The year is 1975 and best memory is June. My sister is moving home and I am so excited. The plan…I, along with my 9 month old son are flying to O’Hare airport to be met by my sister and her 3 kids. We are about to embark on a brave adventure and I do mean brave. I have been driving for only two years and yes I was 18 and married before I got my drivers license and yes my sister had only had her license maybe a year..lol..so the plan is for me and my young son to fly to Chicago, get picked up, finish packing and loading moving van and head to Louisiana. Make sure you have this picture in mind. Red mini station wagon, two fairly new drivers, one baby, three kids and Teddy their 3 legged dog. Cell phones were not even in our imagination..lol..Armed with map, ice chest and hunting cheap hotels we set out. Well let me back up a bit and set the stage a little better. I am 21 and my sister is 28 maybe 29. No parents, dad died Nov 1971, mom died Nov 1972, sister getting divorced, selling her house and moving home. No job, no place to live…OMG what were we thinking. Two inexperienced drivers, 4 kids and a dog…lol.
Ok it was the 70’s so it is no bra for me and knit pants..lol and orange at that and there is a picture to prove this. Standing at a water faucet with my 9 month old buck naked and I am bathing him in my bright orange stretch pants..lol..ok sorry chasing rabbits
Break time..heeheehee if ya wanna know more you gotta come back for more
Well the plan was to stay one more day, sleep on the floor and get up the next day to go to the ballon fest but nooooooooo…I had to hurry and get home to hubby (life teaches you better..lol). So our journey began. I really do not remember where our first stop was or where we stayed. I do remember we did get a motel room with two beds and we all piled into one room. I don’t remember a lot of detail but I do remember we stopped in several parks, may have been roadside may have been state parks really do not remember. We were Louisiana bound and that is all that mattered.
I do remember stopping in Little Rock AK at a road side park for lunch. We all piled out to eat our picnic lunch. Teddy was tied to a tree while we ate. As we sat eating our lunch Teddy began to bark and growl. My first thought was it could be a rattle snake so I very carefully approached. Well this damn Yankee dog had found himself a pine cone..lol..he was barking and giving it hell. I am not sure which of us laughed the hardest.
From our past trips there when I was growing up best I can remember it was about a 21 hour trip. I believe we made it in two days and I only remember the one night on the road. I know that when I got home it was only a few min and I was wishing I had stayed one more day to see the balloons take off. Lesson learned never be in a hurry to get back to hell.
We started looking for a house and your mom trying to decide where she wanted to live. We spent several days and maybe a few weeks looking at houses, calling realtors, going to properties and having rude realtors not showing up. Finally I had enough and called a guy, name slips my memory. We had found the subdivision and house where you were later to live in. I told the realtor, look I am helping my sister look for a house. We have already had several rude bitches stand us up that she has $10,000 for a down payment and wanted to close as soon as possible. Needless to say we were not dissapointed in him as he met us within an hour to show the house. Well your mom fell in love, the price was right, she had cash money for downpayment, loan was approved, utilities turned on and moving van called to unload. I think it was a week maybe because we were pushing to get closed because the moving company charged by the day.
I am not sure how soon the job hunting began but she found a job at Sears store in Tioga. She was lucky because I believe if I remember correctly your dad gave her the profit out of the house and never missed a child support payment.
I do remember that she applied for food stamps one time and the bastards told her she made $10 a month to much to get approved. She cried for weeks and I think probably the second job started cleaning house. I think Sears was part time job and that is where she met and became friends with Goldie. I do not know how long she worked there but I do remember that when the store closed she worked in Alex at the mall for awhile but she had to work until closing. She hated it.
One night coming home from work at 10 she got to the red light at the bottom of the bridge going over the river and the light turned red. She was terrified to stop so she ran it. It is not a good part of town and she did not like driving at night. Well fucking cop got her and gave her a ticket. She cried all the way home and for weeks afterwards. It was so hard to pay a ticket because she was already working two jobs to pay the bills and raise 3 kids.
Enough for now my brain hurts..lol
