Red remembers...

I think it's time that I got back to my original reason for developing this blog, which was sharing my crazy past.

Yep. It's been an emotional roller coaster.

Though my childhood was that indeed, what I refer to as such is my PRESENT. And i've expressed it plenty on here. But now that roller coaster is stable, content and ready to go back to the beginning.

I've often heard people say they can remember being 2yrs old or even younger. This is amazing to me. And when thinking how people are able to do this I am always prompted to really try to remember my own very first memory.

It's very silly and goes something like this...

My older sister and I were playing in my Dad's old car that was parked in the yard. We each had a little black poodle dog of our own and each were named after us. We had our dogs inside this old car with us because we had previously learned how fun it was to watch them eat the dead flies out of the back window. Who knew?

Nothing very striking here. Why that stuck in my memory banks ever since, I have no idea. It could be the harsh conditions we lived under were such a contrast to this 'fun event' that my sister and I were able to experience, that it created an endorphin laced memory glue.

I feel like I should warn you before I go any farther, many of my memories are out of chronological order. My mother often has to correct me when I speak of this event being tied to that event, this funny thing happening in my room at that house... and so on. But unless you are a family member with a better memory than I (that means you Mom) , it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things here. So, I shall carry on as they come....

I also remember a dark and very cold house with wood floors and the very minimal of furniture. I remember our Chiuaua dog (who absolutely hated me) dragging her butt across the hardwoods floors and leaving a diarrhea trail, and always being afraid of stepping in a land mine in the constant darkness. I remember sleeping at the top of a bunk bed that was in the dinning room for some reason. My sister slept on the bottom and would kick at my mattress from underneath because I would grind my teeth in my sleep. I never got a good nights sleep for all the kicking and freezing. (But then I guess, neither did she for all the grinding!)

I related this memory to my Mom. As it turns out, the bunk was in the dinning room because it was closest to the living room where my parents slept. They slept there because it was where my Dad had the heater... a very dangerous home made oil drip version. He would collect used oil from gas stations. They'd give it to him for free because they didn't want to pay to dispose of it.

My memory is of a darkened house because we did not have electricity. (thus the home made drip oil heater) My dad always refused to work for someone else and would spend many days and weeks away from home chasing repair jobs here and there. We were able to live in the house at all because the owners had made a deal with my dad that he would fix up the property and work for them doing whatever it was they asked of him. But his constant chase for greener grass prevented that from really ever happening. This was the case with many of our homes and the reason for the sheer number of them.

Aside from being barely 20 and two kids under 5, my mom was not able to work because this particular house was a number of miles out in the country and that car parked in the yard was non operable. That was how my dad wanted it. She would not have been allowed to drive even if that car did work. She was where he wanted her and that's how he kept her.

At least until she was sick and ended up in the hospital for a  little over a week and came home to the knowledge that he had only fed us canned chicken noodle soup the entire time. My sister said to her... 'Oh Mommy! I'm so glad you're home. I'm sooo hungry! Please make something that's not chicken noodle soup Mommy, pleeeeasse??'

Something about that pathetic plea from her oldest child made a metal rod grow down her spine and she walked all those miles with us in tow,  into the nearest town; leaving my dad. With two young kids and nothing to her possession, she did what she had to do. She went to battered women's services and told them that he beat her and she was afraid for her children and needed to go back home to her parents. They bought her a bus ticket and she was out of that situation for the time being. But it never failed to follow that he would make promises of 'doing the right thing' and wanting to do right by his family and thus successfully wooing back a young single mother with two children whom everyone would only keep telling, 'You guys need to work it out for the sake of the children.' Again and again.