My Family: Chapter 42

There was a curb at the end of our row of houses and it was out of sight of our house and

The Dillo home in Hutchinson

that was as far as we would let any boy walk us home.  In the summer time, we would have a traveling caravel and a traveling roller rink come up the hollow - not at the same time. The roller rink would stay for at least two months, so we did a lot of skating. I would get away from Shirley while she was skating - I would do my thing. One day, I was not skating  while she was, three boys came by and asked me if I wanted to go for a ride, I agreed. I was sitting on one boy's lap with my back against the door and my legs on the other two. I always wore my hair in a ponytail.  We drove by the roller rink real fast. I don't know how fast we were going, but Shirley said we were doing at least 90 mph. We were laughing so hard I didn't notice Shirley standing on the side of road watching us. She turned to one of the other girls and asks who those fools were. One girl told her I was in the car. When we pulled in at the roller rink and stopped, Shirley grabbed the car door, jerks it open and got hold of my ponytail. She dragged me out of that car and we had a fight right there in front of everyone. Of course, the boys jumped in and told her to let me alone. They yelled to “give her nickel and send her home” but all she would say was she was going to tell on me this time for sure.  Shirley never did like anything me and my girlfriends thought was fun and the boys would always ask why she had to come along. They stopped asking this after awhile because Shirley got older, had more fun, and got to know all the young people in the hollow - she knew more teenagers than I did. I don’t know or remember any of them because I didn't spend my summers at home. Shirley told me the driver of that car was a boy that liked her and she didn’t like him.  He had been mad at her so that was why he asked me to get in the car. You know, I didn’t realize she had any boys that liked her but Dave and Chuck.

For all his faults, Dad would give you the shirt off his back and he always stood for the little guy. Once he was checking up on Shirley and I at the roller rink when I heard him say to some guy, “why don’t you pick on someone your own size.” There he stood having words with a guy who was picking on a smaller guy. When Dad interfered, the big guy walked away and the smaller guy thanked Dad and then he walked away. I went over and told Dad he embarrassed me fighting. He said that it was an unfair fight because one guy was bigger than the other; Dad had been drinking so I walked away. When I looked again, he was gone. Dad was always fighting. The guys would tell me that they seen my father throw some guy out of the Beer Garden window, they would be laughing while telling me but  I didn’t think it was funny. My dad was not all that large himself. He was about five feet eight inches tall and weighted one hundred and sixty pounds, but he acted like he was ten feet tall.

Once, I went to the Beer Garden with Dad and left him sitting at a table. He was slowly getting drunk and I went to get a pop. The person behind the bar was looking at me funny and I knew something was wrong. I turned around and saw Dad was having a fist fight with another customer. I got so upset I jumped in the middle of them, they stopped fighting, and we left. I never went in a public place with Dad again.