Welcome to Arizona

The variation between chapters in my childhood is my age and demographics. The central story line of my adolescence remained pretty much the same - neglect, abuse, hunger, creativity, adventure and fun. When I summon my memories, those memories flood my mind like a tempestuous storm that flips through the pages of my life with magnifying recall. Each memory spins like a tornado in slow motion transporting me from one state to another and from one town to another. My senses grabbed at and recorded everything tangible and non tangible, and the winds of change provided me with important information I used to navigate the unknown. My memory is liken to a steamer trunk, impossible to hide so I unpack it, one item at a time in the hopes one day I will reduce it down to a small carry-on. This new unpacked chapter in my life screamed, "Welcome to Arizona!", and assured me the plot to my life's legend would continue without change. Florence Arizona provided me with more eclectic experiences to recall and more goodies for my steamer trunk. 

My recollection of the drive between Texas and Arizona is filed away in my memory files under the tab BORING.  One moment I am in Lubbock crying about dolls that come alive at night specifically to bite little girls and the next moment I am in Florence Arizona. Florence is a small small town in the Sonoran desert. Although the population of humans living in Florence in the early 60s was sparse, some of those humans were family and I learned that even in Florence the word family did not mean much at times.This new episode in life dropped me in front of an adobe structure that I was told would be my home. A different look to the old standard cockroach motel.  My senses gobbled up the appearance and smells of this new island in life named, The Brown Apartments. The Brown Apartments were literally brown and I could taste and smell the brown dust and sand embracing the front door delivering a new flavor of welcome home.  Within the door's frame was a rickety screen slammer that would soon wham and bounce a thousand times as I ran into and out of the adobe shell. The screen on our door was stretched out from too many faces leaning into the partition trying to get a look left and right without opening the door. In addition to the screen being misshapen and lax, several holes in the wire mesh formed gnarly sharp finger traps for curious kids like myself. The dysfunctional screen matched our family's decor perfectly.

(The Brown Apartments image courtesy Google Maps.)

The Brown Apartment's outer and inner framework in the 60's was neglected and looked nothing like the picture above showing how those same apartments look today. The stiff mud shack was boringly uninviting with its flat roof and several doors offering different holes called homes. Each weather beaten portal opened to a living space revealing differing levels of poverty. The apartment offered a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom and two bedrooms. Two bedrooms for five children and two adults was not uncommon for the era nor for the economic standing called flat broke. I did not care about sleeping with other kids. As long as there was a spot for my body to curl into a ball,I could sleep between pushes and kicks from restless feet and bad breath was escaped by burying one's face into the crook of an elbow. I can still feel the texture of the bed's mattress with its blue stripes, white metal buttons, and lump producing springs. Many nights were spent, trying to pop off buttons that my nose or cheek would find because the bedsheets no longer covered the mattress due to the churning of fidgety, sleeping bodies.

(google image no credit given) 

The kitchen had its place in the back of the apartment showing off empty shelves and cockroach nests. Along the rear wall was a door like an escape hatch that exited into a large fenced yard. Wonderful sandy silken dirt dusted the entire backyard which showcased a communal wringer washer with a saggy clothes line companion. That wringer washer and I had several painful encounters! More than once did I dare and tempt fate by teasingly putting my finger tips into the rolling wringer. Once the rolling cylinders gripped my fingers I belted out screams of agony under the force and pull of the wringer as those turning savages squished the heck and blood out of my hands! Fortunate for my fingers and palms, I was rescued before my skin was ripped form my dainty little hand bones. I eventually lost my fascination for the washer's wringer mechanism and went on to challenge life elsewhere.

The Brown Apartments gifted me with another very flavorful memory of a bathroom. My first bathroom recall was a humiliating experience with clothing that I would rather live through twice over than what unraveled in The Brown Apartment's so called shower. 

(Janet Leigh, shower scene from the movie, Psycho, 1960)

The first day at our residence I was told to "go clean up" which meant getting wet in a shower and actually using a bar of Lifebuoy soap. I go into the bathroom, strip off my clothing and kick it aside like shed skin. I step into the pitted and chipped cement shower stall and twist the crusty water knobs in unison to the on position and - nothing. The pipes burp and groan a bit and I begin twisting the knobs left and right, repeat,  left and right, expecting water to flow and still - nothing. No water. Now the pipe like protuberance has my full attention as my upward gaze is intently riveted on the water spout which is void of a shower head. My curiosity was laced with an expanding imagination and anticipation as I rapidly created a variety of stories about burping, strange, arid water pipes. I stood with my face directly beneath the spout, my eyes wide with expectancy, and mouth gapped open when suddenly  a huge cockroach jumps out of the pipe onto my face!!! My screams failed to reach any hero's ears! There was no rescuing me from the monster cockroach that I know with certainty had huge fangs and piercing claws and most likely wanted to take me home to feed her kids! That hard shelled nasty creature inspired me to dance atop hot coals of being creeped out as I slapped my body violently in unison with the shaking of my hair wildly!  As I beat that carnivourous bug off my naked body I transported my tiny carcass out of the shower stall landing onto my shed skin of inside out clothing!  The heebie-jeebies continued crawling on my skin as I wet my face and hair in the sink so could leave the bug hole with the look of being wet.  I did not venture back into that room until the rest of the family cleared the water pipes of all the cockroaches. I still shudder when thinking of this experience!

Time was always irrelevant to me. My clock had four settings, day and night and hot and cold. Today was today. Tomorrow was a fantasy. Yesterday was filed away and entered into my mental log. One day I am living with a house full of people and the next day three of those people are gone. I can't say when my father's Lubbock Texas wife and her children fled Arizona, but they did so life snapped back to being just four Hughes' again. We were Bill Hughes, Billy Hughes, Moe Hughes, and Mary Hughes. I learned I was a Hughes in Lubbock in a very impressive way, so now in Florence I got a kick out of calling myself a Hughes and spelling it for people.  The elder Hughes worked for the Arizona Department of Corrections also referred to as the state prison. The elder Hughes, my dad, continued to drink away his paychecks; some things in life never change. In Florence my dad spent a lot of his semi conscious time in the local bars and taverns or at another drunk's house. By the grace of the graces my dad seemed to manage getting himself to work, but found it to be a challenge to come home. As in the other episodes of my life while living with my father, the three of us kids were very creative and resourceful in caring for ourselves. We had to be overly creative for our lives were void of any parenting. In looking back I can't say what was more traumatizing: living with my parent's constant bickering and arguing and plate throwing and baseball bat threats and screams and angry tears, or,  living a life void of parental nurturing and demonstrated love. My non attentive father made sure Florence was another class room  and he was a grand teacher.  But I diverge! So, my oldest brother spent most his time with his high school friends and with some of our cousins. My next to oldest brother spent his time hanging with his friends too and seemed to always be in trouble. I spent my time either alone with my imagination or with one friend, Vangie. 

I absolutely worshiped and looked up too Vangie for she was truly my first ever friend. I thought Vangie was super lucky because her parents owned a restaurant on Main Street in Florence, AZ. Once in a while Ms Vangie would invite me into the delicious smelling café that her mother used to delight the senses of hungry townspeople and town visitors.

Mrs. Marisacal, Vangie's mom, fixed authentic Sonoran Desert Mexican foods, and I was ever so appreciative for soft juicy tacos. I would pick up the rolled, soft corn tortilla dripping meaty juices and in one bite, stuff the entire taco into my watering mouth.  I must have looked like a hairless, overgrown chipmunk! 

(http://ncschoolipm.blogspot.com/2011/10/insect-of-week-antlion.html)

My best friend Vangie and I loved playing with Mother Nature's fixins'. We dug up doodlebugs with our bare hands, collecting the bugs in any vessel provided by the desert landscape.  We could entertain ourselves in the light of the Sonoran Desert sun for hours conducting Doodlebug races. Doodlebugs are Antlions and are super ugly, harmless, larva. With our  bugs in hand, we would smooth over the silken sands then on the count of 3 release our racers to do what they do best - creating new pits to capture ants for their meals! The winner was in possession of the bugs that made new pits first instead of doodling away their time going in circles! Fun indeed! Along with capturing and racing our doodlebugs Vangie and I would explore the under layer of the desert that never disappointed our imaginations. Vangi and I would on occasion wander over to the Florence graveyard and scare ourselves, and we would cool our bodies beneath pepper trees, and chew mesquite seed pods, and gladden make believe worlds populated with beautiful flying creatures. Vangie told me that one day she would be a nurse, and I told tell her one day I was going to be a horse! I mean if you are going to become something other than a child you might as well make that something spectacular! When in AZ I had no clue as to what being grown-up meant, much less what I would do as an adult. My focus was on play, and surviving until the next day not on thinking about an uncertain future.

When night crept across the landscape, taking away the light of day, my imagination ran wild toward the scary side of darkness. I did not like dolls anymore and so I did not have any fake human to comfort me anywhere in the apartment or in bed. On one of my adventures with Vangie she told me about the monster demon that hid in the velvet black of night and its favorite place to find its victims was at the Court House, on the lawns. She explained how that demon laid in wait for unsuspecting souls accidentally trespassing into the demon's realm and that demon would gobble them up! The court house demon had gnashing teeth that dripped sticky soul catching drool and that demon howled a howl that could paralyze one's body.  That Court House, where the demon hunted, was conveniently across the street from my home. I recall one evening sitting in the living room staring out the barely screened door and I was convinced I was seeing a hideous creature peering back at me through the gnarly sharp holes in the screen. I froze. I did not move, not even a twitch. I knew in my gut if I so much as took a breath, the demon monster cloaked in the dark of night would suck my body through those little holes in the screen and steal my soul! Obviously I was successful in avoiding that soul sucking goblin of the imagination - I think?  Aside from the fear of ghostly apparitions I began to miss my mother fearing I would never see her again. Both those fearful emotions fed off one another, missing my mother and fearing a monster required rescue. I recall crying myself to sleep as I would talk to the angels asking the angelic keepers of prayer to deliver me to my mom. I wanted to feel her hugs and kisses, even though her abandonment of me hurt, I still loved her and still needed her. One day I asked my dad why mommy was not with us, why did she not come back to us like she did in Texas? My loving, caring father, told me my mom had died. My mom dead? That sealed the deal on my already waning ability to share emotions in a healthy manor; I withdrew into a shell that took me half a lifetime to crack. 

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) 

From Alabama to Texas via Arkansas

(Photo: My sister Kathleen on left and me, Maryanne, 1978)

When I was an adult, with children of my own, my sister Kathleen revealed that it was she who told our father where to find me. My sister begged my dad to fetch me from the clutches of Mable, the woman whom my mother had left me with just before I turned 7. Mable lived in Prattville Alabama and that too was a mystery to me until later in life. As mentioned, it was while living with Mable I turned 7 and then experienced my very first sterile Christmas. I was stuck with Ms Mable because my mom had to rush to California to be with her ailing mother. In my heart I was with Mable too long starting from the minute my mom disappeared.

With my sister's prompting my father found me. I had not seen my father since the night he wrecked my mom's big green Pontiac, Sky Chief. Of course, most likely there were several days between the  night Sky Chief died and the day of my parents split up. The night my father wrecked our car was my last memory of my father's arms and face, until seeing him again at Mable's. When my father pulled up into Mable's dirt driveway I became openly giggly and very happy that my dad was rescuing me from Mable. After a huge hug and squeeze from my dad, I threw my first blatantly nasty "I hate you" look at Mable as I ran to the room I slept in to collect my belongings. I did not have much to pack. I grabbed and bagged a few pieces of clothing, which included a pair of brown shoes, a couple pair of under ware, a pair of socks (I don't recall wearing socks much as a child) two sundresses, a pair of shorts and a little shirt and maybe a tad more I really can't recall. I do recall that what I grabbed fit perfectly crumpled up into one paper bag and of course I had on my flip flops and some pants and a blouse. The one thing I did not want to leave behind and that did not fit into my bag was my Chatty Cathy doll that my mom sent me for Christmas. My toy doll had beautiful blond hair and on our first day together I learned that piles of sand in an Alabama yard such as Mable's were not the best choice to sit on and play for they are created by Fire Ants. I literally felt what "ants in my pants" was and it was not fun. Fire Ants are called Fire Ants for a reason; their bite burns like fire. Of course Chatty Cathy talked, but that is not why I loved her. I loved that funny doll so much because "she" was my  friend along with my real friend Peanut. No matter how much Mable yelled, or struck out at me with her long clawed hands, or slapped me with a belt or wooden spoon, or ignored me and made me go without eating, Chatty was always nice to me. Peanut too. Peanut my friend was never mean and Chatty and Peanut made living with witchy Mable tolerable.  I could talk to Chatty and Peanut and both knew how to keep a secret, especially dark secrets. 

 (Chatty Cathy 1961 vintage Google Images)

At first my father took my doll out of my hands and handing Chatty to Mable denied my friend's escape too. I cried. No, I threw a fit. A fit that made it impossible for my dad to leave Chatty Cathy alone with Mable, so into the car I leapt with Chatty in hand and with the slamming of a heavy metal car door I never looked back at "that place" again. I didn't even try to look for my friend Peanut's face outside the car for fear and anger that I might catch a glimpse of that awful mean lady. Safe, I relaxed with a smile in my heart as the car buzzed along the backcountry road heading toward an airport. 

I could feel the slipping away of daytime even through the thick gray skies of winter. The thickness of gray would hide the sun, stealing away most of the sun's light and denying shadows. I did not need to see the sun or shadows because my senses would whisper to me how much time I had until true nightfall. I think that perhaps when you grow with the weeds outside the way I did, you can feel the earth and the sky just like a weed does. I was a weed in the sense of learning to be adaptive to my life's ever changing landscapes and I was developing a tenacious spirit with a strong will to survive. My weedy nature's tenacity and adaptability proved valuable as my years piled up behind me. My sweetest years were over by the time I was 5ish having witnessed the KKK burning a cross that opened the passageway to the reality of the ugly side of the human beast. I began to see that it was not just my parents who could not get along. I was learning people, in general, were not nice. My day began in a hostile place where the word love was never spoken and now, as the grayness of the skies spoke of late afternoon I found myself with my father and also my sister Kathleen and her husband plus another man who was called "pilot" and we were going somewhere far away from Alabama.

(image google images)

I was overjoyed by and overcome by the fact I was with family again. We all stood along side a small airplane that was red and white and the plane had a propeller. I was not a stranger to airplanes being a seasoned military brat so when I was told to jump in I eagerly let my father lift me high into the air and crawled aboard the four seat-er plane. Four seats. There were five of us. The pilot took his seat and my father sat beside as co-pilot. My sister and her husband sat behind the pilots in the only two other seats in the plane. I was put in the back with the luggage. Chatty too, rode in the back of the little plane with me. I curled up atop some suitcases loose like a piece of parcel and Chatty had to stand with her legs pinned by some luggage and she was looking right me. Her face is burned into my memory cells.

Chatty Cathy's face is burned into my head because of what happened in the middle of the night in that little plane that was our ride to Lubbock Texas. I was born fearless. I think many children are. Children are taught fear and the ugly things of life through experience. This night the little red and white airplane taught me a little bit more about fear. The night's skies were dark except for occasional lightening flashes. I remember my sister asking a bunch of questions that made no sense and her husband telling her to shush. I was fascinated by the temperament of the night skies outside the plane and ignored the voices in the cabin. The plane started to make funny noises and then those noises would stop - leaving a big gap of silence that silenced the grown-up passengers too. I put out my feelers and knew that something was wrong and my weedy senses made me feel tight inside as fear grabbed up my legs. Fear spewed all over the cabin from the adults as they began raising their voices. Lightening flash. Chatty Cathy's face would light up and I would see her staring at me coldly in the suffocating silence that would last for a second in eternity. My sister began crying and sobbing something about her baby because at 16, she was pregnant with her fist child. My father being my father was laughing and sharing his bottle of spirits with the pilot and my brother-in-law. Once, maybe twice my father yelled asking if I was okay saying my name in his spanish/gaelic/english drunken slur. Chatty's face would flash with light and I could see the fear in my doll's face.

The plane soon was not making any sound at all and I could hear the outside come into the cabin with us. The invading darkness with lightening joined my sister's crying, my brother-in-law's squeaking, my father's laughter, and the pilot's silence broken only by his radio calls for help. I know what "Mayday Mayday" sounds like and what it feels like from a 7 year old's perspective. "Mayday Mayday please make Chatty stop staring at me and make everyone be quiet", that is what my call for help was. I wanted to be outside of the plane because it was too tight inside once the plane lost its generator. In the middle of the mayhem of chaotic voices and lightening flashes and drops and pitches I began to see a row of blue lights in the distance. We were close to an airport in Little Rock Arkansas. The pilot used the blue lights to guide our plane toward the general vicinity of an airstrip. The little red and white plane was not so gently falling from the dark skies but yet, obeying the pilot. The pilot although a bit under the influence of booze was able to put us on the ground - without breaking up. The landing was not the best but I had been in a louder landing and to me sound made the difference between horrible and terrible. I looked at Chatty and decided we would part ways because she could not rid her face of fear. Once inside the airport the adults regained their composure and rehashed the experience we just lived through. I sat unseen and listened. With the relief of not crashing, everyone's appetites engaged and we dinned on vending machine candy. I ate my first and last Cherry Mash candy bar and drank an RC Cola. The Cherry Mash candy bar was more horrible than being in a plane with no power, looking at Chatty Cathy, in a storm, in the dark of night, over Arkansas.

With the plane fixed and we were all aboard again, we finally landed in Lubbock Texas. Texas is where I became acquainted with dust storms, more unsavory characters, strange adventures, and hunger. My life in Texas began the serious peeling away of my veneer called childhood.

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) 

Burning My Innocence

Have you ever seen the KKK burn a cross with the intention of deliberately scaring people? Have you ever seen men with white hoods covering their faces? I have. Have you ever heard men wearing white hoods yelling obscenities about ( insert N word pluralized) and threatening to kill said person because of the color of their skin? I have. Have you ever seen a cross, sitting next to gas tanks, torched by men wearing white hoods in hopes of causing an explosion that would destroy structures and people in those structures? I have.

 (photo found on Google no credit given)

And here is my story.

Living in Alabama in the late 1950's for me, was like living in a magical world. I lived in Mobil, and Greenville, and Honorville, all in a short amount of time and each community or woodsy place had a special charm about it. My life in Alabama can be divided into two sections, before my parent's  divorce and after my parent's divorce. While my parents were still married we lived on Maxwell/Gunter AFB in Montgomery Alabama and life for me, was filled with a lot of fantastic fun filled days. I was happy.

It was right after my parent’s divorce that life began to change in bizarre, interesting ways. I use the word interesting because I can't think of another way to describe what I witnessed and experienced. Normal is not a word of choice here. My life became more stimulating because of all the characters that suddenly populated my life. These new people brought with them historical dramas and even my own parent's and siblings began to express themselves explosively and oddly. Everyone suddenly had a problem and everyone suddenly had to share their problem with everyone. I spent a lot of time confused when I was around grown-ups and or my siblings so I tried to spend most my time outside. Outside was normal, and magical.

As a young child do you remember how an hour could feel like a day? And a day could contain enough adventure to fill an entire year of an adult’s life? My life was like that. I lived my days filled with Huck Finn type adventure in the backwoods crawling with all the characters the backwoods of Alabama could sustain. I lived in a world of natures magic that created amazing beautiful adventures between me and birds and bugs and trees. I also lived in the confusion of being a small child living with my mother and sister post parental divorce at a road house. The 331 Roadhouse was owned for an instant in this life by my mom, Ellie, and the 331 sat alongside HWY 331 in Alabama. While living at the Roadhouse I gathered in my little head enough memories to last my lifetime. Memory collecting was part of my magical child experience, to this day I can tell you about the feel and smell of moments I lived through with my imagination as my guide. I lived life innocently, I breathed in without fear and I knew I was loved and that my mom and sister would always be with me. I had no fears, no worries. Not even my parent's divorce bothered me because I was not used to my father being around anyway, so his absence was normal to me. 
My lens of innocence was burned when I witnessed a horrific event that caused within me a fear I had never known before and I begin to see that not all people were nice; I began to see people like fractured pieces of glass that made it hard to know the whole person.

One beautiful night in the early spring of 1961 the 331 was hopping to great sounds of music and ladies and their gents were waxing their shoes as they slid into and out of their dance moves across the Roadhouse’s waxed dance floor. Being a place where one could legally buy alcohol it was not uncommon for there to be at least one person who could not hold their drink. This particular night that one person was an Officer’s wife from Montgomery AL and she did not want to drive her car; being that she was a bit tipsy. This lady, not versed in the ways of the Deep South thought she would ask for a ride home. This drunken lady leaned over the food counter and yelled at the Roadhouse cook, asking if he could drive her home when he was done with his work. Oh my.
Remember this is Alabama. This happened in 1961. The lady was asking “a man of color” she was asking a man who was referred to as “N” to give her, a “white” lady a ride home where they would be alone in a car together. No No No No.

The cook came to my mom and told her what had happened and told my mom that he was scared and wanted to slip out the back and go home to his family to protect them and himself if needed. My mom agreed, not really understanding the gravity of the situation, she went back to work tending to the fry cook position herself. There was an ABC Board man in the Roadhouse that evening, because he was one of my mom’s good friends. Ed was the ABC Board man’s name. Ed called for back up because he had a feeling and sure enough, Ed was right. Ed suggested to my mom that she make sure her children were not in the restaurant. Mom came to the back where the “Coloreds” were served because it was in "the back" that my sister and I hung out. My mom told us to go to the cabin. Now. We did so quickly because we could sense the anxiety in her voice.

Within an hour there were screeching tires and revving engines with several vehicles surrounding the 331 Roadhouse. In those vehicles there were men with their heads covered with white sacks and those men were yelling and shouting awful obscenities. People were scattering everywhere as we watched from the cabin. Several of those hooded men got out of their trucks and erected a cross right next to the gas tanks and set it on fire. Lucky for us, and many other people Ed from the ABC Board ran out and began yelling that other ABC officers were on the way and the hooded men, yelling back, got in their cars and trucks and sped away. Ed put out the burning cross and it felt like there was no air for any of us to breathe!

 (Google image no credit found)

My mom came to the cabin to check on us and took us back to the Roadhouse with her for a bit to keep an eye on us while she and others cleaned up. The clean up involved taking down the partially burned cross in addition to gathering what was left of any nerve they may have had. I was filled with confusion and fear and a huge lack of understanding. I could not understand why anyone would want to burn Jesus’ cross. I could not understand why anyone would want to dress up like it was Halloween and scare my mom and other people. None of anything I saw or thought I saw made any sense and you know what? To this day, none of what happened that night makes sense. Hatred and racism and bigotry never makes sense.  

That night opened up a window I had never looked through and that was the window into a world where people could be deliberately hateful and harmful to one another based on nothing but the color of skin. I began to worry about my moles because my moles where the same color as my friends who used the back entrance of the Roadhouse. My moles were the same color as my friends who played in the backwoods with me. I lived a life of fear after that. Fear that at any moment someone could take something good away and make it bad.
Life was a bit different around the Roadhouse after that night. The ABC officers posted someone there everyday for awhile because of what had happened and also because the Freedom Riders were on their way to Montgomery. 

The Freedom Riders caused a lot of much needed commotion that I am grateful for. I am grateful for the Freedom Riders and their the bravery  to step out in harms way and change the world for the better, or at least try.The world needed to change from the world I witnessed to a world where a person is accepted for the simply fact that they are human and that has nothing to do with the color of skin.

And as a side note ~ My older sister who was with me that night married one of the KKK member’s sons.


(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)