{"id":58,"date":"2012-09-15T20:14:09","date_gmt":"2012-09-15T20:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/byronwmayo.com\/memoires\/?p=58"},"modified":"2012-12-12T04:41:13","modified_gmt":"2012-12-12T04:41:13","slug":"reality-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/byronwmayo.com\/memoires\/reality-check\/","title":{"rendered":"Reality Check"},"content":{"rendered":"

What’s the matter with us?
\nNo country ever had more and no country ever had less.
\nTen men in our country could buy the
\nwhole world, and ten million can’t buy
\nenough to eat.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

WILL ROGERS, 1935<\/strong><\/p>\n

There were those who said America\u2019s luck ran out the night of August 15, 1935, when Will Rogers and his old pal Wiley Post were killed in a mysterious plane crash far up in Alaska. The end came when their Lockheed Orion<\/strong><\/em>, with Wiley Post at the controls,\u00a0plunged into a remote arctic lake 15 miles south of Point Barrow.<\/p>\n

For millions of Americans, it was a calamity.<\/p>\n

Wiley Post, the eye-patched, record-breaking speed pilot, was known throughout the land. But it was the loss of Will Rogers that was devastating to so many. America loved Will Rogers as it had never loved any other private citizen before\u2014nor probably ever will again.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard, even today, to express the extraordinary hold that Will Rogers had on so many millions of Americans in his lifetime. Cowboy philosopher from out of Oklahoma, part Cherokee, beloved humorist, stage and motion picture star, wise and witty newspaper columnist, serious writer, hard-riding rancher, expert roper, confidante of presidents, shrewd political analyst and always a protagonist for the common man, Will Rogers had been a reassuring and calming voice during the darkest days of the Great Depression. Now he was gone.<\/p>\n

My grandfather, Jim Dewey, took Will Rogers\u2019 death as a personal loss. His old lips tightened over his mouth and for several days he didn\u2019t talk much to anybody.<\/p>\n

I tacked up on my cluttered wall the last published newspaper photo of Will Rogers and Wiley Post together\u2014taken at the Fairbanks airport only minutes before they took off on their final flight.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

In tracing the threads of my childhood, I realize that I grew up with no sense of entitlement. Never did I receive an allowance, for example. Nor did any of the other kids in our blue-collar neighborhood. We never even thought about it. However, I did work at odd jobs around town in order to rustle up spending money. Then, at the age of twelve or thirteen, I took on a real job for the first time.<\/p>\n

After only three weeks, I was fired.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The job was that of a newsboy\u2014selling newspapers on a\u00a0crowded corner in downtown Portland, near the main entrance of the US National Bank building. I started out full-force, hawking papers every afternoon with all the zeal of a feisty, sidewalk preacher.<\/p>\n

\u201cExtra! Extra! Huey Long assassinated! Read<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

ALL ABOUT IT\/ LONGSHOREMEN GOIN\u2019 OUT ON STRIKE!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Latest scoop on penthouse murders! Extra! Extra! Read all about it!\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As a new kid on the street, I held my own. However, after the initial flurry of sales that came with each truck- drop, I would often steal a lengthy break. I\u2019d sprawl out on the bank’s low window ledge, prop my feet up, and thumb through the latest edition of the Oregon Journal<\/strong><\/em>. That turned out to be a forbidden pleasure. The street boss\u2014a stubby, foul-mouthed, pot-bellied ex-New Yorker called Nat\u2014warned me that I’d better get off my ass, stay on my corner and keep peddling.<\/p>\n

The second time he caught me with my nose buried in the news, he fired me\u2014right on the spot. No mercy granted. Like some livid, red-faced umpire, he jerked his thumb and bellowed, \u201cYer outta here, kid. Yer canned. Ya hear me? Get yer ass outta here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Totally mortified, I didn\u2019t say a word. I picked up my cigar box loaded with loose change, tucked it firmly under my arm, and plodded homeward.<\/p>\n

Getting fired on my very first job was humiliating. It was embarrassing. And it was embarrassing for my mother, too. She had asked a favor of a friend to help me get the job, and I\u2019d let her down. I felt my failure.<\/p>\n

We had a long talk\u2014the two of us.<\/p>\n

From out of this sorry little episode and other lessons along the way, I think she finally hammered into me an enduring habit of dependability.<\/p>\n

And she never let up.<\/p>\n

Again and again, she made it clear that I had to accept responsibility for my own actions. No excuses.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The endless grind of the \u201cGood Eats Cafe\u201d eventually wore down my mother and Aunt Phoebe. They were exhausted. A supportive crowd frequented the little storefront restaurant, but I don\u2019t think my mother and Phoebe had the business acumen to turn the place into a moneymaking venture. They sold out cheap to a middle- aged couple from Baker, Oregon, who took over\u00a0the lease.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

On that final night, my mother and Phoebe said good\u00adbye to a few favorite customers and walked out the door\u2014 with a bundle of lively memories, no serious regrets and a heavy sigh of relief.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

By 1935-36, even with modest recovery at the top levels, most Americans had to accept the cold, comfortless fact that prosperity wasn\u2019t \u201cjust around the corner.\u201d Five, six years after the panic of 1929, the relentless Depression still gripped much of the nation in an economic strangle-hold, despite the innovative programs of FDR\u2019s New Deal.<\/p>\n

For millions of Americans on the thin edge of poverty, the crisis<\/em><\/strong> had become semi-permanent.<\/p>\n

Jim Dewey, into his sixties and still scrabbling for work, stayed tough and stubborn and independent as ever. No more WPA for him. Ignoring a chronic backache and still flexing the whipcord muscles of a stonemason, he handled any and every job he could get. Roofer, watchman, ditch digger, dock worker, janitor, hod carrier, fruit picker\u2014he took ’em all on. He held fast to his lifelong respect for hard work.<\/p>\n

I remember one ten-day cherry picking job at a sprawling Willamette Valley orchard near Estacada, Oregon. Both my grandfather and grandmother signed on for this one\u2014and I went along. We slept in an Army surplus tent setup in a work camp on the banks of the roaring Clackamas River. There must have been 15 or 20 families in camp, along with scores of out-of-work, migrant \u201cfruit tramps,\u201d gathered for what turned out to\u00a0be a brief, peak-of-the-season harvest. I scrambled up the ladders and worked alongside my grandparents.<\/p>\n

I was a slow picker. We were paid something like two maybe three cents a pound. Afterwards, they claimed that I ate more than I picked. I think they exaggerated.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

My mother and her family were cradle Catholics. However, when they moved westward, they drifted away from the Church. I was not raised a Catholic.<\/p>\n

Instead, my mother enrolled me in Sunday School at the nearby Hinson Memorial Baptist Church when I was about nine years old. The church was a squarish building of dark-gray stone. It looked like a small fortress.<\/p>\n

For several years, I sat there squirming on Sunday mornings, singing the somber, rock-ribbed hymns and listening to parabolic stories from out of theKing\u00a0James Bible. Prior to the start of the full 11 a.m. chinch service, I would often slip out a side door.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When I was about 12 or 1’3-years-old, on the other hand, I was inveigled into a more exhilarating religious experience\u2014the provocative world of Aimee Semple McPherson and her Church of the Foursquare Gospel.<\/p>\n

A casual Buckman classmate named Paxil Bender and his merry-looking mother invited me to a “family barbecue”‘ one Sunday afternoon, that turned out to be a jolly evangelical get-together. It ended with everybody heading off to a Sunday night assembly at the two-tiered Foursquare Gospel Church, where the faithful were beckoned by the glow of a revolving neon sign on top of the towering roof.<\/p>\n

Inside that Foursquare auditorium, I can remember the entire congregation singing and clapping their hands in a swiftly mounting crescendo. And I can remember the sensational entrance of a gangly, suntanned preacher, who was the visiting evangelist from\u00a0Sister Aimee\u2019s Angeles Temple in Los Angeles. He leaped onto the stage, shaking the air with his fire and conviction, as he whooped, hollered, sweat, cried, snarled, preached and prayed\u2014invariably rewarded on all sides with shouts of approval and fervent amens<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Hallelujah!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I attended several such charismatic Sunday night sessions with the Benders before walking out on the\u00a0entire show. It was an electrifying atmosphere. But I was uncomfortable with their level of intense religious frenzy. And I was skeptical of the quick \u201cmiracle\u201d cures, nonsensical wailing, gibberish \u201cspeaking in tongues\u201d and the assiduous call for more money in the collection plate.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the Benders gave up on me.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

My own spiritual perspective remains a very private and personal force.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Most classic car buffs agree that for sheer elegance and craftsmanship, the Pierce-Arrow<\/strong><\/em> of the 1920s and 30s was in a class by itself. The remarkable quietness of its powerful engine only added to the Pierce-Arrow<\/strong><\/em> legend.<\/p>\n

(During prohibition, Pierce-Arrow<\/strong><\/em> engines were the favorites of the offshore rumrunners who converted them for use in their speedboats\u2014-not so much for their tremendous power, but for their uncanny quietness.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My mother\u2019s latest lover, entrepreneur Henry Sperling, drove a gleaming, silver-gray Pierce-Arrow<\/strong><\/em> sedan with sleek, fender-mounted headlamps. I rode in it once. And I thought it was awesome.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

My mother and Henry Sperling had crossed paths again at a club in downtown Portland. One friendly nightcap had led to another. Soon, they began going out together, quietly dining around. The chemistry sparked. And their occasional dinner dates blossomed into a heated, full-blown affair.<\/p>\n

One problem, however: He was married.<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t stop the ingenious money-man. He rented a small cottage near Ladd Park as a Pied-a-terre<\/strong><\/em> for their midweek trysts. And he showered her with attention in the months that followed, leading up to an overwhelming surprise on her 37th birthday\u2014or maybe it was her 38th. He presented her with the keys to a shiny, yellow and chrome, two-door Hudson-Terraplane<\/strong><\/em>, parked out front.<\/p>\n

My mother was astonished\u2014and ecstatic. When she drove her new car home that night, I joined with her in the excitement. We danced around the dining room table.<\/p>\n

My mother accompanied Sperling on several trips, too: I think they sometimes drove up to Olympia or Seattle. Once, I know they traveled the full length of the Oregon coast from Astoria to Gold Beach. Another time, in that elegant Pierce-Arrow<\/strong><\/em>, he took her along with him on a business trip\u2014all the way to San Francisco. It was my mother\u2019s first visit to California. She said they stayed at the Mark Hopkins on Nob Hill, with a lofty room looking out over the bay towards the Golden Gate Bridge.<\/p>\n

Before returning to Portland, they also headed up over the High Sierra for a holiday in Reno. Both of them still shared a kindred interest in the gaming tables.<\/p>\n

No question about it, those were playful, devil-may- care days for my mother. A time of strong emotion and fairy-tale dreams. It ended with the inevitable let-down.<\/p>\n

Somehow, Mrs. Henry Sperling learned about the Hudson-Terraplane<\/strong><\/em>. That blew it. Almost overnight, the entire affair unraveled. My grandmother told me later that Sperling\u2019s wife issued her philandering husband a bitter ultimatum, \u201cGive up your mistress\u2014-now. Or, I\u2019m\u00a0filing for\u00a0divorce. And believe me, I\u2019ll take you for everything you\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Henry Sperling calculated his inescapable decision. The end came in December, shortly before Christmas.<\/p>\n

That final night, when he walked away from my mother, he left her with a collection of bittersweet memories\u2014and one shiny, yellow and chrome, two-door Hudson-Terraplane<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

As a kid, I loved to run. For no special reason. There were times when I would run pell-mell up or down a hill and shout at the top of my voice … yelling in pure physical exuberance, just for the hell of it.<\/p>\n

When I first entered high school, I turned out for freshman track. Long distance running. \u201cCross country\u201d they called it then. Mr. Vere Windnagle, the jug-eared track coach, also served as the school\u2019s vice principal and official disciplinarian. Out on the track, he did his damnedest to take the joy out of running, with an unending spew of sarcasm. But that didn\u2019t matter. I had to drop any ideas about making the track team anyway, when I landed another afternoon newspaper job.<\/p>\n

This time, I went to work as a paper boy, delivering the Oregon Journal<\/strong><\/em> after school. My route included the old tenement area around the Hawthorne Bridge, where I had lived with my grandparents during those earliest days of the Depression.<\/p>\n

I handled this job on my bike during the week. On Sunday mornings, however, the load was extra heavy. That\u2019s when my remarkable mother would often help me out. Before daybreak on Sundays, we\u2019d both crawl out of bed and quickly slip into old clothes. Usually she\u2019d shake herself awake, light-up a Chesterfield<\/strong><\/em> and heat up a cup of coffee. Then, off\u00a0we\u2019d go. She\u2019d drive me to the pick-up point and even help me roll papers. We\u2019d load up the right front seat with fat Sunday editions. And she would then slowly drive me around the route in her Hudson- Terraplane<\/strong><\/em>. With the window open, I\u2019d stand on the running board, holding tight with one hand and tossing papers with the other. When it was too far to toss, I\u2019d grab a paper, hop off the running board, run up to the door, dump the paper, run back and hop on board\u2014while she continued to ease the Hudson<\/strong><\/em> slowly down the street in second gear.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

One afternoon while sitting at the truck drop, leafing through the pages of the Journal<\/em>, I spotted a photograph of \u201cMrs. Charlotte Sperling and her husband, Henry\u201d in formal attire, attending a benefit party for the new Portland Art Museum.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Entering high school, I soon discovered that most of the girls were prettier than I expected\u2014-algebra was more rigorous than I expected\u2014the study of Latin was easier\u2014 and the Glee Club music class was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cProfessor\u201d John Muir even recruited me from the Glee Club music class for his new Catholic boys\u2019 choir. Can you believe that? Me? In a Catholic boys\u2019 choir?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

No relation to the famed American naturalist, John Muir of Washington High School was a Scotsman with a\u00a0thunderous voice\u2014a benevolent dictator with piercing gray eyes and kinky, gray hair, stiff as iron mesh.<\/p>\n

He was respected throughout the Portland school system as a choral director, voice coach and accomplished organist, devoted to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.<\/p>\n

We called him \u201cthe professor.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a lucrative sideline, this canny Presbyterian also served as organist and choir master for the Church of the Madeleine, one of Portland’s wealthiest and most beautiful Catholic churches, located near Grant Park. The pious Catholic fathers at the Madeleine were on a mission-\u2014to build the best boys choir in the Portland diocese, bar none. They hired John Muir to do the job.<\/p>\n

By the time I showed up, he was well on his way.<\/p>\n

He had called me into his office for a conference one day after school. I remember sitting stiff and upright in my chair, not knowing what to expect. To my surprise, he stood over me, shook his finger sternly in my face, and told me that I had a good voice, worth developing. Then he made me an offer. He said he would give me free vocal lessons, if I would sing in the boys choir at the Church of the Madeleine. The following day, with a strong push from my mother, I tenuously accepted his offer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Throughout that autumn, I practiced John Muir\u2019s crazy breathing exercises daily, projecting my voice up and down the scale. Wednesday nights at the Madeleine, I had a vocal lesson followed by choir rehearsal. Then, Sunday mornings, I sang in\u00a0the Madeleine boys choir at the\u00a0eleven o\u2019clock mass.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Eighteen of us sang in that choir. Twelve were Catholic boys from the Madeleine parish. Six were non- Catholic John Muir recruits.<\/p>\n

The high point for me came when \u201cthe professor\u201d picked me to sing the Kyrie eleison<\/strong><\/em> solo during the elaborate high mass on Christmas Day. It was a deeply moving occasion.<\/p>\n

A short time later, he offered me a lead in the school\u2019s upcoming production of Gilbert and Sullivan\u2019s Pirates of Penzance<\/strong><\/em>. Trouble was, I didn\u2019t want it. In the interim, I had discovered the intriguing world of high school journalism and I had decided to drop Glee Club and go to work on the staff of the school newspaper.<\/p>\n

When I faced up to John Muir with my decision, he appeared bewildered, unbelieving … then furious. We\u00a0talked about it for days, it seems to me now. But I held to my decision.<\/p>\n

After one final meeting that turned into a tirade, it was over. He tossed me out of the Madeleine boys choir. My adolescent \u201csinging career\u201d was aborted.<\/p>\n

Was that a slight twinge of guilt I felt? Yeah, but I suppressed it rather quickly.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

My sexual experiences during my first year in high school were pretty much vicarious, such as they were: Like holding hands with Juanita Romme at the movies as we huddled in our seats watching Frankenstein<\/strong><\/em>. Or stealing sidelong glances at Bernice Reuff’s jutting breasts during history class. Or goofily mussing the tousled hair of sexy Lurine Rosenburg as we walked home from the library. Or patting Jeanne Browning on the ass as we playfully wrestled for a Coke up on her back porch.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Everybody said the hard-eyed Volk brothers were the two toughest kids in our neighborhood. If an argument turned into a little brawl\u2014it happened now and then\u2014 George and Joe Volk could punch quick and hard…smack…pow<\/strong><\/em>…like nobody else around. Several kids learned that lesson the hard way. Yet, surprisingly, the Volks were no swaggering bullies. They didn\u2019t go out of their way to stir up trouble. They knew they\u2019d catch unholy hell from their older brother, Eddie, if they did.<\/p>\n


\nI was never a close friend of the Volk brothers. But we got along okay. After they entered Benson High trade school and I\u00a0entered nearby Washington High, they\u00a0still invited me over to their place occasionally for a little roughhousing, a workout on the bags, and a \u201cfree\u201d boxing lesson. They issued the same invitation to Dan Borich, another neighborhoodbuddy. Maybe they were just looking for naive sparring partners they could knock around. Nevertheless, we accepted the invite now and then. It gave us a chance to hang around and listen to the famous Eddie Volk, himself.Eddie had been a rock-solid middleweight with a dangerous left hook who made a name for himself, scuffling for a buck around Portland and Seattle during the early (<\/sup>30s.Piling up something like a 24 or 25-2 record, including several knockouts, he started grabbing the attention of the big-time promoters. They signed him up for his first big moneymaker. He took on the pride of LA\u2019s rabid boxing crowd\u2014an explosive young Mexican with lightening speed whose name I no longer remember. I do remember what happened, though. Eddie Volk was cut to pieces. The fight ended in a bloody TKO, seventh or eighth round. Startling flash photos were splashed across the Oregonian<\/strong><\/em>sports pages the morning after. Eddie\u2019s legion of Portland fight fans went into shock.Eddie was never quite the same again. A few bouts later, he wisely gave up professional boxing. But he didn\u2019t give up the ring. In the old barn out back of the Volk\u2019s house on 24th Street, Eddie built a boxing ring and makeshift gym. He devoted his spare time to teaching his younger brothers and other neighborhood kids something about \u201cthe sweet science.\u201d<\/p>\n

He emphasized what he called solid mechanics\u2014things like a proper tight fist, keeping your body compact, the confident step forward, keeping your hands up, the virtue of the three-punch combination and other stuff I\u2019ve long forgotten.<\/p>\n

Several times, I put on the gloves and danced and shuffled around the ring with young Joe Volk, as if I knew what I was doing. Joe was my age. Maybe I learned a little footwork, a quick jab. Maybe how to slip a punch. Then again, maybe I didn\u2019t. One sweaty, sweltering afternoon, sparring with Joe Volk,-1 got my ears pinned back. The second time he hit me flush in the cheek … bam<\/strong><\/em> … I felt groggy all the way down into my toes. I tell you, I didn\u2019t like it one bit.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I did learn to keepmy hands up and to keep moving. Eventually,\u00a0however, I tired of getting smacked around and I moved on to other interesting sports, like swimming, running\u2014-and chasing after girls.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

On the rebound from Henry Sperling, my mother walked straight into trouble. She fell in love.<\/p>\n

She fell for a big, beefy, good-looking boilermaker with a devilish smile, unending passion and the unlikely name of Stanley Wentworth<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

He worked the day shift at the Soule Steel Company and he worked his own -night shift, playing around town with my mother. She was totally infatuated
\nwith this smoldering stud.<\/p>\n

She told my grandparents, frankly, \u201cI\u2019ve never felt loved like this by anyone,\u201d or something to that effect. I wasn\u2019t listening closely at the time. I was probably heading for my room, head up in the clouds.<\/p>\n

Wentworth called my mother constantly\u2014sometimes long after midnight. He told her she was the perfect woman for him. That she met his needs. She also told us afterwards that he pushed her for an exclusive commitment almost immediately.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Wentworth and I were wary of each other from the start. He never had much to say to me. I never had much to say to him. I was growing into that exasperating, adolescent age where I craved my privacy. Whenever I came home, I would raid the ice box and go hole up in my room.<\/p>\n

Only weeks after they started running around together, my mother married Stanley Wentworth! Agnes (Peterson) and Eddie Daniels accompanied them to the simple ceremony in Portland\u2019s ornate City Hall. I think it was early 1936. I can\u2019t remember why, but for some reason, I couldn\u2019t attend.<\/p>\n

So my mother became Della Wentworth\u2014the new Mrs. Stanley Wentworth<\/strong><\/em>. And the three of us moved into a rambling, two-bedroom flat on the second floor of an old, wooden building at the corner of Southeast 10th and Clay. We had the upper flat on the left.<\/p>\n

The location was only three blocks from the noisy Gilmore Gasoline truck stop where the Oregon Journal<\/strong><\/em> van dumped my afternoon newspapers. That I liked.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The marriage was doomed to failure from the very beginning. A matrimonial disaster. My mother soon discovered that she had rushed into marriage with a heavy-drinking,\u00a0ego-driven, muscle man whose passion could turn in a matter of minutes into biting sarcasm and explosive violence.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There was a lumbering viciousness about the man. Even during the frisky, early days of the marriage, there were times when their playful antics dissolved into hot arguments and face-to-face shouting matches. He was extremely jealous. As the months went by, he tried to assert complete control over her life. He even accused Agnes of \u201ccausing trouble\u201d and ordered my mother to cut off ties with her old friend.
\nMy mother started fighting back.The white-knuckle mood around our flat became one of growing turmoil. The constant bickering became mean and ugly. Several times, I noticed my mother hiding bruise marks on her face and neck with pancake makeup. At the time, she didn’t want to talk with me about it. When I came home each night from my paper route, however, as soon as I walked into our flat, I could feel the visceral tension in my gut.<\/p>\n

One night, I came home late from the route. As I climbed up the backsteps, I could hear loud arguing even before I opened the door into the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Once inside, I could hear them in their bedroom. Something banged against the wall. A chair. A scuffle. What sounded like a body hitting the floor. Loud curses from Wentworth. And my mother screamed, \u201cGet out of here, you sonofabitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGet out… get out,\u201d she sobbed.<\/p>\n

I ran down the hall towards their room, shouting, \u201cHey, leave her alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The door flung open. Wentworth came bursting through. He saw me … grabbed me by the arm … whirled me around … slammed me up against the wall, holding me by the throat as he spit out his words, \u201cAnd don\u2019t you<\/strong><\/em> try and give me any crap, either, ya little shitheel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shoving me aside, he lurched on down the hall to the back door. Opening the door wide, he paused, turned back towards me and snarled, \u201cYa little bastard, yer not even Della\u2019s kid. Ya got that? Yer nuthin\u2019 but a fuckin\u2019 orphan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he turned and headed out into the night.<\/p>\n

Stunned silence.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

His words still echo in my mind. It took a few moments, but the words sunk in … deep. I stood there bewildered. My mind spinning.<\/p>\n

With questioning eyes, I turned to my mother, who by now was sitting on the couch with her head in her hands, crying\u00a0softly.<\/p>\n

She lifted her head slowly and looked up\u00a0at me. Her cheek was bruised, her lips were puffy. Tears ran down her face. Her left eye was swollen almost shut.<\/p>\n

There was a kind of crying down in her throat as she sat there and slowly revealed to me the hidden past.<\/p>\n

Through seven years of marriage, my mother and my dad tried unsuccessfully to have a child. They wanted a baby so much. When my dad returned from World War I, they decided finally to adopt. It took almost another two years before they were able to do so.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In 1922, working through Portland\u2019s Waverly Home for abandoned babies and orphans, they were successful. They brought me home at the age of two months. I became Willard Byron Mayo.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Birth mother and birth father\u2014unknown.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

As she talked, softly and haltingly, I listened intently to this loving woman … a battered woman … who was the single most important influence on my life. Racing through my mind were the childhood memories of our jumbled life together. And I thought of my dad and Eleanor, my grandfather Jim Dewey and grandmother Josephine, Phoebe and George Littreal, Noah Martell, Adam and Mary Mayo, Louis Martell and the others. They were all a part of the fabric of my life. And in my mind I knew they would always<\/strong><\/em> be my family\u2014-my given\u00a0heritage. Nobody-\u2014Wentworth or anybody else\u2014could ever take that away from me.<\/p>\n

I put my arms around my mother, trying to comfort her. I told her that I loved her very much. And I swore that Wentworth’s vindictive disclosure meant nothing\u2014 nothing at all.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the way it has remained, throughout my life.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

From that night on, my mother manifested to Wentworth\u2014how can I say it\u2014pure contempt<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

He moved out of the flat, but his drunken harassment didn\u2019t end there. He called my mother late one night, asking her to forgive him. He told her that he didn\u2019t mean to hurt her\u2014then he ranted on about why it wasn\u2019t his fault. And he ended the conversation by calling her a string of ugly names.<\/p>\n

On two successive nights, he even stood in the middle of the street out front, yelling up at our windows, alternately pleading and cursing from below.<\/p>\n

He carried this further\u00a0when he stomped up our back steps, pounded on the door window and threatened to beat the hell out of her if my mother didn\u2019t let him in. Quickly, I grabbed a hammer for protection. A minute or two later, he broke out a pane of glass. But as he reached through to unlock the door, I moved in close and slammed the hammer down hard on his arm. He bellowed and cursed and stumbled back down the steps.Two or three nights later, it all came to an end.<\/p>\n

He talked with my mother on the phone\u2014cold sober. Polite. Convincing. Again he asked her forgiveness. He said he wanted to stop by a moment to say good-bye. He told her that he knew their romance was over now. And he knew she was filing for divorce.<\/p>\n

With some uneasiness, she agreed to meet briefly with him, one last time.<\/p>\n

As a fourteen-year-old, I was skeptical of her even being in the same room with the goon who had severely mauled her. Without telling her, I took a boning knife with a keen, five-inch-blade from out of the kitchen drawer and I hid it under the front edge of an overstuffed chair in our front room. I had no idea what I would ever do with that knife\u2014if anything. But I was determined, absolutely determined, to prevent Wentworth from again beating my mother.<\/p>\n

I was sitting in the overstuffed chair when my mother let him in the front door. He wasted no time. Ignoring me, he took off his coat, tossed it on a chair, wheeled around towards my mother and growled, “There\u2019s something yer gonna have to learn, you bitch.\u201d And he hauled off and slapped her across the side of the face.<\/p>\n

Instinctively, I reached for the knife and let out a howl as I sprang up from the chair and lunged. He saw me coming. He turned and caught my right wrist in the air, twisting it sharply back so the blade of the knife was aimed at my own chest. I jerked frantically to the right as the knife came stabbing downward. The blade cut into my arm, at the left elbow. I held on. Twisted loose. Then, like a bar-room brawler, he cocked his beefy fist and swung a roundhouse punch that would have taken my head off. I slipped under his killer blow. And with the bloody knife still clutched firmly in my right hand, I drove the blade deep into his side\u2014deep into his ribs.<\/p>\n

He grunted. He gasped. He staggered … and slowly stumbled to his knees. Then he collapsed.<\/p>\n

I stood there paralyzed, trembling and panting. In shock.\u00a0With blood streaming down my left arm, dripping off my fingertips, I stared vacantly down at Wentworth\u2019s body sprawled on the floor. The knife was still sticking out of his ribs. His shirt was wet with blood. From under his body, a small, dark pool began to spread on the floor.For the next few agonizing minutes, my mind went blank. Sometime later, I remembered only the sound of a distant siren, growing closer and closer.<\/p>\n

Chapter Nine :\u00a0The Baggage of Youth<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s the matter with us? No country ever had more and no country ever had less. Ten men in our country could buy the whole world, and ten million can’t buy enough to eat. WILL ROGERS, 1935 There were those who said America\u2019s luck ran out the night of August 15, 1935, when Will Rogers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_disable_autopaging":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eight-reality-check"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/byronwmayo.com\/memoires\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/byronwmayo.com\/memoires\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/byronwmayo.com\/memoires\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/byronwmayo.com\/memoires\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/byronwmayo.com\/memoires\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":63,"href":"https:\/\/byronwmayo.com\/memoires\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1200,"href":"https:\/\/byronwmayo.com\/memoires\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/1200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/byronwmayo.com\/memoires\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/byronwmayo.com\/memoires\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/byronwmayo.com\/memoires\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}