My mother has been in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s for a while now. Part of the process of the move was selling her house and dividing up her stuff. From that time period I have a couple of cardboard boxes that I have never really gone through. In an attempt to organize the closet in my man cave, I pulled out those two boxes. In one I found my baby book. I was the first child of a 50s’ mother who was married at 17 and had her first child when she was 18. I don’t really know if she continued the tradition of a baby book with my 4 siblings, but I suspect not. The last time I remember looking at this book I must have been in 4th grade.
What grabbed my attention this time around as well as in the 4th grade was the section recording the mother’s and father’s first words on seeing the baby. For my mother’s first words, what is now written in the book is, “My goodness, he looks like a Negro”. These are not the words that I Continue reading “Revisionist History – Juanita Style “