Back In My Day

I am one of five kids born to Jim and Christine Welch. F I V E. We are all stair-step; four girls and one boy. My brother, Jimmy, is right in the middle. I always joke that mom and dad must not have had a tv and that’s why there were so many of us. Dad would just reply, “Nope! We just didn’t have cable.”

By the time I was born, I would bet that my mom and dad weren’t springin’ for baby pictures. We all look so much alike that my guess is they just scratched names off the back of the pictures and wrote in a new one every time a baby was born. Was a little rough for Jimmy to explain all those pictures in dresses, but he’s adjusted nicely. Seriously though, we grew up in a different age. There was no such thing as a car seat. You sat anywhere mom found a place to put you.

She had a Chrysler New Yorker for years, and it was a huge car. You didn’t drive that baby down the road. It loped. You didn’t park that big boat…you docked it. A true hooptie mobile. There was always a kid in the back window, a couple on the floorboard and one or two in the front. The glove box was huge too, I’m surprised it didn’t double as a cubby for one of us. We could have all sat in those seats, but inevitably a fight would have broken out. I couldn’t tell ya how many times we almost bit the dust when mom was tryin’ to drive and smack one of us in the back seat at the same time.

She must have been a really good driver, cause she never wrecked with us in the car…and I do remember that she got the smackin’ done. Thank God they didn’t have cell phones then. She could multi-task but that may have been too much. Side note: One of my worst memories ever was in that wretched car. Back in the day, they had bench seats in hoopties. I was “fortunate” enough to get to sit in the front, middle – next to mom. We were in Bartlesville and I fell asleep.

My foot fell on top of mom’s while she was driving through downtown and the car was goin’ like 70 miles an hour through all the lights. She woke me up, just in time to have a cop pull us over. I have no idea how she talked herself out of that ticket, but she did. I wasn’t so lucky. When she got back in the car, she was nervous and scared and frustrated…and smacked in the inside of my thigh so hard it still hurts! I can’t imagine what was going through her mind when that gas accelerated.

For a loving mother to know that all of her babies were in that car and there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop the chain of events? Scary, scary stuff! No wonder they suggest kids sit in the back seat!! Back to my story. I never was lonely either. There was always a sister or my brother to play with, or to get me in trouble. It was usually a mix of both. Mom always said that she didn’t know if it was better to have us in good moods or bad moods. We were always loud. I can relate to that with my own kids. I have actually caught myself sayin’ the same exact thing.

Amazing what you grow up and do. I remember one time I was fighting with my sister and mom made us clean the windows on opposite sides of each other. Then she made us hug. Oh My Gosh that was the worst punishment EVER. I would have rather had a spankin’. There’s a real difference when going to church now too. There was no such thing as children’s church when we were little – kids now get to go to other rooms to worship. They get to color, paint, watch videos and other fun stuff. They get snacks! SNACKS! Goldfish, even! Not us. We had to sit in the sanctuary with mom, AND stay awake too! Sometimes it was brutal.

We were kids, and we talked…a lot. Still do. Even when we knew what was comin’ when we got home, we still talked. Mom was only 5’ tall, but her arms stretched a good nine foot on that pew. We fought to sit the furthest from her in church, but it wasn’t far enough. You got that “bap!” on the back of the head when you weren’t paying attention. I don’t remember a lot of the ‘who begat who’ from the sermons back then, but I remember those baps on the back of the head. And Lord did mom have ears. Even when she wasn’t at church, she knew everything that happened. I went to church on a Wednesday night one night when mom wasn’t there. There was a new pastor and I was sitting with the old pastor’s daughter.

Can’t remember how old I was, but we sat there together, making faces at the new pastor and laughing the whole time. I really wish phones hadn’t been invented because before I made it home, mom knew everything that went on. She had ears where her body hadn’t even been! How was that even possible? Now of course, being a mom myself…I have ears everywhere now too. Plenty of discipline ensued that night, and it continued til the following Sunday.

I wound up having to go in front of the ENTIRE CHURCH that next Sunday and apologize to the entire congregation. That is something you don’t ever forget, especially when the preacher’s daughter got off scott free. Dad was always the real disciplinarian. (That’s not the case in my house. I’m the drill sergeant because daddy is a pushover). Back then though, everything waited til dad got home. Mom was fair to all of us pretty much. We all got in trouble at the same time. If she pointed out something to dad about one of us, the rest of us took a deep sigh of relief…for about half a second. Then it came. If dad was really goin’ to town on one of us, mom would feel a little guilty! She would say, “Well it wasn’t all Candy. If you are gonna get her in trouble, you might as well talk to Jeanette. She was actin’ up too.”

Then we were off to the races. Jeanette would get hers, then Jimmy, and then mom would make it to me. Before the night was up, all five of us were bawlin’ and squawlin’ like there was no tomorrow. And we typically deserved it. Maybe not on the night we were called out, but oh, we made some trouble.

For the record though, Tresa, my little sister, got by with EVERYTHING. I think she just started cryin, in hopes they lost count what kids were left to punish. It worked too! I truly can’t remember a time when she really got in trouble at all. She of course remembers it differently, but I’m older – my memory is better. One time, someone poured a bunch of medicine in the toilet, nobody ever confessed. We all got in trouble. Another time, someone flicked toothpaste all over the bathroom ceiling. No confessions there either. To this day, we all deny it, so I really don’t know which one of THEM did it. Anyway, I caught myself telling Emily that they have it easy compared to what we did. Then I remembered that is just what mom used to say, so it sort of drudged up some old memories.

Once in awhile it’s good to think about those days. We were never really lonely and never ran out of things to do and the punishment never really outweighed the crime. I hope my kids see those blessings in life when they get older - that their punishments are to help them learn and grow, and truly understand right from wrong. (Theirs is a lot easier than my good ol’ days). And I really hope they appreciate getting those goldfish at church…cause I still don’t get em.