Somersaults

For my fifth birthday, father bought a movie camera - a big splurge just coming out of the depression.  He arranged, with my best friend's parents, to take we two girls to a nearby freshly plowed farmer's field that morning and have us turn somersaults over and over again heading directly toward his hand held camera.  It was great fun, dirt in our blond hair and sun suits.  Of course, arriving back to our homes in such disarray we were less than a welcome sight to say the least. 

Although I never once heard any disruptive discussions between my parents, it was obvious that there was a problem due to the fact that mother was very rough shampooing my hair at the kitchen sink. That was after father had stripped me down to my underpants and hosed me off in the back yard.  I later heard that my little friend had experienced much the same treatment. She did quote her mother saying: "That's the last time you go anywhere with Jean." 

Later that day a really terrible thing happened.  Her older brother, while cleaning his car engine parts with gasoline, stepped back to light a cigarette.  Her little brother was standing nearby.  Gasoline fumes allowed fire to go up his pant legs  before being doused in an old bathtub of dirty rainwater. After days in the hospital he returned home to a makeshift tent of dining room chairs and a sheet because he couldn't stand for any fabric to touch his skin.  He didn't die.  They did move away.