I only remember bits and pieces from that trip...Chuckwagen sandwiches at greasy diners, trying to ask a guy from France for some of his potato chips (I couldn't understand him, but mom and he hooked up so she must have been able to!) I remember having the best bacon I had ever eaten at some hotel in New Mexico and hanging out by the pool. While at the Grand Canyon I had my picture taken while standing on top of a meteorite (with my R2-D2 necklace on), found a squashed scorpion and feed a squirrl out of my hand (they are not as soft as they would appear to be). Mom and I walked down into the canyon and I asked her to please bring me back when I was 12 so I could ride a donkey down, she said yes...on my 12th birthday I rememberd that as I blew out my candles (but soon forgot as I went to the skating rink to look at the guys). We spent some time in Oregon where my mom's sister/best friend lived with her son...these are the ones that lived above us in the trailor park I mentioned earlier. My cousin and I used to play cowboys and indians, I was always the indian because I felt sorry for them (and I also had a cool leather vest, moccasins and headband from AZ). We also used to sit in the front yard for hours just watching the cars go by....the fire engines were yellow, and some were even black. Odd...
At the end of the summer my mom asked me where I wanted to live...it was all up to me! I chose IN to be near Mrs. Gibbs because I said she was old and would die before my Granny. We moved not too far away from her into this apt (in a house) that I LOVED. We were on the bottom floor. The rooms were HUGE! Mom bought me a king size bed and her a twin. She let me pick the paint for our shared bedroom (horrible shade of light green). We had no living room furniture, the small black & white (which I still have) sat in a kitchen chair, we sat in the floor. Mom really tried to work hard teaching me mirror scrying, but I liked the tarot cards one of her friends had...and I still like tarot cards.. I walked to Longfellow Elementary School every day (7 blocks). They were going to skip me to the 4th grade after I came back from the holidays break. My mom was working at Kentucky Fried Chicken. She was ill one day and wanted to leave work to go to the Dr. The manager told her that if she left she was fired, she left....she was fired. She admitted into the hospital right away. The family came to stay with me for a couple of weeks. On X-mas eve they snuck me in to see her and we opened gifts. She was pale and wasn't laughing like she always did. Now that I think back, she wasn't hooked up to any IVs, she wasn't even in a hospital gown when I saw her. She died the next morning.
The next day the family left with me and a small pull-along U-Haul (that did NOT have my king size bed!). The funeral was packed, I remember wondering if my father was there (he wasn't), I remember my grandparents crying. I would not approach the caskit, and nobody asked me too. I hung out on the front porch or in the kitchenette with my cousins. I don't remember going to the burial. After the funeral, I stayed in KY with my grandparent's for the remainder of the school year. I did not get to skip to the 4th grade. I was in a horribly boring class room. I day dreamed alot. I thought I could see my mother in my emerald ring.
After the summer of 3rd grade, I moved in with my aunt and her family in GA. She lived in an upper middle class neighborhood and we belonged to the country club and wore Izods and Polos and rode around in a Volvo. 4th grade with Mrs. Ross the meanest teacher I'd had yet. I met my best friend in this class, Jen...we are still friends to this day (25 years later as I write this in 2004). I really didn't like living with my aunt, she was so strict...I talked to the counselor at shcool because I was still grieving my mom and just plain unhappy and the bitch called my aunt in and told her she was going to report her for keeping me from my father! I never asked to see my father! She told me that she called my father when my mom died and asked him if he wanted me and he said , "NO, I do not want her". That was hard for me to hear, although I was smart enough to have figured it out after him not being around that past 9 years. That "incident" really threw a wrench into things...my aunt still doesn't believe me that I didn't tell the counselor all that crap. Things got worse, she didn't really want me there (and I can't really blame her), but it still hurt when I was told things like, "That is not your room, it is the guest room and you are a guest", "Children are meant to be seen and not heard", etc, etc....I was miserable. They were miserable. After 5 years I went back to my grandmother's (my grandfather had died 2 years earlier).
Living with Granny was easier than living with my aunt, but BORING. I lived in a valley miles away from Wal-Mart....This place was stuck in a time warp....I hated the majority of kids I went to school with, they were just so IGNORANT. I am a bad speller, but you should see some of the stuff I saw...Anyway...I never really fit in with any one crowd, I was a floater. I talked to everyone and everyone talked to me (mostly). I realize now that I had a social phobia...I wouldn't eat in the cafeteria because I was afraid to sit alone and I was to afraid to ask anyone if I could sit with them. I was sent to private school my JR year because I dated a guy my sophmore year who was 1/2 mexican....he was soooo cute! I ended up finishing shcool a year early there because I could work at my own pace. By the end of my Jr year I had enough credits to graduate and LOTS extra. I started applying to colleges, but couldn't get in because I didn't have any "lab" experience (it was a small private school). SO after missing 1/2 of what would have origianlly been my Sr year I went back after the holiday break and took chemistry, algebra 2, eng 4 and geometry...I'm sure there were other classes, but I only recall those. I was accepted into all colleges I applied to after registering for my "Sr" year....UK, EUK, Morehead St Un, UGA, Georgia College. I chose GA College. Don't know why, no particular reason, just did. |
