My Mystery Childhood

Rumor has it this is a photo of my first steps. I’m not sure who told me that.

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.