I've been thinking of writing an autobiography or memoir but it just never comes together for me but I figured if I write one story at a time and post it on my blog maybe once a month, I can do that. Maybe one day I'll pull all the stories together and put them in a book but for now I'll just share some stories with you about my childhood. Some of the stories will be happy, some sad and some horrific because that was my childhood. But they will all be real, things that actually happened. If it seems like something that people enjoy reading maybe I'll keep it going. These stories will not be in any kind of order, I'll just write them as they come to me.
Thanksgiving Dinner
When my younger brother was 9 years old and I was 11, right before my parents split and divorced, that Thanksgiving my parents who were alcoholics got so drunk they didn't make Thanksgiving dinner like they usually did. So my brother who was just 9 years old came up with the idea to take some money from my dad's wallet while he was passed out on the couch, walk down to the grocery store that was about a mile away, buy some Thanksgiving food, push the cart back and we would make dinner.
I swear my brother was fearless because the whole time he was gone, I was freaking out that they would wake up or my dad would realize that my brother had taken money from his wallet. We used to walk down to the grocery store with my mom all the time so he knew the way there and back. This was around 1981, no one thought anything of a kid going to the store and even buying cigarettes for their parents with a note. We did it all the time. So no one batted an eye that my brother bought all this stuff and was pushing the cart back home by himself.
So my brother brought a turkey, stuffing, pie, vegetables, dinner rolls, potatoes, some snacks for me and him like a little kid would and a 6 pack of Near Beer for my mom because he didn't want her to drink and it's non-alcoholic beer. There were other things my brother got but those are the ones I remember.
We put all the groceries away, my parents didn't wake up. I put the turkey in the oven and made the stuffing and put it in a baking dish like my mom would have. It was then that my mom woke up and came into the kitchen. She saw the turkey and stuffing in the oven and the vegetables on the counter and she thought that she had done all that. She had no idea at all that my brother went to the store or that I had started dinner. She took over and just acted like she had started it all like she would have. She had no clue at all until she looked in the refrigerator and saw the Near Beer. She took us outside so my dad wouldn't hear and asked us what was going on. So we told her what we did and how. She told us not to tell our dad anything because we all knew he would be mad. After dinner was done a while later, my dad woke up and we all ate. My dad never knew a thing about the money my brother took or the fact that he walked by himself to the store and did the shopping for Thanksgiving dinner that year. My mom never told him.
My grandson is 10 years old and I cannot imagine him doing anything like this by himself right now. It would never happen. It still surprises me when I think about it that my brother did that but he did.
