Thoughts of a Stripper: A Mother's Story

By Opal Dockery

In the 1970's, the Burlesque industry was thriving. Nudity and pornography was a public and political outrage. And people across the country were flocking to burlesque theaters to see Melissa St. John: The Upside Down Girl, A.K.A. Wild Star. Little did they know she was a single Mother, alone, on the road, with her two children in boarding schools in separate states. Over a 6 year period while traveling on a burlesque circuit across the country, she was searching for a way to come face to face with her true spirit.
Through writing her innermost thoughts on paper, she found herself in the most unconventional way.

THOUGHTS OF A STRIPPER: A MOTHER'S STORY, by Opal Dockery, is an inspirational, spiritual and autobiographical journal of a stripper's thoughts over a 6 year period in the 1970's. Her personal thoughts on single parenthood, spirituality, alternative lifestyle thinking, travel, the burlesque industry and family will inspire you, shock you and uplift you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781312632424

Book preview

Thoughts of a Stripper: A Mother's Story

Thoughts Of A Stripper: A Mother's Story

I FOUND MY TRUE SELF

IN THE MOST

UNCONVENTIONAL WAY

I WAS DRAGGED THROUGH THE PITS OF HELL!

WHEN I EMERGED, THERE WAS MY SPIRIT ---

WHICH I MET FACE TO FACE.

THOUGHTS OF A STRIPPER

(A MOTHER'S STORY)

By Opal Dockery

Thoughts Of A Stripper – A Mother's Story

By Opal Dockery

Ebook Edition 2014

Copyright @ 1997 by Opal Dockery

Dixie Publishing Company

P.O. Box 364

Lamar, Missouri 64759

417-398-2877

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN – 978-1-312-63242-4

All Rights Reserved

DEDICATION

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY SON

JACK TRUMAN

HE IS MY BEST FRIEND

PROLOGUE

I hope this book will enlighten the reader with the desire to look for his or her true self and experience the ecstasy of finding it. I also hope this book will show the public that a stripper is a human being, too.

MY CONTRIBUTION TO LIFE – THE WORLD

I have always felt that I needed to contribute something back to life – the world – to pay for the privilege of having lived. I hope this book will accomplish that effort. Maybe what I have felt and been through will help someone else survive as I did. If my book helps even one person to do so, then I will feel that I have contributed to life – the world – in a big way.

The following writing taken from February 25, 1974 explains:

MY STATEMENT TO THE WORLD

I have something I want to say to all the peoples of the World. I would love for everybody from the highest position in life to the lowest position in life to benefit from what I have to say.

I want people everywhere all over the World – to know how good it is to have such a complete peace of mind. - To maintain such an elevated feeling – to feel so good that one knows he is capable of accomplishing whatever he sets out to do.

         To realize that he owes his first accomplishment to his own personal spirit.

         The only obligation one has in this life is to his own personal spirit. He must stay true to his spirit or he is worth nothing. If one stays true to his spirit, everything else will fall into place as it should and when it should.

         Just stay true to your spirit and listen to your spirit, then you have no other worries – let your spirit direct you all through life.

SPECIAL NOTE TO THE READER

This book contains some of my personal thoughts during the most trying period of my life. It was as if I were in a trance when I wrote most of them. When I wrote them, it was for the sole purpose of comforting myself – my soul. I never wrote any of this book with the intention of publishing it; but it was always in the back of my mind that it might happen someday. Now I am glad that it did. I can truly say,

MY LIFE IS AN OPEN BOOK

THANKS TO THE READER

I want to thank you for taking the time to read my book. I hope you like it.

SPECIAL THANKS

I WANT TO THANK ALL THE PEOPLE WHO WERE MEAN TO ME; AND THEY KNOW WHO THEY ARE. WITHOUT THEM, THIS BOOK NEVER WOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN.

AN APOLOGY

I need to apologize to all my good school teachers who taught me such things as good grammar, sentence structure, and how to develop paragraphs. I have not forgotten your lessons even though there are parts of my book that do not display such. I wrote this book exactly as I felt it with the emotions pouring straight from my heart, spirit, and soul. I did not bother with the formal procedures of writing. Also, there are parts of my book that are repetitious. When I decided to publish my book, I wanted it to be just as I had originally written it without taking anything away from the originality of it.

This picture is of ME taken in front of

the Follie's Burlesk Theater in Kansas City,

Missouri during the years that I was a

sttripper. Yes, this is ME – also known as

Opal, Wild Star, and Melissa St. John – but

more importantly known as MOTHER.

I REALLY SO BELIEVE THAT IF I HAD NEVER

BECOME A STRIPPER I WOULD NEVER HAVE FOUND

AND COME FACE TO FACE WITH MY SPIRIT

This picture says it all. It helps

tell the whole story of the way I raised

my kids. When they were not in school,

they were in the dressing rooms of

different burlesk theaters waiting for

me to finish my show.

INTRODUCTION

I was a stripper for approximately twenty years. This book contains a portion of intense thoughts I experienced during seven years of this time, most of which I was on the road – (1971-1977).

It took six years for me to break away from THE MARRIAGE BONDS OF IGNORANCE. I was left with two kids to raise on my own.

My husband was a deadbeat father. Not only did he not pay child support after we were divorced, but when we were married he tried to convince me to sell one of the kids for $10,000.00; so he could buy a new car. He had a buyer. He said, We can always have more kids.

After my divorce, I was trying to make ends meet by working three jobs. One full check went to the babysitter. I did not have too much sense back then; but I had enough sense to know that I would not be able to work three jobs forever.

I came from a family and a small town community lifestyle that taught me that welfare was a disgrace. My parents taught me that when you got to be eighteen you were on your own – sink or swim. Therefore, no child support, no welfare, no help from my family, and exhaustion from working three jobs forced me to realize that I needed to find a way to make enough money to raise my kids – something that paid a lot and that I could do until my kids were on their own, at least.

My family turned against me because I became a stripper – even to the point of trying to take my kids away and give them to their father or the welfare. But I did not care what anyone thought. I placed my children's needs and desires above everything and everyone else – even myself.

I wanted more for them than to be taught small town thinking as I was. I wanted them to know there were other ways of life and other ways of thinking. I wanted to give them the opportunity that I had never had – the knowledge that they have a right to choose their own particular life-style and to go by their own feelings rather than by what others THINK THEY SHOULD DO.

I had no one to lean on but me. Excruciating desperation of knowing that I was all alone with the responsibility of two little people forced me to look inward for myself.

I experienced a great deal of spiritual awakening. Church was the only type of spiritual training I had had up to that point in my life; so all the new spiritual feelings I experienced I related to God even though I was not or am not now