My Father Creates The Unbelievable Truth To Get Me In Trouble

Our new house on the other side of Polo brought Mom back from her depression over the sudden death of her friend's daughter. Not only was the death sudden and tragic, a teenage bride to be, killed in a car accident with an intoxicated driver, but Mom had been painting her, and spending many days, having her pose at the time it occurred.

We had our wonder dog, Charlie, despite a rule of no pets in our lease. There was a large yard and a mean old lady for our nearest neighbor. We had a rope swing on the big tree in front of the house, and being on the outer part of town, a more ambling atmosphere that suited Mom's temperament.

The town's largest park, with the community swimming pool, was a few blocks behind us, and you could look out at a gravel road that was the abrupt beginning of the end of town at its farthest corner.

As summer began, Mom decided our father should take us all to Mount Rushmore. It would be a "family vacation."

As was the usual case, my father needed to be seasoned with yelling and screaming before he reluctantly allowed himself to be used.

We bought all the necessary camping gear and loaded up Mom's latest car, our red Dodge Dart convertible, with a bashed in trunk. Mom took a lot of pictures at the roadside attractions where we stopped and saw alligator wrestlers and chickens that danced by spinning the ground under them.

There are pictures of us in a petrified forest, and riding large tortoises, and the ultimate, sitting next to a real Indian in front of the monument itself.

Mom suffered a tragic loss of innocence over our dog Charlie. She saw him become a killer. At one of the campgrounds where we stayed he saw a rabbit and chased it until he had it caught between his feet and Mom shrieked in anguish as he hopped around gleefully on the little bunny. I learned that a small animal could sometimes die of fright. Over the years Mom would become proud of Charlie's incredible prowess as a hunter.

As Dad's wallet was closed and we were running back down to Illinois Dad did something that shocked and upset Mom.

He was driving and there were semi-trucks ahead of him that were passing each other and he ignored the situation in such a way that Mom began screaming at him.

She said " What the hell do you think you are doing? Slow down! Are you trying to get us all killed?"

I had observed some of it and the trucks did appear close to us from when I saw them. Mom demanded that he let her drive the rest of the way and ordered him to ride in back with me. So he traded places with my sister.

I was enjoying my loot from the vacation, comic books and a cowboy hat and a wanted poster of Butch Cassidy and one of the Sundance Kid, on antiqued parchment. Dad was angry and slouched in his seat.

When we stopped at a gas station and Mom went to pay, my dad said "You don't like those glasses? Why don't you just throw them out?"

He was referring to my first pair of glasses that had been bought for me by the Lion's Club. They were brown tortoise shell and I did not like wearing them when Mom was taking pictures.

I thought about what he was asking and Mom got back in to drive. He said "here if you won't I will" and he threw them out of the car as we left the gas station.

I did not know what to do about the situation. I did dislike the glasses. My father was the one who did the thing that was a problem. I probably even thought it meant he would have to buy me some wire frames later.

After we were home and Vernon was gone Mom asked me where the glasses were. I thought about it and I said, "Dad threw them out of the car at the gas station."

Mom said to my shock "Stop lying and tell me where you have those glasses."

She refused to believe me and gave me one of the worst beatings ever. She broke a piece of the stretcher bar that she beat me with and laughed about how hard that particular beating was whenever she mentioned it.