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    Safe Harbor: A Boy's Story
    Safe Harbor: A Boy's Story
    Safe Harbor: A Boy's Story
    Ebook148 pages2 hours

    Safe Harbor: A Boy's Story

    By Bill Reed

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    About this ebook

    Safe Harbor A Boy's Story is a memoir of a lonely boy growing up in a dysfunctional family during World War II and the struggle to find his way as a teen and young man in the fifties.

    Set during World War II and the early fifties, Safe Harbor a Boy's Story chromicles my struggle as a lonely boy in a dysfunctional family. It began as a memoir for my children, but when completed, I realized it was much more than that. Its about victory over abuse, not physical, as in "A Child called It" and "This Boy's Life" or an odd family's love in "The Glass Castle." It's about emotional abuse...the worst kind.
    Children don't choose their parents or status. Some find nurturing parents. Some don't. Some resist or run away. I was trapped. Dad's drunken sprees, constant moving, arguing by parents in a loveless marriage, and mind games played at their children's expense, all seemed normal to me. My story is about surviving in such a family and sharing the examples and results of life lessons learned, hoping to encourage others when all seems lost.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateApr 6, 2006
    ISBN9781467810210
    Safe Harbor: A Boy's Story

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      Book preview

      Safe Harbor - Bill Reed

      © 2006 Bill Reed. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      First published by AuthorHouse 4/6/2006

      ISBN: 1-4259-0747-4 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4678-1021-0(ebk)

      Cover art courtesy of:

      Hawkins Productions

      San Diego, CA

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      About the Author

      TO GLENDA

      Safe Harbor

      A Boy’s Story

      Chapter One

      Letters

      D addy, how did you do it? she asked. No guidance and no love; did you ever think of running away?

      Lots of times. The first time, I guess I must have been ten or eleven, but I got real scared when I realized I didn’t have any idea of where to run to, or where I’d live, or how and what I’d eat, so I knew I was stuck. I paused and then continued, I just learned to stay out of my father’s way, and mother, in her passive sweetness, wasn’t a problem even though she didn’t seem to know how to be a mom or realize that I was building an emotional shell. I guess, in looking back, that a sense of humor or of being able to see the comical in stupid or bad situations was the glue that kept me together—that and friends.

      My daughter Lisa and I had been spending the afternoon looking at family pictures, and I was telling her who was who from the past so that my limited knowledge about our family tree could be passed on to those who would follow us. I’m the last survivor of my parent’s siblings and felt she needed to know. Virtually none of my roots had been given to me by my parents.

      Lisa’s questions were provoked by her naturally sensitive nature, and the stories told as each picture arose, and the fact that she is a Guidance Counselor in the Memphis City School System and had daily exposure to the ails of her troubled young charges.

      Why was your daddy so mean? she asked.

      I told her he was a product of his father—that life was harder at the turn of the century, and his people didn’t have or take the time we do today to nurture and train their children.

      Daddy, didn’t your mother help you and teach you?

      I think she did the best she knew how, but that wasn’t much. She wasn’t a good housekeeper and not a good cook; she believed in God, but didn’t talk to us about Him. She did see to it that we were always respectful to elders. She taught us to obey her, to chew with our mouths closed and not to use bad language. She would say, ‘Never say anything in front of girls or women that you wouldn’t say in front of me.’

      Did she love you?

      I know she did, but she didn’t know how to show it; she never held me or told me so; and she never praised me.

      Daddy, please write this down.

      How can I? I’ve told you too much that’s bad or sad. Others may be offended if I tell what I know.

      Daddy, tell it like it happened; your grandsons need to know that everyone is responsible for their actions and the footsteps they leave behind. Daddy, we need to know. Please do it!

      All right, but I wonder if anyone will really be interested in what happened to someone like me. The forties and fifties were a long time ago; times have changed and people’s values are different… but you might be right… maybe they could see that the way parents treat their children and others can affect their lives. I’ll try.

      Contact

      I had not had any contact with the Reed side of the family in almost fifty years, but in 1994, when perusing an address book that had belonged to my sister Mary, I noticed the name and phone number of my father’s sister, my Aunt Eunice. This took my thoughts back to the last time I saw her in 1947. She lived in San Diego with her husband, Tony and children, David and Nancy. My family had visited with them on several occasions when we had lived in San Diego. The thing I remember most about the visits was a childhood memory of the growth marking line that was on the kitchen doorjamb of their house. It marked David and Nancy’s height as they grew. On one of the visits, Aunt Eunice let my sister Betty and me put our marks up, too; so we were always anxious to visit her house and see our progress. I was taken with this and used to wish that we had a marking place like this in our house, but we never had a permanent home. The frequent Navy transfers, and my parents always moving to different houses trying to stay ahead of landlords seeking past due rents, kept us on the move.

      As I picked up the phone and dialed, I wondered if she was still alive or if the number was the same after forty-seven years and the ten years since Mary’s tragic death. The phone rang once, twice, three times … then, Hello

      I replied, Ma’am, this might be the strangest phone call you’ve ever had. I’m Bill Reed, McGee Reed’s son, and I’m trying to contact his sister, Eunice Salmon, who used to have this number; can you help me?

      There was a long pause then, Oh, my gosh! and the voice called in an aside—Tony! Tony! Guess who this is on the line? It’s McGee’s boy Billy!

      That started us chatting for over a half an hour of up-dating each other on our families’ lives. In our conversation, I had mentioned that I had virtually no knowledge of my parents’ family history, and Eunice graciously offered to write down what she knew of our roots and mail them to me.

      The following letters or excerpts give a good look at the Reed side of our family and the impact that alcohol had on our lives.

      We visited her in 1998 when she was eighty two years old and in failing health. She passed away February 13, 2002. She was a dear lady.

      Letter from Aunt Eunice - July 18, 1994

      "Hello, Billy;

      "I never dreamed that I would ever hear from you again. It feels good to know that you are doing well and have a good family. So many years have passed and so many sad things have happened in my family that it hurts to remember some of them.

      "I understand that your father, McGee, was very mean especially when he was drinking. I remember an episode here in San Diego, when you and your sister Betty were very young. It happened just after I came to live here in ’33, but it’s much too sad to mention here.

      Your sister, Mary Louise, had visited us years ago and told us he was very bad with you children and your mother. The Reed family has a history of alcoholism. I just hope you don’t drink…it is very devastating and we don’t indulge at all. It does nothing but cause a lot of trouble. McGee used to write once in a while, and he would usually send a birthday or Christmas card, but all of that stopped when he died. We haven’t heard anything about you since. I’m enclosing some pictures and this is what I know about our family history.

      Columbus Washington Campbell (1850-1918)

      Your great-grandfather was Columbus Washington Campbell. He was born around 1850 and was a fourteen or fifteen-year-old medic in the closing days of the Civil War. After the war ended he became a doctor in Vicksburg. He practiced medicine during the week and was a Methodist preacher circuit rider on Sundays. He was quite a character and in the picuture, made a funny sight dressed in his long-tailed coat, white shirt and tall hat, and his small air rifle as he hunted the little nuisance sparrows that ate the seeds in his garden. He would show off his kills by carrying them in a pouch he wore around his waist. He was a good man, though, and as a doctor, did very well financially. He was frequently paid for his services with fruit, vegetables and chickens, since many of his patients didn’t have cash. He was the father of a large family with daughters named Emma, Rosa, Kate, Olive and my mother, Mary Lou Campbell. He died in 1918 when I was only two."

      Mary Lou Campbell (1872-1933)

      "My mother was the church organist and was twenty-four when she married and started on her way to a life of heartaches due to her new husband George Edward and his drinking problems. She was a sweet person with a wonderful, calm, disposition.

      Oh, I have to tell you this about my mother: she inherited the Curse of the Campbell Nose, which she managed to pass on to some of us. The thing was big and wide; long and pointed and, worst of all, there was a knotty hump that popped up on its bridge half-way to its end. It didn’t make that much of a difference to the boys and their appearance, but it sure made monsters out of us girls."

      Eunice’s Family

      "Your grandfather, I’ve told you, was my father, George Edward Reed, and your grandmother was Mary Lou Campbell Reed; she died at age 60 in Hattiesburg. My brother, Melvin Reed, lived in Jackson, Mississippi and was killed at age forty-seven in a car accident while coming home from Vicksburg in a rainstorm. We were very close, and he was my buddy even if he was seven years older than me. My sister, Mary Melissa Reed, was an RN and was 85 when she died in Houston in 1991. My other two brothers, Lucien P. Reed, who was the most sober of the boys (died in 1962) and Eugene Reed, were much older than me. And of course, you know that your father, McGee, was my brother, too; we called him McGee instead of ‘Bill.’

      "In all there were nine of us; six lived and two died by the measles and the chicken pox. One, my brother Bryant, was killed in a boiler explosion when he was only twenty. He was really a hard working guy and held down two jobs in Greenville.

      He worked in a cotton mill in the day and ran the boiler at the picture show at night. One night it needed attention and he went up on the roof to tend to it and when he got to the top; it blew up. My mother left our home in Jackson and rode the bus to Greenville as fast as she could to be with him. In the hospital Bryant was bandaged from head to toe due to the scalding and kept telling her, I’ll be okay Mama…I’ll be okay, Mama. Don’t you worry. But he died. My mother was so sad."

      Letter from Aunt Eunice –July 28, 1994

      Eunice & Tony

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      Eunice Reed Salmon (1916-2002)

      "I was born in Greenville, Mississippi on June 14, 1916. My mother was forty-six when I came. My grandfather, Doctor C.W. Campbell, your great-great grandfather, brought me into the world. I only weighed two-and

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