Growing up a navy brat was interesting and very dysfunctional! Mom was a stay at home mom for the most part. Our early years were pretty much normal that I can remember. Mom took us to Church on Sundays. Dad stayed home, he said he was raised Catholic and was forced to attend Church as a child and quit going as an adult. I can never remember dad ever going to Church. Mom was raised Methodist and took my sister and I to that Church. My sister and I were baptized in the Methodist Church. When my brother came along mom had quit taking us to Church. Mom and dad had started going out quite a bit at nights leaving us kids alone. My sister was the oldest; therefore she was to keep watch on us kids. Now that is where we started our love/hate relationship! She loved to boss me and I hated it!! Have you seen the car commercial where there are two kids in the back seat and the little boy reaches over to touch his sisters leg, and she yells “stop it!” and he would say “What?”, then he would do it again and again irritating his sister more and more, making his parents roll their eyes and tell them to stop? Well that was me and my sister. She would touch me and give me “cooties”!! hahahaha
Dad moonlighted at night as a bartender and mom would go drink and dance. Mom and dad both loved to party!! We always had booze in the house and as far as I can remember it was a way of life. I can remember looking out my bedroom window into the yard at night and see the glow of cigarettes and hearing laughter. Mom and dad would have neighbors over for drinks outside. We had a lot of laughter growing up. My dad was a real practical joker, and poor mom took the brunt of most of them! I think I take after my dad I get myself in more trouble with my sick sense of humor.
Moving around a lot as a kid, I never had any real close friends. I would go to a new school and I remember the kids staring at me wondering what I was like. That was about every year and a half. We went to the schools by the base, so most of the kids had the same kind of life. I don’t ever remember fitting in. I always felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. I had a bad skin condition, and the kids would tease me relentlessly about my pimple face!!
My brother was born in 1955 on Whidbey Island Washington. From there we moved to Southern California then to Hawaii. When I was 10 years old in Hawaii I was at school and told the teacher I didn’t feel good. I was sent home and the next morning I woke up with my ankle swollen about as big as a football!! Mom rushed me to the hospital, and they took a lot of blood tests. Mom cried every time they poked me in the arm!! I was admitted to Tripler Army Hospital with Rheumatic Fever and was in the hospital for three months. When I came home from the hospital I remember mom had fixed up our bedroom with matching pink and white bedspreads with ruffles!! It looked like a normal little girl’s bedroom!! Dad had made a dresser out of orange crates and mom made a ruffle to go around it. I felt like a princess!! Mom made most of our clothes. She made gathered skirts and put a waist band on them but never did finish putting a button hole and button on them so we used safety pins to hold them up. OUCH!!! Once in awhile a pin would pop open and poke us!!
We moved to Alameda California in 1959. That is when the laughter stopped. Dad had sea duty and was gone for 9 months. Mom went out to the bars a lot then and left us kids to fend for ourselves. Mom met a man and they were very close and she would be gone for a few days at a time. I remember writing my dad and telling him everything but I found out years later that he never received those letters. Mom didn’t mail them. I don’t want to paint the picture of mom being a bad person. She had her own demons to live with and I understand now that alcohol was the culprit!
More tomorrow………
No comments:
Post a Comment