Hit 'Em Where It Hurts

I've written in other blogs that I was blessed with two fathers.

My biological father, James, I can't really remember. I have some vague memories but they are mostly just of me and knowing he was with me at that particular time or event in my life. I wish I knew more about him.

My father James passed away when I was 7 and a few years later my mom and my brothers and sisters and I were lucky enough to be blessed with Bo, my second father. I don't like to say step-father. I refer to Bo as my father or Bo, just don't want to confuse you here.

When Bo first came to live with us we were living in a two-family house with the Mallens upstairs as tenants. The Mallens being my godparents and their family, at least 5 or 6 kids. Growing up, in my little world, everyone had 5, 6, 7 or more kids in their family. It was the norm of the times and my neighborhood.

Not long after Bo came into our lives, the Mallens ended up buying their own home and moving out and we took over the entire house. It was still like two separate apartments, the upstairs very private from the downstairs, which was great in some ways and not so great in others. Great being that our parents could not hear anything going on upstairs. I remember being told to go upstairs and study for an hour. An hour? Mmmm. That would be about two albums listening time. Dancing, jumping on the bed. Studying. Not so great, my parents couldn't hear what was going on upstairs.

But we had so much more room. There were 5 bedrooms upstairs and now downstairs we had a huge dining room, a TV room, 3 bathrooms. It was great house, and the home that will always be in my heart, as that's the last house where all of my brothers and sisters, my parents and I lived all together.

My sister Linda and I shared a room and at that time Debbie was still so young so she and Joey shared a room. And Debbie would never come upstairs to our room anyway. To keep her out and away from our stuff, we told her there were ghosts up there and it took some time before she finally told my parents why she was so scared to come up. We got in trouble but the damage was done for Debbie, she still thought there were ghosts up there no matter what our parents told her.

We had bunkbeds and it was probably me more than Linda but our room was a mess! We would throw our clothes all over the place, leave candy wrappers all over and I had a favorite place to hide everything. We had a dresser with a mirror that was catty corner in the room and I remember throwing tons of stuff back there, well hidden, never to be found. Straighten up our room? Sure! Right behind the dresser.

Well one day I came home from school and my father had taken apart our bedroom. Took apart the bunkbed, the dresser, took off the mirror, found our, well again probably my, stash of junk, laundry, garbage. He was furious and I don't blame him but the whole time my mom was telling him, they're little girls, they can't put all this furniture back together. We had to clean but Bo had to put the furniture back together and that just added to his frustration and made his lecture to us about keeping our room clean all that much longer.

The clean room didn't last long and this time my father decided to take the door off our room so that we would be embarrassed if my older brothers' friends came over and saw our mess. That was funny. Linda and I could care less what our brothers' thought and their friends too. They didn't pay any attention to us and if they did see it, I don't think they would care either.

Bo was beside himself, he just couldn't figure out how to get us to keep our room clean. He was still learning how to be a father. My brothers gave him lessons pretty much everyday. Linda and I did too. I was and still am too sensitive, I can cry so easily, over happy things and sad things. Bo could make me cry and would ask me, what did I do, I didn't say anything. I would tell him you looked at me funny or angry, whatever, overly sensitive me, but he learned, I was a cry baby. One day I got a new pair of roller skates, they were ones that you could just slip over your sneaker. I went outside and put them on, got up and fell. I took the skates off and went inside and as soon as I saw my father I started crying. He laughed, he was learning. He said, I just watched you from the window. You didn't cry at all outside, didn't start until you saw me. He made me laugh that day too.

One day Bo figured out how to get us to keep our room clean. I don't remember what posters Linda had up in our room, but I know I was in love with David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman.

We had posters all over our room. Teen magazines in every corner, and cut outs of our idols posted on the mirror. Bo told us if we didn't keep our room clean, we would come home to find every poster and cut-out on the mirror shredded and in the garbage.

Bo learned that day and so did Linda and I. He won. He hit us where it hurts.

My favorite lesson similar to that, hit 'em where it hurts, is about my niece Irene.

Now Irene is not vain, not at all. She was a beautiful baby, little girl, teen and now a beautiful young woman. Yes I'm prejudice, but she is beautiful, inside and out. In any case, when Irene was about 7 or 8 she was always late getting ready for school in the morning because she couldn't tear herself away from the mirror. Loved, loved, loved to look at herself. Now I did the same thing when I was her age every chance I got, I think most little girls do, but she was making her mom late every morning and her mom (big sister Deb) hit her where it hurts. Deb covered every mirror in the house for a month. Irene couldn't look at herself! Ha! She got into a new routine and got herself going in the morning and out to school on time.

Again, you gotta hit 'em where it hurts.