Run, Lola, Run!!

I realize that most of the people that will read this know me as Lola Ann Lyle or Romero or Herron!! Damn girl can't make up your mind???.......Actually I was born Caryla Owennetta Mailelani Hussman.  I know what a mouthful huh? Trust me I will get to the Lola story later!

Well town gramma was quite the devout Catholic! We attended mass everyday while she could still drive! Remember she was in her 80's.......she drove this big car with running boards and what seemed like a mile between the front seat and the back seat where I always had to ride.......I remember crying to sit in the front but she would never give in. Her reason being that I was safer in the back seat! I couldn't see out the windows but I could hear horns honking all the time and gramma would be yelling in Portuguese.......oh I know she wasn't saying nice things because after awhile I could say those things pretty plain and had to eat chile peppers a few times!! Later after she couldn't drive any longer and I don't know why.......we would take the public transit to church but no matter........we went everyday!!!

So when I turned 5 it was time for kindergarten!!! And it only stands to reason that I would attend St. Theresa's Catholic School. The first day of school wasn't scary at all for me, afterall I had been to the big Church in front of the school everyday of my life that I could remember!! I think I gave the nuns there a run for their money because they so weren't used to such a precocious 5 year old I'm sure!! I know I had the vocabulary of a 40 year old at least!!! lol And some of my language skills made them frown!! But I never got into trouble.........as an adult I realized that I was the monsignors pet cause my gramma donated tons of money to the church!!  But as a child, you don't know all these things are going on.

Before I could start school though I needed my uniforms!!! A white blouse with puffed sleeves that made my little fat arms appear to be bigger than they were already!!! A navy blue jumper with patch on the left upper shoulder <STS> well the T was larger than the two S's......navy blue socks and black and white oxfords! Well town gramma had a hard time saying NO to me and when I wanted sandals from the time I could talk she always gave in and therefore at 5 I had feet that were triple wide!! So my shoes were a problem but not as big of one as was trying to find a uniform to fit me!! As a last resort we went to a little Chinese tailor who made them for me........yes I was probably about three feet tall and measured at a womens size 14! Yes you read that right!! You see I was being raised by two grandmothers each thinking that the other one was starving me to death........and its a wonder to me  that I did not have serious health problems way before I turned 50!

In the Catholic Church when you are babtized you are given a baptismal name.......mine was Caryla.......derivative of Charles, making St. Charles my patron saint!! You then take your baptismal name as your first name in Catholic school (or you did back then I found out) and since all of my education was in a Catholic school, Caryla just became my legal name from then on. Now I'm wondering who decided that......my grandmothers or my mother?? After all my biological fathers name is CHARLES! I guess I will never know the answer to that question. I do know that my mother had no use for the man and never had anything good to say about him while I was growing up but I have come to make my own mind up about him, and I do believe she must have been a "woman scorned"!!.......oh and trust me, more later on that subject!!