This is more or less, merely a record of my life, for whatever it is worth. It is not meant to illicit any feelings or be a great read, or even interesting. I am doing it for the single reason that I always said I would do it. It is mostly meant for members of my family so maybe they could see the real true me, good and bad. Maybe get some explainations or insight from it that would be helpful for their own benefit.

My first memories I can recall, are of a place called "The Village". A mini ghetto of small connected shack-like, tar paper structures built for the autoworkers who came up from the southern states to get high paying factory jobs. A place to only stay long enough to make enough money to buy a "real" house. My parents were not factory workers and at the time there were no plans, we were simply there because it was all they could afford. A few years later the village would be condemned and leveled.

We had a front row shack with a terrific view of a gravel parking lot and the Ice House. The Ice House was a big bright yellow building where they made blocks of ice. We were lucky in an odd way because we had an end unit and it actualy had a fence in the front yard to keep us kids where we belonged and remove the burden of having to keep an eye on them.

I don't believe either of my parents had jobs, neither parent ever even started high school, there were no GEDs and as I said, no long term plans. My mother had given birth to me (the oldest) at the age of barely 16. I was about 4 years old at this time of recollection, and already had a brother that was 3 (who would later be diagnosed as mentally ill) and a sister who was two (Who would later be diagnosed as Bi-Polar and a compulsive liar). The fact that there was no money seemed to have little effect on the parents sex drive, they were young and not very bright or mature.

We were usually on Welfare and Welfare was a lot different then, there were no food stamps. Instead you went to a place where you were handed out actual food items, I can remember there being powdered eggs, powdered milk and bricks of cheese that were kind of like "Velveeta". The only thing we got that I actually liked to eat was the oatmeal.

All of our clothes had been someone elses, and at the age of four I used to have nightmares where undertakers were stripping dead children of their clothing before burial and sending the clothes to us to have to wear. They didn’t need them anymore and we did. This nightmare led to some issues for me later on in life, a repulsion to buttons to be more specific, this came about because I was certain that the clothes which buttoned were the "clothing of the dead", my reasoning was that clothes that buttoned were easier to get on or off an uncooperating corpse. Needless to say
I would flip out when my mother made me wear the "corpse clothes". In some fairness, I did not mention this to anyone, so I ended up with this silent and irrational fear and learned to live with it.

I can remember every morning my father checking the mouse traps he had set the night before for any gruesome goodies that he would flush down the toilet. He never made any attempts to conceal his kills and often we would see him carrying off these mice as they made their way to the sewer system. Occaisionally we would hear the traps snap during the night like distant gunshots. I don't know if this ever bothered my siblings but once again I would develop a related recurring nightmare.

In this nightmare I would get up and walk down the hallway towards the kitchen which was lit by a bare single light bulb hanging by it's wires from the ceiling. It would sway back and forth casting size changing shadows. I could hear the feet of mice running along side or past me. I could hear the occaisional snap of a trap and then the death squeals. I was afraid of accidently stepping on a trap, or even worse, stepping on a mangled mouse with my bare feet. When I eventually made it into the kitchen, to my horror, standing underneath the light was "Smokey the Bear" (For those of you who do not know who Smokey was, he was the spokesbear for preventing forest fires, seen on TV and billboards everywhere, his catch phrase was "Remember, Only YOU can prevent forest fires". He also carried a shovel around in case he had to put out any fires left by some loser/slacker. He would also have an army of little varmints with their arms in a sling, or bandaged heads etc. to drive the point home of what happens when we are careless). Smokey hated me for some reason and he had his shovel, with which he was trying to smash my careless little skull in. Shortly after this point I would usually wake up.

Other early memories from this period, were falling down the steps of the front porch with a little chalkboard I had and coming up with a chunk of the slate sticking out of my knee just below the knee cap, no ER, no stitches, just yank it out and pour Merthiolate in it. I don’t know how many of you would remember this little demonic wonder drug, but the use of it was often much worse than whatever had just happened to you. It stung and it burned! Insult to injury, in it's most purest form.

We had a shopping cart in our yard that someone had swiped from the grocery store, which was the basis of hours of entertainment on our behalf. We would turn it upside down and make a cage or fort which the lower rack served as an observatory tower. We would also give each other rides, we could also pull it up to the front porch, were we could get in it and then let go and ride it down the small incline to the front gate. We called this demolition derby.

Lastly from this time there were two more things, the manisfestation of my brothers mental problems and my health problem. My brother had begun to torture cats, he would choke them until they were nearly unconscious. He would also swing them around and then let them go so they would slam into the fence. He would also kick them hard enough to get them airborne.Fortunately after awhile the cats wised up and moved to the Ice house across the street where we would see them once in a while, always wary and looking over their shoulders.

During this same period I had developed excrutiating pain in my left ear. This pain turned out to be more than just an ear infection and I had to have Mastoid surgery.
Mastoid surgery is performed when infections in the middle ear spread to the mastoid cavity. Commonly a pocket of skin or tumor develops on the ear drum and may invade the middle ear and subsequently the mastoid. The cholesteatoma may also invade the ossicles 3 bones in the ear that are involved in hearing), causing hearing loss. Other important structures like the brain, nerve that supplies the muscles of the face and blood vessels run close by and hence the cholesteatoma must be removed to prevent these areas from being eroded.

What I remember from this is mostly pain, when it was medicine time, my mother would have to call up someone to come over and help her to hold me down in order to get the medicine in. My grandma later told me that my surgery was very serious and that
they came within 1/16 of an inch of my brain. The other things about my hospital stay and surgery was throwing a pair of my hospital underwear at my aunt because I did not want to wear them. Everyone was unusually nice to me and I got some cool stuff.

After the operation my head and left ear was all bandaged up and that side of my head had been shaved. However the thing I remember the clearest was finally getting home and my brother walking up to me and slugging me as hard as he could right in the ear that I had just had operated on. I went down like a sack of potatoes and had to go right back and see if he had popped any of my stitches or any other damage. My brother had just graduated from cats to humans. However, he did take a severe ass whooping for his deed which I secretly enjoyed immensly.

This is all true and without embellishment. Next time the urge smacks me in the back of the head I will write about my school years.