My Autobiograhy
I was born in the fall of 1965 in Paris, Tennessee. To middle class people from Gleason Tennessee.. I was the youngest of my family with three older sisters.
Some of my earliest memories were traumatic. I remember being asleep in the backseat of the car and I heard tapping on the glass window and when I turned to look out the window, I saw a white bloody apron on a man pumping gas in the car. I started screaming and from that day forward I was terrified of men as a child. I had nightmares as a child and would wake up in the middle of the night screaming and my nose would be bleeding. My mom would come and put rags on my nose to stop the bleeding. I would have earaches frequently and momma would put warm sweet oil in my ears with a piece of cotton and rock me in the rocking chair. I would hear the neighbors dog Joe barking and drift off to sleep in my mothers’ arms. Once we went to my mom’s friend’s house and she had a standard size poodle, and I was playing in the garden when I found a doll and I picked it up. When I turned around the poodle growled at me and snatched the doll from my hands, and it scared me, and I ran screaming to my mom that the dog tried to bite me not knowing I had picked up a dog toy.
There were days I remember being locked out of the house. I would be so hungry that I looked for food to eat outside and there was a pear tree in the cow pasture I would sneak down and eat the fruit off the ground and drink water from the water hose. I played outside frequently by myself making mudpies, playing in the cut grass, and picking up clay off the side of the road and making things out of the clay. We lived not far from Old Hickory Clay company. Gleason was the clay capitol of the USA. Once I went to a motel and I remember being locked in the bathroom with a bag of candy. I saw my babysitter in her slip and a man in work clothes, but he was very nice and gave me candy to be quiet. I had a lonely childhood and played by myself or with my sister Glenda we would play paper dolls, jacks, barbie dolls and easy bake oven we would make fried pickles and French toast.