Mom did not go to Church---every Sunday;
Seldom the same Church, twice!
I remember mostly Easter;
We were irregular regulars Easter Sunday.
Denomination: As long as Jesus was in the house!
Easter we got our school clothes.
Mom got her bonus, Dad did not know about.
A decade or more she worked at Sears Roebuck.
She was allowed rent and a small dowry for food
The rest went to the tavern to drink
This was the family income;
Dad attended Mike's Tavern.
Actually a Tavern the owner named Mikes Tavern.
Our clothes came from Sears second hand outlet
Returns other kids did not want!
They would last for the year,
Jeans with holes in the knees,
Tennis shoes the toes covered with masking tape.
Spring would come I still wore a Winter jacket.
Ugly styles no other kid would want!
The hills were alive with suspenders,
The kids at school would taunt.
Sometimes neighbors would give me hand me downs;
tallest kid in the neighborhood they did not fit.
At church I refer to it as last in first out,
We sat in the last row and they stared at us,
Mom was embarrassed a black eye bruises,
She said we came to see Jesus not those who judged us!
She preached the Ten Commandments.
As an orphan she lived with a Baptist Family,
So I would say I was Baptist, or Catholic Irish,
My Dad's family donated the land and built the Catholic Church!
Owned lumber mills and pieces of land.
The first Catholic Mass was held in my Grandfather's house,
But they turned on Mom when she divorced Dad!
Catholics did not divorce. not a crime to beat your wife.
Kids were cruel, "Why are you in our Church?
Your dad's a drunk and your Mom--!" And the fight would begin,
Mom would come home from work and have to launder my clothes.
The were tattered but clean not me necessarily,
I was in trouble at school. "Just like his Father. He beat up on Bobbie!"
I read books, wrote poems, kept mostly to myself, turned to sports,
And prayed to Jesus in the bad boys closet!
We were Methodist, for a while whatever that was, and then Lutheran.
Years I did not go to Church but as Mom believed in Jesus.
As an adult I attended Trinity Reformed Church I even taught
Fourth grade Bible class, was that an eye opener, I studied with the kids.
Mom was dying, Doc said she had less than two weeks to live,
I stayed in her room except to go to work for my family.
Jesus came for her one night and I knew that you didn't' have
have a denomination if you believed in Jesus, if you loved him
as my Mother loved Jesus, for he was in your heart.
Mom died at the young age of fifty four;
It wasn't the Cancer that took her but the beatings.
They had to discontinue medicines because her nose
broken so many times would not cauterize!
It was bleed to death or stop the medications that thinned her blood.
I had not slept for days so blame it on visions,
Mom said, "Dandy Jesus is here to take me home!"
At first I thought she was talking to herself but realized
the presence and that she was loved and taken home.
I did not cry at the funeral only each January 17Th;
I remember in sickness she fought every day to reach
the day of her birth, and Sis dying the same day,
I hated my Father but he had long since disappeared.
One day the phone rang my son answered,
"It's for you dad something about someone called Mike?"
At sixtynine my Father died in a house fire.
The Devil came to get him didn't want him dead or alive!
But the State he died in the eldest son was executor;
I signed away the release in front of a Lawyer.
When the Estate settled I would get my share,
I never heard from them again!
As is the usual case the Lawyer got my share.