Section 3 (part 3 of 5)

Oh Gosh! There are so many good things to highlight in this section...

I have decided that I am just going to focus on the part where Rose gets a job teaching.
 

"Mom had the same problems she'd had in Battle Mountain with organizing her paperwork and

disciplining her students. At least one morning a week, she'd throw a tantrum and refuse to go to work,

and Lori, Brian, and I would have to get her collected and down to the street where Lucy Jo waited with

a scowl, blue smoke chugging up out of the Dart's rustedthrough tailpipe."

 

These lines illustrate the reverse roles of the children and the parents. The Walls' children are incredibly mature and understand how life works. No money=No food. I just have a little bit of trouble comprehending Rose's behavior. She has a house that is literally falling apart...the floors and ceiling are rotting. Her kids are constantly out of food. Rex is always borrowing money from her and not giving it back. In her mind, how does this add up? How can you just not want to go to work...?

 

Another example of reverse roles in this section is below.

"Four days later, when Dad still hadn't come home, Mom sent me to go find him. "Why do I always have

to get Dad?" I asked.

"Because he likes you the best," she said. "And he'll come home if you tell him to."

My first stop, as always, was Junior's. It was the fanciest bar in Welch, with a picture window, a grill

that served hamburgers and french fries, and a pinball machine.

"Hey!" one of the regulars called out when I walked in. "It's Rex's little girl. How ya doin', sweetheart?"

"I'm fine, thank you. Is my dad here?"

"Rex?" He turned to the man next to him. "Where's that old polecat Rex?"

"I seen him this morning at the Howdy House."

"Honey, you look like you could use a rest," the bartender said. "Sit down and have a CocaCola

on the

house."

"No, thank you. I've got kites to fly and fish to fry."

I went to the Howdy House, which was a notch below Junior's. It was smaller and darker, and the only

food it served was pickled eggs. The bartender told me Dad had gone to the Pub, which was a notch

below the Howdy House—almost pitch black, with a sticky bar top and no food at all. There he was, in

the midst of a few other regulars, telling one of his air force stories.

When Dad saw me, he stopped talking and looked at me the way he did every time I had to track him

down in a bar. It was always an awkward moment for us both. I didn't want to be fetching him any more

than he wanted his ragamuffin daughter summoning him home like a wayward schoolboy. He looked at

me in this cold, strange way for just a moment, then broke into a hearty grin.

"Hey, Mountain Goat!" he shouted. "What the hell are you doing in this dive?"

"Mom says you have to come home," I said.

"She does, does she?" He ordered a CocaCola

for me and another shot of whiskey for himself. I kept

telling Dad it was time to go, but he kept putting me off and ordering more shots, as if he had to gulp a

whole bunch of them down before he could face home. He staggered off to the bathroom, came back,

ordered one for the road, slammed the shot glass down on the bar, and walked to the door. He lost his

footing trying to open it and sprawled on the floor. I tried to help him up, but he kept falling over.

"Honey, you ain't getting him nowhere like that," a man behind me said. "Here, let me give you a lift

home."

"I'd appreciate that, sir," I said. "If it's not out of your way."

Jeanette has to go out and find her dad. FIND HER DAD. Usually isn't it the parents job to go out and find their kids? Its also extremely hard to believe that he hadn't been home for 4 days. He is the parent and therefore does have paternal responsibility. Its very hard for me to imagine living like this. Personally, I think I have everything. There is [almost] always a full fridge of fruits and vegetables and a pantry full of beans, lentils, etc. I have electricity. In the summer if its hot out I can come inside and turn the air on. If its FREEZING out, and there is a draft I turn the heat on. I personally think that there is a parental responsibility to keep it this way. Kids shouldn't have to provide completely for themselves. Yes, I believe that sometimes there is a little financial hardships and a teenager can go get a job and pay for little things that they want/need. It is completely different for kids to fend for themselves, and even parent the parents. :(

Section 3 (part 2 of 5)

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.

_______________________________________________
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.

Section 3 (part one of the section)

Can you guess what the Wallses are up to?
           If you guessed moving...you are right.

This time they moved back to Rex's home town, Welch, West Virgina. Per the usual the Wallses were broke, so they stayed with Rex's family. To say this housing had a rough start would be a fair statement.

"Welcome home, son," she said and gave Dad a long hug. She turned to Mom. "Nice of you to let me see my grandchildren before I die," she said without a smile. Without taking the cigarette out of her mouth, she gave us each a quick, stiff hug. Her cheek was tacky with sweat. "Pleased to meet you, Grandma," I said. "Don't call me Grandma," she snapped. "Name's Erma."

 

She was obviously being sarcastic and wasn't particulary happy to have this family of 5 staying with them. After the kids got all settled, Rex and Rose decided that they should go back to Phoenix for 'buisness'. While they were away, this happened. (Read about my opinion below)

 

"

After Mom and Dad left, Erma became even more cantankerous. If she didn't like the look on our faces,

she would hit us on the head with a serving spoon. Once she pulled out a framed photograph of her

father and told us he was the only person who had ever loved her. She talked on and on about how much

she'd suffered as an orphan at the hands of her aunts and uncles who hadn't treated her half as kindly as

she was treating us.

"About a week after Mom and Dad left, we kids were all sitting in Erma's living room watching TV.

Stanley was sleeping in the foyer. Erma, who'd been drinking since before breakfast, told Brian that his

britches needed mending. He started to take them off, but Erma said she didn't want him running

around the house in his skivvies or with a towel wrapped around him looking like he was wearing a

goddamn dress. It would be easier for her to mend the britches while he was still wearing them. She

ordered him to follow her into Grandpa's bedroom, where she kept her sewing kit.

They'd been gone for a minute or two when I heard Brian weakly protesting. I went into Grandpa's

bedroom and saw Erma kneeling on the floor in front of Brian, grabbing at the crotch of his pants,

squeezing and kneading while mumbling to herself and telling Brian to hold still, goddammit. Brian,

his cheeks wet with tears, was holding his hands protectively between his legs.

"Erma, you leave him alone!" I shouted.

Erma, still on her knees, twisted around and glared at me. "Why, you little bitch!" she said.

Lori heard the commotion and came running. I told Lori that Erma was touching Brian in a way she

ought not to be. Erma said she was merely mending Brian's inseam and that she shouldn't have to

defend herself against some lying little whore's accusations.

"I know what I saw," I said. "She's a pervert!"

Erma reached over to slap me, but Lori caught her hand. "Let's all calm down," Lori said in the same

voice she used when Mom and Dad got carried away, arguing. "Everybody. Calm down."

Erma jerked her hand out of Lori's grasp and slapped her so hard that Lori's glasses went flying across

the room. Lori, who had turned thirteen, slapped her back. Erma hit Lori again, and this time Lori

struck Erma a blow in the jaw. Then they flew at each other, tussling and flailing and pulling hair,

locked together, with Brian and me cheering on Lori until we woke up Uncle Stanley, who staggered

into the room and pushed them apart."

Okay, So I know that that was double-spaced and long and tiny.

So..this is disgusting. The problem I have with the whole thing is... Rex lived with his parents until he was 17 y/o (normal, but you will see the point in a sec). Do you think that his mother did something like this to him? My guess is yes, because as we will find out later in the book the Uncle is a pervert as well. He inappropriatly touched Jeannette. So if he knew this then how could he let his kids live like that.

I also hate how Rex treated the kids when he got home. HE TOOK HIS MOTHERS SIDE. How could you do that? He said that hie didn't cair what happened and how the kids could back talk, hit, and be a 'p**sy' about the whole thing. (note thsi cam eright out of the book, i just shortened it.) His mother was doing extremely inappropriate actions to Brian, and then she locked the kids in the basement. If it wasn't for Uncle Stanley, those kids wouldn't have had any food.


















 The violent part of Erma (gma) seems to show a bit in Rex.

Last part of section 2

NOTE: the next sentence is "Dad said nothing. He was staring down at the cement patio, and when he turned to me, his eyes had a wounded look, like a dog who's been kicked. "You must be awfully ashamed of your old man," he said."

This is heartwarming. I was so happy for everyone in the Walls family. The feeling Jeanette must have had must have been so elated. I noticed something in this chapter that I think shows something very large. Jeanette capitalizes dad..(it appears as Dad). This shows how much she respects and idolizes him. Almost as quickly as he stopped drinking, he began again. At this point, I was literally crying. How could a father be so ignorant? His family has helped him, and he is helped himself. (You need to read the book to read about his drunk fits. He wasn't a happy drunk.)  The worst part, for me, was when he went back to achohol Rex set the christmas tree and all of the presents on fire. I literally felt so devestated...the first (or one of the first) christmases that these kids actually (would have) gotten real gifts. To be honest, I cried like it was my presents that burned. I just couldn't imagine being in that situation. These kids are some of the [emotionally] strongest people I have ever 'known'.

Part 4

Quite a few things happened in this section, BUT I am just going to talk about one thing.
.........Billy Deal

"Bertha Whitefoot [neighbor] took to calling Billy. "the devil with a crew cut" and. "the terror of the Tracks." She claimed he set fire to a couple of her dogs and skinned some neighborhood cats and strung their naked pink bodies up on a clothesline to make jerky. Billy said Bertha was a big fat liar. I didn't know whom to believe. After all, Billy was a certified JD—juvenile delinquent. He had told us that he spent time in a detention center in Reno for shoplifting and vandalizing cars. Shortly after he moved to the Tracks, Billy started following me around. He was always looking at me and telling the other kids he was my boyfriend." From this quote, we can see that he really was a total rebel. His history is extremely important to how he interacts with others. So, Billy really does follow Jeannette all around AND he tells everyone that she is his girlfriend. He gives her a ring, that he probably stole from his mother, and thinks that they are a couple. From the start, Jeanette knows that it is a bad idea. Alternatively, Rose (mom) says that she should be nice to him and be his friend. One day when the neighborhood friends are playing hid and seek, it all goes \DOWNHILL\. (QUICKLY!) So, Jeanette is hiding by a shed, and all of a sudden Billy pulls her into the shed. He arranges himself around her, and starts asking her questions and kind of hinting at what he is going to do to her. At this moment, I had such deep sorrow for Jeanette. She had NO idea what was going on. At 8 years old, Jeanette was being raped, as Billy so kindly informed her, and she couldn't tell anyone.  8 years old...!! Seriously. She didn't even know what rape was, and looking in the dictionary just made it more confusing. By this point, Jeanette wouldn't let anyone tell her that giving the ring back was a bad idea. After she gave Billy back the ring, she went home. Later, Billy came to her house (her parents weren't home, so it was just her and her 3 siblings) with a gun. Can I just say, this kid shouldn't be running around!? He started threatening Jeanette, and started shooting the windows and trying to shoot the kids. Could you imagine a boy claiming to be your boyfriend, rape you, and then try to shoot you and your family? This is a  horrific experience. I still can't believe the horror these children have gone through, ALL BEFORE AGE 10. Lori went upstairs and got her father's gun and shot Billy. This was to much action and before anything could happen Rex packed the family up and decided to move to Phoenix.

I will blog later about the adventures of Phoenix.

Part 3 (Part 2 of Part 2)

So this section was a lot less....borderline abusive.
My goal is to make this part slightly less ... lengthy ...

Main things that happened in this section:

• For Christmas, Rex gifts all 3 of his kids stars. 
• Rose gives birth to a baby girl.
• Jeanette got into a fight. 
• Some girls convinced Jeanette to follow her and then they beat her. The next day, Jeanette followed them to the alley. When they were about to beat her up again/she was about to beat them up. Brian, her little brother, came out with a stick and started threatening them. 
• "The next day when I got to the alley, the Mexican girls were waiting for me. Before they could attack, Brian jumped out from behind a clump of sagebrush, waving a yucca branch. Brian was shorter than me and just as skinny, with freckles across his nose and sandy red hair that fell into his eyes. He wore my hand­me­down pants, which I had inherited from Lori and then passed on to him, and they were always sliding off his bony behind. "Just back off now, and everyone can walk away with all their limbs still attached," Brian said. It was another one of Dad's lines. The Mexican girls stared at him before bursting into laughter. Then they surrounded him. Brian did fairly well fending them off until the yucca branch broke. Then he disappeared beneath a flurry of swinging fists and kicking feet."
• This is the cutest thing, and it really shows how reliant the siblings are on each other. 
• (not really a main thing that happened) Police tried to pull over Rex, but instead he 'zoomed off'. 
•  a squad car tried to pull us over because the brake lights on the Green Caboose weren't working. Dad took off. He said that if the cops stopped us, they'd find out that we had no registration or insurance and that the license plate had been taken off another car, and they'd arrest us all. 
• This shows how irresponsible these parents are. By running away from the cops, what example is this setting for the kids. It's almost as they are encouraging it. "Hey Kids, when cops chase you ALWAYS outrun them." BUT at the same time, I feel that he is protecting his family, and I find that very paternal of him. While he isn't doing the right thing, once again I am making excuses for characters he is at least doing it for his family, not just for himself. 
• The kids actually enrolled in school. They made friends. They were happy.
• Not that these kids were unhappy before, but now they have other kids to play with. They have a learning environment. I personally was so happy as they got new friends and started school. I think that it is very important for them to do something other than stay with others. Since they are young they need to develop social skills. 
• Jeanette and Brian set their 'lab' on fire.
• "Toxic and hazardous wastes were stored in another corner of the dump, where you could find old batteries, oil drums, paint cans, and bottles with skulls and crossbones. Brian and I decided some of this stuff would make for a neat scientific experiment, so we filled up a couple of boxes with different bottles and jars and took them to an abandoned shed we named our laboratory. At first we mixed things together, hoping they would explode, but nothing happened, so I decided we should conduct an experiment to see if any of the stuff was flammable. The next day after school we came back to the laboratory with a box of Dad's matches. We unscrewed the lids of some of the jars, and I dropped in matches, but still nothing happened. So we mixed up a batch of what Brian called nuclear fuel, pouring different liquids into a can. When I tossed in the match, a cone of flame shot up with a whoosh like a jet afterburner. "
• There is a fine line between dangerous and freedom. Rose and Rex believe that they kids shouldn't have rules (other than no back sassing), but some of the stuff that they do borderlines on really dangerous. These kids were playing with TOXIC wastes. TOXIC!! "No worries let's just let our kids play with toxic wastes and fire...great combination, Don't you think so, Honey?" This does show that these kids are independent and creative. They don't need anything storebought to have fun, which is a great character trait. Then again, I feel that maybe at this point these children would understand the fine line between fun and dangerous. Maybe the parents should enforce safe boundaries. Not really boundaries, just lessons about what is safe. 

Pt. 2 (well part 1 of part 2...make sense??)

Main things that happened in this section

• Jeanette catches on fire (age 3) while cooking hot dogs without supervision. Taken to hospital, and treated. Family smuggles her out of the hospital.
• Rex, her father, decides to take the whole family and leave their home (because the FBI and tax collectors are after him. In this section, I think that they moved to 4 different places
• middle of the desert
• Las Vegas
• San Francisco 
• Midland --another place in the middle of the desert
• Through each place, we learned more about the characters and their lifestyle. 

Okay, so lets start with Jeanette catching on fire. She was 3 years old and cooking hot dogs on the stove, with NO supervision. Her mom was in the other room, painting. She catches on fire and is then rushed to the hospital. She is covered in 3rd-degree burns and has to have skin grafts. 

"The nurses and doctors kept asking me questions: How did you get burned? Have your parents ever hurt

you? Why do you have all these bruises and cuts? My parents never hurt me, I said. I got the cuts and

bruises playing outside and the burns from cooking hot dogs. They asked what I was doing cooking hot

dogs by myself at the age of three. It was easy, I said. You just put the hot dogs in the water and boil

them. It wasn't like there was some complicated recipe that you had to be old enough to follow. The pan

was too heavy for me to lift when it was full of water, so I'd put a chair next to the sink, climb up and

fill a glass, then stand on a chair by the stove and pour the water into the pan. I did that over and over

again until the pan held enough water. Then I'd turn on the stove, and when the water was boiling, I'd

drop in the hot dogs. "Mom says I'm mature for my age," I told them. "and she lets me cook for myself a lot."

 After a few days, her dad decides that the hospital is filled with white trash and that they don't know what they are doing, so he smuggles her out. After you catch on fire, what do you think your views on Fire are? Well, Jeanette wasn't afraid of it, she was now intrigued; she would steal her father's matches and play with them in the back yard. 

One thing that can be said about this chapter is that Jeanette is fearless. I mean really who could have their whole abdomen burned, have skin grafts and still want to play with fire. I just can't believe having no fear after her accident. I also have to say how responsible Jeanette is. She cooks for herself!! She is 3 years old...3! We can also see that her mom is a tiny bit self-absorbed...I mean no time to cook, but plenty of time for painting. (She paints for fun, not for profit, as far as I know.) Somehow though I honestly don't see her mother as a bad person. (or her dad) I'm on of those readers who make excuses for characters because I love them. In this case, I don't love Rose, the kids moms, or Rex, the dad, but I love Jeanette and her siblings. I want these kids to have a good life, so I just keep making excuses for the lack of mature and parental material in Rose and Rex.

Now, Rex says that the FBI (or tax collectors as the mom explains to the kids)  are after him so they have to move. Well, as he explains they can't be in places for too long otherwise the 'FBI' will find him. He even smokes his cigarettes backward...in case the 'FBI' is following him. During this section, (30 pages) the family has moved 4 times. They first go into the desert and sleep in the sand, then they went to Las Vegas so Rex could get money. On their way to Las Vegas, Jeanette falls out of the car. (the door flies open when they made a sharp turn. The parents don't turnaround until a while after. Part of this event could be because Rex was sippin' beer while he was driving, but I don't know for sure. While they were in Las Vegas gambling the kids would just play hid and seek in the casinos. After the mafia found out about them, guessing they were cheating, fellow gamblers suggested they leave. Mom decided that they should go live on the pacific ocean. So they drove their car out to the beach and just slept in their car. Then the police told them that they couldn't stay on the beach, and for the final move (in this section), they moved to midland. Rex got a job, and the kids got cats. 

Through these events, we can see that Rex and his wife are very adventurous. Well, that can also be a bad thing. I mean these kids don't have anything steady in their lives, they only sometimes attend school. They are in a car whose doors just randomly open, and on occasion kids fall out. These parents while Jeanette loves them and doesn't know any different, aren't responsible or mature enough to be parents.

Repetidly while reading this book, I have to remind myself that this is true. Let's just imagine this: you are reading a FICTION book, and a character just falls out of the car while making a sharp turn. Funny, right? Well, when I was reading this, I was like THIS GIRL IS ALIVE. SHE LITERALLY FELL OUT OF A CAR WHILE HER DAD WAS DRIVING. HER FAMILY DIDN'T NOTICE THAT SHE WAS MISSING FOR A FEW MILES. Like its so completely different to realize that this actually happened. 

Wow! That was really long...and just so you know I really haven't included any details. So you will have to read the book for those. 

BYE!! :)