I tell this story with my one sister, Christine by my side, November 25, 1961, because she was there for it all and to this day we still need each other to deal with it all. Further into the story my parents have another daughter, Lynn, so I had another little sister, born on April 18^th, 1973, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.

I've heard people say they can remember being in the womb, if I did remember that far back, I would say most likely the feeling of not being wanted probably started then. What I do remember from those young years is in little pieces, little fragments of time, that for some reason stayed with me, some good and some bad. I didn't realize of course how these memories or lack of them were going to be effecting the rest of my life to this day.

Back to 1963..........

The first place I can remember living was in a small town called Graham Hill in Pennsylvania, my family lived in the middle house of a row of three town houses. My mom, Darlene was just 18 when I was born and my dad Lewis just 4 years older then her. My maternal Grandparents and two youngest Aunts lived on one side of us. I have brown hair, blue eyes and chubby checks, and it has been said that I look like my mother's side of the family, though my dad also has chubby checks, my sister is blond haired and has hazel eyes, fair skinned and it's said looks more like my dad's side of the family .

Some of the things I remember about living in Graham Hill, it's where I learned to ride a bike. I remember the first time riding down a small hill by myself, I ended up riding right onto a big branch of a pine tree because I couldn't figure out how to put the brakes on. Another time I ran into the cellar- way with the front tire of my bike and went right out over the handle bars almost knocking out my front teeth. I learned to tie my shoes there, I remember we had a swing set in the back yard and I'd sit out there and practice and practice tying my shoes. It was really hard because I had broken my right arm. I was at my paternal grandparents house when I broke my arm, there was an old sand box there that had a little canvas roof over top, the canvas had rotted and I broke off the one board (1"x3"x5') when out in yard by myself. For whatever reason I had to show-off how strong I was, by trying to break the second board off with grandma as my audience When I tried it the second time I fell, landed on a tree root and broke my arm. Even then I had the impression that my being strong, was something that received approval.

In case I forget to tell you I'm a Murphy's law person, what can go wrong will and usually does in my case.....memories from there.....a family picnic in the back yard, someone put put a watermelon in the small creek that ran out back to keep cool. When we went to get it we found a water snake curled up next to the watermelon.....behind our house a neighbor had some ponies in a pasture. I was always scooting under the electric fence to go play with them, you just couldn't keep me away from horses.....at the town Firehouse there was a pond that we would ice skate on in the winter time. The grown-ups would build a fire along the bank and we'd go out and skate around that little pond, seemed so much bigger then.....There's a picture of my father standing in a snow drift that's up to his waist

I can't remember the first time I heard that I had only been born to keep my dad from having to go in the service. And somewhere, I got it in my head that he/they would have been happier with a boy. So I was always trying to show how tough I was, tried to act like a boy.

It was at the Graham Hill house that I became so ill, our family doctor came to the house to see me. They thought I had some type of flu or cold. But I didn't get any better, just kept getting worse. Finally my Aunt suggested that I be taken to see a different doctor, when my mom carried me into the waiting room the doctor was standing there. Before my mom even got me in the door, the doctor told her to turn around and take me directly to the hospital. I had spinal meningitis, still not really sure what that is. I remember little bits and pieces of being in the hospital, big long needles that they used to drawl my spinal fluid, doctors and nurses, I was about 4-5 years old so everything seemed so big and so surreal.

Another incident at that house, that for a while I thought was a nightmare, It took me a long time to realize that it was an actual incident and not a nightmare.....I would dream and in the dream I would hear footsteps coming up the stairs, the sound of someone walking down the hall way, the door opens and then.....I couldn't remember what happened I would wake up terrified but not knowing why. After many years of therapy and more small fragments of remembered time, I have deduced that what actually happened that day was this.....my sister and I had found a jar of Vaseline, and we spread it all over the floor and then we were sliding on it. We were having so much fun sliding and laughing. Till the door opened.....my mother came into the room and grabbed a hold of me and beat me with something. I've been told by both Grandmothers that I had 28 bruises from my shoulders to the back of my knees. After this happened there was a big to-do, both sets of grandparents had a meeting about what to do about my sister and I. How to keep us from being abused, nothing like this was talked about back then, they couldn't do to much about taking us from our parents. They came up with a plan of me going with my dad's parents on weekends and my sister going with my mom's parents on weekends. I think our Aunts also got in on this somewhat cause I can remember them taking us places and babysitting us a lot. This was how our life was until we started moving around. I think because of this my sister and I have a lot of differences in our out look on life. And yet we have so much in common because sometimes we were all we had, as we'd move from place to place.

Probably my fondest memory of this time is when my paternal Grandfather would come and pick me up, every Friday after he got off work. He had this really old pick-up truck 1950 something, and there were holes in the floorboards, I used to be able to watch the road speed past as we headed home to their house. I loved going to their house, I was the apple of their eye. They lived outside of a small town in Mayburg, PA, on a 5 acre lot, there was a little barn out back, chickens, pigs and a pony, a truck patch (garden), and I spent most of my time out there with my Pap pap. I did everything with him, and they took me everyplace with them.

I had one thing that happened there once, my grandparents would play cards with friends and every once in a while they would bring their son with them. We were out watching TV on the porch, my grandmother would fix us a plate of goodies and I'd watch TV while they played cards. One night when they brought the son along and he was with me on the porch, I remember him showing his privates to me and wanting me to touch him. It may have been a childish type thing but I do remember feeling bad about it. Feeling uncomfortable, he was a good bit older then me, had hair on his body, I was around 5 or so.