Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The Year 2000

Me and your aunt lived up North.  Your daddy lived down south and was a senior in high school.  He became super rebellious.  I didn't want to go to his graduation, because he had been such an idiot and a jerk.  He pissed away his senior year.  My dad was not in very good health so he sent Jason money to buy himself a car.  Your daddy bought a 4 wheel drive Jeep.  It ate up gas and was nothing but a pain.  He worked at Firestone, got fired for forgetting to put oil in a car...and it burned out the engine...
Finallly, your dad moved up North with me and your aunt.  He decided to talk to recruiters.  My dad and I were not getting along well at all.  I felt your dad was driving a wedge deeper into mine and my dad's relationship.
On Thanksgiving, we went up to Ohio to spend it with our friend's up there, and while we were there, my dad died.  Back then, we didn't have cell phones, so we didn't find out until we got back home at 0400 on Monday morning when I listened to the answer machine. I refused to go to the funeral, because of the hatred I had in my heart for my dad.  But I wanted your daddy and aunt to go.  Your daddy was 18 and your aunt was 16.
When your daddy came home, he went down and enlisted in the Marine Corps.  We went to Ohio for Christmas vacation and drove back Christmas Day to take him to the Recruiting Station for him to head off to boot camp.  I was so proud of him, but so much had happened over the last 1.5 years...

The Year 1999

I had gotten transferred up north in May of 1999.
I bought a house in M.
Your daddy was a junior in high school and I decided to let him stay down south the following year, so he could graduate with all of his buddies and finish MCJROTC.  What a mistake.
I left my new Nissan Altima with him...he had it for 29 days and while changing a CD in the car CD player, he hit a 12" curb...bent the frame, broke the whole front axle, what a mess.  I wish I had a photo of it...that is when he was a junior.  It took almost a month to fix.  I was so mad.  When school got out in June, I had him and your aunt drive up north and I kept the Nissan and my Chevy Astro Van with me up North.  I didn't want him to have a car, because I could see he hadn't learned his lesson.  And at my expense...I think that summer he went with my father, rv'ing around the country.
Your aunt and I took 3 wks and drove thru the New England states, up to Quebec, Canada to Montreal and back down to New York.  The morning we left, John Frances Kennedy Jr, his wife and her twin sister, left for a cousins wedding and they never made it there.  He was piloting a small single engine airplane.  While we were on our trip, we kept the radio on, listening to hear what happened and if they  had found bodies.  It was a sad time for America.  Only Caroline was left of John Frances Kennedy's off-spring.
We stayed at Lake Placid for a few days, renting a Camping Cottage at the KOA Campground.  We had such a great time.  The Ironman Competition was going on, so we got to see the athletes practice.  We rented a sail boat and went out on the lake and your aunt would dive off the bow of the boat and I would go back in a circle to pick her up, just so she could do it again.  We had such a good time.
We rented racing cars and raced in an indoor track in Quebec, and had a blast.  She was pretty good.