Chapter 2

We lived in a small neighborhood, the kind of neighborhood where everyone knew everyone and everyone knew everyone’s business. It was different then than it is now. Knowing everyone’s business then was knowing where they worked, who were their parents, cousins, or knowing if they went to church on Sunday. Today, knowing everyone’s business is so different.
We wondered the neighborhood every day. Mom did not worry about someone kidnapping us, or who we were hanging around with. (Remember, everyone knew everyone.) I had so many friends there. We went from one house to another house to play. Kim, Amanda, Sharann, Bobby, Larry, Chris, Rodney, Amy…just to name a few, were some of the residents/friends, sometimes enemies. We rode bicycles miles and miles over the years just in that small neighborhood. I also walked many miles barefooted around the neighborhood. (Once summer hit we threw the shoes away .)
In the evenings, my mom would open the door and yell our names, as would other moms, and we would run home as fast as we could. Funny how no matter where we were we could hear the yell of our names. After we ran home, it was time to wash up for dinner. Dinner was every night at the same time. We had a variety of food each night, but always, always had to have creamed potatoes. Every single night, per my father. And can biscuits, every single night.
We had a kitchen table, but we always ate at our bar that sat four people. The kitchen table was only for Christmas or something like that. We never hosted company, except on Friday nights, when a couple from our church would come over to watch Dallas.
My bedroom was so pretty. When you walked in the door, to the left was my white dresser, on the opposite wall was my white bed, with a patchwork bedspread. I had shelves too, for my dolls. My carpet was light green. My closet was perfect, as was every single corner of my room. Of course it was, my father would not have allowed anything other.
I insisted on the hall light being on every night. This was an inconvenience for my father, as he made a mad dash to the bathroom for his nightly shower. If I were awake, he would stop just before my door and tell me to cover my eyes, as he ran past my door in his whitey tightys.
Bedtime was the same time every night, wake up was the same every morning. I had maple and brown sugar oatmeal every morning. My dad had two fried eggs, bacon and can biscuits, every morning. Dad mowed on Mondays and Wednesdays every week during the summer. We actually had to plan our vacations around his mowing schedule. (Which is why we only did weekend trips.) Do you see a pattern here? Day in and day out, we had a serious routine. But, it was all we as kids knew. HOWEVER, it was not what my mother grew up with, making her life miserable. Should she stray from the routine, hell was to be paid.
We never went out of the house in the evenings other than the occasional treat. My mom was pretty much forbidden to leave at night, as it was not safe for women to be out after dark. Or so my dad said. My mother sought out her GED or high school diploma several times. My dad always made her quit, or made it so hard for her that she gave up and quit. Mom felt that my dad did not want her to better herself, possibly being better than he was. Both my mom and my dad quit high school at a very young age. They were married two weeks after my mom’s 16th birthday. I just cannot imagine!! My brother was born when mom was 18, and I came along when she was 21. Too young to be married, too young for children.
Mom and Dad did the best they knew how. I thought we lived a normal life.
Which is why when my mom sat us down to tell us that we were leaving, I was devastated. It seems that every night after I went to bed, there were huge arguments. I was 6,so once I was asleep, I was asleep. My brother, however, was 9 and he heard everything. Apparently Mom saw that he was starting to be affected by their problems and decided it was time to go. I was heartbroken. Completely heartbroken. We stayed with every one of my mom’s sisters. We went from house to house. This must have gone on for months. Finally my mom found us a house to rent. I hated the house. I hated that my dad did not live there. I worried everyday about who was taking care of him. I worried about the house work, the cooking, and the loneliness. I loved my daddy like every little girl loves their daddy. He was my hero

The Beginning, For What I Know

I was born in at Alamance Hospital on June 21st, 1973, at 3:46am. My parents were Ann and Joe. I had a big brother, Tim, who was 3 years old. I am not sure about the first days of my life, except my Mom had a birthday just 3 days after mine. What a birthday present, huh?



The next few months for my mom were hell. I had colic, bad colic. I cried and cried and then I cried some more. The only person that seemed to be able to console me was my Grandma. She did not believe that I was colicky, no, she thought that I was a nervous wreck, since my mom was a nervous wreck. From what I have been told my dad was an ass at the time. He supposedly would get really mad and yell at my mom if I was crying. He wanted her to be able hush me immediately. She was so nervous, afraid of making him angry and I sensed that, so I cried. A vicious circle. My grandma would come over after her 3rd shift at work and sit and hold me, console me, and let my mom rest for a few minutes. I am sure that my Mom loved to see her come and hated to see her leave.

The next few years, I am sure they were filled with all the normal stuff that occurs in most families, with the exception that my parents were not in a happy marriage. They were married at a very young age, my mom only being 16. My mom had a very a rough childhood, which included alcoholic parents. She was the oldest of 7 children, 7 children that she pretty much raised. They were very poor. When my dad came along and the opportunity to leave home was offered, she took it. I am not sure that their marriage was ever really happy. Surely they had to have some point where they had the mushy eyes and the newlywed feeling, however, if they did, I never heard about it.

The nervous baby that I was transformed into a nervous child. My dad would get mad at my mom if he came home and we had toys out. He would allow us to have one thing out at a time. Only one thing. When he was at work, mom would let us play with as much as we wanted to, our living room would be wrecked, up until about 30 minutes before he would arrive. At that time, we would quickly return everything to our rooms, put in its place and make it back out to the living room to look as if that is the way it had been all day. One toy, no messes, just the way he demanded.

My dad was also the man that expected dinner at a certain time, bed at a certain (exact) time, up at a certain time, everything was planned out and it HAD to go just like that. As an adult, I have diagnosed him with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. He still has his routines and if you get them off, he is totally out of sorts. We learned to live this way too, or mom caught so much hell.

My dads parents, my Mamas' and Papas', cared for us sometimes, well, actually they cared for me more than Tim. They played favorites terribly. When my mom was pregnant with my brother, Mamas' told my mom that she really hoped that it was not a boy, since she did not want her grandson to be called by their last name, since my mom was from a very poor and alcoholic, family. When Tim was born, it took them several days to even come see him. Things were different when I was born, guess they had no worries that I would carry their name.

I loved my Papas' dearly. He was the classic grandparent. He would "accidentally" lose change in his chair, so that when he would get up, I would find pennies and nickels. How exciting for a little girl like myself. He would play baby dolls with me, rocking them, patting them, pretending they were burping and puking on him. He made me laugh often. He would let me help him leave the squirrels water. He taught me all about God and his creatures. He was the kindness man I knew.

Mamas' tried to be nice, and I guess in her own way, she was. She was just a little up tight. She did, however, teach me to cross stitch, crochet, cook, bake and decorate cakes, she would let me decorate paper plates with the cake icing she was using to decorate elaborate cakes she made. She would also let me cut out patterns that she would then use to make dresses for me.

With all that said, I was by far the favorite grandchild, and that was so very obvious. Rodney and Tracie were. They could do no wrong. We could all make the same grades in school, but somehow they did better than us. I think that Mamas' was the one that felt this way, and my Papas' just did not say anything. He was that kind of man, avoid confutation at any cost. Many examples of the favoritism took place many years, in fact, even to this day.

My mom's parents, Grandma and Grandpa, they were the kind of Grandparents that had nothing but gave all. They loved each and everyone of their grand kids equally. Which had to be hard, since there were so many of us. One of my favorite memories with my Grandma is she had a dresser in her room. In the top left drawer, she hid Twinkies in there for us. That was the best thing for a little girl like myself. I now have that dresser in my room, and I refer to it as the "Twinkie Dresser."

My dad had two siblings, an older brother, Edward, and a twin sister, Brenda. I had three cousins on my dad's side. Edward and wife, Donna, had two kids, Rodney and Tracie, and Brenda had Donnie. Today, I have four second cousins.

My mom, as I mentioned earlier, had 6 siblings. Mom was the oldest. The others, Dorothy (Dot), Mary, Betty, June, Brenda, and William, the only boy. My cousins from my mom's side is quite a long list. There is, David, Jason, Angie, Kim, Marie, Amber, Bruce, Sherry, Sarah, Christina, Amy and Tiffany. The second cousin count from this side of the family is really long, at twelve.

These are the people I grew up with. Some I have fond memories with, some not so much.