sins of the father, part 1

me, joe, dianne, dad, stinker

My father was a single parent, for the most part. He married Bonnie when I was 6, divorced less than 6 months later. He married Mary Ann when I was 8, divorced when I was 11. The time with Mary Ann is what I look to as the most idyllic of my childhood. Home from school, change into play clothes, have a homemade snack, play outside, either on the beach or in the woods, dinner together as family at the dinner table, change for bed, have a snack and sweet dreams. Oh, beautiful consistency and structure. This photo was taken during those halycon days.

My father had a gypsy soul and big heart. He was a career Navy man, his last post being stationed at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, WA. He enlisted at age 17, retired at 37. His wander lust created a bit of a nomadic childhood for myself and my younger brother, Joe.

At age 8, without my father, he put my brother Joe and I on a plane to live with his parents in southwestern Pennsylvania, coal mining country , land of lush, rolling hills and rabid Steeler fans. To this day, I don't know why. I can't even recall feeling strange about it the move. It just was.  Just a few months later, he showed up, married to Mary Ann and with her daughter, Dianne. We all moved to Norfolk, VA and spent a summer in a house 4 blocks from the ocean and with a real life swamp in our backyard.  We moved back to Bremerton just 3 months later.

I became much more aware of my father as a person when he and Mary Ann split up. He was a gentle, giving soul in his day to day interactions with folks. Yet, I could feel a confused, torn and tormented man lurking beneath the surface. I was 11 years old when I started taking on my daddy's darkness. I began to feel the burden of carrying the emotional weight for our tiny family. 

At age 12, we were once again boarded on a plane bound for P.A. This time, I was mad. I had just hit my stride in junior high and I was loving every moment; pep rallies, basketball games, disco dances in the cafeteria and boys! Every time I talked with my dad on the phone, I begged him to let us come back. At the end of the school year, we flew west to Portland and stayed with a family we knew in Port Orchard. Four months later we took the a Trailways bus cross country, this time with our father. 

My father decided he needed his family's support. He was finding life difficult to navigate with the responsibility of raising teenage 2 kids. He spoke of aunts, uncles, cousins that would be able to help us out. Little did we understand the kind of help that was needed, required.