Lessons I Learned: "The Way I See Things"

By Linda L. Geske

These short stories are in three sections (1) About me (2) About My and Your
Relatives and (3) About Little Lessons I Learned. Each story represents a true
part of my life as I lived it, saw it and remember it.
At the end of each story is "What You Might Expect to Learn from my experiences"
and perhaps a quote from a famous person or "the little black book" as I call
the Bible.
Most of the general information can be applied to your daily life. The details of
each event might just help you avoid some of the same mistakes I made. Learn
when to use your "yes" your "no" and even when "maybe" is the best response.
The stories relate to my childhood, teenage years, careers,marriage, motherhood,
retirement and other wisdom I learned through life.
In fact, this book gives fundamental life and living advice, regardless of what age
you are when you read this, or what experiences you have had so far in your life,
Overall I hope you find the book informational, educational, enjoyable and easy to
read. That way you will not feel that you wasted time reading the book, but rather
that this book helped you understand and cope better with challenging situations
that might happen in your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781532094354

Linda L. Geske

A Grandmother who decided to write another book for her Granddaughter. First Book "Read My Mind" As a nurse, I cared for people who were ill and worked with their family members so that they could provide quality care at home. As Human Resource Specialist I placed people into the right job, so they could love doing things they were meant to do. As a Real Estate Broker and owner of a Brokerage firm, I helped people find the perfect home. I also helped movie stars find temporary housing during filming of a major movie, Ground Hog Day. My Interior Decorating Company, LGL Designs, I worked with decorators, designers and architects to help people turn their house into a personalized home, a home they had always dreamed about.

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Copyright © 2019 Linda L. Geske.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

ISBN: 978-1-5320-9436-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-9434-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-9435-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020902025

iUniverse rev. date:  02/04/2020

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Linda

Chapter 2 Linda Lou

Chapter 3 History

Chapter 4 Front Porch

Chapter 5 Summer Cabin

Chapter 6 Snakes!

Chapter 7 School Days

Chapter 8 Teens

Chapter 9 Journalism

Chapter 10 Psychiatric Case Study

Chapter 11 Why I Became an Author

Chapter 12 Vice Squad

Chapter 13 Food, Alcohol, and Drug Addiction

Chapter 14 Specialist

Chapter 15 Live and Let Live

Chapter 16 The Bible: The Best Motivational Book Ever Written

Chapter 17 Communications

Chapter 18 Selecting Life’s Experiences

Chapter 19 Bully Personalities

Chapter 20 Volunteering

Chapter 21 Telephone Etiquette

Chapter 22 Computer

Chapter 23 Great-Grandmother

Chapter 24 Displaying Pictures/Memories in Your Home

Dear Grace,

Seek first to understand and then to be understood.

—Stephen R. Covey on understanding in The 7 Habits of Highly

Effective People

THE SHORT STORIES IN LESSONS I Learned are presented in three sections: (1) About Me, (2) About My and Your Relatives, and (3) About the Little Lessons I Learned. Each story represents a true part of my life as I lived it, saw it, and remember it.

At the end of each story is a section entitled What you might expect to learn from my experiences and, perhaps, a quote from a famous person or the little black book as I call the Bible.

Most of the general information can be applied to your daily life. The details of each event might just help you avoid some of the same mistakes I made. Learn when to use your yes, your no, and even when maybe is the best response. The stories relate to my childhood, teenage years, careers, marriage, motherhood, retirement, and other wisdom I learned through life.

In fact, this book gives fundamental advice on life and living, regardless of what age you are when you read this, or what experiences you have had so far in your life.

Overall I hope you find the book informational, educational, enjoyable, and easy to read. That way you will not feel that you wasted time reading the book but, rather, that this book helped you understand and cope better with challenging situations that might happen in your life.

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CHAPTER 1

LINDA

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE lived a little girl known to family and friends as Linda Lou from 102 South Kentucky Avenue. Linda Lou had a speech impediment, and it was hard for others to understand her words. Linda Lou’s older sister ,Gwen, taught her this little rhyme in case she ever got lost and someone would ask her name.

I’m Linda Lou, from 102 South Kentucky Avenue!

This was the way she introduced herself. She also had a little dance she did when she was saying her name and address. Linda ended up writing poems, songs, and rhymes throughout her life.

Linda was born in 1940 at home, not in a hospital, and was the youngest of three children.

As you have likely guessed, Grace, this story is about me—your grandmother!

My childhood contained several difficult obstacles and many joys.

My father was an alcoholic. So with a speech impediment and being born into a dysfunctional family, I learned at an early age to just shut up and sit down. I knew not to express any opinion on anything. This might be why, as an adult, I participated regularly in continuing education classes. Now I want to share information with others and learn from others each and every day.

I believe you can never learn too much. There is always a need for accurate information. Even with the internet to use, a face-to-face conversation between two or more people is the best method of sharing educational materials, experiences, and thoughts.

I had many successful careers and participated in continuing education throughout my life. I have educated opinions, which make for interesting conversations, especially in the areas of medicine, corporate business, real estate marketing, sales, and interior/exterior design.

I have over fifty years of experience and work history in the fields mentioned above. I was the sole owner of a real estate broker firm and an interior/exterior design firm, both successful businesses for over twenty years. Columbia Studios hired me during the filming of Groundhog Day to work with Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Andie McDowell, Trevor Albert, and other cast members. The movie stars needed somewhere to live during the filming of Groundhog Day. I was well respected in the real estate and design businesses, and because of that, I was hired to work with the movie stars.

Back in the old days, older people were known to have wisdom. They not only had the education and experience in a given field but also knew its history—what was preserved and protected from the past. We know that the past can control the future. We should never make bad or evil decisions again in history. Elders are known to have wisdom because they have lived and survived many situations within their lifetime. We should listen to the wisdom of our elders. We may learn from their experiences and not make similar mistakes or repeat bad or evil acts toward others. A new history is written with each generation. We never want to return to the Hitler-like days.

I prefer the written word to the spoken word to express my thoughts. As we all know, we can edit our written word before releasing it for interpretation. But once the spoken word comes out of someone’s mouth, damage might be done. By then it’s too late to change the statement. An I’m sorry; I didn’t mean that the way it came out, is not usually accepted as an apology.

Besides, the written word (after being edited) is how we really feel, not quick, un-thought-out spoken words. The advice to think before you speak is really important. Try not to speak before you form a socially acceptable answer or have created a comment in your brain. We sometimes quickly say what pops into our mind, though it might not be socially acceptable or even what we truly believe after careful consideration. Try to follow this procedure—listen, think of your response, and then speak. Once you have made a statement, it becomes your quote and part of your personal history. So be careful what comments you make.

It’s now the twenty-first century. So you can check your Webster’s Dictionary and look up dysfunctional family. Or just turn on your TV and listen to Dr. Phil. I am so glad that we’ve finally gotten to the point in our society where we can talk about our feelings and, thus, can change things we need to within ourselves and in our behavior. This assures healthy relationships that offer a happy, productive, rewarding life.

I was once a young child, just like you are now. What we experience as a child before the age of ten makes us who we become. In the 1940s and 1950s, family behavior that included abusive, unjust treatment of children was common within the family environment, just like it is today. Physical disciplinary actions toward children were acceptable—and hidden—in my day. Any physical or verbal abuse used as punishment was always kept as a family secret. Any action taken against a child was a family secret not to be discussed or shared with anyone outside the home—ever.

My stories in this book talk about things we were not allowed to talk about in the 1950s. It is said that, once you write something down on paper, you can release those thoughts from your memory bank, your brain. After I finish this book, I will let you know if this old saying is true! Already I’m feeling better, and some of the negative thoughts are gone from my brain. I feel relief from writing this book, finally finding healing from old thoughts and feelings.

Back in the old days, mothers made sure that family secrets of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse by family members or friends remained family secrets. Any abuse reported to a mother by a child or observed by her was definitely a secret to be kept within the family. Emotional, physical, and sexual abuse was just part of growing up, and you couldn’t tell anyone about the abuse to stop it from happening, like you can do these days. It was a family secret, and one’s own mother didn’t even seem to care about the abuse. As a child, you were expected to handle these abusive situations or stay out of the way of an abusive adult.

Now, schools have psychologists who help children deal with emotional and physical abuse they experience either inside or outside of the home. And from a young age, children are able to talk about how they feel about things that happened to them. Again, in my day, kids were told to shut up and sit down unless an adult was talking directly to them. In the 1940s and 1950s, children did what they were told to do and didn’t talk back to adults. That’s why psychologists would have been popular in the 1940s and 1950s; children would have had someone to talk to who would have believed and protected them.

Back then, if an adult outside the home asked how your home life was going, how you were treated, or how you felt about something that happened in your home, you always gave the same rehearsed answer. Kids were instructed to say, I’m fine, or, Everything is okay. These answers would apply to almost any question an adult would ask a child. If one of these answers did not apply to the question as a proper answer, we were instructed to say, I’m late. I have to get home, and take off without answering the question.

Sometimes it was great being a child in a dysfunctional home. You never really had to tell any adult what was going on in your life, since almost everything that happened in a home was a family secret. In the old days, if we’d had psychologists in the schools or anywhere else to whom we could talk about family problems, my siblings and I would have been removed from our family home environment. Children should not be exposed to drunks who pull guns and say they’re going to kill you, sexual abusers, and other strange adult behaviors during their childhood. Even though my childhood was extremely difficult, I’m glad we were able to stay together. We learned to be stronger, and we adjusted to society just fine.

Perhaps if kids from the 1940s were allowed to talk about some of the actions taken against them and their feelings about those actions, they may have been quite different people than who they turned out to be. Despite the fact that having family secrets meant we were exposed to some painful and scary times, this kept our family together. Otherwise, I could have been placed in a foster home and grown up without my siblings, birth mother, and father.

Instincts one needs for self-survival is what I learned in my dysfunctional home. So I consider myself street smart, and I’m glad I grew up as I did. After reading the stories of this little girl, Linda Lou, you may be able to relate to or understand her, and yourself, a little better.

My mother, Marie, who was a big part of our dysfunctional family, was a spoiled brat before her marriage. She was the youngest of seven children, many years younger than her sister and five brothers. She was a change-of-life baby. She was not planned or expected. Aunt Freda and the five brothers mostly took care of my mother and waited on her hand and foot. That’s why my mother was so self-centered and spoiled. She was not prepared for the responsibility of marriage and raising three children on her own.

From 1941 to 1945, we were in World War II. My father was in the Marines, away from home. We had a live-in person, Olivia, who helped mom with us kids, and my Aunt Freda paid for her services. After the war, my father did come home seven days a week. Five days, he went to bed shortly after supper because he had to work the next day. The other two days he would come home drunk and have arguments with my mother. He physically abused my mom and sister.

My father was an alcoholic womanizer who had a son with another woman out of wedlock. This was his first child, and he was named after my father. I didn’t know about this child until I was in my teens. The mother of my father’s first child left town and raised him somewhere else. When her son got a little older, they returned to her small hometown, where we lived. I believe she moved back after my mother and father had been married.

When I asked my mother if the boy was related to us, she said that he was. She said that my father was also his father. Alcoholic and bad behavior seemed to run in my family. That is the reason I gave up drinking alcohol when I was in my sixties.

Again, family secrets were not shared with extended family members, or the public. That is why I do not know much about my entire family, only my immediate family.

My great-grandmother raised my father because his mother was an alcoholic who took off after she gave birth to my father. My father weighed fourteen pounds at birth. That is enough to make any woman take off!

I really don’t know where my mother met my father. I just know they got married and had three children in three years, and I was the youngest. I thank God for my Aunt Freda who practically raised my mother and lived right around the corner from us. She understood good parenting even though she had no children of her own and was on twenty-four-hour call for our family. She is the reason I grew up living a somewhat normal life. She took me to Sunday school and Bible school and taught me domestic skills that were needed to be a good wife.

In the 1950s, most women got married after leaving high school. The only careers open to women were teaching, nursing, working with an airline as a stewardess, or doing secretarial work. There were no equal rights for all, and most women were not able to get a college education. Personally I didn’t want to get married and have children because I thought they would have