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.
Sleeping In A Peach Orchard
After my parents divorced in 1981 ( I was 11 years old) my mom was working at her dad's welding shop and met Larry. They started dating but he wasn't a nice guy (More on that in another story). My mom and Larry decided to take her car to Fresno, CA from where we were in Hawthorne, CA to visit his family. It was about a 4 hour drive but my moms car wasn't very reliable so this was a mistake. About half way there her car broke down and wouldn't start up again. So they parked it on the side of the road and we started walking. Both my mom and Larry were alcoholics so of course they had a couple bottles of alcohol with them that they brought with us. I had a couple of bottles of soda and we had a couple of snacks with us and all of that was brought along as we walked.
I didn't think it would take that long to find a small town, restaurant or a house with a phone but we were on a long stretch of road with only fields of farming crops on either side. Nothing but fields of cotton, other crops and peach orchards for miles. So we ended up walking all day and we spent the night in a peach orchard off the road that night. We filled up on peaches that night and then laid down on the ground and went to sleep. Now it was so dark because there weren't a lot of lights on this road and we were back into the orchard a ways so no one from the road could see us in there. For me being 11 years old, it was scary because it was so dark and we were on the ground. All I could think of was the bugs that might be there, but I was tired from walking all day. The next morning they started hitchhiking. A guy in a pickup truck finally picked us up soon after we started walking again and dropped us off near a little diner that didn't open until 9am. Right next to the diner was a Greyhound bus enclosure so we sat in there until the diner opened a couple of hours later.
I fell asleep inside the enclosure on the bench but woke up to my mom screaming because she decided to urinate right in the doorway of the bus enclosure and then she slipped in it. Both she and Larry had started drinking again when we got to the bus enclosure so that's why she decided the doorway was a good place to go to the bathroom and was probably the same reason why she fell down. She was fine, just mad.
So Larry went into the diner and ordered us all some breakfast. My mom didn't go in because she smelled like urine. But the waitress gave him 3 plates of food and when we finished he took the plates and cups back in to her. Inside the diner he used the payphone to call his parents and they came and got us a little while later. They took us back to my moms car where she changed her clothes and my mom and Larry went with his mother to the auto parts store about an hour away leaving me with his father, Larry Sr.
So Larry went into the diner and ordered us all some breakfast. My mom didn't go in because she smelled like urine. But the waitress gave him 3 plates of food and when we finished he took the plates and cups back in to her. Inside the diner he used the payphone to call his parents and they came and got us a little while later. They took us back to my moms car where she changed her clothes and my mom and Larry went with his mother to the auto parts store about an hour away leaving me with his father, Larry Sr.
Larry Sr, I am guessing was at least 60 years old and remember I was 11. Right away this old creep started trying to touch me so I got out of the car and he followed me. Once he was far enough away from the car, I ran back to the car and locked myself in the car until my mom got back. Larry Sr was really mad and denied doing anything. Of course no one believed me. I made sure to stay away from the old creep after that. They fixed my moms car and we spent the night at his parents house in Fresno and then headed back home to my grandpa's (My moms father) house. It was a horrible trip but one I never forgot. I never looked at peach orchards the same way after that.
Links to past stories.
