Day two

Ok, I told you in my first entry that I would tell you a bit about myself. I am not going to get to it all in one entry, so I will just start at the beginning. As time goes by you will gain a bit of insight about who I am and what made me the person that I am today. Ok, here goes:

I was born and raised in the Napa Valley here in California, the wine country. There were five kids in my family and I am the fourth. You will read a bit later why I used the word "were" in the last sentence. My older brother and sisters are 9-14 years older than I and my younger sister, so it was kind of like having 2 generations of kids. When I was 4 my brother left home to join the US Navy, and when I was 5 my father abandoned my mother and my sisters and I. Up until that point my family life was "all American." My father and I were very close. We were very much the middle class American family. But that all changed pretty much overnight.

My father worked in the furniture business, so we had a house full of fine furniture, but we soon couldn't pay for electricity. After he left my father wasn't paying the bills, and my mother was a stay at home mother typical of the 50's and 60's. She had to go out and find a job in a time when there were only certain jobs they would hire a woman to do. That was further limited because she had never worked or gone to college. She worked very hard to keep us living at the poverty level. One of my older sisters got married. The other had to quit high school to take care of my younger sister and I while my mother worked very long hours.

When I was 5, 6 and 7 I had no idea we were poor. We lived in very small, older run down places, but they were always spotless and my mother cooked us wonderful meals. I didn't realize that most often we didn't have meat in our meals, lots of beans and pasta, lol. All I knew was the food tasted great! I would often see my mother in here bedroom on her knees in prayer. Whenever things got really rough financially she would tell us not to worry, that God would see us through. No matter how bad things got her faith never wavered. That is the most important lesson my mother ever taught me.

During this time my older brother was having problems of his own. He had joined the Navy, basically to get away from my father. He and my father had a very rough relationship. My brother was never good enough, smart enough etc. for my father. As my brother reached his late teens he started to rebel and their relationship began to get physical. That is when my brother decided the Navy was his ticket out. I will get back to my brothers story a bit later on, but I will tell you that to this day it is very difficult for me to talk about him.

My other older sister got married and had a baby, and when I was 8 my mother remarried. She married a man who struggled with alcoholism. (my mother did not know this when she married him because he had been sober for quite some time at that point) He would go through long periods being sober, then relapse and wreak havoc for a few days, or weeks, then get sober again. He was a workaholic also. He usually had 2 menial jobs at a time, so although our financial situation did improve a bit we were still poor. My mother continued to work all through this time. He wasn't abusive toward my sister and I, but he was never a father figure either. We never got close to him. He was just our mothers husband and their relationship was strained most of the time. Much of the time their arguments were about her doing things for us kids, but she never changed that. When it came to us kids my mother was a lion, lol.

I know this is probably a bit boring so far. I had not intended to get so detailed about my childhood. But as I started writing I realized it was necessary for you to understand what happens next. In my next entry I am going to get back into my brothers role in my life during my teens, and I can promise you things will be more interesting, to say the least. So if you have gotten this far I thank you for reading, and I will tell you more tomorrow.