Me, Myself and I

Working on my story of abuse. Though it will largely be non-fiction I try to recall some of the things that went on in my house. I always felt that I was the lucky one, the loved one, even the chosen one but the more I dig for something to add realism to the story the more in touch I get with my past.

As I was writing to my cousin I started to explain how we had such different concepts of each others life. Explaining a little tidbit that I had put into my story I realized how incensed I should have been as a little girl. 

I described a scene from my story to her how as  a young child the protagonist loved a particular pair of shoes  I wrote how the shoes got too small for her but she continued to wear them.  Her socks would be soaked with blood in the back where the heel would rub against the shoe. 

 Of course this was me when I was young.  I thought at the time how cool I was to be able to take the pain and I loved to pull away the soaked sock that was stuck to the back of my heel.  

Now I think how horrible that was! If my grandson came home with a sock like that I would be so upset and hurt that he had suffered so. I would have known immediately that there was something wrong with his shoes because,even if I had not taken off his shoes and socks, when I did the laundry I would see the blood as  the socks would tell the whole story. 

My mother never once said anything and so I never realized that what was happening to my foot was out of the ordinary. I wore the shoes time and time again, pulling the sock off of my foot countless times. As I continued to write this into my story I felt smaller and smaller. I felt helpless and depressed. That was not a miner thing it was neglect! 

Now I'm starting to understand my anger. Because I am now realizing that a child does not know when they are happy, sad, loved properly or improperly or not living a normal life. It is next to impossible to gain control of your adult life when you don't know up from down. 

Wasted Time

Big smile, no smile. Two brothers. Different fathers. One picture can say an awful lot as it is said. Thats my father seated on the chair with the very unhappy face. 

His father  was a coal miner in Huerfano, Colorado in the 1900's. 

Conditions in the mines at those times were such, that Miners provided there own blasting powder, shored up their own walls, and laid their own tracks. Often they were cheated in pay when weighing the amount of coal that they had mined. Who wouldn't strike in those conditions.

 Now, who would be so desperate to become a scab in that kind of mine? What were the living conditions of those men who took the risk to earn money to take care of their families? That I've yet to find out, but I do know that my grandfather, the father of the boy seated, took this risk and was killed with a pick for doing so. 

Time passes and my grandmother remarries. What kind of man? That is what I would like to know. Still living in Walsenburg, with mines full of coal, around the age of 2 my dad gains a stepfather. 

Was my father thinking about his Christmas gift in this photo? He was given a red Wagon one Christmas morning. His only gift. Wouldn't that bring a smile to any child's face? I don't know how old he was when he received it, I was only told that he was not allowed to play with the wagon. It was only to be used to haul coal from the mines to his house. 

Was my uncle the favored child? Can't ask. He was killed in his teens when he was hit by a truck.  Was my father abused in other ways? Look at his face. Does it reflect sadness, anger? What things did he experience in his young little life to turn him into a depraved person?

The man he became that I experienced was split. I would play for hours with the slinky he had brought me when he worked out of town. When he came home from work I would rush to his lunch pail  to retrieve the cupcake he would always save for me.    He could tell jokes by the hour. His friends were always around.  His pals called all of the time or stopped  by  to play cards. People thought he was great.

 But I wouldn't let him touch me.

What would he have become had his father lived? A man that was willing to risk his life to take care of his family. What could he have learned from a father who cared so much? 

What would my life have been like? Would I remember my sister beside me on Christmas morning opening gifts? I have not one memory of her on Christmas. Instead I remember a tree  laying on the floor and a mother bent over it, crying, trying to pick up the broken bulbs and decorations. Hum, I thought they must have had a wild party.

Would my brother have gone on to college or become something in the sports world? Instead of punching my dad and my brother ending  up on the floor, would he have gone on to become a great father himself? 

The world of "what ifs" is a waste of time. Because in reality there is no going back. Abuse robs you of time. Time is what you need to sort out your head, your emotions and your life. And because you spend so much time doing that, time passes you by and before you know it, you've wasted it all on what never was. 

You can go to the following website if you would like to read more about the Walsenburg coal strike.

http://www.cobar.org/index.cfm/ID/581/dpwfp/Historical-Foreward-and-Bibliography/

Sticks and Stones

The following remarks were said by Rod Tam a City Council member.

 "They got to be skilled license workers. We don't want any um wetbacks basically. Okay we've been receiving developers or contractors been getting in wetbacks from New Mexico, Mexico I'm sorry Mexico," he said during the meeting. 

My son is incredulous that I took offense at Councilman Tam’s remarks. Like some others, he thought of it as another definition for illegal alien. 

Being called a “wetback” meant that I could not play with the little red headed girl whose parents didn’t want me around, nor could I join the “Blue Birds,” an offshoot of the Campfire Girls. It never stopped hurting and those words followed me all through my school years

I may not have known where the term, “wetback” came from or what it meant but I knew it was a hurtful comment just as I knew that Chink was not Chinese and that the N word was the most hurtful of all. It was all in the way it was said. 

That brings me to my question. How did councilman Tam here it being used? There is no way he could have heard it said and not get the meaning. He like, my son, should consider himself blessed to have been raised in such ignorance. 

I Hope I Don't Get Fleas

As I sit here and pet Max, this little abandoned guy, rescued from the pounds, I wonder. If I were to go and sit at the humane society in one of the cages would someone come and rescue me? 

If something were to happen to me would my sister be waiting to take me in her arms or would she say, I thought I was finished taking care of you. Of course my brother would step between us and tell us “come on babies, I’ll take care of both of you.” Sounds good to me. 

I’m trying to find the right combination on my walks that will make life a little lighter, not that it isn’t at times, but I want to see the sunny side.  IPod, no IPod, walk fast, walk slow, disregard the TV that has been thrown into the open field, the computer sitting in the park?

But it’s only 7:15 AM.  I’ve finished my walk, watered the yard and deadheaded the roses and scrubbed the birdbath. It’s time for breakfast. Another day is starting; I hope that I can start with it. 

But if I’m going to get picked out at the Humane Society Kennels I’d better comb my hair and put one of Max’s good collars! 

On the wild side

I decided to wear my earphones on my walk this morning. I thought I would just let my mind travel, keep away from politicks, developments on the home front, problems of the world. 

I should have turned on my Pod Cast but when I turned on my IPod there was my favorite music. So, I don’t learn anything on this walk, I would try to see if I could walk the distance without getting bored. But then bored is good, it isn’t controversial. 

As I sang to myself, and looked for the mango tree to see how it was coming along, life was good. Half way through my walk the words to “You Picked Me” by A Fine Frenzy became clearer. I was admiring the phrase  “like an apple in a tree hiding out beneath the leaves, I was difficult to see, but you picked me.” 

I just loved how she conveyed that thought so thoroughly. But my mind wouldn’t let it go, long past the finish of the song.  “Hidden beneath the leaves” it started to make it’s rounds through my crazy imagination as I started walking slower finding it hard to even lift my head in greetings to others walking by. My mind slid back to my childhood.

I was around 6 years old and my parents were in a quandary. Mom had come back from talking to the neighbor, telling dad that the neighbor had no idea where Gloria could be. In fact the neighbors daughter had run away too! “ I bet Gloria is with those Indians again!

My little mind conjured up my sister up in the hills somewhere with a tribe of wild Indians being held hostage. Where were those Indians?  I had never seen her with anyone but her friends and they didn’t seem wild to me.

Gone again, hiding, boy my sister was a handful. I couldn’t imagine in my naive mind why she would not want to stay home. “Oh well” I would say and run out the door to play as my mother and father took off in the car. 

I was left alone at night to sleep in the big bed where she and I slumbered  in the room that smelled of rotting wood. I missed the security of her being next to me for some reason.  I would stare at our little wooden dresser painted with layers of gray paint, the closet that we shared and the empty rocking chair. 

My sister would turn up sooner or later, weather she was dragged home by my parents or she came home voluntarily, kicked off the reservation as it were.  

It was in the Mission District of San Francisco.  High above the dark patch of grass and trees that were so infamous at night, I stared out of a window straining my eyes to see if anyone was being attacked in the park below. I was with my sister and she was visiting the “Indians.” I don’t know why I knew they were whom my mother was referring to, but I did. 

As I stood there with the curtains pulled aside looking into the dark, my heart pounded, it felt like I was falling into a dark well and that I would never see home again. For what ever reason I was frightened but I just waited in hopes that my sister would take me home. 

The “Indians’ lived in a housing not in a tent. They were nice enough to me but they were not the type of associations that my mother would have approved of. The apartment was small and poorly furnished. Dolores Park spread out below, with the reputation of rapes and attacks. The housing was run down and crowded. This was where my sister hid from my parents this is what she preferred to our home.

Throughout my childhood my sister would always be telling me don’t tell Mom, this or that and I think this is one of the places I was not supposed to tell mom about. I was a brat but somehow these secrets that she entrusted to me, I knew needed to be kept. 

There are so many things in my childhood that I can’t remember or for some reason won’t. I wonder how much Gloria protected me?  Was I like that apple hidden in the tree? Was it she who kept him from picking me?

A mile in her Shoes

An article written in "The Writer" by Kay Honeyman (June 2008 pg.-26) caught my attention. In "Catching a Scent of a Story" she talks about remembering the scent of her father when he came in from the yard. She went on to give a wonderful description of the memories that were evoked when she catches certain smells now and then.

I thought, hum, what did my father smell like? Every night when he came home from his sheet-metal job I can still remember the smell of tin and sandwiches that came from his lunch pail when I washed it. The smell of the coffee mixed with cream and sugar that poured out of his thermos had not entered my mind in years until I had read what she had wrote.

But what did my dad smell like? I can't say. Unlike many of my friends who were always hugging their dads, I never wanted to get that close to mine.

When ever I twist off the top of my cold cream bottle I feel as though I'm releasing a genie. Her face is slathered with Ponds. As I kiss her goodnight I can smell the soft scent, her smooth cheek soft to the touch. My mother never went to bed without cleansing her face with her magic potion.

Damp wood, like that of a rotting log evokes cold, rainy and foggy memories of shingles on a pitched roof. Weather so dreary that gray was a constant in my life not just in the sky but in my family.

The memory of that house goes hand in hand with that of my sister. Half running to keep up with her, my five year old body had the energy but not the stride of her 14 year old legs.

With her it wasn't a scent but a sound that I forever associate with her. Her crepe souled shoes softly struck the pavement as we headed to her friends. Her comments were short and clipped as she raced to get ahead of me, always the burden she had to contend with.

Blissfully ignorant, I widened my stride to match hers. I was going to see all of her friends and I was happy. I especially enjoyed playing hide and go seek with them. I must have been very good at it because somehow they never seemed to find me.

The sound of the souls of her shoes, the shoes I was to stuff socks into and secretly wear to school, frequently comes back to me. Though I may have walked many times in her shoes I would never truly know what it was like to walk a mile in them as she had.

I would have to say, if there was such a smell, my sisters scent would have been the salt of tears and the heat of anger.

Time is a gift

The sins of the father certainly seem to be condemning our children. I do agree that if you were to pole the prisons there would be many an abused child serving time.

Why are so many children today committing such atrocities? Is it always abuse? Sometimes I think that there are too many experts. Why does a child have to be told that he is unique, that he is beautiful, or that he or she (I'm not just picking on males)can be what ever he wants to be.

These are words and nothing more. You can tell children these things till there blue in the face but it won't mean one thing if you as a parent don't give them your time.

Attention shows a child that he means something to you. Working with the child on a project proves that they can accomplish anything. Give them attention and they won't have to act out in public to get it.

Unfortunately, there are very few families today that have time to give to their children. They barely have time to turn around let alone cook a home made meal for their them. So they resort to words of praise rather then giving them their time.

I grew up in the 50's. Just about everyone of my friends had a stay at home mother. Every neighbor knew every child in the neighborhood and believe me all eyes were on you. You got too much attention at times.

And there were times when a child did get a hold of a gun and accidentally shoot another child. It was not blasted across the papers, no one rose up in arms.

Was it because of communication? Was the crime rate lower? I don't know. I do know that as a 5th grader I walked to school with a German sward for show and tell and no one got upset. I just thought it was cool. Now this poor kid shows up with a bullet. Who knows, he may just have thought it was cool. And as was stated that incident could have been a good opportunity to discuss what could have happend with that bullet. Unfortunately, he lives in this day and age where children are killing children.

So what made kids change? By the 60's there was a beheading at one of the high schools in my town. I bet I would not have been able to walk that same area with the sword after that?

But it was by the late 60's when more and more women had to head into the work force. Kids were no longer listening to their parents and they were living by the philosophy that they should be able to do what ever they wanted. After that it was the me, myself and I generation. And now it is the "because I'm worth it" generation.

When it becomes every man for himself, I believe the world becomes a lonely place. And hell, if you don't care about the person next to you anyone can become expendable. Maybe it isn't the guns that are the problem it is society.

And as I have observed recently it is not just the big guys that are taking advantage of the little guys it is the little guys too who do it to each other. We certainly are a sad, sad, generation.

Soothing the Angry Soul

Sticks and stones may break your bones but anger can kill your spirit. Anger was served every night for dinner. It made me a skinny little girl with a bad attitude.

When you eat so much anger it will come back up when you’re not able to digest it. Mine came up at school. Mr. Silverman, the vice principal of Farragut Elementary in San Francisco, was always dealing with it.

He patrolled the school ground every day. Kids always surrounded him. Though I spent a lot of time in his office being disciplined, when he was on the playground I too enjoyed his company. In his hat and trench coat, clasping a brass bell, he was the most popular figure at recess.

In school I was always fighting with one child or another. I especially disliked the kids whose parents came to Open House. They would look at their child’s work sitting neatly on the desk and act so proud of what their child had accomplished.

Standing alone at my desk, I would look at my pile of half finished, hurriedly put together projects and messy work. My family was not there to look at anything I did. My parents were at home watching TV, to busy to even see how I was doing in school.

My friend’s parents would stop and look at my folder, though they were being kind, it was not the same as having your own parents there to see your things. In my heart I felt I was not worth the time, and that no one really cared about me.

One morning while walking with a friend to school, she mentioned that her parents were taking her to the circus. She asked if I wanted to go? What a question. Sure I wanted to go, I would have given anything to go. But, I knew that I would never go. My parent’s wouldn’t have given me the money.

Why bring up the subject at dinner, it would just start another fight. So I said to my friend, “Who wants to go to a stupid circus, I’ve got other things to do.” And I didn’t talk about it anymore.

That day I arrived at school extra mad and just looking for trouble. I exchanged angry words here and there and told everyone how stupid I thought the circus was. No one wanted to fight with me. When the bell rang I stomped off to class.

I settled into my seat and got my paper and pencil out. The school messenger came into our room and handed the teacher a note. The teacher turned to me and said, “Karen you need to go to Mr. Silverman's office.”

As I made the dreaded walk down the hall, my heart started pounding as I got nearer to Mr. Silverman's door. Someone must have complained about me again.

He was never an angry man. He was soft spoken and genuinely kind, but I was still afraid. It was so unusual to deal with a person who never raised his voice. I felt that one day he would have to loose his temper and this could be the day.

I stood in his doorway with my hair hanging in my face, my ill-fitting dress all disheveled and my fist clinched. He looked at me with a smile. He asked me to come in. I entered and stood in front of his desk.

He said, “Karen, I have this extra ticket to the circus. Would you like to have it?”

I looked at him. I didn’t know what to say. Why was he giving it to me? There were so many kids who were nicer then me, who weren’t always in trouble.

I just said, ”Really?”

He thought that I would enjoy it and if I could find a way to get there I could have the ticket. Reassuring him that I could get a ride, I thanked him and hurried back to class.

When I got back to my seat, I told my friend that I wanted to go to the circus with her on Saturday as I was just given a ticket by Mr. Silverman. Of course she reminded me of what I had said about the circus being stupid. I brightly covered up what I had said with the excuse that I was just kidding.

I was thrilled to have the ticket. But what was to influence the rest of my life was the fact that someone cared. Someone was looking at my work and taking an interest in what I was doing. Someone felt that I was a worthwhile being and that they cared about me even with my flaws. That one act of kindness removed a lot of the anger from me.

Mr. Silverman's thoughtfulness has made me understand how important praise, recognition and kindness is to a troubled child. Good children who don’t have to battle demons seem to come by rewards and praise easily.

When children are angry, they aren’t able to position themselves for rewards or praise. Maybe, like me, they don’t think they have any self worth.

As an adult, when volunteering with young children to help them with reading I try to aim for the troubled one. The very first thing on my agenda is to look for what things I can do to make that child feel that they are special and that someone cares. And I have seen it work.

Mr. Silverman knew that this was the way to reach out to neglected children and that everyone needs to be special and cared for. Now, I use that lesson too. Maybe sticks and stones may break your bones but kindness soothes those little souls.

GLORIA

GLORIA


NOTHINGS REALLY AS IT SEEMS
OUTSIDE’S TRANQUIL, BUT INSIDE SCREAMS

WHO OR WHAT’S BEHIND THAT DOOR
COULD NO ONE HEAR THE SILENT ROAR?

MOM LOOKED SWEET, NO WRONG SHE’D DONE
DESPISED HER DUGHTER, LOVED HER SON

AND HOW NICE WAS THE FATHER?
BEAT HIS SON, KNEW HIS DAUGHTER

CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, RAGE AND HATE
INNOCENT CHILDREND, HELL’S THEIR FATE

DAUGHTER RAN, SHE COULD NOT COPE
IN THIS LIFE, SHE HAD NO HOPE

COMFORT, LOVE, TO HER WHO’D BRING?
A RAY OF SUNSHINE, ANYTHING

“IF I’M NOT LOVED, WHAT’S MY WORTH?
I HAVE NO MEANING ON THIS EARTH”

HER HEART AND SOUL, WENT TO SLEEP
NO ONE KNEW, NO ONE TO WEEP

LIMB’S BROKE OFF THIS FAMILY TREE
ONCE WERE FOUR, NOW THEY’RE THREE

BIBLE FOLKS, ONE DAY DID CALL
“FROM GOD’S GOOD GRACE, DO NOT FALL”


“REPENT WE WILL” FATHER DID SAY”
“WE’LL BE READY ON JUDGEMENT DAY”

CLEANED UP HIS ACT, SO TO SPEAK
STILL TO HIS SON HE WAS NOT MEEK


HOLY DAD WAS FULL OF HOLES
BUT LOVED TO CONDEMN SINNING SOULS


DAD GREW TIRED OF BIBLE TREND
MOTHER WAS FAITHFUL TO THE END


AND IN THE END HEAVEN SCREAMED
FAULTS WERE BARED, THE EARTH WAS CLEANED


PARADISE, MOM ROSE FROM GRAVE
“MUST FIND MY SON” TO ALL SHE RAVED


BUT FROM THE GRAVE WHO WOULD RISE?
THE DAUGHTER DID TO MOM’S SURPRISE


TO HER MOTHER, SHE DID RUN
MOM SAID NO! I WANT MY SON!


DOWN FROM HEAVEN CAME THE TAUNT
“IT’S YOU, THE MOTHER, I DON’T WANT”


RUMBLE AND QUAKE, EARTH DID CHURN
TO DIRT AND WORMS, MOM RETURNED


DAUGHTER TURNED AROUND TO GO
MIDST THE STRANGERS SHE DID NOT KNOW

THEN A VOICE TO HER DID SAY
“RANSOM OF KINGS, OUR WORTH, HE’D PAY”


“WORTHY FOUND, WE, LIKE GOLD
WE HAVE BEEN DRAWN INO THE FOLD”


TEARS FROM HER BEGAN TO STREAM
FOR HIM TO SEE SHE NEVER DREAMED

ARMS STRETCHED OUT, ONE TO THE OTHER
LOVED AT LAST, SISTER AND BROTHER

The Mighty Mite

When I was a kid I was a brat! There is no denying it. I was tall for my age and loved to pick a fight. I knew that if things got tough and I was loosing the fight all I needed to do was call my dog George and say the magic words, "Sic em George" and I would remain the reigning champion of the block.

I wasn't afraid of anyone especially if I was taller then them. Remember I said I was a brat. But one day I got to full of myself and met my match.

Even though I was the youngest of three children you might as well have said I was an only child because my brother was 10 years older then me and my sister was 9 years older. But there's the rub. My brother spoiled me like I was his own child by the time he got to high school. I could do no wrong around him. (well except say I wanted to be a WAVE in the Navy when I grew up. But that's another story.) As for my sister, well lets just say, her closet of clothes might as well have been mine.

Yes she was older then me but she was 4' 10" to my 5' by the time I had reached the 6th grade.
Poor Gloria. She would be at school and I would be going through her clothes to see what I wanted to wear to mine. Of course I had to role up her skirts to fit my skinny frame and I would stuff socks into her shoes (I bet you thought I stuffed them some place else) to make them fit my feet.

And off to school I would go. Of course in an ordinary day I would maybe have one or two fights and was alway racing around the yard so you can only imagine what her clothes looked like by the time I slipped them back into her side of the closet. Especially the one day I stayed late after school to play with the kids and took the shortcut across the school yard and climbed the fence only to find I could not get my leg over the wire gate without ripping the skirt to give me that extra bit of leverage.

So I think it was finding her clothes ripped and dirty, that might have set her off that night. Heaven knows she had nobody to defend her when it came to my shenanigans. (And that is another sad story) We were doing the dishes and I was, as usual, drying them as she always made me dry and that always made me mad.

After she had washed, cleaned the stove, swept and mopped the floor while I was putting the dishes away, she told me to take the garbage downstairs to the rubbish can. That was it for me. It was bad enough I had to dry the dishes and now she was making me empty the trash.

I looked down on this tiny little frame of a girl and told her straight out, no! She started to shove me and I shoved back, she wasn't about to make me do it. The next thing I knew, the door to the basement opened, I was flying down the stairs with the garbage on top of me. Next to me sat George who knew the hand that fed him.

All the hate, abuse and neglect came spilling out of my sister that night. Of course I was to young to know that. I wished I had, but I didn't. But I sure did have a new respect for her. Not only had she thrown me down the stairs she had knocked me off my pedestal. From that day on I never towered over her again.

Who destroyed the boy in my Father

Who destroyed the boy in my Father
Category: Life
My mothers side of the family seems to have been lost to me. I've been researching all the supposed names of my grandfather and grandmother to no avail. My grandmother told my brother when he was maybe 5 or 6, "don't tell anyone your Indian when you get to San Francisco."

My parents were leaving Colorado.

It was mid 1930's and my grandmother was truly afraid that harm would come to my brother and sister if anyone knew there nationality.

I did not know we had Indian in us until I was in high-school. My grandfather had passed away and my mom was explaining to me how they draped colorful ribbons over his casket to represent the ones he would tie on his high, rounded hat. I asked my mom why did he do that? That is when I found out he was Indian.



Now that I'm alone, my parents are long gone, I've decided I want to know more about my grandfather. so I started searching. I've looked for a long time and have had a very hard time finding out anything because there are no relatives to ask.

In the back of my mind I kept thinking why don't I just look up my dad's side for now since I do have an uncle living and maybe it would be easier?

I didn't want to know about my father. He was the one who split our family apart, he was the one I did not want to be related to.

Then we had a family reunion. I saw old photo's of my parents, my brother and sister and photos of my dad as a little boy. I got copies of those photos but it was the one of my dad as a young boy that has set me on this quest. I realized while looking at this haunted child that he was at one time a little innocent person who must have suffered at the hands of someone. Someone so evil that he must have turned that little boy into the sick man who became my father.

It is that little boy I love and it is that little I want to discover.

When your a nobody

When you’re a nobody
Category: Life

It was in the sixth grade that I realized that I was nobody. We were studying Mexico and the teacher wanted to have a Fiesta in class. I quickly volunteered to bring some Mexican food.

When I asked my mom if she could make some Beans and tortillas for our fiesta she began scolding me. "Don't you ever tell anyone what kind of food we eat. Why did you say that we eat beans? Another thing, we are not Mexican we are Spanish.” we were not Mexican? That was news to me as the kids always called me a Wet Back. What was wrong with our food? My father hit the roof if he did not have his tortillas on the table every night. I thought they tasted good. Why did I have to hide it?
Now I realized that what I ate and who I was were not to be discussed. And if I could not talk about it that must have meant that there was something terribly wrong with it. Most of all there was something wrong with me.
My mother did make the food for the class and the teacher was so appreciative and everyone enjoyed it but I never felt right. Was the teacher just being nice? Were the kids laughing at me and who my parents were?

Being a non Mexican, Wet Back was very confusing to a supposedly 6th grade Spaniard. My mother was chuck full of surprises.

Kids, they love a challange

So I wasn't supposed to tell anyone what we ate. OK. I guess proper white food would make me a proper white person. So what was my typical "White" lunch for School? Tuna Fish. It was wrapped in a loose piece of wax paper. The tuna was crusted and dry with no mayonnaise. At least it looked like no mayonnaise. I guess mom thought I would get sick if I ate warm mayonnaise while my lunch can rested in the 60 degree coat closet.

Well chuck that sandwich in the trash. A few bites out of the mushy apple and I was done. I was also Skinny. There was not one lunch that I ate. It all went in the trash. I subsisted on a cup of sugar with some Cheerios for breakfast, no lunch, and heaven forbid, a tortilla with can milk and sugar wrapped inside for an after school snack. And no, I did not offer one to my friends.

Why would my friends want one anyway when they came home to home made cookies after school. If there were no tortillas then there was the old stand by white bread rolled and dipped into a glass of milk. I didn't dare touch the fruit. Not that I didn't like it but once I started eating the oranges or bananas I could not stop. Mom would scold me because I ate to much of the stuff.

I was not big on dinner as I did not like steak. Which mom made as she was dog tired when she got home and it was the fastest thing to cook. Of course we had the tortillas and chili to go with it. I am sure she would like me to tell my friends about the steak.

At the table for entertainment I would pick out a subject from the top of my head. Anything, nuts, bolts, what went on at school. It was a game I played with myself. I knew that no matter what I said at the table it would start a fight. Perhaps I was hoping that enough dishes would go flying so that I would have less to wash.

Ah kids, I tell you, they are so easily entertained.