I was born in Longview, Texas on March 2, 1954 which just happens to be Texas Independence Day. Let me tell you about the school reports THAT generated. March 2nd also makes me a full-blown Pisces. My parents divorced when I was about 5 years old. Pops got custody of my brother and me at that time. Neither parent will discuss it, so I'm not going there, but Mom eventually got custody of us kids and life erupted. Mom was a waitress in Ponca City, Oklahoma without even a high school diploma at the time, so after trying desperately to support us kids, life threw her for a loop and we landed in the Methodist Home for Children in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. We stayed there for a year and then Mom was able to get us back. That was first grade for me. We moved so very often, I know where I was and the approximate year I was there by what grade I was in at the time. Mom's folks lived in Blackwell, Oklahoma, but she moved on to Fort Worth, Texas. 2nd, 3rd, and part of 4th grades were all spent in Fort Worth, but in various locations at various schools as she worked her way up. She worked at the Farmer's Daughter restaurant and also at the Cattleman's in Fort Worth. Big name restaurants for the cattlemen and oilmen at the time. We toddled back to Blackwell due to a bad choice of roommate and then I finished up 4th grade. For 5th and part of 6th grades we were in Harlingen, Texas. Way down at the tip of Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. I can remember many trips to Matamoros and Reynosa, Mexico and picking cotton with babysitters. I was baptized in a Southern Baptist Church in Harlingen. Mom got a hair and off to Corpus Christi, Texas for about 3 months and again on to Houston, (Pasadena & San Jacinto), Texas for about 5 months where I finished 6th grade. By this time I was able to enroll my brother and myself in school. It was "old hat".,br> Mom married a very NOT NICE man and we moved to Lakeland, Florida where his parents were. Two and a half years of living hell there and 2 different schools, Lakeland Junior High and Crystal Lake Junior High. (Lakeland Junior High was the first school I ever went to 2 complete years.) Mom had enough of dear ole Jimmy Joe and we moved to Canon City, Colorado to HER parents where our little family had a major breakdown. My brother never lived with Mom and me again. (This is his story to tell, not mine, folkes, but it still hurts. My brother and I remain very close, though.) After a summer with an aunt, uncle, and their family in Wichita, Kansas, I rejoined my mother in Pueblo, Colorado. I had been a major "goody two-shoes" up until this time. Actually, I stayed pretty good throughout 10th grade at Centennial High, but the summer before 11th grade, I met some "hippies". I discovered a great many things that summer, not a lot of them particularly good for me, but I was convinced I was having fun. (Nitwit girl-child that I was.)
