The ol' homestead

Where are you?

When we first met in jr. high, how strange I thought was the curvy pre-teen girl in grown girl clothes, yet we became fast friends....

Having no father left you and brother in a run down hovel of a trailor....and not much hope. What was normal to me would never be normal to you.

Your mom, a little rough around the edges, worked strange hours in bars as a waitress, but she always had a smile on her face and was never angry....

Odd I thought when I realized you shared things like cigerettes with your mom at such a young age, even now I am not sure why. Why there was no guidance... maybe the hopelessness of it all.

After a while, being with you was second nature and we had fun, I went with you and your family several times to go "home" which was grandparents that lived no better than you, but I seen that it was home to you.

Once when we went "home", you looked old friends up and we and the twins went riding around. They had some pot with them and you all lit it up. You knew that I did not smoke so you lied to them telling them it made me really sick so I couldn't smoke it and so I wouldn't look uncool in front of them.

Your brother Donnie would steal away to go fish and walk miles for a pond carrying an old pole, dreaming of big fish and a real life, I guess, like pubescent boys will do...

I remember the first time I came home with you, your mom was cooking chicken, and you commented how ya'll was "eating like rich folk tonight", that rang like truth for your family, and I never forgot it... your family literally lived on beans because that was what you could afford. And sometimes I seen your mother giving some out to the even pitiful man next door... who was just a tramp named Shotgun, but she didn't care because she had some to share.

You lived next door to a family that lived in an old rundown trailor as well, and there lived a teen boy and once when I went over there with you he was frying eggs for his 2 little sisters -that looked like all there was to eat and I am sure that was the best he could do because mom was "out" again.

One time on a dark road your mother was taking me home in her old jalopy of a car that would barely run and the lights went out and we had to drive with it pitch black, we were scared and I knew once home, my dad would help fix them, but he didn't, and I felt bad watching you drive away in the dark....

We stayed together a long time, but now I realize it was only a few short years. By the time we had made it through a year together you had it figured out that it didn't take money to make your eye lashes really long and beautuful and your figure looked just right in sweaters.... but you didn't do it to catch the teen boys eyes like all the older school girls did. You knew to be able to get out of your home situation soon, you would have to catch the older mens eyes.... and you did.

One time you came to pick me up from school because you had ditched again, but you were driving a CAR! But inside was an old man, it was his car you said, and you wanted me to drive it too. So I did, but I was swerving all over the road because I had never drove in my life....I can't imagine what you had to do for that old man for you to drive his car around.

I am sure you were looking for your ticket and me just making it in school, too naiive really, to understand that you were years ahead of me in the ways of the world and about survival.

Then you got really really sick and had to be carried to the the doctor. I really didn't know what to do for you, but the doctor did, and you recovered from a STD. Our little town couldn't hold you though and to get where you were going you had to get going.

So you drifted from my life and years later I am wondering if you made it .....