I had long hair when we left the USA… I remember my aunt Aileen perming it and burned it so bad, that short hair cut and “bangs”, which was Freda’s idea, is how I looked before the stroke…

The 3 kids in front were local or neighborhood military brats… the girl next to me… Well she never owned her part in the domestic violence and because of that… Larry is dead…

These house’s were so thin, no insulation and if you hit anyone and they screamed, everyone heard it… and never did anything about it…

Behind the house is a massive hill and on top of that hill sat Johnson High School…

To the right of the house was a winding road that made winter driving fun, with how it iced up and walking down it, well, skate boarders had nothing on us sliding down that road in our shoes and that is the truth…

I walked it more than once in winter, because Freda would leave me at the library and forget to pick me up when she headed down the hill… and she would scream every time I walked in the door, “where the hell you been” and my reply, “waiting for you to pick me up at the library” and she would laugh as I stood there freezing in pantten leather shoes, no heavy coat and it’s winter… It was a half hour walk at the best of times!!!!!

It was one of those times, but before it got cold, so I will say it was the fall of 68, and I walked in that door and she screamed at me and I responded, only this time, her sense of humor went out the door and she threatened to sick Don on me…

Keep in mind, I am recovering from a TBI, blunt force trauma from being beaten by a grown man, and what ever else injuries I sustained that I live with today and she is going to have me beaten again????

Yea, she had brains, but she also had a mean streak and when that mean streak hit, she would kill you if she got the chance… twice she succeeded at just that, but somehow, someway, I fought back to the here and now…

I knew in that moment, if Don touched me, I likely wouldn’t survive… I knew how fragile my brain was, it was a struggle in everything that was once easy for me…

As Don walked in from his military job and Freda started her hysterics I braced myself for what I knew would change my world forever….

I remember…

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