The Real Beginning

I was born in 1943 in Louisiana. My mother and dad had been married for 3 years. They had hoped that my mother would get pregnant soon so my dad would be safe from serving in the War but no luck. Mother turned up pregnant right after my dad joined the Air Force. So instead of keeping them together, I was the reason they had to be
apart.

The other soldiers considered my dad the old man because he was 27 years old. He became a pilot trainer and was stationed in Texas. The Air Force did not provide for wives back then so my mother, pregnant, would have to work and save money before she could go stay where my dad was. She had to go back to her family when it was time for me to be born. She stayed with her family, after my birth, for a short while and before the doctors approved her traveling with me, she borrowed money from her father and we were off to Texas. When she arrived in Texas she found it hard to find places to live because a lot of rentals did not accept children, and especially not babies. I was told that I slept in dresser drawers some of the time. We stayed with my dad throughout the War. We could not live on base because there were no accommodations and my dad was required to live on base. But at least my mom and dad were somewhat together.

I was 3 when dad got out of the Air Force and we returned to Louisiana. We spent a year living 1st with my dad's mother and then with mom's family. Not the best of situations considering my dad's mother was not a very loving, giving sort of person. My grandmother refused to allow my mother to run the fan when she was at work. This was just one of her rules. It soon became impossible for us to remain there so we were off to my mother's family. That was not perfect either. We finally moved in a house of our own. I was four when my brother was born. He wound up being the smart one of the family. I did not do well in school so not much was expected of me as far as school was considered. I suffered a lot of teacher turnover during my school years and my mother said that our school passed my class because of their guilt over what had happened to my class. I do not know if this is true or not but I do know that I had problems with reading and any subject that required reading. Being diagnosed with ADD when I was in my 50s has me thinking that a lot of my school problems were probably due to my ADD. My mother use to tell me that my brother had book sense and I had common sense. It took me years to realize that that did not mean I was stupid. I have learned through the years that what is most important is what we think of ourselves. We control who we are and who we can become.