MY SISTER WAS AN ONLY CHILD 1959-1963

Let’s Get Married - Twice
Long story short, after spending a fortune on the telephone, I asked her to marry me she said yes and I picked her up at Miami International and in no time we said I Dos at a Lutheran Church in Coral Gables. The real storey came later at the reception.

The reception was held out at my Cousin Charlie Cabell’s place. It was a large estate out on Red Road which was the boonies in the 1960s. Wine, women and song plus Roger Makin skydiving naked into the party. Oh, we also were racing sports cars down the long driveway. It was quite a party. I think Betty was longing for Mississippi about then.

The facts were: we were married, I went back to school, Betty got pregnant, along came Pamela Gillespie. On June 27th of 1960 I took Betty to Jackson Memorial Hospital sometime in early evening as she was in labor big time. The only socially redeeming quality about Jackson Memorial was on the top floor was the Stork Club. A watering hole where expectant dads, such as myself could wait out the storm. Along about 5:00am the nurse called me down to see my newborn. She was a pretty little thing and the nurse asked if we’d picked a name. I said yes, “Pamela”. She asked further, “A middle name”? I was half in the bag and more than a little irritable when I snapped back, “For God’s sake, Lady, its dawn. Pamela Dawn Gillespie entered the family.

We moved back to our two bedroom apartment in Homestead, Florida. It was actually a serried of four-plexes that housed mostly married students. We got down and dirty bringing up a new baby. I remember one day after changing a particularly messy diaper that I had gotten a letter from Pam’s God-father and my dear friend John Rosson. I had written him earlier about the horrors of diaper changing. In part, the letter said, “The time will come when you will be able to change a diaper with one hand and spread mustard on a ham sandwich with the other”. He was right.

What with school, being a father, again drinking too much, a hairs being broken over my back by an irate wife and, don’t forget a night in the Dade County Jail, we were all glad to leave Miami and go back to Texas for the Summer. One day when I came in from playing golf Mother said I had a letter from Mexico. It was my acceptance to the Universidad de Mexico.

We spent the next few months getting ready to immigrate to Mexico. Dad had one of his me in the Trim Shop make a large rectangular bag to fit on the roof of our Opel station wagon so we go bring more of our stuff. That bag almost killed us in the mountains above Mexico City. That bag, full of our stuff made the little Opel top heavy and going around those sharp curves got us up on two wheels a couple of times. When I looked over the side I saw what looked like about a 5,000 foot fall. Needless to say, we made it.

We stayed a 345 Rio Lerma. Diana the Huntress was aiming her arrow right at our fifth floor apartment. She took on more significance when I discovered that drug stores down there really meant drug stores. Now I was getting loaded and getting drunk, too. Remember Diana? Well, after a particularly strange combination of drugs I could swear she was shooting arrows at me. I remember our maid Gerlinda coming out on the balcony to see what was the matter. I was under the table ducking arrows that was all.

After six months of drinking, drugging and generally wasting time and money, decided to head back North to Texas and Corpus Christi. Once there, as a family man, I needed to get a job. Incidentally, Daddy had cut me off making the choice to go to work even easier.

I read the want ads one day and saw an ad asking “Do you want to make $375 per month”? I did, applied and was hired by Southland Life all in one day. Within a few months I became one of the leading salesmen in the area.

I had an office downtown and on the way would stop at a drive in and have a few beers. I played golf every day and would drink during the round and then get serious about it at the 19th Hole.

We bought a cute little house out by Parkdale and I settled into the life of the working, father, and husband – for a while. I went to work, sold insurance and played golf and gin rummy almost every day except Sunday. That’s when I went with Betty and little Pam to the Church of the Good Shepherd.

While on the outside things looked alright, I was drinking in the morning, at lunch, on the golf course and made Daiquiris at home at night. I take off for Bandera or Nuevo Laredo too often.

Through family connections I was able to sell a large policy that kept my job and marriage alive for a while. But finally the dam broke and I was sent off to Menninger’s Foundation in Topeka, KS. Mom, Daddy, Betty and me off to see the Wizard.

I was there for several months and the peculiar thing about that stay was that at no time, by no one was alcohol or drugs ever mentioned. The main thing I can remember was that I was convinced this was all Betty’s fault. Drinking and drugging were not the issue. I could stop whenever I wanted.

One time when the family came to get a report and to visit me, I remember Daddy asking how long this treatment would go on. The reply was probably another year or so. Daddy said the insurance would run out in a few months. They said, “He’ll be ready by then”.

What a place. I forget how much it cost but it was a fortune and there’s nothing significant that I can write about. Just talking with doctors, going to Handicrafts or Ceramics (I made an ashtray) eating, sleeping and then doing it all again. They did keep me pretty well doped up.

One of my doctors was an Italian Count. Dr. Alberto Malioka, MD, PhD and I met each day and usually went for a walk on the sculptured grounds. One afternoon Dr. Malioka was particularly resplendent in his cape, Bat Man sun glasses and complete with a silver tipped cane. After some question/answer period he stopped, tapped his cane on the sidewalk and said. “Mr. Gillespie, the only thing not phony about you is the way you breathe”. That about said it all.

The Day arrived. Daddy came to Topeka and got me. Instead of taking me back to Corpus Christi I was taken to John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Texas. Specifically, I went to the Randall Pavilion, Seventh Floor. Talk about a lock-up, the only way down was either the keyed elevator or the locked fire stairs. Daddy checked me in, gave someone my file from Menninger’s and hugged me. It was the first time he ever did that it was also the first time I saw him cry.

John Sealy was a whole lot different than Menninger’s. Patients at Menninger’s were mostly neurotic. The ones at Sealy were mostly psychotic. There were a couple of dopers and boozers like me there among the screamers, droolers, rockers and other assorted flip-outs.

One friend I made was Jerry Mc Dermott. He came from a wealthy family in the Hill Country of Texas. His problem was the same as mine – too much, too fast, and for too long. We both agreed that we needed a drink or two. The question was how to get off this floor?

The answer came about a week later. Jerry came up to me and told me he had the key to elevator. Since we were only a block from the beach and the Balinese Room was on the pier on the beach and we were both members of that lovely spot, we were only a few yards from a drink. The reason the Balinese was so important to us was in those days you could buy Scotch and you could buy water, but you couldn’t buy a Scotch and water except in a private club. The Balinese Room was one such club.

We waited until no nurses were around and in the key went and down we went. We were dressed in our gowns with butts hanging out and bathrobes when we ran up the pier to the doors of the Balinese. As we walked in, Peter the bartender said “Good Morning, Gentlemen”. Peter had a hefty tip coming.

We ordered double Beefeater martinis for the next hour or so. Then, as luck would have it, I looked over my shoulder and there sat Dr. Brittain, my doctor along with several other staff from Sealy. There were no cell phones in those days but the good doctor lost no time in getting to the House Phone. I told Peter to just fill two Old Fashioned glasses with gin as just as we downed those two, in came the Men in White. Talk about drunk, we were the Poster Boys for Inebriation.

The next thing I knew, I was scheduled for a series of ECT or electroconvulsive therapy better know today as shock treatments. The procedure was to be strapped to a table, get an injection of curare and get a metal spoon placed in my mouth while someone counted to three. At three the lights went out for me and I woke up with a nurse giving me a huge glass of orange juice.

The straps were to hold me down. The curare was a drug used by Jivaro Indians of the Amazon Basis to kill small animals with their blow guns. It was used to keep me from going into convulsions. The spoon was to keep me from swallowing my tongue.

When the family came to visit, I couldn’t recognize them. Daddy would take me to play golf and I would ask him where the next hole was. A golfer doesn’t forget a golf course in a week.

When they released me to go home I just didn’t remember people, including my wife Betty. It must have been pretty hard on her, too.

I’m not clear on what happened next but I knew she was pregnant, and it was time for me to go. I left for parts unknown and sometime later she gave birth to my oldest son, Henry Carter Gillespie IV.

The next call was to Cy Cyrus.

Although we’ve been apart for over three decades, the sweet talking Southern lady is still
on my Speed Dial.