Pressing On: The Roni Stoneman Story

21. The Kids

K N < E K P $ F E < The Kids The kids were growing up real nicely. My kids were all-important to me. If I knew ahead of time that I would have to go through all that stress that I had with Gene not supporting me, and the abuse I had with George, I still would have married them to get the children that I have today. I would do it all over three or four times. I want to tell you now a little more about my life with them, and how even though I wasn’t educated, I tried to do things to be a good mother. So we have to go back to the early years. And it was then I got the best compliment I ever got in my life—when we had moved out to Las Vegas because Gene was playing with Judy Lynn and I was doing shows in California with the family. We rented a house, and I thought, Well, now things will be better. He’s got a job, and it’s something that he likes to do. Turned out, as I said, that he hardly gave me any money. And then he took off, traveling with the band, and left me in the middle of Clark The Kids The Kids 154 / pressing on County, with my four raggedy kids. I didn’t have a car, didn’t have a telephone. At night when the wind blew and the bushes scratched the wall, it was scary. I’d sit up all night long. The compliment came about because every day I’d walk the kids to the end of the road, where there was a little store, to get them a penny candy or something. I just walked them up and walked them back. Carry one, let it walk a bit, carry the other one, carry two. That’s the only thing we had to look forward to. And one day the man at the counter said, “You know, we were talking about it the other day. We see you comin’ up here, every day with your children, walk way up the street, in that hot desert air! I never seen such clean children, and well behaved.” That compliment meant more to me than any compliment I’ve ever gotten. They were wonderful children. And they were all different. When Barbara was real little, I noticed that she couldn’t speak plain words, and I said to Daddy, “Daddy, Barbara’s a little different. What’s the matter?” And he repeated what he always said, “You can have a house full of children and each one of them’s different. Some can learn faster than others. But don’t let the ones that are a little slower feel bad. I had a bunch of children and every dadblamed one of them was different.” And that’s true. Every one of my brothers and sisters was different and every one of my children was different. The trouble with some teachers is that they try to force kids in the same mold. Or parents expect their kids to act like grownups. Children ain’t gonna be grownups, and all you’re gonna do is cause emotional problems when you push them to be a grownup before their time. So now I’m going to try to explain some of my kids’ differences, and how I tried to deal with them as they were growing up. Eugene was a really smart kid, and he was interested in music when he was young. But because our family had had such hard times in the music business, I was encouraging him to develop this other talent he had—for drawing. The last thing I wanted was for him to be a musician. Yet even so, when he was little, I got him a saxophone. That’s because I was desperate. He had developed bronchial asthma. He had it so bad that he couldn’t even run outside and play. He’d go “Hagggh, agggah.” When I was in Vegas, I had to take him to the emergency room every day. They’d say, “Boil some water and hold him over it.” We didn’t have pressing on / 155 vaporizers, didn’t have money for that kind of thing. They told me to give him Primatene. I went back to the doctor and I said, “The label says it’s bad for the heart.” “It can be,” he answered. So I threw out the Primatene. Now when we were on the road, I used to read a lot of books. So I was reading about one of the Roosevelts, and he had asthma and the boys used to beat him up because he was so pale and thin and couldn’t do the things they could do. It was the Roosevelt that said, “Walk softly and carry a big stick”—Teddy. So his mother bought him a trumpet. Well, that takes air. It built his lungs up, and he outgrew the asthma. So I thought, I’m gonna get Junior, which is what we called Eugene, a wind instrument and that will probably help him get over it. That’s how dumb I was, dumb! I bought him a saxophone and I just let him blow it as much as he wanted to. The amazing thing was it worked! He doesn’t have asthma anymore. And he’s a good saxophone player to this day. But his main job is as a design engineer for Nissan. I am so proud of him and his wife Angela and their three sons. Becky, the next born . . . well, wonderful is the way to describe Becky. I put too much of a load on her when she was growing up. I know that now. She is such a caring and compassionate person. Even when she was young, I would confide in her if I was sad. We were living in that crummy shack on the military base, after George lost his job, and I had nobody else. She was maybe sixth, seventh grade, and she’d sit there and listen to me, and then give me the most levelheaded advice. One time I went and got some old material, and she helped me make curtains to cover up the shabby windows. She helped me with everything. Particularly with Barbara. Well, for awhile I was in denial about Barbara ’s problems, the fact that the slowness in talking was part of her just not developing like the other kids. You say, No, she’s just immature, and you make excuses. And then one day, you stand up straight and say, “I have a special child. Now what do I do, God?” So, after seeing a lot of doctors, I realized that Barbara had to go to a special school. I was back in the bedroom, wondering how I was going to get her there, since I had to be on the road so much. And Becky came into the bedroom. “Momma,” she said, “I want to go to that school where you’re going to send Barbara.” 156 / pressing on “What?” “The school has regular classes too. And if I switch there, then I can take care of Barbara on the bus and make sure that she gets to her right classroom.” And she did. My Becky did that for her. They have a real strong bond, Becky and Barbara. Becky married the wrong person—and I tried to prevent that. But she can be stubborn. I begged and begged for her to take a year off—I would pay for her to take a year of school in Europe. I wanted so much to get her away from this boy and then go to college. But she married him anyway. It was a horrible marriage, but she got two great children from it. She is now the secretary to the head man of Nissan in Smyrna, and always gets glowing job reports (and is finishing up college!). And she has a real nice boyfriend. If everyone were like Becky, the world would be a wonderful place. Barbara’s my special child. (But of course they’re all special.) As I said, I first noticed that there might be problems when she was a baby, because of the way she focused on lights, and then later when she had trouble talking. Then when I was in L.A., I woke up at about 3:30 in the morning, heard a noise, and ran into the kids’ room. She was in convulsions . I thought she was dying. I had never seen that kind of convulsion before—Jimmy’s seizures were different. She had four other seizures that night. I took her to the hospital the next day. I sat there for hours, along with people who had running sores on their legs. I’m looking at them, and trying to keep my kids away from them. The kids would say, “Momma, I gotta go to the bathroom.” How do you tell your child you can’t go to the bathroom? So I’d go in there and take some paper towels and try to clean it up the best I could and pray they wouldn’t get any germs on them. Then the doctor said, “Well, this baby is an epileptic.” Just as coldhearted as could be. And he just gave me some phenobarbital, without explaining anything at all. Later, when we moved to Donelson, I had Barbara in the public kindergarten . And three teachers came to me at the end of the year. “Barbara ’s not ready for the first grade,” they said. And I said, “I didn’t think she was.” Then they recommended we get her tested. We had her pressing on / 157 tested at a hearing center and at other places too. And this stupid child psychologist, he took Barbara in the room, talked to her a little bit, and came out and said, “She’s retarded. Don’t bother spending any more money on that child.” I’ll never forget that. I was young and I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there crying. But when I talked to Peggy Shannon, Barbara’s teacher at that little public school in Donelson, she said, “Barbara can be taught a lot. We’ll keep her in the kindergarten again and that’ll be all right because she’s small.” I said, “That’s fine.” Ms. Shannon went on, “Barbara has a lot of talent. She’s got perfect timing. Nobody’s got the timing in this whole class like Barbara. She marches the band around and she sings so beautifully .” There Barbara was, five years old, with perfect timing! Ms. Shannon assured me that you could be “special” in more than one way. She was really capitalizing on the talents Barbara had. Ms. Shannon was right, by the way. Barbara’s a great singer. If I was traveling and she was with me, I’d get her up on stage. She would do one of Tanya Tucker’s hit songs: What’s your mama’s name, child? / What’s your mama’s name? She was terrific. But in general Tennessee has a long way to go when it comes to special needs children and young adults. I was honorary chairperson for special children for the state of Tennessee for three and a half years. So I learned a lot from that. Let me give an example. I was doing a show for the special children. But they also had people in the same place that were so-called normal. They seated the special children in some bleachers and the “normals” in another. And they wanted me to stand in the middle and perform facing the “normals”! Well, of course I didn’t do that. I turned completely around, and I said, “You’re my little darlin’s, and I’m playing for y’all. I love you dearly.” Then I said, “If any of you want to come up and sing with me, feel free to do so.” And I got a couple of little kids to come up, some of them severely handicapped physically as well as mentally. I may not be real smart, but I do know special children’s needs. By the way, you can’t use a banjo with special people. It makes them nervous. Upsets some “normal” people too of course—that’s why we have all those banjo jokes! But for a special child, particularly an autistic child, it’s awful. They often have special hearing. For them I’d use a guitar or an autoharp so it didn’t sound tinny to their ears. 158 / pressing on I taught Barbara to read through singing. I saw she was having problems reading. So I’d write the words down to a song and then point them out to her. This was before Sesame Street. “Help me write that song,” I’d say to her. “You’ve got to help me.” And that’s how she learned to read and to talk more clearly. Someone came up to me the other day and reminded me that I helped a child with a speech problem when I was performing at the bluegrass festival in Bean Blossom. I couldn’t remember it right away because I’ve done the same thing often. Generally, I’ll just choose a cute song. “Ducky Duddle” is a good one because the child has to use their tongue more. So I’d sing with the child Little Ducky Duddle went wading in a puddle / went wading in a puddle quite small / He says it doesn’t matter / How much I splash or splatter / I’m only a ducky after all. That song’s easy and it’s funny, so it makes the child lose his inhibitions. Also kids love little animals, and the song’s got a nice message. Bobby’s my last child by Gene, and he’s a musician. No matter how I tried to steer my kids away from the music business, it didn’t work with Bobby (maybe because he’s the one I was pregnant with at the Grand Ole Opry!). He’s a wonderful guitarist and singer. Now I was working in Chicago on this book on September 11, 2001, the day that horrible tragedy happened to our country. Bobby called and said: “Mom, I joined the National Guard last week.” And he thanked me. Because about a month before I had made a suggestion. Now, I knew Bobby was real good at soldiering, and I had always encouraged him with that. In high school he was in ROTC, also in the drill team. Well, I had met this guy who was a general in the National Guard. So I said, “Bobby, you ought to see about getting into the National Guard.” Bobby’s patriotic. All of us are patriotic. We’d die in a minute for our country. Without even a second thought. Back to September 11. I said, “Bobby, I feel like I gotta get home. I just gotta get home.” He was in Mississippi at the time, playing with his band. But he offered to come up and get me. We decided not to do that. But ain’t that sweet? That’s Bobby. Georgia thinks deeply about things and worries about them. Maybe because of the way her father drank. Once, when she was little, I saw her coming down the hallway and she was crying, just shaking all over. pressing on / 159 She had found one of her father’s bottles under the bed. I picked her up in my arms and I cuddled her. “Oh, honey, you got it all wrong,” I said. That’s an old bottle that your daddy had a long time ago. He don’t do that anymore.” She was panting. “Momma, are you sure, Momma? Are you sure?” “Yeah, honey, I know that to be a fact. I just haven’t cleaned under the bed in a long time. Daddy’s working now, and he’s doing really good. Don’t worry, he’s not going to have convulsions anymore.” A baldfaced lie. But the most important thing was to calm her. She went outside and started playing. Maybe because of her sensitivity to other people, Georgia’s really talented as an actor and a writer. She’s also brilliant. And she’s got perfect pitch. There’s a whole bunch of music teachers who we left wringing their hands when she stopped taking lessons, violin, piano. But you can’t force a child. And now she has a lovely daughter and she’s studying to be a drama teacher. I’m so proud of her. I’m so proud of all of them. ...