Riding The Road Of Life (With Hair Blowing And Tits Out)

By Lois W. Marlatt

This book is about an old gal’s ride down her road of life.
Her occupations or hobbies, as some of them weren’t licensed, were as follows: a door-to-door vegetable salesperson; a waitress; a Farmerette; a clerk in a five and dime store; a stockroom supervisor in the same store; a part-time hunter and fisherman; a pilot of a prop plane; an office clerk in a large factory office; a cashier and then a cost accountant there; a scuba diver; a school teacher; a school principal; second in command of a sail boat; a practical nurse; a poet; a novelist, and a guest speaker.
Maybe you know her, or someone like her. Left out was wife and mother for those two were neither occupations nor hobbies, but labours of love. I hope this book brings a smile to your face.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books for Pleasure
• Release date: Jan 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781553491323

Book preview

RIDING THE ROAD OF LIFE

WITH HAIR BLOWING AND TITS OUT

WRITTEN BY LOIS MARLATT

COVER BY GIL AGIS

Copyright  2018

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-55349-132-3

Published by Books for Pleasure

Box 916

Cayuga, Ontario N0A 1E0

RIDING THE ROAD OF LIFE – CHAPTER 1

Like the old fairy tale queen, I have a question for my mirror. Mirror, my mirror dear, how the hell did I get here?

I had to change the rhyme because my mirror wasn’t on the wall.

I didn’t want an answer that explained the sexual coupling of a man and a woman. Instead, I was wondering how I could be looking at the reflection of an 88-year-old female who was still in good health mentally and physically.

The gray hair and wrinkles are there. I’ve always told people every gray hair of mine has been earned and that the wrinkles are only laugh lines. I’ve done a lot of laughing in my 88 years.

This book is about my life. I started out as an optimistic child who thought she should be able to control things. From there I went to be a horny teenager who did not know the difference between lust and love and finally I’m an aging adult who now knows what it was to have loved and lost.

I married at 16, was married for 53 years, and now have been alone for 18 more. Does that mean it is time for me to marry again? No. Maybe it is just time to reminisce about where I have been on this ride down the road of life with its paved highway and pot holes.

Somewhere in the mists of time I remember my mom telling me that my dad made her douche before intercourse when they planned to have a baby. For my brother Lloyd it was a different concoction than what was used for my conception. Dad must have heard of the ingredients somewhere and they did work. He had his boy and his girl.

He was an Englishman, so he bragged that he had done better than the King, because he had one of each sex instead of two girls.

Mom abhorred nick names, so she picked Lloyd and Lois as two names that would never be changed into something else. It wasn’t long before Lloyd became Lloydie–boy to the family and shortly after my birth I became Loie.

Mom bragged that all the nine months of carrying Lloyd and then me she had never thrown up except once when I evidently had kicked her stomach so hard that she lost her meal. It was my fault.

Looking back, I’m not sure that my dad was all that lucky to get me. I was trouble right from the start.

I was due to be born on the first of October 1930. I actually arrived 15 days later. If anyone asks about my birth date, I give them too much information.

I tell them, I was due on the first of October. Dad got paid twice a month, and when I did not arrive as expected, he told Mom that she had to wait until the next payday to deliver. He liked to pay cash for things because, during the depression, if you paid cash you could ask for, and receive, a discount. Mom walked around with her legs crossed for two weeks until the next payday. I arrived as a breech birth on our kitchen table, and as I had spent that extra time in the womb, I was able to walk down to the foot of the table and tell Dad that he could call his brother and tell him that I had arrived.

Neither my mother nor my father had an easy childhood. Dad was left an orphan at a young age and was raised in miserable surroundings. Mom took on the duties of running a household at the age of 12. Her father was absent, and her mother was bedridden for four years, so the work fell upon her shoulders.

My memory is still good, but the next couple of incidents are probably known by me due to family lore rather than actual memories.

I can’t imagine that I was anything but a good baby. My parents did not socialize so I was used to being looked after only by them.

When I was about a year old my mother’s sister passed away, and I was left with the neighbours, so Mom and Dad could attend the funeral. When I awoke from my nap and found I was with strangers, that situation did not suit me. I evidently screamed at their every approach, so they left me alone until my parents returned. They never looked after me again.

Six months or so after that I was ill, and the doctor suggested my medicine be added to my bottles of milk. According to Mom, I took one suck on the nipple and spit out the doctored milk. From that time on I refused my bottle. Mom spoon fed me with milk that had some tea added to it until I learned to drink from a cup. Plain milk was no longer in my world.

I can see by the above that I was already developing a personality trait that more or less was saying, My way or the highway!

I was also well aware of the fact that I was Daddy’s little darling.

Lloyd got back at me some of the time by teasing, but I had Dad in my corner.

Another family lore story went like this. Mom heard some commotion happening on our front veranda. Lloyd had been teasing and was easily holding me out at his arm’s length as I tried my best to get in and thump him. By the time Mom got there I had realized I could not reach him.

I evidently stepped back and with hands on hips told Lloyd, My father can beat up your mother.

He never did.

Poor Lloyd loved his milk and Mom bought some that was not pasteurized because it was cheaper. This was depression time and every penny counted.

The cow had tuberculosis, or TB, which was the more common name for that disease at the time.

Lloyd developed tuberculosis of the stomach. With it went extremely high fevers and the doctor told my parents that one of the sessions of fever would take Lloyd’s life and there was nothing that could be done about it.

Mom rebelled. A mistake on her part was not going to be the cause of my brother’s passing. Whenever he was ill, she nursed him around the clock until his fever was down again. She also kept him up to date on his schoolwork as he was missing a lot of school.

Lloyd not only had his bouts of high fever; his immune system must have been weakened because he also got every disease going around.

The first one was whooping cough, and that one I remember. The doctor was called, and he came to the house. He was a big bear of a man with a gruff voice and I was frightened of him. He evidently diagnosed the problem and said I would get it as well. He would give me a shot which would not stop the disease but would make it less severe. That conversation I don’t remember, but what happened next is etched in my memory.

The doctor grabbed me, upended me over his lap, lifted my dress, took down my panties and gave me a shot of something or other. I squirmed to no avail. It wasn’t the shot that riled me, but the nerve of the man to treat me in such a fashion. I never forgot him. His tombstone is near the family plot and when I go to the cemetery I often stop at his stone as well. I usually stand there with a smile on my face as I remember how angry I was at him.

I did get whooping cough, and a memory of mine at the time is of Lloyd and me in our back yard. It was a spring day.

We were still hacking occasionally, and I started to cough. Inadvertently I spit out my gum and it landed in a puddle of mud. I began to cry. Gum was hard to come by and one stick could be chewed off and on for weeks on end.

Lloyd put his arm around me.

Don’t cry, Loie, he said. You can have my gum.

He offered it to me and his gum had hardly been chewed.

Mom appeared and stopped the transfer.

What a nice brother I had, and I really did not appreciate him until I had grown up.

At the time though I was pretty fed up with him because he did get every illness that was going around. Mom would insist that I play games with him. Her idea was that I should get sick as well and get it over with. However, his chicken pox, mumps, measles, and scarlet fever passed me by. I never caught them.

I was really annoyed at the scarlet fever because our house was quarantined, and I could not go out to play with my friends. It was all Lloyd’s fault.

However, on the good side as I look back, with Lloyd being so sickly it kept my mom busy with him.

As others of my sex were learning to help out at home, my mom did not want me underfoot.

Her favourite saying to me was, Go out and play.

I’m not much of a cook, but by becoming an expert at playing, it is something that I’ve made use of all of my 88 years.

I was four and a half when my father’s step brother and his wife came to visit us from England. The man had become a ship’s captain and I guess that occupation left him expecting others to defer to his status.

I remember the excitement in our house as my parents planned for the relative’s arrival.

They even hired a maid named Mary to help, and she was also to act as a babysitter when my parents would be out showing the visitors around.

It was a good thing I liked Mary. She played with me when the adults were gone so I had no desire to go with them.

I didn’t like my uncle. He must have been lacking in memory cells because he kept asking me where I was going in September.

I would reply, I am going to stool.

He would laugh, and I would wonder why going to stool was funny. I was excited about it. I was going to get an education.

I had a lisp but no one in those days did anything about it. School was a word I just couldn’t say properly.

My uncle would also ask me what colour bananas were.

I would reply, They are yellow.

He would laugh and say, You are wrong. When I go in my ship to the islands to collect bananas, they are green.

I couldn’t call him a liar, and we did not have a banana in the house, so I could show him that they were yellow. It frustrated me.

Because we had company, we ate our meals at the dining room table. I missed eating in the kitchen at a table where I probably babbled on about things that were important to me. Things were boring at this table.

I sat next to Uncle Will, and if I started to talk he would quietly say to me, Children should be seen and not heard.

I wasn’t stupid. I knew what that meant. He was telling me to shut up.

I stayed out of his way as much as I could but finally I boiled over, and I wonder now if that would class as antiauthoritarianism in a four-year-old.

We were at the dining room table and I wanted to share something that was important to me with the others.

He started to tell me what children should do but I had heard that line too many times.

I turned to him and said in a fairly loud voice, Why don’t you go home?

I took one look at the expressions on my parents’ faces and decided I would not bother asking to be excused. I simply left the table and disappeared outside.

When I returned nothing was mentioned about what I had said. I was prepared to defend myself but was delighted I didn’t have to.

A couple of days later my aunt and uncle departed and things went back to normal.

It was years later my mom happened to mention their visit.

I inquired about my uncle’s reaction to my outburst.

Mom said, Will was red in the face, and he was blustering at your dad about the nerve of his daughter talking to him like that. Before your father could say anything, Will’s wife Nellie spoke up. She really gave it to him.

She said, Will, you have been teasing that child ever since we arrived, and it is terrible how you have been laughing at her pronunciation of school when she cannot help it.

Will said, My children would never talk back like that to any adult.

That did it.

Nellie laid out the truth.

What do you know about your children? she asked. You are hardly ever home. When you are, your children are frightened to death of you. They behave like they are walking on egg shells, and they can hardly wait until you leave again.

Then Nellie said, Come on, Edith. We are going for a walk.

Mom said, We left the men and what happened then your father never said. As you know they stayed for a couple more days and then they left.

Because we were discussing the incident, we both decided we had liked Nellie but didn’t like Will.

I started school in September at age four and turned five that October. We only went in the mornings to Kindergarten and I had a great teacher.

The first time she told us we would now pause from our work for a rest, I immediately explained to her that I did not need one.

While the others were napping or just resting, she let me help her get ready for the next session of learning. I really liked her for that.

I had previously argued with my mom about that same thing. She would insist I needed a rest every afternoon. She always won, and I would find myself in bed.

One afternoon she peaked in to see if I was sleeping.

Of course, I wasn’t. I didn’t need a rest.

Instead, I was caught feeling between my legs. It was my body, so why not. I wasn’t doing anything bad, but my Mom’s reaction told me differently. Had she just ignored it, she would have been further ahead.

Now I knew there was something special between my legs.

I had no idea what it was, but it got me out of afternoon naps.

No longer was I put to bed against my wishes. Instead, I went out to play.

I loved going to school and had a good friend who lived down the block from me named Gladys. I stopped to walk with her every morning.

She was never ready, and it meant that we usually had to run the last couple of blocks to school to avoid being late.

If you were late, the following morning you had to report to the office before the bell rang. Then you had to stand out in the hall under the bell while all the others filed into the school. They would laugh and point as they passed you. I knew that because I had seen them do it.

I had already made up my mind that there was no way I would stand under the bell and be laughed at. Nor would I allow any teacher to strap me.

One morning, because I waited for Gladys, we were both late.

Rather than go in and face standing under the bell the next morning, I opted to hide behind the corner store and stay there.

Gladys followed me, so we drew a hop scotch on the sidewalk in chalk and played there until the students came out for recess.

We went over and joined them at play. When the bell rang we went back behind the store and stayed there until it was time to go home.

That evening I said to my mom, I need a note from you for the teacher.

What kind of a note? she asked.

Just a note that says please excuse Lois from being absent from school and sign it, I explained.

That’s strange, Mom said. I’ll phone her tomorrow and see why she wants one.

That did it. I broke down and cried and explained about the bell.

She kept me home the next day and then sent me back with a note just saying I had been away but not saying when.

I was punished. I could no longer call for Gladys.

When I told Gladys, she said we were no longer friends.

I didn’t care, and her family moved away shortly afterwards so it really didn’t matter.

There were enough other children in the area to play with and we all seemed to play quite well together. There were no organized sports. We did our own organizing, and everyone got to play. At night we had to go in when the street lights came on.

As Lloyd continued to have very serious bouts of high fever, Mom decided it would be easier for her if she did not have me to look after during the periods when there wasn’t any school.

The next time he was ill I was sent to my grandmother’s home. Grandma kept house for Mom’s brother Wilford who had never married.

I had to help when I was there even though there were children in the area who were quite willing to let me join them in play.

The first Monday I was there, Grandma decided I would hang out the laundry. Mondays were everyone’s wash day.

The first clothes she brought for me to hang on the line were the whites. I could hardly reach the clothes line. I persevered and had almost emptied the basket when Grandma appeared with the coloured clothes.

She took one look at the clothes already drying and grabbed the line to start bringing everything back in. She took the clothes off the line as quickly as she could.

I just stood there, dumbfounded.

The last things to come off the line were Grandma’s bloomers.

How was I supposed to know that her bloomers were to be hung inside of the pillow cases? My Mom’s just blew in the breeze as did all the underwear for both sexes at my house. Anyway, I had never hung clothes on a line before.

Now I got to thinking. My grandmother did not have a bra in the basket. She probably did not wear one.

If she was so worried about the neighbours seeing her bloomers, they also were not seeing her bras. Wouldn’t they think she didn’t wear either of them? That to me would be a whole lot worse.

I couldn’t help but think it wasn’t fair. The neighbourhood kids were outside playing and here I was hanging clothes out on a clothesline.

However, it turned out to be an interesting day when I finally got outside to play with the group.

They decided they were going to play doctor.

I had never played that game before, so I went along with them.

We went into the neighbour’s garage and the girls took their panties down and bent over.

The boys took turns playing with the girls’ bums.

I stood and watched.

Finally, one of the boys wanted to get a stick and insert it into an anus. That ended the dumb game and we went outside to play.

For all the times I was at Grandma’s after that, playing doctor never occurred again, but there may have been something going around in the air because a boy who lived on our street invited me into his tent.

He said, I have something to show you.

I followed him in and he turned around to face me.

He had his fly unbuttoned and had this puny little worm hanging out of it.

It was the first penis I had ever seen, and I was not impressed.

I turned and walked out of the tent and, of course, never told anyone.

Whatever was in the air did not dissipate.

A couple of years later I was riding my bicycle down our back lane on my way to the grocery store.

A man about the age of 20 stepped out into the lane.

To this day I swear he had on a brown trench coat. Whatever the colour, he did open it up, so I could see what he had on view. This one was larger, and I’ve been led to believe that most men think size counts.

He did not speak and neither did I.

I simply turned my bike around, rode back home and this time I told my mother.

She got very upset and called the police.

I thought that was unnecessary because the man really did not do anything except to show me something he must have thought was impressive.

The police arrived, and I was questioned, and they left.

I heard later they arrested the man, and it wasn’t his first arrest on the same charge. He had just been released and was staying with his sister whom we knew from the neighbourhood.

Evidently, she cried and tried to tell the police it was her fault that he had got away from her to pull this routine of his once again.

They arrested the man anyway, but I did not have to testify.

I felt badly for the sister and wondered how you broke someone of this particularly bad habit. It was a puzzle.

Lloyd was sick again, and this time his illness coincided with summer holidays.

I was told I was going to Winnipeg to stay with my aunt and uncle there.

Dad would put me on the train in the evening and I would have a berth. I was to stay in the berth until we arrived in Winnipeg in the morning. I imagine he paid the porter a tip to keep an eye on me.

I had met my Aunt Eddie whose real name was Henrietta. She had come to our house to visit a few times.

I had no fear of leaving home. In fact, I may have thought of it as an adventure.

It wasn’t much of an adventure. I had to work at their house as well.

The work mostly consisted of weeding in their large garden, which was better than hanging out clothes, washing dishes, or setting a table, like I did at my grandma’s house.

There were no other children around to play with, but their son Norman was home. He was five or six years older than me and everything he suggested I do was guaranteed to get me into trouble with Aunt Eddie.

I just never seemed to learn.

I remember him dropping a ball down to me from an upstairs window.

He said, Bet you can’t throw it back to me.

I tried, and it fell short, so I tried again and again.

The ball bounced off the house and that brought my Aunt Eddie to the door to give me a thorough tongue lashing about breaking windows and so on. All the while Norman leaned out of the window and he was laughing at me.

She never knew he was there.

Before I left to return home, Norman had joined my Uncle Will on my list of people I did not like.

Suppertime at their house was a lot different than at my home. First of all, Norman and I had to change our clothes from the ones we had been wearing all day. We had to wash our hands and faces and clean our fingernails.

When my uncle came home he always seemed to have a headache, and I couldn’t believe how my Aunt Eddie fussed around him.

There was no talking at the table except between the two adults and they did not have anything interesting to say.

I wasn’t homesick, but I sure missed mealtimes around the table at home where I could talk.

Christmas was an exciting time to look forward to because every November Eatons printed their Christmas catalogue, and I spent hours going through it to mark all the things that I would like to get for Christmas.

When Christmas arrived I always got a doll and a new pair of pyjamas. I had not marked either one as a desired gift. Santa didn’t pay enough attention to the catalogue.

An exciting day in the Noel season was when Lloyd and I went out to cut down a Christmas tree and drag it home on our toboggan.

Dad would square off the bottom of the tree and it would be set up in a stand. Decorating it was left to us and I always got the miserable job of straightening out all the icicles before they could be hung on the tree.

I remember that on one of our trips to get a tree Lloyd spotted some beads lying on the snow.

Why don’t you pick those up, Loie, he suggested. When you get home, you can string them into a necklace.

I carefully wrapped them in my handkerchief and put them in my pocket.

By the time I got home the beads had partially melted and Mom identified them as rabbit poo.

Looking back, Lloyd had pulled