The Never Ending Published Authors Thread (NEPAT)

When my brother left home, he was four years old. He hid behind a large rockery stone in the garden. My mother went outside to look for him. She stood in the middle of the lawn at the side of the house and said, "If I had a little boy, I would hold my arms out wide and give him a great big hug."

A little voice from behind the rockery stone said, "I'm over here."

Shelagh,

How cute!

Alice, Becky should have taken some thumbtacks, just in case.

That's funny, Marie. I didn't run very far as a youngster, but left home three times as teenager before I was successful(too old for the cops to send me home).

I really thought of running away from home when I was a mother of six kids. Then I found out I really could without disrupting a whole bunch of lives and became much happier.

Carol

I ran away from home in 1965. If I remember it right, it was the night that Helen and I got married. The next day, we came back. We moved out two days later, into the other side of the duplex where my folks lived.

We later got our own place, but when my parents got older, we bought a large house and moved them in with us. They lived with us until their deaths, my dad in 1978, my mom in 1985.

Our family has always been very clannish. I think most of us would like nothing more than to have a few acres with ehough houses so that we could all live next door to each other.

I have a saying I'm always been fond of that kind of describes it.

My dad used to tell me this. He'd say, Me and my brother against our cousin, me and our cousin against the world. I figured out what he meant early on, and still believe it.

We've always thought that when the entire world turned its back on you, all that was left was family. And for the most part, right or wrong, the family has always been there.

Marie Pacha wrote:

I couldn't run away when I was little. I wasn't allowed to leave the block.

Fortunately, the library was on my block.

I couldn't run away either I was not allowed to be out of "calling distance."

When I lived in Phoenix I knew a woman who had 13 kids and her husband was abusive towatds her. She ran away from home and the last I heard, she was following the cowboys around the rodeo circuit!

Marie and Zada have provided great ideas for stories. If no one else does, I may write them. I will not share the checks, however, so don't ask. Well, maybe if you're nice about it.

Ahh, reminds me of an old Bon Jovi song; Runaway.

Dick Stodghill wrote:

Marie and Zada have provided great ideas for stories. If no one else does, I may write them. I will not share the checks, however, so don't ask. Well, maybe if you're nice about it.

If you write them, Dick, they are sure to be big. Just be sure you share with Jackie and Sophie. Especially Sophie!

I didn't even know there was a WIP section. Things you learn.

cturkel,

What ridculous exchanges are you speaking of?

Alice wrote:

cturkel,

What ridculous exchanges are you speaking of?

Oh that's a quote from Dick. I liked how it summarized a lot of my thoughts lately so I used it as my sig.

mjgoodnow wrote:

Ahh, reminds me of an old Bon Jovi song; Runaway.

Love them! And, that song!

I think he was talking about women who run away from home, and returning adult children. The latter is becoming more and more common. Many Grandparents are raising their children's children for one reason or another.

Right, Zada. Women running away for various reasons. Lots of material there.

I would runaway in my mind to keep myself sane in tough times and even when they weren't so tough. I had a whole scenario going on, some of which I still remember. Sometimes these scenarios took place in other times and places, and sometimes in the present like imaginary friends who came and gave me ideas and coping strategies. Maybe they were angels. Who really knows?

Okay, now you will think they didn't keep me sane at all!!!

Carol

I like it, Carol, You really ought to write it all down. Every mother on earth would read it and laugh.

One day I was waiting to catch a bus to work. A young mother was in shock over Andrea Yates, who had just drowned her five children.

"I can't believe it." She said, "I know I have thought of it, but to actually do it, I find most disturbing."

I found her candor refreshing.

I am suspicious of people who will never admit to thinking. a wrong
thought.

I consider them to be lying or unimagnitive.

After all, what good is their virtue if they were unable to think of anything?

An elderly lady was complaining to me about her visting nurse.

"She asked me if I had ever thought of suicide?" She whined. What does she think I am?"

"Tell her," I said, "Yes, I think of a lot of things I do not do. I have great impulse control--why just now I am thinking of strangling you., if you don't stop asking me questions I don't like. "

"Oh, " she said, "I could never say such a thing."

Funny thing is she has been able to divorce two men, but her scruples do not allow her to state facts.

When I witnessed how my brother was beaten when he ran away from school, I didn't even give the idea a second thought.

In some things, I learned fast.

Abe,

I sense a story here. Your brother, is he older or younger than yourself?

Why did he run away from school?

Why did he come back to the school?

Who beat him?

THe teacher or your parents?

Expand please.

I need a fuller understanding of this situation

"Spare the rod and spoil the child" was the motto that most parents lived by. My brother, the oldest, ran away with another guy during recess. It was a one room school house and it happened to be wintertime. When I got home from school and my brother didn't show up my parents were frantic. Eventually he showed up because of the cold. The laces on his "hightop" boots were frozen. Once they thawed and were removed, he first got some preaching about the punishment he was about to get mixed in with how it was going to hurt them more than him. He was stripped naked and then beaten with a strap. I didn't see it happen but heard the screams and the crack of the leather strap. I also saw the black and blue welts on his skin afterward.
My parents are both dead. They were "god-fearing" people who did what they thought was right. Today they would have been locked up, but in those days, parents provided discipline themselves and supported the teachers in any physical discipline they dished-out.
I remember my parents telling others about what happened and what punishment they dished out, and the others nodded in approval.
It's difficult to evaluate the standards of yesterday with today. Discipline has changed, however the actions of kids are still similar.

Thank heavens we have come a long ways.

I wonder why they thought it right to lie.

Saying it hurt them more than it did him--what a stretch.

Maybe that is how they salved their consciences.


Good grief! I am mad at them.

All that would have taught me was that next time I ran away I wasn't going to go home! I would have figured these people were sorry I came home, and didn't care that I probably been out in the cold crying already feeling great remorse for having run away. Natural consequences are much better than invented ones.

Carol

Carol Troestler wrote:

All that would have taught me was that next time I ran away I wasn't going to go home! I would have figured these people were sorry I came home, and didn't care that I probably been out in the cold crying already feeling great remorse for having run away. Natural consequences are much better than invented ones.

Carol

I do think that is why a lot of kids ran away. My uncle was mistreated-beaten, by his grandfather. He ran away and stayed away.

I have never figured out why Grandma allowed this mean old man to wreak such havoc on her children.