I turn 34 on Sunday, and what bums me out is remembering my mom when she was the same age. She was oooooold! But then again she wasn't me.
She was a secretary for Mutual of Omaha, married to a guy she had nothing in common with and she had three awful kids who never seemed to let up.
She'd recently had a hysterectomy because of some medical issues and that made her hormones jump into high gear like she was in menopause.
She spent a lot of time packing our belongings and moving because the rental market in Omaha was awful. I remember moving once a year, sometimes at the end of the school year and sometimes right in the middle. The house we were renting when she was 34 was this really old place with bizarre old carpet that was so worn it looked like a very thin floor mat.
We had to move after about 9 months in that house because the landlord wanted his ex wife to live there, so their child visitations could be simpler. He lived down the street.
I missed that neighborhood because it was one of the last pretty areas of Omaha. The lawns were manicured, huge old trees, the schools were beautiful brick buildings with awesome hardwood floors, there were kids of all ages on our street so we had plenty of entertainment, there was regular community events like street fairs and Halloween parties and Christmas craft sales, and the people were normal.
When we got the notice to move we had to find a place on very short notice, and we ended up renting a house on 24th Street and Florence Blvd.
Anyone familiar with Omaha knows that 24th and Florence is the ghetto.
Shortly after moving there, it became very clear my mom couldn't take the city bus to work because she was either going to get mugged at the bus stop or worse. So my parents bought a second car. At a stop light one dark morning, my mom was surprised by a man who had walked right up and opened the passenger door of the car. She took off driving right thru the red light.
We heard gunshots quite regularly in the night, always wondering if bullets could go thru bedroom walls.
My sister and I walked to our little school that was several blocks away, and my brother went to another school, in the other direction.
We soon made friends from other neighborhoods (we were the only white kids in ours, we found other white kids as we walked to school) and we would all join up in the mornings and walk together. We were brought up to avoid blacks, that's why we didn't dare get friendly with the black kids in our neighborhood.
I think I was the first one to be attacked. My sister and I walked with some kids every day, and apparently one day they were in an argument with some black kids we didn't know. My sister opened her dumb big mouth and said something to the black kids. She was in first grade. I was in third. The black kids were in fourth and fifth grade. They started towards my sister like they were going to do something to her, so I had to step in. I said, "Leave her alone." They ganged up on me and beat me like I'd just held them up at gunpoint. They hit me with their fists and whatever was laying around, kicked me, chased me down if I got up and tried running, and wouldn't let up. Eventually an adult came along and broke it up.
I limped home and my dad cleaned me up. My eyes were swollen shut and I hurt everywhere. I got checked out at the doctor's to see if I had any broken bones on my face.
Well then my brother limped home one day after school. While walking home, he was hit over the head and knocked out by some drunk homeless guy who'd been following him.
I don't think it was long after that, we moved out of Omaha to Fort Calhoun.
When I consider where I am today and where my mom was at the same age, I'm pretty thankful.
