Time in this life has arrived to capture some of my life moments in a written journal. There will not be an initial attempt to make a chronology…the stories of the moments will be documented as they are remembered.
Each entry will be made as memory prevails.
The three southern muses to interact with and be present with early formations in my life were…
- Ruth Rebecca Lee Gordon – my birth mother RUTH
- Mildred Lee Gordon Starlin – my aunt MIMI,
the sister of my blood father, Floyd Charles Gordon - Marie Elizabeth Hawkins Cramer – My foster mother REA, also referred to as my grandmother.
They will be called Ruth, Mimi and Rea.
Because of my stuttering as a child I could not say Mildred or Marie and the shortened names prevailed and were used by community and another generation in the family.
I never knew my blood father, Floyd Charles Gordon (FLASH), as he died 4 days before I was born. Ruth carried me for the time of incubation after the first two months knowing that her husband (my father) would die. I had one blood brother – Charles Lee Gordon. He thought my entry into the world was the reason for his father’s, our father’s exit.
Charlie – Chuck – was a tennis star, Apollo Boys Choir tenor, womanizer, full scholarship athlete at Texas Christian University and wanted me taken back to the hospital. He had been a favored only child and only son until “the Runt” arrived. The runt that killed his Flash! It took years to bond.
As a child I was told that Flash died a very painful slow death from Bacterial Endocarditis that he transferred to himself through a cut he made while skinning a deer.
Two months ago, it was suggested to me that he died from cocaine injections that came from the pharmacy supply in Gordon REXALL Drug Stores.
I had a very special and loving foster father,
Harold Cecil Cramer – POPPY.
The Cramers (REA and POPPY) had one daughter of their own – Barbara Ann, and they raised me as there own son for the first seven years of my life. Ruth placed me with the Cramers at six months as she took over all my blood fathers business after he passed. At my age 7, Ruth came to take me to her home to live since I was ready to enter the second grade. At the front door I told her she was the ice cream lady and not my mother – my mother was REA! I held onto Rea under her skirt. I was finally pried away and taken screaming over and over
Ice Cream Lady Ice Cream Lady
Not My Mother Not My Mother and to the new home.
Charles Room was now my room and yet it was Charles Room with his tennis trophies and his childhood clothing.
I had a little suitcase that was always packed and went with me to visit Rea, Mimi or back to Ruth. I lived off and on and in and out of the Cramer home for the rest of my life until it was old, I was getting older – 53, and Rea passed in her sleep. I found the suitcase again in 2006 and it was still packed with my childhood jeans and boots…
Entry – July 26, 2007
