My Earth Mother Phase

In the distance, you can see part of the 26 acres of Johnson grass that surrounded our home.  This had to be 1978 or 1979, as my Earth Mother Phase was short-lived.  I already knew I hated gardening, but had agreed to give it a try.  SSS and I worked very hard on that garden plot and those tomatoes tasted wonderful!

The thing is, we were city kids.  Well, not really...he was a suburban kid and god knows what I was!  I knew what neither one of us was, though, and that was a gardener.  We had goats and chickens as well.  Actually, we had a well, as well. We were three miles out of town.  There were a few neighbours, but they were all down the road a fair piece.  I about went crazy out there, with the heat and the toddler and the swamp cooler and the pack of feral dogs and the snakes and the garden and the 26 acres of Johnson grass.  And the scorpions.  Did I mention the scorpions? 

SSS was a construction inspector for the City of Round Rock at that time, and a volunteer fireman, besides.  By the time he got home, he was done talking to people, and I had spoken to no one over the age of two all day. 

We had...issues. 

We went to town on weekends to the laundromat, the HEB and the library.  This was, of course, long before VCRs.  There were two or three channels on the TV and the clearest radio was the little country station out of Georgetown.  Al Gore had not yet invented the internet.  I felt trapped and isolated and very lonely.  SSS had already run off all my friends...he made passes at them.  Some of them, he wound up in the sack with, and it would end badly, and some of them would turn him down.  The latter, he made so uncomfortable that they didn't like to visit.  It was years later that I recognized the pattern of abuse...

Anyway, Dearly Beloved, it was nice to be able to wander around outside in my pajamas and pick fresh tomatoes.