A Conversation with Elizabeth
2016
Remembering

From:           Elizabeth 
To:             Larry
Sent:           Wednesday, December 28, 2016 3:02 PM
Subject:        Re: R U watching MARS Mini-series on National Geographic
 
Hello again,
 
When I was taking graduate level courses in Psychology, I had one entire course in "Memory."  It basically examined all the scientific research and theories about how memory works.  It was a very tough course.  We had a small study group and took turns in recording and then transcribing the lectures to share with our group. All I can say is that it is odd how it works. Here's some examples:
 
Thanks for remembering I returned the 300.00.  I certainly don't recall doing so.  I can't count the times I've thought about sending a check to you.  I always felt very guilty.   Once you told me your salary had broken 100,000, so I started thinking, "Oh well, 300 would be paltry to him now, so I should have returned it when it might have meant more." 
 
 Are you sure you didn't leave behind a white cat called "Kathleen" when you first left for Melbourne?  Maybe you left her initially, but returned later to come back and pick her up.  I actually thought that maybe in your Mixsonian site I had read about your cat going a bit wild because she was neglected by me.
 
That "little tiny house," do you recall, as we found out, was owned by a woman (secretary or something like that) who worked in the Chemistry Department and knew your Dad!  Or maybe she was retired from there.  I think she knew you were his son, and I'm a little vague about it, but I think she gossipped to him about you being out at "her place" to visit her tenant.  
 
The "little house" was one of my several attempts to get Fred out of my life.  I loved that little place.  It was so compact like living on a boat.  [I've often had fantasies of living on a house boat!]  As soon as I moved into it, Fred started wheedling for me to come back, sending me manipulative "I miss you" notes. I don't recall a fight with you out there, but I wonder if that was what it was about, him getting back in the picture, or me talking about him trying to. 
 
I also don't remember in the time frame of the "little house" that you drove me down to get a car and met my father. [I'll have to  do some more recall and ordering of events on this particular timeline of my life, because the order of some events is a bit muddled.]  
 
The only car I had until you left for Melbourne was that old 67 VW van.  After you left, I bought a used 72 Chevrolet Blazer from a man who was getting rid of it because of a divorce. I don't recall having any other car. Just after I graduated, I did have a car my father had bought for me and my sister to share and use in Gainesville, a pale blue older Dodge I believe.  When she left Gainesville though, she came and took it away, leaving me a one speed bicycle!  I got my 10 speed some time later.  The VW I got when I met Fred.  He had a friend who was selling it.  He wanted me to buy it, so I did.
 
You first met me during one of my other earlier attempts to get away from Fred.  It was when I lived out in a subdivision with a totally redneck bar maid, where I had rented a room.  So by "little house" time I think had known you for a bit.  Her name was Ann I think.  I had the VW van, but I used to ride my 10 speed into campus, and that is when I met you, on campus. I recall it was a fair distance! Our first real "date" was you taking me out to a nearby park to hike around a bit.  When you showed up though, you said you didn't want to take your car, and could we take mine.  I didn't want to, because it didn't feel like a date taking my car, and I had little money for gas, which is why I rode my bike to campus.  I let you drive, or you asked to drive though, so that made it more of a treat.
 
I really didn't have much insight into some of my feelings or behaviors when I met you.  I didn't realize that I had fallen into a classic emotionally abusive relationship pattern.  When I taught at my community college job, I had to teach "Marriage & Family," so I made sure my students learned the  pattern, because I did not know it when I was younger.  It is also what I lived with though with my mother and father, with his drinking.  It was the same pattern, and she held on 25 or so years, "because of us kids."
 
--Calm stage, apparent normalcy.
--Tension building and escalation of strain.
--Overt clear events of abuse break out [This is usually where the woman leaves]
--Reconciliation also caused "the honeymoon stage."  Abuser apologizes, pleads to make up, sends flowers, etc.
--Calm stage, return to apparent normalcy, then a repeat.
 
In terms of you, for example, you got into a pattern of calling me every morning, just to say hello.  I was totally perplexed why.  I would wonder, "Why on earth is he calling me?"   I didn't realize that this was NORMAL when you liked someone, that it was normal to want to touch base and share plans for the day, or make plans.  At any rate, I do recall we used to meet for lunch out on the grass at U of F, maybe between classes.
 
I do clearly remember that you did go home with me one time to my parent's house in Titusville, but I can't recall if that was before or after they divorced. I also can't recall just now when in the timeline this was.  I know my mother was there, and you had dinner with us, but I can't recall who else was there.  There was a bit of an awkward moment, because she asked you what you would like to drink.  You said, "Ice tea."  I don't know why she didn't tell you what your choices for a drink would be, because she only occasionally made ice tea, and hadn't made any that night--the choices were canned coke or water!  So she told you she didn't have any tea! [It aggravated me a bit because that was one of her "gottcha" type behaviors, which would take forever to explain.] At some point after your visit she commented that you seemed like a nice person, but she felt you looked like you "needed a good meal."  You were quite slim and tall. 
 
I do recall my father really pissed me off though when I was in the little house.  Why he ended up visiting me there, I don't recall.  I don't think I would have been enthusiastic about it, for sure.  He was at the time still recently divorced from my mother.  Anyway, he visited and wanted to spend the night.  He didn't want to go to a motel. There was only one small bed, and you know how small the place was.  So, it ended up I let him stay there in my place.  Fred had already been nagging me to come back, and I knew he was out of the country or at least out of town, so I went out to his cabin and spent the night alone.  I drove back to my place fairly early in the morning.  When I got there, my Dad had obviously been drinking.  That is a major reason my Mother had divorced him.  I could tell right away when I came in that he had been drinking.  I think I confronted him or something, and he laughed, thought it was funny, and said, "Oh, this morning I found the bottle of whiskey you had "hidden" in the kitchen and I had myself a little snort."  I don't think I had it hidden, but maybe just in a cabinet, and I never dreamed that he would get into it.  I didn't even think about it.  I looked at the bottle though, and he had knocked back a good two to three inches of it!  I was infuriated that he'd bring that behavior into my "home."  Also, it was probably only around 7-8 a.m. in the morning!
 
I saved and carted around, i.e moved with that racoon skin for a long time.  I was really pleased that I did such a good job on it.  I think finally mites got into it or something.  At some point while living out there I also found a baby alligator that had been run over out around Micanope somewhere.  I may still have that in a trunk.  At the time it was illegal to possess the skins, as I think it was still on the endangered list.
 
Where were you living when you met me?  Was that at "Bill's?"  I think it may have been.  I recall being out there one afternoon, waiting for you to get home so we could have dinner, which you were supposed to fix! But, you didn't show up.  I went into the kitchen and there was a pound of hamburger thawing out.  I thought, "I bet that's our dinner."  I wasn't sure what you were going to make with it, but I made a meatloaf, so it would be ready when you came home.  I think you were mildly impressed that I did that.
 
Where were you living when you visited me in the small house?  Had you moved to the house where you lived alone?  I know I stayed with you there, when you moved out alone, in another attempt to break away from Fred.  It was often very strained and conflictual.   Right now I can't recall exactly though what I did between "Ann's" and then staying there with you--whether the little house fell in between somewhere.  I presume what happened is that from Ann's I went back to live with Fred, and then ended up leaving again.  Then, maybe moving to the small house was after that, when I moved back out.
 
I do recall that my father came and visited "us" there in your small house. Again, he wanted to stay there, not get a motel.  You gave him your big bed, but then he pitched a bit of a fit saying he could only sleep in a bed with the foot or head elevated.  It had something to do with having a hiatal hernia.  You tried to oblige him somehow.  I don't remember this, but I wonder if it was on that occasion I took you out to the cabin to stay the night.  You had dropped the engine out of my VW van, because we/you were rebuilding it with me, and the engine was sitting in the house I believe. 
 
While living there, and I was staying there, you decided to go on a vacation or trip up through the mountains.  I think you were going to go alone, but we ended up going together.  You had some sort of van.  We bought a big bag or box of apples along the way, and for some reason at night put them on top of the van while we camped. We drove away and forgot about them until apples started bouncing off the roof!
 
When did you move from there to your Aunt's old place?  I know you were there in 1976 because of the big bash you held out there.  Apparently I had ended up back with Fred at some point, and then once again had to move out and once again started staying with you.  I think after you left for Melbourne some friends of his told him I was living out there.  They had come out one day trying to get me to take a dog they wanted to get rid of, but I refused.  I then started getting messages from him, wheedling at me once again to come back.  When I moved out from there, which was linked with getting a decent job at Alachua General  Hospital, I first moved to a motel converted to apartments, [Campbell's?] across from Santa Fe Community College.  I then upgraded to Tumblin Creek.  I thought I had finally shaken Fred off my trail, but then, when a friends of his and mine was admitted to the hospital, he spotted me in the cafeteria.  Even after his friend was discharged, he kept coming to the cafeteria and hanging out there for coffee. [But I put this in my first email]
 
I'm still vague about some of the points where you weave in and out?  How did you know I was at Alachua General to come visit me there?  I seem to recall vaguely that you might have written me letters, but I can't recall if I was writing back.  Don't know!  Did I tell you when I finally decided to leave Gainesville and go to UCF?
 
Elizabeth

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