D D The first senior moment.

Today while in the shower spending some alone and quiet time, I thought back to how I have evolved.
Normally I don't get in the bathroom very long when I hear myself being paged.  sigh!
Say to myself...."self ...you can't even take a shit without being interrupted."
Then rush to see what's up and usually hubby just wanted moi to see something on tv he knows I would enjoy or a favorite program is about to come on.
Sometimes one of the dogs wants to be let out. Sometimes he justs wants to know where I am cause he hasn't seen me in awhile. 
Either I get miffed or appreciate the thought. sigh!
Today still being Sunday ....there is nothing either of us specifically watch on tv during the day.
  Earlier I had been in the back yard refilling bird feeders and battering down the A/C unit with a tarp.
Had time while out there for my mind to start roaming.  Just moi and the elements and my eyes traveling over what still needs to be done before the first snowfall.
   Showering to get ready to go to the Outback my mind continued to conjure up images and memories..
Images of myself as a young bride, naive ( thought babies came out of the same hole I peed out of. )
Yeah I know how stupid it sounds ...just being honest.... cringe:cringe.
Out of the frying pan into the fire as that saying goes.
Had all the responsibilities as the oldest child and pictured a cozy cottage for two instead of a family of six and how much easier my life would be and I could fix my place up the way I wanted. .  Dumb, stupid kid.
Hubby was 23 and had seen the world in the Navy. Joined when he was 17.
He wanted a young stupid wife so he could train her.
Well that's  the gist I got down the line somewhere towards the end of our marriage.  I shit you not!
Shamefully .................I will admit.... I was like Edith in All In The Family.
Stepped on, held back, threatened, beat, was the target at the end of a gun more than once.
 For years I woke from my dreams/nightmare with the ex coming towards me with a gun pointed at me.
 I had a gun in my hand and could not figure  how to take off the safety lock.
 Terrified , I would wake up. 
Didn't have that dream every night, but enough of them and I would guestimate for 15 years or more.Once I escaped to a next door neighbors and was dialing the police as he was banging on the door.
We have to let him in the people were saying and they did.
Back then it wasn't like now. Police came, made a report and warned him.
I could have followed through by signing that I would appear in court.
Well you know how that goes.....Fear, stupidity, hoping he would change.
My mother would say to me..." you can't teach old dogs new tricks", when I would tell her he promised to never do it again. . 
If I didn't like some greasy shit he made, the bowl or pan would fly at the wall and he would order moi to clean the shit up.
I'd be crying and he would order me to put a smile on my face while I was doing it    ..ORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
The few times I got brave enough to speak up taught me to keep my mouth shut. STIFLE!
I can still picture the 4 oldest lined up sitting on the couch not daring to move off it.
I've touched on this in a past post and it wasn't until I didn't care if I lived or died that I left and went back to my parents.  He tried to reconcile. I would go with him like he asked when he picked up the kids for a visit a few times, saying it was too hard for him alone to watch them. He would make his plea during those few times and finally knew I meant I wanted a divorce.
He had an elbow that was never set when he broke it as a child and it jutted out.
Never heard him say it bothered him while we were together.
He called me from a Hospital Ship telling me that he smashed it on purpose so the Navy would reset it and discharge him with a medical discharge. I visited him once on the ship while  he was recovering.
Screwed me out of my half of our income tax by asking me to sign the form and saying he would give me half. Yup...I fell for that!  I shit you not!
He got his discharge and went back to Arkansas to his mother and step father.
 I have gotten  ahead of myself again.  sigh!
   What relief I felt when his ship would go out to sea or overseas.  I would lose myself in True Romance books once the kids were in bed.
Now I wouldn't be caught dead with one. :0) My reading interest turned towards True Crime in later years.
When he found these books he ordered me never to bring another in the house.
They put ideas in my head is what he told me.     Coul.....d  BE!
Hated black people. Always told me he would shoot one if they ever came up to our door.
Hated anyone taller than he was and told me he could kill them just because of his hatred for taller guys if he ever got in a fight with someone taller than himself.
I didn't doubt him. His spoken words were like venom.
Ordered me down on my knees while he held a gun on me , telling me to pray to the devil because he was the one that had my soul.
   Was able to  make one friend after my first child was born.
Think her husband was stationed with mine. Time has made just how we met forgotten.
She had her first baby and he was the same age as mine.
 Dolly and I write a few times a year bringing each other up on our lives.
We were not around each other but maybe a dozen times back in 1954. 
The Navy has a way of transferring you to another base.  Kids have a way of keeping you busy.
No other friend in my life for the rest of that marriage.
   My ex married an 18 year old when he was in his late thirties.  Just out of high school. Devout in the  Pentacostal faith. .
 All of my grown  kids went to Arkansas to meet him ONCE at various times in their adulthood.
Only one stuck around awhile and tried living there. Make that two. Arkansas is a beautiful state and the lakes and fishing appealed to them.
He never wrote them or called to keep in touch after our divorce.  Never. . . The 5 kids were aged 1 to 6.
The $50 a month child support he sent ( court ordered $125)  was his only obligation.....so he thought.
They couldn't say the word darn in front of Pearl.   It was the same as saying damn.
I knew that a leopard doesn't change it's spot by then.   He did her the same way I later learned.
She stuck it out longer than I did and left him for a guy named Larry. Same name as one of his sons. :0)
She threw her religon away.     Moved in with the guy.
The ex had a nip and tuck done on his testicles after our 5th child was born and never told her.
No kids from that marriage. Can I hear an Amen.
Looks like his taking a child bride to raise up himself backfired again.
Told him he would die a lonely old man someday ......he did! 
Sat at his table late one night and hit the floor.
Only his wife's elderly brother who had lived with them and remained after she left was there to find him after it was too late.
This left Pearl a widow and she married Larry in her 50's. .
Pearl got his insurance money, the house and we heard he had left his 5 children $10 each in his Will, but they never saw it and they don't give a Shit! 
Only my Cheryl grieved for what she never had and lost
After our divorce and a few years of silence my ex MIL  began to write me and continued to for many years until she passed away. It was she that told moi of his marriage and other things.
Sometimes she included some money in the letters for her grandkids.
The ex was an only child.
She was of the same religion as Pearl, but had no use for her.
Why...I never bothered to ask.  Never had anything good to say about her son either for that matter.
She knew it annoyed them to no end that she kept in contact with me.
I have heard she liked to drop my name now and then.  Yep, Lois is remembered by my oldest and DIL as one that liked to see discord up on that hill as they called the compound. .
I have only met her two times.... once when we had two kids and drove to Arkansas for a weeks visit. She only got to see the oldest two as babies. The next time I was with hubby #3 and we drove to Arkansas and met up with my son Jay..his wife and 3 kids in a state park.  Lois had wrote me that her son said he would shoot me if I came on the property.
Mind you...it was she and her second husbands property before they let him build a house on it.
She came driving up in her big Buick with Floyd ( great guy) and sat at the picnic bench with us for a few hours.  Poor Floyd....what a sweetheart he was. My kids loved him. Grandma Pix on the other hand......
Jay,Kim and kids were living in the trailer that the ex lived in with his bride until he built a house.
I kept her up on her grandkids and twice a year I sent him a letter giving him the kids grades , sending him current pictures and  telling him how they were doing.  No reply back. 
That was moi...always trying to do what's right.You get the picture...Sap, pushover, sucker, punching bag.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
There is so much I am leaving out. Not purposely. Time has a way of dulling some events.
After the last beating , he told the judge my black eyes occured when I walked into a door.
Judge asked him if he had been drinking. I can answer that...NOPE. He wasn't a drinker.
One year probation.
Didn't care if I lived or died by then....ran home to mama and daddy. Yep, the drunk I tried to escape.
I went from a drunken father to a man beast, to another man baby, to another man  jury is out and never learned to make my own way in life although I did work for at least 17 years during the 43 years hubby and I have been together.
Not without a battle though!  Hubby walked out on moi in a rage. Came back the next day and gave me the silent treatment ..........until he needed sex.
I could have held out much longer! :0)

    We are back from the Outback.
Every where I drove there were signs of Halloween coming. Hay bales. cornstalks, pumpkins and many other decorations.
We mostly drove in silence coming and going. After 43 years together we seldom have a conversation.
Hubby never knew what a discussion was.  We'll get to that another time.
 Occasionally there was reason to speak.
Like someone making a UTurn in the road ahead of moi.
I'm always thinking I am talking loud and clearly enough for hubby to catch what I am saying only to get him frustrated and myself as well as I have to have to repeat myself over and over. Staying quiet cures that. :0)
Butch,Jill and Alex were here until the football game ended. 23/20
Go Patriots. 
Alex has been wanting to leave and they  left once the game was over. Hubby is sawing wood.
Gonna go grab some zzzzzzz's myself before Logan comes home.
Too late...Logan and Ryan just came through the door and are looking up their Fantasy Football teams on the computer. Dogs barking woke hubby long enough to ask who was here.
I'm going to still try to join him.  Thought about getting back out in the yard before I left to eat.
The best of intentions fly out the window. 
Was just thinking that I had to delay my nap until I fed Charlie and the skunks who will be out at the first sign of darkness.
Jill just came out of her room.
Yes Virginia....there is a Santa Claus. Thought she had left too. She can feed them. :0)
   To be continued:

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Talk about the power of persuasion.
Took a nap....dreamt?     I saw someone coming towards me with their right hand stretched out towards me and woke with a Hell of a start. My eyes flew open.  No one  there and I knew I had just woke from a dream./nightmare.
That's All Folds.