Before publishing the Shirley & Frankie posts, I want to credit my daughter, Paris Wagner, for writing this story for her nonfiction class at Emory. As a gifted writer majoring in writing at Emory, Paris was questioned by her professor for submitting a “fiction” story in a “nonfiction” class. After convincing her professor that the story was not fictional, Paris went on to do very well in the class.
The majority of what Paris wrote is correct. I made a few corrections, but they pertain only to a few factual issues.
Throughout this blog, I may change names to protect individuals and families. Since I did not keep a journal and some of the stories are from memory, the dates may be approximations but are close to when the events occurred.
“Shirley & Frankie – 1967” is a long story that will be told every Wednesday over the next 4-5 weeks.
Shirley & Frankie – 1967 (part 1)
One must recognize three things before trying to understand my dad’s life. The first is that my dad was born out of an ultimatum. A sixteen-year-old girl told her 2nd generation German immigrant parents that they could either allow her to marry her boyfriend or she would get pregnant out of wedlock and ruin the family’s reputation. In 1946, the latter was far worse. My father was born less than a year after his mother and father were married. He saw four different stepfathers—Mike P., Earl E., Bill D., and Gary P.—enter his life before he left for college.
The second is that his mother, Shirley, loved three things in life: smoking, drinking, and screwing. This isn’t an assumption but an admission. One that Shirley willingly gave when my dad asked her one night about what she loved most in the world. He was visiting home from college and, while sitting with Shirley in J&J Bar, hoped to elicit some sort of sentimental confession from her. Having been surprised by her blunt answer, my dad reminded Shirley of her three children, to which she responded, “Oh, I like you guys too.”
The third is that my dad coined the phrase, “You can’t rationalize an irrational person,” at a very young age. This phrase gave him some order to the chaotic events that defined his childhood. It allowed him to move past these events without falling victim to the unhealthy cycle they perpetuated. To move beyond the trauma of Shirley holding a gun to the head of his “brother,” Frankie, after he was caught misbehaving. And to push through the four months of seventh grade when Shirley went missing after having run off with a man despite being married to husband number three at the time. And to move past the time when my dad had to call the police to break down the bathroom door because Shirley overdosed on a mix of drugs and alcohol. In remembering this phrase, my dad has spent less time trying to understand the events of his childhood and more time simply accepting his unbelievable upbringing as fact. If nothing else, his childhood has provided him with endless stories to tell.
(To be continued)
Missed the other parts?
- Read Part 100 here
- Read John’s Whole Life Story
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