A memoir of Grace “Slick” Joplin

Chapter 2.2 The Girl from Janis’s Cottage

At my second year in school, I got a close friend, her name was Cheri Houge and we hung out all the time, having a blast, even though she did not like snakes and lizards.


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Things was shaping up fine in our little family, mother got a raise at the job after an increasing amount of her work was printed or even sold to larger national press compagnies. And more directly notable for a child like me, after the day at the festival, Uncle David began to hang around much more, as if the adults have cleared something out between them.

He still visited Miss Loveland quite often, but other days we were all together, playing a game or going to the beach together.


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Uncle David could not get his mind of “The Fairy Tale Princess”, her real name was Benni. David sometimes called her and invited her to meet up, shoving her his secret spots in the area. The young “lady” was impressed with this strong rater wild man and they had fun. He never laid a hand on her, he just wanted to be near.


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Mother finished har 2nd book “Winter Land”, a dramatic novel about a child ending up at a horrible orphanage, because her neurotic mother drowned herself. It was a hit and she was on national television network, adding tremendously to her reputation as a writer.

Robert was not very happy with the sudden pressure laid on her, already distressed by the nature of her writing and the fact that she did not relax the last 3 to 4 weeks of the writing process, getting caught up in her own fantasies.

Exactly 9 days after the television appearance she suddenly went to the burning hot stove, and put her hands on it, I will never forget that smell.


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Robert called an ambulance. Mother was admitted to the psychiatric unit at the hospital


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