My Family: Chapter 64

One day Dad and I went shopping in Columbus, I didn’t want to spend money for the bus so we walked. It was only two or three blocks and I brought everyone some clothes with the money I got back from income tax. I never had a pair of high heel shoes so I brought myself a pair and decided to wear them back home.

 The house we moved to on Main St.
 Mom, Dave holding Liz

As Dad and I were walking along Main Street, I had to hold on to Dad to keep from falling. I kept turning my ankles and walking on the sides of the shoes. Dad told me if I didn’t take the shoes off I was going to break my neck.  I took the shoes off and walked home barefooted.

      While they were living in Columbus, I paid all of my parent’s bills: rent, electric, and phone. They were suppose to buy the food, but I don’t know if they did or not because I never looked for food - I didn’t eat at home.  I ate a bag of chips at the drugstore (there was a soda shop in the drugstore) where I spent most of my non-working hours sitting at the counter reading.

            On Monroe Street behind us lived Mom and Dad’s drinking friends, Bob and Gina from the hollow.  This meant my parents picked up where they left off; getting drunk every day and fighting on the weekends. When Gladys and Bill left Ohio to go to Michigan, Mom took it very hard. She would cry all the time to go back to the hollow.  Dad and I had a hard time talking her into staying in Ohio.  The only reason she stayed was because she had no place to go back too.

Shirley, Mom holding Liz

We moved farther down on Main St. to a house that had four bedrooms and was fully furnish with a rent which cost about the same. Shirley and David came to Columbus and moved in with us by this time they had a baby, Liz. When David got a job, he took over paying the electric bill.  I still found a way to stay away from home as much as I could. I would walk down to the theater after work which stayed open all night and spent the night watching the same movie over and over.

Dad had made a friend at work and brought him home to met me. I liked him very much. The three of us went everywhere together his name was Charles and Dad liked him, too. Dad said he was a good OLE boy from West Virginia. Charles was just a couple of years older than me.  He had a '55 Chevy which is what I liked best about him. To me he was just a friend who let me have his car to drive around while he was at work and I would pick him up when it was time for him to come home.  Charlies' foreman would come outside and walk along the docks until Charles came out of work and got in the car.  I didn’t pay the foreman any mind until one day Charles said to me that the foreman was giving him a hard time.  When I asked him why he said the foreman was mad because I didn’t pay him any attention and took his anger out on Charles. He was about the same age as Charles and he told Charles he didn’t understand why I would choose Charles over him.  See he had asked my father’s permission to ask me out and sent me a message with Dad. I told dad to tell him to forget it.  However, I didn’t realize he was Charles' foreman. From then on when I picked Charles up from work, the foreman still would walk the docks but I still ignored him. I didn’t want any boyfriend.  

I went with Charles to meet his parents in Parkersburg, West Virginia to stay the weekend. His family lived on a farm and I slept in the same room with his two younger sisters. His brother was single also but he looked like he was a lot older then Charles. The farm was going to belong to his brother when his parents passed.   Charles had asked me to married him and I thought why not, I enjoyed his friendship and we had been friends for over a year.  The first and only time we kissed was when Charles gave me a ring up until then Charles made no move to kiss me - he was very shy.

So I didn’t know how much he loved me until I broke our engagement and gave back his ring.