Transcript:

Hello and welcome to episode 7 of this podcast about my crazy life. While I’m not really bothering too much with content warnings with this podcast, I will say upfront that this particular episode does contain some possibly upsetting topics like child abuse, neglect, and loss.

That said, I didn’t exactly plan this, but when it all came together, it suddenly occurred to me that I’m very much embodying my Mom’s vibe in the seventies, with the top, and even how I’m pinning my hair back because I’m growing out my bangs and they’re at a very awkward stage, right now, and I think my Mom was doing something similar at the time, but eventually she just went bangs for the rest of her life. I think right now I’m gonna go and try to give no bangs another try, but I haven’t made any final decisions…

OK enough about my bangs. I’ve been warning for at least a couple of episodes that more serious topics were upcoming. I think I felt the need to issue those warnings because I chose to center this podcast around a particular time in my life: One where I lived this crazy, kind of fantasy life. And there’s no doubt that there were some really positive moments that I hold dear. I wouldn’t trade some of these experiences for the world.

However, it was just one era in a much longer life, and even when these events were occurring, there was more going on than what we shared online at the time. I could just keep telling fun stories… and I will (because there are definitely more)… but, I think I’ve always intended to make this podcast a larger story about my life and what I’ve learned through my experiences. The “internet pioneer” part was just the most… unique, intriguing, salacious… and yeah, hence, maybe more marketable. So, it just felt like the best place to start, at least.

I think with this episode, though, maybe I should just go back to the beginning. In fact maybe even a little further back than that. Because I think it might be important to know where I’m coming from… because to be perfectly honest, it is a little crazy, too.

When I was born, a little over 50 years ago now, my Dad was 27 and my Mom was 19. They had gotten married in February of ‘74. They didn’t go on a honeymoon. They didn’t have the money for that, especially after paying for the wedding themselves. Both of my parent’s families have been poor for generations as far as I can tell. My ancestors started making their way over to the good ‘ol USA in the late 19th century, primarily from Germany, but also a few from England and Ireland. (Yeah, I’ve done a bit of ancestry research.)

My parent’s families also already knew each other. I know how that sounds but I promise there is no incest in this story. My Dad’s older brother and my Mom’s older sister were already married. But, yeah, that’s how my father met my mother.

Their families weren’t happy about them getting together at first, primarily because when they started “dating,” my Mom was only 15.

I know, and I’m not trying to defend that action, but I do feel the need to now paint a more complete picture of my parents, starting with my Dad.

My Dad was born in 1947, and I like to joke that, “oh, you just happened to be born the same year that the aliens landed.” They’ve never laughed at it. There was an even bigger age gap between my Dad’s parents. When they got married, my Grandmother was 16 and my Grandad was in his mid-40s. My grandfather, not great-great grandfather, just grandfather, was born in 1895.

I’m not sure exactly where my grandparents met, but I did hear that my Grandmother was into the burlesque scene for a little bit. Possibly that’s where they met, but that is unconfirmed. Purely just a theory.

He was always very healthy and he lived to his early 90s and the doctors said he had the heart of a 30-year old when he died. We’re still not sure where he got it. Ba-da-bum. However, he did develop emphysema from the cigars he smoked.

He also liked to bet on the ponies and my Grandmother took over the finances early on, put him on an allowance, and along with making sure the kids had plenty of gifts for Christmas and nice clothes (most of which she made), she eventually managed to wrangle a good deal on a small house in the Green Haven neighborhood of Pasadena, Maryland.

When they got old enough, she put all three of her “sons” in tap dancing lessons. (I’ll explain why I put sons in air-quotation-marks in a little bit.) My Dad took tap dancing lessons for about 20 years, and along with first their older brother and then with their younger brother, performed in “Ms. Wilson’s Show Troupe” for many years.

As good as they were at tap dancing, during those years my Dad found their true love: Drumming. They were completely self-taught but soon started performing with a variety of different local bands. They did some jazz but rock n roll was always their favorite. They may have taken it further but there was a little thing called the Vietnam War going on at the time, which interrupted things. My Dad was drafted and narrowly avoided death on more than one occasion.

They shared a lot of their war stories with me, possibly when I was a little too young, but my favorite of their war stories is the one where they were trapped at the bottom of this valley with a bunch of other troops and a helicopter was sent in to rescue them. There wasn’t enough room in the helicopter for everyone, so they were waiting for a second one that would be arriving at some point. The troops, I think they drew straws, and my Dad was going to be in the group to get on the first helicopter… or chopper or I don’t know, whatever they were called. However, at the last minute, a guy in the other group pleaded with my Dad to let him on instead. My Dad let them, because that’s just the kind of person they are.

Shortly after liftoff, the helicopter was shot down, and everyone on board died. As sad as I am for those who lost their lives that day, selfishly, I’m so glad my Dad wasn’t on board like they were supposed to be… if just because; this was before my Dad had even met my Mom.

After the war, my Dad came back and started working for the post office. They told me that, in the two weeks or so between coming back from the war and actually being sent home, they gave you two choices for how to spend your time: Play war games… and especially after just coming back from a real war, that did not appeal to my Dad. Or, train for the post office. Now, I do have a theory about the whole going postal thing in the 80s but that’s probably for a completely different kind of podcast.

My Dad did not “go postal” and has even said that when it was just the work… which was very physical, because they were a mail handler… it wasn’t bad. It was just the people they never got along with.

My Dad has earned every penny of the pension they are currently living on, though. They worked so hard when I was growing up. They barely slept. I’m not going to say that my Mom did nothing because that would be very far from the truth, but my Dad would go to work during the night, then come home, clean, run errands, including the grocery store, the laundromat…. and still had the time and energy to play with us kids and take us fun places. Occasionally, they would pass out to the point that it was very much like that one scene in Kentucky Fried Movie.

I love my Dad. I may not be quite the “Daddy’s Little Girl” I was as a kid but, I still love my Dad so much. They set such a great example for me of love, generosity, creativity.

They were also deeply troubled and could be… unpredictable.

And my Mom… she had a different life experience. She was quite neglected as a child. The youngest of 4 girls, my maternal grandparents… I didn’t know them very well and the few memories I do have, have kind of a hazy feel to them, probably due to all the chain smoking.

I mean, my parents didn’t drink, they didn’t smoke, they didn’t do any drugs… they were just completely… straight. And so, it was always kind of a shock going over to my grandparent’s house, because there were three of them in there chain-smoking.

One of my aunts lived with them because she had been labeled “mentally retarded” but in retrospect, I actually think she may have been autistic. I’m not qualified to make a diagnosis like that, but there are certain stories and I’m like, no, I, I don’t think that… that sounds more autistic. And, I’ve come to realize, and nobody’s been really officially diagnosed, but I think there may be some autism that runs through my family tree.

I could also never understand a word any of them were saying. It was literally like Charlie Brown. Wa-wa-wa. I mean, it didn’t sound exactly like that but I don’t know if it was a speech impediment but, I just couldn’t understand them. My parents seemed to be able to understand what they were saying… I just couldn’t.

My Mom grew up having to go days without food until ultimately they brought home subs, and french fries, and soda (and beer) on payday… and then the cycle would repeat after the food ran out halfway through the week. My Mom had stories like her Dad coming home on Christmas Eve and knocking over the Christmas tree because they were so drunk. Not ideal, to put it lightly.

One thing my maternal grandparents did do at one point because reportedly the city schools were not great, was put her in Catholic school. It only lasted about a year because my Mom hated it so much that she threw a fit until they took her out… which would have been so unlike her, but she had a lifetime hatred of nuns afterward.

A rejection of religion is something that my parents shared. My Dad because the preacher ranted against rock n roll. My Mom because nuns.

I was technically Christened as a baby, probably at the direction of my Grandmother, but I did not grow up going to church or anything like that. We still celebrated Christmas and Easter but as purely secular holidays.

Funny side story, my Godfather was my Uncle Lee (my Dad’s younger brother by like 10 years) and his girlfriend at the time Janice.

Despite them being together for awhile, I remember my Uncle Lee as kind of a swinging bachelor type in the seventies. He had this green van that had these little windows in the shape of the Playboy Bunny ears. Inside, the van was also green, being completely covered in green shag carpeting. I mean, this thing was epic. It was like being inside Oscar the Grouch.

Eventually, Lee and Janice did break up and when I was still pretty young, so my memories of her are faint… and, I mean no disrespect to her, wherever she is, but my Godmother Janice does bear a striking resemblance to Muppet Janice. It might be partly because I grew up on the Muppet Show but I remember she had this long, kinda thin, straight blonde hair and I just remember that she was this cool hippie chick who liked to do things to my hair like put it in curlers, giving me baby’s first afro.

Back to my actual Mom, though, eventually, she got so sick of the city schools that she went to live with her older sister, and her husband and their two baby girls, where they were living in the county. This is when she met my Dad.

From the stories, her sister and brother-in-law were taking advantage of the fact that they now had a live-in babysitter and the stress was getting to my Mom. Then my Dad comes around, shows interest, helps with the kids… like a knight in shining armor.

And then I came along. :)

Reportedly, I was a perfect baby. However, I was fashionably late. Due on December 8th, my Mom’s doctor started saying, as the days and then weeks went on, “That baby better not come on Christmas and interrupt my dinner!”

Maybe just to piss him off, my Mom woke up on Christmas morning to find that her water had broken overnight. I was finally born at about 2:30 in the afternoon, so plenty of time to get your dinner, doc! My Dad even enjoyed a special Christmas turkey lunch, I guess it was, in the hospital cafeteria. It was the seventies, after all.

According to my Mother, the nurses were pushing her to name me “Noel.” However, my parents had already picked out a uniquely common name for baby girls born in the United States between 1970 and 1984: Jennifer. They said it was because of a song by Bobby Sherman but that song only made it to #60 on the charts (although it did make it to #9 in Adult Contemporary!) and “Jennifer” was a bonafide baby name phenomenon not seen before or since. Really, look it up!

Also like so many, my age, it’s a miracle I’m here and as healthy as I am. My Mom liked to joke (at least I hope it was a joke) that she subsisted on nothing but crabs and Pepsi when she was pregnant with me. She was also dressed as a nun for Halloween 1974, when she was pregnant with me. I’m telling you. She had it out for nuns.

Oh and she and my Dad almost got caught in the middle of two riots when she was pregnant with me. First was at some concert and they got out just in time, and then at this bar my Dad was playing drums at and this huge bar brawl broke out. Again, they got her out just in time, but there were so many times that I almost didn’t make it into the world except for my parent’s dumb luck.

They could be fun together. There was the time that they kicked all us kids out of the house for the day…(it was the 80s, we were probably gonna be out roaming the neighborhood anyway) and they spent the entire day decorating our apartment together. Then, one by one, they took us on a ride through the “haunted house” by pulling us along in a little red wagon. It was elaborate. It’s one of my favorite memories. I don’t even remember crying like my Mom said I did when I saw that she had hung my Holly Hobby doll from a noose. I definitely get my dark sense of humor from her. I swear at her memorial service, the skeleton I had set up to greet everyone was hers…. In that she bought it. :-p

I promise… she would have LOVED it.

The first year of my life was reportedly quite peaceful; idyllic, even. I was told that I started sleeping through the night almost immediately and barely cried at all. The consummate baby that lulls you into a false sense of security so you go on to have more. My Mom liked to say that I was the best Christmas present she ever received.

Even my first words were Christmas-themed. Valley View Farms in Hunt Valley, MD, has a very long tradition of decorating with millions of lights every year. According to my parents, we were walking around and they were repeating over and over, “Look at all the pretty lights, Jennifer. Look at all the pretty lights!” And I finally parrotted back, “piddy ights.” Close enough.

And through all this, my Mom was pregnant because my sister Sharon was born on January 3, 1976.

Then, on March 14, 1976, Sharon died.

It was an ordinary Sunday afternoon. My Dad was out of the apartment, helping a brother-in-law set up a stereo. My Mom was home with the two of us, doing Mom things.

Sharon started crying. No matter what my Mom did, Sharon just would not stop crying. Finally, my Mom decided to put Sharon in her crib and let her cry it out.

My Mom started vacuuming, which always seemed to calm Sharon down. Sure enough, Sharon quieted down pretty quickly when the vacuum started from the other room.

A little later, my Mom went in to check in on her and found that Sharon had turned blue.

My Mom grabbed Sharon out of the crib, laid her down on the couch, and started trying to perform mouth-to-mouth. She said I giggled and babbled, “Mommy kissing baby” and that she then shouted, “Get out of here, Jennifer!”

I only learned that last part while meeting my Mom for coffee one day. We were sitting there, looking at my twin babies sleeping peacefully in their carriers. She apologized for yelling at me that day. Of course, I very awkwardly told her, you don’t have to apologize for that, my God! I don’t even remember it and I can’t even imagine what she was feeling at that moment.

I think it made her feel better, though, to get it out after all that time. Therapy just wasn’t a thing back in the seventies. I just wish I hadn’t ruined it when she started talking about a psychic who told her that Sharon follows me around, and asked if I had ever felt anything. I said no and she seemed disappointed.

It wasn’t even exactly true. I don’t know anything about her following me around but I certainly felt Sharon’s absence, even though I have no actual memories of her. What I do have is distinct memories of sitting around the dinner table and feeling like someone was missing. I would go around and count all of us, over and over again. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, no, we’re all here. It happened many times, too, and would really bother me. It wasn’t until years after that coffee shop conversation that I finally realized somebody was missing: Sharon.

My parents did go on to have more children. A couple years later, my brother Daniel came along… then a couple of years after that, my sister Melody… then a couple of years after that, my brother Jeffrey.

They also moved around a lot, for no particular reason. Though they never left Anne Arundel County, it was usually just far enough to change schools. They just couldn’t seem to stay in one place very long.

As a result, I spent my school years as what I now describe as the “perpetual new girl.” I never felt like I belonged anywhere; A feeling I struggle with to this day. Often I felt like a ghost.

To others, though, I was simply described as “shy” and was often told that I needed to “break out of my shell.”

I once remember going out to recess and sitting on the curb. I put my head down and was very sad because everyone was running around having fun with their friends and I didn’t know anyone yet. Some kids came over and asked me to play and I was so happy. It was a great recess.

The next day, I wasn’t sure what to do so I decided to repeat what I had done the day before and sit on the curb and look sad. This time, though, nobody came. I felt pathetic but was too afraid to insert myself into the crowd. I needed to be invited.

The shyness only seemed to grow worse. One day, I did not hand in the homework that I had indeed done because I was too scared to walk up to the front of the classroom and hand it to the teacher. She usually just had us hand it up, and this was different, we had to come and walk up… the change was just too much for me.

Paradoxically, though, I had a growing desire to be the center of attention. It didn’t happen often, but if I found something that made the people around me laugh, I would latch onto it.

For example, in my senior year of high school, I started laughing at something in music class and as I breathed in, I accidentally made a sound not unlike Lewis in Revenge of the Nerds.

The rest of the year, it became a regular thing that my classmates would try to make me laugh, just to hear “the noise.” I was always happy to oblige, even though I had to fake it most of the time, if not all the time, because it was just an accident that one time. It was just the one time I felt connected to my peers, even if they were laughing at me.

Most of the time, though, I just moved through my day, trying to get through it so I could go home to the safety of my room… although, I always had to share a room with my little sister Melody but she was constantly out, running the neighborhood. The older she got, the more we had no idea where she was half the time.

I could also be a little bossy. “Get out of my room, Melody! I don’t care if it’s your room, too!”

It kind of comes with the territory of being the firstborn, but if you can’t admit that you were kind of a dick to your younger siblings, they probably still think you’re a dick.

That said, another thing that comes with the territory of being the oldest (especially as a girl) is being left “in charge” of your younger siblings. While understandable, it does have a way of drawing the battle lines.

Suffice it to say, I spent a lot of time alone as a kid… or at least as alone as I could be. One of my favorite places to hang out was on the swing tied to the branches of a tree in my Grandmom’s backyard. As we moved between the different apartments and townhouses, we would often stay with my Grandmother in between moves. Her small, royal blue (later yellow) painted house is probably the place I most associate with being my childhood home.

I did not have the worst of childhoods by any means. In some ways, though, it was incredibly stressful. My Dad, for all their wonderful qualities, did have a very volatile temper. It was not uncommon for there to be holes in the wall in my Grandmother’s house, apartments we lived in…

Neither of my parents was physically abusive… at least not really. My Mom would spank us and there was one incident that I was told about when I was very young, that my Dad smacked me in the face. I don’t know how old I was, but I don’t remember it. I was just told that I gave my Dad such a look that they swore never to touch me (or any of the kids) ever again.

We also had our family secrets.

For one, I had a thumb-sucking habit that continued, well, I never stopped. I still do it.

Not that my parents didn’t try to break me of it. From special nail polishes to bribery to telling me how much I would get made fun of if someone saw me doing it… and a lot of times just plain old pulling the thumb out of my mouth… they indeed tried everything.

Sucking my thumb has just always been a way of drawing into myself. It made me feel so safe and calm. It still does.

However, I knew, just like my Dad’s nightgowns, it was something that anyone outside of the house could never know about.

My Dad, who now goes by the name Darla, never dressed as a woman outside of the house when I was growing up, and I had been warned that if I ever told anyone… if anybody found out… it would be pretty much the end of the world. We would be outcasts, made fun of, run out of town on a rail, you name it.

Otherwise, though, my Dad wearing nightgowns was no big deal. I barely noticed it most of the time. The only damage ever done was as a result of having to keep it a secret.

In 2001, my Dad called me from Sheppard Pratt (the local mental health hospital) to let me know that, if they could not become a woman, they wanted to die. While I feel like I should have seen it coming, I did not. It’s still the closest I’ve ever come to actually passing out. I sort of knew that transgender people existed, but I really knew nothing about it at the time.

As always, though, I just wanted whatever would make my Dad happy, so I have always supported them. In recent years, they’ve pursued hormone treatments and have changed their name to Darla Rose. And yes, I have talked to them about how they want me to refer to them and they are still fine with me calling them Dad. As they’ve said, it’s fine, I am your Dad. That will never change. You can call me Dad, you can call me Darla, just don’t call me late for dinner!

There was also my Mom’s affairs. She had her first one when she would have about 25. She started seeing a neighbor guy who was a bit younger (I think he was 19 at the time). I do have one memory of that guy but it was weird and I’m just glad that he did not last long.

I don’t think she had any others between then and when I was a teenager but when America Online started sending those disks around… I mean floppy disks, this was even before they were on CDs… my Mom got online and started talking to other guys.

She was obviously looking for a way out. When I was like 13, she handed me a note one day, told me not to read it, but to hand it to my Dad when they got home from work. They had a suitcase. Of course, I didn’t listen. I steamed open the letter. I mean, she had taught me how to do it… how to steam open letters. In the letter, she said that, “You need help, and I’m leaving until you do.”

I called my Dad, said you need to come home now. They did, I handed them the letter, they went off to find my Mom… found her, brought her back, and as far as I knew everything went back to normal.

My Mom finally found a guy that would take her in and left my Dad right around their 20th wedding anniversary. She only stayed with that one for a little bit and then ended up with the guy that she was living with for the rest of her life, Eric. My sister eventually followed her… even parking herself on Eric’s doorstep until they agreed to let her stay. My sister and my Dad just never got along and it only got worse after my Mom left.

Even though she found Eric, she never considered them her true love. She was always looking, but in November of 2020, she passed away very unexpectedly. For a while, COVID was suspected, but the circumstances led to an investigation. Eventually, the cause was revealed as being a buildup of blood pressure meds with a secondary cause of alcohol abuse. Again, my parents never smoked or drank or anything growing up. I actually gave my Mom her first drink, which in retrospect, I regret. She never really had a problem with it, though, until after her weightloss surgery. The surgery left her with nothing but a sleeve of a stomach and she could barely eat anything… drinking was the only thing she could enjoy anymore.

Her husband had been taken away to the hospital due to a severe opiate addiction just days before her death. She had been caretaking for him for a while, as I could tell. The house had completely gotten away from her but she was in the middle of trying to clean it up, all by herself, when she collapsed. She just wasn’t one to ask for help and I think that she was embarrassed by how bad things had gotten.

After her death, I was going through the house and found this little glass slipper, buried beneath the mess. It was filthy, but I cleaned it up. I keep it because I know it was her dream to find her knight in shining armor. And, it’s understandable, from the childhood she had, but I keep it as a reminder that we are responsible for making our own dreams come true.

Going back to me, though. I never considered going to college. If it was talked about at all, it was always in terms of how expensive it is, and how it’s for people who want to be doctors and lawyers and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I was no fan of school to begin with and I developed the attitude of, “When I decide on a career, then I’ll figure out what job training or education I need.”

Plus, my Dad wanted me to have a music career.

One of my other very early memories is dancing in a bar. I remember my Dad’s band was playing “Proud Mary” and I was just going to town. Yeah, I was the baby in a bar.

I don’t think I ever considered music a real possibility as a career, but in the absence of any other direction after high school ended, I agreed to be enrolled at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore.

I did like playing around with music when it was something I was choosing to do, but I could never seem to get around to practicing. After a while, I felt like I was wasting my time, my teacher’s time, and my Dad’s money. I only stayed for three semesters before dropping out.

I did have a few ideas while growing up about what I might like to do. My first career ambition as a child was actually “Disney Animator.”

Like many kids, I would draw constantly, on any surface I could find. My parents and other adults were always telling me how good I was at it, so I started to get the idea that I could draw for Disney.

I loved Disney movies and when I was around 10 years old, I found this book in the library called, “The Art of Animation.” It included an address to the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CA and I wrote a letter asking for more information on how to become an animator.

I never received a reply… which was disappointing then, but it was ultimately all well and good. I’ve since realized that I liked drawing like I did playing music: I had some fun with it, but I don’t think I loved it enough to make a career out of it.

I also enjoyed dancing and photography, but I never considered either as a real career possibility. The only other occupation I seriously considered was writing.

My Mom always had these romance novels lying around that she would let me read when she was done with them. I remember being a fan of the “Harlequin Intrigue” series, in particular. Those always had some kind of (usually murder) mystery as part of the story, so I just found those the most enjoyable.

While reading these stories, I would think to myself, “I can do this!”

So, I started begging my parents for a typewriter. It took a couple years, but they finally gave in and bought a super nice one for my birthday/Christmas. It even had this tiny screen where you could preview a line of text before actually printing it out onto the paper. I know, I’m ancient.

I still feel bad that I didn’t use it more, but when I sat down to it for the first time, it was as if I developed instant writer’s block. I would maybe start to write a couple of lines, but then rip the paper out, crumple it up, and throw it in the nearest trash can.

I’ve since concluded that the reason I couldn’t write is because I hadn’t yet lived.

Well, now I have.

OK, I think that’s quite enough for this week. I hope I haven’t lost ya… we will be moving on… but let me know what you think regardless… just be nice. And like, subscribe, all that good stuff… and I’ll see you next time!

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