Our house in Austin, was a small 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with a garage that had been converted into a play room. It was the perfect home for mom and me. We loved our little house. It was a beautiful avocado green and so were all of our appliances. The 70's were truly a special time for vegetable colors. Our home had all we needed; a fireplace, a nice kitchen, and a big backyard. The only thing your house had that ours probably didn't have were functioning lights.
We did everything in the dark. We ate in the dark, took baths in the dark, cooked in the dark, went to the bathroom in the dark, played in the dark, etc. We were fine, until our friends and neighbors came over and discovered that we had no functioning lights. For some strange reason, they didn't think I should do as much in the dark as I did.
Even the people at my daycare had a problem with it, because every time I went to the bathroom, I actually made an effort to turn off lights, rather than turn them on. I even tried turning off our classroom lights each day I went into class. My teachers at school decided to implement a plan to reward me each time I went to the bathroom with the lights on. OK, I might be a little "special" too.
It seemed, that one weekend one of our friends got tired of not being to see and made an effort to go buy lights and put them in every spot that needed one. It was such a sweet gesture. We then had kitchen lights. Our bathrooms glowed with illumination. Our bedrooms sparkled under the 60 watt luminescence. It really was pretty. Little did they know that the lights were still only ever used if they were there. At least, they felt better about us and that's all that seemed to matter.
One thing that really was hard for me to understand, as a child, was that I couldn't do many things with my mom that other kids could do with their parents. For instance, I couldn't color with her or play most board games. Fortunately, the card game Uno came out about that time. I still remembering us sitting at the dinner table with mom's braille writer. I read her every color and number on each card and she labeled them so we could play together. Do you know how large an Uno deck is? It took us a few days, but we did it! Mom even taught me how to play Spades and Hearts. But no Candy Land or Operation or Checkers or Battle Ship, the awesome games of my childhood that I wanted to play so badly. That was sad for me and since I had no siblings it did get kind of lonely and boring.
That is probably why I became as big of a TV guru as I did as kid. It was was one of the few things we could do together. Next, you're probably going to say that mom couldn't watch TV. WRONG! I hate it when people say that, yes she does! Every day, in fact. She loves QVC and Court TV and mystery shows. Mom watches just like us, except she doesn't see the faces and pictures but she can understand the storyline. Shows that have lots of conversation versus action are her favorites. We would sit on the couch and watch Magnum PI, Bonanza, Dukes of Hazard, and many other oldies but goodies together. I would describe them and mom would explain parts that didn't make much sense to me. It was a joint effort.
We were also blessed that my grandmother was able to pick up in places where mom couldn't. She would put my hair in pony tails and color with me. She loved to sit and do puzzles. We could sit in silence for hours doing puzzles, one after the other. Grandma taught me some basics in sewing, and cooking, decorating, and cleaning. She was truly a kind and unselfish soul. Being with her helped fill in the gaps that mom couldn't provide without making my mom feel guilty or me feel deprived.
Sometimes, I would color pictures at grandma's house and then take them home for mom to see. She would feel them ask me what colors I used and what I drew. This was how I believed everyone looked at art. It was a hard lesson when I learned I was wrong. When I would draw pictures at school and show them to my teachers for their approval, they would just glance and then say how nice my drawing was, this was a total let down. One day, I had to break the news to mom that my teachers were not looking at my art right. She then had to explain to me that not everyone could see the way she does. I guess it really didn't dawn on me how different my mom was until then. I had just accepted our world as normal, little did I know how truly unique we were.
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