She's Sherrie

When Glen was six weeks old, he stopped waking up for a bottle at 2 a.m.  I was so relieved; now I could forget about it and get some extra sleep and not have to leave my room until it was daylight.  Since there was no longer anyone getting up in the middle of the night, we just brushed those incidents aside.  Everything appeared to be normal again. Most of the time, I was alone during the day with Glen.  I would roll his bassinet out into the living room in the morning, and we stayed out there most of the day.  We, he and I, would watch TV, well, mostly it was me watching it; he just slept and ate and stared at nothing when he was awake.  When he would fall asleep, I would go downstairs to the laundry room to wash his clothes and bedding.  When I was the only one home and downstairs, I felt that old uncomfortable feeling again.  The family room was just outside of the laundry room.  It was quite large and had sliding doors that opened up to a small patio and yard and then dense w

Now that I had this little red-headed baby at home to take care of, I was a little scared.  I had babysat for lots of kids when I was a teenager but never for a brand new tiny baby.  And dolls never were of interest to me except for use as self-defense against my brother.  There had not been any type of childbirth classes or newborn care classes at the Naval Hospital, so I was pretty dumb about tiny babies.  I knew you had to feed them and change them and keep them clean, the basics, but not much else.  He was so little that he looked like he would break, so that is how I treated him. My mom was there; we had moved into a house since Mike and my brother, who had recently come home from Vietnam, were both stationed at locations where they didn't get to come home every night.  She helped me out, but of course, everything was the old school kind of care.  She told me that Pampers, a very new invention, was bad for a newborn's skin.  So I used cloth diapers.  What a nightmare

I know what you are thinking.  You believe that Mike turned over a totally new leaf and became Mr. Wonderful.  You would be wrong to assume that. He was being transferred to be in the Presidential detachment of Marines at Camp David.  They have to have a very high-security clearance to be stationed there.  He would be there for days at a time without coming home.  It all depended on the use of the facility by the President.  Normally, he might be there five or six days in a row before getting time off.  That was great.  I could live with that; in fact, I loved it. He had been on his good behavior for a while, so I won't bore you with the boring stuff.  We did get married, not the nice wedding everyone was counting on, but at Upper Marlborough, Maryland, with the Justice of the Peace officiating.  I almost backed out at the last minute due to nerves and then changed my mind—dummy me. He bought a new Camaro, and that became his addiction for a while.  When he didn't show up

Sloe Gin Fizz Going into Mike's brother's house, I wasn't sure what to expect.  He never really talked about anyone in his family other than his mom.  Larry and his wife, Chris, met us at the door.  Larry had two black eyes.  That was not what I wanted to see, but it turned out that he was a plumber, and a pipe had fallen on his face and broken his nose.  The black eyes were from the broken nose.  It was hard to tell what he looked like; he had a huge bandage on his nose and black eyes.  His hair was dark, and he had brown eyes.  Mike had dark blond hair and hazel eyes.  I thought he probably was cute underneath the damage.  Chris was 100% Polish.  Her father and mother had been brought to the US by the church, and she and her brother and sister were born in the states.  They were both super friendly, and I liked them.  They had three young kids. There were no other family members at Larry's house.  We talked, and they asked a lot of questions trying to get to kn

The Marine Corps Ball was  magical. My avoidance of the choker lasted about three weeks.  I had never told my mom why I was not seeing Mike.  I kept all of the dirty details to myself.  For whatever reasons, men abusing women in that period of time was reasonably acceptable.  Few people sided with the woman, and within families, it just wasn't talked about. Physical abuse of the female gender was one of the secrets kept hidden deep within the family closet and locked away. My life that had been so fun just a few months ago, was going downhill.  If that was part of being an adult, I wasn't really interested in being one.  I basically was just working and going home, talking on the phone to Shelley and Judy but keeping my business to myself.  I was bored out of my mind.  I was watching tv, and there was a knock at the door.  My mom answered it and closed the door.  There was no sound until she said my name.  And then it happened.  "Sherrie."  Oh, crap, it wa

I looked at myself in the mirror; I looked like death eating on a cookie.  My mascara had run all over my face, my hair was in knots, and I had handprints on my neck.  My scrawny little neck.  But that was a good thing because my neck was so thin apparently, Mike's hands wrapped all the way around my neck.  Most of the bruising that looked like finger marks were pretty far back, I could hide them under my hair, but I did have a mark on the front of my neck that looked more like an abrasion, kind of mottled looking, like dotted broken blood vessels.  Makeup wasn't covering it.  I used my fingernails to scratch my neck, over and over.  Okay, so now it looked like scratches and irritated skin.  A bug bite?  I was going for that.  In the artificial light inside the house, it may work, but I would have to lay low for a few days.  It actually worked. The abuser didn't call me for a couple of days.  When he did, I just hung up the phone and left it off the hook for hours.  Af

The foursome was now a sextet.  Judy, Shelley, and I were all in a relationship where we had something in common; all three guys were Marines and were stationed together.  We pretty much were all together almost every weekend, sometimes all three days.  We spent time together after the parades, we went to Fort Washington frequently, and Gravelly Point was always a good place to go, especially after the parades.  Two of the relationships were going well, but mine was hitting a wall. For the most part, as long as we were a party of six, life was fine.  When Mike and I were a twosome, there were issues.   As long as he had an audience, he was polite, well mannered, and the life of the party.  When it was just him and me, he could be critical, sarcastic, and downright mean.  And that mostly happened when he was drinking.  It's one thing to drink socially and party with friends, but drinking alone and drinking just to drink was another story. I had started the relationship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f06QZCVUHg&list=RD9f06QZCVUHg Gravelly Point Park overlooking Potomac River Attending the Evening Parade on Friday nights and the Sunset Parade on Tuesday nights at Iwo Jima became a ritual.  It was always made us proud to be down there and be a tiny part of it. I guess you would call us MCgroupies, Marine Corps groupies, Devil Doggetts, Jarheadians, or whatever.  We were always invited.  We moved from the public bleachers to reserved seats every week at The Evening Parade.  We never got tired of going.  For those who have never been, the last few minutes are dedicated to all who made the ultimate sacrifice.  We always had to wipe our tears away as we watched the finale of the ghostly looking bugler spotlighted on the roof of the barracks, playing taps.  It was and still is a tear-jerker, which affected us the same way every time we watched it.  After the show was over we would meet up with the guys and walk back down to the Navy Yard.  We fe

With the prom behind us, we still had about five weeks left before we graduated.  There would still be a few senior activities for us to participate in.  Going forward, we would still have the senior class picnic, senior skip day, and a work-study picnic.  Graduation was set for June 25, 1969, at Cole Field House at the University of Maryland. Mustang Judy At that point in the school year, we were all getting antsy.  I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we were all ready to be cut loose from the daily routine of being educated and ready for "freedom." Judy and I continued to cruise around, continued to see the prom dates on occasion, and go to SomePlace Else.  There was always an impressive number of representatives from the Marine Corps that we knew and hung out with.  I think we made up the largest contingent of the establishment's supporters.  On one occasion, Steve showed up with his girlfriend from West Virginia, who had moved in with him and the

Neal Armstrong  Oxon Hill, Maryland, in 1969, was a hotbed of young, single people.  Located just over the DC line, it was a convenient commute to downtown DC and The Navy Yard, Marine Barracks, and Bolling AFB.  Apartments were clustered together on a hilly area overlooking either the Eastover shopping area or the wooded area that wove around to Southview.  Andrews AFB, Ft. Belvoir, Ft. Myer were a close commute away. The significance of living right across the road from the DC line was simple, the drinking age in Maryland was 21; in DC, it was 18. Young employees at the FBI had moved to the area in droves.  Their parties on the weekends in Glassmanor were iconic.  It was always just a matter of time before you would see the Prince Georges County Police Department paddy wagon, yes paddy wagon, rolling up into the parking lot looking for customers.  And they didn't have to look far.  All of the apartments had balconies, and they were always packed with t