What Make Me, ME

I feel that going back to my early years and telling a few of my adventures will help you understand me.
I was born on November 1, 1964 in Medford, Oregon.  I was the first child of two born to Harley and Charlotte.  I was a happy baby despite no hair and looking like a boy.  My brother Gene arrived 16 months later to complete our little tight knit family.   Our parents owned a  cleaning business that cleaned different businesses at night.  My earliest memories are of riding the buffer as my daddy buffed out the floor polish.  My brother and I often slept on the the wheel wells of the cleaning van.  These were happy times spent with both of our parents, helping them we thought with their work.  Most likely we were more in the way than anything else.  My parents encouraged us to help them, this helped to form our desire to work hard and get what we wanted.
Around the time I was 4, my dad was asked by a friend to help him log some trees to pay for this friends, brothers, heart operation.  My dad being the kind of person that loves to help others, couldn't say no.  My mom didn't like the idea since, there was no pay, no insurance and they still had to do their cleaning at night.
The last day and last load of logs, fate struck.  A shackle that is used to load the logs was replaced with a faulty pot metal shackle.  The result was that it broke lifting the last log onto the load.  The log was a sugar pine that was 24" on the small end.  Sugar pines are very heavy.  The end of the pine caught my dad right alone his right side of his neck and drove his right shoulder to his hip.
Some how, daddy survived and was transported miles to the hospital.  He had internal bleeding, broken left wrist, broken back and scalpel, and a paralyzed right arm.  He spent about two weeks in the hospital were much to everyone surprise he lived.  Daddy came home to recover.
Lucky, for my poor mom, I was sent to a friends for 6 weeks and her sister came to stay and help with my dad.  It was a long hard recovery for my dad and the family.
My mom was very strong through it all.   She sold the cleaning business since she could not run the large machines.  To support our family she cleaned upscale homes and sewed dressed, she designed for the rich ladies.   My brother and I went with her to cleaning jobs and watched her sew.  I still own the sewing machine she used all those years ago.
My daddy soon learned that having a paralyzed arm is a problem.  It gets in your way all the time.  So with the advise of a very good doctor he had it amputated and donated to Oregon State for research.  My Aunt helped him learn to walk and drive a car again.  A family friend detoxed him off pain killers.  A retired school teacher taught him to write with his left hand.  Daddy learned that giving up is not an option.
Daddy went back to college and got his teaching degree in Math. Upon his graduation from college my life took a sudden change.
The adventures of Coffee Mermaids early life will continue tomorrow.
Have an awesome Hump Day.

Comments

Popular Posts