HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEARTS

The Maggard Family:
Kyle, Rhona, Bonita and Scot

Do you remember being in high school? That "crush" who you had your eye on? The puppy love that made your head swirl and took your breath away.

My momma married her high school sweetheart, Kyle Duane Maggard in 1964.

I entered the world screaming in 1965. My brother entered the world in 1968.

We lived across the street from my maternal grandparents. There was nothing like smelling that friend chicken every Sunday. That was my granny's delight. Fried chicken.

My grandmother was also a safe place.

I could make up so much up for childhood memories, but in honesty, I don't remember a lot. Don't ask why....because I don't know and I don't care to visit to past to find out. But I wont pretend and I wont make something up just to have a story. The journey is enough in and of itself.

This is what I kinda know/remember:

We lived across from my momma's parents. My daddy's parents lived down the street and around the corner.

We moved to Kent, Ohio when I was in the 5th grade. We moved away because of my daddy's job. A couple years later we went from Kent, to Penn Hills, Pennsylvania....again due to his job.

I don't remember my parents fighting but have been told they did. (Again, I don't remember much of my childhood.) When I was 11 or 12, they divorced. Daddy left and Scot and I stayed with mom in Penn Hills.

I will give my momma credit. She worked her butt off. She did what she needed to do to pay the bills. Daddy didn't help much.

One day, momma and I got into a huge fight. I was around 13 years old. Back then there was no such thing as "latch key kids."  We babysat ourselves. I was so mad at her. When she left for work, I packed me and my brother up and called my daddy to come get us. And he did. We left while she was at work.

I don't know the fight that must have transpired between her and daddy about him picking us up. I'm sure I caught an earful as well and I'm thankful I don't remember. What I do know, as a mother, I inflicted some severe pain on this woman by packing up and leaving while she was at work. 

We lived with daddy for a year or so before momma moved back to our home town. We went back to living with her when she moved back. Again, we lived next to her parents.

My momma worked the postal service, where she was a supervisor for many years. To say she was a workaholic is an understatement. If she wasn't working at work, she was in our back yard tending to a gorgeous flower bed. (In fact, today, she asked if we could plant some flowers out back.) She loves her flowers.

Her flower bed wasn't a normal flower bed. It was a planned masterpiece. 

There was never a time, from spring to early fall, that there weren't flowers, of all colors, blooming. Unlike today, back then, cell phones weren't a thing and you didn't take pictures of everything. I had a small 110 film camera and I took pictures, but somewhere to this day those undeveloped films are hiding in a box.

She was a hard-ass. She was full of pride and she worked her ass off. She didn't play around. Not as a mother and not as a supervisor. 

She was a product of a product.

~bo