from the balcony and BOOM, SPLASH right on the top of one of the girl’s head who just had her hair done! She screamed and my sister and I ran in the room. That is probably the worst thing I ever did, but I still laugh about it today. I’ll bet that girl told stories about that for years…LOL! My mom never told us anything about the counterfeit thing or bankruptcy until adulthood. Wow! She actually went to Federal court pleading Tom’s case where the judge took pity on her and he got off with an insanity defense. Since Tom was a compulsive gambler and insisted my mother go to work, she took a waitress job at a restaurant at US 1 & McNab Road on a side street just across from St. Coleman’s Catholic Church in Pompano Beach. To her astonishment the establishment was then sold a few weeks later and became a strip club. I remember my mother wearing a gold roman style short dress. She was distraught! No, she did not strip and did not stay there very long. She then took a waitress job at Country Music Cabaret where she met one of her lifelong friends, Lola.Another friend was Carol who had a small daughter who needed baby sitting which I did. When the daughter had chickenpox, shortly thereafter I came down with the shingles at 16 yrs old! It was the perfect storm with everything that was going on. Mom was working in real estate as well at the time to help make ends meet. Tom was jealous as to where she was at every minute. I remember walking down the hall from my bedroom to the living room when he asked me to bring him a highball (mixed drink). I did and then he insisted that I knew where my mom was. I said,“Working.” To which he raised his right hand and slapped hard me across the face. That was enough for me! I told mom the next morning as she was getting ready in her bathroom, that if she did not leave him, I would! I had had enough. She told me that she promised that she would never get another divorce. At that, I said,“Divorce is better than what we are going through. You need to do it!” It was shortly after, within a week or two, that infamous night with the gun occurred. During this time Linda, my sister was at the University of Miami and had no clue as to what was going on. In fact, she came home that night and discovered
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