I Remember

By Nancy Louise Bayman

There are 35 completely different stories. You really can't tell if they are real or not. A lot of fun for most ages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667888378

Book preview

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© 2023 Nancy Louise Bayman

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Print ISBN: 978-1-66788-836-1

eBook ISBN: 978-1-66788-837-8

DEDICATION

I would like to dedicate this book to my husband, John Bayman. Whose love and friendship was priceless to me. Also to all my friends and family who continue to support me in my life.

Table of Contents

I Remember

Surviving Grammar School

The Singing Tryout

When You’re Older, You’ll Understand

A Slice of Farm Life

Sweets Eaten as a Child

My Sports Career

Getting the Vote Out

Remembering Mama

A Tightwad and the Ethics

Daddy’s Mansion

Daddy and the Devil

How I Spent My Allowance

Tennessee Cemeteries

Grandma ‘Me’

Isolation

Great Grandpa: T.J. Clouse

How I Learned to Write

Daddy’s Funeral

High School

Summer Nights – 1953

Escape

The Baxters

Mama’s Funeral

Aunt Dough

A Photo Remembered

Freedom

A Hamburger, Cut in Four Pieces

A Broken Object

Bodily Changes

Baptism

The Forest

One Thing Unchanged

Canasta and Lemon Meringue

Southern Fried

I Remember

How I loved balloons! I remember Mama’s comforting warm, lap holding me, her arms around me. I remember the balloons she bought: magical, colorful, floating, dancing spheres that I batted into the air.

One afternoon my balloon hit a wire on a window screen. With a loud pop, it exploded. I burst into tears—My balloon! I shook and sobbed, my four-year-old heart broken.

Mama took me into her arms, held me close. Poor baby, she crooned, Poor sweetheart. Its little heart’s broke.

Rocking me, Mama continued, Ah know. Ah know. We’ll get you another balloon next time we go ta town. But ah understand how you feel, how you hurt. Poor baby. Comforted and caressed, I quieted and relaxed.

For years Mama bought me a balloon every time we made the long trip from the farm into Fresno to shop.

I can see the scene now as if it were yesterday—sitting on the back porch, cuddled in Mama’s lap, grieving for my beautiful balloon, feeling the warmth of my mother’s love.

My father liked to scare me, especially with crickets. I hated crickets—was terrified. They were big, black, and ugly, always seeming to be trying to jump on me. There seemed to be hundreds of them in our old farmhouse. Daddy liked to throw them at me and hear me scream. Sometimes I would cry. He mocked me, Sniveling crybaby. Mimicking me, he’d laugh.

I don’t know why my father scared, hurt, and ridiculed me. Perhaps that—or worse, was what had been done to him as a child. It was the only way he knew to relate. He’d told stories about how his oldest sister beat him with her crutch.

As I got older, my father got worse. Around age eleven was when I started disliking him. Dislike grew into hatred over the years.

Furious because my father was laughing as I cried, I remember glaring at him, thinking, you will NEVER see me cry again. I hate you. You will NEVER, EVER see me cry, EVER!

Walking far out into the vineyard, I’d crawl under my favorite grapevine. It was large and overgrown, flowing to the ground. I parted the leaves, spreading them to enter the safety within. Completely hidden by the thick foliage, I sat on the ground, unseen and unheard. I would then allow myself to cry and cry. Over the years I never cried until I got out of view under the protection of my grapevine. Years later, in therapy, my psychologist was struck by how I could control my emotions. It was a good feeling, the realization that I could prevent my father from ever laughing at my crying again. To this day, I rarely allow myself to shed a tear in front of another person.

I remember my father’s index finger on his right hand. It was missing the first two joints. He’d lost part of the finger in an accident when he worked for the railroad. I was never told the story of how it happened.

Daddy liked to scare little kids with his finger. He especially liked to frighten Cousin Carol and me with that stub. He’d poke it at us and yell, Gotcha! For many years I’d feel cold chills and my stomach would lurch every time I encountered someone with a missing limb. I later had a difficult time when traveling in Germany as there were so many veterans missing arms and legs.

For years I didn’t understand the jolt of fear I experienced upon seeing an amputee and I even had nightmares about missing limbs. One day, driving to work with a friend, I expressed this fear. Suddenly what flashed in my mind was my father poking that half of a finger at me. Feeling tremendous relief, I exclaimed, My God! That’s what it’s about!

I never again was frightened when seeing a missing body part, and the nightmares disappeared as if the realization of the source extinguished the fear that created them.

Surviving Grammar School

Age six, I did not relish being in a room with thirty strangers. Grammar school was the start of one trauma after another. The first shock was the sight of dozens of little kids running around yelling. Having grown up on a farm, rarely seeing more than one other child at a time, I’d been taught Children were to be seen—never heard. Certainly frightened at the idea of playing with them, I was also terrified these first graders were going to be killed, as they raced everywhere, shrieking.

If Mama had seen the behavior of these kids, she would have shouted, If you don’t stop that, I’m goin’ ta skin ya alive! While she allowed for little noise, Daddy tolerated even less. Holding my breath, I waited for the skinning to begin.

Mama and Daddy were a very old forty-something when I was born. Grandma was an even older sixty-three. They didn’t talk much. Probably they spoke very little to me. The adults in the family spoke to the adults. They didn’t know how to talk to children. My only playmate had been my cousin Carol when our families got together for Sunday dinners.

The teachers maintained I had a speech impediment. Quite probably, I really didn’t; I just wouldn’t talk. Along with a few other students, I was sent to speech therapy. Not understanding this, or what was expected of me, was scary. I don’t recall much about not talking. Cousin Carol explained, You never spoke. You talked late, and when you did, no one but me could understand you. In spite of the speech therapy, when I was back in class, I clammed up. The therapy did not create any desire in me to talk.

Mrs. Pendergrass was my first grade teacher. Full figured, ample bodied, and busty, she was a formidable presence, and inspiring both fear and respect. Her class projects on display were a child’s dream world, but her rubenesque stature, towering above the six year olds, cautioned us to not get too close. There were dollhouses, delicate figurines, farm scenes, cowboys, pictures, and artwork—all creating apprehension, all