My family lived in the middle of nowhere, which was fine when I was growing up because it was a prosperous time and most of the residents of the area were employed by a local hospital. At the time I turned 18 (I have no memory of my birthday… or any birthday. Nothing ever happens at them), the hospital was closed down and suddenly the quaint little spot we lived was an empty ghost town.
It took a while for me to gather my thoughts, but I left home at 19. It was a struggle initially, as the economy in my area was spiralling into the worst funk it has ever had, before or since.
I am incredibly jealous of the young people of today who get to live rent free for five or ten additional years, something that would have made a huge financial difference in my life.
I turned 18 five months before high school graduation. I went to the post office and registered for the draft and went home for dinner. No fuss no muss.
I graduated high school and moved in with my girlfriend. Gosh, she was hot. Very conscious of social justice issues too. Good heart. She came out as lesbian about 3 months later. I’ve actually convinced TWO women to give up on men, so to speak, but the second wasn’t until my late twenties.
I was living with my very over protective father in McComb, Mississippi on my 18th birthday. I begged and pleaded to be allowed the use of the car to go to town and see Big Bad Mama at the movies. He finally agreed, but I had to take my sister with me.
Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let her in to see the movie since she was three years younger than me, so we ended up at A&W root beer for a bit. I was bored silly, so we headed home early, but even so, everyone was already in bed when we got there. As I was helping myself to some banana pudding, the phone rang. I could hear my dad saying that I wasn’t home so I ran to his bedroom door to try to let him know that I was home. As I was standing in his bedroom doorway, I looked out his window and saw a nearly naked man standing outside, watching my sister get into her pajamas in the next room!
Dad scared him off with the shotgun, but he also called the sheriff and his cousins who lived up the road. The cousins hadn’t shown up, even though the sheriff had come and gone, when I looked out back and there the guy was again. Standing under the lamp post in his underwear, he scared the crap out of me. So my dad got the gun and scared him off again.
Well, come to find out, the cousins had found a truck parked up the road so they just sat and waited. They knew they had the right truck when the guy with the keys came running out of the woods wearing only his underwear. They didn’t catch him, but they learned his identity when ole Willie made leg bail abandoning his truck.
