Shirley Harrison and Elaine Wright

00:08 My name is Elaine Rushmore. Right? I am 34 years old. And today's date is is October 22nd of 2007. We are here in Louisville, Kentucky. That is Louisville and my relationship to my partner here. And she is my friend and she is my big sister and spirit.

00:33 My name is Shirley Harrison. I am 51 years old. Today's date is 10. 22 07 and we are in louiville and that was my friend Elaine and I just had to say where are you? Happy birthday. Shirley welcome to the world.

00:52 Sort of interesting one.

00:56 Anything special happen today? Not yet. I just got off work and I'm not enough of a moron.

01:12 So, have you picked it out dumbass?

01:18 Who's going to be on your ass for the rest of your life?

01:22 Not for anybody else can see it so, you know, it's not too obnoxious. I just know. It's there.

01:30 Do something different to do.

01:35 So you're 51. Okay, as you remember, 50 was a big one, put my but through the mirror.

01:43 Highlights.

01:45 Hello life.

01:48 Do excluding today cuz it's not over yet. What's been your favorite birthday?

01:55 My favorite birthday.

01:57 When I was a little kid cuz they don't know exactly that. This was my birthday cuz I'm failing. My mother did did that. Well, it could be anywhere from the 21st to the 25th. We had a birthday party everyday.

02:13 I don't know. I think I was about 10. I got to eat anything. I want to nobody, add got to sit in a chair. I wanted to, I didn't have to talk to anybody. I didn't want to and I got a present for you is all four days.

02:24 Really, really mean.

02:34 Play my cats, sit at the table with my mom.

02:38 Only, when you were 10, no, we did it every year, but for some reason, I don't remember what I got that year, but it was a really good year.

02:46 Not sure what? I got till we get to celebrate your birthday tomorrow. I'm getting a little old for that at this point, you know, you know, it rained I would say about that. Arlo said about that.

03:00 You live each day as your last and you learn. As if you live forever, a man that drop dead while dancing at the old folks home. He did he did. He certainly did mentor and spirit always.

03:16 Okay, one of my questions I want to ask you. Surely is a squirrel. I think there was a character named squirrely Shirley or something like that, but I didn't like the hell why didn't like the squirrelly? So for some reason than they was okay, if they call me squirrel, but not squirrel. And when I started working at Lynn's Paradise Cafe.

03:44 For some odd reason, my roommate at the time Lindsey new, I took a lot of Latin and schools. Only thing I sort of dropped in the high school for Sochi. Conjugated. It. Squirrel. Squirrel, squirrel.

04:03 I think it was just to be really mean it was. All right squirrel. It was when I was fat.

04:13 Whole lot of squirrel, she would know.

04:19 There's a big girl. So that's that's always been squirrel. But if they call me squirrely, I don't talk to right cuz I don't like them.

04:33 Okay, well thinking of lens going to start working there.

04:38 I came to Louisville in September of 93 and I think I started there.

04:48 Sinkers to the Y of 94 and I know I quit there Friday the 13th.

04:56 Is in June of 98.

05:00 And during that time. I don't know. I'll probably worked with seven or eight hundred people. Some people only lasted a crazy place on my good people. It was different back. Then, to a different way different. Now, I'm fine probably met you there, but I remembered it was, during that time. You came and eat breakfast. I think on the way to school cuz you been going to school for a really really long time. That's why you get to be the doctor.

05:38 Yeah, there's

05:41 And I met you right after we try and Joe, and what was it that? What are the men's though? He was a Navy when I strong all those, those little red. What are they? Thank you. And they gave Joe an Altoid cuz he was at a friend's kid, and he smelled really bad. And I took the Altoid in his mouth and somebody told a joke, and he was waiting on his first table and said, no, he talked and laughed and sneeze at the same time in an Altoid went up into his nasal passage and out on the table in front of the people. He was trying to wait on at which point they were just out.

06:31 I'm sure something like that happened every day and it always happen.

06:38 We just kind of fun is like what you going to do today?

06:44 All right, will brats in a little while. I came here with a man. I've been liking a long time and my kids were in high school and they live with their dad and liking is much more conservative, and I really didn't like it, and he had a job at opportunity here. So why we came here right after Labor Day?

07:12 And I live with him here for about another almost 2 years, I guess. And then he left and went back to Lexington which was really a great thing. And I stayed and it's it's been I really like it here. I like it much more so than any other place I've ever lived in Kentucky with looting mom.

07:37 So many places, have you lived in?

07:39 In Kentucky or overall not many, I've lived it. I was born in Maysville or was raised in Maysville. I lived in Lexington 16 or 17 years.

07:52 Short stint in Florida.

07:55 Yes.

07:59 I like this much more than any of the other places.

08:05 Florida drops off in the world. I'll probably be happier person. I didn't like it there.

08:12 B flat before transient solace.

08:20 Okay.

08:22 The names of your kids.

08:26 Abra and Pierce where the names come from every time I hear address, I think of a Kadabra, but I named her before the Steve Miller song. Bhakti stole it from me. I think April was the good son's name in East good, son's girlfriend in East of Eden, which I really like that movie when I was a kid, and I like the name, Abra, and my now ex-husband couldn't spell. So you couldn't have a name those.

09:02 Too long because he never be able to spell it.

09:06 So I was sort of pushing for Bree would not name a kid after cheese. Probably a good thing. So I came up with a thought of Abra just I don't know what I was thinking you short was in a baby book, but I think it was probably a bruh and it because it was a derivative Abraham, but I went with Abra and

09:28 You like that? And my doctor's name is Louise. Hello, Louise and deliver. Both my kids and she was a friend and thank God, she deliver them for free because we had no health insurance, then either. So a bird's name is Abby Louise. When she was little, she thought everybody's middle name is Harrison and there's daddy Carl Lewis Harrison. There's a little brother Pierce. Lee's Harrison a

10:01 Is actually named dog. Grew up with some boys in the well, they, they live in Washington Kentucky. I lived in Maysville which five or six miles away.

10:10 And their daddy had a 1929 Pierce Arrow and when their dad died, well, they probably knew. I think they were so stoned. I forgot they didn't winterize it correctly and it busted the Block in the car. So we would push the old Pierce-Arrow around from the garage, to the front of their yard, and it smoked pot weight of people going by. But it was beautiful and, you know, had the boxes, the stools, you know, for your feet and stuff and it was just a glass of All American cars like cars and I had this child and I couldn't think of a good boy name.

10:50 A but it's not spelled like the car Parc.

10:56 He has a cousin named Lance, but we didn't realize it just cousins on the west coast. I've never met him and we were hoping maybe they'd be plastic surgeons, Lyons a Harrison. Now. We're more like that to her.

11:13 Yeah, I am a

11:19 So are my kids names came from. Do you know how your name came from State and Country poet? Laureates? Nice. Robert Penn Warren, my mother played guards of the sister. So she wanted to give me a role model. So I'm Mary Barbers daughter. Shirley Barber. Must be my role model.

11:50 Rhodes scholar, and she played 907 rate, musical instruments. I don't know how many languages. So my mother named me Shirley for her and didn't quite take, but Mama, but surely Barbara was a, he's a wonderful influences as a child, except when she played the ukulele and a sober person should never play a ukulele supposed to say something about it, that right.

12:18 So yeah, that's where I'm at now.

12:22 My mother's friend. Mary is from Barbourville, which was named for her family or I guess her husband's family. Uncle Robbie was Robert. I want to change my name cuz I really don't like the name truly, but she was cool.

12:47 Probably a

12:56 Something strange. I'm sure they're if a bird's name. And you know, one of the other names is like rainy.

13:05 And then there was a, I don't know. I'm always named anything something strange and also.

13:12 Never thought of that. And I just never thought that name fit me, but I don't know what name would fit.

13:19 A make sure that the library Congress knows that a saracen.

13:27 Wendy Harrison, that's my married name. What's your maiden name, lie, lie.

13:36 And like my dad either. So my mother's maiden name was on nails.

13:44 I don't, but yeah, I don't know. I always thought surnames always was amazed by Germany. They had to bother surname.

13:58 And, you know, like some of the Jewish peoples not to be in corrected when they they didn't want to pay for their name.

14:07 What was?

14:10 Riverside ziggaphoose, that means goats foot. That means they wouldn't pay for their name.

14:17 My friend. Paul Porter told me that cuz he was a German major, but I was like who you had to buy your name and then in England it went or England Ireland went by what you did for a living.

14:30 Melanin. Jeremy. The last names are based, right? If you don't speak German, you don't know what their profession is Drinker, huh? Cuz I also took Latin Maya sixth grade teacher.

15:01 This teaching is like to diagram sentences and stuff. And she said that.

15:09 You would understand and be able to write if you knew the rivet of derivatives and Havana root of word. So I had to take something so I took Latin and I had a Latin teacher Miss Smoot.

15:25 And up.

15:26 She was a Nazi news about 5 feet tall and she told me, I wasn't smart enough to take Latin. I should go on, take some more home Mac or something. She made me really mad. So I took Latin for, I think two and a half years, never got anything below a b infect. The only went to school to take my Latin class. I guess I'm just mess with her and then leave him.

15:46 But I can pretty much figure out what they were saying, a lot of different languages.

15:58 Nobody else wanted to do it. So I did it. Cuz you have another question. I thought of whenever I travel in country or out, you always ask me to bring you a stone or rock of some sort. I don't know why I like rocks.

16:16 I think just the texture like text her and you know, that brought me rocks from Everybody Has from all over the world and it's just like

16:26 Don't sort of historical, it's in the texture and the colors and you sort of see, you know, it's in there. Just interesting.

16:35 So you get drunk and pick one up and throw it and then you don't know, I or one of your friends like when I moved and they took my rocks, that Kathy brought me back from France and The Rock, she brought me back from Ireland and she mix them all together.

16:51 And I went crazy.

16:53 But you know, I don't know why you have to do that.

16:57 I knew which rocks were, which took my rocks from the Po River and she makes them on your rocks from Ireland. Now. I don't know which rocks are Irish and which rocks are Chinese that just butt.

17:12 I'll mess up her life in hell to rearrange her cabinet. So she didn't know where everything is.

17:20 As I don't know, I've always liked rocks, impressed me. It's always fun, and it's sort of fun to, because

17:29 If you go someplace, everybody wants you to bring him something back, but cost money. And some people have friends that are starving students, and they don't have a lot of money, but you always pick up a rock or she'll something like that. It's authentic. It's authentic. And it's not about money. It's not about Commerce and trade all that stuff. It's just about saw this rock and it reminded me of you.

17:58 There's that, I'm one of the questions also on here.

18:02 You know, obviously for curiosity, but it was if you could hold onto one memory from your life for eternity. What would it be?

18:12 Disconnect pressure off on another one.

18:19 Does Labor Day, 1974 Brown Stadium Cleveland. First time to go?

18:33 I dropped out of school and I had to find me a pair of shoes, but I went to the concert and it was a new pair of shoes. Yeah, I was in the bar cuz of 1974. I do not think they were hippies, but I didn't want to go to Cleveland with no shoes because I know what kind of service I was going to be walking on it. So I had to find me a bath so I can know what. We got to find a parachute. What do you do about school? Worry about that on Tuesday? My mother tries to kill me.

19:05 She was not happy.

19:08 Turn on it.

19:10 I've been to,

19:12 Richmond.

19:14 I, which one I found out. It was 321 women. Not good.

19:22 And I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grow up, but I still don't.

19:27 My mom want me to be a nurse, which is okay, to put for the science courses, which we all know, I can't.

19:36 I don't like them and I can't count if I can't count but I could never do chemistry in the trailer right now. Girl. I'm in some fashion, but it is definitely not about science and counting on the I can count the money and I know one. That's right, and then I lose it. So I have to give it to K2. Hold.

19:58 A lot more money than most people make.

20:03 How to put it somewhere.

20:12 Something for acid. It was rat poison.

20:16 And there are like ten thousand people out date. And and the Red Cross was going through this around at the memory. You have, though. It was it was bad and good. But the I remember the Red Cross going through the crowd, but I was so impressed because they were coming up and there were like, are you okay and they didn't care.

20:37 If about it wasn't about you were going to get in trouble. I want to assure you that you were okay, that they, they just care that that you weren't sick and needed help. And I thought that was great in the music was wonderful and I hope whoever selling that horrible stuff.

20:57 I don't know if they ever got them or not. If it's bad news, that was bad part, but the music was absolutely wonderful.

21:05 Outlaws & Ed's in the Outlaws.

21:09 What was it? The motorcycle group sang? The Outlaws were coming over people with brown stadium, sits like down in a bowl and we're all laying in the grass, waiting for the doors to open and that walls came down for trying to run over. People be scary. And the Cleveland chapter of, the Hells Angels Came in behind them and they had to change their colors. They turn their colors. That means they will stay out very happy.

21:38 I think it's my favorite memory.

21:44 I think that's very exciting. It's all right. It was fun. It wasn't. It was one of the Rolling Stones.

21:52 Top 10 of all times.

21:56 Definitely in my top two or three.

21:59 When I asked you, if you would be interviewed.

22:03 What kind of questions did you think of?

22:05 Didn't have a clue. Really. Just thought I'd be fun.

22:10 I think this is probably other than maybe a yeah.

22:16 Like a contest on the radio. The only time that cuz my I don't like my accent so I would never be on the radio and they tried to. They tried to get me to do radio when I was in school cuz that's when the girls were just starting to do radio on. I'm a voice was low enough.

22:35 They said they would have to fix my accent and I didn't know it was broken.

22:40 I wouldn't do it.

22:44 And you got robbed and wouldn't Cincinnati. My family did on the radio station. So I guess that's what makes it easier.

22:55 I know you getting ready to go to Paris. If you could go anywhere in the world. Where would you go? I thought about that a lot opportunity, a Anaya and I have been so I wanted to go but I always wanted to go to Greece, a friend that got stuck in Greece for a while. She was working on Freighters how I thought that sounded wonderful. It probably Mediterranean, you know, Italy Greece.

23:26 I sort of want to go to China.

23:30 There's a lot of places I'd like to go, but didn't never really want to travel alone. You travel alone that amazes me, but I guess because I don't speak any other languages. You know, what? Just never done it.

23:42 But the

23:44 I liked, I do like to travel. I just usually work so much that I don't have the time and opportunity in this opportunity came about because of a friend of mine spent a lot of time in France and her significant other just passed. And she likes to do Christmas in France and my children have been here in the last couple years, so she's not fluent, but she's semi fluid or anything. Goodbye in French and she knows some money in the accommodations and stuff. So I thought I would be a something I couldn't pass up. Pretty pleased to be going that way.

24:21 In the sense of things not pass. I was just making me. Think about your kids and your kids kids. Obviously, they're they're growing and you've got kids and that's a whole nother world that I have yet to explore. And I don't live with my fat cats.

24:42 What is the what would be the thing that you would want your grandkids to always remember about you?

24:51 Just not to judge.

24:56 Look around. See what's out there.

25:01 I don't know. I think my grandkids will do fine. Cuz her mother's very much like that, and to be that way exactly raised around always at work. But but she is, she takes that naturally. I think she's a wonderful mother and she does fit on with her kids and you really tell a difference, a they know who she is, that is that lady comes right out, but

25:32 No, she ain't she doesn't wonderful job. The littlest one, Harrison. She asked him if she could have another baby.

25:40 How do you spell War?

25:42 No, no other babies, but we could have a lot more cats.

25:49 Kind of twins are.

25:51 But I mean really bright, I think.

25:55 Mirror Image Twins, and since I'm adopted,

26:00 Heredity, my kids were the first people that ever resemble, man. Anyway.

26:07 So saying,

26:10 You know, the family traits and stuff and then seeing that the girls being Mirror Image twins.

26:17 I'm one of them, you know what? I mean, just so outgoing and the other one, but then they don't have to talk and they communicate. That's amazing powerful. That's amazing. And poor little Harrison sitting in the middle. He just didn't know when they're going to start whaling on him, but you just know what's going to happen. So that you know, they're screaming he's screaming or trying to drive and

26:40 Ever told him that they would get a what was it? Tell me what, why Harrison's crying and you'll get a big surprise.

26:50 When I said, Taylor went like this.

27:10 What's your earliest memory as a child?

27:15 I was in my play pan and my mother's kitchen.

27:22 And somehow I got our dog in the play pan.

27:28 And I think I was trying to dress her up cuz I didn't have any brothers and sisters, you know, our make her the baby or something.

27:39 I remember that when I was really really low on, my mom came in and she was like, what are you trying to figure out what I was doing? And I don't even think, you know. I don't think I could even tell her, but there's always our house is full of animals. There's always one of the animals was

27:58 Pretty much getting married, not mutilated, but dressed up or no.

28:03 We're doing something I really hated to do because of that. I didn't have anybody to play with.

28:09 Do I get my next door neighbor?

28:12 Epileptic gay.

28:20 Black sheep of the family was with Maya.

28:25 Babysitter.

28:28 I don't know what my mom paid him. I don't think he's very much at all. But she works at night. She ran out, emergency room at night or working emergency room, and Tommy, Jean was my babysitter. But his only stipulation was that. I would bring all my dresses.

28:44 Cuz he couldn't have a doll. It was about 1960. I was 4 years old or something. So he dressed me up and I would get really mad and sit there and then, you know.

28:54 Then I had to wear another dress and another dress. I like what's wrong with you.

29:03 And my best friend was a thirty-year-old, epileptic gay man with an underbite.

29:13 But he was great, his great and give me my childhood a lot more tolerable plotted against this. Evil. Auntie ain't really could tell me his name was Tommy. Jean sweet, Tommy Jean. I lived on 5th Street, and he lives next door to me and they moved. I don't remember how I was when I moved. I think seven or eight.

29:40 But when he moved I was just distraught. I was just in tears for days and I many years later went home to a friend's funeral. I was down there and it was sometime in the mid-80s black women suit. And I had purple spiked hair. Now, is Ed Harris at on, nobody knew who I was, and I grew up with most people in this room. They had not a clue who or what, cuz I hadn't said anything yet.

30:03 And I looked around and I saw somebody running toward me. And the first thing I saw was the underbite real thick glasses. Oh my God, it's Tommy Jean. And I'm so happy the same. Like there's my baby at, but I got so carried away and then I got swept up in the funeral stuff and I didn't get his address or anything. So I lost touch with him again, but he was really, really very kind. Lovely man. His family treated horribly, but that happened a lot specially back down on you.

30:36 Have now a little little sort of Southern kind of town, and somebody was different.

30:42 And my town was full of different people.

30:48 But you did great. You made my childhood a lot better.

30:53 Cuz I'm going up address.

30:58 And better. If he could warm the dresses, he would like that.

31:04 Describe yourself as a family man. Tell me a little more about that. All I know is.

31:17 Small hotel in Cincinnati. Downtown, you know, where like the riverfront is. Now there was a whole bunch of old old hotels. For no tell motel, kind of things, real cheap CD and somebody came in. I guess it's the couple was a couple and they rented a room and then all the sudden they heard a lot of crying and screaming or crying and it went on and on and on. So finally, they open the door and they were gone. They went down the fire escape and they left me in a bucket.

31:51 So they took me to I guess was children's hospital and I had double pneumonia and all kinds of respiratory cuz they left a window up. Thanks a lot, guys, and my mom because she worked in a hospital. She was the nurse. She had two children are born stillborn, and she adopted a son. That's 10 years older than me, and I guess she found figured out. He was a dud. So she wanted to adopt another child, but by now, she was 45 and she had to get back on the list. And even then there was a true three-year waiting list. So, or she picked a sick, baby.

32:29 So my mom played bridge in the afternoon. Came to Cincinnati and pick me up and was back in time for a poker game. I thought I was pregnant but I wasn't supposed to live. They thought that probably wouldn't live to be 6 months old and I'm still here and I'm 51 today. So he did a good job.

32:54 But that's what they only said. I saw my first birth certificate and it had what they called me. No, I'm not saying that. And other than that, it's just that I've known all the way down. It's okay. A Sonia. I know the truth.

33:15 Thank you.

33:17 But, you know, it was kind of, but my mom made it good. She always made everything pretty good. Cuz she had a really strange way of looking at things. I'm thinking, figure out where I got the kids at school were talking about cuz she was always cheat on me when I was three years old. I was adopted. So I told the kids and they made me cry. She didn't like that. Jen, liked anybody else. Bowling me those long Benson & Hedges, cigarettes, and she said Saturday night to me, five years to get you.

33:57 So I went to school and I told him just exactly what she did, even mimicking the cigarette in the hand.

34:04 When I got home from school, there was a telephone call and with Mom's friend, and sort of Boss. Dr. Bill Cardinal, and I swear, I wasn't drunk. When we, when we got pregnant with Rebecca. Why'd you have to make her cry right now? They're never going to win. They make her cry. She's going to make them cry.

34:28 She's pretty tough. Sounding lady. She's alright, she's all right. She was the one that told me. I was so amazed. She told you was telling me. I asked her if necessity and he's going to be the doctor. So she told me I was fine.

34:48 Well, when old enough to take geography yet, so I didn't know where cyan was. So I went to school until all the kids are siamese. If I didn't know where the hell Siam was either. So it was okay. Well, thank fourth grade. We started geography in the pictures from people from science. I do not look like a person from science. So did you think you were sent me first grade to the 4th? I think I took my butt home and I showed my mother and said I'm not Siamese. Look at these PVC. Remember telling you. Oh, yeah.

35:24 Evil. Bitch. She said that sounds like the people that means like the cat, you can back it up against a man you seen since the day, you hit the Earth.

35:36 I couldn't go back to school and tell him where I was Siamese and it's very mad.

35:48 Sounds like she didn't censor yourself too much. No, not at all. Not at all.

35:53 She was asked not to come back to church.

35:57 My brother played softball for the Baptist cuz all his friends play all four of them.

36:05 So, they

36:08 They told her basically that he was treasonous and she told them something they asked her not to come back anymore.

36:15 Hey, I didn't like there anyway.

36:20 What else can you tell me about your mom?

36:23 I was raised by the two meanest white women.

36:28 I've ever seen my grandmother. Okay, they sent me to my grandmother's.

36:35 Does my mom work tonight? And I got six or seven, my grandfather died. The year before I was born. I think she's losing a little so I can go up there and

36:43 See, you never Shirley Francis. I have never had tobacco product.

36:50 Smoking time.

36:54 I've never knowingly had a drink of alcohol pads.

36:59 Not as drinking, the other hand, it's the last date I had, was your grandpa.

37:06 Turn off as well. You know. Now. Do you ever think of you haven't had too much fun?

37:12 When she kicked me in the shin and said, how come you're the only one smart enough to realize that.

37:18 So and that's where my mom. Got it.

37:21 And I am one auntie, and I'm Shirley Francis for her friends, part. And she was, she was the one that she was the only college graduate after that point and family. And she had a master's degree in thought as a private school.

37:41 There's only one that couldn't cook, three sisters.

37:45 Oh Lord. It is Francis has turned. Its the Christmas dinner. Have a sandwich before you go don't say anything and drink water iced tea cuz they had turkeys going to be as dry as my ass.

38:00 And it looks like the cover Southern Living it when you tasted. Hey, guess what? I don't know how Drive hers was, but

38:08 Keep the iced tea, a rolling.

38:11 My grandfather was a blacksmith. All the girls had to take turns putting the food on the table when he came in from the shop. It's beyond the table.

38:22 Anna.

38:24 Francis turn.

38:27 I know we're getting ready to wrap up the sir. Is there anything that you would like me to know that I haven't asked her? That you think? I think, you know, entirely too much. The more I learn the less I know.

38:54 We won't have to do traffic Nation, then, evil spirits. I think there is entirely too much about me already.

39:04 Just dumb.

39:06 Everybody's got to vote, vote correctly next time.

39:11 And not, like Whoopi said, do not drink or do drugs before you vote. Look what happened?

39:19 All I got to say.

39:24 Better come.