How The Beatings and Alcoholism Began Part 1

When the fabric of a family is woven with threads of addiction, each strand tells a story of struggle, resilience, and the pursuit of healing. My mother, in a rare and intimate conversation, unravels the tapestry of our lineage, from her days as an adopted child in a religious household to the far-reaching consequences of my father's alcoholism. Her voice carries the weight of her experiences, yet it's imbued with the strength that has defined her journey and our family's saga. The stark reality of watching a loved one battle substance abuse, interlaced with her anecdotes of survival and defiance, casts a new light on the personal cost of addiction and the silent battles fought behind closed doors.

The narrative takes a turn through the labyrinth of family dynamics, where humor often serves as an unexpected beacon in the shadows of chaos. Through the heartfelt recollections of my peacemaker role amid family conflicts, to the humorous moments that offered reprieve from the turmoil, we navigate the complex waters of substance abuse and its duality. It's a story that juxtaposes the somber reality of my father's struggles with the lighthearted memories that remind us of his true essence, offering a nuanced understanding of how addiction can both mask and reveal the character within.

As the episode draws to a close, my mother and I sit amidst the quiet aftermath of reflection, pondering the cycle of behaviors passed down through generations. We discuss the importance of forging new paths and establishing traditions that exude the joy and unity once absent from our own upbringing. It's a testament to the enduring nature of hope and the unbreakable bonds of family, even when tested by the fires of adversity. Join us on this profound journey, where heartache gives way to hope, and the past's shadows are chased away by the promise of a brighter future for those who walk in our footsteps.

Chapters

• 0:00 Mother's Traumatic Childhood
• 12:09 Family Dynamics and Alcoholism Discovery
• 16:34 Family Struggles With Alcoholism and Faith
• 20:49 Childhood Trauma and Family Dynamics
• 30:51 Family Memories and Traditions

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Before we get into today's video, I just wanted to say thank you to all of the new subscribers. If you haven't yet, consider subscribing, hit that bell notification so that you can see every time I put out a new video. A major portion of you that watch my videos haven't subscribed yet, so why not? It's free. You can also find a PayPal link below if you want to give a one-time or give a monthly to support the channel. Anything, great or small, is appreciated. Now let's get into the video. What is up everybody? Thank you so much for joining me today in this live stream, so we're going a little bit earlier than we had scheduled.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Today is a special guest for me, so you've probably heard me talk about me owning a media company, and that media company majority probably about 80 to 90%, is a real estate company. So that means I do video, drone photos, stuff like that. So the reason and you probably have a similar story the reason I even got into real estate, shooting the media, for it was my mother, and so at the time of recording this, it is the Monday after Mother's Day and she has. She started talking about a story that she used to share all the time when she used to do kids crusades and I was like you know what? That would be a great podcast episode. So there she is, ladies and gentlemen, my mother in the flesh. So now, as probably what you see on the on your screen, on your phone or whatever, you see that it said she almost was killed and then this happened. This is not clickbait, this is actually a part of her story.

Speaker 2: 1:49

So welcome, mother thank you for having me. This is a first for me, so let's see how this goes so kind of tell us kind of a little bit of background.

Speaker 1: 2:01

I guess you could start kind of at the beginning of kind of how this all started to take form in your life from, I guess, when you were a child. It was A couple years ago.

Speaker 2: 2:11

A few years ago. Well, when I was I'll go back a little further, even to when I was born I was given were adoption by my biological mother, which I met later on in life, which is a totally different story, but I was adopted and they immediately told us as we began to grow up, you know that we were. They didn't want to. You know me find out later, or whatever.

Speaker 1: 2:35

And when you say we.

Speaker 2: 2:36

I had an adopted brother also.

Speaker 1: 2:38

She still does.

Speaker 2: 2:39

Still does. He was four years older than I, was okay, so my adoptive parents couldn't have children, so they they chose to adopt, so at a young age they immediately began to tell us because they didn't want us to find out from somewhere else. You know, and all those things which I appreciate yeah so and things.

Speaker 2: 2:57

Things were really great. We had. We were in church, my both of my parents were teachers, so school teachers at at church, so things were good. We were at early ages of our life, brought up in church, and then I remember they decided to buy. My dad was a local truck driver, for back then it used to be called Cotton Belt, so it was a local delivery service. They would bring in all the merchandise on the train and then they would load it to the trucks and they would then distribute it to all the local companies. He made good money, you know, he we had. We had a fairly good living as a, as a younger child. And then they decided to purchase a little. It was called a curb market, little fruit stand type thing where they they had their little, their little store next to a monument factory and all the guys would come over and they had sandwiches. They would make homemade sandwiches for them and you know just that type of thing.

Speaker 1: 3:45

And so they would make food for them too, and they would buy from them yeah, like a little deli type thing.

Speaker 2: 3:50

Yes, of course that was back in the in the 60s, so a deli thing wasn't very popular, but that was something they did you heard it right here first, ladies and gentlemen, the first food truck that ever existed, right here now.

Speaker 1: 4:00

How old were you at this time? Can you, you remember?

Speaker 2: 4:03

Six, seven, eight somewhere in that ballpark. That's pretty young. Yes, I was, because I remember at the age of eight they had started making pretty good money at the little curb market thing and my dad had started drinking. I don't know if it was the stress of the extra job, because he would have to get up early on Saturday mornings and drive from South Arkansas on a little walk to pick up fruits and vegetables and it became a big task. So in his mind I'm thinking that maybe it was a stress reliever, you know. But things began to just deteriorate from that point and get worse and worse. The more money they made in the store, the more money they would drink. He would drink. And I remember I was eight years old. My dad took my brother and I to church one Sunday morning and let us out in the parking lot and handed us his and my mom's Sunday school literature and told us to take it to the pastor and tell them that they would not be back and this would be our last Sunday.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Like them or everybody in the family. It was our last Sunday.

Speaker 2: 5:11

It was our whole family. My dad said we will not be going back. You take our literature and you tell the pastor that your mom and I will no longer be teaching Sunday school.

Speaker 1: 5:19

And about how old were you? I remember very distinctly.

Speaker 2: 5:22

I was eight years old, so I had to walk to my pastor, my brother and I you had to have a big girl conversation. I let him do most of the talking, but yes, he was older. He was four years older.

Speaker 1: 5:33

So you heard it he was always wiser, he was always smarter.

Speaker 2: 5:36

I don't know about that.

Speaker 1: 5:36

The older, sibling always is, in my experience. Not necessarily so. What did the?

Speaker 2: 5:46

what was the reaction of the pastor when, when he gets literature from a kid saying my parents aren't coming back. He, he was. I think he had a lot of wisdom. He, he didn't ask a lot of questions of us.

Speaker 2: 5:54

He didn't want to put us in that position yeah, well, yeah, that makes sense and so he graciously took the material and told us okay, and hugged us and told us that he hoped he would see us again soon. But we never went back. And at the age of 10, we had the opportunity. My dad had the opportunity to be transferred with the same company to another town, and my mom seemed to be of the opinion that if that actually happened, then we would all have a new lease on life and everything was just going to be hunky-dory and he was going to stop drinking, start a type thing.

Speaker 2: 6:31

So they went for it and it did help for a while. We moved when I was 10. He did transfer with the same company new school, new everything. I was starting the fourth grade when we changed schools.

Speaker 1: 6:43

Now if she's worried about that kind of stuff, does that mean that he might have already had a reputation in the community for the way he was? Was he acting out, behaving any different, or was it just like a weekend thing?

Speaker 2: 6:55

He would only do it on weekends. He didn't want to lose his job through the week, so he would stop at the liquor store on a Friday coming home from work and he would start drinking, but by Sunday night he would sober up, so he could go back to work on Monday.

Speaker 2: 7:11

That takes a lot of self-control. It was a weird thing, but he was the type of person some people when they drink they get very lethargic or they sleep or they get happy or whatever. He unfortunately was not that type. It brought out the demon in him. He turned into a monster. When the alcohol hit him system it totally changed his whole personality, just 180 degrees from what he normally was.

Speaker 1: 7:36

Was he drinking hard liquor or just beer or kind of a mix, or do you even know A?

Speaker 2: 7:40

mix of whatever he would. Sometimes on Friday night he would leave home and not come back till Sunday night so he could go back to work. On Monday he would go out and stay out at the bars and leave us at home with mom. And you know there were a few times that I got in the car with mom and we chased him down to see where he was, which I won't go into those things.

Speaker 1: 8:00

Which is where she got her detective skills from today. She started at a very young age.

Speaker 2: 8:07

It probably didn't hurt. I remember one occasion before we moved. I was still young and, for whatever reason, I don't remember why, but I was left at home with dad on a Saturday. Mom was doing something at the store and he was drinking and I was on a medication. Something at the store and he was drinking and I was on a medication. I had been sick and the doctor had given me pills. While I struggled to get pills down and he took a belt and he beat me. I still. I have a couple of places on like still where I have scars where he busted me open with a belt trying to make me take the pills and I still I'm did.

Speaker 2: 8:43

No, on Monday my mom got a hold of the pharmacist and they were able to get me a liquid form, but I could not get them down. And I still. I'm almost 64 years old and I still struggle to take pill. I take them one by one and some days it's just really, really hard to even get one down at a time, no matter if it's a vitamin, no matter what it is, because I guess that's still after all of these years, that's still in my mind and for years I couldn't. I would have to smush it up and put it in some orange juice or something to drink it, because I just could not get it down.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Sometimes I can take a handful and do a big gulp and get it. But I can take a handful and like, do a big gulp and get it. But Tristan, like our 15-year-old, I got him some vitamins. It's supposed to help him grow. He thinks he's going to be, you know, six foot four or whatever he says. The chances aren't very good for that. But it was pill form and they're still sitting in the cabinet. He said I can't do it. Now he takes his medicine, you know, for ADHD every day, every morning. Never Now he takes his medicine for ADHD every day, every morning. Never has an issue with that. But anything beyond that he thinks he can't do it. So they're sitting in the cabinet and he wants gummies or something he can chew up or something like that.

Speaker 2: 9:53

Well, I can sympathize with that for a little bit different reason, but still, after all these years, it's still in my head and every day I see the scars on my leg where he beat me because I couldn't swallow a pill.

Speaker 1: 10:07

So in the in the tracking of the years was so. That was just a normal day. He wasn't drunk when he beat you for.

Speaker 2: 10:15

No, that wasn't a weekend, so he was. He was drinking.

Speaker 1: 10:17

I was drinking.

Speaker 2: 10:17

He wasn't totally out of it because mom had left me at home with him, but he was. He was still drinking that day or he wouldn't. He never would have done that growing up. Yes, we got spankings. Did they beat us when he was sober? No, did I get beat when he was drunk? Absolutely more times than I could remember.

Speaker 1: 10:34

Yes, so what was the contrast and comparison between when he would drink and when he wouldn't?

Speaker 2: 10:38

a lot. I remember one time I don't remember what my brother did, but but somehow or another I got involved in it too so they were going to. He was going to spank both of us, and so he made us go in the living room and get on our knees and lean over the couch. Well, of course, my brother got his spanking first, and I was please, daddy, stop, stop, don't hit him, don't hit him.

Speaker 1: 11:02

Tristan does that same thing.

Speaker 2: 11:05

And by the time he got to me he was laughing so hard he had mercy on me and then I didn't do it for that reason, but it worked, you know.

Speaker 1: 11:12

Hey, whatever works.

Speaker 2: 11:14

But I mean we got spankings as normal kids back in the 60s, you know, because that's the era that I grew up in, but definitely not beatings.

Speaker 1: 11:24

Yeah, only when he was drinking.

Speaker 2: 11:26

Yes.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Now, when you talk about the beatings and the anger, was there a difference in the for lack of a better phrasing outpouring of wrath when he was drunk, between you and your brother? Did he get him more, or was he old enough to be gone and there wasn't?

Speaker 2: 11:45

He was gone a lot. David, my brother was in boy scouts and things, so they had overnight trips and they did all these things and and for years before my dad started drinking he was a coach of a little boys baseball team and you know so he would take us down with him to the coach. I got to go to the boys club and jump on the trampoline because it was at the boys club where he coached and all and all of those things were really great. We had. We had a good life until the alcohol came in but you never.

Speaker 1: 12:14

You never found out why no just assuming. I mean being a little kid, you don't really know your parents business.

Speaker 2: 12:20

But I know he was ex-military, which he never really talked about a lot. Yeah, he was in army.

Speaker 1: 12:25

That seems to be a big stressor and a common thread. People get out of the military, they start doing substance abuse because of what they had to do, what they had to see, things like that.

Speaker 2: 12:32

I'm sure that played a role in it. He never talked a lot about his childhood growing up Because they were older. When they adopted us. My grandparents were already on my dad's side, were already deceased. I say deceased, I think my grandmother died when I was three or four years old, so I never really got to know her or whatever, but that was a side of his life he never really talked about. But I do know that he had a couple of brothers who when they drank it was the exact same thing for them they turned into monsters. So I don't know if it was a chemistry makeup. I don't know what causes a person to be the comedian that everybody thinks is hilarious, or just one that goes down and just passes out as a compared to one that turns into the monster. I don't know what it is that makes that difference. I don't know if it's a body chemistry thing. I don't know if it's a DNA thing. I don't know what causes that difference and the way it affects them.

Speaker 1: 13:31

Well, when I went to, when I got in trouble the first time, came from Orlando, came back to here and I had to go to that counselor all the time. And Tyler, he described it as like money Whoever you are, money will magnify it. So when you, when you get money and you're a cheat or a liar or whatever, well, now you can do more of that and get away with it. You can afford, you know expensive lawyers, things like that. And he he described it as the same as alcohol being like who you are. Even though you may suppress it when you're sober, it brings down those barriers and makes you be who you really are.

Speaker 2: 14:11

But the way you describe him when he wasn't drunk, and most people who knew him had no earthly idea that he was like that, because he was the at work.

Speaker 2: 14:23

He was the prankster, you know.

Speaker 2: 14:25

He used to tell a story about a guy that they had an order of coffins coming in so they were loading the trucks, the coffins.

Speaker 2: 14:33

They got them unloaded off the train and the next day they were going to distribute them and they got one of the guys in the I don't know the little building there to play dead in a coffin and sent one of the newer guys over to pick it up. And then the guy started scratching on the inside and they said this guy, he was so scared that he took off running down the train tracks and they didn't see him for a couple weeks until he finally came back to pick up his check because he was done. He wouldn't a couple weeks. A couple weeks he wouldn't even come back to the train station to pick up his check because he was done A couple of weeks. A couple of weeks he wouldn't even come back to the train station to pick up his check or tell them anything until he finally came back a couple of weeks and said I'm done, just give me my paycheck, I'm out of here.

Speaker 1: 15:13

Wow.

Speaker 2: 15:14

A little joke that went a little further than what they thought it would.

Speaker 1: 15:19

I wouldn't have quit a job for it, though I mean, somebody had to tell him it was. Did they ever tell him it was fake?

Speaker 2: 15:24

Yeah, mean, somebody had to tell him it was. Did they ever tell him it was fake? Oh yeah, yeah, he had to know, I mean, but they were always playing pranks, so he was a prankster as well too. But it was just really odd, and it's it still. Boggles my mind a little bit how that personality would would change yeah like that I don't know.

Speaker 1: 15:40

I I've never, I wasn't that way. So I was the one that would get drunk and I would be the peacemaker like I would calm down people that would get angry, get mad at each other, drunk, and I would be the one in the middle of them, in their face, telling them to calm down because it was stupid. They were getting mad. I would have such a peacemaker mind when I was out of my mind. It was ridiculous. I'd get high, I'd get drunk all at the same time and I'd talk to people about how God existed. People would tell me they did and I'd say, oh yeah, he does. And I'd tell them stories. I'd sit there and preach to them. I'd calm them down, and then now I do that till they're sober.

Speaker 2: 16:17

Well, I know when you were in Orlando and had the beard down to here and the hair a lot longer than mine. I was really cool, cool by the way they, they nicknamed you jesus, so that's probably probably why and I did not choose that.

Speaker 1: 16:28

That was them. I didn't. That's not a sacrilegious thing on my part of blasphemy, I did not choose that like that. People ask me well, how do we add you on? Because then you know facebook and myspace was a big thing. Well, how do we find you? Jesus? And I'm like that's not my name, bunch of dum, but anyway.

Speaker 2: 16:44

So moving on with the story, Well, even before Dad took the transfer and we moved and all, I had a nephew Not a nephew I had a cousin that was on the police force. One Sunday night, police cars pulled up in our driveway and it was my cousin. They had been called to a bar fight and guess who was involved in it?

Speaker 2: 17:06

It was my cousin, they had been called to a bar fight and guess who was involved in it? It was my dad, yeah, and these guys had beat him to a pulp. If you did not know who it was, you could not recognize him in the face. I mean, they beat him. He was off work two weeks, recovering at home in the back bedroom that we were not allowed to go into Well, because they had beat him to a pulp. And then when we recovered on weekends, he would go out and stalk them because he was going to get them back, and my cousin kept saying Uncle Buck, they'll kill you, they'll kill you. And so it was time to move. What?

Speaker 1: 17:39

was his real name, paul Paul Paul. I could not remember.

Speaker 2: 17:44

Paul.

Speaker 1: 17:44

Jones, because Buck and Jackie that wasn't anywhere in their names was it no, mom's name was Alma Delois. No Alma yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:54

And then his was Paul Jones. Paul Jones was his middle name and they named him that after the doctor that delivered him. I do know that.

Speaker 1: 18:00

Hmm, okay.

Speaker 2: 18:02

But he just never really talked about his growing up years.

Speaker 1: 18:07

So now you y'all moved, yes, and life was good for a little bit.

Speaker 2: 18:12

Life was good for a little bit.

Speaker 1: 18:14

What comes next? What started happening? Did it start slowly tapering and being back the way it was?

Speaker 2: 18:21

He started drinking a little bit.

Speaker 1: 18:23

We had Is he going out with friends or is he just going by himself?

Speaker 2: 18:25

No, he didn't go out with friends at all. No, which was another weird thing, it was just. I found I was helping mom do laundry one day and I found a bottle in a brown bag in the laundry basket and I thought, oh no, because it was half gone yeah and I thought here we go again.

Speaker 2: 18:43

And then I found some more through the house in the laundry basket. Yeah, it was half gone, yeah. And I thought, here we go again. And then I found some more through the house In the laundry basket. Yeah, it was all down. He was hiding it, he was hiding it, and then he would. We, the house we bought, had a pond, and so I would go with him out on the pond in a boat to fish and in the little cooler he would make for us, he'd pull out this brown bag, and I guess he thought I was too done to know what was in the brown bag, you know. And so it would just continue and it just got worse and worse and worse, and then it started all over again.

Speaker 1: 19:12

I was— Was it only on the weekends? He was doing all this stuff still.

Speaker 2: 19:15

Still only on the weekends.

Speaker 1: 19:16

He valued that job.

Speaker 2: 19:17

He might take a drink or two I'm assuming he probably did but not enough to get to that drunk point through the week. I mean back at that time his job paid him very well, so he didn't want to lose that, I'm sure.

Speaker 1: 19:31

Yeah, so what's next? He starts drinking again.

Speaker 2: 19:38

It starts slowly fading and getting bad again. We still, at that time, were not in church. We had started going and then he kind of pulled out. Me and my brother kept going. They did allow us to keep going. The church that we went to was just a mile from the house, so they did allow us to keep going. People would come pick us up, or whatever. Matter of fact. There was an older lady in the church who stopped by the house one day and saw my brother and I outside and asked my mom if they could start picking us up for church. And they allowed them to do that. So we did, but it just gradually got worse and worse and worse until he was back to where he was before, if not worse.

Speaker 1: 20:15

Now, in this time where all this is happening, is God in the house anywhere? Is your mom one of those who just is silently praying or reading or anything like that? Or does she just push it all the way to him? Or do you even remember?

Speaker 2: 20:27

I don't remember her doing any of those things. I do remember as a kid when there would be a big blow up, which was some weekends, he would just drink and just not come home. Other weekends he would be drinking, he would be there and there would be a massive explosion in the house On the weekends that there were massive explosions and then he would leave. She would go and lock herself in a bedroom and I would sit outside that bedroom door and cry and beg her to let me in and she wouldn't even answer me. But the way that she would get back with him is she would go in that room and she would smoke. That was her getting back with him, getting back at him.

Speaker 1: 21:07

Smoke cigarettes yes.

Speaker 2: 21:08

That was the only time she ever smoked.

Speaker 1: 21:11

That's weird.

Speaker 2: 21:12

I thought so too, but I guess that was her way of.

Speaker 1: 21:15

Rebelling.

Speaker 2: 21:16

Yes.

Speaker 1: 21:17

But staying inside the house.

Speaker 2: 21:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:20

Your mom's smoking. She's rebelling. That reminds me so much. I mean, I'm not condoning smoking, but that reminds me of jesse when she was in high school. She was sneaking the bathroom at school and she would put on makeup and that was her rebellion. Like that. That's kind of. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I guess, if that's the way she felt, that she was getting some sort of rebellion, but I think everybody goes through a little bit of that.

Speaker 2: 21:43

For some it's, it's more intense, and for mothers it's, it's, it's, it's kind of light.

Speaker 1: 21:47

So you know yes, and then, when we get older, we call it a midlife crisis. It's okay, yeah pretty much so what? What's next? Like she's doing that, you're knocking, she's not answering, you're it? What are? How are you coping with all this?

Speaker 2: 22:04

I really wish, back in those days, that there had been school counselors or something like that, to have somebody a safe place to go talk to. And I also wish, looking back and I've thought this millions of times growing up that once a child is adopted, why doesn't this, the state or the adoption agency ever follow up with those kids to make sure that they're in a good environment instead of just letting it go? And because every everybody who adopts a child does not turn out to be a good parent.

Speaker 1: 22:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:42

You know, and I know that's case same thing true with people who have biological children Not everybody who has a child. Their kid's life doesn't turn out to be. There needs to be some accountability system somewhere along the way and I think they've improved those things through the years and now most schools have counselors or safe places where kids can go talk and things.

Speaker 2: 23:00

But, during those times there just wasn't. I did have one friend in high school who, her dad, drank a lot, and so she and I confided a lot in each other, but I was never allowed to go on school trips. I was a good student. I was afraid not to be a good student. You did not want to cross my dad. You didn't want him to give him a reason. I spent my whole teenage years growing up trying to do everything right, not to ever get in trouble, to make him mad at me.

Speaker 1: 23:32

So he would remember what you did during the week and then hash it out on the weekend when he was drunk. Yeah, pretty much. Okay, pretty much. So he didn't handle it then. He was fine then, but come the weekend it would just come to the surface.

Speaker 2: 23:50

I when I was about 12 or 13,. I got to the point that on Friday afternoon when I was waiting for dad to come home from work, I would sit in the corner in my bedroom on the floor and just shake, not knowing what was going to happen by the time he got home. My mom was very careful on Friday afternoon to make sure that if she did mashed potatoes, make sure they didn't have a lump in them or whatever, because we would be sitting at the table having dinner and something in the dinner wasn't right or whatever. He would just take the table and turn the whole thing upside down and food would just go everywhere and us sitting there and then he would just go off into a rage and start throwing things. There wasn't a wall in our house that didn't have a hole in it somewhere from something he had thrown or a fist he had put through there. We didn't own a stick of furniture that had been broken and fixed multiple dozens of times. He just wreaked havoc on the house and he would beat my mom and he would tell me that I had to stand there and watch and if I didn't, then if I tried to stop him or grab him or whatever. He would throw me across the room and said if you don't stop, you're next. And I knew exactly he meant exactly what he was saying.

Speaker 2: 24:56

Now my brother, who was four years older, he was always on a camping trip. He got to get a job as soon as he turned 15, 16 years old. I never got to do any of those things. I was always kept right there under his thumb. My brother was the state beta club president. He went to all the beta club conventions.

Speaker 2: 25:12

I was never allowed to go to any of those. I couldn't go to cheerleader camp. I couldn't do all the other things. What was the reason you couldn't do any of that? I never understood that and I don't know if my mom didn't want me to because I kept trying to be the buffer between the two, or I don't know if he was afraid I was going to get in trouble and do something wrong while I was gone. I never had a logical explanation of why I couldn't. My brother could do anything under the sun. I was just not allowed to do anything. And I will admit that my brother did some really stupid things on some of these trips while he was gone. Yeah, and you know, I tried to reason that in my head. That was why I wasn't allowed to, because he was an idiot. But I'm sure that wasn't always the truth either.

Speaker 1: 25:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:52

They just I was the girl. They wanted me right there. He wanted to know exactly what I was doing and my mom didn't want me to be gone because she was afraid what would happen to her if I wasn't there. Because I mean, there was one night that he got mad about something after turning the table upside down or you know whatever, and he got the pistol out of the cabinet and he grabbed her around the neck and he held the gun to her head and said I'm fixing to blow your mom's brains out. Of course I went ballistic, screaming and crying and all, and she was telling him go ahead, go ahead, please go ahead, go ahead. And I'm like no, no, no, it's like a scene from a movie. It was horrid as a kid.

Speaker 1: 26:33

How old were you at this time? Do you remember?

Speaker 2: 26:34

Maybe 12, 13, 14. It happened several times, so you know 12, 13, 14 in those years. But watching that and really thinking and knowing that he's capable and he probably would, and she's begging him to do it, you know it. It puts a lasting impact on your life that you just cannot get out of your head so what was the okay?

Speaker 1: 26:56

so you're, you're in the middle of this, you're screaming don't do it. He's saying he's going to what de-escalated the situation where he wouldn't every time, or he just wore himself out.

Speaker 2: 27:08

I don't, I really don't know. I don't know if it was, he was just all bluffing to see what she would do, or if it. Finally he just he couldn't do it because I was. I was standing there watching and begging and screaming, I'm not to.

Speaker 1: 27:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:23

You know, I don't know. So, there's so many, I have so many unanswered questions.

Speaker 1: 27:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:29

I don't have. There's so many things I don't have answers to.

Speaker 1: 27:32

And the reason she can't. She don't have these answers. I guess you had yours to, maybe, but things are good, you don't want to ask questions that would cause issues. But he's passed on now both actually, both of them have now, so I can't really have those questions answered, but so this was just an every weekend scenario pretty much yep now you've told me one story, and I don't know how old you were, but you had said that you were running out of the house with your mom and I was 14 oh, you remember this one exactly I remember this one.

Speaker 2: 28:02

Yes, it was on a Friday evening. He was already pretty well drunk by the time he got home. He never got stopped for DUI because he started drinking by the time he left town at a 15 minute drive home. But that night something at the table was said done. Something wasn't right. I don't remember what caused it, but again he turned the table upside down and all our dinner went flying across the room. And then he gets up and starts breaking furniture, throwing things, throwing glasses, throwing everything and your your bill.

Speaker 2: 28:33

The their bill for stuff had to be pretty high if he kept breaking everything he did break a lot of stuff, thousands and thousands and dollars worth of damage just to the house, with fists through the walls and broken glass and all those things so was the house just in shambles all the time, or was it repaired every single week, or how did that?

Speaker 2: 28:51

the holes in the walls were not repaired. He would, he and my mom would would fix some of the, the furniture and things you know, or you know, we just have broken stuff. But that night, he, he, for whatever reason to be a little more intense than what he normally was, and he had gotten the shotgun.

Speaker 1: 29:11

Before he went and got the shotgun. I'm assuming the shotgun was in the house somewhere.

Speaker 2: 29:16

Mm-hmm, he always kept guns loaded.

Speaker 1: 29:18

What was the path from getting out of his truck to the shotgun? Was he already like he just came in and went straight for it? No, we, we had dinner, okay. So you, there was some yeah, things in between, it wasn't just turned.

Speaker 2: 29:31

he turned the dinner table upside down and, you know, started throwing things and beating on her and slapping me around and all these things, and but it just kept getting more intense. He was just in a rage like I had never seen him in at that point. And then he went and got the shotgun, which I had not ever seen him do up to then. And so he started hollering I'm going to kill you, I'm going to kill both of you. And so my mom and I ran out the front door.

Speaker 2: 30:03

We had the pond down behind the house, but there was a road that went from around the front of the house down to the pond. And so mom and I, in the dark, ran out the front door, found the road and was running down the road toward the pond to get away from him. And I remember as a 14-year-old looking back over my shoulder and I could see fire flying out of the gun as he was shooting it toward us, hollering I'm going to kill you, I'm going to kill you. And we didn't stop running. Where'd y'all end up? We stayed down at the pond for a long time and we could hear him tearing up everything in the house.

Speaker 1: 30:35

So in the house. So he stayed in the house, he didn't come looking.

Speaker 2: 30:38

He stayed in the house. Thank house, thank God, he stayed in the house. But we were hiding in the woods and we stayed down there for hours until we could hear things calm down at the house and I figured he probably passed out.

Speaker 2: 30:51

So we snuck across the road and had to come up on the other side of the road in the dark. We didn't have a flashlight, we didn't have anything, and we were able to come up the road, across the road and go down another little road to one of our friends' house, one of my mom's friends' house, and they let us stay in their back bedroom. They put up sheets and stuff on the windows so if he came looking for us he couldn't see in the windows if he came there.

Speaker 1: 31:17

So the neighbors now were aware, or they had been aware for a while.

Speaker 2: 31:21

This neighbor had been aware for a while because Mom had shared a couple of stories with them.

Speaker 1: 31:24

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:25

But, like I said, they kept us in their back bedroom all weekend and that's where we stayed in their back bedroom.

Speaker 1: 31:32

Until you knew it was safe to go back, we went back home Sunday night. While he was there.

Speaker 2: 31:36

He had left sometime Saturday. We didn't. I don't know where he went, but by the time he came back he was sober and never said anything about it. It was like it didn't even in his mind, it didn't even happen.

Speaker 1: 31:48

After he does all this stuff, did he ever apologize or say I'm sorry? Or was it always like it never happened?

Speaker 2: 31:53

It was always like it never happened. He never, ever in my whole life, ever apologized for any of that.

Speaker 1: 32:04

I wonder if he was blacking out and wasn't aware. You, you think there'd be some sort of awareness, but all, all you hear people getting angry.

Speaker 2: 32:07

All the signs are there. I mean, you've got everything torn up, everything broken, everything you know. You would think that he would think oh, did I do this?

Speaker 1: 32:15

something happened. Yeah, that's weird it.

Speaker 2: 32:18

It was. There were many, many christmases that I spent opening my presents by myself as a kid. What few I got, which was fine, I mean. You know it was years ago and that was something that I decided right then that my family would never be that way. We would do Christmas together, no matter what, and that's why it was always so important for me that you guys have that we're all there together in front of the tree and we all do this together and have all the Christmas things and all those memories of birthday parties. I never had a birthday party. You know all those things I wanted you guys to have, all those things that I didn't have. So that's why all those things were always important to me and y'all were like I don't care. I did care, that was important to me that you had those experiences. I did care, that was important to me that you had those experiences.