Kaleidoscope

This part of my story begins in the mid sixties. I was five years of age. My parents were separated, possibly divorced. I wouldn’t have known these details.

What I did know was that I was being shuttled randomly between them. My father living in the greater Portland Oregon area. My mother in southern-most Oregon near the California border. Dad, wet country Mom dry country. I had a succession of pets, dogs mostly. Mysteriously when it was my dads turn to have me either my dog would go with me and subsequently disappear whithin days of arriving at his place. Usually while I was asleep.

If I left my dog with mom it would be gone when I came back. However many months or days I was gone. At first I would be outwardly upset with a lot of caterwauling and angry tears. Then I just became aware that neither one of my parents really cared for my pets. I also now realized that my pets didn’t just “come up missing” on their own.

I only hoped that they were still alive some where. And that someone was caring for them like I had. I remember wondering if they missed me as much as I missed them.

In regards to the ones I brought to my fathers house I had very little doubt if I looked hard enough I would find them in a shallow grave on his property.

I did not look for that though because I wanted to imagine they were happy and well treated. Even if they weren’t.

So my father had remarried, my mother went through many disfinctional,mostly abusive relationships. Many of which terrified me. On the other end it was my fathers explosive , unpredictable temper that terrified me.

Both of my parents were chronic alcoholics. My mother also took pills. They both smoked cigarettes. My father also smoked a pipe. He never inhaled either of them. Just puff and blow it out. His pipe spent a lot of time just hanging empty in his mouth.

My father was a mixture of Finnish and Swede. My mother was German, Irish, and Cherokee. I had at this time one full sister, Sandra. A half sister,Rita, and a half brother, Bill. Sandra and I were the youngest, she being seven years older than I.

Rita and Bill had fled the nest as soon as they possibly could and made lives for thier selves by their selves separately. That is another story altogether. One that I may or may not ever tell

For some reason Sandra was not on the rotation between parents. I did not understand why I should have all the fun of being yanked out of school, removed from my friends and setting just to be hustled off to the other parent. What I did not know then I know a lot more of now. I’m glad I didn’t know then.

Both my parents were outdoorsy type people whom gardened, camped, hunted, loved fishing, etc. All of which I greatly enjoyed too. My sister not so much. Besides she was mostly in juvenile hall by now.

My mother had finally found someone she could be with for awhile and I actually respected him too. Although of course he was a chronic alcoholic. He seemed to take an interest in me unlike the previous “step-fathers”whom mostly resented my presence and didn’t bother hiding it.

My father and his wife had adopted a baby girl and bought a huge house in a small town on about four acres. I had been there only once as for whatever reason, maybe the adoption I had pretty much been with mom for a couple years.

During this period she was with my last step-father Ed. Ed was the only stepfather that for the most part seemed to care to invest himself in helping me become a man.

He was a jack of all trades whom mainly involved himself in farming equipment and dairy operations. He worked for New Holland where he would sssemble new equipment that came in on the train. He also ran service calls all over California , Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.

When we, mother and I, were with Ed we always had a huge two or so acre garden out by Klamath lake. We spent many holidays and weekends camping, hunting, and of course fishing.

Ed bought me my first firearm. It was a twenty-two rwenty-gauge savage over and under with a twenty four inch barrel. Prior to my birthday at which time I received that firearm Ed made me attend not one but two hunters safety courses. I recieved my rifle for my seventh birthday.

Ed also played part time in a country and western band. He played guitar. He decided to teach me how to play because as he said “it is good fallback if you lose a job. It had carried him through some pretty rough times. He wanted me to have the similar option.

Ed bought me a brand new Epiphone guitar that cost him $900.00 dollars. He also paid for six months professional lessons. I have no idea what that must have cost him.

Things had kind of leveled off for me the last couple years or so. I was really starting to gain some confidence and hope for my future. The nightmares slowed, I acted out less. I actually got my fist girlfriend! Even though I had a mad crush on my teacher!

My girlfriend and I rode the same school bus to and from school and were basically in the same classes. I got off the bud before her after school and she rode another six to eight miles home. My legs beat my Schwinn bike a plenty but often due to canal banks and dirt roads ide be there in her driveway when the bus stopped to let her off.

She taught me some pretty important lessons about life.

One of which came about as a result of her feeding me way to much cooking sherry. I lost my virginity to her. And it was ok. It made sense. I really had huge feelings for her.

At that time Ed had a live-in employment situation on a dairy. He would take care of the herd, buildings, and property. He would also milk the cows every a.m at three. Of course he would utilize me for whatever he could do I would be learning life-skills too.

One of the most enjoyable things he taught me was how to drive the various pieces of equipment and even his jeep and the huge four rear wheeled Massy-Ferguson tractor!

However I mainly used the little grey Ford tractor to perform my duties. I would harrow the fields,windrow the hay, bale it, line the bales for pick-up, and even drive the huge flatbed with the hay elevator while Ed stacked the bales.

Of course I have always been abit of a runt so I couldn’t reach the pedals until Ed strapped blocks of wood on them. Even so there was nothing that could help me make the turns at each end fast enough because I guess my arms were too short. Ed would jump off the truck, jump into the cab and turn it stound then jump out, jump back on and stack bales till the end and do that whole routine over about a hundred times! Just watching him wore me out!!

Ed certainly wasn’t afraid to work. Some of the ethic he had must have rubbed off onto me because I can really work when I want to, or have to. Thank you Ed.

By this time I believe I was around nine and a half years old. My sister had went off on her own. It was just me and mom and Ed.

We had moved to a bigger dairy which had two huge ponds. There were muskrats in both ponds. One day on one of our family trips to the huge garden out by Klamath lake Ed took a side detour. Mom was already in on my soon to be suprise. I had no idea what was up.

I had tried to get mom and Ed to buy me a little riding lawn mower and trailer because I thought ide like to get lawn mowing jobs in town and one of them could say drop me and my mower off early Saturday or Sunday and I could mow lawns all day. Then they could come pick me up in the evening.

Ed had bigger plans. He took me to a furrier on Upper Klamath lake and for my birthday present that year, he was two months early. Ed bought me one hundred and fifty conibear muskrat traps. He had also scheduled an impromptu mini class with the furrier for a cram course on trapping, skinning., curing muskrat hides.The furrier even explained the pricing schedule so I knew what to expect in a month when I brought him my first batch of muskrat hides! You see muskrats burrow into canal banks and pond banks and cows break their legs when the step in the burrows. So the owner wanted their population drastically reduced. Plus he paid me a nickel a nose bounty.

I was really excited, for about two weeks. The owner of the dairy had given me the use of a nine foot John boat and after school and homework and duties to the dairy I would set and empty traps for two to three hours. Take the days catch put the in a barrel in the barn, shower, eat dinner, go to bed. Five a.m pull them out of the barrel, skin them scrape them and put them on the stretchers. Seven days a week rinse and repeat. No more riding to the girlfriends house, skiing behind the heifers, trying to catch the owls in the barn.

You get the picture right? A little too much too fast. But I was making good money. Even got a huge compliment and bonus from the furrier for my very first batch! He told me he knew men that had been trappers all their lives that couldnot handle skins like I already could.

So during all of this somedays I would have to go with my mother for the day and usually late into the evening because Ed would be gone on a “service” call or just gone and they didn’t like leaving me alone on the dairy.

So here’s what would usually happen. I would load my fishing pole, slingshot, dog, a couple coats and pairs of boots, a book or two, any snack and drinks I could manage to find. I usually had short to no notice I would be spending the day and evening with mom. Please don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t resentful in the least about it. For the first ten or twenty times anyway. In fair weather.

Because you see what my Mom would do was basically bar-hop. From about ten a.m until usually closing time. It didn’t help that her best friend owned a bar between K-falls and the Californian border. That was where mom usually wrapped it up for the night.

She had worked for her friend many time in between having me home from dads, or having left yet another sbusive step-father. Sometimes black eyes and all. Her friends bar had an apartment attached to it and mom lived there several times.

You know I’ve talked about myself and Ed more than I’ve told you about my mother. So I would really like to introduce you to my mom. Formally you know. I should have done so long before this.

I will start by saying I loved and trusted my mother more than anyone I’ve ever known. She was my rock. Without her I’m sure I would have not made it as far as I already had.

My mother believed in me. She trusted me, maybe more than a mother should. When times got bad for us. When she was single in between relationships she would not even think about charity. She would rather die than recieve a food-box or draw welfare.

At one point my mother was working five different lobs to pay our bills and keep a roof over me and my sisters head! Heck she got her hair caught in a potatoe conveyor in the potatoe fields and had a huge chunk of her scalp pulled off and just wrapped her head in a couple bandannas and finished her shift. Then went to her next job where her boss made her get in his truck took her to the hospital, waited for her, then brought her home!

Did I mention that her and my father fought like two hellcats? That’s why the separated when I was a baby. They both near killed the other several times. My mother could hold her own though.My dads lucky she left him because he would have never seen his fiftieth birthday I’m convinced.

He had built a house in Parkdale to honor my birthday so that we would have a secure place for me to grow up. Weeks after my birthday they got in a row and he burned the house down. That’s when she left him for good. Lucky him.

So as I said, I loved my mother deeply. She taught me as early as I can remember to never lie to her. She would say “ Larry Daniel people are people, they make mistakes. Accidents happen. Neither can be avoided completely by anyone. When that happens to you you are going to be either embarrassed, feel guilty, ashamed, or in fear. Don’t make the even bigger mistake of lying to me or anyone else about what happened. Son, because if you do, and I find out about your lying, as much as I love you, you’ll be on your own.”

In other words she would be right there at my side whether I was in the right or in the wrong, unless I lied. I never ever wanted to not have here at my side. I never lied to her and I hate lying or liars to this day. My sister was a liar. She would lie and tell mom I did something wrong like break the kitchen window, or set the back porch on fire. And when I came in the room mom would take one look at me and not even ask.

She would just let Sandra have it! Sometimes I felt so badly I wished I had lied to take Sandra’s punishment. However I usually paid dearly later when Sandra got a chance to pay me back.

So here I was with mom one day, all day. Me and the dog. It was really nasty out that day. It was winter time. We had spent most of the day at three bars shivering in the car.

Then mom headed out of town to her friends bar. By then I knew we were probably due to be in this station -wagon, ( a rambler) for another six or seven hours. It was raining, cold, and to dark for exploring, chasing possums or skunks, going through the house a crossed the highway from the bar that had burnt down on of all times Christmas Eve some years before. It even still had all the burned up unopened Christmas present under the burned up tree. We usually stayed out of that house because well, it was way too sad. Can you imagine?

Yet there was a full sized, to kids anyway, playhouse that hadn’t caught fire. Some of the children’s toys were still in there too. But the real attraction to me was the fact that over the years several swarms of honey bees had lived and died in there. I would tentatively approach it wondering if a new hive had taken over. Afraid the would swarm me and the dog. Yet I never saw one live bee there. Just millions of dead ones.

So anyway we wouldn’t be going over there. Or to the canal to gig bullfrogs and possibly step on a spike sticking out of a submerged lip Eve of lumber and screaming till one of the drunk people figured out I needed help.

We sat in the car shivering. Long after dark. Laughter from the party goers wafting through the windows and open side door. Wishing we were home watching t.v. In front of the fire. Even my dog was miserable.

Meanwhile something else had been goin on in my life that I have to mention here. My mother had taken notice of a skill I was learning from Ed. Driving. She decided to make use of that skill and decided to teach me, on the road how to drive the station wagon.

Several times we had to get pulled out of a ditch because she would yell “I said turn now”! So I turned now and completely missed the road she wanted to turn on because we weren’t to it yet. Not even close, but she said… well you get it I’m sure.

She was teaching me to drive the car on the road preparing for the times she knew better than to drive herself because she would probably kill us and god knew who else.

Those times either Ed would come get her or us all, or she would crash in the apartment. That wasn’t to happen this night. Ide had enough. My dog had had enough. I had told mom I wanted to go hone. She’d said “ in a little while honey, don’t worry it won’t be long”

.

I could tell she had no plans of leaving toward home for hours. I went to the side door, the inner door open and called through the screen door. Everyone laughed and someone said “Loise your kids at the door” She came to the door saying “not yet honey” and I said “ no mom it’s not that” it’s just well me and the dog are cold and hungry, and I’m thirsty, can we get some beef jerky a Pepsi , ad the keys to the car so we can get warm please?”

She laughed and said “of course honey wait right there I’ll be right back”. She brought me what ide asked for. As she closed the inner door she “ill be out soon you’ll see”.

After the door shut I started the car backed up and left the bar. I turned south toward California and my best friends house 28 miles away. I hadn’t seen him in almost a year. I stacked moms car on top of the pile of obsidian they had holding up thier mailbox because I missed the driveway. The wagon was high centered. My friends mother came rushing out looking all around. Then she saw me getting out and said “Larry?” I said yeah Steve home?” She blanched and said, (as she looked across the road trying to find my nonexistent mother maybe puking or peeing in the ditch) “ Larry, where is your mother?” I said, “ I left her at kay’s bar the Middway.”

As Steve’s mother feinted right in the middle of the road Steve’s dad came out picked her up took the keys away from me and said “ in the house, go to bed, we’ll call Ed and we will talk about this in the morning”

My friend was already asleep and as I found a blanket and layed down on the floor with my dog I heard the tractor start and come to the car. They pulled it of the pile and parked it and put the tractor away.

As the heat put me to sleep I could here their hushed voices. And wondered what was going to happen in the morning.

I awoke to Steve saying get up and come on. I followed him to the calf barn where he informed me of my chores if the moment and walked out.

After feeding the calves, changing the straw on the floor of their enclosure I was giving two of them medicine for ringworm and Steve’s mom came to the door.

One look and I knew something wasn’t right. As she turned away from me she said” come on honey Ed’s on the phone he wants to talk to you”.

Watching her walk away towards the house, just the very set of her shoulders confirmed to me that my life was going to take a very drastic change in mere minutes.

It was probably the hardest thing I ever had to do, simply follow her into the house. She was standing between the kitchen and the dining room leaned against the wall back to me with those tell tale shoulders slumped.

As she half turned face me I realized she was crying. She handed me the phone and walked straight outside and called for a Steve.

I put the phone to my ear and heard Ed say “Larry” I said “yes Ed” Ed says “ Larry you lost your mother last night’ I said oh no I didn’t Ed, I left her at the bar”. He said “ larry I know you did son she called me and I went and brought her home” “ we knew you were safe and were going to come get you this morning”. You know your mom always brings me my breakfast at 5:15 to the milk parlor, by 5:45 I knew something was wrong so I walked up to the house” “ she was gone larry” “ I’m sorry” “She was smiling though larry”

My life, my world, my future, Kaleidoscoped.