Tag Archives: Scripture for life

My First Job

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I learned early in life that earning money was a prerequisite to having the good things in life. To me, at that time, those good things were cigarettes.

Chapter Thirteen  –   My First Job

I had several part time jobs from the time I was twelve years old. The first one was a sales clerk in the F.W. Woolworth’s store at Bloor and Yonge Streets. The hiring age in December, 1949 was thirteen, and my birthday was in January, so I fibbed. I needed the money to pay for my newly acquired smoking habit.

If I remember correctly, I earned fifty cents an hour and my cigarettes cost twenty cents a pack. I was ahead of the game at age twelve!

She sets about her work vigorously…(Proverbs 31:17)

Tomorrow  –  On Being a Mother  – A Lesson in Reproduction

Toe Picks

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This chapter reveals a devastating disappointment in the eleventh Christmas of my  life.

Chapter Twelve  –  Toe Picks

My quivering fingers ripped part of the paper off my present. Yes! There were the white boots, but wait, they were shoe polish white! Tearing at the rest of the paper I uncovered the gleam of steel blades. But it was a steel wool gleam. My heart sank as the paper fell away from the rest of the skates– no toe picks.

The lump in my throat felt like a tennis ball. Choking back tears, I examined the skates a little closer. The insides of the boots were a dull, worn flannel. They were second-hand skates, somebody else’s has-been skates. Disappointment crushed me. They were not even figure skates……

A hope deferred makes the heart sick… Proverbs 13:12

Tomorrow  –  My First Job  –  A Lesson in Self-Reliance

Another New School

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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

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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

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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.”

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

 

The Invitation to Lunch

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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

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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

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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.”

A Feeling of Abandonment

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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.