Daddy at first had a black convertible Studebaker.

When he and Mama had my baby brother, he bought a turquoise and ivory Pontiac with the pretty amber-colored Indianhead on the hood and ivory leather seats. Wow!  we used to take Sunday drives and he would buy me a chocolate-covered cone from Dairy Queen.  We rode for an hour in the then-all-white neighborhoods of Atlanta (down Peachtree Street), and he and Mama would plan the design of our first nice house based on what we saw riding.

My brother was a baby, so Daddy taught me how to cut the grass on the pushblade mower, back and forth, back and forth - I was seven.  Then, he struggled to teach me how to pull the string on the top of his new gasoline mower.  I was terrified of it exploding, so I stayed "dumb".

In the evenings, he would teach me how to count his rent monies and then, on that big metal adding machine, he would teach me how to pull the big handle on the right side to add numbers.  I hated that machine, because I was anemic, and it was hard to pull the handle down. If I didn't follow through with the handle, it would pop back up and snap at my puny arms!

The only soap we had was Ivory or Lux.  Toothpaste, Colgate or Pepsodent.  Deodorant: Arrid. Perfume: Midnight in Paris. Cooking oil:  Crisco lard.  Bread:  Merita (later Flowers).

Daddy would put Johnson's paste wax on the basement floors.  He taught me how to buff the floors with a buffing machine.  If I didn't keep the bottom's brushes at an angle, the machine would snap straight vertical, and start spinning in circles and catch my foot under it, not hurting it, but rather terrifying me as I tried to hit the "off" button.

Mama made me use the white paste to clean all the upstairs white doors and white baseboards every month.  We had a cleannnnnn house all the time. 

While Daddy worked and Mama finished graduate school on Saturdays, I babysat my brother and two little sisters, made all the beds, put the laundry in the washer down in the basement, washed the dishes, swept the kitchen floor, fed our dog, Nippy (every little stray dog was named Nippy by Daddy - I don't know why, maybe he just didn't feel like being creative and felt any old name would do?), and heated up chicken gumbo soup for lunch for my siblings.

I honestly felt like I must be a slave or the black Cinderella, and truly believed that I had a godmother who would soon come to our door and rescue me.  Then, whenever the doorbell rang, I prayed and prayed it was The Millionaire's rep, J. Michael Anthony, with a million dollars for me.

Mama went to the beauty parlor every two weeks back then.  She sat me on the kitchen counter, laid me with my head over the sink sprayer, and washed my long, thick, bushy red hair with Johnson's baby soap.  We didn't have home hair dryers yet, so she got a towel and two kitchen chairs, opened the oven, lit  the pilot light, and sat herself and me in front of it while she brushed and combed my hair until it was dry.Then she "greased" my scalp with something from a pink jar called Dixie Peach. The only time she straightened my hair with a hot comb was at Easter time and the school Christmas play.