Before I go any further, let me tell you a little bit about myself.  My name is Deanna Lorraine Parsons.  I was born in 1954.  The name Deanna comes from an actress from the 1940’s named Deanna Durbin.  My dad apparently had the 'hots' for her and insisted that his first daughter be named after her.  Lorraine was my mother’s grandmother’s name. 

I wouldn’t say I lived a charmed life as a child but I don’t ever remember not getting anything I ever asked for.  My dad worked in a steel mill factory.  He worked many long hours sometimes and had a schedule called a swing shift.  My momma, meanwhile,  had a little seamstress shop set up inside our home. It would be many years later before I discovered why she had so many male customers who always seemed to bringing the same pants over week after week.

My first sexual curiosity came when I was around five-years-old.  My friend, Lynette Newhouser, and I used to play this game where we thought of ourselves as genies.  We would rub the palms of our hands on each others nipples (we called the nubbies) as a sign of good luck when we wished for something.  We would lift our blouses so there would be nothing between our hands and our nubbies.  I remember enjoying the touch of Lynette’s hands, which I thought was perfectly natural and normal.  We played the genie game until we were around 11-years-old.  That’s when her momma caught us and whipped us and made us promise God that we’d never do something like that again with each other.  Mrs. Newhouser said we would surely go to hell if we did something like that again.  I wanted to ask her if she thought her husband was going to burn for doing similar things to my momma.

About a year after that incident, my family moved across town to a much fancier neighborhood and I rarely saw Lynette after that.  But it seemed like I saw her dad even more.

When I reflect back on my life, I can see how I ended up with the man I eventually married.  What’s even more interesting is I can now understand my desire and need to have my own little seamstress shop.