Well after the Spring of ’72, Somebody told me a story. This came from a household that was not big on Aesop’s Fables. When my mother was living, we lived at 1307 S. Tripp St. in Chicago Ill. Her story went, there was a candy house on Keeler St., the block behind us. She said one day she went to buy candy from that old man and he touched her in a bad way (inappropriate now). She said she came home and told momma. She says that momma went around there and all she knows is that that man moved. I felt the urge to blirt out, someone is bothering me! But I knew instinctively not to say that. As she studied me, she knew I wouldn’t either.
Another story she told me after the abuses were in full force, was when momma gave her and the oldest girl cousin money to go shopping to get outfits they wanted. They got skirt sets. And oh boy, they wore them to Marshall High on a cold day. They nearly froze out there waiting for the bus with those skirts on in Chi-town. In 6th and 7th grade now, I wanted new clothes. I wanted the treatment of my mother. I don’t know how I made it. I laughed with her about her recollection. It only made me wish for my mother. I wished I could go shopping for that basic physical and mental necessity.
All I got was a big bag of dirty clothes. We lived 3 “short” Blocks from Madison Ave. where the laundromat was located. Allow me to describe that laundry bag. It was this huge cloth bag, that had a dull green color with thin blue circles from bottom to top. Filled with clothes, it was nearly as tall as me. Well, we did figure it would be better to roll that and that’s how we made it. And with a little box of detergent, yeah that cheap one, they had better be clean.