Author Archives: Patricia Ann

Another New School

Posted on by

It’s a wonder that I didn’t hate school, but for all the moving around my childhood entailed, once settled in, I enjoyed school and was a good student, according to my report cards.

Chapter Eleven  –  Another New School

Ah yes, those younger years with all the moving around; different homes, different schools, different friends.

We’d just get nicely settled into a school, when we’d be on our way to another. I always cried, while Mary seemed to nonchalantly accept each change as it came along. We were staying with our mother between foster homes, and this time Mom literally dragged me, screaming my head off, up the steps into a new foreboding building. “I don’t wanna go in! I don’t wanna go in!” But in I went, hiccupping and sobbing.

“This is Patsy,” my mother told the principal in her finest, no nonsense, tone.

She was interrupted by a long, loud, gong……

 

Train a child in the way he should go…Proverbs 22:6

 

Tomorrow – Toe Picks – A lesson in disappointment

Jesus Was Jew

Posted on by

Lessons in life are sometimes hard to learn but in this chapter I learned  one suddenly, and quickly, at the age of ten.

Each chapter ends with a scripture and starting today, I will include these at the end of each excerpt.

Chapter Ten  –  Jesus Was a Jew

She made me wet my pants.

Freddie Lafferty and I were hurling insults at each other. We were ten years old, and didn’t know the meaning of most of the words we used. It was called the insult game.  The final name I threw at him after he called me horse face was Jew!

As the word left my mouth, a lady came out of nowhere dressed from head to toe in black. She pierced me with her black eyes, and whacked me on the arm with her oversized, black purse.

“Shame on you,” she said, “Jesus was a Jew!”

I felt the hotness running down my legs, and began to wail. I ran home as fast as I could. Lafferty’s voice screeched after me, his skinny body bent over in laughter.

“She peed her pants! She peed her pants!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. The mean old lady trundled off down the street with a final, “Shame on you!” thrown over her hunched shoulder…….

 

But no man can contain the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.  (James 3:8)

 

The Black Sheep

Posted on by

When my mother called me the black sheep in the family, I began to see myself as different from everyone else. I don’t remember how old I was, or why she called me that, but it has stayed with me all these years.

 

Chapter Nine – The Black Sheep

There is something to be said for the black sheep. Her eyes are a little more soulful than the rest of the flock. At first she stands facing them, then moves into their midst, alone in a crowd. She is not leading the flock, nor bringing up the rear. She is right there in the center, surrounded by the white sheep. She is the inspiration for a childhood song. Nobody ever sang, “Baa, baa white sheep, have you any wool.”

Image

The Black Sheep is another very short chapter in the book.  Tomorrow…..Jesus was a Jew.

 

The Invitation to Lunch

Posted on by

This is a short chapter which speaks of deep sadness.

 

Chapter Eight – The Invitation to Lunch

Julia and Margaret talked to each other as they tidied up the kitchen, while Maryanne and I sat gazing at our surroundings, wondering why we were there. The big girls didn’t include us in their conversation, and seemed content just to have us with them. Julia’s wistful smile appeared whenever she looked at me, and she constantly played with my hair.

On the way back to school, Julia held my hand and told me about her little sister. Heather was six years old when she was hit by a car last year. She had long brown hair and hazel eyes……..

 

Tomorrow’s chapter, The Black Sheep, deals with a lesson in feeling different.

 

Nobody Argues with Grandma

Posted on by

In this part of chapter seven, I am four years old and  looking at my favorite comic strip, Mandrake the Magician, in the attic of my grandmother’s farmhouse,

Chapter Seven  –  Nobody Argues with Grandma

My grandma is calling me to come and eat. I have mixed emotions. I want to stay in the stillness of the attic with my heroes, but the smell of the food is enticing, and my grandmother’s insistent voice is coming closer. I must go down to the kitchen.

The humming has ceased. Grandma is at the bottom of the stairs, sternly calling me to come at once. Lydia Airaksinen has raised four sons and two daughters, who even in their older years would not dare to disobey this tight-lipped, little lady. I fold Mandrake and Becky in half. They will still be here when I return. But for now, the voice that beckons will not wait. Nobody argues with Grandma.

 

I’m sad to say, the devil caught me in the vegetable garden in the rest of this chapter.

The Blimp, the Boil, and Mr. Beckett’s House

Posted on by

In this chapter I was three years old when a ceiling collapsed in our home. Here is today’s excerpt.

Chapter Six – The Blimp, The Boil, and Mr. Becket’s House

A thundering crash scared us awake one morning. I scrambled over the bars of my crib, and hit the floor running for the stairs as fast as my three year old legs could carry me. Mom grabbed my sister out of her crib, and Dad followed with a loud shout to be careful.
I was halfway down the stairs, and peered wide-eyed over the banister. The air was thick with dust, and smelled like chalk. Huge chunks of plaster covered the floor and furniture. I couldn’t see our kitten, Snuff, anywhere, and was terrified that she was lying dead under the debris. When her dusty, white, head appeared from behind the sofa, I forgot the danger, and ran to rescue her. We carefully picked our way through the mess to the safety of outdoors. I remember being in awe that a ceiling had actually fallen down. How could that happen?

The rest of the chapter describes some other experiences in that year of my life. Tomorrow, “Nobody Argues with Grandma.”

Songs of Friendship

Posted on by

Hello and welcome to Blog Day Six and Chapter Five of My Precious Life.  I always associated music with friends when I was growing up because music made me happy when the end of a friendship made me sad. So here is a blurb from that part of my life.

 

Chapter Five  –   Songs of Friendship

Before long, I became accustomed to my new surroundings, and made a new friend. She was a little older than I, acted kind of tough, but was very nice. Her name was Jean Braid, and she gave me my first cigarette when I turned twelve. I’ll tell you about that later.

Our teacher that year was Mrs. Deville. She was tough. She had glaring eyes, and her tongue was always jammed into the inside of one cheek or the other. If you didn’t understand what she had written on the blackboard, her inch long, scarlet nails screeched down the slate from top to bottom. It still makes my skin crawl remembering that sound.

You never chewed gum in Deville’s class. I know, because the one time I forgot to spit mine out, I wrote five hundred lines of, I will not chew gum in school. I get writer’s cramp to this day. “Cow Cow Boogie” was the song of the time.

 

It was difficult to choose an excerpt from this chapter because of the many people, friends, and connected songs it portrays. It was fun writing the chapter, as each friend and song came to mind.

The Story Behind My Name

Posted on by

Hello and welcome to Day Five of my first blogging experience. I hope you are enjoying the read as much as I am enjoying the writing. It really is a new, and fun experience at this stage of my life.  And now on to Chapter Four.

Chapter Four  –  The Story Behind My Name

My mother’s name was Ann, and her best friend was a lady named Patricia Morgan.  We called her Aunt Pat.   She was from Wales and always smelled like Noxzema.  She was an austere looking spinster; tall, large boned, and wore her hair in a disheveled, flat bun on the top of her head.  My mom was a petite, five foot, two inch, blonde with laughing good looks.  It is said that opposites attract and they sure were opposites………

This chapter is a short description of the people behind my name.

A good name is more desirable than great riches…(Proverbs 22:1)

Ages of Brutality

Posted on by

Hi  to everyone who visits this site and welcome to day four of My Precious Life blog.  A reminder to scroll down to day one to access my opening blog and then scroll up to read the preceding chapters. And now to continue the story.

Chapter Three – Ages of Brutality

I witnessed brutality at a very early age.  I was three years old when I watched, wide-eyed and terrified, as blood oozed from my mother’s mouth.  My dad had backhanded her in a drunken rage.  I remember tugging at his leg, screaming, “No, Daddy, no!”  He seemed completely unaware of me.  My sobbing mother shouted at me to take my sister and hide.  I pushed Mary’s diapered bottom under our parents’ sagging bed at the back of the tiny house, and wiggled in after her as our mother shrieked, “Jack, stop hitting me!”  But he didn’t……….

Be kind and compassionate to one another…(Ephesians 4:32)

This chapter describes the brutality I witnessed in the early years of my life and into my teens. Thankfully, the memories did not damage my psyche and are now material for my book.  I should mention that each chapter contains a lesson from my life and tomorrow’s chapter is a lesson in identity–how I got my name.

 

 

 

 

A Feeling of Abandonment

Posted on by

In those first few moments, I felt abandoned. My mother passed me into the arms of a person who I had never seen before in my short life.

“What time will you be back?” The question hung in the air like the smell of last night’s boiled cabbage.

“Six,” said my mother, as she rushed out of the house to avoid my wailing protest.

The room where I was traded off was hot and stuffy. A blanket was spread on the grubby, linoleum floor, and my chubby, two-year-old self was told to have a sleep.

“Sh, sh, go to sleep.”

The voice faded away as its owner retreated from the kitchen………

Though my father and mother foresake me…(Psalm 27:10)

This chapter is an introduction to the many times I felt abandoned as I was shuffled from one foster home to another.