When I was 19 I left home and I thought I had a good reason. She was a 5’4.5” dynamo I called Mom. Then.....all of a sudden, 35 years later, home had found me again and the roles were reversed. Goodness! But I am getting ahead of myself here. I truly believe that we all remember things differently. It’s like witnessing an accident. Five people see five different views of the same thing and who is right? So let’s start at the beginning and maybe it will begin to make some sense to you as you read. I hope so. I hope someone who reads this story will find their answers. I wish I had had some of these answers years ago.
Once upon a time there was a happy little family of four who lived on street called Georgia Avenue in West Palm Beach, Florida. They had a landlady, Ethel, and they lived in her basement apartment. The happy family of four consisted of a daddy, a mommy, a big sister, that would be me, and a little brother. Life on Georgia Ave was wonderful. Palm Beach High School was just across the street and provided a giant playground for two little children to run and rip each day. A bus stop at the end of the block provided the mom and children a mode of transportation to the library, the movies, and shopping. The First United Methodist Church was a block away and theat is where little family worshipped each Sunday. Georgia Ave. was a grand place to grow up as a child….especially if you were one of two only children on the block. All of the adults on the block became surrogate grandparents, aunts, and uncles. One day the little family moved into the house next door to Ethel’s and lived there for a couple of years. This house held wonderful memories for a small child. There was a robbery at the high school one day and the thief buried the treasure at the foot of the familys back steps. When the police scoured the neighborhood it was the little girl who told them where they would find the pirates buried treasure. A star was born on the Skipper Chuck show, a local daily children’s television show. We would cross the bridge to go to the beach in Palm Beach. Ethel’s grandchildren would come and we would play outside from sunrise to sunset. One particular visit we played with Mickey Mouse under the house. Just for clarification, Mickey Mouse was a giant wharf rat who was dying from poison that we found under the house. We tied a big red bow around his neck and took him for a long walk…that is until our mom’s put two and two together and made us give Mickey up. We would play in the school playground. We would visit the candy store at the end of the block and have Lick ‘em Aid, wax bottles and lips and eat candy cigarettes and necklaces. I thought everyone had a life like this one. I thought this is what little kids all did during the day. I have been shocked as I have talked to my friends to find out they didn’t. During the years on Georgia Avenue the father completed apprenticeship school to be an electrician and went to work for Arrow Electric. The mom was a stay at home mom and life was very good. O.K. that is more than enough of third person….this is a my story...how I came to be me... Leigh Granville Claymore(my writing name) and how I am handling living with my parents again at 53.
Right before my fifth birthday we moved across town to Vedado Park and a street called El Prado...and this is where my next life segment picks up.....but that is for another day.
While we lived on Georgia Ave I was the only child for three years among an entire block of adults…retired adults at that. They treated me as if I were 3 going on 30. I could play Bridge at 4 and Pinochle by the age of 5. I was a whiz at Gin at age 3. At the age of three I was also one of the youngest children to ever hold a library card at the Palm Beach County Public Library. By nine I had read every book in the juvenile section of the library. I loved reading! Reading took me to all the places I wanted to go and would go when I was rich and married to a doctor(my first career choice). So, on Georgia Ave. I saw Saturday western matinees at the Florida or Capri Theaters. We would sit in the balcony, eating pop corn and drinking cokes while we watched clips on the Vietnam war and some of the worst movies ever….but we didn’t know they were bad…we just knew that it was on a big screen and we loved hearing the singing cowboys and knew all their horses names and their side kicks by heart. Tonto and the Lone Ranger were my favorite of the dynamic duos. Even after we moved from Georgia Ave we would return to the heart of downtown for movies and books. In fact in 1964 at the age of 10 I fell in love for the very first time. The love of my life was a gyrating, gravelly voiced singer , Elvis and I was hooked at first sight on the third row of the Florida theater.
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