15-18

10th/11th/12th all seemed to pass pretty quickly. I remember my first job was Domino's...was probably only there for a few months, then worked at Hamady's(sp?). Grocery store chain that went out of business. They were union, so was my first exposure to that. No real complaints for how that worked. Yes I did have union dues taken out of my paycheck, but it didnt seem like much. I also knew from my dad being in the UAW that they would help if my employer tried to jack me around. I guess from that point of view it's kinda like paying for protection. No wonder unions are likened to the mob.

I also started hanging out with Ricky Thompson. We would go up to the open swim at the high school fairly often, which is also how I met Marcy Alford and eventually Jeni Craven. Well Marci was because Ricky was dating her, and they used to make out in the pool fairly often and get in trouble. Quite entertaining. Then one evening she was at a friends near my house and couldnt get Ricky to come over....and I went over....and well I am gonna let you guess the remaining details. Okay there isnt THAT many details, but we did play around. I went to tell Ricky about it in the morning imagining he'd be pissed. But he wasnt, not at all. His response was that she was the one that was in a relationship with him and cheated, not me. I was simply taking advantage of a nice pair of boobs that were being offered. He broke up with her, but we stayed friends.

I kinda fooled around with her a bit more (the women werent exactly falling at my feet ya know), and eventually met Jeni at a SADD meeting Marci convinced me to go with her to at school. Thus starts a 5 to 6 year infatuation. I was always a romantic. I believed her to be the ONE. Just something about her personality, attitude, everything. We were great friends, but it just never developed into romantic feelings on her part, leaving me hurt over and over again through the years. I can't say I regret a bit of it though.

Not to trivialize anyone else I dated in high school (Faith, Mary...that darker skinned chick that went to Cedar point with us....totally dont remember her name). Jeni was just first love so I mention her here. I dont want to fill this up with too much high school emotional drabble.

I worked alot during my senior year. usually 40+ a week even while going to school. My dad and me got into an argument right after graduation, something about my car...rent..what is mine and what isnt....I don't even know. Looking back I honestly have no clue what the argument was really over. Apparently it made me mad enough to leave the house though, and went and stayed with my mom for a few weeks. This made me very scared of being a failure. I needed success in my life. Dependable job, good money, actually getting somewhere. I couldnt figure any way to go to college on my own, and basically I was on my own. At this point there only thing I could think of was military. So I simply went down and signed up, and within a few weeks was in Navy Boot Camp. Hoorah....

12-14

Ahh seventh grade. Why am I putting ages up at the top if I am just using grades as my basis? I imagine since eventually school has to stop it does make more sense though.

So before seventh grade starts, mom's boyfriend Greg apparently gets a job in Minnesota near the twin cities, and me and sister move with them to Eagan. Strangely enough I dont think dad gave his "permission" for this. And later on the state of michigan sues him for child support for the time period that she wasnt in michigan. Well sues is a strong word. They take his taxes for three years without even listening to him explaining we werent even in the dang state and that the kids were not supposed to leave the state anyway.

So we move with mom there. Unbeknownst to us at the time, Greg was also a cocoaine freak. Lovely mom. Sigh. So he has these nice anger bouts. He definitely starts hitting her.

Had my first paper route. There was a pop machine in the bottom of the building I delivered to where you could just put your hand underneath and pull pops out. Man...I was a thief!

I got lost once walking to some plaza with a friend of mine...and it starts storming bad. I somehow knew the address to some girl I was crushing on, and mistakenly came upon her street (and honestly I had no clue where her street was supposed to be). Used her phone to call mom and have her come get me.

I was only there for like 6-8 months at most??? Mom split from him after the beating got too bad. Got her own place. Then she started to get back with him. I decided it was too much, called my dad to ask if I could come live with him, and he sent me a plane ticket. Angie stayed. She was in tenth grade...had tons of friends, activities, other things going on she didnt want to leave. I suppose home life being horrible isnt so bad when you bury yourself in other things.

So around christmastime of that year (halfway through seventh grade) I go back to flint to live with dad. I actually stay here until I graduate!!! OMG longest residence I'd ever known until that time. I go to McKinley Junior high which is like 4 blocks away.

I dont remember having many friends though. I basically spent the rest of seventh grade and eighth grade playing nintendo. I had one guy I was kinda friends with (Tony Bess I think???) and I was still friends with my two cousins. I stayed at their house alot and them mine on weekends. But my dad worked evening shifts. So most of the time I came home from school, saw him for a few minutes, and he was gone and I took care of myself for the night. As always I was horrible at going to sleep at a good time. I missed probably a day a week from school just from sleeping in. But my grades were always good anyway - well except for this one teacher that had some stupid rules. For instance, if out of a set of 5 homework assignments you miss you, she wouldnt take any of them. I aced like every test she gave me but tried to fail me anyway.

(P.S. Mrs. Frederick . You were the worst teacher ever. EVER)

Somewhere I believe in late eight grade dad started dating Vicki. Maybe even the summer after eighth grade. I'm not entirely sure, but I remember she was around for ninth when I got sent to Northern High School which was 95% black even though we were in southern flint. Now this didnt bother me at all, I didnt really have friends anyway and didnt care to talk to people at school really. But I continually got jumped, hit from behind and attacked simply because of my color. I finally got transferred to southwestern academy halfway through ninth.

9-11

So I remember attending school at Cody elementary in Flint for like 4 days then moved up to Beaverton with mom. Mom did not work still, and lived with some guy (I truly dont remember his name) out in the boondocks. We only lived there a few weeks. I think he started hitting her and stuff. Unfortunately this seems to happen to her alot. I would like to say I had sympathy for her. Somehow I dont and I'm not sure I understand that. I really didnt even then. I think as a kid you see that you are helpless to do anything anyway. Then eventually I started to realize that with her "habits" and apparent taste in men, she puts herself in this position. I'm sorry to say this to you girls, but if you want the muscular - car/hunting/redneck type of men, and then you start getting hit..... Well here's your sign (as engvall would say).

So we then moved out to albright shores, which is kind of a suburb of beaverton. Now beaverton is a tiny tiny town anyway, but albright shores was still small enough it didnt warrant having any of it's own stuff, so that's just how it was seen. We lived in this trailer on a dirt road buried deep in there, and I LOVED it!!!!! We were right across the street from the lake. I went fishing every single day. I cleaned and cooked what I caught (yes boys and girls, in 4th grade I could do that). I basically took care of myself. I had several friends, including an extremely attractive tomboy named bobbie jo hudeck. She later gets pregnant by this guy that was a total A$# at like 16. Sad..

Also had a crush on another girl in neighborhood that was like in 6th grade and was only there sometimes....Totally embarrased me when she found out and I hid out in someone's RV??? Dont even know who's it was. My sister was friends with her...To be honest the whole events there are a little fuzzy. We moved into another house in albright shores briefly. I remember crossing an iced over lake and playing with some kid a few years older than me that was a troublemaker somehow. Not even sure how. I do remember his house being really cool, right on the lake, and him having a Simon game.

I remember my mom having a friend somewhere in this time we would go over to her house and play with her kids while they smoked a bowl. She didnt work either, and basically kept having kids to get more welfare money. Kinda glad Clinton reformed that. Yes Clinton, not Reagan or Bush Sr....fixed that. Eat that repubs.

We moved in with grandparents (mom's) briefly. Very briefly really. They didnt like us there at all obviously. This must have been somewhere in 5th grade, but not sure when. I remember visiting cousin Eric at a house he lived in up there for a while. How the heck did he end up living in Beaverton some while his dad still worked down in flint....I dont have a clue. I need to ask that I guess. Anyways, he didnt live there for long. He had such a cool treehouse there though!

Then moved next door to the Beaverton Food Center in town. This was 6th grade now?? (Almost seems like I'm missing 5th grade entirely. Hopefully I'll remember that later).

I loved that house. I would work next door at the food center and stock shelves and do pricing and they in return put tons of credits on the Galaga game. I remember watching Transformers on a tv with an antenna and barely picking it up. I remember hanging out with chuck warner ALOT. Going to dances at the bowling alley for kids...Dating Rachel Sharich. Who was in fourth grade and her sister Lynette was in my grade. But she was cuter. Long hair. Wow that fetish started early.

I remember that punk that later knocked bobbie jo up once threatening to beat me up (simply cause he could and he was a bully). Grabbing me by the neck and digging his fingernails in enough to bleed.

I remember running away from a couple of older kids that were going to beat me and chuck up, and I ended up getting hit by a car and put in the hospital for a week and out of school for another few weeks after that. About 3/4 through sixth grade mom met some guy named Greg and was moving to Dearborn with him. My sister went to stay with a friend and I went back to grandparents (dad's). Sometime I believe during early summer my grandpa passed away while I was living there. No one's death has hit me as hard as his did. He was truly a great man. I have heard bad things about him since, his temper and such that he had. I never saw it. Not a bit. I have never met anyone so patient with me. Never met anyone I wanted to live up to or please as much as him. I still talk to him, ask him how I'm doing. He's my conscience.

5-8

So for first grade we went to live with my grandparents (still my dad's parents) for that entire year in Beaverton Michigan. I remember that as the most stable and secure place I ever lived in my early childhood. Was my grandmother mean sometimes? Yes. And keep in mind she was my step grandmother, he had remarried right? (let's hope you are reading this in order!) She MADE you eat your vegetables even if she made the kind you hated. And just nasty vegetables too, like brussel spouts and lima beans. But we learned order...stability..having a schedule..we had some great playmates in the houses around us. We had chickens, a pretty good size garden/farm (does 15 acres of planting count as a farm or a garden?). Occasionally when my cousin was up I got to go to my other grandparents (mom's parents) who lived on the lake in beaverton. That was amazing. Her parents were.....well let's just say me and my sister were not as well liked by them. My mom was kinda the black sheep you know? And after all she never really got her life straightened out while they were around, so they somehow thought less of her children I think as a result.

So in second grade and third grade we moved back down with dad you had remarried to Carrie. I just realized something typing this! OMG that was only like 2 years after mom had left. I really had always somehow thought it took dad longer to meet someone. I guess not...

So Carrie was hot looking, I give dad credit on that. But she was also mean. I mean she had one of those faces that you can just see the meanness in you know? I remember that woman pulling me by the ear around that house so many times....Grounding me to my room for losing a sock (wtf?!?! socks go missing in life girl!!!) I remember sticking a penny in a light socket also. This does explain alot.

I remember having at least 3 bikes stolen off our back porch. Flint sucks for crime.

I remember having nightmares. I was doing laundry (why was a 7 year old doing laundry?? Even in a dream!!!) and was carrying clean clothes in a basket. I for some reason was taking them down to a house down the street where dad and Carrie were. I went to go out the front door, and this really old woman that looked almost like the witch out of snow white picked me up, threw me over her shoulder and carried me away screaming.

Me and Carrie clashed like you wouldnt believe. I realize I probably did cause dad's divorce from her the summer after third grade. I remember him trying to connect to me once by taking me to the movies, and the movie was so awful we left like 15 minutes into it.

I hung out with my other cousin alot during that time too. I got in a wreck on his three-wheeler when I got confused between what the brake and gas were. I'm not saying I was the brightest kid. It twisted my ankle really really bad and since that day I still twist my ankle fairly easy.

Birth to 5

My life started in Flint Michigan. My parents had already had one child, though in truth (to be found out by me way later) she was only my half sister. My mother had gotten pregnant at 17 with my sister, but the other man was not well liked by my grandparents at all. Apparently somewhere in there she decided to break up with him and somehow got with my father. I certainly dont know all the details of that and probably dont need to. Everyone's story ends up being slightly different anyway right? I hear years later when my sister meets her real father that when he found out my mom was pregnant he begged to marry her. Mom tells the story differently.

So my parents marry, decide a few years later to have me. (we are exactly 3 years and 1 month apart). They stay together until I am about 4 and a half. Somewhere during that time my dad's mom kinda goes a little crazy due to MS i think?? and they end up splitting up...and he marries another woman a few years later. Dont think any of the kids really ended up liking her, but all my dad's siblings were out of the house but his youngest sister, and she was probably like 15. (yeah my dates might be wrong, I'll edit later).

My mom unfortunately missed her freedom tremondously. She wanted to go out with friends, do things, be gone alot and simply still enjoy her early 20's. Dad worked at GM, and was basically the "go to work, come home, go to work, come home" type. This caused alot of fights, and they eventually split up. Mom also had trouble laying off the marijuana, a battle she fights to this day. Well fights might be a strong word. Okay it is totally the wrong word, it is her life really. When someone's tell's me that stuff isnt addicting, I pretty much want to laugh the crazy laugh in their face.

I remember the night they split up. My mom took me and my sister and left after a huge fight where my dad put his fist through the wall. We both hid in the bathtub during the fight. She left with us and went to some friends house. I remember her and a table full of friends sitting in this room and the entire room being full of marijuana smoke. After a while I passed out. Maybe if you guys ever legalize that stuff you can explain to me how you are going to prevent stuff like that from ever happening.

Anyways after a few days mom took us back home for dad to have us instead, and she kinda disappears for a while. My aunt came and stayed with us (the younger sister I mentioned) and watched us while dad worked. Soon dad realized this wasnt going to be able to be maintained long term. We spent my kindergarten year either with dad, with mom, or with my grandparents (dad's parents). Moved maybe 6 times? The exact count I forget fairly often and is probably not important. I know we lived on Red Arrow in Flint near the fire station at one point, and that was where I first played with a commodore 64. I also needed stitches after running across the street with my bike and it come up and hitting me above the nose when I hit the curb. It's not always safest to walk your bike across the street.

I remember the stairs in that house. and I remember falling asleep going up them (you had to wear me out big time to get me to go to bed).

Let's Start

I want to use this like a diary...or maybe an autobiography? Not sure how to term this. Let's just say that I have trouble remembering my life. Things come to me all the time from my past that I have clearly forgotten. They often help me resolve things going on in my life now. Perhaps if I had them written down, I could figure things out before they horribly explode. I am also starting this amidst a divorce, and to be honest I have been confused enough going through this that putting something down on paper (or in this case on screen) seems be to therapeutic for me.