After a few years in Lake Forest I guess Daddy's latest job switch affected our income, so we moved to Fairhope. This house was much smaller - I am guessing that the place in Lake Forest was somewhere in the 3000 square foot range, while the new place on Morphy Ave. was definitely under 2000. It was a small ranch-style brick house with a separate garage, which served as our laundry and storage area instead of a place for our cars.
My favorite part about the new house were the woods and the gulley that ran behind it. The schoolyard for the public school was also nearby, which meant we had a playground at our disposal when school wasn't in session. What fun we had here in those first years! The gulley occupied a lot of our time when we were kids - the explorations and adventures that we had! It's walls were about 35 or 40 feet high, and there was a large drainage pipe jutting out of its far wall. The sides were deep, dark red Alabama clay, and when it rained they would get oh, so slick! We ruined who knows how many items of clothing sliding down those sides after a rain shower. One time Daddy brought home some telephone cable on a large spool. The spool became a table under our treehouse, which stood at the top of the gulley, and the cable became a zip line that Daddy attached to a branch and ran to the bottom of the gulley. We had a blast.
We also had a small empty sand lot on the property on the other side of the garage. My brother and I would build roads with his Tonka trucks, and then drive his Hot Wheels on them. I still played with Barbie dolls too, but driving cars was more fun.
We had some good neighbors here. The people next door used to smoke mullet in the back yard and would always give us one of the fish. I loved it! There was an elderly lady across the street who had the same name as Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun. She was very sweet to us and had a cat and a old Lab mix. I still remember her out in the yard with her pets following her around as she tended to her plants. Sadly, she collapsed one day and went to the hospital. She passed away a few days later. Her cat went to live with a sister but the dog stopped eating and followed its owner to doggy heaven shortly after. I remember how incredibly sad it made me.
At some point I guess Daddy began looking for another job. He found one in Birmingham and went up to get started and find us a house. When he called my mother to tell her that he had a place for us to live she informed him that she wanted a divorce. I must have been about 11 years old. My father told me years later that he was devastated - despite the fighting and her indiscretions, he still loved her and had no idea that she was contemplating a divorce. We weren't told right away - so since we had been used to his traveling when we were young and just thought he was away working maybe it didn't have the same impact that it does on children whose little worlds are torn apart so badly when their parents split.
It was also about this time that my grandmother moved from San Antonio to Fairhope. During my mother's trial I was told that she had done it to protect us from our mother - with my father out of the house permanently she apparently feared for her grandchildren. I was so happy when Grandma moved to town! I spent so many happy hours at her house - I think I probably spent more time at Grandma's then I did at home. Thinking back this probably suited my mother - and if I got sick during that time she usually dropped me off. I can remember running a high fever and being in my bed at Grandma's house while she tended to me patiently - singing "You Are My Sunshine" and laying her wonderful hands on my burning forehead, making sure I was tucked in and constantly at my side.
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