So I checked the e harmony account this afternoon. I got caught up in my online games last night and decided to wait a while more. Both of the guys I messaged checked my profile, but left no responses.
I went through some more of the over 800 questions posed by the service. I'm being a little lazy I guess, but I think it's best to take my time. Some answers need elaboration so perhaps I'll go back and clarify a few.
For some reason I woke up fairly early and had a bit of energy so I did some surface clearing, swept the floor and baked some bread pudding. "Meet the Press" with David Gregory is just pissing me off these days. I miss Tim Russet. I'm very into politics and am very Liberal. I vote in every election and I keep up with whats happening politically. MSNBC is the source for me with a little C-SPAN every now and then.
My earliest memories of my Daddy and I are me laying on the carpet while he sat in his big chair in our apartment in the Bronx, watching the Sunday morning news shows, like "Face the Nation" and "Meet the Press". My dad was into politics and baseball, the Mets of course. He talked to me about the Civil Rights Movement and growing up as an orphan in Jacksonville, Florida in the 1920s.
My father's parents had both passed away by the time he was three. His mother, Agnes Adams was a short dark complexioned woman, who died while giving childbirth to a baby right after having my dad. The doctor had warned her not to have anymore babies, telling her to tell my grandfather to "sleep on the roof". It didn't work. So she left her husband with 11 children to raise.
My Grandfather, John Barton was a tall, slender Native American. His trade was construction, and my understanding was that he was pretty well set and even owned some land. There are no photographs of my grandparents, that I know of. My grandfather died of a heart attack after finding out that one of his sons, Jeffrey had been lynched.
My father, Webster and his sister, Ethel, who was about 5yrs old at the time, went to live with their eldest Sister, Elizabeth, her husband Charles, and their children. Uncle Charles was reportedly pretty unwelcoming to his little in-laws. The rule was that he and his children ate first, and once they were satisfied, whatever was leftover would be fed to Ethel and my dad, whom they nicknamed "Buster".
My father often cried when he complained about the harsh treatment he experienced living in Charles Long's home. One story was that Charles ran over Daddy's new bicycle with his car, when one of Charles' kids tripped over it.
Buster and Ethel were too young to have many memories of their parents or their lives before going to live with Elizabeth. My father couldn't say "sister" so he called Elizabeth "Tata". The nickname stuck and she was my Aunt Tata, all my life. Oddly, I recall that Daddy would call her "mama" when he spoke to her on the phone or in person. He knew that she was his sister, but she was the only mother he remembered. And she loved him like a son. As well she could. But she couldn't and wouldn't stand up to her husband. Ever.
A Census microfilm that I found listed my father and aunt as living with Charles and Elizabeth as brother and sister in law. The next Census indicated that Ethel had moved down the street and was employed as a housekeeper for some neighbors. She was still a little girl.
Other siblings of my father also living in Jacksonville but they weren't part of the Long household. His older sister, Maria, was a chef for a ship's Captain. She was an excellent cook and very meticulous about setting tables, and serving several courses, even for everyday meals. She had her own life, including a son, Kenneth, who was born deaf, and had been married at some point, to Mr. Cooper, who seems to have been a very dapper man. I never knew if he had died or if they divorced. She never spoke of him in anything but glowing terms, and kept a picture of the two of them on her vanity.
Dad grew up and married a childhood friend, Theora. They had a son, Webster Jr, whom they called "Butch". At some point, Daddy enlisted in the Army. He was honorably discharged at the rank of E7, and returned to Jacksonville to make a home for his family. That's when hell broke loose.
Theora, as I said, had grownup with the family and considered her sister-in-laws to be her friends. During the time Daddy was away, Theora hung out and partied with her friends, which included my aunts. She took up with some man, and they knew all about it, but it wasn't an issue between them. Until Daddy came home. Reportedly, my aunts , with rapid speed, told my father all about Theora's infidelity, which enraged him so that he got a gun and shot Theora and her lover, resulting in her confinement to a wheelchair and her boyfriend's death. Some quick talking and money exchanging by Aunt Ethel saved my father from the electric chair and banished him to New York City. It was a debt that she never let him forget.
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