Hey all. So, I mentioned in Ken's thread that my mom got married after my dad passed away (about two years after). Now, my stepfather was kind of a drifter, never seemed to be able to hold a steady job, and was always looking for somewhere else to be. I suspect that in some cases he was running from debts, in other cases he was running away from people he'd made mad; in most cases he was probably running away from everything, a problem was never to be faced, it always seemed to be an excuse to pack up and move. So, he convinced my mom to sell the house in Mendota and he moved us to a small town called Franklin Grove. Actually, we didn't live in the village but on the outskirts, next to the cemetery. Kind of spooky that place was. We were renting one of three or four houses loosely grouped in the countryside just outside of town. Mom and step-dad suddenly went on a trip to California for about a week. When they came back, they announced that we would be moving to California, where step-dad had gotten a job vaccinating chickens against some bird flu out there. So, we packed up and moved to California. The town was called Galena and was near Santa Barbara. I finished the school year in California (7th grade) but we didn't last that summer. No work, blood-sucking relatives who had come to stay with us, we were on the road again to return to Illinois ("And it looks like you're gonna have to see me again.... Illinois, I'm your boy!"). So, Mendota to Franklin Grove, to Galena and back to Macomb Illinois all in one short year. Wait! There's more to come.... peace, revel.
I think now that we are in our lives where our parents were when we were growing up that our parents didn't really have a plan or direction for their lives, just doing the best they could with what they had to work with. My mom following my step father packed me up along with my brother moved us from Cleveland, Oh to Chicago, when we returned to Cleveland because of course Chicago did not work out our house had been rented and we had no place to live until the lease was over, we lived with my mom's sister and 4 kids. When we did get the house back it was a nightmare, dirty with trash and rats and bugs and a new baby on the way from the visit to Chicago. Yep! There's more..
My life's been the exact opposite. I've been living in the same house since I was four years old. That's 48 years! Since my Dad died last September, my Mom has been talking about moving to a place that's smaller and more secure and I'm really struggling with the idea. Moving is supposed to be a really stressful experience and I feel like I've had enough stress to last me for a while. In addition to that, it's going to be really difficult sorting through a lifetime's worth of clutter to find what's no longer needed. Sometimes I wish we'd moved around a bit more and that I'd got to know some other parts of the country a bit better. By now I'm so set in my ways that it's never likely to happen.
Hey all. So, the saga continues. This part I'll breeze through, as it's the next part that is really weird.... 8th grade, well, I spent most of that in Macomb Illinois, working hard towards perfect attendance. Almost got it, too, but of course, my step-dad came home one evening and said "we're moving to -- (gosh, I'm having troubles remembering the name of the town, am I going to have to open Google maps to find it? Perhaps,....) Good Hope. Not so far away, but outside the school district, so another change of schools. We'd bought a house there and managed to last there all the way to the end of my freshman year in high school. Then guess what, step-dad came home one evening and announced that we were selling that house and all its contents in an auction (the contents went, the house did not get sold, they set a lowest bid and it was not met in that auction), because we were moving to Arizona. That's the juicy story that's really weird, so I'll save that for when I have a few more minutes to tell it-- got to go make dinner right now.... peace, revel.
Been away. Here's the Arizona story. You guys and gals remember those pulp magazines like "True Detective" and "Real Bloody Crime" and their ilk? Of course you do, they were kind of like comic books for adults without the drawings, rather with blurry black-and-white pictures of dead bodies or crime scenes. Remember the ads in the back of those mags? I think that must have been where my stepfather got the next brilliant idea for moving the family across the country. There was this little slip of paper with an ad printed on it that promised 40 acres of land for homesteading somewhere in the desert of Arizona for only, let's say (because I was never really told!) $4000. So let's say stepdad sent $4000 (or whatever the down payment was, this was so obviously a sham that any amount of money would have been accepted by whoever put the ad in the rag). The contents of our house were auctioned off, we were all packed up into the back of the pickup truck and headed off to the grand adventure of homesteading in the wild, wild west. When we arrived, there was no one there to greet us. I, myself, had made the entire trip from Illinois to Arizona in a small space in the back of that pickup with the German shepherd named Chipper. The stepfather decided that those topography stakes here and there must be the marks of the corners of our land. We set up camp, three tents (one for mum, stepdad, brothers and sister; one for mum's sister, her husband and their two kids; one pup tent for me). The next day a latrine was dug and an outhouse was built from the plywood that had enclosed our stuff in the back of that pickup. We lined several galvanized trash cans with heavy-duty plastic garbage bags and took them over to that "farm" to fill them with fresh water from a pumped well. Stepfather and uncle spent says trying to dig a well of their own. We ran out of money. I even dug a well. For us kids, it was an adventure, about five weeks spent in the desert. When reality set in, when the next Social Security check was available, we pulled camp, spent a week in a KOA campground waiting for Grandma to wire us the money. Aunt and uncle and their two kids moved back, of course, to Illinois. We drove up to Colorado, where stepfather had some distant relatives willing to help us out.
Wow, your step-dad was a real adventurer. I think people like that make your life just a little more interesting. My father moved us around a lot when I was young. I was born in a mining town JHB, South Africa. Before I started school we moved around to Tzaneen, Palaborwa (Kruger Park) and Rustenberg. I started school back on the mines and then moved to Strand, a coastal town in the Cape for two years. We then moved to Lime Acres which was inland, closer to the Kimberley Diamond mines, only these were Lime mines. Out in the middle of nowhere. From there we went back to Johannesburg. I recall having a lot of adventures both in these places and on my journey's. After I left home I moved to Durban on the east coast and I have been here since 1981. I think this must be the longest I have ever stayed in one area. I have moved home a few times, but remained in and around the same city.