Part 1
Earliest Days
My earliest memory was in the early 70’s. I remember living on State Street in Bettendorf. Our next-door neighbor was our Land Lady. I called her “Lamb Lady.” I thought that was her name until she passed away. She seemed very elderly to me. My mom said she worked at the bank. She gave my brother and me savings bonds as Christmas and birthday gifts. My parents gave mine to me after I was married many years later.
I must have watched some type of zombie movie on TV because I was waiting ofor her zombified body to come after me when I was sleeping one night shortly after her death. I screamed in horror until my mom came into my room. I could not tell her why I was screaming, but she took the opportunity to explain to me that everyone dies and its part of life. She told me that Lamb Lady was in Heaven.
The 70s was a tough decade. I thought that African Americans were scary. I remember being at my aunt and uncle’s house. There were some African American children hanging outside in front of their house. My uncle screamed some racial slurs to them and told them to get away. I thought that was a normal way to speak to them even though I never heard my parents speak that way. But I remember one friend told me after I repeated some of the hate speech, that I “shouldn’t say those things, they can’t help who they are.” I was so naive.
Parents Background
My parents did not know how to parent. They did not have good examples to follow. My dad was one of 12 children. He grew up in Southern Missouri in Sikeston. His father was 40+ years older than his mother. She was pregnant almost every year of their marriage. He died of liver failure shortly after the youngest child was born. Dad was the middle child. He doesn’t have many memories of his father. My grandma worked as a cook at the hospital and restaurants after his death leaving the older children to look after the younger ones every day. The family moved from house to house often living in cramped quarters. Most of the girls dropped out of school and had pregnancies at young ages. All the boys joined the military right out of high school. His youngest sister was 16 when I was born. My dad joined the army and was active during the early Vietnam War days. He never was assigned to the war. After his service days, he was living in Memphis with some buddies. On one of his trips to Sikeston, his brother set him up on a blind date to go bowling with a young nurse who worked with his wife at the hospital.
My mom was an only child to two schoolteachers who met in college. My grandfather also was a farmer on the family farm. My grandmother returned home to northern Missouri after college and my grandpa moved back to the farm in Southern Missouri. He was a high school math teacher and she taught elementary children. The couple wrote letters back and forth for many years. After around 20 years later, he finally proposed to her. Soon after they married, they moved to Southern Illinois for teaching jobs. At the age of 42, my grandmother gave birth to my mom. My mom was a breech and Grandmother died shortly after she gave birth from internal bleeding. Grandpa soon moved back with my mom to the family farm with his mother in southern Missouri. He continued to teach school and farm. His sister “Aunt Mae” decided to raise my mom. Aunt Mae lived a very simple life. She worked as a caregiver to older men, I believed they were wounded veterans. She and my mom moved from town to town often. My mom had to switch schools many times in her young life. I believe that my grandpa did not pay child support during that time. She once told me that she never felt love by her relatives. In the summer she was passed around from house to house. When she started high school, she moved back to the family farm with my grandfather and his mother. He lived in the school district she wanted to attend high school. She did very well in school and made some good friends for the first time in her life. She spent much of her time at home caring for her grandmother. She found her after she passed away one morning.
After my mom graduated from high school, she entered nursing school at Southeast Missouri University. My grandpa paid for all her expenses while she was in college. After she graduated, she started a job as an RN at the hospital in Sikeston. One of her fellow nurses set her up on a blind date to the bowling alley with her husband’s brother. They were married in April of 1966 and I came along in December of that year. When I was 5 months old, we moved to Iowa where my dad started working at Alcoa. In July of 1969 we welcomed my brother Todd.
Part 2
Sunday School
I grew up in church. We were there every Sunday and Wednesday. It was the First Baptist Church of Bettendorf, a southern Baptist church in the north. I can remember being in the 4 and 5-year-old class taught by Mr. Ashbery. For some reason I thought his name was Mr. Krispy. I don’t know where that came from. Mrs. Schoefield was the other teacher. I don’t remember much about the class. My first real memories were in the 1st and 2nd grade class which was taught by Mr. and Mrs. Ledbetter. I remember Amy was in the class. She was also in my class at school. During 1st grade, we moved 2 blocks over from State Street to Brown Street, across the street, kiddie corner from Amy’s house. I spent a lot of time playing with Amy either at her house or my house. Her mom was studying to be a nurse, so our moms helped each other out. Amy was the youngest of 4 children. They were all beautiful children, tan and blonde. Everybody liked Amy. Amy and I remained close during our early school years. In the summer when we were 8 years old, during vacation Bible school, Amy and I decided to accept Jesus into our hearts, and we were both Baptized on the same day. From that day on, I decided to change my life and try and be the best person I could possibly be. I thought the rest of the world was evil and it was my job to go and shine my light for all to see. Boy I did not do a good job with that.
Early School Days
Bettendorf, Iowa
I loved going to school in the beginning. I did not have a preschool experience except for church and Sesame Street. The kindergarten teacher was young. I remember having centers (I don’t think they were called that then). My favorite place to play was the housekeeping center. I remember the play food, dolls and dress-up clothes. My first memory of conflict with another child was in that area. We were fighting over a dress. There were 2 identical dresses, expect one was blue and one was yellow. They were flower girl style dresses. We were fighting over the yellow dress. I do not know who grabbed the dress first, but we were yanking on it. I let go and let Marge have it. I decided then and there I was not going to like Marge, ever…
I really don’t remember much about the 1st grade. We had a few new students. Back then they had a program called pre-1st for children who were not mature enough to move on to 1st grade. There were some students in our class who came out of that program. One of the students was Kelly, the girl who lived in the house behind my house. We became friends. Amy, Kelly and I became good neighborhood friends.
My life changed in the 2nd grade. Mrs. Dixon, the teacher was a seasoned teacher. She had a very loud voice and I was scared to death of her. I thought she was mean. I thought she hated me. I worked and learned at a slow pace at that time and had a hard time getting my work done. She had a number system. She would call out your number and you handed in your papers. I was number 2. I rarely had my work done when she called out my number. I had to stay after school most days to complete my assignments. This really put a damper on my self-esteem. It was usually the “slow kids” who had to stay after school, so I began to be associated as a slow child. I began to hate school. My friends usually ignored me at school because they didn’t want to be associated with the slow kids. I was always one of the last one’s to get called for teams. Life was brutal then. I thought they were all evil. I started not getting invited to birthday parties. Amy and Kelly played with me on the weekends and in the summer, but at school they did not so much.
Third grade was much better. The teacher Mrs. Bodnar was young and much more modern for the time than Mrs. Dixon. I still struggled, but she did not call me out on being slow. My self-esteem started to get a little better, but the damage was done. In the summers after 3rd grade we began playing more with the kids within a 2 block radius. During that time, everyone got along. We rode our bikes all around the area, we played in parks, we built forts in the woods (a group of trees, we called the woods). Life was good in the summer. I did allow myself fall into temptation a few times and sinned because of peer pressure. I prayed hard for God to forgive me of my sins. The guilt was overwhelming.
Our 5th grade teacher was laid back. I was still struggling some, especially in math. This was the grade most of the kids are thinking about sex. As I think back as an adult, I wonder who was sexually and physically abused. I know it was going on then. We had one boy who came to school dirty and smelly. It took me years to realized he was being abused.
Some of the girls began to develop at that age. I did not want that to happen to me. One girl had breasts. The boys talked about her all the time. We had one boy who was bullied and called “gay” all the time. A group of boys told him to grab the girl’s breasts to prove he wasn’t gay. He did it. She just acted as if it never happened. Thinking back on it, she probably felt violated and devastate. But boy it was the talk of the year. No one seemed to have empathy back then. Most of the boys were actually nice to me. I wasn’t interested in dating any of them and they knew it and I think that was one reason they were nice to me. Some of the girls were brutal. Remember, I decided in kindergarten I did not like Marge. There was a couple of other girls I had decided I didn’t like as well. They were friends of Marge. They also liked Amy and Kelly, but of course not me. So, there was a lot of friction between the girls back then. Some hateful things were said to me a few times that never left me. I had trouble with forgiveness especially when it’s not mutual.
I forgot to say that I joined the band in the 4th grade. I played clarinet. I stuck with it until I graduated. I did not practice and master it like I should have but being in band was the best thing for me.
Part 3
Family Life
I’m not going to write a whole lot about my family. But we had a pretty good family life. We were taught in church that the father was in charge of the family. Under the father was the mother and then the children. My dad worked at Alcoa as a security guard and worked a swing shift for many of my young years. When an office job opened up he took it and had normal business hours. He was paid a salary and did not belong to the union. In the 80’s, Alcoa had a big strike and Dad was transferred back to the security guard position. He was also a lock smith and a first responder for the company. After the strike, Dad continued in that position until he retired. He was well known throughout the plant.
My mom worked outside of the home part time as an RN. Many of the other mothers in the 70’s were still stay at home moms. She worked at a local hospital 2nd shift, so occasionally we had a babysitter in our home when Dad was working second shift. We also had a teenager stay with us during times there was an overlap for an hour or two. In the 80’s she went into home nursing and worked for several different agencies in the area. She retired shortly after my dad.
Like I mentioned in an early article, my parents did not have good examples on how to parent when they were going up. I do think they did the best they could. Both of my parents knew how to live frugally. We never had any name brand clothes in the 70’s. We got most of our clothes from Kmart or Target. Mom did try making me clothes when I was young. The elementary school we attended had mostly working class families with only a few that were more well off. I think I had one dentist, one doctor and one or two business owners with children in my class. Our area was one of the oldest areas located in the southwest corner of Bettendorf. My classmates called the area the hood of Bettendorf, years later as adults. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood, but compared to other areas of the town it was vintage.
My parents used corporal punishment as did most parents in the 1970’s. We were spanked with a ping pong paddle. It was kept in a drawer in the kitchen. We were spanked for fighting as siblings, back talking, telling lies, and not listening. Mom and Dad did our spanking. I wasn’t suppose to have disagreements with my brother and everyone else. I think I converted my frustrations on to torturing him. I will examine my mental health issues in another post.
Like I said I feel that they did very well. We would go visit some of my dad’s siblings houses and then I realized how well we had it. Although Dad always was extra tough on us when we entered their homes. I realized one day that he did that to show his siblings that he was control of us and we were going to behave. I did not like it at the time.
Several of my aunt and uncles scared me when I was young. They seemed to yell louder and used “cuss words” at the kids. All of them were smokers. My parents quit smoking when I was very young. I believed most of my cousins all thought I was a goody-to-shoes. Many specific memories and flooding in right now, but I’ll save that for another post.
Part 4
Middle School Days
Middle School was the time for new beginnings as well as awkward experiences. For the first time I was with new people. I did know many of the people in my section because the 6-1’s were all the band, orchestra and gifted kids. I was in the first section 6-1-1. Most of my classes were with this sub-section, except for reading and math, which were divided by abilities within the section. We were given placement tests. I scored high enough in math to be in the highest math group which totally shocked me. I lasted a couple months in there and was switched to the middle group (at grade level). I was fine with that, because I always thought I was below grade level with math.
I made many new friends in Middle School. Most of the girls in my group of friends had similar background as me. It was the time to learn about the different layers of the popularity statuses. The “popular” kids were the good looking one’s who came from wealthy families or they were the athletic type. I did not fit in the group. But I was alright with where I was in my social status group. This was also the time when we had to be careful talking to boys. We all had our crushes, but would never directly talk to or make eye contact with them. This was also the time to be exposed to diversity. There was not much of that in Bettendorf at that time. There were probably 3 or 4 African Americans in my entire class of around 400 kids during the Middle School years. I really didn’t let myself get to know any of them.
I will write more specific stories about the middle schools days, later.