I grew up around my Mother’s very large, close, well-adjusted family. My Father was welcomed into this family and was estranged from his own. I had no idea of all the reasons why, thankfully he’d kept his children sheltered from them. The summer I was 13 I got my first experience with his relatives. My paternal grandfather died that summer, and his funeral was where I met them.
Some background:
I learned all of this as an adult from my Mother: Both sides of my father’s family were highly dysfunctional. His mother was so poor growing up that she and her 13 siblings only got one meal a day. When they’d get home from school, they got to have rice with sugar. But there were always ants all over the rice, so they’d spread it on a cookie sheet and bake it to get the ants off. Only then could they cook it. Their mother was a mentally ill prostitute and all the kids had different fathers (none of the children knew who their fathers were). My grandmother was very attractive and her siblings considered her sooooo lucky when she married a sailor (my grandfather) and became a military wife. She escaped from the grinding poverty. However, my grandfather was a violent alcoholic who beat her, and eventually, their three children. His entire family were Arkies—they’d come to California during the depression, from the Arkansas Ozarks. They were actually inbred (my great-grandparents were apparently cousins), pretty much illiterate, and quite violent. This is what my Father came from. No wonder he estranged himself!
My dad was the oldest, and he had two younger sisters. My Father’s earliest memory, according to my Mother, was of being in the car while his parents argued in the front seat. My grandfather stopped the car, dragged my grandmother out on the side of the road, and beat her until she bled. Then shoved her back in the passenger seat and kept on driving. When my father got old enough, he began to protect his mother and two sisters by from the abuse. By the time he was 15, he was big enough to fight with his father and hold his own.
My father was physically forced by his father to join the Navy after he graduated from high school. He was shipped off to sea and my Grandfather started to beat his wife and daughters again. One day my grandmother had finally had enough, she and the two girls got in her car (they were 16 and 18) and drove off, sobbing, through Sacramento. She ran a red light, and they were hit by a semi, killing all three of them instantly. My father was brought back to the states for this, where he had a mental breakdown and was consequently discharged. He had been very close to his mother and sisters, after spending an entire childhood protecting them. He blamed his father, and after several ugly incidents between them, he was shipped off to an aunt’s house in Bakersfield about six months after the accident.
My Mother then met my Father, because she was caring for an elderly family friend, and his aunt lived next door to said elderly family friend. She was invited for Thanksgiving dinner at his aunt’s house after making his acquaintance. My grandfather arrived to this shindig drunk, verbally abused all of his relatives, and then physically attacked his son. Consequently my Dad and his father had a huge knock-down-drag-out fight in front of all of them which culminated with them knocking over an entire table full of food, destroying the turkey and everything else. My Mother was absolutely speechless at this behavior, and walked out. My father cornered her later and apologized. He was fascinated with her because she’d shown no fear of my grandfather (my Mother, to this day, has balls of steel. She fears NOTHING).
There’s lots more, but that should give you a general introduction to my Father’s family, and why he distanced himself from them after marrying my Mother. She taught him how to have backbone, and with her support, he cut off contact with them, except for supervised visits with my grandfather. We were his only grandchildren, so he was allowed to see us, as long as rules were followed. 1)Grandpa couldn’t be drunk. 2) He wasn’t allowed to take us anywhere or be alone with us. and 3) my Father warned him if he ever laid a hand on any of us he wouldn’t be responsible for the fact that my Mother would not hesitate to shoot him. Apparently my Grandfather laughed at this until my Father showed him my Mother’s gun collection. She is an old, tough cowgirl and again, the woman is absolutely fearless. She was raised by men who took her grizzly bear hunting for fun—she wasn’t scared of some old, drunken, bullying sailor. Of course, I knew none of this growing up, we were sheltered from it. (End of background)
So anyway, the only one I had ever met was my grandfather, and he had always been on his best behavior around us. He died the summer I was 13; we had to go to Sacramento to hold his funeral and settle his affairs. Apparently my grandfather had bought a house for his widowed mother some years back; after she had passed away, one of his sisters (Aunt Susie) lived in the house. She was elderly and widowed and lived off social security, so he let her stay. At the funeral, Aunt Susie, whom I had never met, latched on to my arm when she discovered who I was, with this incredibly painful vise grip. You see, the house now belonged to my Father, and she was terrified he was going to sell it from under her and leave her homeless; this was apparently not out of character for the men in my Father’s family. She whined and cried to me the entire time and begged me to appeal to my father not to sell the house and leave her out on the street. My parents were super busy and it took a while for them to realize this woman was hurting me (I was quite timid at the time and didn’t say anything to them, trying to handle it on my own). After my father pried her off of me I had bruises all up and down my arm and bloody nail marks; my father had to promise Aunt Susie he wouldn’t abandon her and tell her to stop harassing me. She kept coming back and eventually I had to stick to my father’s side like glue to keep her at bay (I was quite scared of her by this time). He finally yelled at her and she huffed off and didn’t come to the reception.
At the grave site, my Grandfather was laid to rest next to his wife and daughters, who had died 16 years before. Several of my father’s cousins decided to have a loud conversation right in front of my Father about his mother and sisters, and how awful their deaths were, and how mutilated their remains were; that they knew this because my grandfather insisted—INSISTED!—on having an open casket funeral despite this. In other words, they were gossiping quite rudely and graphically about it, during a graveside service, and in front of my Father. My Mother glared daggers at them but kept her mouth shut.
After the funeral there was a reception at my Grandfather’s house. During this reception I went to the bathroom and discovered a dark stain on my underwear; I’d just had my first period. Oh joy. I told my Mother discreetly; she went to find me a pad and mentioned it to my father. My father’s cousin Ricky, who had been following him around all day and trying to get money out of him, overheard this, and proceeded to loudly announce it to every single relative at the reception. For the rest of the afternoon I had strange women coming up and asking me about it, while I just wanted to die of embarrassment. Ricky’s sister Roberta then started talking to me about how boys were evil, they were going to want to attack me now that I was a ‘woman’ so I’d better watch out, and that sex was bad and evil and such until my I ran for my Mother and she had to intervene and tell Roberta to shut her trap and stop scaring me.
Roberta’s two teenage sons, during all this, had gone out back bored, and decided it would be fun to harass the neighbor’s two German Shepherds by throwing rocks at them. When the neighbors got mad, they responded by yelling and screaming obscenities and threats back, until Ricky and my Father heard them and dragged them back in the house. The neighbors called the cops, who showed up at the reception and asked my Father to control the boys. By this time he had had enough, and he told Roberta to take her kids and go home. She tried to refuse and to this day, I remember her exact words: I want some of Uncle Al’s stuff and I’m not leaving until I go through the house and take what I want. My Father suddenly morphed into a man I’d never seen before; he began bellowing at her, calling her really bad things and telling her to get out of the house before he beat the holy living crap out of her. He made several threatening gestures and she and her boys retreated, fleeing the house.
Ricky tried to stand up for his sister, and was holding his own until he made the mistake of telling my Father he was acting like his Dad, at which point my Father lost all self control and put a fist in his face. Suddenly I and my siblings were shoved into a bedroom by my Mother, as she had witnessed these family brawls before and didn’t want us being collateral damage. We were in there for a good half hour before it finally quieted down and my Mother let us out. Everyone was gone and my Father was out back chain-smoking and trying to calm down.
The whole experience was quite frightening for me, I’d never been around people like that before. The entire family was that way! My Father refused to ever speak to any of them again, except for Aunt Susie. He arranged a place for her in an assisted living center before he sold the house she lived in; to her credit, she wrote him a nice thank you note, although she never apologized for hurting and scaring me at the funeral. When she died a few years later, that was it. He told my Mother as far as he was concerned they didn’t exist. I certainly didn’t blame him.
That was 25 years ago. Recently one of my father’s cousins tracked me down on Facebook. I tentatively communicated with her for a little bit. She talked a little about the family and one of the first things she did was inform me was that her father, my Dad’s uncle, had molested her and her sister, and began to tell me about it in great detail. I had to block her, it was so disturbing and she wouldn’t stop. To this day I cannot believe I actually share DNA with these people. 0609-11
Tag: Holidays
When Decorations Echo A Gruesome Reality – Halloween Horror In Your Face
As a follow up to last week’s post regarding the scary, hairy dog spider prank and strangers being frightened by horrific scenes of death, today’s post will be about the escalation of horror images in public places as Halloween nears.
Last year I was stunned when a younger member of my extended family pinned a particular disturbing image of a Halloween lawn decoration to her Pinterest board. It was an image of a toddler sized skeleton dressed in female toddler sized dress sprawled across the lawn. “Casey Anthony” immediately came to the mind.
Since then, the quality and detail of some Halloween decorations has escalated to the point where the line between fantasy and realism are blurred. It’s no longer titilatingly spooky in a fun way but rather designed for maximum revulsion and a dehumanizing of people as merely dead props. Several websites encourage readers to “take it to the next level” as if it is a competition to see how far one can push the boundaries of not just taste but community good will. Some examples of those “decorations” include realistic flayed (as in all the skin removed) human torsos, hangman’s nooses with bodies in front yard trees, body bags, decomposed decapitated heads, child sized skeletons chained together, bloody hand prints, bodies that appear to have died of extreme torture, humans in the midst of extreme torture, just to name a few. Every one of those “decorations” has a strong connection to recent events worldwide that are so horrific that the news media will not show it on air (or even mention it in some instances) yet the residents of some communities are visually assaulted with this too realistic images on their own streets. An example of some of these decorations that have raised community ire are below…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/09/1335465/-Halloween-decorations-in-Dallas-Texas-suburb
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/slideshow?widgetid=130476&slideshowimageid=1
It’s one thing when people choose to be frightened by buying tickets to haunted houses where the gore level can be quite high. Having been forewarned about the graphic nature of the experience, people have the freedom to choose to see this. That freedom is totally removed when gore scenes are displayed on front yards forcing drivers and passersby to see what they may prefer not to. I’m not a fan of Homeowners Associations but in this instance, I would be petitioning the community to codify new standards of taste in regards to Halloween decorations. With freedom comes an equal obligation to act responsibly and with restraint in the best interests of the community. People lose the freedom to do with their own property as they wish because they fail to apply reasonable restrictions to themselves to avoid offending the community at large. What you display inside your home or a fenced backyard is no one else’s business but splat it across the front yard with the intention of horrifying as many people as possible and you’ve gained the attention of those who will wish to curtail that.
Thwarting The Gimme Pig Spirit Of The Holidays
E-Hell, please help with a gift gimme problem! As we all know the holidays are coming up and Christmas presents are to be bought. My husband and I had a baby this year who was the result of a very difficult pregnancy and long NICU stay. As such, this year we’ve decided we would love to make homemade gifts and goodies for our family instead of buying store-bought gifts to save money. (Also, we both have a lot of siblings). I don’t think there would be too much objection to this, except perhaps by my husband’s step-mom. Last year, as I was new to the family she was explaining to me how the ‘older kids’ (her step-kids) do gifts (secret Santa) and then proceeded to tell me, “Of course you would still get Dan and Ethan their own gifts.” Dan and Ethan are her two younger sons who are spoiled beyond spoiled and have absolutely everything. Most people just gift them with gift cards or money, which is what we did last year.
This year though, we are struggling to figure out what to do. We honestly don’t think Dan and Ethan could care less what we get them, but their mom is insistent that they be given a gift from everyone in the family. I personally don’t want to get them anything, especially since we will be making our gifts this year (which they certainly will not appreciate) and we don’t want to then spend $20 on each boy when we aren’t doing that with anyone else in the family. I am afraid of the backlash from their mom, but we really want to keep it super simple and cheap this year. Any thoughts on how to combat gimme pig syndrome over the holidays? 1105-13
A Frighteningly Horrifying Party Disinvitation
I have a very good, close friend. I’ll call him Mordechai. We met as part of a D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) group that was formed by a mutual friend. About a year into our friendship, he started dating this woman, I’ll call her Siobhan. Upon first meeting her at a biweekly game session, I cordially introduced myself and shook hands with her, as I genuinely wanted to get to know her. She gave me a sweet smile and we traded jokes back and forth throughout the night as the game dragged on; I figured I may have found a new friend in Siobhan.
All was not well with the two though, it seemed. A few months pass. Another mutual friend, who here I’ll call Phelan, kept telling me of fights the two were having and how they were starting to fall apart. Apparently the chemistry between the two fizzled. But the next week? Siobhan and Mordechai were side by side with one another, though the warmth I saw between them the night I met her was all but gone. I figured they were simply trying to work things out and said nothing of the matter, though it was awkward trying to talk to him (about game matters) while she was still in the room.
Eventually, the two broke up, but I kept things friendly with Siobhan through Facebook (birthday wishes and the like), and even bought her a set of glow-in-the-dark dice for Christmas; not the cheapo stuff either, but imported, tough dice that wouldn’t chip or fade. Mordechai informed me that she greatly appreciated the dice. Siobhan and Mordechai may have broken up, but they tried to keep something resembling friendship; didn’t last long. Whatever chemistry they had simply disappeared.
Siobhan is renowned within parts of this shared social circle (and the metro area, if rumors are to be believed) for throwing grand Halloween parties every year. A few weeks before Halloween, the notice goes up on Facebook, and she says in big bold letters “ALL MY FRIENDS ARE INVITED!” As one of her friends on Facebook, I got to see it within a half hour of it going up. Seeing that a good chunk of mutual friends would be attending, and hearing through Phelan (who knew her better than the rest of us, Mordechai excluded) that she would likely be okay with me coming, I RSVPed as well, a few days later though. At this point, I simply wanted to get to know Siobhan on her own merits, as opposed to getting to know her as a girlfriend of a close friend. I hear nothing from Siobhan about my RSVP.
Admittedly, I slack off a bit and I remember the next part of the event notice only a day or two before the party: “Call/message/txt for directions!” Not knowing her cell or any other means of communicating with her, I ask for directions to the party through a FB message. My mail notifier goes off a few hours later and this is what greets me:
“Jessica sweetie, you do know that I broke up with Mordechai, right? I don’t think it would be good for either of us if you were to come. Sooooooo sorry.”
I need my mother’s help in getting my jaw off the floor. When I go to reply to both a.) explain myself, and b.) apologize for possibly inconveniencing her, I notice that she a.) removed the “ALL MY FRIENDS” line from the event, b.) made the event private, and c.) de-friended me. In hindsight, good riddance to bad rubbish and all, but at the time, I was extremely hurt, and my Halloween plans were all but dashed. Another night of watching football and eating leftover candy, though my better half made it all right again with some macabre romantics that, for one night, made me forget about Siobhan.
When I brought it up with Mordechai, he was appalled at what happened and kept apologizing for the actions of a grown-@$$ woman. Phelan admitted to me at a later time that her behavior in the incident was par for the course, when he wondered why I wasn’t at this party, my RSVP having gone unchallenged until 24-48 hours before said party would start.
I only feel sad for Siobhan that she seems to have enough friends in her life. As for me, whenever I plan a party or big gathering using Facebook (the only way to keep in touch with some of my sometimes phone-less friends), I do so through private messages intended only for the invited and never through the “event” app, not even private. Last I heard of Siobhan, she was courting a woman and extremely unhappy with life, and for some reason she started losing friends. Hmmm. 0104-11
A Hauntingly Bad Guest
Last weekend my boyfriend held a really low-key Halloween party at his house. It was the first time most of the small group invited were going to be there, so my boyfriend “Bob” spent a long time cleaning and making sure everything was presentable. He even made snacks in the form of amazing swedish meatballs for the group. Only about six people were expected to come over (so a total of 8 with myself and Bob counted), and at the last minute two of them texted me that they weren’t coming. Bob and I don’t live together, and they never texted him, the host that they weren’t going to make it.
But when the rest of the group got there, one of our “friends,” we’ll call him Steve, was very clearly disappointed there wasn’t going to be a bigger crowd. He had worn a costume he was particularly proud of and I guess wanted to show it off. But Steve had been made well aware that this was going to be a low-key get-together with some friends so I’m not quite sure why this came as such a surprise to him. At one point, pretty early on in the night, he turned to Bob and me and said, “No offense, but we should call more people.” Yes, he actually suggested that Bob invite more people to his home, because Steve wasn’t happy with the group. He also suggested that we move the party to a bar instead. He was only satisfied once he got confirmation from one of the guys he had come with that they could go out the following night to a bar so Steve could show off his costume. The guy he asked to go with him seemed actually to be embarrassed by Steve’s behavior and reluctantly and quietly said yes to going out the following night. Sick of his griping and embarrassing other guests, I turned to Steve and calmly told him that if he didn’t like it here, he was more than free to go to a bar or head out. That shut him up for a little bit.
Also, Steve at one point, got up and said, “Before we drink more,” (they had brought to Bob’s copious amounts of alcohol,) “we want to get something to eat. Where can we go?” Bob let him know about the meatballs cooling in the kitchen, but Steve responded with, “Well I can’t fill up on just meatballs. So we’re going out.”
Oh Steve, your mother would be so proud of your manners. 1101-10