Wednesday, February 12, 2014
The Story of my Life, Chapter 2
My mom tried to stay on good terms with my dad's family. I had an aunt Robin, aunt Rosie, aunt Jane, aunt Johanna, aunt Betty, and aunt Mary. I also had an uncle Bob, uncle George, uncle Bill and uncle Donnie. Rosie, Jane and Johanna lived together at 618 Anderson Street in Franklin and Robin lived up the street, on Union Rd. Robin had a special place in the family, often consulted on major and minor matters by Rosie, Johanna and Jane. Robin was the next to oldest. She had graduated from high school and held a job at the telephone company, from which she retired.
My three aunts (Rosie, Jane and Johanna) cared for me while my mother taught school and they lived right around the corner from the school. Jane would come out to my house and talk to my mom in the mornings and pick up things around the house, minor house cleaning, after my mom would go to school, then I would get up and she'd take me "down to the house." They were so good. So good. I had a charmed life. I would sometimes walk to Robin's under the careful watch of my other aunts or sometimes walk to the grocery with Johanna or Donnie, who would visit, always being asked, "now, what do you want?" My mother would pick me up, promptly after school and we would go home.
When I began kindergarten, my mother had me go to Anthony Wayne Elementary School, closest to my aunt's house. I got on the bus at noon and she would pick me up after school. I hated kindergarten. Cried almost every day and begged by Rosie to stop crying. "It hurt her ears and got on her nerves."
In first grade, I went to George H. Gerke Elementary, closer to my house and where my neighborhood friends went. I went there in second grade, also.
But in third grade, my mother sent me to Middletown Christian, because something horrible happened at her school. She was unjustifiably fired in the middle of the year, 1982-83 school year. She was said to be "incompetent," but that was far from the truth. I know I could be biased in my opinion, because I'm her daughter, but it was far, far from the truth. I heard about her teaching, witnessed her persona which was reality, saw former students talk to her---I knew she wasn't incompetent.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
The Story of my Life, Chapter 1
I want to write the story of my life, and I am thinking about starting Here, on this blog.
I want to be heard, and I want to talk. I think my Talking is the only way I'm going survive the next 15 months (when the program, Save the Dream, stops making my mortgage payments).
There's a Stuart Smalley quote, "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!" and this is how I feel, and it gives me inspiration to try to Get Myself Out There.
This blog says a lot about me, but not my past, and not enough about my Present. This is my attempt to get something out there, and if a lot of people could refer what they read to everyone they know, I'd appreciate it. I want to be known. (If Google's Blogger Statistics are true, it seems that 700 people have viewed my posts in Russia and Europe, but none in the US. Pass this on, and don't pay much attention to my early posts. They are really very stupid)
________________________________________________________________________________
My name is Cindy, although, on my birth certificate, it says, "Katherine Lucinda Taylor." I went through school having to explain why I was called Cindy, when my first name is Katherine. "My middle name is Lucinda, and that's how I get Cindy." I was born on November 20th, 1974, at the Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. I live in Franklin, Ohio and have my whole life. And, I'm 39.
I was an only child, to a beautiful, incredibly smart and wise woman, Bernice Yvnonne Boggs Taylor. She was from Harlan, Kentucky. I spent many vacations in Harlan, and I have solid memories of it. I feel as if it were a second home. My mom knew people and people knew her. She knew people well, and I loved seeing her meet some of them and talk to them. I could tell there was a past, but somehow the past wasn't really past. It was as if she was grounded there, and I know she was. It was her grounding. It was her home. It was belonging. Kind of like the "Cheers" theme song, "where everybody knows your name."
She almost didn't go to college. Her self esteem was lacking and she felt tied to her family and the demands of being the oldest child and oldest sibling. House chores were her job and always had been, as my grandmother was a school teacher, coming from Illinois on mission work to the hills of Kentucky to teach the Appalachian people. My grandmother worked all the time and went to college to complete her own school work. My mother cared for my aunt, who was nine years younger than her, My mother was two years older than her brother. My grandmother left my mother in charge of everything, except discipline of my aunt. She fought with my aunt over her taking a bath and would have to drag Cleta to Aunt Artie's house to take a bath, and Artie would have to bribe my aunt or prod her, to take a bath. My grandfather was a work horse, who started out in the coal mines and then, later to a lumberyard and a bakery. He was a very kind man, sweet and sincere. I loved my grandfather and my grandmother.
My mother made excellent grades, and a college recruiter from Union College came to their house and sat on the front porch and persuaded my mom to go to college. She excelled, too, at Union, majoring in biology. She graduated and went straight to the University of Kentucky where she obtained her Masters degree in Education, in 1959. Extraordinary woman.
She was a brunet and had such a unique color of brown eyes---I don't even know if brown was the color. Light, light brown, with (a color I can't remember) hue around the pupil. Voluptuous lips. A small space between her two front teeth. Hair worn as a shampoo and roller set most of her life. Beautiful woman.
She became engaged to a professor from the University of Kentucky, but my grandmother and the family was kind of ignorant at the time (1950's, 60's) and had her break off the engagement to him, as he was from India, and said that if she did not, she would be disowned. It was a painful decision, but she did so. She sent his ring back to him from Franklin, Ohio, where he had helped her find a job, her first job.
She taught in Harlan and pursued extra courses in Science around the southern area of the country and Ohio State. She made many friends, and kept in touch with them, until her death in 1994. She would also come back to teach in Franklin, and in 1972, decided to make Franklin her new home, her new grounding.
One day, she was having a meal at a restaurant called Jerry's, a restaurant across the street from where she rented a room, in a house owned by Bernie Culp, a long standing member of the Franklin community. The waitress told her that a gentleman was asking about her. My mom told the waitress she would be sitting across the street on the porch if he wanted to join her when she got done eating. He joined her and she found he was divorced. She said she wouldn't see him until he produced divorce papers, and he did. They started to see each other. He came from a large family in town and she had a difficult time keeping everyone's names straight, as everyone had nicknames. He owned a lawn care business and had just moved back to Franklin from Washington state, where he had relocated with a family. He left the family behind.
My mom and dad were married November 2, 1973. He wanted to renovate houses and sell them for profit, and they moved into one of those houses after they were married. It was not in good condition. and my mom was not happy with the conditions. She had just gotten married and was living in this crappy house. She found out in March of 1974 that she was pregnant with me, amidst ill affairs between my dad and his sisters. The business was failing and he was having problems with men that worked for him (who also were co-workers of my mom's). He didn't have the money to send to his children in Washington state and was no longer speaking to his sisters.
One July, Sunday evening, he and my mom were on their way to a second job of his, which he took over from my uncle who had passed, and he talked almost prophetically that he was going to die. "If anything ever happens to me, don't go back to Kentucky to live. That baby is going to be close to your heart." He was a janitor for a bank in town and he went outside to trim the hedges around a pool of water and never returned inside. My mom waited inside the bank and she decided to go check on him. She found him lying down. She called the police. He was dead. She stopped by my aunts' house to tell them the news. "He's gone," she said. "Oh, he's just blowing off steam. He'll be back," they said. "No, he's dead," she clarified. He had the wallet on him and they were going to put gasoline in the car on the way back to the house, which was in Middletown, so one of my aunts went with her to the gas station and paid for the gasoline and went on with her to the hospital.
I was born in November.
I want to be heard, and I want to talk. I think my Talking is the only way I'm going survive the next 15 months (when the program, Save the Dream, stops making my mortgage payments).
There's a Stuart Smalley quote, "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!" and this is how I feel, and it gives me inspiration to try to Get Myself Out There.
This blog says a lot about me, but not my past, and not enough about my Present. This is my attempt to get something out there, and if a lot of people could refer what they read to everyone they know, I'd appreciate it. I want to be known. (If Google's Blogger Statistics are true, it seems that 700 people have viewed my posts in Russia and Europe, but none in the US. Pass this on, and don't pay much attention to my early posts. They are really very stupid)
________________________________________________________________________________
My name is Cindy, although, on my birth certificate, it says, "Katherine Lucinda Taylor." I went through school having to explain why I was called Cindy, when my first name is Katherine. "My middle name is Lucinda, and that's how I get Cindy." I was born on November 20th, 1974, at the Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. I live in Franklin, Ohio and have my whole life. And, I'm 39.
I was an only child, to a beautiful, incredibly smart and wise woman, Bernice Yvnonne Boggs Taylor. She was from Harlan, Kentucky. I spent many vacations in Harlan, and I have solid memories of it. I feel as if it were a second home. My mom knew people and people knew her. She knew people well, and I loved seeing her meet some of them and talk to them. I could tell there was a past, but somehow the past wasn't really past. It was as if she was grounded there, and I know she was. It was her grounding. It was her home. It was belonging. Kind of like the "Cheers" theme song, "where everybody knows your name."
She almost didn't go to college. Her self esteem was lacking and she felt tied to her family and the demands of being the oldest child and oldest sibling. House chores were her job and always had been, as my grandmother was a school teacher, coming from Illinois on mission work to the hills of Kentucky to teach the Appalachian people. My grandmother worked all the time and went to college to complete her own school work. My mother cared for my aunt, who was nine years younger than her, My mother was two years older than her brother. My grandmother left my mother in charge of everything, except discipline of my aunt. She fought with my aunt over her taking a bath and would have to drag Cleta to Aunt Artie's house to take a bath, and Artie would have to bribe my aunt or prod her, to take a bath. My grandfather was a work horse, who started out in the coal mines and then, later to a lumberyard and a bakery. He was a very kind man, sweet and sincere. I loved my grandfather and my grandmother.
My mother made excellent grades, and a college recruiter from Union College came to their house and sat on the front porch and persuaded my mom to go to college. She excelled, too, at Union, majoring in biology. She graduated and went straight to the University of Kentucky where she obtained her Masters degree in Education, in 1959. Extraordinary woman.
She was a brunet and had such a unique color of brown eyes---I don't even know if brown was the color. Light, light brown, with (a color I can't remember) hue around the pupil. Voluptuous lips. A small space between her two front teeth. Hair worn as a shampoo and roller set most of her life. Beautiful woman.
She became engaged to a professor from the University of Kentucky, but my grandmother and the family was kind of ignorant at the time (1950's, 60's) and had her break off the engagement to him, as he was from India, and said that if she did not, she would be disowned. It was a painful decision, but she did so. She sent his ring back to him from Franklin, Ohio, where he had helped her find a job, her first job.
She taught in Harlan and pursued extra courses in Science around the southern area of the country and Ohio State. She made many friends, and kept in touch with them, until her death in 1994. She would also come back to teach in Franklin, and in 1972, decided to make Franklin her new home, her new grounding.
One day, she was having a meal at a restaurant called Jerry's, a restaurant across the street from where she rented a room, in a house owned by Bernie Culp, a long standing member of the Franklin community. The waitress told her that a gentleman was asking about her. My mom told the waitress she would be sitting across the street on the porch if he wanted to join her when she got done eating. He joined her and she found he was divorced. She said she wouldn't see him until he produced divorce papers, and he did. They started to see each other. He came from a large family in town and she had a difficult time keeping everyone's names straight, as everyone had nicknames. He owned a lawn care business and had just moved back to Franklin from Washington state, where he had relocated with a family. He left the family behind.
My mom and dad were married November 2, 1973. He wanted to renovate houses and sell them for profit, and they moved into one of those houses after they were married. It was not in good condition. and my mom was not happy with the conditions. She had just gotten married and was living in this crappy house. She found out in March of 1974 that she was pregnant with me, amidst ill affairs between my dad and his sisters. The business was failing and he was having problems with men that worked for him (who also were co-workers of my mom's). He didn't have the money to send to his children in Washington state and was no longer speaking to his sisters.
One July, Sunday evening, he and my mom were on their way to a second job of his, which he took over from my uncle who had passed, and he talked almost prophetically that he was going to die. "If anything ever happens to me, don't go back to Kentucky to live. That baby is going to be close to your heart." He was a janitor for a bank in town and he went outside to trim the hedges around a pool of water and never returned inside. My mom waited inside the bank and she decided to go check on him. She found him lying down. She called the police. He was dead. She stopped by my aunts' house to tell them the news. "He's gone," she said. "Oh, he's just blowing off steam. He'll be back," they said. "No, he's dead," she clarified. He had the wallet on him and they were going to put gasoline in the car on the way back to the house, which was in Middletown, so one of my aunts went with her to the gas station and paid for the gasoline and went on with her to the hospital.
I was born in November.
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