Champaign or Champagne?

In the early 1980's my husband was finally finished with school, internship and residency and finally he was ready to take his first job as a doctor. We looked at different areas around the country. We were wined and dined by a few places in great need of doctors. My husband would have been happy to live in a country town, but I was a city girl and I needed to be close to a large city. We looked at a town in east cental Illinois....Champaign or Champaign-Urbana to be exact. The home of the University of Illinois, the fighting Illini! There was a kind of romace that attracted me. The town was not too little or too big, but had cultural events because of the University and I found the thought of cold snowy winters so romantic. I imaged myself waiting for my husband to arrive home to his dear family and after a 007 Bond martini (shaken, never stirred) and stimulating conversation, we could all sit down to a June Clever dinner.

Somehow after the 1st winter the romantic idealism died. There is nothing romantic when your eyeballs freeze when you go out to get the mail or shovel snow on a daily basis, see it snowing sideways and then topsoil landing on top of the snow. I learned how to pump water out of a crawl space and how to extend my guttering away from the house, during an ice strom. My husband and I did not find "snot icycles" romantic. It's interesting to note that the town is so flat that they had to build a hill for the kids to go sledding. In the summertime we were surrounded by bean fields and corn fields and gravel roads that they threw oil on.  Seems like I cracked a windshield every year. It was a town that I felt I never "fit in" no matter what I did. Although my kids have fond memories of the town, I have few fond memories of it. I did grow to love walking in the early morning or late evening and watching the sun and the ground meet. I guess it was the day that I heard on the news that the town I lived in had only 11 perfect days a year. That's right 11! They defined perfect as a day that had all sunshine with no clouds.

OH, I forgot this is suppose to be about my Father.......now where was I, Oh, I remember........Lets skip to 1924, my Dad was  6 years old. Most of his older bothers and sisters were not living in the home....heck most girls married as soon as they started their periods and most boys were on their own by 14. My Grandfather HAD to find another wife. Who was going to look after all of the kids after his wife Nora had died? Who? He married,I believe,a short time later. Now the second wife, whose name I do not know started having children of her own.  There was NO birth control back then. Saying NO to your husband, I am sure would cause you to be beaten. After all YOU were property, you couldn't vote and you produced a large family so they could work and help you with your chores and income.

My Dad was 6 years old and one day his Father and his Step Mother had to go into town. They left my Father in charge of his little Sister, who was around 4. It was cold in the cabin and they played close to the fire. Her dress caught fire and my Father watched her burn to death. In another 2 years my Father would leave that cabin,in a holler,in the woods of Kentucky. He was banished from his house to go live with an Aunt. His Brother would take him. She lived far away and they had to WALK and HOP trains to get there. I don't know how long it took them, but I imagine it took a while for you see, this Aunt, lived in Champaign, Illinois.....on a farm.

My Father would never speak of his sisters death, but I read this in a book on his ancestory. When I asked about it, he didn't deny it but wouldn't speak of it either. The other thing he did tell me was the he and his Father never had gotten along and that his brother helped him get to Illinois. He also told me about his Aunt. He never mentioned her name.....only called her, his Aunt. He spoke of how cold it was in the country in Champaign. He told me that his Aunt's husband had died and he was the only male there. Every Saturday his Aunt would get the ole Model T going and they would go into town. She would give him a bit ofcandy and would tell him to entertain himself until she was ready to go home. She would then proceed to get drunk. When they left for home he would tellme that she would have her feet on the petals and he would steer. He also told me that after his sister died is when he began to drink. I suppose he continued drinking living with this Aunt, in fact he never stopped drinking.

It's all I have in me tonight, this story of my Father. It continues but thinking about all of his life, I realize that he was WHO he was because of genes and because of a chidhood that I can not conceive.      To be continued............................