| Biographical Non-Fiction posted February 13, 2022 | Chapters: |
...147 148 -149- 150... 
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The beginning of a bad season.
A chapter in the book Remembering Yesterday
Trouble Comes In Clusters
by BethShelby
For new readers, who may not have read my author notes, this is written in a conversational way as I talk to my deceased husband. When I refer to someone just as "you" this means I am addressing my husband, Evan.
Throughout May and into June, I continued working various jobs on assignment. You were feeling unusually well and crediting your energy to the Kombucha tea you made from the fungi you grew in a dark closet. I wasn’t sure the benefits weren’t all in your head, but I had to admit, you were no longer convinced you had some major illness brewing. This was the time of year when you kept busy in the yard and garden, and you seemed contented to be working outside.
Don and Kimberly made a trip to Detroit, where he interviewed for Chiropractic positions and got two offers. The jobs would be as an intern and required he work six days a week. He and Kimberly didn’t like the city, but they were still weighing the options when they returned home. In the end, they decided against the move. They spent a week with us when they got back in town. At nine months, Lauren was adorable. She was a happy baby and fun to be around.
Christi was dating Matt again, which meant she likely broke Kevin’s heart. Staying out past three a.m. most nights, she managed to keep you upset. We told her it was time to find another place to live. In addition to her day job, her massage business, and her singing career, she decided she wanted to start a dating service. She’d talked two people into being her partners. It was her new project of the month, if it managed to last that long. Before long, she and Matt were fighting again, and she was also seeing another guy who took her four-wheeling on mountain trails.
Carol went to a 14-day co-dependency workshop and decided she was messed up and blamed us. She said we’d screwed all of them up, because of our own problems. She said she was tired of being used by everyone, and from now on, she’d work on her own happiness. Connie and Don said her friends were weird, and she decided they were right and stopped seeing them. She met a new guy named Roy and decided she really liked him. She was soon part of his group of friends.
Roy was a handsome Spanish guy who had just finalized a divorce. He had two young children. He worked as a nursing assistant on a low income. In addition to being on the rebound, he was in the process of trying to overcome a pornography addiction. You’d always had a hang-up about our children dating anyone other than someone of their own race. I had no problem with other cultures, but I wasn’t impressed with Roy’s potential. Still Carol was an adult, and it was none of our business who she dated.
I did resent her saying it was our fault she had married Glen. Her reasoning was we’d caused her to be co-dependent, and she’d married him because she felt sorry for him. Personally, I believed we’d given our children a better home-life than most of their friends, and I wasn’t ready to take the rap for their problems. Life isn’t perfect for anyone, and most of us do the best we can.
Charlie asked Connie to marry him, and she was ready to go to a Justice of the Peace, get married and move to Mississippi without a formal wedding. Luckily, Charlie got cold feet and decided they needed to live around each other for a while, and let him earn some money to live on before they tied the knot. Charlie had no money and no job. He moved to Chattanooga in June and lived with a friend he knew from Mississippi. I helped him write up some resumes, and he got a job through a temp agency doing construction work.
Dad passed out and fell again, and Mom called the ambulance and had him taken to the local hospital in Newton, where he spent one night. They wanted to move him to Meridian to do tests, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He claimed he couldn’t sleep in a hospital bed and couldn’t eat their food. Mom had to bring him back home without finding out why he was passing out. The hospital bill was nearly $900 for the one night.
I got a letter from Mom, and her handwriting slanted down with an extremely wide right margin. I had been doing handwriting analysis for several years, and was pretty good at it. Her writing had changed drastically. The down slant showed depression and the wide right margin showed fear of what lay ahead for them. I felt I was letting them down by not knowing how to help.
You sold timber from our farm and we made nearly $5,000. We paid bills and put some in a CD at a good interest rate. Dad was interested in selling timber on his 60 acres, so you had the timber company go out and talk to him. Dad thought they were offering him $2,000 for his trees, but instead, they were charging him $2,000 for counting his trees. The ladies who owned the Hidden Springs Arabian Horse Ranch next door to Mom and Dads’ place wanted their acreage. They told Dad they would pay the $2,000 to the timber company if he’d sell them the land. Dad wanted to sell all but a half-acre where their house stood.
You thought we should get involved, because you felt the ladies were taking advantage of Dad. I was already upset because Dad sold 80 acres in the country without telling me. It had been my grandpa’s land, and he always told me it would be mine one day. I didn’t care that my dad inherited it, but he only got $30,000 for it, and I felt it should have been worth more. I learned after the sale and was disappointed they didn’t tell me until later.
We’d planned a trip back to Newton to talk to them about selling, when the unthinkable happened on our 39th wedding anniversary. I had a temporary assignment that day and had started to work. Christi’s car was parked on the street in front of our house. The car had hoods that came down over her lights when they were turned off. As I was leaving, I saw they were up and figured she had left her lights on and the battery was dead. She was always on the verge of getting fired from her day job for coming in late. I decided I needed to warn her she might have a dead battery.
I drove back up our steep driveway and jumped out to run inside, leaving the key in the ignition. I’d barely gotten in, when I heard a loud noise sounding something like a gun shot. Neighborhood dogs started barking. I went to the window and looked out, and what I saw horrified me. I’d not put my car firmly in park. It had rolled down the driveway, taken out the retaining wall and crashed into a tree.
“Oh my God!” I kept repeating. It was something I never say. When you saw what had happened to our Infiniti, you started yelling at me, which was something you never do. You kept telling me how careless I was and demanding I call in, and tell the agency I wouldn’t be coming to work. You were treating me like a child in need of punishment.
You insisted I call Mom to make sure they hadn’t sold their acreage to the Arabian ranch ladies, before we got a chance to see them. When she answered, she was sick and sounded horrible. She’d been light-headed for days and was still trying to pick apples, can vegetables, and mow the grass. She said she was sure the sale of the land would go through, because Dad was determined to sell it.
The back of our car was caved in. Our insurance sent a wrecker which cost $250 in cash. The repair bill would be over $7,000. We had no way of knowing it would be over six weeks before it could be repaired, and our van was in no shape to take on the long trip to Mississippi. This was only the beginning of trouble for our family. The worst was yet to come.
This is Us:
Evan is 66 and a retired drafting supervisor from Chevron Oil.
Beth is 57 and has had a variety of jobs. She is presently working temporary jobs.
Carol is 32, recently divorced, and a nurse, working at a hospital in Chattanooga and living in an apartment.
Don is a twin. He is 31, a recent graduate of Life Chiropractic College
Christi is Don’s twin. She is working as a receptionist at a chemical company and doing massages on the side.
Kimberly s Don’s wife. She is a nurse working in Atlanta.
Lauren Elizabeth Jane Shelby is Don and Kimberly's new baby (9 mos.)
Connie is our youngest daughter. She is twenty-one. She and a junior in college.
Charlie is Connie's boyfriend who moves to Chattanooga from Mississippi.
For new readers, who may not have read my author notes, this is written in a conversational way as I talk to my deceased husband. When I refer to someone just as "you" this means I am addressing my husband, Evan.
Throughout May and into June, I continued working various jobs on assignment. You were feeling unusually well and crediting your energy to the Kombucha tea you made from the fungi you grew in a dark closet. I wasn’t sure the benefits weren’t all in your head, but I had to admit, you were no longer convinced you had some major illness brewing. This was the time of year when you kept busy in the yard and garden, and you seemed contented to be working outside.
Don and Kimberly made a trip to Detroit, where he interviewed for Chiropractic positions and got two offers. The jobs would be as an intern and required he work six days a week. He and Kimberly didn’t like the city, but they were still weighing the options when they returned home. In the end, they decided against the move. They spent a week with us when they got back in town. At nine months, Lauren was adorable. She was a happy baby and fun to be around.
Christi was dating Matt again, which meant she likely broke Kevin’s heart. Staying out past three a.m. most nights, she managed to keep you upset. We told her it was time to find another place to live. In addition to her day job, her massage business, and her singing career, she decided she wanted to start a dating service. She’d talked two people into being her partners. It was her new project of the month, if it managed to last that long. Before long, she and Matt were fighting again, and she was also seeing another guy who took her four-wheeling on mountain trails.
Carol went to a 14-day co-dependency workshop and decided she was messed up and blamed us. She said we’d screwed all of them up, because of our own problems. She said she was tired of being used by everyone, and from now on, she’d work on her own happiness. Connie and Don said her friends were weird, and she decided they were right and stopped seeing them. She met a new guy named Roy and decided she really liked him. She was soon part of his group of friends.
Roy was a handsome Spanish guy who had just finalized a divorce. He had two young children. He worked as a nursing assistant on a low income. In addition to being on the rebound, he was in the process of trying to overcome a pornography addiction. You’d always had a hang-up about our children dating anyone other than someone of their own race. I had no problem with other cultures, but I wasn’t impressed with Roy’s potential. Still Carol was an adult, and it was none of our business who she dated.
I did resent her saying it was our fault she had married Glen. Her reasoning was we’d caused her to be co-dependent, and she’d married him because she felt sorry for him. Personally, I believed we’d given our children a better home-life than most of their friends, and I wasn’t ready to take the rap for their problems. Life isn’t perfect for anyone, and most of us do the best we can.
Charlie asked Connie to marry him, and she was ready to go to a Justice of the Peace, get married and move to Mississippi without a formal wedding. Luckily, Charlie got cold feet and decided they needed to live around each other for a while, and let him earn some money to live on before they tied the knot. Charlie had no money and no job. He moved to Chattanooga in June and lived with a friend he knew from Mississippi. I helped him write up some resumes, and he got a job through a temp agency doing construction work.
Dad passed out and fell again, and Mom called the ambulance and had him taken to the local hospital in Newton, where he spent one night. They wanted to move him to Meridian to do tests, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He claimed he couldn’t sleep in a hospital bed and couldn’t eat their food. Mom had to bring him back home without finding out why he was passing out. The hospital bill was nearly $900 for the one night.
I got a letter from Mom, and her handwriting slanted down with an extremely wide right margin. I had been doing handwriting analysis for several years, and was pretty good at it. Her writing had changed drastically. The down slant showed depression and the wide right margin showed fear of what lay ahead for them. I felt I was letting them down by not knowing how to help.
You sold timber from our farm and we made nearly $5,000. We paid bills and put some in a CD at a good interest rate. Dad was interested in selling timber on his 60 acres, so you had the timber company go out and talk to him. Dad thought they were offering him $2,000 for his trees, but instead, they were charging him $2,000 for counting his trees. The ladies who owned the Hidden Springs Arabian Horse Ranch next door to Mom and Dads’ place wanted their acreage. They told Dad they would pay the $2,000 to the timber company if he’d sell them the land. Dad wanted to sell all but a half-acre where their house stood.
You thought we should get involved, because you felt the ladies were taking advantage of Dad. I was already upset because Dad sold 80 acres in the country without telling me. It had been my grandpa’s land, and he always told me it would be mine one day. I didn’t care that my dad inherited it, but he only got $30,000 for it, and I felt it should have been worth more. I learned after the sale and was disappointed they didn’t tell me until later.
We’d planned a trip back to Newton to talk to them about selling, when the unthinkable happened on our 39th wedding anniversary. I had a temporary assignment that day and had started to work. Christi’s car was parked on the street in front of our house. The car had hoods that came down over her lights when they were turned off. As I was leaving, I saw they were up and figured she had left her lights on and the battery was dead. She was always on the verge of getting fired from her day job for coming in late. I decided I needed to warn her she might have a dead battery.
I drove back up our steep driveway and jumped out to run inside, leaving the key in the ignition. I’d barely gotten in, when I heard a loud noise sounding something like a gun shot. Neighborhood dogs started barking. I went to the window and looked out, and what I saw horrified me. I’d not put my car firmly in park. It had rolled down the driveway, taken out the retaining wall and crashed into a tree.
“Oh my God!” I kept repeating. It was something I never say. When you saw what had happened to our Infiniti, you started yelling at me, which was something you never do. You kept telling me how careless I was and demanding I call in, and tell the agency I wouldn’t be coming to work. You were treating me like a child in need of punishment.
You insisted I call Mom to make sure they hadn’t sold their acreage to the Arabian ranch ladies, before we got a chance to see them. When she answered, she was sick and sounded horrible. She’d been light-headed for days and was still trying to pick apples, can vegetables, and mow the grass. She said she was sure the sale of the land would go through, because Dad was determined to sell it.
The back of our car was caved in. Our insurance sent a wrecker which cost $250 in cash. The repair bill would be over $7,000. We had no way of knowing it would be over six weeks before it could be repaired, and our van was in no shape to take on the long trip to Mississippi. This was only the beginning of trouble for our family. The worst was yet to come.
This is Us:
Evan is 66 and a retired drafting supervisor from Chevron Oil.
Beth is 57 and has had a variety of jobs. She is presently working temporary jobs.
Carol is 32, recently divorced, and a nurse, working at a hospital in Chattanooga and living in an apartment.
Don is a twin. He is 31, a recent graduate of Life Chiropractic College
Christi is Don’s twin. She is working as a receptionist at a chemical company and doing massages on the side.
Kimberly s Don’s wife. She is a nurse working in Atlanta.
Lauren Elizabeth Jane Shelby is Don and Kimberly's new baby (9 mos.)
Connie is our youngest daughter. She is twenty-one. She and a junior in college.
Charlie is Connie's boyfriend who moves to Chattanooga from Mississippi.
Throughout May and into June, I continued working various jobs on assignment. You were feeling unusually well and crediting your energy to the Kombucha tea you made from the fungi you grew in a dark closet. I wasn’t sure the benefits weren’t all in your head, but I had to admit, you were no longer convinced you had some major illness brewing. This was the time of year when you kept busy in the yard and garden, and you seemed contented to be working outside.
Don and Kimberly made a trip to Detroit, where he interviewed for Chiropractic positions and got two offers. The jobs would be as an intern and required he work six days a week. He and Kimberly didn’t like the city, but they were still weighing the options when they returned home. In the end, they decided against the move. They spent a week with us when they got back in town. At nine months, Lauren was adorable. She was a happy baby and fun to be around.
Christi was dating Matt again, which meant she likely broke Kevin’s heart. Staying out past three a.m. most nights, she managed to keep you upset. We told her it was time to find another place to live. In addition to her day job, her massage business, and her singing career, she decided she wanted to start a dating service. She’d talked two people into being her partners. It was her new project of the month, if it managed to last that long. Before long, she and Matt were fighting again, and she was also seeing another guy who took her four-wheeling on mountain trails.
Carol went to a 14-day co-dependency workshop and decided she was messed up and blamed us. She said we’d screwed all of them up, because of our own problems. She said she was tired of being used by everyone, and from now on, she’d work on her own happiness. Connie and Don said her friends were weird, and she decided they were right and stopped seeing them. She met a new guy named Roy and decided she really liked him. She was soon part of his group of friends.
Roy was a handsome Spanish guy who had just finalized a divorce. He had two young children. He worked as a nursing assistant on a low income. In addition to being on the rebound, he was in the process of trying to overcome a pornography addiction. You’d always had a hang-up about our children dating anyone other than someone of their own race. I had no problem with other cultures, but I wasn’t impressed with Roy’s potential. Still Carol was an adult, and it was none of our business who she dated.
I did resent her saying it was our fault she had married Glen. Her reasoning was we’d caused her to be co-dependent, and she’d married him because she felt sorry for him. Personally, I believed we’d given our children a better home-life than most of their friends, and I wasn’t ready to take the rap for their problems. Life isn’t perfect for anyone, and most of us do the best we can.
Charlie asked Connie to marry him, and she was ready to go to a Justice of the Peace, get married and move to Mississippi without a formal wedding. Luckily, Charlie got cold feet and decided they needed to live around each other for a while, and let him earn some money to live on before they tied the knot. Charlie had no money and no job. He moved to Chattanooga in June and lived with a friend he knew from Mississippi. I helped him write up some resumes, and he got a job through a temp agency doing construction work.
Dad passed out and fell again, and Mom called the ambulance and had him taken to the local hospital in Newton, where he spent one night. They wanted to move him to Meridian to do tests, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He claimed he couldn’t sleep in a hospital bed and couldn’t eat their food. Mom had to bring him back home without finding out why he was passing out. The hospital bill was nearly $900 for the one night.
I got a letter from Mom, and her handwriting slanted down with an extremely wide right margin. I had been doing handwriting analysis for several years, and was pretty good at it. Her writing had changed drastically. The down slant showed depression and the wide right margin showed fear of what lay ahead for them. I felt I was letting them down by not knowing how to help.
You sold timber from our farm and we made nearly $5,000. We paid bills and put some in a CD at a good interest rate. Dad was interested in selling timber on his 60 acres, so you had the timber company go out and talk to him. Dad thought they were offering him $2,000 for his trees, but instead, they were charging him $2,000 for counting his trees. The ladies who owned the Hidden Springs Arabian Horse Ranch next door to Mom and Dads’ place wanted their acreage. They told Dad they would pay the $2,000 to the timber company if he’d sell them the land. Dad wanted to sell all but a half-acre where their house stood.
You thought we should get involved, because you felt the ladies were taking advantage of Dad. I was already upset because Dad sold 80 acres in the country without telling me. It had been my grandpa’s land, and he always told me it would be mine one day. I didn’t care that my dad inherited it, but he only got $30,000 for it, and I felt it should have been worth more. I learned after the sale and was disappointed they didn’t tell me until later.
We’d planned a trip back to Newton to talk to them about selling, when the unthinkable happened on our 39th wedding anniversary. I had a temporary assignment that day and had started to work. Christi’s car was parked on the street in front of our house. The car had hoods that came down over her lights when they were turned off. As I was leaving, I saw they were up and figured she had left her lights on and the battery was dead. She was always on the verge of getting fired from her day job for coming in late. I decided I needed to warn her she might have a dead battery.
I drove back up our steep driveway and jumped out to run inside, leaving the key in the ignition. I’d barely gotten in, when I heard a loud noise sounding something like a gun shot. Neighborhood dogs started barking. I went to the window and looked out, and what I saw horrified me. I’d not put my car firmly in park. It had rolled down the driveway, taken out the retaining wall and crashed into a tree.
“Oh my God!” I kept repeating. It was something I never say. When you saw what had happened to our Infiniti, you started yelling at me, which was something you never do. You kept telling me how careless I was and demanding I call in, and tell the agency I wouldn’t be coming to work. You were treating me like a child in need of punishment.
You insisted I call Mom to make sure they hadn’t sold their acreage to the Arabian ranch ladies, before we got a chance to see them. When she answered, she was sick and sounded horrible. She’d been light-headed for days and was still trying to pick apples, can vegetables, and mow the grass. She said she was sure the sale of the land would go through, because Dad was determined to sell it.
The back of our car was caved in. Our insurance sent a wrecker which cost $250 in cash. The repair bill would be over $7,000. We had no way of knowing it would be over six weeks before it could be repaired, and our van was in no shape to take on the long trip to Mississippi. This was only the beginning of trouble for our family. The worst was yet to come.
This is Us:
Evan is 66 and a retired drafting supervisor from Chevron Oil.
Beth is 57 and has had a variety of jobs. She is presently working temporary jobs.
Carol is 32, recently divorced, and a nurse, working at a hospital in Chattanooga and living in an apartment.
Don is a twin. He is 31, a recent graduate of Life Chiropractic College
Christi is Don’s twin. She is working as a receptionist at a chemical company and doing massages on the side.
Kimberly s Don’s wife. She is a nurse working in Atlanta.
Lauren Elizabeth Jane Shelby is Don and Kimberly's new baby (9 mos.)
Connie is our youngest daughter. She is twenty-one. She and a junior in college.
Charlie is Connie's boyfriend who moves to Chattanooga from Mississippi.
 Recognized |
I'm continuing to recall memories of life with my deceased husband, Evan, as if I am talking aloud to him. I'm doing this because I want my children to know us as we knew each other and not just as their parents.
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