Holly Schroeder Link - Big Noise from LaPorte: A Diary of the Disillusioned

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Big Noise from LaPorte: A Diary of the Disillusioned

Copyright 2022 Holly Schroeder Link

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in the United States of America.

Cover and Interior Designed by Siori Kitajima, SF AppWorks LLC

Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN-13:
eBook: 978-1-950154-76-0
Paperback: 978-1-950154-77-7

Published by The Sager Group LLC
TheSagerGroup.net

December 10, 1975

Dear Diary,

I cant possibly belong to these people. When are my real parents coming for me? Tonight, at the dinner table, I tried to tell a story about my teacher Mr. Gangwer, and Mom sent me to my room for talking too much. No freedom of speech in this house. So, I wrote a suicide note, folded it into a paper airplane and flew it into the kitchen.

Dear Family,

By the time you read this, I will be gone. Please dont put my first name of Karen on my tombstone. It never suited me.

Goodbye.

Holly Schroeder

Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentment of loss.

Joan Didion

MY MOTHERS KEEPER

The only thing that separated my mother from her Hoover was childbirth. Vacuuming our modest red-brick house on Country Club Drive in LaPorte, Indiana, is exactly what she was doing when her water broke.

Dr. Feine, the babys coming. Ill see you at the hospital. Two hours later, at 10:17 p.m., on New Years Day, 1966, I made my entrance, just in time for Johnny Carson. I won a rattle and a one-year supply of Pampers.

If you were to ask my mother about my birth, shed tell you with total sincerity, I didnt have to have any anesthetic, and my father would say, We missed the tax deduction.

Above all, my parents were pragmatic. They were old-school: Children should respect their elders, do their chores, and be seen and not heard.

Well, that didnt work for me. I had a lot to say. Expressing myself on paper, at school, at the kitchen table, was as natural as breathing. Held hostage by my inner muse, I had a burning light inside of me, and I wanted to shine it in everyones face. I was the oddball. My sister Susan and brother Danny, only two years apart, were like twins, and I was the black sheep who didnt fit.

My mother, unable to show vulnerability, skirted feelings, while I felt too much. I was dramatic, outspoken, and prone to ennui. My mother was often insensitive, while I was over-sensitive. Like most performers, I wanted everyone to like me, a recipe for disaster. I set myself up for a lifetime of hurt.

As the baby of the family, I was fated to be my mothers keeper. It was as if an unspoken contract existed and we were in cahoots, partners in crime attached at the hip, running errands to the bank, jewelers, church bazaars, Barbara Links Boutique, Woolworths, and Juanitas Beauty Shop. I loved her more than anyone on the planet, and her approval meant everything to me.

My father taught my mother to drive so that she used both feet and worked the pedals of our yellow and brown Plymouth Reliant station wagon. We didnt bother with seat belts, so I went flying across the front seat a lot, slamming into the door whenever she made a left-hand turn.

All shopping excursions included a stop at the First Federal Savings Bank, to have my interest posted. I was a Thrift Club member and one of the perks was the yearly photo taken in front of a dingy wall, like a passport photo.

Our second errand was a twirl of the racks at Barbara Links Boutique, where my mother found her stylish wardrobe. When I wasnt hiding in the center of the rack startling customers, I was sitting in the corner of the dressing room giving my opinion.

That color looks good on you. Brings out your eyes. Well, of course, you should get it, Mother! Its on sale!

Then came the most important erranda wash and set at Juanitas Beauty Shop. Some kids went to daycare. I went to Juanitas, where my mother was a regular.

Foggy with cigarette smoke and a din of female discussion, Juanitas smelled like a mens club. But this was no place for men. Juanitas was a refuge for women needing escape from their husbands and children. LaPorte housewives gathered here to smoke Virginia Slims, get their hair done, and discuss the business of living.

Juanita was a busty woman built like a line-backer, who wore exotic, Hawaiian muumuus. A Virginia Slim dangled permanently from her lower lip like it was glued there. She scuffed from one foggy room to another in a pair of pink slippers. Trailing her was a wisp of smoke and Jock, her devoted, black French poodle, his nails matching hers with a sheen of Cherry Jubilee.

Juanita milled about the shop smoking, ringing up people at the register, and fetching Aqua Net. Finally, shed sit in her chair, and Jock would bury himself in her crotch as she scratched his head. Sometimes, her cigarette ashes fell into the frizzy pouf on top of his head. One day, I looked at Jock and his afro was smoking.

A lot of prominent women went to Juanitas, including the mayors wife, Frances Rumely, the only customer who used the front door, where Jock left his calling card. In 1982, on Memorial Day, Frances and her husband, A.J. Rumely Jr. would be murdered in their own bed by a disgruntled employee named Harold Lange. LaPorte, Indiana, would make national news, and my high school sweetheart Daniel Edwards would be the court room artist.