Soon, we were in Vegas and they were married. Margaret was really serious about art. We lived in Ohio for a few months and I remember sitting in the grass, watching her sketch my grandfather's farmhouse. There were alot of art books in the house and I would use these to try to improve my own artistic skills.
All six members of the family would sit around the woodstove almost every night. Us kids would make up sketches and entertain each other and the parents. At others times, we were fairly normal. Family conversations were probably focused on whatever was on television that night.
I bought my calculator watch, disc camera and first big radio (a "ghettoblaster" as we called it...sorry) at her counter. On the way home from buying the watch, in our wood-paneled Dodge Caravan, my dad asked my sister and I if he should ask the woman out. We told him to go for it.
Hazel was a big reader. She was the first adult that I lived with that actually read books. She and I didn't read much of the same stuff, though. She was into westerns and mysteries, while I was into horror and maybe a little fantasy. Still, I could finally talk to someone about the latest Stephen King and see what they thought about it. I still ask her all the time what she's reading, but I think she's slowing down. Not much anymore...
Her and my dad seem to avoid modern technology. They don't have a computer, stare like cavemen at cell phones and continue to hate leaving messages on answering machines. Their big use of technology is hand held blackjack and poker games, which they play voraciously. In terms of technoliteracy, I don't think that Hazel was a strong influence I was already computer literate by then...
