4:30 AM!!! Oh, Come on God! Give me a break!

I always wake up around 3:00 AM and reflect on life for just a few minutes before I doze off until the real wake up time.  I have heard this means I will either die young or live forever.  I am not real sure but I think the dying young is already an option that is off the table.  So this morning I opened the peepers to reflect and decided to just get up and get it started.

I do believe that life is best lived in reverse because at 4:30 AM I can see very clearly what I should have done as opposed to what I actually did.  It must have been about 1973 or in that general area somewhere, when I was working at the Red Carpet Resturant in Hutchinson.  I worked nights when I started there, but eventually moved into the morning cook/baker/fry cook position.  At this particular time I was just dating husband 3/4.  Now that boy was a drinker.  (Of course they all were so that point is moot.)

I think perhaps the "drink until you fall down and pass out gene" runs in my family.  Not that it makes anything I did right, but you need to know that my learning curve spikes in a lot of places and is non existent in the other places and the spike and the curve is not always in the upward direction.  To make this story readable, I need to tell you that the night before, he and I had decided to "go dancing".  This entailed some drinking.  The laws then were that you could take your own bottle to the "dance place" so we did that.  Course we ordered chasers.  I had opted to only drink wine that night.  Wise choice?  You decide.

I started out with something called Annie Green Springs or some such innocent sounding concoction.  It was really good as I recall, but of course that bottle went dry and since I was still thirsty someone went next door on a liquor run.  I was very clear that I wanted the same brand and all so I would not lose my rhythm.  Sadly, they did not have that brand, so I receive a giant bottle of something called Rascal Berry.  It sure sounded innocent enough.  I should have known that was not going to be good.  By this time it was after midnight and I had to be at work at 5:00 AM.  At 2:00 AM or so, I decided I had the flu.  I needed my bed.  Or at least comfortable sprinting distance to the commode.  It could not have been the wine.  Wine only has a 10-12% alcohol content.  

When sweet thing dropped me off at home so I could drive myself to work, I was still wretching.  I do not know  just how romantic that evening had turned out.  As for my life the next few days, it was a blur.  My mother waited tables and thought I should go home since I had the "flu" and Francis was quick to tell her that it was self induced.  No sympathy what so ever.   The boss just glared at me, but offered me no time off to recuperate.  I was top notch at my job and even in the throes of death, I was the best he had.

The next few days passed in a sort of blur. 

Day #1  I did not hear from sweet thing and I prayed for death. 
Day #2  I emptied my system of every thing I had ever eaten in life.
Day #3 was no better.
Day #4 was the turning point.  I could keep an ice chip down.  That was the best ice chip I ever tasted.   Praise God! 
Day #5 was  mostly just shaking and sipping some sort of buttermilk concoction that I was craving at the moment.  Some where in there I must have had a day off, because a full week passed with me courting the angels of death, before I began to pull out of the downward spiral.

Now you should know that back when I was dating husband #1, my brother, Jake and I decided to have a little drink to celebrate.  What we were celebrating I will never know, but I do know that he went to the liquor store and bought a 5th of some sort of "rot gut" whiskey.  We hoped there was enough to make us happy.  Since all we had to chase it with was red Koolaid, we used that.

That little celebration was the first time I had the "dry heaves."  Ever have those?  I do want you to know, that from that day to this, I can not drink red Koolaid.  The sight of anything red in a glass turns my stomach.  When I say "turns my stomach,"  I mean since me into culture shock and there is going to be some upchucking going on with my digestive track.  Never tried that again.  I suspect it may have been more the liquor than the Koolaid, but I can never be sure. 

I guess what I am trying to point out here is that liquor is evil.  It makes me sick.  I must be allergic to it.  I realize that I am just not a good drinker.  Nor am I a happy drunk.  Any time a guy thought he would ply me with liquor and get lucky, he was sadly mistaken. 

Alcohol and me are just not ever going to get along in this world.  I may have actually been Carrie Nation in another life.  I wonder what her background was?  Now you know some of mine.  When I make my off handed remarks, they are coming from life experiences.  Several times I have been told that I should write my life story, but no one would believe it.  So I am just going to be content to tell you that

"My life would be best lived in reverse with the brakes on ."

Do you remember the WCTU? My first encounter was in 1950 ish.

I do not remember the circumstances only that it happened.  Seems like back in the 1940's and 1950's the WCTU was very active.  For those of you who do not recognize the acronym, it stands for Women's Christian Temperance Union.  They campaigned to get rid of alcohol.  Seems like there was a woman named Carrie Nation who went into the bars with an axe and did a lot of damage.  The WCTU was started back in 1874 by a woman named Frances Willard along with another lady named Annie Wittenmyer.  In later years it expanded to include labor laws, prison reform and womens suffrage.  Willard died in 1898.

Having briefly read her history, I am thinking she may have very well been a lesbian way before it was acceptable to be of that persuasion!  That is neither here nor there and has absolutely nothing to do with my journey into the WCTU at the tender age of 9.

What I do recall is that my 5th grade teacher saw potential in my poetry writing at that early age and encouraged me.  Her name was Miss Burgess and she lived with another teacher named Miss Rinehart.  (If memory serves me correctly.)  The WCTU was having a meeting at a church out in the country between Nickerson and Plevna.  I think the area was called Huntsville.  My job was to memorize a poem and recite it for the ladies.

Now back in those days, women were expected to stay home and keep the house and kids and if the husband chose to get roaring drunk and beat the living shit out of them, it was their duty to submit!  That was our mentality then. 

I do not remember the poem, but as I recall it started, "In a castle gray, by a pounding sea, on a cliff where the white gull flew lived a lonely boy and his uncle....."  And it was about a young boy who lived with an alcoholic Uncle as he was an orphan.  I remember it was very sad and troubling and after my recitation (which was perfect) the women were ecstatic and very pleased with my performance.  The poem had been so troubling to  me that I had erased it from my memory and only think about it on occasion.  It seems in the poem the Uncle either threw the boy over the cliff or threw himself over the cliff, thus showing the evils of the demon rum.

I do not recall much about the WCTU, but I do know and probably still have a piece of paper some where that states I am or was an honorary member.  I do recall thinking of that group on occasions when one of my dear sweet husbands was "in his cups" and kicking me around the room leaving me a shattered woman sobbing in a corner.  Those were the good old days!

So why am I thinking of this today?  God only knows.  Most of the time I never recall the bad parts of my life, but it seems that with the climate in our world today and the violence that people exert against each other in the name of race, sexual orientation, poverty, immigration status, and any other reason they can find to hate in  a world that should be filled with peace and love, there is something missing.  Seems like it might be compassion.

But we are all a product of our past, so I have learned to be more compassionate.  I have learned that no matter what I am feeling, I must be tolerant of others because I do not know what demons they are dealing with in their mind.  If we could all just open our eyes and learn, wouldn't the world be a beautiful place?

Some scars stay with us forever and no matter how deep we bury them, they are just a heartbeat away.  Sometimes I just have to retreat and lick my wounds because I know they are there.  Very few of my scars are seen by anyone.  That does not make them any less real.  I thought about volunteering at the battered women's center, but the very thought gives me flashbacks.  How could I look into a face that mirrors my very soul and help?  Isn't that sad?