for the background.The move to California was long and boring at the most.. We drove, so it took awhile. We were following Randy, who was driving his semi-truck. In some ways, it was kind of exciting. We all loved riding in the truck. And we got to see lots of the United States, that's for sure. At some point, we ended up driving through a tornado! I remember Mom couldn't see at all, and she was talking on the cb radio to Randy, who was telling her to just try to stay to where she could see his backdoors, and to *not* stop no matter what. Ric, meanwhile, was whining about how he had to go to the bathroom. *laugh* It was a fun trip. We also had Dixie, our dog with us (a dog that I picked out when I was like 3 years old), and she road in the car with Mom. I mainly rode with them too, because I was afraid Dixie would be lonely if I went in the truck. I sang songs to her the whole way across country. By the time we reached California, she was growling and snapping at me. Maybe I'm a bad singer? *grin*
In Arizonia I remember it was so hot that we were giving Dixie ice cubes, because they'd melt so fast anyway. One night, Mom and Randy decided to lock us kids in the semi trailer, so we'd be safe. Well. Going to the bathroom proved to be a problem that night. We were stuck in there.
When we got to California, I think Mom started realizing we had problems. The money she had kept in the steel box for our toys was all gone. Apparently Randy had stolen it. We lived with Randy for a year. I absolutly adored him, though I guess he wasn't very worthy of that. He called me his "princess" and bought me anything I wanted. He was *very* mean to Ric though. He went out of his way to cause fights with Ric. I know it was quite a struggle for him. I guess I still wasn't very aware or the problems going on around me. Randy was kind of mean to us in some ways.. He liked to control everything we did. He'd take everything in the cupbards, throw it together, and make us eat it, no matter what it tasted like. Then he would eat something good. I remember he made a peanut butter cake, that we were forced to eat. The mice wouldn't even eat it.
We were living in Merced, California, and were living on a house on Hwy. 59. Next door to us lived a couple, Bert and Janet Henry. They had two kids, Regina, and Little Bert. But they always had other kids in and out of their house as well. Regina and I were good friends, we did everything together, and were even in the same class at school. I remember catching crawdad's, and going in someone's field and playing in it, and our treehouse, and killing Bert and Janet's rooster.. erm.. Long story. It was killing the ducks, so we had to kill it.
Janet and Bert weren't the greatest of people, nor were we in the greatest of area's. Somehow I never noticed much of any of this. Janet and Bert were into drugs big time. Their yard was constantly filled with Coors cans, so many you couldn't even walk on the ground. I remember they used to pay us to pick them up for them. When we moved into our house, our back yard was filled with marijuana, which my mom mowed down, because she was so against drugs.
Things were really hard on Mom. So many times she wanted to "run away" from California, but never quite made it. She finally ended things with Randy, with help from his brother Ron White. Randy would still show up at our house, and Mom would lock us all inside, and he'd go through the garage, ranting and raving and breaking things, and stealing things. He just wouldn't quite give up. I still adored him, so Mom let me go with him once, and it was after that Mom realized he'd only been using me for information on her. That hurt a lot. Randy was a very abusive person, with a lot of problems, to say the least.
Mom started to fall in love with Ron. (For real, since she had never really been in love with Randy.) Ron is one of the few people I will always love and remember. We moved to a house in Winton, California, which wasn't far from Merced. Ron had two kids, Vanessa and Little Ron who stayed with us at times. Vanessa and I were friends, and were also friends with a girl named Jessica Strealy who lived down the street. Jessica was my best friend. Mom became best friends with her mother, Jackie, and Ron was best friends with Jackie's husband, Marvin. They also had a son named Little Marvin.
Things started to get pretty rough. Mom started to socially drink, and everyone Ron and her hung out with did drugs, including Ron. Mom didn't though. Mom accidently drank a thermos of coffee with crank in it. It had somehow gotten switched with her thermos of coffee. Things were really bad in California, and Mom once again attempted to run away.
page created - 10/26/98
page updated - 8/4/99