My Family: Chapter 6

I think Dad spent most of the weekends with his parents. I know Aunt Hannah worked in Black Bottom and he stopped in and see her. Black Bottom was where all the juke joints were. If we did see him, he was drunk and he only came home because he wanted to get something and then he would leave again. One time, as he got into a car with his friends, Mom threw rocks at him. His friends laughed at her as they drove away.

Dad and a drinking buddy

When Dad worked the night shift, Mom bribed one of us girls to sit up with her with a Pepsi at least that's what she gave me the times when I sat up with her. If I fell asleep, she would wake me up and remind me that I was to stay awake. We still had to go to school the next day, then Dad got a job on day shift and got it  better for all of us.

Dad had bought Mom a twenty-two hand gun to protect her self from the animals coming down from the mountain. All of his friends knew that she had a gun. Mom and Dad just had an animal come down off of the mountain the week before this, Dad had some hog meat, which he got for helping someone slaughter their pig, he had hung it outside (in the wash room) where it was cold and the meat was froze. One night he heard a noise out on the back porch and went to investigate, he said it was the biggest dog that he ever seen. It had tore the door to the wash room down and gotten into the meat. He tied the dog up and block the wash room door because he wanted to show it to us girls the next morning but the dog had chew through the rope and escaped  back thorough the door.

Yolyn Church

Mom joined the Church of God and she stopped drinking. She took Shirley and me to church with her. I loved Sunday School and church afterwards. I would never miss a Sunday or Wednesday when they held service. They had church every Wednesday and sometimes they had tent revivals that came up the hollow. I go there everyday for a couple of weeks and people would bring patients from the hospitals who wanted to be healed so that we could pray for and heal them. I got scared the first time Mom got the Holy Ghost and talked in tongues jumping up and down. Sometimes, Mom had the church ladies over to house to quilt. We only had a kitchen and two bedrooms, Mom had sewing ladies in one of the bedrooms. I liked Church life, while it lasted.