Well, there you have it...

Source:  Sara Sheets

I got the results of the paternity test yesterday.  I think most people are just used to knowing who they are and where they belong.  When something as fundamental as who your parents are is raised into question, it makes one think about roots and community, history and futures and what constitutes a family.

Having never known who my biological father is has always left a sort of empty place in my life.  A question I couldn't answer.  When I was younger, it was simply a question of who could have made me and were there other people out there I could call brother or sister or aunt or uncle?  Later, when I had babies, it became a little more important when a genetic test on one of my boys came back that there might be a problem.  We had to go through genetic counselling and I couldn't answer any questions as to my medical history.  That was scary.  It turned out alright and both boys are healthy fortunately.

More recently, I have found that this question was one I wanted to answer in order to have a sense of belonging, a sense of historical value and signifigance.  This has had me longing for an answer more than any other time I can remember.

The man I have come to think of as a father over the years is Brady (for a funnier look at who he is and the story of how he and my mother met, click here.)  My mother told me when I was nine years old that he was my father.  In fact, I was born with his surname on my original birth certificate.  My mother divorced him when I was one and married my sister's father, Tony.  My mother later convinced Tony to adopt me so I would have the same last name as my sister and a new birth certificate was issued.  My mother made no mention of Brady again and I thought Tony was my father.  Up until the age of nine, I had no knowledge of Brady, nor that there was any question that I belonged to the family that I knew.  My mother had, by then, long since divorced Tony.  In deciding she wanted to go to Tennessee for a while (that is where Brady lived) and needing a place to live, she told me about Brady and took me and my sister to meet him.

At that meeting and ever since then, even though we later lost contact because my mother moved us away again (and again and again) Brady has always tried to be a father to me.  When I found him once again in my 30's, he helped me fill in alot of blanks regarding my birth and whether or not my mother was actually my mother (I had doubts!) and remembered so many things that it was obvious he had genuinely loved and cared for me.  We have stayed in touch ever since.  Along with Brady, I gained two brothers (his sons from another marriage) who also love me as a sister.

In spite of all of this, I have recently felt a little disconnected and in need of an answer.  I visited with Brady and was talking to him and we decided to go ahead and get a paternity test done just to address the small chance that he actually could have been my father.  (The question was there because of the timing of when he and my mom would have been intimate and when I would have been conceived.) 

In order to do the test, I did a google search and found a company called GTL Genetic Testing Laboratory.  Brady and I were able to collect the samples ourselves and, following the simple instructions, submit them via mail to the laboratory for testing.  It was inexpensive (less than $100) and fast (less than 2 weeks).  I received my results via email last night.

In the back of my mind, I expected that the results would be negative because of the original conversations regarding the timeline.  Yet, I held out a little hope for a difinitive answer.  As I write this, and knowing the answer, I find that I was still holding out for a positive result in spite of the fact that I really was operating under the assumption that the test would be negative.  As I have been waiting for the results and, having written about the process here in my blog, I have found some things to be true.  They are:

No matter that I have never known a biological father, I have a man who loves me like a daughter anyway.

I have a sister, husband and children who are mine and love me.  In marrying Kurt, I also gained his entire family who have accepted me and love me.

I have friends who love me...many of them; in fact, more than I realized.  Some of them have even told me they consder me to be as good as family to them...how about that?

I have, by staying put in one place for all of these years to raise a family, planted roots.  Overall, my family and I have added value to our community by participating and working and joining.

So, it turns out that the actual question of paternity isn't the most important thing afterall.  For me, this has been an eye opening experience in that I have realized that I do belong, regardless of whether I ever find out who got my mother pregnant.

So, to answer the question at hand, the results of the test are that the alleged relationship with Brady is excluded...he's not my biological father.  But what they can't test in that laboratory and what I do know is this...he is the only father I have ever known and that, it turns out for now, is enough.

Road Trip Journal Day 11...Luke, I AM your father...

From the time I was a little girl, my mom has told me several different versions of the "father story."  I have asked her repeatedly, as an adult, to enlighten me on the situation and she refuses.  She tells me she can't remember, but I don't believe her.  She has, over the years, told me who my father was several times...first, he was my sister's father.  Later, she told me he was Dudley DoRight (not his real name, but the one I used for the story above) and finally, she told me he was a married man who owned a car dealership in Jacksonville and that she hadn't told me the truth the first two times because my real father was married and she had been afraid I would try to contact him.  She said that the reason she was telling me the truth this time was because he had died and it was safe to tell me.  But the twist to the last version is that she can't remember what his name was.  Yeah, the married man she had an affair with and produced me...she couldn't remember the guy's name.  Um, would you believe her at this point?  I'm having a hard time believing anything she says to me.

For a time, because she had been so illusive in the whole matter, I actually thought that I had been kidnapped as a baby.  There were no infant photos of me, my mother wouldn't tell me who I was and, well, if you knew my mother, you would understand why I would think that.  I mean, aside from the fact that she hated kids (her words) she had a record of committing crimes, I was nothing like her.  I don't resemble her physically and our personalities are and were worlds apart.  I just didn't think I belonged to her.  I later found out this wasn't the case...that she didn't kidnap me.

So, you say, that's all very interesting and a little pathetic, but what does it have to do with your road trip, Diana?  Well, just this...

Yesterday, I went to visit Dudley DoRight and the rest of the family in Nashville, TN.  As I mentioned in the story I linked to earlier in this post, I have had an ongoing (albeit sporadic) relationship with Dudley over the years.  When I was 9 years old, my mom took me in her room and told me that my sister's father was not my real father.  Up until that point, I had believed that Anna and I were full sisters, that Popeye was my father too.  Apparently, when he and my mom had gotten married because she was pregnant with Anna, my mom had urged him (and he had agreed) to adopt me so we would all have the same last name.  So I had no reason to think anything other than we were all one big happy family (well, not really one big happy family, but you get the idea.)

So that day, I found out that my sister was a half-sister and that my dad actually lived in Memphis, TN and that (surprise!) we were going to pack up all our stuff and go to Tennessee just so I could meet him! (and also, well, it was time to move on from the place we were living cause the rent was due so it all worked out perfectly!)

I was excited at the thought of meeting my "real" father since Anna's dad had been gone for years (first in the Vietnam war and then because my mom had divorced him.)  So off we went to Tennessee.  When we arrived, Dudley welcomed us with open arms and lots of love.  He told me stories of my birth and made it clear that he loved me regardless of the fact that he was remarried and had other children with his new wife.  They let us stay in their home (yes, even my mom) until mom decided she would live in her own apartment and let us live with Dudley.

Anna and I lived with Dudley for a while.  We attended school and felt really normal.  Their home was beautiful and large and full of friends and family.  It was great!  And then mom decided it was time to leave (probably because Anna and I were so happy) and we just disappeared.  She didn't say a word to Dudley.  They didn't know what had happened to us.  We went to visit my mom at her apartment and then we were just gone.

Dudley told me yesterday that he and family and friends searched for us for months with no luck.  He never knew what happened to us until one day when I was in my 30's I tracked him down again.  I had been trying, as an adult (who happened to be a police detective at the time) for years to find out who my father was.  I was also trying to figure out whether my kidnapping theory was valid or not.   I felt like Dudley might have answers for me and tried to track him down in Memphis for a long time.  Eventually, I spoke to a sympathetic phone information clerk who listened to my story (cause I was frustrated and couldn't figure out how to find him and they needed a city because there was no listing in Memphis) and she suggested that we start looking for listings in major Tennessee cities.  After a couple of minutes, she said she had a couple of listings for the name in Nashville and she gave me the numbers.

I called the numbers and eventually, found the right one.  In fact, Dudley's wife had answered the phone that night and I quickly told her who I was and who I was looking for.  I got chills when she said, "Diana, we've been looking for you for so long!  Wait, here's Dudley, he'll be so glad!" and that's how we reconnected.  In the ensuing conversations, it seemed like Dudley wasn't my actual father, but he felt and acted like a real father.  He cleared up the kidnapping issue and gave me information about my birth.  He loved me.  So I decided to adopt him as my dad anyway.  I have operated as if he was my father and called him Daddy and my kids have called him Grandpa.  All from a distance because he still lives in Tennessee.

It has been many years since he drove down to Florida and visited us and saw the kids.  Yesterday, we had a mini reunion and got reacquainted.  During our time there, I was able to talk with him about the blog and read him some of my stories.  When I read him the story I linked above, he was adamant that Clyde is not my father and there is no chance of it at all.  In asking him how he was so sure, we worked on the timeline for conception and what was happening with regards to his relationship with my mom.  Long story shortened (cause I know this isn't short!) he thinks there is a chance he is my real father. 

Aside from the fact that I am 48 years old and have never KNOWN who my father is (and it would be huge to know!)  Well, actually, there IS no aside.  I want to know.  If there is a chance of finding out, I want to take the chance and find out.  So I suggested that we do a paternity test so we can KNOW.  He was concerned that if a test comes back negative, I won't want to have anything to do with him because then I will know for a fact and will move on in my search.  That is just not the case.  I am operating NOW on the assumption that he's NOT my real father and yet I call him Daddy and I love him as if he were my father.

So that's the news.  Dudley and I are doing a paternity test.  We followed instructions for a mail away test and I have the swabs in my car and am getting the package ready to mail off.  In less than 2 weeks, I may have an answer to the mystery.  I am being cautiously optimistic at this point.  There are so many similarities between me and Dudley that I think I'll be really surprised if he isn't my father, but I guess we'll see.  In the next week or two, I may acquire a father and two brothers and a sister in law I didn't know were mine.  MINE, not borrowed from someone else.  People who belong to me.  History.  Stories.  Family.  I can't help but be excited at the prospect.

Roadtrip Journal Day 10...Well, if you DO go home again, you might be a little disappointed...My trip to Turtletown,TN

You know the old saying, "You can't go home again?"  I don't really think it's true.  I think that lots of people go home again all the time.  They leave home to go to college, they take a job, they live, they love, they experience, and sometimes after all that, they go home again.  They may go home because they finished college and couldn't find a job or they loved and married and then divorced.  Whatever the reason, people DO go home all the time.  I guess the big thing about going home again is that things have usually changed by the time people get back.

I don't believe that "home" is necessarily the house you grew up in, to me, it's more the community that grew you or the people and surroundings that shaped you into the person you are.  Whatever you think home is, you can go there after you leave, you just might be disappointed when you get back.  I often feel as though I never really had a home growing up.  We moved around so much, no place ever had that feeling for me, except maybe for Turtletown, TN where we lived for one perfect summer with Mama Hickey in an old, leaky shack with an outhouse.

Today, I drove  to Turtletown with my oldest boy Lee.  Jack didn't want to go because he was afraid he would be bored.  I didn't try all that hard to convince him since I really didn't know what to expect.  Afterall, it has been 40 years since I left there.  It has been 40 years since I listened to the rain beating down on the tin roof of that shack we lived in.  40 years since I attended (for a short time) second grade at Turtletown School.  40 years since my mom bought me that plastic cowboys and indians set from Nicholson's General Store.  Yes, it's been 40 years since I panned for gold in the little creek on Blalock Mountain and 40 years since I had a little Pinto pony named Sonny for a whole summer.

I found the town easily enough with my directions from mapquest and we arrived in the vicinity in the pouring rain and lightening.  Funny how the perspective of size and location can change between the time you were a kid and an adult.  As I approached Turtletown, I was surprised to find myself driving through Copperhill and actually recognizing locations and streets.  I started having flashbacks to a friend of the family who lived in Copperhill and lived right in front of a cemetary on a hill directly above a street.  As a kid, when my mom or Mama Hickey visited that friend, my sister and I would be out the back door in a flash and into the cemetary to collect the soft little rocks that were everywhere and shined like sparkly coppery diamonds.  I don't know what the little stones were, but I suspect they contained copper.  As the name implies, Copperhill is a mining town where they mine copper.  I recognized the rugged, dirty hill surrounding the mine...it looked exactly the same.

I was so excited as I could point out locations that I recognized or had been to.  It made me feel a little grounded...as if I finally might have a real past to share with my son and not just a story.  It made me long for more.  As we approached Ducktown, I pointed to several other landmarks that were familiar and again, my excitement grew.  This was sort of like going home!  Maybe I have a history to show Lee!  We soon arrived in Turtletown and I spotted the school I once attended.  I couldn't believe it was still there.  It had clearly been abandonded for a long time, but it was there nonetheless. 

Moving on, I looked for the road to Mama Hickey's old house on Blalock Mountain.  I found it.  Turning down that road, I knew instantly I was in the right place...the terrain hadn't changed a bit.  There was a house with someone who was related to the family on the right exactly where I remembered it had been.  I had taken baths at that house from time to time because the shack where we lived that summer Mama Hickey was building her house had only one source of water and that was a hand pump in the kitchen sink.  To take baths there, we had to fill up a metal tub in the kitchen and boil water on the stove to add to the tub in order to have a warm bath.  Since that was a lot of work, we only did it a couple times a week.  The other days we went to this person's house and took a bath to wash our long hair.  I wish I remembered who those people were, but since it had been so long ago, I didn't stop to ask questions.

Driving past that house, I saw a couple of new roads had been added and I also noticed that the road we were on was now paved.  It used to be just rock and dirt.  At the second street, I decided to turn.  The street wasn't marked, but it seemed like the right place to turn.  As I drove down the road, I saw what I had hoped was there, the sign that said "Blalock Mountain," Mama Hickey's property!  I drove past the sign and there was the house, just like I knew it should be...well, almost.

Mama Hickey died maybe 10 years ago.  I guess in her absence, no one took care of the house and it looks it.  Peeking in the windows, I could see that some of her old furniture was still there, but most everything was gone.  I took a couple of quick photos in the rain and then we left.  Lee wanted to check a little further to see if anyone who knew me was around, but I guess I didn't want to intrude and really, didn't want more disappointment.  I'm not sure what I really expected.  I knew Mama Hickey was gone, I was just hoping something  or someone I knew was there to prove that I had once existed there.  Something to ground me, to say I was home.

When we were driving down the road, I hadn't been able to see the little stream where my sister and I had once panned for gold, so Lee and I really looked on our way out.  I eventually spotted it.  It had been paved over and now passed under the road through a tube.  We got out to investigate.  Because of the rain, the stream was running very fast and was very muddy...so much for panning for gold.  I could see Lee was disappointed, but he didn't complain.  I couldn't tell if he felt sorry for me or if he was just going with the flow but he smiled at me and we got back in the car.

We drove back to the main road and continued on into Turtletown to see if I could find the shack.  Just a little further down from Blalock Mountain, I pulled off to the side of the road because I saw a little driveway that looked familiar.  There was now a house on the property, but I am certain that I found the location of where the shack used to be.  Of course, the outhouse was gone too, but the lay of the property was still the same and I recognized it.  I took some photos and we drove on and soon I saw Nicholson's General Store.  It looked exactly the same from the outside! 

He asked me if I wanted to go into the store and see if anyone knew where any of the Hickeys were.  I told him that was a good idea and, so we parked and went inside.  When we walked in the door, I saw that it is now more of a hardware/feed store now.  There used to be every kind of merchandise inside the store...groceries, hardware, toys.  You name it, they had it.  I used to love going in there just to look.  That summer we lived in the shack, I had coveted a cowboy and indians set that came in a big plastic case that had a fort printed all around it.  After many weeks of wishing for it, my mom bought it for me.  One of the many things that made that summer so magical!

Anyway, Lee and I spoke to the guys in the store and I told them what we were doing there.  Of course, they all knew who Mama Hickey was and, in fact, one of the guys we were speaking to said he was related to the family in some way that I didn't really catch, however, none of them could tell me what had happened to the shack nor where anyone from the family is now.  We thanked them and left.

After all of that, we decided to go ahead and drive back to Georgia.  We realized that this trip wasn't quite as successful as we had hoped, but it had been interesting.  At least I had been able to find the locations.  It was unfortunate it was raining so hard and we weren't really able to explore like we would have liked.

I didn't really find what I was looking for.  What was that you ask?  Well, I guess I was looking for home, really.  That little mountain town was one of the very few places in my childhood where I felt like I belonged.  I guess since Mama Hickey was there and her family had owned that property for generations, just by association, I felt more grounded.  I did not have much of that feeling when I was little.  My mom was a drifter.  She also had been adopted into the family that raised her.  She has never come out and told me who my real father was.  She was married and divorced 8 times and we moved around a lot, often leaving in the middle of the night without being able to say goodbye to friends.  My sister and I never had a chance to belong within a family or community.  We never got to be part of something.  I never felt like I had roots.  All of those things are terribly important for me to give to my children because of that.  I just wanted to show them proof that I was here, wherever that was.  I had hoped that "here" was in Turtletown...actually, maybe it still is, but, as I said, it has all changed.

I don't think I am so much disappointed as I am sad.  I am sad that there weren't any roots for me to dig up with my son.  I'm sad that we didn't strike gold...the potential was there, we just didn't get lucky today.

on the verge of...something...

I have it tonight...the feeling that there is a giant hole in my gut.  The feeling that tells me I missed...something... along the way.

I have noticed that I get this feeling, this emptiness, when I contemplate who I am and how I got here.  I get this feeling when I start to think about the me that was there when I was on the verge of becoming...something.

The empty place opens up every time I think about the fact that I didn't go to college after high school.  I was accepted at three schools, Baylor and UT in Texas and Florida State in Tallahassee.  I enrolled in Florida State.  I was all set to go.

My mom decided, right before the fall semester started, that we needed to move to Orlando because Tallahassee was bad.  Something bad had happened to her (she was accused of shoplifting in an Albertson's grocery store by a clerk and the police took her to the station to search her.  They found nothing and let her go, but the damage was done.)  My mom never stayed any place where something bad happened to her.  She had a long track record of running away.  Of disappearing and remaking herself.  And bringing us (my sister and I) along in the wake.  To start again from nothing.  To be the new kids.  Again.

When she told me she was moving and that I was coming with her, I wanted to tell her "no."  I wanted to say that I would stay and go to school...but I didn't.  I helped her pack our things and then we moved.  Just like that.  Away from school.  Away from what could have been, if only...

It's hard for me to think about that now.  As silly as it is, when I think about the fact that I didn't stand up for myself and figure out a way to do what I wanted (needed) to do, I am sad way down inside.  If only I had been the person I am now, I would have done it.  I would have stood up to her.  I would have stayed and gone to school like I had planned.

It surprises me how much it all still hurts me.  I am married and have had a successful career in law enforcement and I have my sons.  I don't regret my life as it is, I just miss what I missed.

I don't think that going to college and getting a BA or JD would have made me a better person.  That is not what I am talking about.  It's just, I guess I regret not having had the possibilities that were right there.  Maybe it's just the fact that I didn't even try to do it that really bothers me.  The fact that I gave in so easily and went with my mother, whom I hated.  Why would I do that?  How could I have done that?  Did I just admit that I hated my mother?

Tonight, my friend Kelli told me she is getting her masters in writing.  She is living in a dorm right now and somehow making it work even though she has a family at home.  I envy her.  I feel the hole in my gut.

Could I have gotten here from there?  From Florida State?  What if I had gone there and become the civil rights attorney that I had planned on being?  Would I have met Kurt and had my sons?  I don't know.  It's not that I am ungrateful for the things I have, the blessings, the bounty, not at all.  It's just that sometimes I wonder what would have been there in its stead.  I went to school part time while I worked as a police officer.  I got my AS degree from the community college.  It was enough to get me promoted at work.  It wasn't enough to fill up that hole.

I don't like this feeling...this empty ache.  I don't know what to do about it except to write it down in an attempt to get it out...examine it and then put it away...until next time...when I feel like I am on the verge of...something...indefinable.

I'm a trash picker from way back...Memorial Day memories of things that have shaped me.

Yes, I said trash picker and that's exactly what I meant.  I come by my trash-picking ways quite honestly actually.  You see, my granddaddy was a pig farmer.  No, really!  He really was a pig farmer.  He also had cows, chickens and ducks.  Granddaddy had two farms.  One was in Live Oak and the other was in Miami.  He owned the farm in Live Oak for a long time until he finally sold it and moved south to Miami because the cold weather during the winter bothered his arthritis.  I have some really cool memories of going to stay on the Live Oak farm when I was really little and some that aren't quite as happy as well.  He leased the land for the farm in Miami (which was located right where the Aventura Mall is today) and it is that farm helped turn me into the trash-pickin' mama I am today.

This is not my Granddaddy's farm, but I remember the pig pens looking just like this one.

What, you ask, does pig farming have to do with trash picking?  Well Granddaddy, you see, had to feed his pigs every day.  To do this, he would wake up at 3 a.m. and go on his "rounds" as he called them.  Granddaddy had cultivated symbiotic relationships with grocery stores, bakeries and Dunkin Donuts in the area of his farm.  He would drive to each of his stops and would pick up donuts, produce or baked goods that would otherwise have been thrown out.

Most of the places he picked up at would put the goods out near the dumpster at the back of the store, but others didn't do this.  They would load up the dumpster and my granddaddy would, well, dive in and get the good stuff out.  After making the rounds, he would go to his farm and "slop the pigs."

One time, my sister and I got to wake up early and go out with Granddaddy.  We may have been 7 or 8 years old at the time, but I am not sure.  What I remember is this, my grandfather was a happy, hard-working man. He always looked old to me...he had white hair and was slightly bent over.  His was a little bow-legged and sort of waddled when he walked.  I know he had trouble with his back and he took "kidney pills" (Doan's backache pills.)  He smelled a little odd (due to the dumpster diving?) but not offensive, like a combination of farm smells, sweat, Avon "Old Country" aftershave, and Absorbine Junior liniment.  His fingers (every single one of them!) was wrapped with white medical tape because he was constantly cutting them on things in the dumpsters or on the crates the produce came in.  He did not complain about getting up that early because it was what he did.  In the cab of his truck, there were papers piled high on the dash board.  I don't know what all those papers were, but to him, they were important and he knew where everything was even though it just looked like a big mess to me.  The seat in his truck was a bench seat and my sister and I would fight over who got to sit next to Granddaddy because he was such a love. 

On the day we went with him, Granddaddy went to the Dunkin Donuts first.  As he loaded the boxes stacked at the back of the store into the truck, he grabbed one of the donut boxes and gave it to us to eat.  Wow!  What a treat that was!  Our mom never let us eat donuts!!  We scarfed those down and then were on to the Publix.  There, he loaded up the produce and introduced us to some of the people from the store...he was very proud of us because we were so well behaved (thanks to mom's iron fist) and everyone complimented us on how helpful we were for coming out early and keeping Granddaddy company.  After he was finished loading the produce, I saw Granddaddy hop into the dumpster to see if there was anything "good."  He came out a short time later with a box full of dented cans missing their labels and a few "perfectly good" loaves of bread which he put into the cab with us.

More stores, more dumpsters.  Each time, Granddaddy would put a little something extra from the dumpsters into the cab of the truck.  We didn't know what was in the dented, label-less cans, but Granddaddy said it was wasteful to let them go "to the dump."  Later, after we got home, we added the boxes and cans to the other stacks of boxes and cans in our "dining room" at the house.  Later, when it was time to cook supper, we would open a can...would it be cat food?  Dog food?  Tuna fish?  We never knew till we opened the can.  Conveniently, if it were food for dogs or cats, we had plenty of those around to feed as well.  Those kinds of early teachings kind of stuck with me.  My mom must have had her share of life lessons in this regard as well, because she was a garbage picker too.

At that particular time, my mom was married to Bill.  He was her 7th husband and the one I remember best.  Bill was a nice, quiet man and I can't for the life of me figure out why he married my mom.  He seemed to be pretty smart, but then again, how smart could he have been to marry my mom??  Well anyway, he was a golf-cart repair man as well as a "junker."  Isn't it funny how people come together?  So Bill the junker and my mom would take Anna and me out "junking." on Friday nights.  In the late afternoon, we would hit the hot spots where people used to just go and dump stuff in Miami.  Now I remember we had quite a few places we would go to do this.  It was the 70's and people were just starting to see public service messages on TV regarding littering (remember the Native American on his horse looking over the side of the interstate with a tear running down his cheek?) however, I remember that even we were guilty of throwing our empty McDonald's wrappers out of the windows of the car on the highway...everybody did it (can you even believe that???)  There were also plenty of areas where people would dump their stuff they didn't want anymore...stuff like furniture, old dishes, clothes, mattresses.  You name it, we found it.  We had a pickup truck and Anna and I would ride in the back on a sofa (conveniently taken from a dump) that was in the bed so we could be comfortable.

Upon arriving at a "good spot" we would all hop out of the truck and start sifting through the piles.  Sometimes, it was gross, but as a kid, I don't remember minding it too much.  My mom and Bill were looking for recyclable metals like copper and aluminum to take to the recycling place for cash, but Anna and I were looking for "goodies."  It was like a non-stop treasure hunt.  We would find boxes of stainless steel creamers from a restaurant, plates, and glasses from who-knows-where, metal cabinets that were great for storing things in a garage, old chairs, dressers and lamps and gosh, I don't know what else.  We would pile it into the back of the truck and then sort it out later that night at home.  The next morning, we would get up at 4 a.m. and go to the "swap meet" at the Tropical Drive-In off of Bird Road.  We would get there by 5 a.m. to set up and people would start walking around looking for a bargain.  I remember that we couldn't even see because the sun wasn't up and we were already selling things.  Anna and I always got to keep the money for the stuff we found and sold.  It was the coolest and funnest thing ever and I was hooked!

Since then, there have always been opportunities to loot a neighbor's trash pile and I never had a problem doing it.  I loved finding good things and taking them home...for FREE!!  I collected some really great things that I never would have been able to afford because, as you might have guessed, we didn't have a lot of money to spend on things that weren't necessary.  All of the decorations and furniture I ever had in my room as a child came from the dump, a neighbor's trash pile, Salvation Army or a thrift store.  I still love to search in Goodwill and Salvation Army (even to find cool furniture for my decorating clients) for a bargain.

Since I married Kurt, I have tempered my trash-picking ways, but haven't completely given them up.  Kurt did not come from a background like mine and is a little alarmed that someone might see me picking through a neighbor's trash pile.  He's also not a big fan of old and beaten-up (which I happen to love, it's called Shabby Chic!) so we really don't have much of anything left of my old pre-marriage treasures.  However, occasionally, I come home with something good from the trash.  In fact, the canopy we so happily cart to our sons' sporting events came right out of our neighbors garbage pile one Saturday morning. A small patched hole in the top later, we have a perfectly working $200 canopy for FREE!!  How sweet is that?  Oh, and by the way, trash-picking is eco-friendly, so I am very trendy in addition to being thrifty...love that!!

On the road again...part 4...panning for gold at the end of the rainbow

So there we were, literally, driving off into the sunset...a ragtag team of three chickens, two turtles (I had forgotten about the tiny turtles in their plastic aquarium with genuine fake palm tree until yesterday) one German shepherd, one cat, two kids and one adult of questionable parental abilities all in a red 1967 Pontiac Ventura 2 door coupe.  So you can get the full mental picture...

Here is a simulation of Bunny waving goodbye to Ruth

All of this in a....

Red 1967 Pontiac Ventura

I think you get the picture.

It got dark not long after we left and, since we were traveling through many-a rural area on our way to the thriving metropolis of Turtletown, Tennessee, Anna and I quickly noticed that there really ARE billions and billions of stars...as upset as we were, we realized that we needed to get over it and move on.  Bunnie did not tolerate a bad attitude and she was one to say "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about!"  So we stopped crying and started stargazing.

A little about the Pontiac...that was a cool car!  The interior seats were genuine white vinyl that allowed your thighs to form a deliciously wet and sucky connection when the outside temps were just right to cause the optimum amount of sweat to form between said thighs and vinyl.  Of course, since air conditioning was for sissies, we didn't have it even though we had purchased our car in Florida...you know, where the weather sometimes gets a little warm?  So we drove with our windows open when the weather allowed (meaning it wasn't pouring down rain) and that was good because I think I might have mentioned Bunnie's affinity to smoke...alot...even if it WAS raining and the windows were up...secondhand smoke?  never heard of it...

Ok, so white vinyl interior, no A/C, a single back seat across the WHOLE back of the car and a HUGE back window complete with a child-sized window sill perfect for stargazing!!  Anna and I had many battles about whose turn it was to "sleep" in the back window (you are aware, of course, that back then, only LOSERS wore seat belts...shoot, our car may not have even HAD seat belts...I can't remember ever seeing them.) 

I guess a few hours after we started our trip, Bunnie pulled into a rest stop for a nap.  Anna's favorite place to sleep in the car was the front passenger wheel-well.  I slept in the back window because remember, the back seat was chalk full of animals (oh, and did I mention the litter box?  Uh, yeah, we had one for Snoopy.)  Now, Shadow was pretty easy to take care of on the road because we could easily walk her, but Snoopy was not at all fond of this whole car trip thing.  When we were stopped, we had to keep the windows most of the way up so he wouldn't jump out.  The chickens were a little noisy, but didn't really bother me that much.  The turtles weren't bad on a trip, but we had to be careful not to spill the water...they just hung out on the back floor board with a towel covering them so Snoopy wouldn't eat them.

So we slept there at the rest stop for a few hours.  Once we were up, we made a quick stop for coffee and sweet sixteen powdered donuts (remember those???  Delicious AND nutritious!!) at the gas station. 

A little while later, we were back on the highway, speeding towards a better life in Tennessee.  Bunnie always said that it was good to get a fresh start somewhere new and Anna and I were starting to get used to moving around...it was kind of normal for us.  (One of the positive things about our experiences was that we always made friends quickly...we didn't have time to waste!!)

Bunnie liked to sing songs and play games while she was driving.  She was trying to get us to sing a song that day...I don't remember which song, but Anna didn't want to sing.  I tried to coax her into singing because I could see that Bunnie was getting aggravated with her for not going along, but she refused and said she didn't have to sing if she didn't want to.  (Alas, those were to be our lifelong roles...me trying to smooth things over and Anna rocking the boat as hard as she could because she always knew things weren't right.)  I knew that she had gone too far saying that!  Bunnie was trying to reach over the back seat to hit Anna, but Anna was too quick and kept ducking out of the way, really pissing mom off!  Bunnie was now determined to knock Anna's block off for being disrespectful and started turning towards the backseat and swinging her right arm.  This kept causing her to swerve the car to the shoulder and then she would catch herself and straighten the car back up only to repeat the whole process immediately.  After about a minute of this nonsense, I heard a siren and peeked up over the backseat to see a Georgia Highway Patrol car pulling us over.

Please remember, dear reader, that Bunnie and "Johnnie Law" as she was prone to call them were not known to be old friends.  She had previous experience with law enforcement and it wasn't all that positive.  Her first response when she saw that she was being pulled over was to tell both of us to shut up (for we had proceeded to cry and wail just KNOWING she was going-to-jail-for-whatever-she-just-did-which-was-all-Anna's-fault!) and then shove something under her front seat before getting out of the car and walking back to the officer.  I, of course, knew that what she was shoving under the front seat was her gun.  Bunnie was always packing "for protection" although I was sure that if anyone ever messed with her, she could kill them with the look in her eyes...it was deadly.

While Anna and I cried and imagined the worst, Bunnie sat in the front seat of the patrol car for what seemed like forever.  After a while, she and the officer walked back smiling and chatting like best friends.  I don't know what Bunnie said or did to that officer, but he sure did seem like he liked her.  (Don't forget, she was a good looking woman in her early 30's back then.)  The officer leaned into the open driver's window and said, "Now you girls behave and stop giving your mama a hard time or I'll come and arrest you!"  After that close call, everyone was quiet until we reached the Tennessee border.  Once we were in Tennessee, there were steep cliffs at the sides of the road and there were trickles of water coming right out of the huge slabs of rocks.  Bunnie said that it was spring water and was the best tasting water in the world.  She stopped the car on the side of the road and we got out and went over to one of the trickles.  She told us to cup our hands under the water flow and drink some.  I remember that water being freezing cold and a little sweet...it had a taste unlike anything I had ever had...

I don't know how she did it, but Bunnie could always find anything when she was driving.  It never failed that she got us right to where we were going every single time.  We had never been to Turtletown before, much less to the shack we were about to call home for the next year, yet she drove us right to it (after passing through Ducktown, which had a Piggly Wiggly grocery store!)

When we arrived at "the shack" as we came to call it, Anna and I were excited!  We could see that the "house" was small and was surrounded by woods.  At the rear of the house, the treeline rose up...it looked like a mountain to us!  We could see a little tiny building up on a hill about a hundred yards from the house.  We started running around the yard as Bunnie let the animals out of the car (except for the turtles...they were stuck in their little plastic house.)  Snoopy promptly disappeared into the woods with Shadow chasing him.  The chickens started pecking the ground as soon as they were out of their cage.  After checking all around, we saw that no one was home.  The door to the house was unlocked and Bunnie made us help her get the clothes and her trunk (where she kept all her super-top-secret papers and stuff we were never allowed to see) out of the car and into the house.  Once we were inside, I saw that there was one bedroom and a main room.  There was also a kitchen with a pump...a PUMP! at the sink.  There was no bathroom.  I couldn't find a bathroom and I needed to go...badly!  "Where's the bathroom Mommy?"  Bunnie didn't know, but she told me she suspected it might be outside somewhere...huh?

Okay, now remember the little building I saw up on the hill??

So this was our "bathroom" although, of course, we never took a bath in there.  The inside looked very much like this...

And you had to take a stick in with you to "swish" inside the opening so that any spiders that were up under the rim would go away and not bite you in the butt when you sat down...It was the coolest thing ever and Anna and I were thrilled!  It did have a weird smell, but it wasn't bad once you got used to it...really!

Mama Hickey and Susie (her daughter) weren't at the house, so we got back into the car and started driving down the road to where Bunnie said they would be.  Mama Hickey's family had owned a mountain for generations.  It was called Blalock Mountain and was not far from the shack.  Mom said that Mama Hickey would be building her house on Blalock Mountain and she was likely there working on the place it would go.  We drove down a long, winding road and could see a large (to me) mountain getting nearer as we drove.  Bunnie stopped the car beside the dirt and rock road.  I looked around and didn't see anyone around but she told us to get out of the car.

Once we were out, she walked over to a little stream that was running right across the road.  It was a real creek!  A little one, but real nonetheless!  At the side of the road, it was about a foot deep and only about 6 or 8 inches at the center of the road.  There were little rocks and tiny fish and spiders in the water.  Shadow immediately started trying to bite the water spiders and mom suggested that we sit in that stream and cool off...what a fabulous idea!  So we sat right down in the water and started to pick up handfuls of little stones and pebbles...Bunnie said we were panning for gold because this was the end of the rainbow...and that's where Mama Hickey found us an hour later when she was coming down the road heading back to the shack for the day...

On the road again...part 3...the chicken or the egg...

Not long after the incident at Mama Hickey's house with the broken picture window in the middle of the night, Mama Hickey decided it was time to get out of Dodge.  Her family owned a small mountain up in Turtletown, Tn. and she decided that she wanted to retire up there and build a house on the mountain.

After Mama Hickey left, Anna and I lived full-time with Bunnie.  We lived at a duplex in Miami.  I remember this little place because there was a small wall surrounding the parking area.  The wall was under a Banyan tree and there would always be lots of little bird poop nuggets on the wall.  Anna and I would get such a kick out of flicking the little blobs and pellets off the wall with our fingers...I know, but hey, we were just little kids!  One day my mom brought home a German shepherd that she had gotten from the dog pound.  Her name was Shadow and she was awesome!  She was very gentle with us and our cat whose name was Snoopy, but was fiercely protective.  I don't remember where we got Snoopy, but over the years, we had many cats and we always managed to find them when they showed up at our house.  They just showed up as if they knew they could stay.  I guess Bunnie had a soft spot for cats...go figure...she didn't have a soft spot for kids, that's for sure.

Bunnie found a little old Spanish lady to take care of us during the day.  The only thing I really remember about the Spanish lady is that when she gave me a bath, she would tell me to be sure to clean my "bubalina" (that was her Spanish name for my lady-parts :)

I don't remember why we left the duplex, but the next thing I do recall is living on my grandfather's farm in Live Oak, FL.  I can't recall the drive up there specifically.  I just remember living in my grandfather's trailer with his wife (he was on his second marriage) Ruth.  I believe I was about 6 years old and Anna was 4.  Anna and I had a ball living on the farm.  I have really good memories of searching for eggs in the barn every day (an Easter egg hunt every day!) and picking up walnuts and pecans off the ground and using a vice in the barn to crack them open and eat them.  I remember the barn had a smell like engines and animals...kind of a dark and earthy odor that I can still smell in my memory.  There was a Brahma bull that was old and crotchety.  He would not let anyone come near him (maybe because at some point someone had cut off part of one of his ears?) but he would let Anna and I ride him!  There were baby calfs that would suck our entire forearms into their mouths trying to nurse!  There were ducks and pigs and it was so much fun for us to live there.

The notable person there at my grandfather's farm was Ruth.  She was the one in charge and there was a lot of tension between her and Bunnie.  My mom was not used to living in a house with another woman and didn't like having to try to get along with Ruth.  She made it clear that she didn't like her at all.  Ruth was not a very friendly person either.  She was rather abrasive and had a hard side.  I remember her telling me that we were going to have fried chicken for dinner one night and then she told me to follow her outside.  She asked me to catch one of the hens (my sister and I would often catch the chickens and would hold them by their feet and spin them thus making them tuck their heads under their wings and go to sleep...I don't know why we did this nor why they reacted the way they did but they never seemed any worse for the wear afterwards!) so I caught one.  She took the hen from me and quickly twisted its neck and killed it.  She then made me take a hatchet she had on a tree stump and cut the chicken's head off.  I did not want to do it...I was so upset that she had killed one of our "pets" but she insisted.  She proceeded to pluck out the feathers and made me help and then she cut up the chicken and fried it.  I did not eat that chicken.  I was too upset.

My grandfather had given us some special chickens that laid colored eggs.  They were called Araucanas and they laid "Easter eggs!"  We got them when they were little...not chicks, more like little teenagers...and we spent a lot of time handling them.  They were very tame and we could hold them like pets.  The did indeed lay colored eggs...light green and light blue little eggs.  Here is a picture of one that looks just like the chickens my grandfather gave us...

I know it's kind of ugly, but it is going through puberty!  They are much better looking when they are full grown!

One day, Anna and I found an abandoned nest of eggs in the barn.  The eggs did not look fresh and had clearly been sat upon by a chicken.  I don't remember what happened to the chicken, but the nest was abandoned.  Granddaddy told us we could try hatching the eggs by incubating them in a bucket with a light bulb to provide warmth.  We were so excited at the thought of hatching our very own baby chicks so of course we took on the challenge!  We had to turn the eggs several times a day and we diligently took care of them until it was obvious that at least some of them were beginning to hatch.

Ruth and my mother had been arguing for a couple of days right around the time the little chicks started to hatch.  Ruth had told my sister and I that she was going to take us away from our mom.  She had said she was going to call "the authorities" and have someone adopt us into another family.  Naturally, Anna and I were upset.  Now remember, Bunnie had already had three other children taken from her years before.  In that regard, she was very protective of us.  We told my mom what Ruth had said and the problems escalated to a shouting match and threats back and forth.  Anna and I were trying to stay out of the way because we knew from past experience that Bunnie had a penchant for picking up and launching any item that was within her reach.  My mother told us to go in the trailer and get our things, that we were leaving.

Anna and I ran into the trailer and told Granddaddy what was happening and he went outside.  We got our clothes together and went back outside just in time to see Ruth lining some eggs up along the fence posts.  It didn't register with us at first that the eggs were from the bucket we had been incubating.  Once the eggs were on the post, she picked up a long gun (I don't know what kind it was) and proceeded to shoot the eggs off the posts while my mother screamed at her and my grandfather pleaded with her to stop.  At some point, I realized what she was shooting and ran over to the eggs which were now on the ground.  Some of the eggs were broken apart in pieces, but others had been hit in such a way that the baby chicks were still there.  They had been killed, but were still partially inside their shells and were clearly the little chicks that had been in the process of hatching.  Anna and I were devastated.  How could someone be so mean?

I don't know the mechanics of how it happened from there, but the next thing I remember is driving away from the farm.  I was looking back and saw my grandfather standing in front of his trailer watching us go.  In the car (a red Pontiac two door with a white interior) was a cage that held our chickens (the Araucanas), our dog Shadow, our cat Snoopy, my sister and I and our mother.  Thus starts our first road trip...leaving a place we loved after things got ugly.

On the road again...part 2...Bunnie dumps Clyde and meets Dudley DoRight...

Okay, where did I leave off?  Oh yes, conjugal visit?  Clyde as my father?  Hmmm, what's next?  So that was 1963.  I was conceived in May of that year.  Bunnie was a sporadically employed bartender with questionable abilities when it came to picking the right men.  Did I mention all of this took place in Jacksonville, Florida?  No?  Well, it did.  Did you know that's a military town?  Well it is.  There is a Navy base there.  That becomes important later in the story.

Okay, so blah blah blah...oh yeah.  So, my mom gets preggers while Clyde is in jail waiting for his trial and then divorces Clyde while he is in jail waiting for his trial.  Newly single after divorce number four, Bunnie is out doing her thing...again.  Well, it turns out, she liked to get her drink on and, like I said, she was a looker.  I guess she didn't have a car back then (maybe it was confiscated by the F.B.I.?  Not sure about that, but that's kind of a fun thought, so let's go with that.) so she was taking a taxi to and from work at the bar.   Well, it turns out that ONE of those taxi drivers took a shine to Bunnie and felt bad for her with all of her troubles.  She started to confide in him and at some point, oh, about October, she told him that she was with child (ME!) and didn't know what to do.  Well, wouldn't you know that this young man was so infatuated with Bunnie that he decided he didn't care that she might be carrying the child of a Brinks car robber and he asked her to marry him!!  (Can you even believe that?  I KNOW!  Who does that?  Well, guess what else?  He was a really decent, nice, Christian man who wrote poetry to her and loved his mom, so of course, my mom DETESTED him!  But she married him anyway...no sense letting personal feelings get in the way of a way out of a mess!  Oh, and one more thing, I still have contact with this man, but that is another story I'll tell you later.)

So the taxi driver, let's call him Dudley (you know, DoRight?) marries my mom and hopes to live happily ever after!  Uhmmm, guess he didn't get the memo, but that's not the way Bunnie rolls.  So anyway, they get married, but right before I am ready to make my grand entrance into the world, Clyde escapes from jail...AGAIN!  Now, I have a theory here too (yes, I have a bunch!)  I am thinking that Clyde heard that his ex-old lady was about to have a little baby Bunnie and he suspected that little bundle of joy was his so he escaped to come sweep Bunnie off her feet and ride off into the sunset so they could all be one happy family.  Well, he got caught a couple days later and that's that as far as he was concerned.  He spent another 20 years in prison and then lived with his mom after he got out of jail.  I wish I could tell you whether or not he is actually my father but I really don't know.  I can't seem to track him down, although I came close one time about 10 years ago.  To me, it kind of makes sense, but then again, so does the random guy in the bar theory, so who knows?

But, prior to any knowledge about Clyde (on my part) there was Dudley.  I was born with Dudley's last name because he and my mother were married at the time.  It lasted exactly until I was one year old, but they were separated before that because my mom kicked him out of the house and started her bar hopping, er, tending again.  So, about when I was 9 or 10 months old, she meets a handsome sailor...I'll bet you can imagine what happens next...and my little sister Anna was born when I was a year and a half old.  Bunnie had been divorced from Dudley for about 7 or 8 months prior and then married Popeye (we'll just call him that so we can keep it all straight, okay?)

So what are we up to now?  I think we are at marriage number 6.  You know what they say, 6th time the charm...but not so much here.  I have to say though, this one lasted longer than any of the others.  Not too long after Anna was born, Popeye got shipped out during the Vietnam war so he didn't actually have to live with Bunnie.  Turns out, this was the ideal arrangement and they actually made it for a couple of years before they divorced.

Those years, post Popeye, are when I start to be able to remember events happening.  I remember living in Miami (we left Jacksonville after the divorce from Popeye) in "The Bug House" so named because there was a bug in the closet when we were moving in.  That's one of my early memories of the places we lived.  In that place, I remember seeing the movie "Cinderella" (the one with Leslie Ann Warren) and playing records on my record player.  I remember finding my mother's tampax tampons and taking them apart to use the little white tubes as curlers in my hair.  I remember the dog we had had puppies and I sat in a box with the puppies.

Then I remember living with this really nice old woman who used to take care of my sister and I all week while my mom was working.  Her name was Mama Hickey (her real name to us) and Anna and I adored her.  She lived in Opa Locka (a subdivision in Miami known for racial problems back then) in a big old house with neat things like old refrigerators in her back yard (great for playing hide-and-seek with!) and a million other kids she used to take care of running around.  We used to sleep on the living room floor right under this huge picture window (and one night, someone threw a rock through that window, but that's another story.)  I remember my mom would stop by occasionally during the week to see us and I remember being desperate to go home with her when she would leave.

I remember sleeping one night in one of the bedrooms in Mama Hickey's house in a bed near a wall and a huge palmetto bug managed to crawl into the sleeve of my pajamas (you know, the little flannel nightgowns you used to wear that had the elastic band at the wrist??) and I couldn't get it out (thus, my irrational FEAR of palmetto bugs...I can't even step on one if I see it, I just have to leave the area or shoot it with my gun.)  I was four years old in this big old house and my sister was two.  Mama Hickey was very busy with all those children running around, so I was in charge of taking care of Anna.  I would feed her and change her (CLOTH!) diapers.  I have crystal clear memories of swishing those diapers in the toilet when she pooped in one and (this is gross!) one time, the water got turned off and I had just changed a diaper and was thus unable to wash the smell of poop off my hands...maybe that's why I am compulsive about washing my hands now?

So what was my mother doing to make a living at the time?  I am glad you asked!  At that time, Bunnie was an entertainer.  Being a crack shot with a pistol (oh yes she was!) she got together with some other folks (whom I don't remember) and decided to go to steak houses and bars and put on a show of cowboys and Indians.  My mom had two roles.  She would dress up as Calamity Jane and shoot objects off of her partner's head and sometimes, she was the Indian.  I don't remember what she did as the Indian, but she was probably shooting her gun at one of the cowboys.  She would compete in "quick draw" competitions (meaning she could pull her gun out of the holster really fast) and shoot at targets on a wall.  (And yes, back then she was shooting real bullets at her partners in the parking lot behind the steak houses and bars...how scary is that??) She could compete very well with the men.  She has a penchant to dress like a man, smoke like a man, shoot like a man and curse like the devil.  My mom always had a cigarette hanging out of her mouth (picture it...cowboy boots, dungarees (those are jeans) a snap-button western shirt, a carved leather belt with a giant silver belt buckle, long black wavy hair and a cigarette hanging out the corner of her mouth, her head tilted to one side to let the smoke rise and allow her to see out of the one eye that wasn't squinted closed because of the smoke, and a cowboy hat to top it all off) and she would light her next cigarette from her last.

Bunnie prided herself on being a "bad ass bitch" and would often refer to herself as such.  She had a short temper.  She constantly reminded Anna and I that we were "shit on a rock and hatched by the sun" and she should have had an abortion.  She liked to say that she "hated kids" and didn't want us acting like "wild banshees."  She did not believe in sparing the rod and applied the golden rule to our little asses as often as necessary to make sure we were well-behaved.  Since she frequently got herself mixed up in botched "business deals" (more on that later) and couldn't keep a job for long (no one could put up with her for more than a couple of months) we moved around a lot...mostly in the middle of the night.  Anna and I got very good at throwing all our possessions into a bag and jumping in the car at 3 am to go "on an adventure."

Which leads up to the first road trip I can remember.  One of many we would take over the years and one I will start telling you about...tomorrow.  Remember, don't tell her I told you...it'll be our secret ;)

On the road again...Part 1...Bunnie and Clyde

(A little side note:  you guys are probably going to think I am making this stuff up because it is absolutely crazy and "there is no way you (meaning me) had that life and are who you are now...you're a cop for Christ sake!"  Seriously, I'm serious, I am not making this up.)

By the time I came along into my mother's life, she had been married 4 times (and later another four times making that a grand total of 8 times!) and had given birth to three other children.

I don't really know all of the details about who and where all of those other half-siblings of mine went, but the stories I heard along the way were something about my mom being a "little wild" and getting herself in some legal trouble and losing custody of her kids (two girls and a boy.)  No one could or would ever go into any more of an explanation than that and my mother refused to talk about it.  All three of those kids had different dads too.  Apparently, the kids were taken away from mom and were adopted into other families.  Since that was so long ago (late 50's) there are no records that I know of and I wouldn't know where to start looking.  I've kind of given up on that issue.

So now, mom is single (again) and has no children living with her.  Her profession at the time was bartending.   My mom was a real looker back in the day and had no trouble finding ways to keep herself occupied...only problem is, she was a bit of a rebel and didn't care much for silly rules and laws.  Her boyfriend at the time was a really bad guy.  He had already spent time in jail for various things like stealing cars and robbing stores.  Once, he even escaped from jail (I swear I am not making this stuff up!)  So he (let's call him Clyde) and my mom (we'll just call her Bunnie...get it?) are hanging out one night with some friends and Clyde thinks it will be a great idea to rob a Brinks truck.  Are you listening??  He said he thought it would be a great idea to rob a Brinks truck (yes, those Brinks trucks!)  So they make a plan and Bunnie is elected to be the driver (probably because she was a great driver since her dad taught her how to drive his farm truck when she was three, but I digress...)  So they did it.  They ROBBED A BRINKS TRUCK OF $80,000 DOLLARS!!  WITH GUNS!!  Way back then (1963) that was a really lot of money and (at the time) was the largest armored car heist ever.  (Again, not making this up, I have a copy of the newspaper article!)

Okay, so after that, they split the money 5 ways (there were three other guys involved) and then proceeded to foolishly spend the money thereby making themselves "persons of interest" in the case and eventually getting themselves caught by the F.B.I.  (Still not making this up.)  My mom ended up spending some time in jail and then, in order to avoid testifying against Clyde, she married him...ugh, yeah, I said she married him.  While he was in jail.  Waiting for his trial.  For robbing the Brinks truck.

Now, here's a tricky little side note...some of you know that I don't actually know who my biological father is.  My mom (Bunnie) has told me SEVERAL different stories about who he might be.  Two of my own personal theories are that he is either some random guy from a random bar (it was the sixties, remember?) or he could be Clyde.  I know, I know...he was in jail you say.  Well, I have a theory about that.  Remember how I told you that my mom married him while they were waiting for their trial?  Well, this whole hot mess (robbery, getting caught, spending time in jail) all happened during the time frame leading up to and including when I would have been conceived, sooooo, I'm just sayin' it's a possibility.  What I have never been able to find out is whether they allowed Bunnie and Clyde a conjugal visit to consummate the joyous occasion of their wedding vows.

So I am going to end part 1 here.  Tomorrow, I'll continue with the story and, until then, say a prayer that no one tells my mom that I am "telling" on her.  In our house, we were supposed to be good at keeping secrets.