Growing up without a mother in the late 50′s and 60′s made it difficult for me to make friends and keep them. Once their mothers found out there wasn’t a mother in the house they weren’t allowed to play with me anymore. Those were mainly the friends that I made at school that didn’t live in the trailer park that I lived in. (I grew up in a very nice trailer park. The owners were very selective and worked very hard at keep the park well maintained to avoid the label of trailer trash for their residents.) The parents of the friends that I made in the trailer park knew our family and it wasn’t a problem with their children playing with me. Back then though most people didn’t stay in a trailer park long and it wasn’t long before my friends would be moving somewhere else. Once the park owners started renting mostly to people who didn’t have children and retiree’s my source for friends vanished. I had friends at school, just none that were allowed to come to my house to play. I don’t have a single early childhood friend that I can say was my best friend and the we used to do this and do that together. Once I got to high schools things were starting to change. It was the 70′s and people weren’t as closed minded as they had once been. I had several friends then whose parents didn’t have a problem with the fact that there wasn’t a mother in the house. I got to have slumber parties and do the normal teen things and I didn’t feel so left out. It was the slumber party for my 16th birthday that my mother decided to let her existence be known again. I had all my friends over the night before my 16th birthday so that they could be there the morning of my birthday. It was while we were all laughing and carrying on at breakfast that Daddy had cooked for all of us that the phone rang. Daddy answered it, I didn’t need to because it wasn’t going to be for me, all my friends were sitting there with me. Daddy told me the phone was for me. I didn’t have a clue who would be calling unless it was Grandma who lived next door. I took the phone and it was my mother. She started out pleasant enough but started pushing me to come and spend some time with her. That pissed me off. I did not want to spend any time with her and told her so. She got nasty and said "If you don’t start talking to me and spending some time with me I’m not going to leave you my watch and rings." I swear to God that is what she said. That needless to say really pissed me off and I slammed down the phone. My friends who had all been watching and listening were like what was that about? I told them what she had said and then I made a big production of looking at the time on my wrist watch and counted the rings on my fingers and said, Oh well, I don’t have any fingers for her dang old rings. We all busted up in laughter because it was such an idiotic thing for her to have said. I looked over at Daddy and he was trying his best to not show any reaction but I saw that slight smile on his face. Daddy didn’t bad mouth our mother like so many parents do to their ex’es today. If we asked questions he answered them. I have to believe that he answered them honestly because it wasn’t in him to lie and cheat. I think that day though I gave him something that he not only earned but deserved and that was to not be swayed to the dark side with the treat of losing a watch and some rings.