I (wish I didn’t) Remember Mama: The Nuclear-Imploded Family

I don’t remember ever wishing for a pony when I was a child, but I do remember wishing my parents would split up. In my naiveté, I thought that if my parents divorced, I would live with my father. Back in the fifties and sixties, that was unlikely. Surely my mother would retain custody since no one outside of our family knew she was nuts—or would say it.

We had a very important rule in our house, one that I know I never broke, and doubt my younger brother did. It was absolutely forbidden to discuss things that happened at home with “outsiders,” outsiders being anyone who didn’t live with the five of us (two boys, a girl, a mother, a father). I don’t know what would have happened if we told a teacher or guidance counselor that our mother was a little nutty. Probably nothing—it wasn’t a very enlightened age. Therefore if we wanted to discuss something that was happening in the house, we had to discuss it among ourselves. If such a discussion were to take place, it wouldn’t be with either of our parents. I can’t imagine what the repercussions of telling either one of them that we thought their actions were unfair. Thanks to this wonderful rule, anyone could do anything at all to us, and we couldn’t speak about it.

There were other very important rules, although I’m not sure if any of them were as important as the “gag rule,” or if they were all equally important. No phone calls before noon. No going outside the house before noon on days school wasn’t in session. The reason I am reasonably conversant on ancient television sitcoms is that I spent every summer morning watching reruns of The Gale Storm Show and I Love Lucy. I’ve seen nearly every cartoon in which Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck (more on them later) appeared, I heard Clarabelle speak, and I was pretty darn good at game shows.

One evening my two brothers (one six years older than I, the other six years younger) were having dinner with my parents; we were adults. In the course of the conversation my mother said the most flabbergasting thing I’d ever heard: “At least I never hit you kids.” Really? Who was that woman who used to beat the crap out of my younger brother with a wooden spoon? Who was that woman who knocked on my bedroom door, slapped me in the face when I opened it (and why did she knock? It was unlocked. Drama, maybe?), then turned on her heel and walked away?

My father died about seven or eight years ago, and I travelled across country with my husband for the funeral. We flew from Baton Rouge to Denver, then drove six hours to the little town in which my father had lived. Although the funeral was sparsely attended, the women of the church provided a buffet meal afterwards. As my brothers, my husband, and I sat together eating (my mother was in a nursing home), my older brother said the most amazing thing: “At least they didn’t beat us.” I didn’t see Kool-Aid on the table, so I don’t know what he was drinking. He’s always been an alien creature to me—although I bonded with my younger brother, I didn’t really know my older brother (and the things I knew, well…). I envy him in a way; I’m sure I would’ve been a lot happier if I didn’t carry around the memories I have. On the other hand, maybe they never did beat him…

People have always treated me as a sort of “font of knowledge”; when some little bit of unrecoverable trivia was stuck in their heads they’d call me and I’d supply the answer. I never set out to know anything (after all, I was one of the “stupid kids”); perhaps it was all those mornings (and many afternoons) I spent with the game shows.