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I don't understand why your father didn't see any of those 60 markings left on your body when you were 3. It's a shame for both you and your mother that they didn't have a medicine to stabilize her moods from that accident. All of you suffered from it.
posted by
Annicita
on December 11, 2022 at 9:30 AM
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Thank you, ladies.
I will have a chapter very soon that explains my father's absence most of the time, and I will tell you that after his death in 1994, I questioned his lack of action. I'll explain that week of deep thought.
Sea_Gypsy, I relish the input. I "know" what happened, but sometimes it escapes me to further explain a thought that might be taken two or three different ways. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED FROM THE GROUP!
I don't need people telling me "I love it!" I need people to question me, point out blunders, and generally be a critic vs a fan. I appreciate the fans, but it's the critics who make the story better. I've taken every suggestion here and I have made the suggested changes 90% of the time now.
I appreciate your criticisms more than you know!
V
posted by
BigV
on November 18, 2022 at 3:29 PM
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V
Excellent! You should include some of this in your story. The narrative here is a good qualifier and gives a couple of slice-of-life examples about the kind of woman your mother really was, which the reader would appreciate learning. You didn't sound petty at all. Since these days most women now work outside the home and many are supervisors who DO work at work, my thought was that some of them as readers of your story might have taken offense, thinking you meant supervisors do nothing, which I know was not your intent or meaning. To me, THIS IS YOUR BEST BOOK YET!
posted by
Sea_Gypsy
on November 18, 2022 at 1:46 PM
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Right now dear Big V... I am hating your Mother and actually your father too for if you children had felt safe to go to him....or to the police and show your cuts and bruises. and the school. Couldn't they know something. i mean yes after the accident your mother had problems but they left her unfit to Mother children without supervision.
posted by
Kabu
on November 18, 2022 at 1:02 PM
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Re: Sea_Gypsy
My response got out of hand here... but there was a lot to explain. 99% of this will not be in my book.
You are right, and I will add something to explain those words along the lines of:
"She was a supervisor there, so she wasn’t really working because her job was sitting in the supervisor's office in case she needed to fill in so people could take breaks when the line was running at full speed. She used to brag that she spent 90% of her day, "just sitting on her ass."
The way I have it now leaves me looking petty... and maybe I was... but she used to laugh about it all of the time.
A little background here. When Gibson Refrigerators was located in Greenville Michigan, my mother and the two aunts (her sisters) were the top three union leaders. If you had a Gibson refrigerator, it was made in Greenville for decades! When the union went on strike in November 1968 after the company offered the employees a 29-cent raise, they turned that down to get a 36-cent raise - remembering minimum wage at the time was $1.30.
The company was expecting that kind of hard-nosed attitude, and the production lines had begun to run at about 120% normal speed several months in advance. By the time the union officially went on strike, they had a huge inventory of products. The strike lasted 22 MONTHS. Strike pay was a lousy $5 a day, but the union leaders (my mother and her sisters) got full pay and would meet at our house.
I remember them laughing and laughing about those "stupid bastards" walking the picket lines in two of the most brutal winters and an extremely hot summer before they ended up taking the original offer of a 29-cent raise. The damage my "family" did with that stunt is not measurable. Lots of factory workers' families suffered terribly. Many lost cars and homes because they couldn't pay for them while my mother and aunts pulled in a regular check... and they laughed about it. ALL THE TIME.
One more note. I can't remember exactly what year it was, but in the early 2000s, Gibson told employees they couldn't give them a large raise that year, but if they would wait one more year, they would give them the raise they wanted that year PLUS 50% of that raise... if they would wait.
Well... my mother and her sisters were STILL running the union... and they refused the offer. The company came back and told them that if they didn't accept the offer, they were going to pull out of Greenville Michigan, and relocate to Mexico. I remember my mom laughing about that and they told the company to move. And they did.
The day after my mother told the company to "stick it," the big font headline read: "GIBSON LEAVNG FOR MEXICO!"
Well, duh! They told the union (my mother and my aunts!) what they were going to do, and my mom used her filthiest language and told them where to go and how to get there.
Do I support American companies leaving America? Absolutely not!!! But when your options are to make a move or suffer another long strike as they prepared to upgrade all the equipment for the 21st century, they were left with no choice.
None of this is speculation. I heard it all as it was happening from her mouth. The unemployment rate in my home county of Montcalm went from ~3% to 29% almost overnight. Again, thousands of people lost cars, homes, and destroyed families... but never once did my mother express any regret. She had a big union payoff and retirement planned... and so did my aunts... so you might see what I dealt with all of my life. If it seemed reasonable, mom did the exact opposite.
posted by
BigV
on November 18, 2022 at 8:07 AM
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I feel so bad for your childhood suffering. You can be proud of your achievements and how you have overcome and survived. It is great that you can share your story.
There is one line in this post that may bother some readers, and it is this: "She was a supervisor there, so she wasn’t really working..."
posted by
Sea_Gypsy
on November 17, 2022 at 11:33 PM
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