YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE!

I just looked back over the things I've posted since I started blogging years ago and smiled when I realized how disjointed my posts are.  Perhaps I need to go back to the beginning and put my life's story into chronological order so it makes more sense.  Being scattered is indicative of what lurks just below the surface.  It's like a game of dodgeball.  Being scattered makes the reading more difficult and the reliving it even more difficult.  I tell one story, but I skip over the before and after...those parts are most likely more important than the story I selected to tell.  Those parts were the true catalyst for what drove me, so here's my second attempt to right a

wrong by starting my story in a better spot.  

I was born into a family with a mother who was a seamstress, a father who was a fireman and three older brothers who were jocks by the time they reached high school.  That sentence depicts a rather normal family, but the period after the word "jocks" is where the normalcy ends.  I look at photos of myself from my childhood and I never see what I would call a happy child.  I never smiled except during school photos and then it was forced.  I felt ugly and awkward growing up.  I was always the tallest in my class.  During that era it wasn't fashionable for a woman to be tall, so when I started wearing jeans I had to buy boy's jeans to get the inseam long enough.  I bought Levi's at Freese's Department Store on Main Street for $4.95 a pair. I can remember licking and sticking green stamps in books so I could buy blue jeans that fit my curveless physique.  I was so relieved when tall super models hit the scene and changed perceptions of what beautiful looked like.  Thank you Twiggy!

I don't ever remember being teased about be tall or for wearing glasses except from my brothers.  They would tell me I was going to be 6 feet tall when I finished growing.  I would cry and feel like a freak.  They made it seems like I'd never be called beautiful or looked at by a boy.  In fact, they made me feel that I looked like a boy.  I was doomed to be an old maid!  Perhaps that's a brother's job to keep their sister from getting too full of herself.  If so, mine were excellent at that job.  I do have to reveal that their prediction about my height was wrong.  At my tallest I was 5'10 and now, I've begun to shrink.  The last time I was measured I was 5'7".   By the time I'm a very old woman, I might be considered of average height.  Hooray for the golden years, but BOO for having  so many problems with my back!

In hindsight, I don't know why my mother didn't take me under her wing and show me what girls are supposed to do.  She dressed nicely and wore make-up, but by the time I reached my teenage years I wasn't interested in learning to be prissy.  I always hated make up and rarely wore any.  I hated the way it felt on my skin. My closet was full of nice clothes my mother had made, but I wasn't interested in dressing in of them.  A pair of holey jeans and a T-shirt seemed to suffice.  When mini dresses were in style I wore them, but I was never comfortable with showing off my long legs.  I never felt like I had any redeeming physical qualities because no one ever told me I did.  I just assumed when you look like me people say nothing to be polite. When you look like me, you have no reason to primp or smile.  You just learn to keep it all in and suffer in silence.  When you look like me, every other female in the world is prettier.  You envy your female friends and feel horrible because you can't hide the ugly you were given. I mentioned Twiggy earlier...well, I can't really thank her because I truly hated her because my mother had me get my hair cut short like hers. If you cut a girl's hair like that who has a shapeless body you doom her to look like a boy. You talk about having a complex! 

The same went for all my other qualities and potential talents.  I never realized I was smart and that not everyone was capable of getting A's.  I just assumed because I got A's, everyone else did too, but by the time I reached 7th grade I knew I'd never finish high school.  It was like a dark cloud hovering over me preventing me from seeing the good inside myself.  I longed for recognition, but I wasn't good at doing anything.  I was never patted on the back and told "hey kiddo, I think you have something there.  Maybe you should pursue that."  When the dark side took over completely, I discovered I was excellent at hate, discontent and sorrow.  I had a gift for getting into trouble and being outrageous.  Ah! Finally recognition!

From a very early age I loved to write and often times sat in my room writing little stories and drawing pictures.  Paper was in abundance at our house because my grandfather worked at the Eastern Papermill in Brewer and one of the perks was free paper. As I wrote and drew, I always felt as though I was just wasting paper and that it was awful being so wasteful. I tried to hide how much paper I used by stashing away everything I created under the bed, in the closet and in my drawers.  Surfacely, my room looked presentable, but like my life it was actually cluttered and disorganized. As I wrote and drew, I assumed everyone could do the same.  It wasn't until much later in life that I made a startling discovery and at that moment, I was filled with so many emotions I thought I was going to lose my mind.  I was angry because I didn't receive any encouragement when I was growing up and I was sad because I had wasted so much time living behind a wall. I made myself remember how my creations were never showcased, but thrown away each time my mother decided my room needed a thorough cleaning.  Our refrigerator door was bare except for the occasional newspaper cartoon that was taped there.  The void I grew up in wasn't loud and maddening.  It was dark and cold.  There was no praise and encouragement.  There was only waves of pain and disappointment.

As I got older and could no longer avoid making certain realizations, I felt worse the more potential I discovered I had.  You would think a healthy person making those types of discoveries would feel elated.  They would open their wings and soar amongst the clouds.  Not I!  I stopped writing and drawing about the same time I stopped doing drugs around age 30 and didn't start again for almost 15 years. I had this overwhelming need to punish myself, to stifle myself and to deny myself any recognition for a job well done.  I called myself stupid for not seeing obvious things and for allowing my inner demons to run amok.  I hated being weak and I hated me!  I still struggle with those demons, but I'm able to comfort that little girl inside myself and tell her that she's the bright spot in my life.  Mildred, you are my sunshine!

*reposted from 10/26/2019

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

As I look back at the past twenty years, one thing that has become the elephant in the room for me is the book that I have been jabbing at finishing. Oh, I have a list of excuses a mile long as to why this pet project never got completed.  Just to defend myself all of my excuses are valid ones, but I have to admit I have lollygagged when I could have plowed through the emotional angst and written THE END many times over.  One could assume I have a problem with completing things or with procrastination...both is probably true.  I've noticed in the last few years how unorganized I've become and how overwhelming everything seems to be at times.  I guess instead of just jumping in and getting things done at times when I feel overwhelmed, I back off.  Perhaps, the fear of success rattles my cage.  Perhaps if I complete my project, what's next?  Does something have to come next? Why can't I just exist in troglodytic nothingness?

So I'm recommitting myself to finishing this "project" and it's purely for my own satisfaction.  This story I'm writing is about my time in drug rehab.  Needless to say, it was a time of great emotional upheaval and self-discovery...among other things.  I'm going to be posting it online in blog form so if any of you are interested in reading it, I'll be posting the link to it soon.

As I've been working on it, names and faces have flooded my head.  One such name and face is that of Sharon Smith, a girl I once knew from what was once referred to as reform school (Stevens School For Girls).  Sharon and I escaped together and headed to Boston together where I ended up leaving her with some friends of mine there (long story).  I never saw Sharon again after that, but I always wondered what became of her until I discovered many year later that fate had been unkind to her and her family.  

Below is Sharon's story according to Noi Noi Ricker published on July 16, 2016 in the Bangor Daily News:

BANGOR, Maine — When Sharon Smith disappeared nearly 36 years ago, her siblings weren’t immediately worried.

“She had run away so many times, she was that type of person,” her brother Randy Smith of Lakeland, Florida, said Monday by phone. “It wasn’t like, ‘Oh my God, she’s missing.’ It was more, ‘She’ll be back next week.’”

But she didn’t come back.

The 25-year-old mother of two was last seen on or about Aug. 25, 1980, when she worked an evening shift at the Paramount Lounge, a gritty hotel bar in downtown Bangor known for its adult entertainment where she worked as a waitress and, occasionally, as a stripper.

Her mother, Carolee Smith, reported Sharon Smith missing at the time, resulting in a police investigation that appeared to go nowhere over the years until last month, when investigators dug up a property in Hermon looking for Sharon Smith’s body.

Suddenly, the surviving members of Sharon Smith’s family were given hope for resolution, and memories of the young woman and her disappearance came flooding back.


“My first thought was, ‘Here we go again.’ Then, I was hoping they would find something to give the family closure,” Randy Smith, who was 15 at the time his sister went missing, said Friday.

“My sister was my big sister, very protective and loving,” he recalled. “She really spoiled me. I was the youngest, and I could do no wrong.”

The Smith family, which included Sharon Smith, her parents and five siblings, was in the process of moving to Florida when she disappeared, Randy Smith said.


Their father, Sgt. Harold Leroy Smith, was an Air Force aircraft engineer and was stationed at the Maine Air National Guard in Bangor when he met and married Carolee Smith, who was a Bangor native.

The family’s move may have led some to mistakenly believe the Smiths had abandoned Sharon Smith, Randy Smith said.

“My oldest sister and brother were already down there. Some people said, ‘You took off.’ We didn’t take off, we were moving,” he said. “We had already sold everything. We just figured she would come back. For real.

“Then as years go by, you realize … ,” Randy Smith said, letting his sentence trail off.
A daughter’s search

In addition to her parents and siblings, Sharon Smith left behind two children. Mandi Clark of Bangor was 5 when her mother vanished. Clark said Tuesday that she doesn’t remember Sharon Smith but does remember asking, as a little girl, “How come mom hasn’t come to visit?”

Clark’s brother, Jamie Clark, was a year older. He died at the age of 15. They were both raised by her father, David Clark, who had custody of them before Sharon Smith disappeared and now also is deceased.


Mandi Clark has her own opinions about what happened to her mother, but she does not believe she is alive after all these years.

“In 1995, my friend Wendy and I decided I would try to find my mom,” Clark said, sitting in the living room of her Bangor apartment with a collage of family pictures behind her, one featuring her as a toddler being held by her mother.

Because her mother’s family had moved to Florida and they didn’t really stay in touch, the two friends had little information to start with. They found Sharon Smith’s birth date and Social Security number, which had not been used since 1980, and started talking to anyone with connections to her or the Paramount Lounge.

Stories about what happened the night her mother went missing run the gamut of a jealous boyfriend killing her to gun running, Clark said she discovered.

During her investigation, which is referred to in a recently filed police affidavit, she got a call from an anonymous man who told her Franklin “George” Gilks killed her mother and that “things got carried away, accidents happen.”

Clark said the conversation scared her after the man told her to “leave things alone,” or something similar might happen to her. She reported the call to police.

While she stopped digging around at that point, she never stopped believing her mother would be found.

“I don’t care what happened. I just want her body,” Clark said.

“I just want closure. I just want to bury her here,” she said.
Cold case

The place where Sharon Smith worked, the Paramount Lounge, was located on the ground floor of the hotel built in 1911 on Harlow Street. Sharon Smith, who also went by the names Sharon Clark and Sharon Beaudoin, was renting a room there. The hotel and lounge changed hands and closed about three years after Sharon Smith vanished.

Asked what their parents thought about Sharon Smith’s lifestyle, Randy Smith paused.

“They were just happy she had a job,” he recalled. “She was a fun-loving spirit.”

The Paramount is the last place Sharon Smith was seen alive, Bangor police Detective Jeremy Brock, who took over the case last fall, discovered when he reviewed the case file.

Despite the case remaining unsolved for years, law enforcement investigators didn’t forget about Sharon Smith. Her missing person’s case in the 1990s was handled by now retired Detective Ed Thorne, who interviewed several people who pointed the finger at Gilks. He also interviewed a co-worker of Sharon Smith’s who is believed to be one of the last people to see her alive. The co-worker reported that she stopped by and saw Sharon Smith at the Paramount and that Sharon Smith was supposed to come by her apartment afterward but never showed.

The case file also contains references to two people who told police that Gilks admitted to killing Sharon Smith while at a drinking party, where he was “quite intoxicated.” They reported that Gilks told them he broke Sharon Smith’s neck during an argument.

An anonymous letter was sent to Bangor police in May 1999, according to an affidavit filed with a search warrant for the Hermon property. The letter, which was postmarked from Ohio, implicates Gilks, Sharon Smith’s “on and off again” boyfriend, as a suspect and states, “you will find the body of Sharon Clark under the living room part of this old ugly home on the right hand side of the road where George Gilks used to live in Hermon.”

Despite the reference to Hermon in the letter, a majority of the other evidence led investigators to where Gilks, who died in 2008, lived at the time Sharon Smith went missing, which was a trailer in Carmel. The Carmel location was mentioned by several others who implicated Gilks in Sharon Smith’s disappearance, the affidavit states.

In 1999, cadaver dogs searched the Carmel property for evidence related to the case but didn’t find a scent. The affidavit doesn’t indicate if the Hermon property was located and searched at that time.

Thorne and another Bangor officer went to Florida shortly after receiving the letter to provide the entire Smith family with an update.

“The detectives came down here 20 years ago. They said they knew who did it but they didn’t have enough evidence,” Randy Smith said. “They told us her apartment was left open and her purse was inside.”

When he heard those details, Randy Smith realized his sister was never coming back.

“It just seemed crazy to me,” he said.
Search yields new leads

After taking over the case, Brock found more leads to pursue, according to the affidavit. He and Detective Tim Shaw searched property records and discovered Gilks had indeed lived in Hermon in his youth, and his mother and brother still lived at the location of his childhood home, 147 New Boston Road. The old barn that once served as the family’s home was torn down 20 years ago and replaced by a rain pond with a small fountain made out of concrete surrounded by rocks and a garden.

The detectives met with the Gilks who agreed to allow a cadaver dog to search the property. Deborah Palman, a former Maine Game Warden who is a special deputy for the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office, brought her dog, Raven, to the scene on June 14.

“Raven gave a positive indication for the scent of human decomposition at an area near the rain pond where the house used to stand,” the affidavit for the search warrant states. “After probing the ground where the house used to stand, Raven positively indicated several more times in the same area as before.”

The positive indications were enough to convince a judge to allow the June 23 excavation.

Gilks’ family members told police at the time of the search they didn’t believe Gilks had anything to do with Sharon Smith’s disappearance.

The June search for evidence related to Sharon Smith’s case resulted in no evidence being seized, the affidavit filed by Brock at the Penobscot Judicial Center states.

While no items were seized, new leads are now being followed, Sgt. David Bushey, who leads the detective’s division, said Thursday.

“People are starting to call again,” Bushey said. “We don’t have any good solid leads, but we’re creating a list of people to do follow up interviews with. We’ve had a couple people reach out by email as well.”

The family heard about the Hermon excavation after Maine relatives called to let them know it was happening, said Randy Smith and his brother Larry Smith of Tallahassee, Florida, who is more than a decade older than his missing sister.

Larry Smith said his sister loved music and was “kinda crazy.” He also believes she is dead and added that while a part of him wants to know what happened, another part just wants closure.

“I thought it all went away,” Larry Smith said by phone.

For Sharon Smith’s daughter and two grandsons, Micheal and Caleb, there will be no closure until she is found.

“I just want her to know, I’m still here,” Mandi Clark said. “So she’ll know nobody forgot about her.”

A WILD RIDE AT THE FAIR

One of the highlights of summer as a child was when the fair would come to town. I thought it was wonderful when I was old enough to go in a group of friends without adult supervision. Of course this meant that shenanigans were going to take place. Since my father was a firefighter my family always got free passes into the fair, but from the time I started going without adult supervision it was a rite of passage to go under the fence to get into the fair. Kids will be kids and Mildred will definitely be Mildred. That's just the way it is and always will be.

The Bangor State Fair I'm sure wasn't any different than any other state fair of that era or so I thought. There were were rides, games, food and tucked at the back of the fair were the plethora of side shows. The rides made me hurl because I have motion sickness so unless I was coerced heavily and shamed into it by my friends to go on them I avoided the rides like they were the Bubonic plague. For me, it was the side shows that always fascinated me. The weirder the better I liked them! The barkers stood outside tempting people to come inside to see the oddities or to see the half naked dancing women. Of course, there was always a line of men waiting to see those luscious dancing women. We never thought they were very luscious, but what did we know? That didn't interest us! We always just sashayed by as if we were the real hot stuff and then we'd giggle like only little girls could do.

I'd been away for a few years at drug rehab, but when I was 18 I returned home for a visit. That was when I got an eye opening experience regarding the Bangor State Fair. My brother, Brian and his significant other, Rose asked me if I wanted to join them at the fair one evening. I had been feeling rather low and needed to get out so I decided to go with them. Other than maybe running into someone I hadn't seen in years, I couldn't think of anything that could be new about the fair, but since I didn't have anything else to do I accepted their invitation. So off we went to the fair... It all seemed too familiar. The smells. The lights. The sounds. Even the faces of the people I didn't know. We walked around and I have to admit I was disappointed I didn't run into anyone I knew...not one person!

Then we came to the sideshows. The men were outside doing their usual spiel, but then one caught our attention. He was hollering something about his show being for brave men and liberated women. He looked at my brother and said that he'd let Rose and me in for free if Brian paid for his own admission. Before we knew it we were inside the huge tent standing before a stage along with maybe 30 or so other people. As I slowly looked around, I discovered Rose and I were the only women in there. As the music started, a scantily dressed dancer came out on stage and with in less than a minute she was completely naked. My mouth dropped open! Can she do that? Is that legal?

I was at the Bangor State Fair I told myself as I looked around the dimly lit tent to make sure there wasn't anyone there I knew. I thought the police were going to come busting in at any second. As the dancer made her way around the stage she crouched down into a crab walk and started offering the people along the perimeter of the stage the opportunity to sample her wares (perform oral sex on her). When she got to my brother, she said, "You want some, honey?"

My brother responded as if someone has asked him if he wanted a donut. He told her that he already had some of his own and tilted his head towards Rose. She then made her way towards me and I had this OMG look on my face that gave her my answer as I just put my hand up as sign that I was okay without  "a taste." She just smiled at me and gave me a wink as she made her way around the stage. I'll never forget this older man on the other side on the stage who grabbed ahold of the cheeks of her ass and pulled her to him as he dove into her like he was at a pie eating contest. You could hear him slurping away over the music until "security" broke it up. By that time the song ended and we filed out of the tent. All I kept thinking was now everyone I grew up with will be lined up outside waiting to see me... I wanted to kick my brother because he thought it was hilarious that Rose and I had no idea what happened inside those sideshow tents. Call me naïve, but I guess I never in my wildest dreams ever imagined anything like that actually happened in Bangor Maine. Note to oneself: paybacks are hell!

I heard that the police shut that stuff down finally. I guess they weren't being paid off enough or something. Anyway, all I kept thinking about was all the times as a kid when I used to walk by those sideshows. I wonder if that sort of thing was going on then and the song that was playing that night as she "danced" is burnt into my memory for all time... Now, no matter where I am if I happen to hear that song I think of that "wild ride” at the Bangor State Fair.

I can picture every move that a man could make
Getting lost in her lovin' is your first mistake
Sundown you better take care
If I find you been creepin' 'round my back stairs
Sometimes I think it's a sin
When I feel like I'm winnin' when I'm losin' again

Spinning The Principal

By the time I got to 6th grade, Mr. Honey (pronounced Hone-ey) was not only the principal of Larkin Street School, but he was the 6th grade teacher as well.  I guess he figured all 6th graders at his school needed a special kick in the butt before entering Junior High School and he was just the man for that dubious distinction.  For the most part, I'd give him an A for being a good teacher, but an F for being a horrible, hardass principal. 

Our class was probably average sized for that time period.  There was roughly twenty of us to his one.   Class sizes had shrunk considerably a few year before when Dow Air Force Base was decommissioned.  Out of those 20 or so in my 6th grade class, today I can only remember a handful of people's names: Mike, Rod, Noreen, Margie, Sherry, Dana, Nancy, Bart, Junior, Carol, Cheryl and Colleen.  I guess that's a pretty big handful, isn't it? 

On many occasions Mr. Honey not only taught us the standard 6th grade curriculum, but he tried to prepare us for life as best he could. I remember him telling us that statistically speaking one of us wouldn't make it to adulthood. What? One of us would die?  His words, I'm sure, were said to make all of us a little more watchful of our own actions and the actions of others, however; I doubt his words were remembered by many after he spoke them.  After all, at that age, aren't we all invincible?  His words have definitely resonated in my head a few times along the way and for awhile I believed I was going to be that statistic.  But lo and behold not only did I fool myself, I fooled many others who had the same thought.

Sixth grade was definitely a year of spreading my wings and learning to think outside the box.  Until this point I was a good kid and a good student.  Sure, I was a little on the chatty side and my mouth seemed to always be described in detail in notes on my report cards.  I even earned the nickname "Gabby" when I was younger and thank God it didn't stick!  I had in many instances learned that clowning around and running my mouth was a good cover for what was really going on underneath.

Mr. Honey fell from my grace the day he suspended several of us from school because he knew all of us would have to face our parents as well.  Kids rarely use their brains when being mischievous especially kids with poor impulse control.  Planning things out is a learned behavior and comes with experience.  A bunch of us had decided to play spin the bottle after school with a glass milk bottle one of us had stolen from inside the school.  We selected a secluded corner of the schoolyard in back of the school for the spot to make our circle.  None of us gave a thought to teachers still being inside the school.  We all thought the spot we had selected was safe from any prying eyes.  In reality, I'm sure whatever teacher witnessed this spectacle was amused by what she saw, but such unruly actions had to be severely dealt with by administering a punishment that would keep us all from doing anything like that again. Suspension was what Mr. Honey selected and all that did for me was make me want to test authority all the more.

Addendum:  I can't count this as my first official kiss because I didn't get kissed because the game was rudely interrupted before that could happen. I hate when that happens! These are just some of the woes of being a clueless, numb as a stump 11 year old who got suspended from school for playing spin the bottle!

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE - PART II

So how do you mend a broken heart? Chin up? Chest out? One foot in front of the other? At 18, all I wanted to do was dull the enormous ache in my heart until it completely went away. For me, it was all about living in the moment and rarely saying no to anything. The crazier it was, the better I liked it. If it rattled around in my head long enough and became an actual thought and if it brought a twinkle to my eyes and a smile to my face, it definitely got done regardless of the consequences. 

Going back to Maine that summer was a trip in every sense of the word. For the first couple of weeks I was there, I didn't leave my brother's house nor did I try to contact any of my old friends. Although I wanted to see all of them, I was scared to death to see any of them. When I finally worked through my fear, I boldly went to my old neighborhood...unannounced, of course. As I walked through town, everything seemed much closer to the street than what I remembered...and smaller. When I reached my old house, I stop dead in my tracks. The driveway seemed so short compared to what I remembered. Later, I was told it seemed much longer to me then because most of the time I had to crawl up it to go inside my house. Not really! But it was true that my brain was remembering things through the clouded vision of a druggie. I was always high from morning until I finally closed my eyes at night. Drugs threw off my perception of everything and everyone around me.

As I went through the process of trying to figure out what I was doing in Maine. I picked up the phone and called the drug rehab (Kinsman Hall) I had been released from only months earlier.  I still had friends there and there was someone there I wanted to see that I felt I should have a conversation with and see if he'd agree to see me. It was important to me that I finally tell Stacy how much he meant to me even if he didn't feel the same way about me. I knew all outside calls would have to go through staff so I was hoping to catch a friendly face. I was glad when it was Mike Morra who took my call. What I wasn't counting on was being told to stay away from Stacy. This seemed to be the same theme from day one for Stacy and I as far as Kinsman Hall saw it. I never figured out why staff was so dead set against he and I being together but that's how it was. I was forced into accepting that when I left Kinsman Hall I'd never see Stacy again.
.  
When I finally came out of my self-imposed prison at my brother's house, I was told repeatedly by people how good I looked and how healthy I looked. Go figure! Two plus years of being clean will definitely do something to a person. I ate right. I got enough sleep and I wasn't high all the time and nor was I engaging in risky activities. I knew what being around my old partying friends would lead to, but I went around all of them anyway. Willpower isn't one of my strong points unless willpower is fueled by desire and determination. After all I did quit smoking cigarettes over 25 years ago while living with a chain smoker. With the right fuel I can do most anything. So needless to say my willpower flew out the door and I eased my pain in a way that seemed so familiar (like an old comfortable shoe or a great fitting pair of jeans). I scratched that itch, but I had a much bigger itch that needed scratching. I needed to get laid! I'm sure I could have rustled someone up to do that thankless task, but I held off until left Maine and returned to Florida. My scorecard remained at one in Maine. My first love was the only person I slept with while I lived in Bangor. For some reason I felt I needed to keep that record unblemished by keeping my pants on my body and avoid being horizontal around anyone tempting including him. By the time I left Maine that summer, my hormones were at a fever pitch and I was ready for some good old promiscuity. I wanted cheap, sleazy sex and I wanted it from someone who could go the distance without a lot of hoopla. 

Instead of returning to Pensacola, I tagged along with my brother, Brian and his family. My brother was going to attend a heavy equipment class at a vocational school in Chipley, Florida.  Being the new kid on any block is a difficult situation regardless of where that block is located. This new fishbowl I landed in was an unfamiliar rural Southern country town that could have been taken right out of the movie, Deliverance.  Everywhere there were faces of strangers waiting and watching, but what they were watching and waiting for made me a little uneasy.

Vernon was dubbed "Nub City" because so many residents there make limb loss insurance claims to supplement their income. In 1981 several years after I lived there Vernon was featured in a documentary highlighting the eccentricities of the people who lived there. The movie angered many residents who felt the documentary portrayed the area in a negative light. Negative light?  How could blowing off your arm or foot with a shotgun for insurance money be considered negative?  Shouldn't it be considered creative and ingenious instead? Oops! There goes my good old Maine sarcasm acting up again! Boys will be boys and rednecks will be rednecks and if you combine the two and get lucky what you get is something the Beatles sang about...Happiness Is A Warm Gun. 

I was ready to get this show on the road and stir up this tiny fishbowl. I desperately wanted someone's finger on my trigger, so the only logical thing to do was to put checking out the local talent at the top of my list. I was confidant I could find a suitable warm gun to scratch my itch. Bang! Bang! Shoot! Shoot!

SOCIETY'S CHILD

So many things factor into forming who we are and how we view the world around us.  As a child I was never taught to judge people by their economic status or by the color of their skin.  Racial tensions ran high during my younger years, but those tensions just didn't seem to personally touch my life.  Sure, it was something I saw on TV and read about in books and magazines, but I didn't have to live it firsthand.  I simply grew up not understanding why some people hated others for what seemed to me like no valid reason and to this day, I still have problems understanding racism and bigotry. 

Maybe I was fortunate to grow up in a place where those horrible things didn't happen very often or if they did, I never had to witness them.  Maybe I was fortunate to be able to turn off listening whenever my grandfather loudly ranted and raved about Catholics and Jews instead of taking it to heart.  I always wondered what bug had crawled up his butt when he decided the Beatles were the cause of all the world's problems and no one from New Jersey should be able to drive a car.  Okay, maybe he got that one right!  [LOL] Archie Bunker had nothing on my grandfather. Put toe to toe, I think my grandfather could have taken Archie down.  And maybe most of all, I was fortunate to develop insulation to some things I saw as being immoral, unjust and just plain crazy.  I wanted to be free to develop my own brand of crazy and to think for myself. 

As a young teenager, I saw an interracial relationship develop within the group of people I hung around.  People couldn't be in Billie (Buz as we called him then) and Debbie's presence without noticing that they truly loved each other.  Because of them, I discovered love really is blind.  The heart doesn't see the color of a person's skin no more than the heart sees the color or length of a person's hair, their height or their weight and the size of their bank account. I secretly rooted for their relationship to not only withstand the normal relationship woes, but to continue to grow and develop into lasting relationship.  What I didn't see or understand were the problems they faced behind the scenes.  Sure, their friends were able to accept their relationship, but that wasn't the case with all the people in their lives.  I don't know the details of how or why they split up, but I witnessed a certain veil of sadness as a result of it.  They both moved on, got married and lived a life without each other. 

Now, flash forward many years later to a time after Debbie's husband died from complications due to diabetes and Billie's marriage ended around the same time.  Several years ago, they both exchanged wedding vows again, but this time it was with each other and they started living a life that was all, but a faded memory from years ago.  It just goes to show you that when two people belong together, fate will make it happen.  There's a greeting card that has always stuck with me. Each time true love prevails, I think of that card.  It simply says: Somehow...Someway...Somewhere...Someday...