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This Lady Here
I'll Drink to That
By Carol Ann Rusch
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Carol Ann Rusch
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-2094-5
Chapter One
I am going to start in the middle of this creation. It is around 1975. The place is the Alano Club in Stillwater, Minnesota. This is where I attended AA meetings. It was around 7:45 in the evening. I had been coming here for about three years, and since my first meeting I had experienced a warmth and acceptance from the other members that I could never find anywhere else. One of the reasons I entered into this new way of living was that previously, only after two or three whiskey highballs I would think I was being, not only accepted, but sought after and even envied by the other patrons of the various establishments that I frequented. However, since entering the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, this misconception has been removed. I now have the ability to determine the difference between artificial affection and genuine brotherly love.
The main room of the meeting place was beginning to fill with the other alcoholics who had come to attend a meeting. Tommy Henderson, an old timer, was sitting at the piano in the corner of the room. I loved Tommy. He sat up with me many a night, all night long, just talking, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. When I first sobered up I wasn't used to being at home with my family, and Tommy kept me occupied till I made the adjustment. Each night he would sit at the piano, playing honky-tonk music until it was time for the meeting to begin.
Let me describe this meeting place for you. At one time it had actually been an old mortuary. The smell of formaldehyde could still be experienced on a hot summer day. The place where the mortician had positioned the display casket for the deceased was where we had our podium for the presenters at our speakers meetings. In one room there were some large over-stuffed black leather sofas with matching chairs and nice wall to wall carpeting. Hanging from the high ceilings were about four or five chandeliers and on the walls were various pictures donated by the members together with copies of the Serenity Prayer and the AA slogans. Prominently placed was a picture of Bill Wilson, the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous. This place was rented to the alcoholic community for their recovery activities for the sum of $1.00 per year. I'm not familiar with the legal aspects of this transaction, however, the membership did purchase the deed and all property to the building about twenty-five years later. A large accomplishment for a group of characters such as these. It still stands there today.
Going back, I was thirty-five years of age and this place was the most meaningful to me of any other on earth. There were two adjoining rooms connected to the large main meeting room. These rooms had tables and chairs where many of us preferred to sit as we had spent long hours getting drunk around kitchen, poker and barroom tables. Here we could play cards or simply spend time with each other. The large meeting room had a more serious feeling about it, but some did prefer it to the table rooms. On this particular evening everyone was standing around greeting each other when my Uncle Butch came walking through the French doors of the main room. My uncle had entered AA about a year earlier, and though I was aware of this, he had never showed any interest in my personal sobriety, and he had never come out to my home group. He lived about forty miles from this place, and I never expected him to come there for a meeting. He and I were the only members of my family to get sober and because of this I was delighted to see him. He was my mother's brother and she had died about five years previous.
I walked over to him and gave him a big AA hug and said, "Uncle Butch! What a surprise! I am so glad you're here! Did you come for a meeting?" He said, "Of course!"
I took him into one of the adjoining table rooms. With the others who came in with us, we sat down at one of the tables and the meeting started. As usual we took our turns sharing our stories, and when it came to Uncle Butch's turn he said, "I'm Carol's uncle, and I came out here tonight to tell you all how proud of Carol we all are, in the family. We are all glad she's sober now. She doesn't know this, but she was the only one in the family, who at nine months old, could take down a shot of whiskey without wincing." You could feel the disbelief and horror in the air around the table. My uncle laughed as though he were expecting a similar response from the rest of us. This did not happen and so the meeting continued and closed as usual. I could hardly take in what I had heard, and yet I couldn't question my uncle about it or even mention it for many years. I had heard so many alcoholic stories in the last couple of years that I felt that my story was really not that much different, and so I just minimized it in my mind. I didn't share it because people's "first drink" stories were always remembered by the participants and always involved them consenting to what they were doing. My first drink did not contain these characteristics.
After the meeting my uncle and I chatted for awhile and then he went home. I did not see him again for many years. I wanted to start my book this way for the benefit of the reader who might be wondering about alcohol in his/her life. Sometimes we really don't know when we had our first drink! We think we do. I certainly thought I did. I shared it many times in meetings and I didn't change my story just because my uncle announced at a meeting that I was only nine months old. I continued to say I was fifteen years old when I took my first shot of whiskey. It didn't seem to matter to me one way or the other, and I couldn't see that such information would be useful to anyone. Well, maybe it is or maybe it isn't but today I realize that it is my story, and I'm stickin' to it!
Related to all of this, I will now attempt to give you a description of my babyhood years. When I was about twenty-five years old, at a family gathering, my mother and grandmother were giving an explanation for my having a darker than natural skin coloring. My people were all German and Dutch, blonde and blue-eyed with very white skin. My mother related to them how, when I was three months old, I was outside in the buggy while she was doing some housework. Time passed and she forgot I was out there. By the time she remembered me I was red as a beet. She ran in the house with me and called my grandmother. She came over immediately and they called the doctor. He came over to the house and told them to watch me closely for twenty-four hours. The next day, I had turned brown as a berry. I've told people over the years that I attribute my beautifully browned skin to my mother's housework.
Around this same time period, once more sitting around the kitchen table, the family and I were all looking at family photographs of me when I was nine-months old. Ironically this story takes place in the same time slot as my uncle's tale concerning my first shot of whiskey. I noticed there were photos of me with my hair shaved off. In others my head was wrapped in a surgical gauze cloth. When the family talked about this event the story was that a boll weevil had bored its way through my skull and had attempted to enter the soft tissue of my brain. Being a microscopic insect, unable to be detected by the human eye, surgery was performed, and I survived with only a surgical scar at the back of my head. They said that what caused them alarm in the first place was my head had swollen to gigantic proportions. The surgery luckily brought it back to its normal size.
Now, I have put both stories together and have come to believe that the whiskey had caused the swelling and the surgery removed the fluid that was created from the alcoholic trauma inside the brain. My uncle's story would have me believe that all of the nine month old babies in the family got drunk, but I was the only one in our family that I knew of who had to have surgery. I leave the readers with their own conclusions.
Chapter Two
Now, I would like to introduce you to my Mommy and Daddy. My mother insisted we kids call her Mother, and we did. Her family was German and Dutch, and as I said earlier, blonde, blue-eyed and white skinned. My grandfather was an immigrant from Hamburg, Germany. My father's family was from Hungary, and they were olive-skinned with dark hair and blue eyes. In my opinion, all of my family members were above average as far as good looks are concerned. My father was the best looking of them all, and being a guitar man and singer of country songs, he received a lot of attention from the opposite gender.
In reference to the supposed suntan issue mentioned above, I realized later in life that I probably would have been dark olive-skinned anyway due to the natural inheritance from my father's side. My mother divorced my father when I was four years old, and I was sixteen before I ever saw him again. We never saw my father's family or heard his name mentioned again. As far as I knew he might have been dead and gone. I have never had any information about that side of the family except that which I sought after and received through the years. So, this was the real reason I stood out in my mother's family, but having had any resemblance to my father was unacceptable. Everyone that was involved in my life during those years had known my father and his family. They knew of their skin coloring but chose not to say anything so as to protect my mother's feelings. I really don't know why she divorced him, but he told me many years later, after she had died, that he wished she could have waited until he had gotten out of the stage of womanizing and running around. As far as I could tell when he told me this, he was still in that stage!
During the years between the ages of four and sixteen, I knew he wasn't dead, but I always thought that he was looking for me. There were no cards, letters, or phone calls, so I figured my mother probably knew where he was but wouldn't tell him where we were. So, in my little mind I accepted and lived by the idea that he was always searching for his little girl, the one he loved so much. I had a brother, Dickey, who was eleven months younger than I. We never discussed any of this so I didn't have any idea of how he was thinking or feeling. I just knew that I missed him so badly, and because he just disappeared, he became a legend in my mind and always present. When I turned five another gigantic male figure entered my life. His name was Jesus. My mother put me in parochial school for first and second grade, and there I was able to learn more about this wonderful man. I now had two very large and powerful male figures in my life both of whom were always with me. I was never afraid of anything!
We lived at Grandma's house on 14th Street in the downtown area of St Paul, Minnesota. I heard this area referred to as "The Slums". I didn't know why people called it that. I thought it was a wonderful place to grow up. We kids in that neighborhood had complete freedom. At six years old I was hanging around in the capital building or the museum on most summer days. Our little group of friends consisted of my brother, Dickey, Jimmy Little, Tommy O'Toole, Mary and Tiny Carlson, Little JoJo, Walt Romaine and me. We went everywhere together. I would clean Grandma's house for a quarter and that was enough for the movies downtown and candy too. The Strand, the Lyceum, the Paramount and the Orpheum were some of the movie theaters we frequented. All the movies were rated the same in those days. Kids were treated the same as adults. We had a blast running around, going to one or two movies in one day, war stories, horror films and sometimes a western.
I remember walking down the street, past the flats. Under the steps of the flats is where all the residents put their trash. It smelled awful!! Awful!! Every time I went past there it smelled awful. One day, I went past there, and said the word, "shit". And I thought, oooohh I said the word "shit" and it felt wonderful so I said it again, and then I said, "SHIT SHIT SHIT" and it gave me such a feeling of power!! I attribute this to the garbage under the flats.
I remember one time, My brother Dickey, Jimmy and I were running around in the museum. I didn't know why this was, but whenever we hung around that place there was no one else in sight. Well, Dickey and Jimmy ditched me in the theatre section of the building. I came running around the corner, where the seating was located, and suddenly a man was standing right in front of me. It seemed as though he had been waiting for me. I stopped in my tracks when he said to me, "That's a nice little outfit you have on, little girl." I replied, "My mother made it for me." After saying, "Let me see it better," he grabbed my arm, swinging and turning me into him and then his other hand went down my pants. I screamed and jumped out of his grasp, running as fast as I could, yelling for my brother and my friend over and over until I reached the sidewalk out in front of the museum. I saw them over on the cement ledge down by the cross street. They had been sitting there waiting for me. I never told them or anyone else what happened that day, mostly because I knew my mother would not let us run the streets anymore. Besides that, I had gotten away without being hurt, so I thought, and figured I would be able to do that again if I had to. However, I never went back to the museum again, ever, not even to this day.
Chapter Three
Now let me tell you about my grandma's house. My mother was born down in Jasper, Minnesota, but her brother, my Uncle Pete, was born in St. Paul. My grandparents gave up farming and moved to the city where Grandpa found employment on the Great Northern Railroad. This was a much better situation for them during the depression years, believe me! When one worked for any of the railroads, in those days, your family did not go hungry. Grandma worked for the butcher shop across the street, Langman and Siegels Butcher Shop. She plucked chickens and did other chores. She also cleaned the owner's house. These Jewish people hired my grandmother and preferred her to other cleaning women because her domestic skills and abilities were very impressive. This is a trait that I picked up from her as I also have been commended for these same attributes. I am grateful that my people took pride in cleanliness and good health as a natural way of life.
Grandma's house was a two story with wooden slats for siding. It was probably built around 1870. It had a large porch on the front that they eventually screened in. All but one of the houses in that area were made out of the same materials. They were all two stories and all gray in color. The Siegels' owned a brick house, which in those days was a sign of wealth.
I was born in 1940 and at that time my grandfather purchased a car. There was a driveway next to the house. I don't recall ever seeing a garage in that city back then. However, if you owned a car, everyone knew that your family always had food on the table. I don't remember the make of the car, but I do remember the running boards because we rode on them. Fun! Fun! Grandpa didn't need a car to get to work as he chose to walk. The Great Northern Railroad Yard was just down about a mile on Jackson Street, an easy walking distance.
Grandma and Grandpa lived at that house for twenty-five years. They had their babies and raised them there. I loved being at Grandma's and Grandpa's and I can remember every nook and cranny that made it what it was. There were three steps up to the porch where a rocker sat on the right side. The porch led right to the front door. Entering in there was a hallway with a stairway and banister to the left. The stairway rose to the upstairs apartment that was rented out. The basement door was on the left, under the staircase. The basement was unfinished and dug out of rock. Grandma's washing machine was down there. I can still smell the bleach. The coal bin was down to the right and was always filled by the coal man through the window above it. Grandpa or one of the boys would be down stoking the furnace every morning to get the house warmed up on the freezing winter days.
Going back upstairs, at the end of the entry hallway was the entrance door to the living quarters. The first room to enter was the dining room. In the middle of this was the large dining room table with six chairs around it. Two chairs were off to the side for extra company. Everyday, when Grandpa got home from work, Grandma had dinner on the table. On the left side was a Singer sewing machine which sat in the bench window that protruded out from the house, providing sunlight for Grandma's plants. She loved her plants, her favorite being her fern which rested on a stand of its own. The radiator was against the window ledge and us kids would sit on it, when it wasn't hot. The back of the room would catch your attention first thing because it contained a beautiful old china closet that had been my great grandma's before she died. On top of this closet was a camel backed clock that chimed on the half hour and on the hour. In the closet were Grandma's treasures from her family and friends. She had quite a few mementoes from Jasper, and I knew she must have missed her family a great deal. On the right of the dining room table was a small door, which was always closed. That was because it led to Uncle Don's room ... more about him later.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from This Lady Here by Carol Ann Rusch Copyright © 2010 by Carol Ann Rusch. Excerpted by permission.
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