| Biographical Non-Fiction posted March 25, 2024 | Chapters: |
...4 5 -6- 
|
  |
Chapter in Book 3, Living the Elusive Dream.
A chapter in the book Living the Elusive Dream
Tale of Two Daughters
by BethShelby
After Connie changed schools and was able to ride the school bus every day, Evan had more time to do things he was interested in like yard and garden work. Now, he had another project on his mind. There had been several bad storms lately. Right after we moved into the area, a severe tornado struck near us. We had a wood frame house which was three stories tall and on top of a high hill. On a windy day, the house groaned and creaked and the wind howled around its corners with a fury.
I found it strange that I was the one who had been carried aloft in a tornado as a child, but Evan was the one more concerned about storms. He decided he’d found the perfect spot by our back deck which would make a great tornado shelter. Before I quite knew what was happening, he had started digging. Building the shelter would take a lot of hard work and time, but it was definitely something he wanted to do, and it kept him busy while I was at work.
Before one of the holidays, Carol, our married daughter, who was now living and working at Florida Hospital in Orlando, called to say she planned to come for a visit over a four-day weekend, and she was flying from Orlando into Atlanta. That meant Evan would need to go to Atlanta to pick her up.
Of all days for Connie to need a ride home from school, this was the day. She said she and some other kids had to stay after school and pick up trash. She never told me why they were being punished, and I didn’t pursue the issue. Sometimes you’d rather not know. She was grounded most of the time like it was.
She called home for her dad to pick her up, but then she remembered he had gone to Atlanta to get Carol. She didn’t bother calling me since I worked downtown in the opposite direction. Instead, she called a guy from our neighborhood who had a car. I have no idea where she met him, but she had brought him over once. He wasn’t someone I trusted, so I was glad I didn’t know she’d called him. He was a bit weird and acted spacy like he might be on drugs.
Connie got home late and was extremely drunk. She claimed one of the guys at school had Vodka and they told her she could drink it and there would be no liquor odor. When I got home from work, Carol and Evan were back from Atlanta and Connie was in bed trying to sleep off a bad hangover. According to Carol she had been extremely sick and had vomited several times.
We had never dealt with these kinds of problems with the older three. Connie often came home smelling of cigarettes, and she’d have a pack in her coat. She would assure me, she was holding them for someone else, thinking I would believe that.
I could always tell when the older three weren’t being truthful, but Connie, she was a master at lies. We got to the point we didn’t believe anything she said. Over time, she would change into someone more honest and pleasant to be around, but at that time, that was still in her future. Her brother used to say, “Connie is the perfect name for her because she is a con artist.”
My grandmother had a saying when I was growing up. She would say, “Everybody has to climb Fool’s Hill at some time in their life. It is better they do it while they are young, because it’s a lot worse when they are older.” Grandma had a son who kept divorcing and finding a new wife. He also drank heavily and had a lot of wrecks, so I guess she might have been thinking of him when she would say that. I tried to convince myself Connie was getting her Fool’s Hill out of the way, and things would get better.
On Sunday, Evan and I took Carol back to Atlanta to catch her flight. During the car ride, we were able to talk more. I got the feeling Carol wasn’t really happy. She was more introverted than the others and a melancholy personality type. She gave me a journal she had been keeping and told me I might understand her better if I read it. Carol was, at the time, very spiritual minded, and a lot of the journal consisted of prayers.
I got the impression she hadn’t been deeply in love with Glen when they got married. I think she felt sorry for him, because she felt he wasn’t being treated right by his family. He was an active person who wanted expensive toys, like cameras, guns and boats. He didn’t mind racking up debts, which she had to deal with. She paid his way through nursing school and tried to keep up with his credit card debts.
Another thing I learned from my daughter was that she was hurt by having to ask for a loan, and be turned down. She said she had felt like, if all else went wrong, she could always count on us if she needed anything. She and Glen wanted to buy a lot and build a house. She asked if she could borrow money for the down payment. Carol had never really asked us for anything before. The other kids were constantly asking to borrow money which they would never worry about paying back.
We had been hit up for money so often, my first inclination was always to tell them we didn’t have extra money to spare. Since that didn’t stop anyone else from pursuing the matter, I assumed we would be loaning her money by cashing in some of Evan’s retirement money which was tied up in CDs and we would pay a penalty for cashing early. Evan could never say no to anyone, whether it was his kids or his family. We played "good cop" and “bad cop”. I was the bad cop who said no before he could say yes. That only worked for us occasionally.
Carol apparently didn’t know my rule because she only asked once, and told Glen her family couldn’t loan them money. They got the loan from Glen’s older brother and were in the process of building the house. I felt terrible when I realized I had let my daughter down. Having grown up around us, Carol should have known she would have probably gotten the loan if she had pursued it.
We made plenty of mistakes as parents. My excuse was that kids didn’t come with instructions. The other two gave us plenty of problems as well, but there was always one of them whose needs seemed more urgent at the moment. We loved them all, but in 1989, we were starting to count the days, until we figured they would no longer be our problem.
How dumb is that? When you are a parent, you’ve taken on a lifetime commitment. Any time any one of them has a problem which we know about, we will suffer as much as they do.
Evan Shelhy, retired husband of Beth.
Beth Shelby, his wife working at printing company. (This is me)
Carol Shelby Egolf, Oldest daughter, married, lives and work as nurse in Orlando.
Glen Egolf, Carol's husband. Also a nurse in Orlando.
After Connie changed schools and was able to ride the school bus every day, Evan had more time to do things he was interested in like yard and garden work. Now, he had another project on his mind. There had been several bad storms lately. Right after we moved into the area, a severe tornado struck near us. We had a wood frame house which was three stories tall and on top of a high hill. On a windy day, the house groaned and creaked and the wind howled around its corners with a fury.
I found it strange that I was the one who had been carried aloft in a tornado as a child, but Evan was the one more concerned about storms. He decided he’d found the perfect spot by our back deck which would make a great tornado shelter. Before I quite knew what was happening, he had started digging. Building the shelter would take a lot of hard work and time, but it was definitely something he wanted to do, and it kept him busy while I was at work.
Before one of the holidays, Carol, our married daughter, who was now living and working at Florida Hospital in Orlando, called to say she planned to come for a visit over a four-day weekend, and she was flying from Orlando into Atlanta. That meant Evan would need to go to Atlanta to pick her up.
Of all days for Connie to need a ride home from school, this was the day. She said she and some other kids had to stay after school and pick up trash. She never told me why they were being punished, and I didn’t pursue the issue. Sometimes you’d rather not know. She was grounded most of the time like it was.
She called home for her dad to pick her up, but then she remembered he had gone to Atlanta to get Carol. She didn’t bother calling me since I worked downtown in the opposite direction. Instead, she called a guy from our neighborhood who had a car. I have no idea where she met him, but she had brought him over once. He wasn’t someone I trusted, so I was glad I didn’t know she’d called him. He was a bit weird and acted spacy like he might be on drugs.
Connie got home late and was extremely drunk. She claimed one of the guys at school had Vodka and they told her she could drink it and there would be no liquor odor. When I got home from work, Carol and Evan were back from Atlanta and Connie was in bed trying to sleep off a bad hangover. According to Carol she had been extremely sick and had vomited several times.
We had never dealt with these kinds of problems with the older three. Connie often came home smelling of cigarettes, and she’d have a pack in her coat. She would assure me, she was holding them for someone else, thinking I would believe that.
I could always tell when the older three weren’t being truthful, but Connie, she was a master at lies. We got to the point we didn’t believe anything she said. Over time, she would change into someone more honest and pleasant to be around, but at that time, that was still in her future. Her brother used to say, “Connie is the perfect name for her because she is a con artist.”
My grandmother had a saying when I was growing up. She would say, “Everybody has to climb Fool’s Hill at some time in their life. It is better they do it while they are young, because it’s a lot worse when they are older.” Grandma had a son who kept divorcing and finding a new wife. He also drank heavily and had a lot of wrecks, so I guess she might have been thinking of him when she would say that. I tried to convince myself Connie was getting her Fool’s Hill out of the way, and things would get better.
On Sunday, Evan and I took Carol back to Atlanta to catch her flight. During the car ride, we were able to talk more. I got the feeling Carol wasn’t really happy. She was more introverted than the others and a melancholy personality type. She gave me a journal she had been keeping and told me I might understand her better if I read it. Carol was, at the time, very spiritual minded, and a lot of the journal consisted of prayers.
I got the impression she hadn’t been deeply in love with Glen when they got married. I think she felt sorry for him, because she felt he wasn’t being treated right by his family. He was an active person who wanted expensive toys, like cameras, guns and boats. He didn’t mind racking up debts, which she had to deal with. She paid his way through nursing school and tried to keep up with his credit card debts.
Another thing I learned from my daughter was that she was hurt by having to ask for a loan, and be turned down. She said she had felt like, if all else went wrong, she could always count on us if she needed anything. She and Glen wanted to buy a lot and build a house. She asked if she could borrow money for the down payment. Carol had never really asked us for anything before. The other kids were constantly asking to borrow money which they would never worry about paying back.
We had been hit up for money so often, my first inclination was always to tell them we didn’t have extra money to spare. Since that didn’t stop anyone else from pursuing the matter, I assumed we would be loaning her money by cashing in some of Evan’s retirement money which was tied up in CDs and we would pay a penalty for cashing early. Evan could never say no to anyone, whether it was his kids or his family. We played "good cop" and “bad cop”. I was the bad cop who said no before he could say yes. That only worked for us occasionally.
Carol apparently didn’t know my rule because she only asked once, and told Glen her family couldn’t loan them money. They got the loan from Glen’s older brother and were in the process of building the house. I felt terrible when I realized I had let my daughter down. Having grown up around us, Carol should have known she would have probably gotten the loan if she had pursued it.
We made plenty of mistakes as parents. My excuse was that kids didn’t come with instructions. The other two gave us plenty of problems as well, but there was always one of them whose needs seemed more urgent at the moment. We loved them all, but in 1989, we were starting to count the days, until we figured they would no longer be our problem.
How dumb is that? When you are a parent, you’ve taken on a lifetime commitment. Any time any one of them has a problem which we know about, we will suffer as much as they do.
Evan Shelhy, retired husband of Beth.
Beth Shelby, his wife working at printing company. (This is me)
Carol Shelby Egolf, Oldest daughter, married, lives and work as nurse in Orlando.
Glen Egolf, Carol's husband. Also a nurse in Orlando.
 Recognized |
Evan is retired, but I'm younger and I am still working. We have three children living at home and a married daughter in Orlando, We live in Chattanooga in 1989. This chapter in the 3rd "Elusive Dream" series is about the oldest and youngest daughters. Carol is about 26 and Connie is 14. Grown twins, Christi and Don, still live at home.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. 
You need to login or register to write reviews. It's quick! We only ask four questions to new members.
© Copyright 2024. BethShelby All rights reserved.
BethShelby has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
