by Thomas Hay
Sometimes, by mistake, I would mow over Mom’s flowers. Some of them looked like weeds to me. Honestly, they did. Of course, I couldn’t convince Mom of this, and she would get mad at me. But then, Mom seemed to be upset with me no matter what I did. I just couldn’t do anything to please her. I started to believe that she didn’t like me, but I couldn't understand why. Maybe, I thought, it was because I was the oldest, the only boy, or the ugly duckling.
I hardly ever heard my folks argue, but when they did, it was always about me. I never heard them arguing about my sisters. It seemed they could do no wrong. In any disputes I had with my sisters, Mom would always side with them. I started to feel like I was the black sheep of the family.
However, at the time, I wasn’t aware of all the circumstances my folks were dealing with. My differences with Mom even led me to believe that she was trying to do me harm, at one point.
Clinton had one public swimming pool. One day, Mom decided to teach me to swim. Instead of holding me up, though, it seemed to me that she was trying to drown me.
In a panic, I started screaming, “Help! Help! She's trying to drown me.”
My screaming raised a few eyebrows.
This must have made her mad and she did dunk me. From this point on, I would never get close to her again while in the water. I was becoming fearful of her in more ways than one. Can’t ever remember her giving me a hug or saying “I love you.”
FAMILY TRADITION
Country music singers have always been a real close family. . . I am very proud of my daddy’s name. . . It's a family tradition. —Hank Williams Jr.
The whole family came to the dinner table for meals. We always ate at home. None of us had ever heard of McDonalds. Fast food was when you were in a hurry to eat so you could get back to playing. The call for dinner wasn’t on a cell phone. Dad whistled. You’d better be in range and come running or you would go hungry.
Mom decided what we ate and prepared the meals. If I didn’t like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did. Everyone’s plate had to be clean before anyone could be excused.
Dinner was also a time to share the day’s events. Had to watch what I said or I might had gotten myself in a fix.
We had no air conditioning, only fans to circulate the hot air. There was no shower, except when it would rain. We had to take a bath once a week, whether we needed it or not. We had to share the same bath water. Since I was the only boy, or probably because I was always the dirtiest, I went last. My sisters would torment me, saying that they had peed in the water. I could only hope that they were lying, since I had no other choice. But I’d get my revenge by putting bugs in their bed. Their horrendous shrieks had me grinning ear to ear.
We didn’t have a TV until I was fourteen, and when we did get one it was a black-and-white, nineteen-inch RCA model that seemed to take forever to warm up. There were two stations, and they went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God. The stations would come back on the air at 6:00 a.m. Funny how now days there are over five hundred channels that broadcast every day, round the clock, and I can’t seem to find anything worthwhile to watch.
Can you believe that someone had to actually get off their butt to adjust the sound or change channels? Some of my favorite programs were: The Lone Ranger, Twilight Zone, Superman, Red Skelton, and The Rifleman.
The first movie I saw was Love Me Tender. Elvis had all the silly girls screaming so much that I could barely hear the movie. The world newsreel and a cartoon were shown before the movie. There were no advertisements, previews, or trailers.
Mom bought our clothes. I never had any say in what I wore. I wore it or went naked. But then, naked wasn’t really a choice. I wore the same pair of jeans until they were full of holes and about to fall apart. I should have saved them. My grandkids today would have paid dearly for them.
The folks didn’t have to put up with fagging. After all, who would be so stupid as to make it easier for them to swat your butt? Not I. They swatted my behind enough without me inviting them.
To mail a letter cost ten cents. Twenty-five cents bought a malt at the Dairy Queen. Black walnut was my favorite. Gas for the car was twenty-nine cents a gallon. Haircuts were fifty cents. The monthly grocery bill was around a hundred dollars. Families lived on one parent's income and had only one car. You’re probably wondering how in the world we survived.
Only one rotary-dial telephone hung from the wall, and it had a party line. If another party happened to be on the line when you wanted to make a call, you'd have to wait until they were finished. We always had to ask permission just to look at the phone. It must had been a dumb phone though, because today the phones are so ‘smart’.
To do anything or go anywhere, I had to ask permission. Dad would take forever to make up his mind.
Patience grasshopper.
I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I reckon he was teaching me patience.
T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house, anxious little creatures were stirring, along with the mice. Thanks to our parents, Christmas was always a special time of year. They always managed to surprise us. Dad probably spent most of the night assembling the toys. We each got two, or at the most three, presents each year.
There was no chimney for Santa, so we had to leave the front door unlocked. But then, I can’t remember the front door or any other door in the house ever having a lock.
Every Memorial Day the entire family, including grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, would travel to Springfield, Missouri, to visit and put flowers on family members’ graves. Afterwards, everyone would gather at Uncle Perry’s. He and grandpa would play a fiddle and everyone would dance.
Dad’s side of the family would get together at his parents’ (my grandparents) home, at least once a month. They lived on a farm a few miles south of Clinton. There were many cousins to play with. I did a lot of hunting and fishing. Grandma would cook our game, but it was her chicken and dumplings that I liked best.
It was at their farm that I would get into another situation that would cause me bodily harm. All the cousins were playing a game of Cowboys and Indians one day. I was an Indian. The Cowboys were holed up in the middle of a field, in a fort made from bales of hay. The Indians found it impossible to sneak up on them without being seen, so I came up with a brilliant plan: “Let’s burn ‘em out!” At that the field was set on fire.
That didn’t go over so well, as the adults all came running out of the house when someone yelled “FAHR!” Everyone grabbed at a water hose and started straying the fire.
“Who started that fahr?” Grandpa asked.
The next thing I knew, all fingers were pointing at yours truly.
“Tommy did it,” they all shouted.
There was nowhere to run or hide.
That little adventure got me a few welts on my behind and a stern scolding in front of all my relatives.
Don’t get the wrong idea here, it’s not that I was a bad kid growing up. I was just a little adventurous, or ornery, as some would say. It would be a trait that plagues me to this day.
I wonder where that might have came from, and what might have caused it? Feeling a little unwanted might of had something to do with it.
So to try and keep out of trouble, I played a lot of baseball.
I played mostly in Little League and Babe Ruth. My parents never drove me to my games. I had a bicycle that seemed to weigh thirty pounds, and it had only one slow speed. However, I would attach a card between the spokes of the wheels to make it sound like a motorcycle and defiantly made it go faster.
It also made me a real cool dude!
I pedaled that bike until I was seventeen. I don’t know how many miles I put on it, but it was a bunch, as I rode it everywhere I went.
The folks would send me and my sisters to church every Sunday. I suppose it was the only time they could be alone. Had no idea why they would want to be alone.
&nbs
p; They wouldn’t let me ride my bike to church, as I had to escort my sisters. So, we would walk the five blocks to the First Christian Church. My sisters would embarrass me with their little girl “silliness,” which inspired me to walk a half block behind them. I didn't want anyone thinking that I had anything to do with such ‘silly’ creatures.
Hey, Tommy, everyone in town knows you’re related.
It still made me to want to run away and hide.
The only times I ever left the state of Missouri growing up were when we would visit Mom’s relatives in Connecticut. We would travel by automobile for the three-day journey. It was exciting to travel on the turnpike and through the many tunnels along the way.
Entertaining four kids sitting in the backseat of a car for three days had to be stressful on the folks. Counting farm animals and then losing them when we passed a graveyard, quickly became boring. That’s when the bickering would start.
“Tommy touched me.”
“She touched me first.”
“ Stop it!”
There was constant bickering. I can remember more than once, Dad stopping alongside the highway, pulling one of us out of the car, and whipping our behind. This would quiet things down for a few miles, but then we'd be right back at it.
“Tommy touched me, again.”
No wonder both parents smoked and Dad lost most of his hair before forty.
Thank God we didn’t grow up in today's society, because if the ACLU had existed, Dad would had been arrested and gone to prison for child abuse. All of us kids would have been raised separately in foster homes. No telling how we would have turned out.
Basically, you could say kids in those days were in fear for their well-being, but it wasn’t because of child abuse, drive-by, mall, theater, or school shootings, drugs, or gangs. The fear of Dad’s belt or a switch cut from the branch of a tree was what kept us in line.
There were no time-outs, groundings, or stress cards to flash. We took our lickings, and I’ll be darn, we kept on ticking. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger influence than in today's society, where most kids are now raised by teachers and babysitters. There were hardly any step and half relatives in those days. Never heard of a thing called tough love.
But guess what? Lo and behold, we survived because our parents’ love was greater than their threat.
AGAINST ALL ODDS
Take a look at me now, ‘cause there’s just an empty space.— Phil Collins
December 27, 1958, is a date that will always be embedded in my mind. I can still picture, in slow motion, the B-B floating toward and then smashing the right lens of my eyeglasses. The event was reported in the local newspaper:
PATROL AND KC POLICE AID IN MERCY MISSION - Tommy Hay, 14, has undergone a harrowing experience since Friday. He and his friend were playing with their B-B guns, when a pellet shattered the right lens, causing glass fragments to enter both eyes.
The youth was taken to Wetzel Hospital, where Dr. R. J. Powell removed some of the glass. Dr. Powell then recommended that Tommy transfer to Dr. White, an eye specialist in Sedalia, Mo.
Dr. White removed more glass and then recommended that Tommy be transferred again. This time to a Kansas City eye specialist, because some of the glass particles were too deeply embedded in the eyes.
The trip to the Kansas City hospital took until 1:30 a.m. Tommy’s parents had high praise for the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the KC Police Department. The excited and worried parents experienced great difficulty in driving through one of the worst snow storms to hit this area in decades. They had to contact the Highway Patrol and get snow chains installed on the car’s wheels. The patrol had to order another car off the station’s grease rack. The patrol then escorted the family to the city limit, where the Lee's Summit police met and escorted them to the hospital.
Treatment started immediately upon arrival to remove the remaining glass fragments. The surgery was successful in saving Tommy’s eyesight.
After the surgery, the doctor explained that he had to leave a fragment of glass in one eye. It was buried too deep, and removing it would be too risky. He said that leaving it in the eye should not cause any problems.
REUNITED
I was a fool to ever leave your side. Me minus you is such a lonely ride.—Peaches and Herb
It was almost Halloween, and behold, the wicked witch from the North came trick or treating. It would be a day that rocked my little world upside down and inside out. But it would also be a day of reconciliation.
“Tommy, Tommy! Stop!” I heard someone yell.
I was delivering the Clinton Democrat newspaper on my route as usual that day when a lady came running out of a house, shouting my name. I was around fifteen years old.
“Stop! I want to talk to you,” she shouted.
Now, I always tried to throw the paper as close to the front porch as possible, but sometimes one would go astray, so I figured I was going to catch hell for one landing in the bushes, or a mud puddle. I stopped, expecting to get scolded.
“Tommy, I’m your mother,” she said.
Whut?... My mother? Did she jest say she wuz my mother? I thought. Or maybe she said she knew my mother.
“Tommy, I am your mother and I want to talk with you,” she repeated as she came running toward me.
Time stood still, as all I could do was watch her as she approached. I stood there dumbfounded.
Must be something wrong with my hearing.
Why would this strange woman claim to be my mother? I’d never seen her before.
I finally snapped out of my trance and took off, like a bat out of hell, thinking that this woman must be some kind of a witch. I suspected she wanted my hide for her witches brew. I looked back over my shoulder to make sure she hadn’t hopped on her broom to chase me down.
But she was just standing there, watching me high-tail it down the street like a scared jackrabbit.
Now this kind of shook me up, as you might imagine. For the rest of my route and all the way home, I couldn't shake how she looked and what she had said. I didn’t say anything to anybody when I got home, but I lay awake most of the night wondering why this strange witchy woman would claim to be my mother.
The next day on my route, at the same house, the witch swept upon me again. She was a restless spirit on an endless flight.
“Tommy, Tommy, please stop. I just want to talk to you. I’m your mother,” she said again.
Now I was totally convinced that this woman had to be a witch. I put the pedal to the metal and ski-daddled out of there before sparks could fly from her finger tips.
But that evening, at the dinner table, I worked up the nerve to tell the folks what had happened in the past two days.
All of a sudden, it got very quiet. You could have heard a pin—or maybe even a feather—hit the floor. Finally, Mom broke the silence when she started choking on the bite of pork chop she had just taken.
“How cun Tommy have another mother?” My oldest sister Sandy asked.
“Girls, go to your rooms,” mom said.
“But we haven't finished eatin’,” all the girls said in surround sound.
“I said go to your rooms. NOW!” Shouted mom in that ‘I mean it’ tone.
She then looked at Dad and said, “suppose it's time we told him.”
“Tell me whut,” I cried, having no idea what they could be referring to.
Dinner and my life were interrupted that night, as a whole new world was revealed to me. As it turned out, the witch was my mother.
Now, how could that be, you ask?
It turns out that the mother I knew was actually my stepmom.
Ok. Someone has a lot of explaining to do.
Dad explained that during the war he and my birth mother had divorced, right after I was born. (I would eventually learn that he had stretched the truth with that statement).
I was only two years old when my birth mother dropped me off (“abandoned me,” were his words) with his parents in Cli
nton. He said that my birth mom no longer wanted to be bothered with me, since another man had come into her life, while dad was stationed in England.
In his quivering voice, I heard the hatred he felt toward my birth mom, as he struggled to explain things to me. Grandpa had raised me until he returned home from the war. Dad said he had met my stepmom in England and they were married after the war. I was too young to remember all this.
My birth mother's Aunt Doll lived on my paper route and must have recognized me. She informed my birth mom, who at the time was living in Kansas City. My birth mom desired to reconnect with me, so that started a whole chain of events.
Wow! I hadn't seen that one coming. How could I have? I discovered that my sisters and I had different mothers.
Things started to fall into place now, and made more sense. I now began to understand why mom had been treating me differently. Perhaps this could explain some of the bad feelings between us.
Could I have been a thorn in her side?
I was definitely part of a ready-made family.
Come to find out, I looked a lot like my birth mom, so maybe every time my stepmom looked at me, she saw that other woman.
Ouch! That had to be painful.
There must have been some contact between Dad and birth mom soon after she surprised me, because before I could shake a stick, she was coming to our home to visit me. She was allowed to come into the living room and sit with me, while the rest of the family moved to another room. Talk about feeling awkward. I didn’t know this strange woman, and what little I had heard about her was real bad. I had no idea what to call her. She told me her name was Kathryn. I was frightened and very uncomfortable in her presence. I certainly wasn't much for conversation.
The visits didn’t last long. Dad told me her visitations were disrupting our family atmosphere. I was encouraged to write her a letter and say that I wasn’t interested in a relationship with her. There really wasn’t much of a choice on my part. The family that I knew was my life, and this other woman was a complete stranger. Kathryn respected my (dad’s) wish, and I had no more contact with her until after I joined the Navy.
