Shortly after moving back in with my friend for the second time, I met Mark O'Leary. I had gone to a party with my brother Steve and his girlfriend Ruth Anne.
The party was at the apartment of a couple, Barbara and Robyn Reynolds. Robyn had a music partner, Mark O'Leary. They had a "manager" in Memphis named Sy Rosenburg. They called the musical act: what else? O'Leary and Reynolds. Sy was telling them they were on the heels of a BIG deal!
As soon as "Sy" heard my brothers playing and singing he was all over them and signed a "management" contract as: what else? The Wilson Brothers. Back to me!
I started dating Mark who had just moved out of the house he shared with a bunch of college guys and was now living out of his Cougar (meant "CAR" back then) and was in the process of moving in with his manager and his wife Georgia.
One day while Mark was at Sy's house, X husband #2 (the attorney) showed up at my door and said he needed to talk to me about some legal matters. He asked me to sit in his big (Cadillac) so we could speak in private. He also said he had all my jewelry in the car and wanted to give it back. I said OK. Remember, If you look at my forehead you'll see a big tattoo that's only invisible to me. It says: GULLIBLE
Dennis drove me two hundred miles to Little Rock. Since he was unable to talk me into coming back to him, he dropped me off on the street!
I had no money or ID with me. I called the Rosenburgs collect and Marc drove from Memphis to Little Rock to fetch me!
Shortly after that we moved in together.
The four hopeful musicians combined forces and started playing clubs in the area. We were having a lot of fun. Smoking a LOT of pot and SHROOMING. What's not to like?
About six months after moving in together Mark and I drove to Norfolk VA to meet the "parents".
I think Jerry and MiMi liked me. They certainly acted like it. Taking us to the Ballet, The Officers Club for dinner among other nice places. MiMi had fun dressing me up in one of her evening gowns and jewelry for the Ballet. I was a fashion disaster back then. Big "Wild" permed hair and was a cross between Janis Joplin and Twiggy!
I became pregnant while in Virginia. I was never good at remembering birth control pills, and to be honest I was missing my son Randy, so I think I probably wasn't thinking tooo seriously about much at that time.
Two months later when I realized I was pregnant, I was thrilled. I thought Mark and I were really in love. This was certainly the my first love.
Mark wasn't thrilled at all. He bugged and begged me to get an abortion and I refused.
Of course me being me, thought everything would somehow work out and soon I would be living in a little house with Randy and a new little baby.
The new little baby part did work out. Mark and I got married that December in a blizzard in my uncles church in Arkansas, then back to Memphis for the reception.
I just remembered something really funny. Mark's sister Joyce flew from Colorado for the wedding and his very prim and proper mother MiMi from Norfolk VA. I remember sitting on my living room floor with the two of them smoking pot! Ruth (MiMi) rather enjoyed it. Joyce however becomes a crazed lunatic when she gets high. The funny kind of lunatic!
Just before our son Marc Patrick was born we moved into a very cute house near the Overton Park and Memphis Zoo.
I had asked Mark several times to let Randy come live with us. He always said he would never raise another mans child. Well, it was MY child you FUCKER!
I had all the warning signs there in front of me and was in complete and total denial.
On June 22, 1978 after what seemed like days of my body literally being torn apart, here was our beautiful 9lb 3oz baby boy.
Even though he had wanted me to have an abortion (probably because he didn't love me), Mark beamed from ear to ear for weeks. He was so proud of his son. He went around all the time and told everyone what a HOSS his son was.
He was a very good father. Not the best husband. Only because he never told me he loved me, never gave me a card, never gave me a gift.
But in spite of my longing to know I was loved, we were happy. Marc made us very happy.
Mark was a social worker and I lied about my education and got a job as a bank teller. After being tutored by the Attorney for two years I knew how to fool the best when I needed to. When people asked me where I went to school and what my degree was in, I had that down pat! Arkansas State, class of 69,Philosophy!
Mark and I bought a house near The University of Memphis and decided to have another baby.
Michael Ian was born September 14th. I was getting ready to go walk the golf course while Mark played when I went into labor. I can remember how happy I was like it was this morning. All four of my babies were perfect in every way! :)
All was going according to plan except I still didn't feel loved and couldn't figure out how to convince Mark to let me have Randy.
Plus my brothers had gotten a record deal, moved to Nashville, and made an Album (Another Night)by The Wilson Brothers. They even toured Japan for Two weeks before coming back and getting dropped by their record company.
Mark was still writing lots of music and wanted to go to Nashville and get another deal because that was his real passion.
We had visited his sister Joyce and her family in Vail Colorado before moving to Nashville and decided to spend two years in Nashville pursuing the music business and then move the family to Vail. We had fallen in love with it while visiting there.
It was Marks idea to split the bills since we were both working and he needed to have money to play golf and it was nice that I didn't have to ask him for money. Anything I had extra went on my boys! :)
One of my good friends who had worked at the bank with me, had left to become a waitress at a popular restaurant called The Circle Cafe. She said she was making a lot of money there. This was 1980 and my salary at the bank was $1000. a month and I was paying for full time child care. Leaving my children in child care tore me up every day. I wanted to stay home with them so much it hurt. It was always a battle between mark and I over me wanting to be home with the kids.
I didn't tell tight wad Mark that I would make more money. I convinced him that I would be able to work and be home with the boys during the day, therefor having no child care to pay. He said sure!
I would leave for the restaurant at 5PM when Mark got home from his job. I would work till close, five nights a week. Since I worked weekends to make more money, I only had two weekday mornings I had to get up early with the boys. I usually got off between one and two AM.
I was averaging $100. a night. Twice what I was making at the bank. Got to raise my own kids plus had $200. a week that the cheap skate didn't know about. The boys and I went to lunch and shopping with my mom twice a week!
And the job was FUN! I could write a book just about my adventures at The Circle Cafe!
We made our move to Nashville in the early spring of 1982. I hated leaving my job and friends but this was our plan. I soon found another restaurant job. Not hard to find.
Mark and I were starting to be very unhappy with each other. I constantly complained that he didn't love me and he never denied it. We started talking about divorce and then I found out that I was pregnant once again. We immediately agreed we should stay together and try and make it work.
One of my MAJOR problems I had with Mark, besides not feeling loved and appreciated.
He constantly let me know that I wasn't pretty. He talked about the beautiful women he had dated before he knew me. He did say that if we had a girl this time, he hoped she had straight white teeth like me! There were so many things wrong with my appearance like my nose was too big and I didn't have high cheek bones like he did. Plus no one in my family had ever graduated from college. We were all dumb asses!
I can't remember all the vile crap he tortured me with but I believed every word.
On March 3rd 1984 my little red headed Megan was born. Marc Patrick was born with red hair but turned to a strawberry blond before he started school. Michael was a blond from the get go. But it was obvious that that this red hair was here to stay. She also had a skin tone that wasn't the usual light color on most red heads. She came out with a tan!
We moved to Vail in May of 1985. Mark started working for a guy "Dan" who owned all of the vending machine and arcade games in (I think) the whole Vail Valley. I worked at a restaurant for awhile until I found a job in another bank because it was the "off" season for the resort and restaurants were not busy enough to make much money. So here I was with one child in school and two in day care. After paying childcare every week I had $25 left. I couldn't see the point in this but Mark said $25 is money to buy food. What an IDIOT!
Michael had fallen at the day care in the fall and was in the hospital for several days. We had a Plastic Surgeon repair his face and it turned out well. Then at Christmas I injured my back cutting down a tree and the bank "let me go" because I was taking too much time off. I got a job at Pizza Hut! Woopee!!!
I was so miserable I started loosing weight like crazy, which was fine because I was eating from depression earlier. I told Mark I wanted a divorce. He said he didn't care if I left but I couldn't take the kids. I asked him to go to marriage counseling and he refused. So I told him I was going to get an attorney and move out as soon as I saved enough money. He said his boss "Dan" was mostly paying him in cash anyway and Dan also agreed to show Mark's income as much less than it was just so I wouldn't get any financial support.
Another important part of this story is that after Megan was born, I was diagnosed with a large Fibroid Tumor growing in my uterus. I didn't have time for the surgery before we moved to Vail because it required four weeks recovery.
I didn't have the time or money to have the surgery done then. I did realize that every time my periods came they got much heavier and I started acting like a crazed bitch on wheels. My IDIOT Dr told me that the Fibroid had nothing to do with my mood swings. I had never had any noticeable PMS in my whole life till now. And now I was being "possessed" ten days out of every month.
It was right after one those periods that I met a guy when I went out to a bar after work with one of my girlfriends. Even though I was preparing to move within weeks, I didn't tell the guy my name or anything about me. We only danced.
Two weeks later the guy who had run into one of the friends I had been out with that night, told him where I worked and he showed up there. I told him what was going on in my life but he kept pursuing me. Two weeks before I moved out, we started an affair. I didn't tell Mark because he had already said he didn't care what I did!
I moved out in the spring or 1986.
In a month or so Mark decided he wanted to try marriage counseling. We went one time and while we were there that I absolutely, positively did not love him anymore. It took a long time to get up the guts to leave him, and I was done! He had made me feel as low about myself as a human being can.
With all the threats about taking the kids away from me, let alone the nine years of personal attacks on me and my family. Enough
It took years before my children started coming back to live with me. Thats a painful story. More painful for the kids.
I have one more tale to tell before I get to that.
Coming up next: Webster Atwell The Second
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