This is pretty much how it always is when I look back on my childhood. Unlike most people, I can’t tell you a clear story. I have an assortment of facts and memories, which I attempt to place into some kind of order based on evidence. Some of those facts:
- Mom and Dad divorced when I was very young. I'm not sure how young. I don't have any recollection of them being married.
- We moved. A lot. Sometimes 3 or more times in a single school year. I never made friends. I never caught up with the curriculum.
- Sometimes we lived with Dad. Sometimes we lived with Mom. Sometimes with Grandma Aro. Sometimes with an aunt & uncle.
- Some of the people we lived with were very good care givers.
- Some of those people were not.
- My little brother, Randy, did not move with us. He stayed with Mom.
Everything changed when Donna and I moved in with Uncle David and Aunt Eunice. That was the first time we spent a whole school year in one place. That was the year I made my first friend. I can tell you what my address and phone number were that year, and even what school I went to.
The 6th grade. That’s when my life becomes one long tale, instead of a series of scattershot memories. Or pictures with no memories attached, like this one.