XVIII Going Home: Timeless Friends

I recently made the trek up thru the Great Plains of America to see my mom. There is a routine when I go to see mom. She lives in a small one bedroom apartment, in a small town, in a small retirement complex. I opt to make a small pallet to sleep on at mom’s rather than stay in a hotel. Its cozy and is conducive to our routine. I still get up early, go for coffee and breakfast before she wakes and take a stroll around town each morning. When she wakes, we go to the community room where her co-residents are all having coffee. The Coffee club as I like to call it. They love having a new face, especially a mans face at the table. The conversation is lively and diverse. We might spend a couple of hours or just a little bit before heading out for our days adventure. Today we would only be staying awhile as we had early plans.

Mom lives in a small town just outside of Omaha. Last year we drove about 45 minutes further into the country to visit and have lunch with a very dear friend of mine from high school. It was wonderful! We enjoyed the drive as Janalee lives in a very picturesque area of Nebraska. I know mom really likes the peace and quite of the country. She could sit on Janalee’s porch swing and gaze out into the glades for hours and be very content. I know she really misses living in the country as do I.

Janalee and I went thru a lot together in our youth. We share secrets that each of us will take to the grave…LOL! We have both known tragedy and triumph in our lives and are better for it. I have fond memories of sitting in her room as she put on her makeup, getting ready to cruise the one stop light, main street of our little town that everyone drove back and forth on every Friday and Saturday night. If you were looking for someone, that’s where you would find them. There or one of the three little towns in our very rural county doing the same thing. She had a cool Mustang her father maintained for her…he was such a good mechanic…dad…friend… a great guy..no longer with us but we have loving memories of him so in that sense, he is still with us. She is her fathers daughter.

There was a stretch of over 20+ years (forever and a day 😉 ) where we didn’t see each other or really have much contact…but when we did see each other for the first time, a couple of years ago, after all those years…it was as if no time had passed at all. I think this is a sign of an enduring friendship, a timeless bond. I have a number of dear friends that I feel this way about…Wendy, Walt, Cliff, Jacque, Lela etc. As I mature and have more years behind me, I realize that when we are young we take for granted the bonds we form assuming we will form relationships like these our entire lives. In all probability, this assumption is in error. These bonds form in an atmosphere of innocence. An innocence that dissipates as we move thru life. My advice, hold onto and nurture those early bonds. You will come to cherish them as the decades pass.

Last year we talked a great deal about the past. This year it was all about the present and what that meant for the future. There was much she was discovering for the first time about me, as was I, in reading this blog.

As you might imagine, Janalee had many questions about my ancestry adventure. I’ve brought up a number of events that require further explanation and calcification. I had left home and lost contact with most of the people I had known for the first 20 years of my life. With the exception of my close family, and I am not actually sure when they all became aware of it, no one knew that Harley was not my biological father. Outside of the family, most didn’t know mom was my stepmom. One of her first inquires was as to how I ended up with a birth certificate without my biological parents names on it.

So I begin to tell the tale. A tale I had overheard Harley and one of his cousins sharing and one that my Uncle Wayne had told me when I spent the summer of 79′ with him on harvest crew. I began the story with Harley and one of his cousins coming home on leave from the Navy. The cousin was my Aunt Hilda’s son. Mom who had been listening intently interrupted and said, “no, It was Aunt Dena’s son”. For a moment I was speechless. I had no idea mom had ever heard this story and up until that moment of her correcting this fact, thought it almost to outlandish to believe. Mom was confirming the validity of this event.

This was a number of years before Harley met mom. Harley and his cousin (who would eventuality introduce Harley to mom a few years later) were both home on leave from the Navy. They sat catching up on the adventures they had been having since leaving their dust bowl communities and seeing the world. Both had been recently married. They drew their billfolds from their pockets to proudly display the photos of their new wives…they had the exact same photo.

Willie Mae was married to a number of Navy men, mostly those who were assigned to Aircraft Carries that kept them at see for months at a time while she remained back in the states collecting their paychecks. Harley being irresponsible Harley that he is, never went thru the trouble of getting a divorce and wouldn’t until right before he married mom.

So when he and Faye were together a short time later, and she turns up pregnant, (at this point believing she is carrying his child) she is forced to assume Willie Mae’s identity in order to utilize and access the military hospital and services. Once this deception is started, it could not be corrected without exposing intentional fraud. When I am born Willie Mae is recorded as my birth mother and Harley is recorded as my birth father on my birth certificate. This same scenario would play out 13 months later with the birth of my brother, David. The only difference being David’s Birth certificate did have his biological fathers name on it.

The military did eventually catch on. Harley was busted! He was sent to Guantanamo Bay Military base which in the 60’s served as a military prison of sorts for enlisted men. He continued to serve and work there but his wages were garnished until he paid back the cost of the two births. Regardless if Harley was the father or not, the military did not pay for unwed mothers and he had willingly perpetuated a fraud.

There were more questions and I provided explanations, Mom offered up new details as well that I had not been aware of. It was a very interesting and enlightening lunch date. We all have a very healthy attitude about our colorful past and laughed at the absurdity of most of it. A trip to Janlee’s is part of our routine from here on out.

Ok, today’s auditory gem is a personal one between Janalee and myself. A very fond memory! It was the height of the disco craze in the late 70’s. Our local cafe decided to bring it to our little “burg”. At 10:00 the kitchen closed, tables were shoved against the walls and the mirrored ball began to spin as did the turntables. This was a popular song at the time and each time it came on, Janalee and I made our way to the dance floor, to each other and “boogied on down”….love you, dear friend! Shall we dance? 😉