CP wrote --
I was a full-of-**** teen, run away
I was the good child.
My 12 years older (Mother's first marriage) brother was the wild child.
He hung around with semi-greasers, into things like drag racing on city streets, etc.
My father got many middle of the night calls from the police and
sheriff's department after had been caught drag racing. He was never arrested, just
"held".
After awhile my father got tired of this and told them to keep him
overnight, tell him nothing, and he would be by in the morning to get him.
That night in jail stopped a lot of that.
From then on, all negotiatopns were done differently, by my dad -- no more deep & quiet patience;
My father never raised his hand to me.
My mother OTOH was known to direct a well aimed smack to the back of my
head or my bottom from time to time. I usually learned after the first time not to do that particular thing again. :)
I was 17 by then, so it was now all pro forma, as on my 19th birthday all could legally wash their hands of this troublemaking punk.
I was always told when I reached 18 I was on my own.
And two weeks after high school graduation I was on a east bound train
from Colorado to do just that.
And I have never depended on anyone after that. (Except for a job, paid housing, etc).
My mother taught what I needed to know to be independent and self
reliant.
My father was "Doc". He was a GP and what everyone called him, including family members. My mother called him that when referring to him by name.
Cool! Big city or small town?
Medium size.
Huntington at the time had a population of about 80,000 people within the city limits. Many have fled to the suburbs and neighbouring states (lower
tax reasons mostly) starting around 1960 when the decline began but the metro tri-state pop. is around 100,0
My brother was always Charles, through his friends called him Mack, short for Mackey.
Never Charlie or Chuck?
Nope.
He dislikes being called Charles, just as I dislike being called William
(or any variation of that).
His son was named Charles but always went by Chuck.
(Charles is an old family name on my mothers side, her father was
Charles). William is an old Mackey family name and inflicted on some innocent child over the years. My father was William. Probably one reason he went into medicine so he would be called D
My sister Mary was always called Sissy, even by her friends.
Cute. Didn't know that happened outside of literature.
That was a nickname my brother (also named Joe, who was killed in the
Pacific in 1945) who was two years older than she called her since he had trouble saying Sister as a little boy. ("Leave my Sissy alone" instead of "Leave
my sister alone").
But Sissy was a tough old bird who could handle herself, being a tomboy
and all.
It took he & I 20 years(mostly estranged) to become brothers
Mack and I aren't close either. When I was eight he was married and on
his own and by 10 I was an uncle.
He and Leona were high school sweethearts and still together after 63
years.
Joe
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