Close Relatives and Others - Sir Leonard (read novels website .txt) 📗

it. I, also, discussed this with Mildred, your grand mamma. She said it was a bad idea because Cindy would do something and tell a lie on Pamela and Josephine’s going to believe Cindy. . We got married just a few weeks before I went into the hospital for removing the crushed bone in my right second toe. I convalesced at home all of 1979.
All about Me, Your Father
As I said before, my father passed when I was 12 years old. My oldest sister, “Mick,” took over the home responsibilities. At 15 years old I entered the work force, working in hotels and restaurants as pot washer and. bus boy. At this earlier stage of my life, struggling on my own trying to survive, I got behind two years in school. At this stage, I could’ve said to hell with school, I’m too far behind. While living in a rooming house and working in a restaurant, I decided to enroll in a Catholic school. Reason: I was determined not to grow up to be" dumb.” I’m a proud person and no matter what I wanted to be educated and well learned. My working hour at the restaurant was from 4PM to 1:30AM. I had to do my home work after I got home about 2AM in the morning. School started at 8AM. As you can see, I didn’t have much time for sleep after finishing my home work. I was always late. I didn’t let the laughter of the students discourage me when I walked into the classroom late with red, puffy eyes. In all 6 years at this school, I never took an IQ test because I was always too late for the test since they were given first thing in the morning. However, I always maintained B’s and C’s I recalled my math teacher talking to me about being late. I told her that, I didn’t have any parent to live with and that I was living in a rooming house and had to work to pay my way. I can never forget what she told me: “You’re a growing boy; you can’t go to school and work too. You got to quit and take care of yourself.” I looked down at my very short, German math teacher, and remarked, “No, Sister! I’m going to make it! I’m not going to grow up “dumb.” I made! I joined the Air Force; and while going through basic training, out of a group of 72 students, a Caucasian and I tied on an algebra test score and, later, I scored a United States Air Force record high of 145 points on the Administrative Specialist proficiency test with a minimum passing mark of 75 points..

Performing as an Administrative Specialist in the Air Force, I changed a whole generation through excellence. One of my responsibilities was to prepare and answer various forms of correspondence; such as, letter, forms and reports This young Lt., just out of college was responsible for signing the material that I was preparing. I noticed every time I placed a document in front of him to sign, he would scrutinize it “under a microscope,” so to speak. One day, I prepared a letter that was in the new format that the Air Force HQ had approved. I gave it to him to sign and right away he thought that he had caught me in doing something wrong. As you know, I’ve always been the type to be able to prove what I do or say. All I did was to reach upon the shelf and give him the book that had authorized the change. He said, “By God you’re right,” and signed. A month later this Lieutenant called me back in the conference room and said, “Airman Pettway, I want to apologize to you.” I asked, “For what? Lt., you haven’t done anything to me.” He said, “Wait a cotton picking minute.” He went on to say, “You know, I’m from Ft Worth, TX. My parent brought me up to be prejudice against colored people; but since I’ve been working in this office with you, I’m never going to be prejudice again.” I told him that I was glad to hear that. He continued, “I don’t know why my parent taught me to be prejudice against colored people; but since I’ve been working here in this office with you, I find you to be so able, educated and industrious. I’m never going to teach my kids to be prejudice against colored people.” I’m quite sure that this man talked about me for year to his kids, telling them to never prejudge any one; get to know the person first and then judge.
Josephine and Cindy’s Strange, Mysterious Relationship
I’ll tell you right now that this one is a tough one and mind-boggling! After prying, snooping, investigating and asking questions resulted in only a tiny bit of info about Josephine and Cindy’s strange relationship. Upon first meeting Josephine, seeing her and Cindy together appeared odd and out of place Your Uncle Herman’s, then first wife, had a girl the same age of Cindy and they could’ve passed as twins. When Josephine, Cindy, Herman, his wife, her child and I got together, one would think that Cindy belonged to Herman’s wife's family instead of Josephine’s. It wasn’t just the skin color that came off odd, but the whole relationship. I couldn’t explain this in a million years! As years passed I noticed how sensitive Josephine really was about Cindy. She would just go to pieces if anyone would mention Cindy’s name or looked at her the wrong way. I don’t rightly recall right now, what it was that Mildred (your grandmother) and I were discussing about Cindy in the presence of your Aunt, Dorothy Jean, nevertheless, Dorothy went back and told Josephine. I had been at a loss why Josephine was acting so cold and belligerent towards me until one day getting gas at the gas station, Josephine, Dorothy Jean and Cindy with us, said to Cindy, “Sit down, girl, I just go to pieces when anybody just mention your name I go to pieces! Child sit down because I don’t nobody saying nothing to you or about you!” I overheard Josephine say. “If someone just mentions your name, I go to pieced!” I point blank, asked her why was she so oversensitive about Cindy; and went on to ask if there was something wrong with her? Don’t remember what her answer was.
The way Josephine was carrying on about Cindy, made me wonder if Cindy was retarded. Later, after working with Cindy in helping her with her homework—not doing it for her like Josephine was doing. I taught her like I taught you—the principles and let her do it on her own. To my surprise, she was a very, very bright student and every time I would teach her she got A’s. This shot down that retardation theory; so it had to be something else. This continued to puzzle me.
However, Josephine use to tell me stories about how Dorothy Jean use to be an alcoholic and prostitute on Auburn and how she would have go down there and search for her; most of the time finding her lying in allies drunk and having been repeatedly raped. She said that Dorothy Jean was her favorite sister and that is why she let her live with her so she could help her when nobody else wanted to be bothered.
When Josephine was pregnant with you, I hired her to come live with us and take care of Josephine and the house. During this period, I took Dorothy Jean to the store; and while away I drove by the park to talk to her. My first question was why Josephine was so oversensitive about Cindy? Without any hesitation, your aunt Dorothy Jean said, “Cindy’s not Josephine child. That’s my child. I gave Cindy to Josephine when she was two weeks olds.” Later on, I asked Josephine was this true? She denied and shrugged it off by saying that Dorothy Jean’s a habitual, “tremendous” liar. Even though she called Dorothy Jean a habitual liar, the pieces began to fall in place and things then began to make sense. I speculated, that during Dorothy Jean’s drunken escapades, she got pregnant and Josephine had her to take on her identity by giving her McPherson Army Base Id Card to impersonate her while attending the doctors at the Army base. You see at this time, Josephine was married to Richard Woods and he was overseas.
Now the reason I say that the above is likely what happened, because after Josephine and I were married, I witnessed the identical above episode, that was perpetrated by Josephine and Eula Mae, your aunt, at Grady Memorial Hospital here in Atlanta. Eula Mae got pregnant in LA and came here to have her baby. Josephine gave Eula her Josephine Woods ID card to attend Grady as “Josephine Woods “for nine months. The baby died at birth because Eula Mae drank and smoke while carrying the baby. Josephine said when the baby was born he looked just like an old man. I believe that God planned all of this so Josephine could observe it in order to make way for you. Later, when Josephine did get pregnant, she said, “I’m not going to drink or smoke on my baby; and she didn’t! The whole nine months! Daily, religiously, she took her pill and kept all of her prenatal doctor appointments.
However, since we’re on the subject, about her being pregnant with you. Let me clear up that big lie that Josephine put out there in the hopes of Cindy feeling better about herself. Your mother’s always looking for anything. That might make Cindy feel good about her existence. What happened after you was born, Josephine saw a window of opportunity to concoct, in the interest of Cindy, this lie that you were another man baby when she saw that you had dark skin and looked more like her than me. She figured that she could get away it if she continues to spread this lie people would believe her. The truth is, it was physically impossible for her to get away and have sex with another man when she was at the house with me daily helping me convalesce from my toe surgery.
Nevertheless, this is the truth of the matter: After having sex on the night of October 22, 1979, Josephine didn’t get up right away and wash up, she lay there on the bed on her back with her legs propped up and said, “I want it to catch!” Meaning, the sperm hook up so she could get pregnant. The next month she missed her period and when she went to see Dr. Magee, he told her that she was three weeks pregnant. Everybody thought that this was the same old lie that she had been telling for many, many years. I didn’t believe it until she went and took the ultra sound test when she saw you in her stomach, a male fetus. I started counting the months and days trying to predict your birth date. After you were born, I noticed that I had only missed the