AUTOBIOGRAPHY - 1956 - Sixth Birthday - Muscatine, Iowa - Barry Avenue

Originating Circle:
Family:  Mom, Dad, Tim and Pauo
Neighborhood:  New neighborhood kids (new built houses between us and the golf course):  Stevie Ridge, Patsy Bloom.  The Druckers moved away and the Johnson family bought their house.  Good bye to my friend Nathan.
Church:  Miss Northey went to our church.  I loved her.
Sunday school friends:  Barbara Rogers (a year behind me) got a new sister, Buffy.  Gordon and Betty Rogers were life-long friends of my parents. 

What Happened:

Kindergarten ended.  We loved running and chasing and playing on the jungle gyms.

Summer:
We visited Aunt Mary and Uncle Rich on their farm.  Aunt Mary worked in a diner, and wore dark stockings under her uniform.  I loved my cousins Donny and Gary, although I loved Donny more--he was always more willing to give me rides on his horse and play dominoes with me.  I loved my summer visits with the Mohlers, although I was always a little afraid of Uncle Rich because he swore and shouted.  Once he shouted at my Dad, which was terrifying.

I had a little pedal car that Tim and I loved to drive around the yard.  The next year he got a fire engine.  He followed me everywhere, including to school, and then I would have to take him home.  I would dress him up; all my brothes got to be baby dolls in turn.  The neighbor kids who moved into the Druckers house, the Johnsons, invited me to a birthday party, but they didn't want me to bring Timmy.  My Mom made me take him anyway, and they sent him home, saying he was uninvited.  Lots of upset over that.

First sexual exploration with the neighborhood kids down in the gully.  The boys made me lie down and pull down my panties so they could see what a girl looked like.  Stevie Ridge's father caught Stevie, Mary Alice and I in their garage.  Stevie had his pants down, excited and nervous, to show us what he had.  His father spanked him in front of us.  Mary Alice and I ran to my house and flopped down in front of the tv, somewhat to my parents surprise.  I was frantic with fear that Mr. Ridge would call my parents, but I guess he didn't.

Next door to the Ridges the Bloom family was building a house, and the excavated  basement had filled up with water after a storm.  As usual, Mary Alice and I were snooping around, and I threw my shoes in the water to see if they would float.  My Dad came to see what we were up to at the construction site.  He was enraged to see my shoes in the water.  I told him Mary Alice did it.  He grabbed Mary Alice and shook her and pulled up her dress and s panked her, and she ran home crying.  Her parents called, irate.  So Dad, even more angry, confronted me about lying as WELL as my irresponsibility in throwing my shoes in the water.  He gave me my first serious spanking on my bare bottom, a serious humiliation.  With a belt.  He said it was not only because I had lied but because I had embarrased my family.  My parents took my brothers in the stroller and walked all the way up to the McGowans on Mulberry Street to apologize in person.  That was the first time I was left home alone.

Fall:  I started First Grade and was reading fluently.  My brothers and I went Trick or Treating in the neighborhood.  I was a tiger, Tim was a pirate, and Paul wore one of my little red checked dresses and a wig as a little girl.  He was really too little to understand what was going on.  My best friends were Carla Dunlap (who also could read) and Candy Clark.

Annual Christmas card:

Stickees: 
"I'm afraid someone will hurt me"
"I'm afrain someone will find out I'm a bad girl."