I think I mentioned one of the purposes of this blog is to cover and record some of my history. This portion of my life that follows was pretty unhappy and difficult to write about.
In an earlier series I had
mentioned that we had moved to Illinois with my uncle Pat and his wife Beverly.
While we lived with them they moved to an acreage that they had built near
Wilmington. So that spring we lived in their new house which was quite nice. As
we approached Memorial day my sister and I were told that my dad had a surprise
for us and he would bring it to us the weekend after Memorial Day. My sister
and I were all abuzz. What could it be. Somehow we got the idea it would be a
puppy or we were going to move back in with him in Omaha. Nothing really
prepared us for what happened in reality.
The weekend after Memorial
Day arrived and we were told my dad was here with the surprise. My sister and I
were there in the family room. My sister Cathy had my brother Joe. She was
still Joe's primary caretaker and was very good at it. Beverly and the other
girls left Joe to her care. They had enough to do as it was. As I said nothing
really prepared us for what happened next. My dad came in with a woman we had
never seen and a girl near our age. Surprise – here is your new mom and sister!
We got married last weekend. As the time it seemed really strange.
As time goes on it still
seemed even stranger. Here is your new mom, not sure why he thought that was a
good way of doing it. She was from Cedar Rapids and they knew each other way
back before my sister and I were in school. Somehow he went from Omaha to Cedar
Rapids to pick up a mother for us and a wife for himself. Still seems stranger
than strange. After that weekend they left to go back to Cedar Rapids and I
assume he went back to his job in Omaha. Later that summer my dad got a job,
selling insurance, in Joliet Illinois. We were told that they were going to
have a house built a few miles from where uncle Pat's acreage was. Before
school started we all moved into the new house. This was our first extended
exposure to our "new mom and sister".
The house was not that big and had a
crawlspace. To make enough for home for four children they had the garage
turned into a family room/Phil and Joe's bedroom. Cathy and our new sister,
Pam, shared a bedroom in the main house. It was an odd arrangement. Neither Joe
or I could go to sleep until everyone was done in the family room. It sure was
hard to sleep while Cathy and Pam watch TV 10 feet away from us. Of course it
was the "best he could do" which we heard about 1 million times over
the next few years. Looking back with the experience I have now I know they
could've gotten you larger house if they had looked at existing houses. We
found out later that he had promised his new wife, Pat, a new house so that is
what we got.
So during that year between fifth grade and sixth grade
we had these events.
My mother passed away. My grandfather passed away. We
never saw my mother's family again. We moved to Illinois with my aunt and
uncle. They moved to a new house. My dad remarried without my sister and I ever
meeting our new family. We moved to a new house with my step mom and dad. Seems
like a lot of changes during a single year. Little did we know that change was
going to be a very common thing over the next few years.
I should mention sixth grade because to be honest I don't
remember it. I remember we were close enough to school that we had to either
walk or ride our bikes. We were just outside of town there was about a mile of
county blacktop between our neighborhood and Wilmington. Our house was the
first one built in this little neighborhood. It was pretty isolated living
there. No other kids except a few who lived in a neighborhood on the other side
of the county road. This road formed a natural barrier and I had no other real
friends because no one wanted to cross the busy County Road.
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