SEEING AS HOW WELCH
was our new home, Brian and I figured we'd make the best of it. Dad had
shown us the spot near the house where we were going to put the foundation and basement for the Glass
Castle. He'd measured it off and marked it with stakes and string. Since Dad was hardly ever home—he
was out making contacts and investigating the UMW, he told us—and never got around to breaking
ground, Brian and I decided to help. We found a shovel and pickax at an abandoned farm and spent just
about every free minute digging a hole. We knew we had to dig it big and deep. "No point in building a
good house unless you put down the right foundation," Dad always said.
It was hard work, but after a month we'd dug a hole deep enough for us to disappear in. Even though we
hadn't squared the edges or smoothed the floor, we were still pretty darn proud of ourselves. Once Dad
had poured the foundation, we could help him on the frame.
But since we couldn't afford to pay the town's trashcollection
fee, our garbage was really piling up. One
day Dad told us to dump it in the hole.
"But that's for the Glass Castle," I said.
"It's a temporary measure," Dad told me. He explained that he was going to hire a truck to cart the
garbage to the dump all at once. But he never got around to that, either, and as Brian and I watched, the
hole for the Glass Castle's foundation slowly filled with garbage.
This event breaks my heart. </3 These kids wanted to help out their dad in making their dreams, and his dreams come true. The way Rex didn't even think twice about filling in the foundation, that these kids 'spent every free minute digging' really makes me so sad.
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Just to set the scene. Its winter, its freezing, the only heat this family gets/can get is from the wood stove, and usually there is nothing to put in it.
One day Brian and I climbed the hillside to try to find some dry wood while Lori stayed in the house,
stoking the fire. As Brian and I were shaking the snow off some promising branches, we heard a loud
boom from the house. I turned and saw flames leap up inside the windows.
We dropped our wood and ran back down the hill. Lori was lurching around the living room, her
eyebrows and bangs all singed off and the smell of burned hair in the air. She had used kerosene to try
to get the fire going better, and it had exploded, just like Dad had said it would. Nothing in the house
except Lori's hair had caught on fire, but the explosion had blown back her coat and skirt, and the
flames had scorched her thighs. Brian went out and got some snow, and we packed it on Lori's legs,
which were dark pink. The next day she had blisters the length of her thighs.
"Just remember," Mom said after examining the blisters. "what doesn't kill you will make you stronger."
"If that was true, I'd be Hercules by now," Lori said.
First of all, I just love Lori's remark. Because this is completely true. These parents say, what doesn't kill you will make you stronger, constantly. When the kids are sexually harrassed, don't have any food, are freezing, what do you think the parents say? "What doesn't kill you will make you stronger." This upsets me because these kids deserve better. They deserve not to be punished for being sexually harrassed. They deserve food. They deserve heat. Don't tell me that they were to poor to afford it, and that they were using their resources. THEY WEREN'T. Rose could teach, and sometimes she did. But when they were in really tough times she just would refuse. Rex could stop drinking and save thousands of dollars.
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