My Childhood, Part 1, Arkansas

I was born a poor black child. Well almost.

I was born on June 26, 1962. Somewhere outside of Detroit Michigan, To an unwed teen mom. My dad was from a wealthy eastern family, and in the Air Force at the time. My mom was a poor farmers daughters who had been living in Battle Creek Michigan. The story according to my mom was that they wanted to get married, but my dads family said they would disown him if he married my mom. He took the money.

After I was born I was given to my grandparents to raise me. We lived on a farm in a small Arkansas town. My mom continued to work in Battle Creek, and would eventually move to St. Louis, then to California.

My earliest memories were of us moving to a new house. I remember Grandad complaining about the new house having a phone, and how useless they were (sounds like me complaining now about smart phones). Mamaw (that's what I called my grandma) won, the phone stayed. I loved growing up on the farm, I had lots of relatives close by, lots of friends and cousins my age. I had free rein of the place. We didn't have much, but what we didn't have in material possessions was made up with love and caring. I have never since felt the love they gave me, the unconditional love of a parent, the safety and security they provided. My most cherished memory is of me laying on Grandad's belly at night while we watched TV. I can still recall the smell of sweat, diesel, and the fields on him.

Me and Mamaw

Me and Grandad

I remember so much from that time. Almost all good memories.

I had a tendency to get car sick so the school bus driver would drop me off at his house in the mornings. I don't remember his real name but everyone called him 'Pinky'. I was one of the first stops on his morning rout, and his house was right down the road. He would drop me off when he went by and his wife would watch me while he finished picking up the other kids. I would watch Zorro and drink hot cocoa while I waited for him to return at the end of his rout to pick me back up and take me to school.

The School bus

That same bus is where I learned the meaning of the word 'Fuck'. It had been scratched on the back of a seat and some older kids told us what it meant. Then myself and my friend Allen convinced another kid to say it to his parents when he got home. We told him it meant 'hello'. That is one time I wished Grandad had won the phone controversy when the kids mom called to tell my grandparents what we had done.

I remember being struck by lightning, well almost. I was playing on a swing set in our front yard during a thunderstorm. Lightning struck a power pole, arced to the swing set I was on, and ended up catching the house on fire. It scarred me more than anything, at least that's all I think happened to me.

I loved to play in the yard, my favorite toys were John Deere tractors and the equipment that went with them. We would build fields and do all kinds of farming. I even had a little John Deere riding tractor that I loved to ride around on.

The chicken yard was another of my favorite play areas. I would dig old things up, rusty bolts, broken glass, things like that. I dug up a small dog figurine once, I gave it to Mamaw, she kept that thing for years on her what-not shelf. One time while playing in the chicken yard I took it upon myself to tease one of the roosters. He spurred me in the eye. We had fried rooster for supper that night.

I remember my first dog, a big white dog named Snowball. He was hit by the mailman and killed. I remember it was around mothers day because the mailman had just delivered a big fancy mothers day card for Mamaw. They gave me a baby duck once, I kept it in a box by my bed. It hung itself on one of the box flaps trying to get out. I buried it out back, but dug it up a few days later. I usually had a red eared slider in a little plastic turtle container that had a neat little island with a palm tree on it. The turtles usually didn't last too long either as I liked to take them out and play with them, and would usually end up losing the darn things.

I made my first kill at seven. I had just gotten a new bb gun for my birthday. I took it out back and found a sparrow in a tree. I took a shot and killed the bird. I remember feeling so bad about it. I realized then that I didn't like to kill things. But I did like to go squirrel hunting with Grandad. He would have me go around a tree to flush out the squirrels so he could shoot them. Somewhere I still have a picture of me skinning a squirrel.

I remember my great grandparents, they lived in a small house in town. My great granddad would tell me gory stories of WWI, and how the KKK would ride through his town with torches when he was a kid. He was also an old moonshiner from the Ozark mountains. We would go for walks and he would throw a quarter on the ground in front of us without me knowing, then he would pick it up saying that he had just found it. He would always get a laugh watching me run around the yard ooking for quarters . He liked to watch wrestling on TV, he would sit backwards in an old wicker chair and wrestle with the guys on the TV

Four Generations

My mom would come down to pick me up once in a while on the weekends to take me to St. Louis.  She had to take me kicking and screaming, I would grab on to whatever I could find because I didn't want to go with her. They had to pry me from the car port post once. I think it took all three of them to do it. I remember once she took me to a drive in restaurant on the way out of town, the ones where they put the trays on your door, called Dog n' Suds. Our server was black. I got a baseball card with my meal, the player on the card was also black. When the server handed me the card I looked at my mom, pointed to the card and said "look mom it's a nigger". I didn't know any better it was the way I was raised. I remember this event because I don't ever think I have seen my mom so embarrassed. I did like the convertible she drove. She used to wear sun glasses and a head scarf when she drove with the top down.

My First Model

I had my first erection, first one I remember anyway, when I was about eight years old, I woke up with it and thought something was wrong, so I ran yelling to Mamaw to show her my sudden affliction. She told me I had nothing to worry about. This was also about the time I remember my first sexual stirrings, thanks to a picture of Vampirella on the box cover of a model. I talked my grandparents into buying me the model. I don't remember if I actually built it. I also discovered playboy when I was able to sneak a peek at one while we were at a laundromat. I went next door to a liquor store to buy a soda, and noticed the Playboy on the magazine rack. I had to pick it up and take a look to see what was inside.  As I looked at the magazine, I remember having a tingling  feeling , that feeling scared me, I dropped the Playboy and ran out of the store. I don't know if I ever did get that soda.

Me with my cousins Jamie (right) and  Sarah (left)

I had two cousins named Jamie and  Sarah, they were sisters, and about the same age as me. I remember we would spend a lot of time together, playing. I had a habit of pulling my pants down in front of them. They lived in a house with no running water, no indoor plumbing, and they had an old pot bellied stove for heat. Our favorite thing to play was caveman. Their mom, my aunt, would make pitchers of iced tea with about two or three cups of sugar in it, you could almost stand a spoon up in the stuff. Their older brother liked to catch bullfrogs to eat. I loved frog legs when they were good breaded and fried up. Jamie and Sarah and i would poke around the frog guts after they had been cleaned, just to see what we could find, what we found was usually just crawdads in the intestines.

My best friend was Allen, he had a little sister named Patty that had a crush on me for some reason. She would follow me everywhere and always wanted to play Tarzan and Jane. I never pulled my pants down in front of her. Allen's family didn't have plumbing either, but they did have running water. Allen and his sister would take their baths in the kitchen sink.

My mom would eventually move to California, I don't remember how old I was when she moved, I didn't really know her so I didn't miss her. I do remember flying out by myself to see her in 1970 when I was eight. We went to Disneyland and I got to meet her new boyfriend, the man that would later become my adoptive dad. When I returned from the trip I remember Grandad crying when they picked me up. I asked why he was crying and Mamaw said it was because he was happy to see me. I think it was because he knew what was about to happen.

This was about the time I felt my first signs of what would later become depression. I remember sitting on a bench in the school gym watching the other kids run around playing. I felt I was somehow different, I felt sad and didn't know why. All the other kids seemed so happy. What I can't remember if I felt this way before or after I learned I would be moving to California, and leaving the only parents I had ever known.

My last memory of living with my grandparents was the day I finally left for California to live with my mom and her new husband. I was sitting in the bath crying, begging Mamaw not to make me go. Telling her how much I would miss everyone. She told me I had to go.