Saved by The Dead

Days disappeared like evaporating rain in the desert behind my little eyes. I was numb to life and did not care about anything other than school, church, and Vangie my one and only friend. Children can and do become numb to their environment when the need to survive is paramount. Survival takes on many cloaks of desperation and my cloak was a multilayer covering of fear and faith. Fear kept me on my toes and faith allowed me accept all the unknowns in my life. My days in Arizona were coming to an end, and in a way I never dreamed would happen. My days playing in the soft desert earth with doodle bugs and searching for woodpecker nest, and racing the wind on my powder blue bicycle, and stealing food, riding crazy horses, and sneaking into theaters, and inviting myself to dance classes and much, much more would soon be over.

(Image from Zillow. Florence AZ, the landscape of many imaginary escapades!)

I remember my last day in Florence as if it were tattooed onto my skin, forever a part of me, never to fade from my memory. I responded to the morning sun's relentless pokes with pent up frustration. I could not take one more sunny beam in my face because I was feeling as if I had begun to melt away into nothingness, and the sun was only making me melt away faster. I was reluctant to get out of bed. I could not find my wild stallion to prance into the bathroom, my big humongous wild horse had abandoned me. I could not find the energy to get dressed, nor energy to run from cockroaches. I sat, numb, on a bare mattress looking out across my doorless bedroom, watching bugs scamper here and there across the walls. I had not been feeling very well for some time, but on this day, I could not fight how my body felt, so I just sat on my bed with no interest in life. It would be almost 30 years before I put the puzzle pieces together and figured out I was ill with Hepatitis A. Not one adult knew I was ill and had been for some time. One of my brother's had Hep A after a camping trip into the mountains. He was taken to the hospital and treated, but no one noticed that I had contracted Hepatitis from my brother. I am proof that you can go unseen, even if you are ill with yellow eyeballs and peeing dark orange. I was not concerned about my urine, what 9/10 year old thinks about their pee? I was not concerned with my eyes because the truth is I never looked in the mirror close enough to see my own eyes. As bugs hurriedly ran between the door jam and the wall one of my brothers walked by my bed on his way to the bathroom. My brother chided me about not getting up and warned me there would be dire consequences to pay if I did not go to school. A warning I rarely received since I always wanted to be at school. Being at school was a far better experience than staying in the apartment all day. Cockroaches were not my most favorite playmates. I was not concerned about not going to school. I was not fearful of my father's wrath for he never did care if I was at school, or not, or home or not. I tried not to interact with my father too much toward the end of my time living with him in Arizona because being around him made me feel ill. His presence created an uneasy sensation in me for he had touched me in a way that made me feel creepy inside. My father touched me like the gas station attendant did, and like the older boy next door did and as he touched me that one time, he was looking at me with one eye open and one eye shut. My father's look reminded me of the cartoon character Popeye, one eye open one eye shut. He touched me looking like Popeye, one eye open one eye shut. I hate Popeye. On this day, a day I was feeling 2-dimensional, I was sure my father was not home and that made my choice to stay in bed a little easier.

(Maryanne Hughes Mesple as she looked while living in Arizona with her father) 

As I sat on my bed like a lifeless rag doll I heard a commotion outside the apartment. There were men talking, and the men were talking rather loudly. Their voices were so loud I became frightened and tried to hide under the bedsheets. I could hear my father's voice in the mix and the voice of a woman too. Suddenly, my older brother appeared in my bedroom and told me to get up and get dressed and to make it fast. His body language and pitch of voice let me know he was not kidding and I knew I needed to do what he asked and in a hurry - there was something terrible happening once again in our lives. I jumped out of bed and threw on my clothes I left on the floor the night before and put on my sneakers without socks. With uncombed hair and dirty clothes I meekly emerged from my sick bed, and slowly walked across the living room floor toward the front door where I could see the backs of both my brothers and their bodies were fidgeting in unison. I was confused because I believed both my brothers were at school or at least had been. How long had I been sitting in my bed? Hours must have passed without me even blinking or thinking? I was feeling weak, and faint but I knew I had to be present for what was about to happen.

I pushed against the screened door and as it gave way to my little body with a creak and a moan I stepped outside to stand between my brothers who were much older than I and much bigger. I must have looked like a wisp of a person between them. I watched as my father bellowed awful words  at two policemen. My dad's face was red and waxen looking, he had that one eye open and one eye shut look as spit flew from his lips! Every word he spat out of his mouth was filled with venom. Venom toward the police and venom toward a woman. Why was he using the word "she" I wondered and soon I saw why there was so much yelling and finger pointing and spit flying about and just who the "she" was that had angered my father so. There, standing next to a white car was my mother and standing next to my mom was a tall man with glasses. When I saw my mom I screamed, "Mommy!!!" so loud everyone fell silent and I bolted like a freed wild animal away from my brother's sides toward my mom's open arms! I jumped up landing in her embrace and burying my face into her neck I began to cry. I don't remember much else about what was being said or done but I do recall being put into the back seat of that wonderful clean, brand new white car and leaving Florence Arizona with my mother who had miraculously risen from the dead to save me, my two brothers, and some strange man. I must have fallen into a deep, healing sleep for I have only snippets of recall traveling from Arizona to Mississippi. I went from living in Arizona with my father, to living in Columbus Mississippi with my mother in one brief dream like moment. I truly was too ill to care about much, especially just who that strange tall man was who owned the beautiful white car. I had just celebrated my 10th birthday.

(Image found on Google, no credits given. 1963 Chevrolet Impala)

Mississippi. M I crooked letter, crooked letter I, crooked letter crooked letter I, hump back hump back I. Mississippi. A new chapter to my life with a whole new set of rules for adventure. 

I would encounter racism once again, toward my family and toward anyone who was not "white" even though segregation was beginning to end and all were to be treated equal. Where I lived that was not true. Here is a link that has a great story about Mississippi during the time I lived there.  Just click the highlighted sentence. 

Mississippi, It's like coming home, and for me it was. I was home, with my mother at last.

And what better music to capture a time in one's life than that of the Beatles as they emerged onto the music scene as musical, cultural shaping, giants.

(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé) 

Arizona Misfits

I never noticed the word dysfunctional ascribed to people until the early 1980s. Before the 1980's, the most derogative word I remember hearing to define people and their families was the word misfits. The expression misfits described people who did not fit into society's neat little wrapper. Societal misfits, like my family, paraded around uncaring of the family being populated with oddballs, eccentrics, weirdos, lost souls, and losers. I was a misfit for certain and a wild one at that! In retrospect I clearly see I exemplified the word misfit blindly as I tried desperately to be invisible. I feel, no, I know, we Hughes'  helped the field of psychology define what a dysfunctional family was for we certainly did not live the life of  Ward and June Cleaver. As a small person, my view of life was, well,  life was just life. Everyone did what was needed to get by day to day, at least I think they did. Some people sustained themselves by having big houses and big cars and wearing clean clothes - color coordinated clothes. Some people simply existed in tiny apartments decorated in filth, scarcely eating, running gauntlets of mockery, and barely breathing out of fear of being noticed - that was me. I simply existed sans any accouterments other than a few pieces of clothing, my body, and my wild imagination that helped me prevail against my environment.

(Image of The Cleaver's enjoy family time at breakfast ~ the perfect family)

My decaying family life fit nicely into a rut christened as poverty and abandonment, two words that hold more meaning than their letters can convey and we Hughes' surfed the bottom of poverty's barrel. I can still hear and still feel judging words voiced by self-righteous souls around me at school, and in town. The spoken knives of people hit hard and penetrated my heart leaving critical emotional wounds, wounds I would not fully recognize nor begin to heal until much later in my adult life. As a child, I learned quickly how to deflect the appearance of emotional emptiness by pretending to not care about what people said. When I felt scared inside by what was happening in my surroundings I could seemingly disappear in an instant knowing it was safer to be undetected - the danger came when I was the center of attention. I had my own special brand of misfit existence and I was motivated by curiosity and hunger.  I was motivated by life into developing my creativity into ways of getting what I felt I needed or wanted. I became a great problem solver quickly, and the fact that I was under the age of ten meant I was a good study of life and of people. I was adept in figuring things out - like how to deal with the lecherous gropings of certain Florence AZ males and how to get invited to dinner and how to ride that forbidden horse and how to get dance lessons and learn to play the piano. All the things I wanted to do were offered for free, or I just invited myself to places where I could experience what I wanted. No money? No problem. No parent? No problem. By the age of 8 I was a very successful manipulator. 

Even with all the entertainment and challenges life provided me with during the day, most of my nights were spent face down in a mattress trying to muffle my deep, heart felt sobs of inconsolable emotional pain. I can still smell the age of the mattress I slept upon as it always was exposed because the sheets never stayed in place. I recall the feel of my finger tip outlining a button holding the mattress ticking down. I would trace the button's surface over and over feeling the button's metal body with thread piercing it and that repetitive act would often put me into a trance of numbed contemplation. I remember my thoughts back then as if they were my thoughts today. I do. I can recall how in the dark of night, imagery zipping across the panoramic screen in my mind. My mental theater reviewed memories of my mom and a life I no longer had. The memories of my mom taunted me with nurturing, motherly hugs cemented into place with bright red lips kissing my cheeks. My intangible ghost of my mother's memory left me feeling empty and emotionally pale as I recalled her leaving me behind in the care of my father - again. Eventually my salty silent heartaches would lubricate my mind enough to allow my heart to slip from a fretful state of scary wakefulness into deep sleep. Slumber gave me peace and I could escape the monsters that populated my little girl life. Sleep was a safe haven. Then, the sun would rise once again brining with it a new day for me up to face, for me to manipulate, and for me to survive. 

( The eyes of Maryanne Hughes Mesple as a child in AZ) 

Each morning I opened my eyes I rediscovered my dysfunctional world was real and sleep would reluctantly dissolve, taking with it dreams of places I could not remember. Eyes open, I'd get out of bed with feet falling uncomfortably into my predictable grooves of life. My routine of surviving my harsh, loveless, exciting, fun filled, hunger pained life, would find me prancing my way into the bathroom like a wild black stallion.  I admired my human horsy form in a foggy mirror while attempting to drag a comb through my unruly feral mane. I announced my wildness to the world with snorts and flips of my hair forward and back, side to side followed by whinnying long neighing sounds! My bathroom antics included hovering over a toilet instead of fully sitting down out of fear that a cockroach would jump on me. Cockroaches were always at the ready to terrorize me when I was alone. My horse entity would often turn into a plane coming in for a landing, a sound I was all too familiar with and a sound I would mimic as I worked hard, grunting red faced, at dismissing my body of used up food stuff. Seems I always was trying to relieve myself and seems everything I ate was was reluctant to leave my frame. The fact that I rarely drank plain water did not help my body's plight. Pretending I was a humongous black stallion or an airplane overshadowed the truth - I was a skinny malnourished ugly duckling girl. I had no clue as to who or what I truly was other than being a scrap of flesh.  Those who may have been outside the bathroom door way back then, would hear the sounds of airplanes and wild horses competing for space and all the while it was my spirit playing in a safe place preparing to take on a new day. I would leave the bathroom imagining I was atop a wild black stallion and I would literally run into my day.

(image from the move The Black Stallion)

While living in Florence Arizona, getting dressed in the mornings for school or play was the same as it had been in Texas. My clothing options were limited. I had an old Brownie dress from the time I believed I could be a Brownie and someone believed in me enough to buy me the uniform. I loved that Brownie dress so much I know I wore it almost everyday. I also had a few other little dresses that were very plain, a pair of shorts, a little blouse and some hand me down socks and a few panties. My socks never stayed up around my ankles, all my socks eventually slipped down off my heels and became crumpled inside my shoes so I chose to go sock free most days. The rubber sole of my shoes was a yellowish colored rubber with bumps for traction and I would often lay on my stomach on the ground, with a sneaker in hand picking out stickers and small pebbles that penetrated the rubber making my shoes not very pleasant to wear. I was laughed at and teased on more than one occasion and eventually I learned to ignore the teasing in the moment and take that pain with me someplace private later in the day. Then, once alone I would announce at the top of my lungs what I was going to do one day when I was bigger and then cry really hard to make sure I did not forget. 

My school classroom was populated with the typical elementary school tables with little chairs that were fun to scoot forward making scraping sounds on the tile flooring. Construction paper cut into shapes of trees and clouds and animals decorated the rooms horizontal space while ABC's trimmed the top of the room's walls. A large chalk board demanded attention as did the maps of the world. The teacher's desk was a beautiful majestic icon of rulership and I felt small and insignificant when called to the teacher's desk for a one on one conversation. During my school days in the small elementary school in Florence, I often lost my attention for what the teacher was teaching and instead would be listening to the outside world filled with birds and clouds and the whispers of desert breezes. The world was always having a conversation right outside the windows where I sat and my  intentional eavesdropping would be abruptly ended by the teacher asking me to repeat what she had just said. I don't remember ever being successful in recounting what the teacher talked about, but I could describe the texture of the clouds and the sounds of birds gossiping about each other. I felt safe at school. I felt useful and needed and protected. I loved school.

Most days, I did not have money to buy a lunch ticket, so I would sit with other kids of my class waiting to be offered the remains of their uneaten lunches, and I was not the only child that would show up without lunch. At least I had fellow peers who knew hunger as I did.  I am positive the school staff noticed, but if anyone did anything about my situation or the situation of other hungry, unkempt children I don't recall anything being done about our plight. I was always thrilled on the days I was successful in discovering change my father had forgotten in his bedroom on his rare visits home. Those days, when I was rich with a quarter or two I would buy school lunch and savor every little bite! After lunch, there was always recess and I would find my special friend as quickly as possible. My one and only friend and I played beneath Pepper and Evergreen trees that were living in dirt so fine it felt like silk to the touch. My friend and I would make pine needle rooms in our houses and pretend life was good and life was good at school and while with my friend. I cherish those memories and I can still feel the fullness of my heart during those moments, those special moments when life was mine to create as I wanted. After school my friend and I attended catechism just like all the other kids who were of the Catholic faith. I was born into Catholicism and Catholicism was my assurance that somewhere up in the big sky above me I was loved.  On the way to catechism we literally would run all the way to a little store that was on the roadway to where our catechism classes were. We would run into the store and speedily buy a Sugar Daddy candy bar or Sugar Babies only to save them for the walk home. My friend would always buy me a candy bar and for that I will always be so grateful. On the way home, after catechism I would always stop at my God Parent's home and visit their old dapple gray mare and share my candy with her, but that is another story for a different time. 

I loved catechism because I learned about God. I learned God did indeed love me and He had rules. School had rules. Home did not have rules. I liked rules. Rules gave me something to think about, something to achieve, rules gave me a certainty that one day all would be okay and rules made me aware that the other parts of my life were missing something. I was absolutely sure all I needed to do was follow the rules, get an A in catechism and in my regular school, and get A's in the school of earth. I had to get A's so I could go to Heaven. Only in Heaven could I have a chance to be saved. I was deathly afraid of the alternative to Heaven!  While in the catechism classroom I felt protected and loved while at the same time I felt wicked and guilty for sins I was born with. I became aware that even my thoughts were sins! My sinful heart plagued me as I tried my best to be the perfect child for God. I loved God. I feared God. At the age of 8 I already knew I had failed God in so many ways. I failed God and therefore must suffer God's punishment -  so said the nuns, so said the priest. I learned I could pray to Jesus's mom, Mother Mary, and that I could ask her to intervene for me by talking to her son and God. With Mary's assistance, maybe I would receive forgiveness for my sins?  I was not sure what all my sins were but apparently God knew and the priest knew. I convinced myself I was living a life solely for the purpose of repenting my sins. I was petrified of wicked black mortal sins and worried about venial sins. If I slipped up and inadvertently committed a mortal sin then there was no saving my soul, it would mean I would go directly to Hell, and not even get a chance to rectify what I had done wrong. If I committed venial sins, as least I could be remorseful and try to be better, try to not be a semi-bad person. I hoped and prayed my prayers would save my sinful soul. Every night I would read my catechism book over and over in an effort to memorize all my prayers. There was always the certainty that I would be called upon in catechism and if I did not know The Act of Contrition or the Hail Mary or the Apostle's Creed, I would suffer the wrath of the nuns and and eventually God! I recited all my prayers over and over burning them into my forever memory. To this day, I can close my eyes and feel the texture of my red catechism book, silky soft from constant use. I can visualize the words telling me about prayer and the importance of confession and penance. I can see the priest, the church, the nuns, my little rosary, my scapula, and I can feel how my heart beat like that of a frightened bird when I thought of God's anger with me. I was taught the meaning of the cross which was a strong visual statement of God's son dying for my sins. I could not understand why Jesus had to be nailed to a cross forever because of people being bad. I constantly dissected my every thought, believing that I was the one person keeping Jesus nailed on that horrid cross and even believed that I somehow was the cause of my mom dying. Seeing Jesus nailed to a cross with blood dripping from wounds creeped me out and scared me so much that I avoided looking at him. I could not stand to see Jesus hanging there, center stage, above the altar - and I swear Jesus was always looking at me instead of looking up toward his father in heaven!

When I could not distract myself with games and school work and memorizing prayers, my misfit, dysfunctional, underdeveloped mind would chew on thoughts of my mom. I would gaze off inside myself trying to imagine my mom in a coffin - dead. There had been no funeral or weeping by my dad or brothers as proof of her demise. The only proof of her passing was my father’s words to me telling me so, and the undeniably painful fact that she had never returned to rescue me as she promised. My father's insistency that my mom was dead convinced me God was a mean loving God, very similar to the people in my life, and I needed to dodge his wrath by being perfect.  I will never forget the last day I saw my mom. Mom and I were standing on the sidewalk in Lubbock Texas at a bus stop waiting for a bus to take us away. My mother was dressed in a gray suit with her black and white heels on. Her finger nails were painted red and white, her trademark, and her lips were fire engine red. My mom always wore her hair up in a french twist and she smelled of fresh hairspray. I was dressed in something obviously but I have no recall of whether I was in a dress or shorts, my only memory of how I looked that day was my hair was cut in a very short pixie and I was missing a front tooth. My father walked toward us, slowly, with a cockiness to his strut. My dad was dressed in his Air Force blues and his shoes were so shiny they were like black mirrors. Upon my dad's reaching the sidewalk where my mom and I stood, he pried my little hand from her hand, and took me away from my mother - again. I cried. My mom stood silent, boarded the bus and I watched her leave through tears of confusion. After that day, I had a hard time remembering my mom's eyes, all I could conjure up was her red lips and her big loving arms. I sobbed to myself a lot but never in front of people because I had no words to express the pain I held inside my little body.  I missed my mother immensely and never spoke of her to anyone. Eventually, my thoughts lessened and my mother's memory only visited me on the edge of time between being awake and falling sleep, as I traced my finger around metal buttons on an old dirty mattress. I would entertain those moments briefly and then I would quickly and reluctantly kill my mom's fading memory again and again so I could sleep and awaken to a new day of survival and play the misfit way.

(Eleanor, my mother)

to be continued ....

(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé) 

Rollin Rollin Rollin Keep that Chief a Movin!

My mother and father knew how to pack a million hours into one day and six or more road trips into less than a year. Six road trips are equal to twelve trips when you include driving back to where you started.
When our family returned from Panama to the sweet soil of the U.S. we landed in a very haphazard way. I now think that the way our plane landed was symbolic of the life awaiting our return home to the United States. Being military, we re-entered the country via Shaw A.F.B. in South Carolina. The plane we were in came down from the sky with a thunk and a screech and a big jolt with noises that can only be described as ear piercing and deafening. The planes landing gear did not deploy. With no landing gear the solution was foaming the runway. The runway became a slip and slide, a big foamy slip and slide. I remember the sounds but I don't remember anything from the inside of the plane as we flumped and then whooshed along the foamed up asphalt. My mom remembers preparing us kids for the less than perfect landing. She clutched me tightly to her breast, I was 3ish, as for my siblings,  she says she screamed at them to bend over and hold onto their ankles. Once the sound of the plane's contact with the runway stopped the sounds of the sirens took over and in several blinks of an eye we were sliding down parachute slides, out of and away from the plane. Yep, this landing was a symbolic warning of the life waiting for us, the Hughes family.

Within a few hours we were aboard another plane that landed properly in Chicago. In Chicago I decided to wash my three-faced doll in a toilet. I had to. One of my doll's faces was dirty from the last plane ride I had been on. My mom tried to throw Baby, my now soaked doll away, and I screamed so loud she shoved the wet doll back into my arms and then carried me in her arms as she ran to catch a train. My siblings followed along like chicks behind Mrs. Chicken Little. Papers flying, a kid crying (me) 3 other children poking and shoving one another made boarding the train interesting, so says my mom. The train took us to Pittsburgh where we lived with my father's family for a few months until our family was finally allowed to settle in Florence Arizona. Florence Arizona is where I had been born 3 years earlier. In Florence, we occupied my mom's parent's home because they had moved to California. It was in Florence that my parents bought the 1955 Pontiac Sky Chief and it was in 1958 that my parents (more so my mom than dad) proved Sky Chief to be worthy of the Hughes clan. That car was magical.

The Pontiac Sky Chief was big, no, not big, it was bigger than big, Sky Chief was huge! Sky Chief, my mom's name for her prized possession was the most beautiful green with a hood ornament of Sky Chief flying. Sky Chief's doors were so heavy that when one slammed shut on my oldest brother's hand it pinched some of the flesh off and produced a scream so loud the citizens in Globe Arizona could hear him. There was no tussling between us kids for the front seat. The front seat seating assignment was my parents and my sister. My sister rode up front with my parents because she was the oldest and she was the official parental referee. My parents bickered worse than my siblings and their bickering was a constant in our lives and that bickering escalated in Sky Chief. My parents could fight over anything. Bill and Ellie could fight over whether a nickel was silver or if it was made of nickel. Their heated discussions about trivial information often lasted an eternity or at least 100 miles. My sister would yell at Mr. and Mrs. Hughes to shut up! With my 12-year-old sister's admonishment my parent's disagreements would turn into finger pointing and blaming with my father trying to speak in Spanish. My father loved anything Mexican, like my mom, and he tried all his life to master the Spanish language. He would say things like, "Cierre su boca Eleanor - Shut your mouth Eleanor" or "Déme un beso Leanor - Give me a kiss Eleanor!" Since he, my dad, did not know very much Spanish  he would switch back to English colored with a Mexican accent painted over his own beautiful Irish English lilt ... just imagine how that sounded! My mom, speaking very clear English, would then threaten to send my father to meet his maker. My sister would smack both my parents with rolled paper or with her bare hands and my father would yell, "Ay, caramba!" and my mother would start laughing.  It was continual.

Our trips from here to there included the expected pit stops along the way. We stopped at rest stops to eat and filling stations to fill up the Pontiac's gas tank and depending on the temperature my parents would sometimes buy a canvas bag filled with water to hang in front of the grill to cool the radiator.  In the late 1950's gas stations were referred to as filling stations, at least that is true for my world. Once stopped at a filling station bodies would begin to fly out of the car; my brother's shoving one another, my sister rolling her eyes, and my mom and dad flew out still bickering. I would hang out in the car. I wanted to sit in the driver's seat so I could admire Sky Chief. Sky Chief was beautiful. Behind a protective dome made of either thick glass or plastic, Sky Chief's 3 dimensional emblem was on display. Sky Chief's emblem was a piece of art in our car. The golden emblem was a profile of an Indian with flowing hair. Yes, in those days of ignorance and arrogance we referred to the indigenous peoples of this great land as Indians. I could tell you about all the other politically incorrect lingo used back in the 1950's but I am sure you can imagine. Sitting in the driver's seat, I would trace my finger around Sky Chief's profile over and over. I would wish I was an Indian so I could shoot my family with arrows and then I could ride away on my painted pony and never come back. My dream would be interrupted when my family returned to the car having used the bathroom and each carrying a soda and gum, and telling me to scoot. I would take my soda from my mom's hand, and I would assume my place in the giant car. We all had our places.

Being the youngest and not being quit four years old yet meant sitting in the back seat between two brothers. I would be between my brothers because both insisted on sitting next to a window plus neither one of them wanted to sit over the floorboard's hump. Sitting between my two brothers was like sitting between Moe and Larry of the Three Stooges. My oldest brother's name is Bill and my other brother really was nicknamed Moe. Moe was called Moe in honor of the battleship Missouri that was also known as Big Mo. Big Mo became grounded in 1950 and it was a big deal getting that battleship unstuck. My mom said my brother Moe's birth was the equivalent of the Big Mo incident.  To solve the comedy of slapping and poking over my head and me whining my mom would eventually insist that I lay down along the ledge between the back seat and the back window or I could lie on the floor board. I always chose the window because on the floorboard I had the stooges feet kicking me. The back window was a great place to watch the world go buy as we traveled from Arizona to California and back.  My mom decided to take us to California for Christmas with her family because she had not seen them since moving to Panama in 1954. The year we went to California the first time in Sky chief was 1958. And like I said, in less than a year Sky Chief carried a lot of luggage and baggage between California and Arizona and eventually to Alabama.  One of Sky Chief's magical attributes was the trunk. The Pontiac's trunk was so spacious there was never a problem fitting into it everything we needed, including my mom's travel kitchen. Our travel kitchen included cooking utensils and cast iron pots and an iron grill, fuel, camping supplies, food, and water. Along with our kitchen and tents we had suitcases with our clothing. Big brown, leather suitcases all scuffed up from miles and miles of travel.  My parents would pull into a rest area and in no time would have a kitchen set up and a parachute tent hoisted up and ready to rest under. I loved those rest area stops because it was time for me to stretch, and time for me to finally pee. I would rather pee behind a tree than use a spooky, dirty, filling station bathroom and that is true for me to this day.

The first trip of our six-road trip adventure in 1958 brought us to my uncle's ranch somewhere in Calaveras County, California.  All I remember is we always referred to the ranch as Calaveras and when I ask my mom where the ranch was her reply to this day is, " in the mountains".  Sky Chief got us all to my uncle's ranch safely in spite of the people driving him. At my uncle's ranch there was a small house, painted a deep green that my Nana and Tata lived in. I remember getting yelled at for swinging on Nana's garden gate and I recall my Tata trying to teach me how to not chew my food like a cow. Tata would say, "mire mire mire - look look look!" over and over again as he demonstrated proper chewing for me. Tata would take his fresh made tortilla, scoop up some of my Nana's fabulous refried beans, take a bite, and make me watch until he chewed and swallowed. It was then my turn to rip off a piece of warm tort, scoop my beans, then? Then I would fail my chewing lesson because I guess I am part cow. I never got the hang of not eating like a cow, at least not according to my Tata.

For the first time in my life, I was celebrating Christmas with an extended family. I was meeting people of our family for the first time for I had lived my first three years in Panama. My biggest memory of this particular Christmas Eve night is of my mentally handicapped Aunt Mona pinching me and pinching my other cousins. Mona would pinch by squeezing together one's skin between a rough finger and thumb and then twist while watching your face intently and making a sound like a goat. Mona constantly pinched us and we were all running around the room trying to escape her and not one adult would do anything about it. The adults were very busy making tamales, drinking anything that had the word alcohol on it, singing, catching barn owls with shirts, and laughing. The adults had no time for us kids, especially kids who were supposed to be sleeping and waiting for Santa. Mona kept us all awake out of fear of losing our skin and thankfully midnight finally came. The clock chimed midnight as we were released from the torture chamber to open presents. With Christmas celebrations finally over my family was back on the road heading toward Arizona once again. Sky Chief was packed with bodies and food and more because of Christmas.  Sky Chief accommodated all the extra "stuff" Christmas left without complaint.

We had not been home in Florence too long when my mother received an urgent phone call. My Aunt T was ill and needed her. Aunt T, one of my mom's three sisters lived in Oakland California. Back into Sky Chief and back to California for another road trip with all the same pit stops and all the same dirty filling stations. This time we traveled at night too and many miles of the highways we traveled upon were lit up with black cannon balls on fire. My mom said the flaming and sometimes smoldering cannon balls were a warning for drivers to be careful. The black balls could mean there was a lane closure because of an accident or whatever. I remember along one strip of the roadway as I was admiring the burning balls, I could see there had been a landslide. Along with the burning balls there were bulldozers, in the night, scraping away big rocks and dirt. I did not care why there were black balls on fire, all I know is I liked looking at them. This trip, my father was not with us because he had to go back to Williams Air Force Base where he was stationed. We arrived at my aunt's house and were there maybe one night. My mom gathered up my cousins, some of their clothes, and it was back into Sky Chief and back to Arizona. Sky Chief, being the magical car he was, expanded to welcome my aunt's four daughters, my three siblings, my mom, a dog, and of course me. There was a lot of punching and pushing while yelling "dibs" but because of my age and size I was not a part of placing dibs, ever. Before pulling away to begin the second leg of this road trip a seating arrangement had been established. My three oldest cousins all begging for the front seat got their wish and that wish squished them together against one another and against my mom. In the back seat the stooges had to put up with three more girls all of whom were 6 and younger. Staking claim to a window seat in the back turned into a slugfest between Larry and Moe and my cousin Terry who was not afraid to use her fist. Terry ended up with a window seat along with Billy and poor Moe and Dee shared the middle bump. My cousin Alice who was 2ish ended up on the floorboard at the feet of four pairs of feet and I glowed in my window seat.

On this trip back to Arizona we all got to pee behind trees along the roadside instead of using filling station bathrooms. I think it was just easier for my mom to keep track of us all. Ah, back home in Arizona meant running and playing outside with doodlebugs and horned toads.  I loved being in Florence. In Arizona we had dogs and a horse and the weather was always great. That great time did not last long because we no sooner settled into a new routine being that my four cousins were now living with us and the phone rang - again - we had to head back to California. This went on for just under a year. Back and forth and back and forth and then one day our home base changed without warning or maybe there was talk about the move and I just did not care or I did not really understand. Returning to Arizona after being in California this time the road trip ended in Gilbert Arizona where my father was fulfilling his military duties.
Strange and unbelievable as it may seem there was another trip back to California and this time it was to return my cousins to their mom. With Sky Chief filled to the brim, we headed out - again. Everyone staked their claim to his or her places in the car, and I remained in the window. I know I was the luckiest of all. On this trip, and yes I remember which trip it was, my brother Moe a.k.a. Clarence, developed a brilliant strategy for sitting by a window. Moe discovered that boogers wiped on a windows handle guaranteed he would sit by a window, with his boogers. Boogers, how can anyone eat a booger? I remember one of my aunts teaching me all about how boogers never left your stomach and if you ate enough boogers you would need to have your stomach cut open to get those boogers A booger eater would only be saved if a doctor could be found that did not mind boogers. My aunt made it very clear that there were not many doctors who fit that bill. I never ate a booger after that lesson!

When we headed home from this road trip Sky Chief was four people lighter and the end of our journey was at yet another place to call home.

My father, before leaving for France rented a place for us in San Jose California just off of Berryessa Road. This meant we were "home" in no time by comparison to all our other trips! Our new home was a Quonset hut in the middle of bell pepper and tomato fields with an abandoned chicken house behind. My mom did not want to move to another country after being back in the states for less than a year so San Jose became our new place to call home. My sister was very upset because with this move because she had to give up her horse Traveler.
There were two more trips; one back to Calaverus and one to Alabama. And yes, both trips were filled with dramas and family celebrations and animals and bickering and boogers and punches and me in the back window watching life zip by.  Sky Chief's biggest road trip ever was our move to Alabama after my father returned from France and it was in Alabama Sky Chief met his end on a bridge one stormy night in 1959.
To this day, I would much rather drive to my destination than fly. Maybe because I am nostalgic or maybe because I have had a couple rough airplanes rides.

(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé)