaped Mississippi river were awesome. I cautioned my kids to stay back from the railing. We stayed together and time passed as we took in the views from all angles. When I glanced at my watch, I realized we were going to be late picking up Evan. I needed to call him. This was before the day of cell phones.
I glanced around and noticed a door near the elevator. I assumed it might lead to offices or a hallway pay phone and decided to check it out. I opened the door and walked though assuming I’d only take a quick look, but all I saw was the stairway leading down. When I turned to go back out through the thick metal door, to my horror, it had locked from the outside. I began beating on the door, but as it was thick, no one could hear me. My immediate thought was of Don, who had an attention span of about thirty seconds. If he became bored, his active nature would cause him to seek entertainment by climbing on something. I visualized him going over that railing and falling 45 stories to his death.
I quickly went into a state of panic. I took off one of my high heel shoes and started pounding on door with all the force I could muster. (Yes, women wore high heels when they went out in those days.) My efforts were to no avail. Fortunately, before I succumbed to a stroke, Carol started to look around and wonder why her mother had disappeared. She decided to try the door in case I’d gone that way. I’d never been so relieved to see all three still there.
The kids couldn’t understand why I appeared so overjoyed to see them. Carol was the only who had realized I was even missing. Yes, we were late picking up their dad, but he'd waited assuming we’d arrive eventually. It was just another harrowing adventure which life in the big city had to offer.
Another life-threatening episode for me occurred a few days later concerning the apartment complex swimming pool. There was no lifeguard so everyone swam at their own risk. My children had attended a summer day camp for the last two years and had learned to swim. I wasn’t convinced enough of their skills to let them go to the pool alone, so I always went with them. I could swim a little having taken a swimming class in college, but I’d never been around much water, so I wasn’t a strong or confident swimmer. When in deep water, I usually stayed near the edge.
One of the local kids was a little boy named Tommy. He and Don were about the same age. I never met his parents, but apparently, they didn’t keep close watch on him. He seemed free to do as he pleased. He liked hanging around us and he begin treating me like I was part of his family.
My kids and I were in the pool alone, when Tommy joined us. I had ventured into the deeper water, when suddenly Tommy climbed on my back and started jumping around like he was riding a horse. I was barely capable of keeping my own body afloat and certainly not able to have a rambunctious kid on my back. I instantly sank.
I came up sputtering having swallowed a lot of water. I was fighting with all my available strength to rid myself of this burden clinging to my back. The harder I fought, the more Tommy assumed we were playing a game. I surfaced a third time convinced I was about to die.
This time, Christi was the one who saved me. She happened to notice the look of sheer terror on my face and yelled at Tommy, “Get off my mommy! You’re drowning her!” Not used to being yelled at by a cute little girl, he obeyed and slipped off my back. I managed to get out of pool expelling water from my nose, ears and mouth and grateful to be alive. I was starting to wonder if I was capable of surviving this new environment.
| Author Notes | The Plaza tower was almost new in we were there. In was abandoned in 2002 for black mold and asbestos problems. Homeless people were using it, but there was a fire earlier this year. A man fell to his death from there. It's the 3rd tallest building in Louisiana. |
By BethShelby
By BethShelby
By BethShelby
By the end of December, we had been in New Orleans long enough to get used to the differences in the culture. Along with the French Quarter, other areas of the city had been settled by different cultures. The Irish channel was a popular section where people seem to have a unique way of speaking. Oil was pronounced like ‘erl’. Vegetables was ‘Veg e tables”. A sink was a ‘zink’. You used ‘gaz a line’ in your car. People said they had to ‘go make groceries’ instead of buy groceries. Closets were lockers. Medians were called neutral grounds, and the list of odd figures of speech went on.
There were many Italians, French, Spanish, Indians, Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and people from various Asian cultures living in the area. New Orleans was a melting pot. All of them had brought the food specialties from their native countries. New Orleans was known for its many exotic dishes. The Cajun cuisine and various seafood dishes were especially popular.
A number of the people who attended school with my children were Hispanic, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and Equador.
The children were settling into the new school and we had made a lot of good friends from our church and with those whose children attended school with ours. There were more activities here than there had been in Mississippi for engaging in family group events. There were church and school sponsored game nights where both adults and children had a chance to participate in volley ball or board games and in a variety of other activities for all ages.
One of the teachers had taken an interest in Don and was teaching him to play a guitar. We had also signed the girls up for piano lessons with a private teacher who was the organist from our church. She was from Germany.
As soon as the New Year was behind us, people began to get ready for Mardi Gras. This was a totally new experience for us. There are many Mardi Gras Krewes or Clubs inspired by names of Greek gods and goddesses. They all had individual balls and parades and selected a king and queen to reign. The floats were elaborate and preparation for the parades is a year-long process. Once a theme is decided for the parade, costumes are designed for the participants. Many Krewes featured celebrities on their floats.
The Krewes have aluminum doubloons engraved with their name, date and theme for the year. They all buy bags full of beads, plastic toys and other objects to throw to the crowds watching the parades. The various parades occurred on nights and weekends starting a couple of weeks into January. People referred to this as Carnival season.
The Final day of Mardi Gras is called Fat Tuesday. The following day is Ash Wednesday which begins the 40-day season of Lent for the Catholics. The majority of people in New Orleans are Catholic and the date of Easter each year determines when Lent and Mardi Gras will fall.
I don’t think they had started having parades in Metairie the first year we were there, and I can’t remember going downtown to any of the earlier parades. We waited for the big day to arrive. I was surprised when our church, which was on St. Charles Avenue and the main parade route, announced they would open their doors on Mardi Gras day for those interested in watching the parade. The church members were welcome to use the recreation room in the basement as headquarters with restroom facilities and a place to bring food for the day.
Since our church didn’t seem to have a problem with this somewhat heathenish celebration, Evan agreed we would all go downtown that day and see what Mardi Gras was all about. It was a citywide holiday and we knew parking would be a problem. The parade was scheduled to begin around ten a.m. so we left early.
Traffic leading into the city was heavy, and when we got to the off-ramp from the interstate, we were shocked to see cars parked all along it just leaving enough space for traffic to exit. Knowing this had to be illegal to park on a highway off ramp we discussed it and decided since this was a day like no other, perhaps there was an exception to the rule on one day a year. We saw room for one more car to park and decided to take the spot while it was still available.
The walk to St Charles and our church didn’t take long from that point. People were already lined up along the parade route. Vendors were walking up and down the streets selling various foods. A viewing stand was nearby. Many people were in costume. Everything was festive and electrifying. When the parade started there were dozens of school bands, Shriner groups in little cars, clowns and police on horses long before the floats began to pass.
There were thirty or so floats, so the parade lasted well into the afternoon. We found the elaborate costumes and floats fascinating. Lines of people, five or more deep, were grabbing for the beads and doubloons. Everyone had bags which they filled as the throws rained down from the floats. Keeping a watch on the kids wasn’t easy, because people were chasing the floats as they passed.
The day had been a blast, but we were worn out by late evening when the parade finally ended. We started back to the car with beads around our necks and carrying bags of colorful throws. We were shocked when we reached the off ramp because it was completely cleared. Our car was nowhere to be seen. All the cars had been towed away and impounded. We had left most of our money at home.
We had enough change with us to call a taxi. The driver agreed to wait to be paid until we could get home to our money and then take us to the auto pound to retrieve our vehicle. By the time we’d paid for the taxi, the towing fee and the pound, we had spent a lot of money. We were exhausted and frustrated, but we had learned a valuable lesson. We couldn’t assume, because others were doing it, we were free to break the rules.
It was a real let down to an otherwise perfect day.
By BethShelby
Mardi Gras had ended, but that was no reason for New Orleans to stop celebrating. They seemed to find reasons to celebrate throughout the year. The Irish celebration of St. Patrick’s Day was something we hadn’t anticipated, but when we learned about it, I insisted we should go downtown to check it out. One of the main events was a major parade the Sunday before the March 17th date.
Green was the color of the day. Going before and after the various floats were marching groups of men carrying huge clusters of green roses for gifting one to any lady who would allow them a kiss. There were also groups of dancing girls kicking high as they marched along to the music. The parade wandered through the streets of the Irish Channel stopping at the many pubs along the way to partake of green beer. Before the parade ended many of the marchers and float riders seemed to be too inebriated to stand. Lawn chairs were lined along the neighborhood so people could view the parade in leisure from their own front yards.
The Irish paraders threw green doubloons and other favors but they also tossed out ingredients for an Irish stew including the recipes. One might expect to go home with onions, potatoes, carrots or a cabbage or two. The parade bands played Irish jigs and everyone seemed to be having fun.
Among the Italians and Sicilians there were several feasts and celebrations in honor of St. Joseph. The main feast was around the nineteenth or twentieth of March. The altars in the church were decorated with every Italian dish imaginable. There were also bake sales for the public to learn what Italian gourmet cooking was like.
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Back in the fall after the children started school, I had taken a job in the printing industry. It involved camera work and preparing negatives for offset printing. All of the printing presses were large, and they ran 24/7 throughout three shifts. The company printed Spanish newspapers, magazines and ad inserts for daily papers. The business was on Airline Highway in a rundown part of the city. I worked a day shift that always got me home before dark.
There was only one person I really bonded with. He was a man who had escaped Cuba with his family and with only what they were wearing. He had been a highly respected captain when things went bad with Castro. Vincente was of European decent although he spoke Spanish as well as English. He was very devoted to his family so he was someone I could be friends with without having fears he might get the wrong idea, as some of the men had when I’d worked in Jackson.
By Spring, the plant was experiencing a work slowdown. The boss suggested, as each of us finished the particular job we were working on each day, we should punch out and go home. One particular day, the job I was working on took longer than usual. When I finished, I suddenly realized everyone in my part of the building had already left for the day. I always exited through the basement pressroom. Since the presses ran 24 hours a day, and there were always pressmen at work when I left, it never occurred to me they might be gone as well.
To my shock and horror, I realized not only were they gone, but they had locked the building as they left leaving me a prisoner in a very old three-story factory in an unsavory part of the city. I had never been given an emergency phone number and I had no idea what to do. I called Evan and told him my plight. He insisted on coming over and waiting in the parking area, hoping I could come up with a way of escape.
I finally managed to locate a phone number for my Cuban friend. He was alarmed that I’d managed to get left behind and blamed himself leaving me when he finished his job. He didn’t know who to call either, but he spent the next couple of hours calling everyone he knew, hoping to find someone with a key to the building. It took three hours to finally locate someone willing to come back and rescue me.
I’d managed to get myself into plenty of sticky situations in the past, but working in a place where a lack of communication on the part of management could allow something like this to happen made me decide I was officially in the market for a more acceptable job. Fortunately, the paper had an ad for something which met my specifications. It was in a much newer printing company and only a few blocks from where we lived.
Since we were happy with our church and the children seemed to be adjusting to the school, Evan and I decided we would stick around the area for another year. We’d been pushed to sell the house near Jackson which we’d originally hoped to keep, because our insurance was canceled due to it being empty. We’d also managed to sell our first house, so now we had enough for a sizable down payment on a house in Metairie. Chevron had given everyone an extra year to settle permanently, agreeing to pay for one more move if we’d rented first in order to learn more about the area.
Time was running out if we wanted to have our move paid for. It was time to find an agent and start searching the area looking for a suitable home. This would not go as smoothly as we'd hoped.
By BethShelby
We soon had two different real-estate agents trying to find us a suitable place to live. It seemed the area where we preferred to live, which was near the lake and shopping malls, had nothing to offer within our price range.
We were taken to many older houses in various places, but they were much farther out and in neighborhoods we didn’t find appealing. Every day after work, we visited the newest listings, but we had seen nothing we were willing to make an offer on. Each day, we scanned the paper for new listings and for sale by owner ads. One day, a ‘by owner’ listing popped up in the area we were interested in, and the price was only $30,000. I called immediately and made an appointment to see it after work.
When I saw the house, I loved it. It was only one street off the lake and had a vacant lot on either side. The houses around it looked new. The yard was filled with flowers and tall trees. The single-story house was white brick. When I got to the door, the lady told me she would show it since I’d made an appointment, but that a man came that morning, gave her earnest money and signed an agreement to buy it.
The three-bedroom, two-bath home was far nicer than any of the houses we’d been shown costing thousands of dollars more. I was sick that it was under contract, because I was convinced this was supposed to have been our house. The lady who was selling it appeared to be Chinese, but she told me she was from Norway and was planning to return to her home country. She took my phone number and promised to call if anything happened to prevent the sale from going through.
When Evan got home, I insisted he go by and look at the house, but he couldn’t go inside since she was no longer showing it. Evan told me to forget about it since it was sold, but I wasn’t interested in looking at any more houses. None of the other houses had appealed to me at all.
That summer we got some sad news about one of the students at the school. He had incurable colon cancer and wasn’t expected to survive until the fall school session started. He was one of the boys in the class with Don and Christi. Don seemed to be taking the news really hard. It was much later after the boy had passed away when we finally learned why Don had been so upset.
This was the boy who had been giving Don trouble at school. Without telling us what was really going on, Don was praying God would cause the boy to die. After hearing about the horrible diagnosis, Don was sure his prayers were what caused his illness. Our son was suffering from the attack of a guilty conscience. It took a while to persuade him that his prayers had nothing to do with the boy’s death. At least, I certainly hoped not. I can’t imagine God granting such a spiteful wish.
A month passed and one day, we got a call from the Norwegian lady about her house. The buyer had not qualified for the loan to purchase her house. She wanted to know if we were still interested. Of course, we were. Somehow, I’d convinced myself that this was the house we were supposed to wait for, and I wasn’t all that surprised we would be able to buy it. Without an agent involved, the lady got her asking price, and we got a house for less than we would have paid anywhere else. It was in the perfect spot.
By the time the fall school session started, we were able to move in. We were very thankful that Chevron once again sent in packers and movers to do the work. The move was only a few blocks from our apartment, so it wasn’t bad at all.
The lady was unable to take her dog, which was a little black border-collie type. We told her it was okay to leave Blackie. She informed me that his meal preference was rice. It was something I seldom cooked, so we bought dog food, but Blackie wasn’t interested. The dog didn’t like dog food, but he knew which house would provide his choice diet, so he took most of his meals at a neighbor’s house three doors down. Evidently the dog was used to running the neighborhood, and everyone knew him. He was a problem because he tried to bite people passing on bikes. We wanted to keep him, but Evan didn’t like people yelling at us about our dog, so in the end we had to give him to someone who lived in the country.
We hadn’t been in our new house long before my monthly period was late. It had happened once before while we were in the apartments, but to Evan’s great relief, that turned out to be a fluke. I was a bit disappointed, but we continued to be careful and used birth control. However, this time, it turned out I was indeed pregnant. All of our children had managed to overpower the many types of birth control we used. They were meant to be, so we loved them all. We were glad nature made the decision when we couldn’t.
Carol was eleven and the twins were nine. Evan saw his chances of an early retirement slipping away, but he tried to put on a good face. I had mixed feelings. I knew there would likely be problems with Christi because she had exploited her role as the baby of the family. She adored me and was convinced she was the child who deserved all the attention. The other two were more independent and didn’t contend for the role.
We decided to bide our time and keep the news to ourselves. I was thirty-four, but Evan was forty-three and he thought that was too old to be bringing a new baby into the world. For sure, this would change the likelihood of our return to Mississippi to live any time soon.
By BethShelby
After we moved into our new home, we explored the area and realized there was a pumping station only a block away. It connected to the West Esplanade Canal. A path just past it led up the dam and to a trail along the edge of the lake where people hiked, jogged and rode bikes. We all had bikes so riding there quickly became a favorite pastime. The trail went in either direction. We could go right to the causeway or left toward the town of Kenner. We might go to the edge of Lake Pontchartrain and sit on the rocks lining it, or explore the wooded area on either side of the trail.
A few months after we moved in, we got word that our church had decided to sell that building on St. Charles Avenue and build a new church in the Metairie area. We were really surprised when we found out the property purchased for the new building was only a block over from our house. This was perfect, because we had been driving a long distance to church each week.
The pastor had seen to it that all members various talents were being put to use. Since I was an art major, he had me painting pictures for the class rooms. Evan was able to craft small items so he was making little school houses for the children’s departments to use for taking up donations for school needs. He would soon be used as a carpenter when the new church would be under construction. There was an architect among the members, who created the plans for the building.
I was also selected to be one of the superintendents who presented half-hour weekly programs between lesson study and church services. In addition to that, I was elected a Pathfinder leader which is something like being a scout troop leader. With my printing job, the church and school work, and duties as wife and mother, I had very little leisure time.
It wasn’t until I was past five months into my pregnancy and was starting to show, that I decided I had no choice but to tell the children they would be gaining a sibling. In 1973, no one knew what the sex of the baby would be until the birth. I remember being in the parking lot of the mall when I told the kids I had some news I wanted to share. I had expected an excited reaction, but I was a bit taken aback to hear stunned silence. Don finally broke the silence by asking if he could have a brother this time. I don’t remember the girls ever having much to say about it.
One of the men at church noticed my protruding belly and teased us by asking if we hadn’t figured out what had caused that yet. He had four kids of his own, so if we hadn’t, it appeared neither had he. At work, it was company policy for pregnant women to leave at the seventh month, but it was after the eighth month before they could afford to let me go. They had to find someone to take my place.
The pastor had a campout planned for the gulf coast and he had trouble finding enough drivers, so he asked me to be one of them. I tried to get out of it, because I was quite heavy by that time and it was nearing my due date. He said I wouldn’t have to do much other than drive, and I could sleep in the travel-trailer he and his wife were bringing.
As is often the case with campouts, many things went wrong. We arrived late and found the campground locked. It was midnight before we got it all sorted out and got the kids set up in their pup tents. We had a heavy downpour during the early morning hours, and the campground was flooded. The children's bedding and clothing were soaked.The following day while trying to dry things out, we were visited by skunks. In addition to that I was spotting and afraid the baby might decide to arrive early. Thankfully, it didn’t happen. I guess it needed the rest of the month to grow to a full ten pounds.
A few weeks later when I did go into labor, I had a bad cold and my doctor said he couldn’t give me the usual anesthetics. He wasn’t pleased to be called, because his family was having a reunion. He assumed since this was my fourth pregnancy, it would be fast. It would have been nice, but as always, my babies aren’t anxious to enter the world and I would be in hard labor all day. When my husband called his work to explain why he wouldn't be in that day, I learned just how reluctant he’d been to let anyone know he was going to be a dad again. He was a very private person, but he’d known these guys for years and he hadn’t mentioned it to a soul.
When I was fully dilated the doctor insisted on giving me a saddle-block, so after that it wasn’t painful, but everything from the waist down was numb for a few hours. Not being able to feel anything, I wet my bed. An aggravated nurse's aide asked me to stand up, so she could change it. I obeyed without thinking and promptly hit the floor. Then she yelled at me for not telling her my legs didn’t work. I think she got written up for not reading my chart.
My ten-pound daughter, who was fairly short was so fat that she resembled a little sumo wrestler. Evan went home to get the children and bring them back to see their new sister. The doctor was in the room checking on me when they were allowed in. Don asked him if he’d looked to make sure there wasn’t another baby in my stomach, because he was hoping for a boy.
I came home with hemorrhoids from having delivered such a big baby. I hoped the worst was over, but the fun was just beginning.
By BethShelby
By BethShelby
| Author Notes | I need to explain to new readers this is a continuing story. It is a chapter for a book, so if you are confused about some of the characters that is why. |
By BethShelby
Don, our only son, had some rather odd quirks in his personality. He wasn’t just competitive, he believed he was entitled to win at anything that involved a prize. He was a force to be reckoned with at birthday parties, because he always came home with any prizes given for the games played. I only hoped he had gotten them without maiming any of the guests. He particularly liked costume parties.
New Orleans was a costume party town. Anyone participating in Mardi Gras parades had to have different costumes each year. Many who went to the parades dressed up as well. Halloween was also costume time. As a result, the dozens of yard and garage sales which took place from Thursday thru Sunday every week had meticulously designed used costumes, for sale dirt cheap.
Don loved garage sales, and he got me hooked on them as well. With so many kids to buy for, it was the best way I knew to satisfy their need to own something different without spending money we couldn’t afford. Don liked having a selection in case there was an excuse to wear them. He would take the costumes and rework them to make sure his was a winner, and he usually brought home a first prize.
I had bags of clothing in the attic which the children had outgrown. Don found a new use for old items when he started stuffing them into pillowcases and shaping them into people. We learned of this when we tried to awaken what we thought was Don lying in his bed only to discover my carefully labeled clothing items from the attic were now mixed together in the shape of a sleeping boy.
Another of his quirks was his tendency to `not remember' if questioned about anything he might have done wrong. It was a little like pleading the fifth, but we were never sure whether he was the guilty party or just a kid having a bout of amnesia.
There was a time before we left Jackson when a puppy which we were raising suddenly became crippled. When we asked Don, who tended to be an accident waiting to happen, if he stepped on the pup or hit him with his bike, he gave us a confused look and said he didn’t know if he had or not. Since hip displacement wasn’t uncommon in that type of dog, we never knew for sure.
The same thing happened when he was accused of stepping on a little girl’s glasses. He neither denied nor admitted to anything. He simply didn’t know if he had stepped on them. This happened over and over, and he was always the first one questioned, but his answer left him a suspect with no proof of guilt.
In school one day, he tripped while playing tetherball. The teacher watching nearby told him not to move because his leg was bent in an odd position, and she thought it might be broken. The principal took him to the ER. I met them there and paid for the x-ray, which showed there wasn’t even a sprain. I asked him if his leg hurt when he fell. He said no it didn’t hurt at all.
I said, “Don, you are very flexible and having your leg in that position is normal for you. Why didn’t you tell your teacher you weren’t hurt?” He told me, “I was going to get up and keep playing, but she told me not to move.” This time I had to pay out a lot of money, and he had nothing at all to say.
Don had spent the first ten, or so, years of his life taking apart and destroying everything he could get his hands on. It paid off when he suddenly developed the skills to create rather than destroy. He started out making model airplanes and building other things from kits, but soon he was leafing through Popular Mechanics magazines looking for projects to build.
He found a boat that could be constructed with only one sheet of plywood. I figured this had to be well above the ability of a pre-teen, but after much persuasion, I gave in and bought the sheet of plywood. Without asking for any help, Don figured out how to use Evan’s tools, and to our amazement, he created a really neat little boat with curved sides which could hold up two or three people. We purchased the paint he asked for, and he managed to make it look like a professional job. He accomplished all of this without a major accident.
Well, at least, he didn’t do himself any serious harm. I, on the other hand, had managed to drop the plywood sheet on my big toe, and I limped around long enough to lose a toenail and have it grow back. That took a lot longer than I would have ever imagined.
Evan still owned the 153-acre farm and house in Mississippi, and we had continued to make regular trips back to see our folks and check on the farm. On one trip back, the boat went with us for a trial run around the little pond on our land. We all managed to have a turn in the boat with Don as captain. That is when we realized, to our dismay, the job wasn’t quite professional after all. The boat hadn’t been sealed properly, and we all had to dip water to stay afloat. Still, Don learned a lot. Working with his hands has served him well over the years. He turned out to be creative in many ways.
Our farm also became the reason Don’s desire for a Kawasaki dirt bike finally came true. He’d begged for months to be given one for his birthday. Evan was the one who gave in this time. I think he saw himself on that bike. Unlike most men, he’d never ridden a motorcycle. When he agreed Don could have one, it was with the stipulation it would be ridden only in the country and not on the streets of New Orleans. It wasn’t long until Don was jumping ditches and performing every imaginable trick he could think of.
After a long weekend of hard riding and an unfortunate jump that bruised him badly, it was summer and his turn spending to a week with my parents. We dropped him off with his grandparents, and headed back to New Orleans. During the night, his neck stiffened up and he could barely turn his head.
Mom took him to her local small-town doctor, who declared it looked to him like spinal meningitis. She called us freaking out and wondering if she needed to take him to a Jackson hospital or try to fly him back to us so we could handle this terrible diagnosis in New Orleans. Of course, our son had failed to mention to Mom or the doctor anything about his misadventures on the dirt bike. Had he known, I sure the doctore would have rethought the diagnosis.
He was fine. He just needed a few days for his muscle aches to subside.
| Author Notes | New reviewers please know this is only a single chapter in a on-going book. Don't review it as a complete story. ("Pleading the Fifth" has to with an amendment that allows people not to incriminate themselves when questioned) |
By BethShelby
Over the years, time changes all of us. But sometimes I wonder if maybe some of those characteristics that seem present during the first few years of our lives aren’t just a foundation to build on and more than a drastic change of direction, we just tend to magnify what is innately there.
I see a lot of myself in three of my children, but in my oldest daughter, Carol, I see more of my husband. I loved him dearly, but I didn’t really know what he was like as a child. He was twenty-six when we met. As Carol grew, I believe I got to know what he might have been like when he was young.
One thing, I learned early on about my Carol was she could be as stubborn as the roots of a redbud sprout. Maybe you never tried to pull one from the earth, but if they’ve reached the height of a foot, they don’t yield. Once some idea took root in Carol’s brain it was firmly planted, and trying to uproot it was a sure way to end up with ulcers. That doesn’t mean she was disobedient. She willingly obeyed almost everything asked of her, except when something went against every fiber of her being. Then she put her foot down and stubbornly refused to comply.
With Evan, I’d also learned the key to a happy marriage was to realize there were things I’d need to learn to live with, because they were a part of what made him who he was. It wasn’t a bad thing. I was more flexible and could adjust more easily to new ideas, but I had other hang-ups. There were personality traits in each other, that we both learned we had to work around and avoid challenging.
Both Carol and Evan related to people better on a one-to-one basis rather than in a group. Neither of them liked being pushed into a leadership role. Carol wasn’t thrilled at being in charge of her younger siblings, but she had a clearer head and was less likely to get in trouble. I sometimes insisted that she look after them. With Connie, it was different, Carol enjoyed the time she spent with her, and I think she thought she could do a better job of being a mother figure than I could.
Neither Evan nor Carol was likely to make the first move to make a friend. If someone extended the hand of friendship, they would accept it but wouldn’t pursue it. The other person had to be the one to take the initiative if the friendship was to continue. This was likely because both of them had introverted personality traits. They both shunned the spotlight.
Carol had friends but usually one at a time. She had sleepovers, but it was likely the other girl who initiated them. She could be led to go along with breaking the rules, but I don’t think it was ever her idea. She and another friend climbed through the schoolroom window and sneaked out of school to go to the store. Another time, she and another friend sneaked out at night to ride bikes at 2:30 am. One friend even persuaded her to steal a candy bar that really ate away at her conscience.
Over the years, she had various hobbies, but none lasted any length of time. For a short while she polished rocks, she made candles, did some tie-dye, and she kept a diary. There was a period, she was fascinated with eagles, and John Denver. She would spend hours on a bean bag chair day-dreaming and listening to music. In later life, Evan could spend hours sitting in a recliner listening to music, but he was more active in his youth. He liked to go to the woods alone to hunt squirrels and other game.
Carol, of all my children, is the hardest to describe, and yet she is the one I’ve always felt was the most dependable. She had a more serious and spiritual nature. This is another characteristic she shared with her dad.
At one point, Carol did something that didn't make sense to me. She decided listening to any music other than Christian music was something we shouldn't do. I think she must have heard that from a preacher or someone criticizing the music kids were listening to. It seemed she’d decided she was spiritually superior to the rest of us and needed to set an example. First she destroyed her John Denver and Barry Manilow albums and then began working on my collection.
When I walked in and found her and Connie sitting on the floor with shattered pieces and bits of vinyl around them, they were busily breaking the albums, and I went ballistic. I seldom bought anything for myself, but once in a while I treated myself to an album which I particularly liked. They were all clean mellow songs, and I couldn’t believe one I’d recently had trouble finding was among those she had destroyed. That scene left Carol and me both in tears and Connie looking confused.
Just about the time she was entering her teens, Carol got sick. She had stomach cramps and was throwing up. We took her to the doctor and he gave her pain medicine, thinking it had to do with her entering puberty. She got worse rather than better, and we finally took her to the ER. It turned out she had appendicitis, and before they removed the appendix, it had ruptured. Fortunately, she recovered without lasting problems.
Evan had a prominent bridge on his nose that had caused him to be self-conscious when he was young. It didn’t bother me at all, and I hardly noticed it. To me, his most noticeable feature was his sleepy blue eyes that reminded me of Bing Crosby. As Carol and Don approached their teen years, Evan was disappointed they had inherited his nose rather than mine.
Some of the guys at school who liked to tease Carol, had nicknamed her “Nose.” Carol actually liked having a nickname and felt it gave her a certain standing among her peers. When she mentioned her nickname to Evan, he got upset and suggested she have rhinoplasty. She agreed to have her nose fixed only because her dad wanted it for her. She had the surgery over the Christmas Holidays when she was fourteen.
The swelling lingered into January and without missing a beat or asking if she had surgery, the guys simply switched her nickname to Puffy-cheeks.
| Author Notes | This is chapter of a follow-up book to one I wrote earlier. |
By BethShelby
I've not said a lot about Christi because she seems to be the one who is most concerned about what I might have to say about her. She is a middle child but as I’ve said before, up until Connie was born, ten years after her, she had occupied the role of the baby of the family and she definitely didn’t want to give up that spot. Although she was a twin and born only six minutes behind Don, he was quite content to never be considered the baby. He couldn’t wait to grow up.
Christi made friends easily at her school and in our neighborhood. She was a pretty little girl so several little boys liked her. The principal liked her and gave her the nickname, Crispy-Critter.
When we first moved to New Orleans Christi was only nine and she was still playing with her Barbie Dolls. Although this story may embarrass her, she did a few things that embarrassed us as well. When we were still living in the apartment, one night she hid herself in a laundry basket in our room. She liked practical jokes and could manage to remain still and quiet for long periods of time. After we thought the kids were asleep, Evan and I decided to make love. I don’t know how much she heard or saw or how she interrupted anything, because she was extremely naïve. When she popped up from the laundry basket and yelled, SURPRISE! at a highly inappropriate moment, we were most certainly surprised.
To show how naïve she was, one day she went through drawers looking for something she might add to her toy collection and found a pack of condoms in our bedroom. Not bothering to ask what she might have found; she opened the pack, and then informed me she’d found something that would make a perfect raincoat for her Barbie. I don’t remember how I explained that Barbie wouldn’t be getting a raincoat.
One day, Christi and a little friend from down the street had gone outside to play. I thought they had gone to the other child’s house. Carol, Connie and Don had gone somewhere with Evan in the van. I took that opportunity to vacuum the house. The noise was loud, so I couldn’t have heard anything, but suddenly I got the eerie feeling something was wrong. I turned off the vacuum and went outside. I heard a faint bumping sound that seemed to be coming from my car which was parked in the driveway. Toward the back of the car, I heard the muffled sound of crying.
The car keys were in the trunk and locked inside was Christi. It seemed the girls were playing hide and seek. Christi had gotten the keys and had somehow managed to slam the door to the trunk down from the inside locking herself in. Unable to find her, the other child had gone home. Christi was hot and dusty and her face was streaked with tears. I don’t know how long she could have survived with the sun beating down on the car.
After the birth of Connie, Christi's behavior changed. Even though I tried to spend more time with her so she wouldn’t feel replaced, she acted as though she didn’t like me as much. She really had put me on a pedestal and acted as though I’d hung the moon before. She was always saying I looked like some movie star, but suddenly I had lost my charm. Now it seemed she worked at making us late if we planned to go somewhere. She was starting to have temper-tantrums. She would jump out her bedroom window and hide, so we would think she had run away.
No matter how bad the scene had been or how much trouble she had caused, she couldn’t allow herself to go to bed without coming in our bedroom and telling us both goodnight and saying she loved us.
We usually took a six hour each way trip back to Mississippi around once a month to visit family and check on things at our farm. It was a time when having a CB radio in your car was popular. When we got one at Christmas, we thought it was something we might all enjoy, so all of us came up with a name that would be our handle. Truck drivers always liked to talk. Unfortunately, everyone of us in the Shelby family became tongue-tied when it came to carrying on a conversation with a stranger traveling on the road. Everyone, that is, with the exception of Christi. She used Crispy Critter as her handle. To our surprise, she wasn’t shy about it at all. In no time, she had mastered the lingo and had good buddies all over. You never know when one of your kids is going to surprise you.
Christi had never spent a lot of time doing things with Don, even though as his twin, she thought he should spend more time with her. Episodes of the Six Million Dollar Man with Lee Majors and the Bionic Woman with Lindsay Wagner were airing on television in the mid-seventies. When we visited my parents in Mississippi, there were embankments along the road and also piles of dirt left by work crews doing construction of a new highway in front of my parent’s home. The twins enjoyed climbing and jumping so they finally managed to spend some time playing together pretending to be Steve Austin and Jaime Sommer from the TV series.
Carol, Christi and Don all adored my mother. Don didn’t get along so well with my dad because Dad had very little patience with boys. Carol and Christi were Dad’s favorites. Maybe, because she hadn’t spent as much time with my folks since she was born in Louisiana, they never totally bonded with Connie. Mom usually slipped the older children money on their way out.
Christi had always been addicted to sugar. She usually managed to get an overload of sugar at Mom’s house and the trips home usually found her on a sugar high. Sugar affected her like a drug. She was loud and crazy, and we could only hope it would finally wear off and she would go to sleep. On one such trip, she did fall asleep. Half way home we stopped for a break and everyone got out and stretched their legs, except for the sleeping Christi. When we got ready to leave no one noticed she had awakened at the last minute and gone in the store to spend some of the money Mom had given her.
We were well down the highway before we noticed she was missing. It took a while to find an exit and make the trip back to the service station. We figured she'd be really upset at being left behind, but when we got back, she was still trying to decide what to buy and had assumed we were still waiting in the van outside.
By BethShelby
Don and Christi continued to enjoy Mardi Gras and St. Patrick Day parades. Connie liked them as well, but Evan and Carol preferred to avoid crowds, and they only went occasionally. We all did go downtown one night to see a parade where Henry Winkler was the celebrity guest. Since the various parades started in January and there were a lot of krewes, parades continued almost two months.
Evan’s sister, Maxine and her husband, Wayne came from Mississippi to go to one of the French Quarter parades. We weren't with them, but a pickpocket stole Wayne's wallet. He pursued, caught him and got his wallet back, but Wayne was overweight and in his sixties. The exertion almost caused a heart attack. It made me decide to stay out of the French Quarter during parade time.
Collecting doubloons was a hobby and even a business for some. The local coin shops sold and traded them. Don was especially interested in having a big collection of the various doubloons. Carol collected them for a while until she got tired of the parades.
Some of the krewes were having their parades in Metairie and Kenner. This was a far safer area than downtown, especially when they were on Sunday afternoons.
Connie was four the last time I took the kids by myself to a day parade in the city. Christi and Don were impossible to keep up with when they followed the crowd as the floats went past. I didn’t dare let go of Connie's hand. The crowds were pressed together five or more rows deep. By the time the final floats had passed both Don and Christi were missing.
I was going batty running in every direction trying to find them while hanging on to Connie. I’d parked several blocks away, and I wasn’t even sure if I would remember where I’d left the car. I hoped the twins would be together, but they weren’t. I eventually found Christi but not Don. After the crowds dispersed, I didn’t know what else to do but try to find my car. I was so relieved to find Don waiting there for us.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only time I lost a kid. When the children needed clothes, we had our choice of two big malls. The Lakeside mall was possibly larger, but we usually chose the Clearview mall. When I took Carol and Christi, Connie always wanted to go as well. She was a pain to keep up with because she was fond of ducking beneath the dresses hanging on racks. We hauled her out several times, but she kept going back. The dresses were on circular racks that could be rotated. Carol and Christi were supposed to be watching her, but we all got distracted and before we realized it, Connie wasn’t where we thought she was. We searched ten or fifteen minutes in a state of panic before the intercom announced a lost child by the escalators.
I got busy teaching Connie her phone number. It was a smart move because the next time was much worse. That time, only Connie was with me, which was unusual. By the time I found the item I wanted and purchased it, I had totally forgotten I had brought her along. I got into my car and drove home without remembering. The first question I asked when I got home was, “Where is Connie?” Evan gave me a blank look and said, “I thought she was with you.”
My heart plummeted before starting to palpitate. Evan's face paled, and I grabbed my keys and started for the door. At that moment the phone rang. A lady from the mall was asking if she had the Shelby residence because she had a little girl who told her this was her phone number. Connie was only around four, and heaven must have been looking out for her. As bad as that seems, she never wandered that far out of my sight again.
Now that I’ve confessed, everyone probably believes I’m an unfit mother. I still don’t know what kind of bout with amnesia struck me that day, but I might as well admit that twelve years earlier, I lost Carol at the Jackson Zoo. I was showing her the ducks and must have taken my eyes off of her for a second, because she moved fast. I ran all over the zoo looking, but finally found her being watched by a guard by the exit gate. I guess he knew I’d have to come that way eventually.
The good news is we weren’t able to lose any of them permanently. Even after they grew up, like homing pigeons they kept returning.
In our 3-bedroom house, Carol and Christi shared a room with bunk beds and Don had his own room. After Connie outgrew the baby bed in our room, we needed more space. It involved enclosing the carport to make a den/dining combination and turning the dining room into a room for Carol which could be entered from the den. Connie and Christi then shared the room with the bunk beds. It wasn’t an ideal arrangement, but it certainly suited Carol’s need for privacy.
Jefferson Heights, the school the older children attended, didn’t go all the way through high school. Many students went to Mississippi or Arkansas for the last four years in a Christian Academy. Carol was fourteen when she graduated from eighth grade. Evan and I were members of the school board. We'd been shocked to realize even Christian school boards can’t always settle problems without people getting upset. We weren’t ready to send Carol away from home, so we decided to take all three of them out of the church school and try the public schools for at least a year.
The high schools in Metairie had separate facilities for girls and boys. Through middle school, both sexes were together. Christi and Don would attend eighth grade in a school near us, and Carol would be at Grace King, an all-girl’s high school. Busses would bring all of them to and from school. When the fall semester started, Don and Christi were in the same class, and things seemed to go smoothly for them.
Carol made a good friend on the first day, but this would be the only girl she would ever mention from the school. A huge school was a big change for her. She started spending most of her time in her room with the door closed. Evan and I felt like we almost needed an appointment to see her. Since she was an introvert by nature, we wondered if all that time alone was turning her into a recluse.
Krewe: A parading club usually with a name from Greek Mythology
Doubloons: Mardi Grss throws shaped like colored coin imprinted with name of Krewe ususally made of aluminum.
| Author Notes | New reviewers should know this is a chapter in a book, and may seem unfinished and disconnected if you haven't read other chapters. |
By BethShelby
Our older children continued a second year in public school, but now Christi also went to Grace King for her first year in high school. Don was sent to East Jefferson, a high school for boys. It was the first time the twins had been separated. Don soon had a new friend there, who he sometimes went home with after class. His mother and I got to be friends as well. In high school, the students had a different teacher for each subject.
Don showed some talent in writing in his English class. His handwriting, spelling and grammar left a lot to be desired, but his English teacher gave him high grades, because she loved the stories he wrote about himself. She said she found them hilarious.
Carol was in an advanced math class and she really enjoyed her accounting class because she had an aptitude for organization. She learned a lot about the various bookkeeping journals and paying bills. Since she seemed to have a leaning in this direction, I decided to turn over our household bills to her and let her mail out the monthly payments.
A friend of Carol’s from church got a puppy, and the owner had another he was interested in giving away. Carol begged for the part poodle mix, and we gave in after she agreed it would solely be her dog. She would keep him in her room and take care of his needs and train him. She named him Bimbo. Carol did her best, but puppies aren’t easy to train if you’ve never been around dogs. While teething, Bimbo chewed the legs on her furniture.
She never took him outside, but tried to paper train him instead. Bimbo stayed in her room, but she mostly ignored him. Maybe because he never went outside or got exercise his hair became thin. It was a bad experience, and Carol decided she never wanted another pet. After this failed attempt at dog raising, it was years before she owned another dog.
Christi had been good at spelling and memory work and had a neat handwriting. She loved music and had an excellent singing voice. Her downfall, was a class she had right after lunch which I think was history. She likely found it boring. Her teacher kept contacting me because she said Christi fell asleep in her class every day. She said she had to wake her to tell her the class was over.
Carol and Christi were both picking up some babysitting jobs in the neighborhood, but they didn’t babysit on school nights. There was no reason for her to not be getting enough sleep.
We had to change babysitters for Connie because Miss Dolly started to have problems with early onset Alzheimer’s. The last time she kept Connie, she tried to feed her food from the freezer that wasn’t thawed. After her husband died, she had taken in a boarder. The lady met me at the door crying. She said she couldn’t stay any longer because Dolly was accusing her of stealing and other weird things. The new babysitter, Miss Melanie, kept several other children, but Connie quickly became her favorite.
I changed jobs several times after Connie was born. The first job was a small printing company where I did art and pre-press work. It was a small shop owned by a married couple with only five employees. It was easy relaxed work for small presses. The couple adopted a baby while I was there and they brought him to work with them every day. After a couple of years, they decided to move to Memphis because they didn’t like the Louisiana Napoleonic Code concerning property division when someone died. The second wife wasn’t well protected and children from the first marriage would get the bulk of the estate.
After that, I got a job with a printing company just starting up a few blocks for home. I worked there until they also decided to move further away. Changing jobs didn’t bother me because I never had trouble getting another one. I could do art, camera or anything involved with printing other than running the press.
We tried to take a family vacation every year with the kids. We bought a new Dodge Charger and Evan agreed to try it out on the road. It was the first vacation we took with Connie, and we decided to go to Niagara Falls. It was also the first trip I ever planned carefully before leaving home. In the Shelby family, it is dangerous to make plans. It is far better just to let things happen. That way no one has unrealistic expectations. I won’t elaborate on it here as I have a whole chapter dealing with the problems involved in planning, which I will share next.
Connie didn’t give me nearly as much grief as Evan did on this trip. She was a pretty good traveler until we got ready to walk beneath the falls. This meant everyone was required to put on a heavy black rubber raincoat with a hood. I’ve already mentioned that Connie was born with inflexible ideas about what was allowed on her body and what was not to be tolerated. I’m sure you can imagine what we had to deal with in order to get her to comply. It is likely she was afraid of the roar of the falls, but her own roar for having to wear that coat came out loud and clear. That part of our trip was cut short due to her displeasure.
We really enjoyed the Canadian side of the falls and the beautiful formal English gardens. Since it was our first time in Canada, we drove a long way through the countryside and then back into Michigan. There were things I wanted to do in Detroit, but Evan was still upset with me about the early part of the trip and was anxious to get home.
| Author Notes |
This is a chapter for book rather than a single story.
Carol is oldest - Don and Chirsti twins born two year later Connie youngest born in New Orleans ten years behind Don and Christi. |
By BethShelby
For my husband, vacation and stress were synonymous. From the time we had toddlers on, he tried, with all the persuasive tactics he could muster, to weasel out of going on a vacation at all. But not wanting to be a total Scrooge and knowing I wasn't about to let the subject die a natural death, he generally gave in.
The first day, Evan usually drove, and I would attempt to amuse the kids and referee when they weren't amused. Since my spouse sought to avoid as much conflict as possible, driving was generally the lesser of the evils. Nevertheless, by the second day, it was in the best interest of all concerned that we find a place where he could hole up in a darkened motel room, sip coffee and pop pain pills, because by that time he was usually deathly ill with a migraine. The rest of the family was free to play on the beach, or whatever, as long as we tiptoed and carried on our more rambunctious activities somewhere out of his presence. Then came the time when he thought he had discovered the main reason vacations were so unpleasant for him.
"Beth," he said one year, "the whole thing is that these trips are so unorganized. If we knew exactly where we were going and where we were going to stay, I think it would be a lot less stressful."
Telling me to organize is like telling a toddler to create a filing system. My brain doesn't operate that way, but let it not be said that I'm unwilling to cooperate. Anything to keep him happy because as much as I crave adventure, I'm not up to tackling four kids alone. So, I organized and planned out an agenda that would make the most anal vacation planner proud.
I sent away for brochures and maps and made-up sightseeing charts and schedules. I worked for weeks packing and planning, and at last the big day arrived. I was prepared. This week-long trip involved a considerable distance. Each day called for about six hours of driving along an interesting route, some sightseeing, a fun activity for the kids and a nice motel with a swimming pool. For the first time in my life, I knew what city I would be in for the night, where we would be staying and what we would do when we got there. I'd thought of everything. Well, almost everything. I'd forgotten to schedule in that headache.
I also failed to calculate a couple of other things. The scenic route I planned for the first day was mountain travel. I had forgotten that a mile in the mountains is much longer than a mile on the Interstate. I had not considered the fact, we'd have to leave the scenic parkway to find suitable areas for coffee breaks, rest rooms, and lunch. Nor did I remember towns selling gasoline on Sunday might be few and scattered.
I began to get frustrated when I realized that we were going to be driving longer than my precious schedule called for. The children became irritable when their stomachs started to growl, and they needed a restroom stop. All of that was nothing compared with the anxiety my poor husband experienced as he watched the gas gauge sink lower and lower with no towns for miles on the map. Tempers flared. The migraine, that wasn't even on my itinerary, arrived twelve hours ahead of its usual timing. With the gas gauge reading empty, we finally located a dilapidated gas station that had a restroom of sorts and stale candy bars for sale. After gassing up, my husband informed me that he believed he was dying, and I would have to drive.
From the looks of him, I knew instantly there was no point in arguing. As I took the wheel, he collapsed in the seat beside me with his face about the color of watered-down pea soup.
"Turn around and go back," he pleaded. "It'll take hours to get back to the Interstate this way. I've got to find a place to sleep this off."
Suddenly, I saw my beautifully laid plans collapsing around me. "It's too far back," I protested. "Go to sleep and let me take care of it." It's always been my feeling that one place is about as good as another if you're sick enough to die anyway, and he looked like he was.
He was in too much agony to argue. All I heard from him for the next few hours were some intermittent weak groans. He didn't even appear to be aware of the battle going on in the back seat among four tired children with no referee and no one to attempt to amuse them. I sped up taking the curving roads as fast as I dared, trying desperately to get back on schedule.
After nine hours of driving, we emerged from the scenic route into a fair-sized city. My ailing husband roused. His face took on a frightening expression which I couldn't remember ever seeing before. With a voice that chilled me like a blast of arctic air, he said, "You stop this car at the first motel you come to."
I didn't argue. My last hopes of getting back on schedule crumbled. I was still sixty miles from my planned stop, but I knew the time had come to comply.
By the next day, his pain had somewhat subsided, and we proceeded on our way. There was a frostiness in the air that lasted the entire trip and had nothing at all to do with the fact we were in Canada. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that I had tried to kill him. For years at the mention of vacation, it all came flooding back to him in living color.
It wasn't the last vacation we ever took, but it was the last time a schedule was ever mentioned. The following summer, at the first hint of a trip, Evan relived the whole thing in graphic detail. I waited a few days until he had a chance to cool down, but he still refused to discuss a destination.
Finally, I threw some clothes together for everyone, and we started out anyway. Thirty miles down the road, Evan stopped the car and broke some match sticks. He told the three older children to draw one. (I wasn't even included in the drawing.) "Whoever gets the shortest stick decides which direction we head from here," he said.
Our oldest daughter Carol won and, to my utter amazement, we ended up in Colorado. (It was during her "John Denver" phase.) There was snow on the ground in the higher elevations, so we all had to buy jackets when we got there. We never knew from one hour to the next what we would be doing or where we would be sleeping that night. I wouldn't go so far as to recommend it for everyone. I don't know if it could be repeated. It was almost magical. I'm still amazed at how well the six of us functioned as a family. Maybe the memory of the year before was still fresh enough to make all of us more considerate.
At any rate, that trip stands out as the best vacation we ever took together, and Evan's migraine never even happened.
| Author Notes | This is a vacation trip taken in the late seventies with my husband and four children. |
By BethShelby
For Connie’s fifth birthday, among other things, she got a Strawberry Shortcake doll, a sleeping bag, and chicken pox. Her face looked like a speckled egg, but she grinned from ear to ear over her gifts. Chickenpox didn’t seem to bother her that much. However, before she broke out, she didn’t feel good and was running a fever. It happened to be a day when we were visiting family. She sat in my sister-in-law’s lap and Nan said the chickenpox Connie gave her almost did her in. It pays to get them out of the way when you're a kid.
Don’s friend David from his old school, talked him into wanting to go to boarding academy in north Arkansas for his junior year in high school. A straight shot from New Orleans to that school was right at 600 miles, and I wasn’t convinced I could trust him down the block. My first reaction was “No way!” The Church district paired Louisiana with Arkansas, and New Orleans and the church’s Academy couldn’t have been more widely separated. There was a much closer school but it was in Mississippi and was paired with Alabama. The churches encouraged parents to support their own district. It took both David’s parents and the pastor to argue their case and finally get us to agree against our better judgment.
That year for family vacation, Arkansas was the obvious choice. We combined it with a camping trip. We’d been to Arkansas before and we loved the Ozarks. They aren’t as hazy as the Smokies or as rugged as the Rockies, but they’re green and peaceful. The streams trickling down over the rocks make a charming sound that blends well with all the many song birds. We’d been to Hot Springs several times and always enjoyed going to the auction houses and to the lakes in the area.
Years ago, when we couldn’t afford vacations, we took two trips to Hot Springs on different years because a real estate developer was willing to pay for your vacation if you’d agree to spend a half a day listening to them try to hypnotize you into buying property there. They had a well trained sales staff, and we almost gave in one year. It might have been a good investment, but it was a long way from home. Companies started selling vacation time shares using the same tactics of giving away trips and other freebies. Those were something we soon learned to avoid like the plague.
On this trip, we went further north and spent a couple of nights at a Yogi Bear campground which had outdoor movies, hay rides and other adventures for kids. We visited a heritage site where Connie freaked out over a cave we went in, and we visited the Pea Ridge Battlefield. Later we went to see Christ of the Ozarks and a Passion Play. We also went to Branson, Missouri. It was just starting to develop as a Country Music site that attempts to rival Nashville.
The last thing we did was to drop Don off at the school. I spent a lot of time with him making sure he understood what classes he needed to take in order to be able to go to college. I thought we had it all worked out. I should have known better.
He found some friends he knew from home and got to meet his roommate and from that point on we were ignored. He was excited to be on his own for the first time in his life and ready for his family to disappear. Christi was sad to be losing her twin, but she didn’t seem anxious to leave home.
Once we got back home, it was time for school to start again there as well. Since Connie was five, she would be going to kindergarten for a half a day and would need to ride a bus to school and back. I took her the first day and got her registered. I met the mother of another little girl Connie’s age who lived just three doors down from us. I was concerned about not having anyone home when Connie would be getting off the bus. The neighbor lady, whose name was Lisa, told me about her next-door neighbor who had a little girl one year younger. She suggested this neighbor might be able to keep Connie until my girls got home. She introduced me to Dianne and she said she'd be happy to take care of Connie. It was a perfect arrangement for me. Connie got to be friends with both of these ladies’ daughters, Jennifer and Lesley. After Connie got to know them, I almost had to drag her away. She thought Miss Diane was wonderful, and I think she would have moved in with them, if possible. Diane and I got to be good friends and we’re still in contact even now.
We talked to Don by phone to see how things were going in Arkansas. He liked his roommate, Lowell, who was from Arkansas. They were getting along great, and he really liked the school. I was happy until I learned that he had completely changed his schedule we had worked out and now he was taking a bunch of fun elective courses that would not help him to get into college at all. His excuse was he had to change the courses because the times interfered with his work schedule. This was a school where students were expected to have jobs around the campus that helped with tuition. He had met his supervisor and was pleased with the job he had been assigned.
He was so far away for home there wasn’t much I could do except to stew about it. In a month the school would have a long break and there was a bus that would bring the Louisiana students home and then return them to the school. Break time came, and guess who missed the bus.
Don was on the phone in a panic. He really did want to have his break at home since everyone was leaving for a few days. In spite of getting us upset, it worked out well. The bus driver was responsible for making sure all the students were there. He’d called the roll but somehow, he did not realize Don hadn’t answered when his name was called. The school admitted their mistake and put him on a plane. He actually managed to make it home several hours before the bus arrived and have his first plane ride as well.
By BethShelby
When Don was home on his first break from the academy, he was full of tales of what went on at the school. There were some girls showing an interest in him. This was the first time he’d even mentioned the opposite sex. He was trying to pretend it didn’t matter, but I could tell he was pleased. Still, he didn’t seem quite sure how he should react to their advances.
Teens in north Arkansas participated in sports Don was unfamiliar with. He was anxious to give them a try. To me, they sounded dangerous. They involved rappelling off of mountains, and spelunking, which I understand is climbing around in caves while exploring them. He mentioned crawling on your belly in the dark with a light attached to your head. I didn’t like the sound of that at all.
Other sports involving snowboarding and skiing, would something for later. Having lived in the deep south, snow was something we rarely saw. Those were things a mother doesn't care to know her accident-prone son will soon be involved with. It made me wonder why I ever agreed to allow him to go so far away. Still, Don was more excited than I’d seen him in a while. I had to acknowledge my children were starting to grow up and letting them try their wings was part of it.
Connie started out her year as a class clown, and came home with some frowny faces in conduct. Being a behavior problem got her separated from the section to which her more serious friend Jennifer was assigned. Since I was a working mom, and Diane was a stay-at-home mom, Connie liked pretending Diane was her mom. She liked the idea of having a younger mom. Diane was barely in her twenties, while I was in my mid-thirties and Evan in his mid-forties. Carol walked her to the bus each morning, and Connie even told some of the kids, Carol was her mother. I’m happy to report that now she sees me in a more favorable light.
Connie also tried to change her name. The teacher thought the name Connie might be short for Constance, so she let her believe that was true by answering roll that way. I’m not sure why she preferred that name, but maybe it was because Don told her Connie stood for con-artist and that is what she was turning out to be.
Christi got interested in sports and joined a softball team. She tried out and was chosen to be a part of the color guard at her school so she would be marching in the Mardi Gras parades behind the flag bearers. This meant buying a uniform which was a short pleated green skirt in school colors, a white satin blouse, white gloves, white boots with green tassels, a white hat and green pom-poms.
Carol was a senior and she did well in her classes. When I saw work she did in art class, I realized she had a lot of talent in art. Pencil portraits as well as oil painting were favorites. She was also in a free enterprise class which might have come under the heading of economics. The school was teaching entrepreneurship which meant she had to come up with a project where she could earn money. She made Christmas ornaments from clothes-pins which she sold on campus. Aside from the one friend, she made on her first day at the school, she never mentioned any other girls from Grace King.
Carol did have some friends from church, and one was a Spanish girl that she visited from time to time. They both wanted to go to a college in Texas, and they were planning to be roommates. Carmen had come from El Salvador to live with her sister who was married to an airline pilot. She’d had to learn English after she got to this country, so she was a little behind in school. She took her GED in order to be ready for college the following semester. Carol finished high school in December and got a job at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in the spring. She didn’t plan to start college until the fall semester.
We all enjoyed Carol’s job because at the end of the day, she was free to take all the doughnuts she wanted from those which hadn’t sold. She had some bad experiences while working there because several people she knew died tragically. Two of them worked with her and one was a daily customer who died of a heart attack. One worker was hit by a car and a young doughnut cutter who she was starting to like as more than a friend, died when his trailer caught on fire at night. That seemed to hit her hard.
Carol almost experienced something which could have been disastrous involving a babysitting job. It was with a family where she had kept the children many times. She knew both the single mother and the man who was her boyfriend. He often drove her home. One night she had an appointment to babysit, but she received a call at the last minute to say it had been canceled. Shortly afterward, she learned that night the boyfriend had been murdered by the ex-husband. I can’t imagine what might have happened if she had been there at the time.
Don came home on several more breaks, and he never missed the bus again. On one break, he chose to go home with his roommate, Lowell, from Enid, Oklahoma. Lowell had a younger sister who was attracted to our son as well. She later wrote some letters to him.
He enjoyed his year at the school and at midterm he did pick up some of the core courses he would need in order to graduate from high school. His job went well and he learned some construction skills while working. To our amazement, he survived the year with no emergency visits. The one special girl he mentioned often was named Lenora.
The actual graduation service for Carol didn’t take place until May even though she finished school in December. Both Evan’s mother and my mother and dad came for the graduation. It was a huge class and those things tend to get tiresome, but family is expected to endure it for the sake of their graduates.
| Author Notes | A chapter in an on going book. |
By BethShelby
The greater New Orleans area and Metairie where we lived, like other big cities had its share of crime. We hadn’t experienced any problems where we lived, and since it was an upscale neighborhood where houses were close together, we felt safe and had little concern that something might go wrong.
After we enclosed the carport to make a room for Carol, it meant the parking had to be in our driveway. Even that didn’t take care of our needs, since we had a van and car and only a single car driveway. We were fortunate that on the left side of our house was a vacant lot. The city insisted on it being kept mowed, so periodically someone would come out and cut the grass. We never knew who owned the lot, but no one ever questioned the fact we were pulling our van up near the house on the edge of the lot.
Evan drove the van to work every day, and I used the car. One morning, Evan got in the van to go to work, and it didn’t start. When looking beneath the van, he discovered that everything that could be removed from beneath a vehicle had been. We learned rather quickly a team of thieves were operating in our area. They would jack up a vehicle in the night and take what parts could be removed while the family slept inside. Being the victim of such a crime left us feeling violated and vulnerable.
I can recall only one other incident where we were targeted. The other happened before we moved from the apartments. Christi’s new bike which was chained to a post below the apartment was stolen during the night. This was likely a teen-age thief. The bike was chained improperly through the spokes making it easy to cut the spokes and remove it.
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In June of 1979, Connie had her sixth birthday. I decided to give her a small party, but there were only a few kids I knew of to invite. Connie gave out the invitations to those around us. There were two girls across the street, a boy and girl next door and Diane’s daughter, Lesley, and Jennifer who lived next to Diane. I had the house decorated with balloons and party favors and a big cake. Christi had agreed to supervise the games. At the two o’clock hour, Diane showed up with Lesley. Diane and I sat and talked as we waited for the other children to arrive. By nearly three o’clock, no one else had arrived. I was embarrassed and felt terrible for Connie, who had been excited about her party.
Diane excused herself saying she needed to run home for a minute, but she would return. It wasn’t long until she was back bringing with her five more children I’d never seen before. Diane was a Brownie Scout leader, and she’d managed to round up children quickly so that Connie wouldn’t be disappointed. It reminded me of a parable in the Bible where a king gave a wedding feast. When the invited guests didn’t come because they had other plans, the king sent his servants out on the streets to round up everyone they could find and bring them to the feast instead.
It was nearly four p.m. when the children who’d been invited came as well. It seems they had been previously invited to other parties and were only able to come after the other parties ended. Connie had a good party after all. I realized Diane was a true friend, who cared about others and wanted to make sure my child wasn’t disappointed.
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When school started back up in September, Christi wanted to go away to boarding school with her twin. This time, Evan and I, as well as the other parents, decided north Arkansas was too far away. We all opted to send our children to a place only two hours away in Mississippi near Hattiesburg. After getting them settled in the school for their senior year, it was time to get Carol to her college near Fort Worth, Texas. Evan and I drove her there in the van with the intention of leaving it so that Carol would be able to use it to get back home. Connie went along with us. We had airline tickets so the three of us could fly back home from the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.
It was storming as the time came to fly out. The airport had overbooked, and there weren’t enough seats. There was an announcement offering free flights to those who were willing to wait for a later flight. Neither Evan nor I wanted to get on that plane in the middle of a storm. We discussed waiting and were about to volunteer, when the announcement was made that enough people had agreed to delay their flights, and they didn’t need any more.
We had no choice but to fly. I had only flown in a big plane once before. Evan and I were nervous. It was Connie’s first flight, and she sensed our anxiety and became upset about flying as well. On the flight home, the turbulence was extremely bad. We had to keep the seatbelts fastened the entire flight. The pilot kept moving to different levels hoping to make the flight smoother, but nothing seemed to improve. We were sitting over the wing and looking out reminded me of bird in flight flapping its wings.
Only a few years before an Eastern Airline had crashed in a storm in New Orleans killing 113 people. It was due to a wind shear problem. It was the second time an Eastern Airline flight had crashed in New Orleans. Thankfully the Delta flight from Dallas to New Orleans didn’t last much longer than two hours, but I’ve never been so happy to finally be on solid ground again.
Now that we were home again with only one child left, our house felt very empty. Connie was starting first grade on Monday. She was missing her siblings and was getting to experience what it was like to be an only child. It was easy to see why she wanted to stay at Diane’s house whenever she wasn’t in school.
By BethShelby
When Carol came home on school breaks, I wanted to know everything that was going on with her, but knowing her personality, which was a lot like her dad's, I realized it would be a fishing expedition and one in which there were no guarantees I would learn anything meaningful. While the other children would pour out their woes without any invitation, Carol tended to indicate she had nothing, either good or bad to report.
Evan wasn’t one to question her, but that wasn’t my style. I wanted to hear what was going on. She seldom volunteered anything, but she would answer a direct question. I just had to keep digging. Carol was a deep thinker, who tended to hold everything in. She didn’t know how to make small talk.
I made it a point to get her off by herself and tried to come up with questions that showed an interest without being judgmental or prying. She may not have seen it the way it was intended, but she did let a few details out about her life. She had joined an off-campus Bible study group with a friend. She told me a bit about the older man who was leading out, and it was apparent, she was intrigued by his approach. It sounded as though, more than a teacher, he was acting as a counselor.
I didn’t say so, but I was bothered by this. Carol had the personality type which led me to believe she could be influenced by a cult type leader who might feel he had discovered some wisdom ordinary people weren’t privy to. My mother, as well, had mentioned that she felt Carol could be easily misled.
Although there was nothing specific which she told me about the leader to indicate he might not be just interested in helping young people, it still set off some alarm bells. The Jonestown incident, which happened in Nov. 1979, was still fresh on my mind. Carol was attracted to people who appeared to be spiritually deep. There was an old man in my mother's church who Carol had spent time with during the past summer when she visited my mother. Mother felt he was a good man, but I knew no one who could vouch for the leader of this group.
I also learned there was a student Carol was interested in. He had been adopted from South Korea by an American Missionary family. He was the son of an American soldier and a Korean mother. He had lived, for a while, on the streets of Korea as a young boy. This didn’t bother me, and I was glad she’d found a male friend, but when I told Evan, he wasn’t happy about that. For some reason, men often think no one is good enough for their little girl. Evan felt someone who had lived on the streets as a young boy might have some serious baggage.
Evan had created a problem for us, years before, when he insisted on buying the farmland out from Jackson and later building a house on the property. At the time, he’d assured me we wouldn’t live there, but he thought land was a good investment. Since our main home was on the outskirts of Jackson, he could go and work on the property in the afternoons or weekends, and we could use the house for vacations. At the time, he hadn’t expected his company to move to New Orleans.
At the time. I didn’t have a problem with it, but now that we no longer owned the larger house, I felt he was hoping he could talk me into moving back there when he retired. I understood he didn’t want to give up his land, but I had a serious mental block when it came to discussing his retirement.
Because he realized I wasn’t willing to discuss moving back there, he used Carol as a sounding board. Carol would listen, and whether she offered opinions, I didn’t know. He and Carol would often take a walk on the path by the levee. I knew he needed to talk, and I was relieved she took some of the pressure off of me. She knew she would never be expected to live there, and perhaps, she just listened. Not having someone to talk to about his desire to retire and go back to Mississippi was one of the reasons Evan missed Carol being home.
Dealing with the house and land was something I knew I would have to face at some point, but I was willing to try to block it from my mind until circumstances demanded we make a decision. With Connie still so young, I hoped both of us could continue working until she finished high school.
Don’s hand healed enough that he was back on the gymnastic team. He invited us to come and see the show they were putting on at the school. We went and were very impressed. Don was a talented gymnast. He had gained popularity with his singing skills as well. He enjoyed doing Elvis Presley impersonations, and that went over well with the students. One good thing about our visiting the school was it was on the route we had to pass when we went back home to visit our folks and check on the farm.
I went back to the academy for the mother/daughter banquet. Christi and I didn’t get matching gowns. We settled for matching colors, using clothes we already had. Money was tight with three children in private schools.
We were determined not to borrow any money, so we worked as much as we could and avoided spending money we weren’t forced to spend. I didn’t want any of our children to have to start out life in debt. Evan and I were brought up in homes, where going into debt wasn’t an option. Not everyone thought like we did, and because we said “no” so often to the things our children’s friends had, I think they believed we were either very poor or very stingy.
As the year moved on toward the end of the semester, we looked forward to having all of our children back home for the summer months. We hoped the school year would end smoothly with our twins having earned their high school diplomas.
Why would we ever really expect a smooth outcome for anything knowing our family history? In the near future, it would be Christi’s turn to cause Evan and me a few more gray hairs.
| Author Notes | This a chapter in a continuing book. |
By BethShelby
Don continued to believe he was in love with CiCi after her mom brought him home. I was dismayed to learn they were alone together a lot during that week. From what he told me, I got the impression, she’d had more experience with guys than he’d had with girls. He claimed to be too reluctant to go along with some things she had in mind. I didn’t question him too closely. I was surprised that her mother was okay with them being alone. He continued to see her regularly throughout June, but I couldn’t help but be relieved when they moved out of the area
Christi and Don got camp counselor jobs in Florida during July and August and both had summer crushes with new friends they met at camp. We went down to pick them up at the end or the summer. While in Florida, we toured the Kennedy Space Center and spent some time on the beach.
*****
Over the summer, Diane and I got to be close friends, and Connie continued to want to spend all her time at her house. Diane joined our church and decided she wanted to send Lesley to the church school. In September of 1980, Connie and Lesley attended the same school our older children had.
Unfortunately, one of the new teachers had a problem with epilepsy. The kids witnessed some episodes which freaked them out. It was her first year to teach, and she decided the unruly kids must be possessed with demons. Having a teacher trying to eliminate the demons in her wasn’t something which went over well with Connie. That teacher only taught the one year. Other people had a problem with that as well.
*****
In September, Carol and the twins took the van and headed back to Texas to the college. Since the twins had no concept of how to conserve money, I put Carol in charge. This time Carol and Christi started the year rooming together. It didn’t work well for either of them. Carol didn’t like the responsibility of dealing with Christi. Their personalities were off the scale in opposite directions.
With fewer children to deal with, I had a bit more time on my hands. I was working full time, but with less overtime, I decided I wanted to renew my expiring teacher’s license. I had gotten the license in case I decided to pursue teaching. To renew it involved me taking additional college classes. I was certified to teach art, but most of the schools no longer used art teachers. I decided I would try to get certified in English. I signed up for two English night classes. One of them was creative writing.
Since I’d been out of college for ten years, I felt awkward being back in school. There were three students older than I in the beginning, but they dropped the class after a couple of sessions, leaving only about eight students. The rest were young college students. It was an intense class which met once a week. We had a story to write for each week’s assignment. We would read the story to the class and then everyone would have a chance to rip it to shreds. I objected to some of the foul language the students used, but I was told that was the way to create reality. Having graduated from a Baptist College, I felt very naïve in my approach to writing. All the “f words” seemed unnecessary.
*****
At the spring break, our kids drove the van home. When they got near our neighborhood, a little black dog ran in front of the car. They didn’t stop quickly enough. The dog was knocked out, but still breathing and there was no blood. They picked him up and brought him home. It was extremely late so we put him in a box. I expected to find him dead the next morning, but instead he was very much alive, barking and wagging his tail. They took him back where they found him, but he kept trying to get back in the car, so they brought him back home.
We had planned a trip to Pensacola Beach so we took the dog with us. He tagged along wherever we went and acted as if he had found a family. When our mini-vacation was over, we came back home. The following day, the dog disappeared. We didn’t even know how he got out of the house. We went up and down the streets looking and calling, but we never saw him again. That was just one of the many mysteries we had encountered over the years that seemed to have no logical answer.
*****
When the school year ended, Evan and I had second thoughts about sending the kids back to Texas for another year. After two years there, Carol still couldn’t decide on anything which interested her enough that she might want to pursue it as a major. The twins didn’t know what they wanted to do either. We begin to wonder if we were throwing our money away on college. There were just so many core courses one could take, before it was necessary to go in some direction.
It seemed Texas was too far away. There was a larger College in Tennessee which would probably offer more options. Since we still owned property in Mississippi and spent a lot of time there, it felt like this Tennessee college wouldf be a better option. Carol had spent a lot of time with Tommy, the Korean boy, and she had started having serious feelings for him. She wasn't happy about the idea of changing colleges.
During the summer of 81’ the twins got camp counselor jobs again. That time they worked in Virginia. By the end of the summer, they both thought they were in love. For Don, it was a girl who would be attending the Chattanooga College in the fall. For Christi, it was an Australian boy who was spending a year in the states seeing America. These two new relationships would send both of our twins in a new direction in the near future, but not necessarily for the best of reasons.
| Author Notes | This is a chapter in an ongoing book and not a stand alone story. |
By BethShelby
Considering the fact that time meant very little to Christi, I was surprised that no one from the school had notified us that she wasn’t making it to class on time. Maybe these things were worked out on campus rather than sending notes home to the parents. After all, these students were no longer children. I did learn she’d been warned she was in danger of losing her campus job, if she couldn’t make it to work on time.
All things considered, for her first time away from home, things were working out better than I’d expected. Her grades weren’t bad, and she’d made a lot of friends. She didn’t have a steady boyfriend, but she wasn’t at a loss for dates when they were allowed. She was in the Chorus, and enjoyed singing and traveling with the group. Aside from the usual money problems and the weird hyena shriek she had developed at the first hint of something amusing, all was going well.
Graduation was only a week away. The class talent show was one of the highlights of graduation week and something the students planned for their parents and friends. Exams were over for the seniors. All of them would take part in skits or musical numbers and they had been practicing on stage. Most of the parents would be there for the big final weekend. It was an exciting time. With classes out of the way, the students had too much time on their hands.
Our middle daughter had stayed out of trouble just about as long as she could tolerate. No offense carried a stricter penalty at this school than that of a student daring to invade the sleeping quarters of someone of the opposite sex. This was the rule she chose to violate.
I never learned whose less than brilliant idea this was, but Christi and another friend decided, it would be a great sport to sneak into the room of a sleeping male student, seize his covers, yank them off, and yell "Trucking". Then they would bolt from the room in the dark hoping not to be seen. I never learned how they picked their victim, but he was likely some cute guy they both had a crush on. The trick went off as planned, but students talk, and the administration learned of the prank.
When the phone rang and I saw it was from the school administration office, my first thought was ‘what has my son done now?’ It came as a shock when I was told we needed to come down immediately and get our delinquent daughter and take her home because she was no longer allowed on campus. Her final fate was still pending. The board would meet and decide whether or not she would be expelled.
The idea that we’d paid out all that money to have our daughter not graduate and have a black mark on her record made me both angry and appalled. If this had happened early in the year, there was no question that she would have been expelled. I hoped the fact she had passed her final exams might be in her favor so long as she didn’t go back onto the campus.
A hasty meeting of the staff convened. They decided perhaps expulsion might be too stiff a punishment since this was the first offense. Although she wouldn't be allowed to participate in or attend any of the graduation parties, the talent show or other activities, she would be allowed back on campus for the actual graduation ceremony and would receive her diploma. This was good news.
I was making the arrangements to leave my job to go after my mischievous juvenile offender, when I got a call from the father of one of Christi’s off-campus friends. Christi had visited many times in their home before and the mother often had kids from the school for a meal.
"There's no point in you having to make that long trip," he said. "We'd be delighted to have her stay with us a few days." I considered his proposal and agreed. It was lucky for her, because I wasn't taking any of this too lightly. If I’d known a little bit more about this man, I would have said “Thanks but no thanks.” He thought the prank was priceless, and he was willing to put his own touches to an even more serious prank which could have caused the staff to insist on Christi being expelled.
Saturday night was talent night, and at least one of our children was participating. Don had parts in several skits and an Elvis song for the talent portion. Since Christi was banned from the campus and Don was already there, we went straight to the auditorium.
The lights were turned down and the program was starting when we noticed an odd-looking old lady, wearing a long dress and a pull-down hat, enter, leaning on her cane. She kept her head down to avoid eye contact with anyone and sat down quickly. It wasn't long before whispered messages were being passed from one student to the next. Heads turned and giggles erupted. Before the program ended and lights came back on, the lady got up and hobbled her way to the exit, amid another round of giggles.
Finally, it dawned on me why the kids were laughing. My daughter, this time with the blessing and aid of her friend's delinquent father, was once again defying the school's rules by masquerading in a disguise. I was horrified. Since all the students seemed to know it was Christi, I was sure someone in authority would probably find out as well. Too many students were willing and anxious to tattle. I fully expected the diploma to be snatched from her grasp at the last minute.
We were so relieved the following day when we saw Christi among those wearing caps and gowns. After the ceremony, she introduced Evan and me to her friend’s father. He acted as though he expected us to be pleased because he’d helped disguise her so she could attend the activities and ignore the demand that she remain off campus. I’d been too worried that there would be no graduation, so I wasn’t in the mood to find it a laughing matter. I just wanted to collect my twins and their luggage and head home before we ran into any of the staff.
Don had other ideas. He was pleading with us to let him spend the week with CiCi. My initial reaction was, “Are you out of your mind?”
But then CiCi and her mother came up, and asked if we would let him stay with them that week. She assured us she would bring Don home. We reluctantly agreed. I assumed she'd be there with them. It probably wasn’t a smart assumption.
It would be a long time before Connie would be graduating from high school. I doubted if this school would be one which she would want to attend. Who could know what another ten years might bring. We could deal with that when the time came. At least for now, we all had several months to be together as family until time for the older three to go away to college.
| Author Notes | You might recotnize much of what is here from another recent post entitled "Trouble Times Two" This one is only about Christi. It is a chaper in an ongoing book. |
By BethShelby
As the school year started in fall of 1981, our three older children began the year at a college in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Carol had reluctantly agreed to get into the nursing program, not because she was interested in that field, but because she didn’t know anything else she wanted to do. It seemed it would be a field where it would be easy to get a job.
Don thought he might be interested in construction, or else something like sports medicine. Sports medicine required a lot of science courses and good grade-point averages. Don hadn't applied himself, nor had he taken any of the required courses toward a degree in sports medicine.
Christi was playing with the idea of being a teacher. At least it was a start toward a career. She had pretty good grades, but she had already tried some substitute teaching and found she had trouble with discipline, much the same as I had had. A test she had taken to determine what she might be suited for showed hair dressing or some type of beauty product related field. She knew someone who was doing well as a massage therapist and was interested, but this school didn’t have such a course, so she just continued along the lines of general education. Since neither she nor Carol had a roommate, they decided to try rooming together again, but we all knew that wasn’t likely to last for long.
Don was able to get himself a job as the gymnastic coach at the college affiliated high school. The college also had a gymnastic team. He was back in school with other friends he had known from his high school days, so this school appeared to be a good fit for him. One of the classes he enrolled in was furniture making. He excelled at working with his hands, but the class turned out to be costly for us. The wood required for making dining and coffee tables was by no means inexpensive.
Evan, Connie and I made a trip from New Orleans to the school in the fall to watch Don's gymnastic team perform. It was an excellent show and our son was a lot better than I had realized. He was in good physical shape.
Connie was attending Alice Birney the public elementary school, where instead of getting recognition for academic achievement at the school’s fall awards program, she was called on stage and given recognition as the class clown. Apparently, her teacher appreciated her sense of humor.
Carol’s Korean friend, Tommy made a trip to her college in Chattanooga to see her, and they continued to write. At the end of her first year of nursing, the school had the students do a summer internship. One choice was back at the Texas college, she left the year before. She chose to go there in hopes of spending more time with Tommy.
Unfortunately, he had gotten a summer job as a life guard and was very popular with the girls who spent a lot of time in the pool. Carol hadn’t had competition for his attention in the past, so her summer didn’t turn out the way she’d hoped. He had changed from the way things had been the year before, and there was some drinking involved which was against school rules. They ended up fighting a lot. Although they remained friends, it wasn’t like their relationship had been before.
The summer for Don and Christi meant working again as camp counselors at Camp Blue Ridge in Virginia. They took a train from New Orleans to the camp. Kelly, the girl Don met at this camp, caused him to fall hard. Since she would be going to school with him in September, he was looking forward to seeing a lot more of her during his second year in Chattanooga. This turned out to be one of the worst years of his life.
The year started out fine with Kelly and she invited him home with her at their first break to meet her parents. I thought it was a bad idea and tried to talk him out of going. I didn’t think meeting the parents for the first time on an extended visit to their home would bode well. It gives the parents, who tend to be naturally suspicious of someone interested in their daughter to begin with, more opportunity to find all of their prospective son-in-law’s hidden flaws. I’d known other relationships which had stalled out on the first visit.
Don didn’t listen to my reasoning and went anyway and the result was that Kelly broke up with him as soon as they returned to campus. She didn’t give him an explanation, and I think it is possible her parents forbade her to keep dating him.
At any rate, his heart was broken. Not only did this rejection shatter his male ego, but a class in Auto Mechanics, which he thought would be something to help bring up his lagging grade-point average, turned out to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back and destroyed what little self-confidence he had left. That chapter of his life deserves its own story. This story is entitled Negotiating the Negative.
By BethShelby
My mother made a trip to New Orleans before Carol’s wedding so she would be able to drive down with us to see her first grandchild get married. While she was with us, we took her to the World Fair.
A couple of years before she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and after a partial removal of the thyroid, the doctor said she also had lymphoma. She started chemo but after a few treatments, she and the doctor had a falling out. He said Mom asked too many questions. He told her she was terminal. He would no longer treat her because he felt she was questioning his judgement. She discontinued the treatments and tried juicing. She didn't bother looking for another doctor. While she was in New Orleans, she made an appointment to visit Ochsner Medical Center, a world class diagnostic hospital, to have them check her for cancer. After extensive tests, they found no signs of cancer.
After the wedding and one night in Valdosta, Georgia, Carol and Glen came to New Orleans to continue their honeymoon and to see the World Fair. Glen hadn’t been to our house before and don’t think he’d been to New Orleans before either. On their way home they went back through Mississippi and spent one night with my parents and another at a hotel along the way before heading back to Georgia.
Glen had a job but decided, he wanted to get into college and get a nursing degree himself. His father had been a nurse anesthetist before becoming a doctor. He had a brother in the medical field, as well. Glen was a couple of years younger than Carol, so he was later in getting started with a career. They rented a place in Valdosta, Georgia where Carol continued to work as a nurse.
Since our house was convenient, we ended up hosting a lot of guests as long as the fair was around. When the camp session ended, Christi came back home from Virginia and her Australian friend, Glen, came with her. I was fascinated with his Australian way of speaking. Some of his expressions, particularly the slang, were foreign to me.
After that, Don brought about eight of his fellow camp counselors from Texas, so they could go to the fair. Our house was small, so all of those kids came with their sleeping bags, and my house was wall to wall people for a few days. Since Evan and I both worked, they were on their own during the day. Thankfully, not all of the visitors came to our house at the same time. One of the female camp counselors bought Don’s Kawasaki dirt bike, which we’d given him when he was fourteen. She was from California and had no way to get it home, so her parents made a trip later to pick it up and also stayed overnight with us. I think they wanted to see New Orleans and go to the fair as well.
The fair lasted from May to November. The space shuttle, Enterprise, was on display at the front gate. In spite of the fact, I was thrilled and impressed with the fair, it lost money. Its opening was competing with the Los Angeles Summer Olympics and the opening of Epcot in Orlando. Also, Tennessee had hosted a World Fair in Knoxville only two years before.
…..
Once 1985 rolled around, Christi was determined to make a trip to Australia to see her boyfriend who was now back home and begging her to come visit. He said he would even pay for her flight and that she could stay with his grandparents in Sidney. There was no talking her out of making the trip. We paid for the flight, because we didn’t like the idea of her accepting such an expensive gift and obligating herself. We had been impressed with Glen Townsend. He was the son of a minister in our denomination, who held an impressive position with the Church for all of Australia, and New Zealand as well.
In late Spring, Christi was packed and ready to leave, planning to stay at least six weeks or until her visa expired. The day arrived that we would be taking her to board the plane. She had stuffed so many clothes into her large suitcase she had to sit on it to close it.
Christi was someone who never worried about time, and over the years, she had been consistently late for classes and her work. If she went anywhere with us, she always made us late. I was a person who wanted to be everywhere I went a little early. It drove me nuts to have someone make me late.
Christi had developed this habit after Connie was born. I was convinced it was, perhaps subconsciously, her way of punishing us for daring to bring another child into our home and disrupt her birth order as the baby in the family. She and I were often at odds, and many times she got left behind when she kept us waiting too long. Since she was so excited about this trip, I hoped, for once, she would try not to miss her flight.
However, one can’t seem to change their habits overnight. When it seemed likely she’d miss her flight, she finally started to panic. Evan struggled to pick up her overpacked suitcase, only to have the zipper break and everything tumbled out onto the floor. Now, we were all in a panic mode. There wasn’t another large piece of luggage. We managed to find two smaller suitcases and repack everything. Evan broke speed limits as we raced for the airport. He and I followed her as far as non-passengers were allowed to go and kissed her goodbye.
It appeared we’d made it with 10 minutes to spare. It wasn’t until she got back in touch with us at the end of the long flight, that we learned she missed the plane after all. She’d spent the night in the New Orleans airport awaiting another flight. After all our efforts to get her there, she wasn’t willing to admit she’d fooled around and missed her flight. I guess she realized we wouldn’t take too kindly to having to go through that nerve-wracking trip to the airport again.
In those days before personal computers and cell phones and with the time differences in that part of the world, plus expensive long-distance calls, we would not be spending a lot of time communicating with her.
The story continues with visitors from down under.
By BethShelby
By BethShelby
By BethShelby
By BethShelby
| Author Notes | The Shelby family lives in Chattanooga where Evan is retired and three of their children still live at home. This will be a chapter in the book "Living the Exclusive Dream, The Chattanooga years. |
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