She was left alone on a small gurney with no means of getting help from anyone.

This isn't my own memory but it is significant because it is the day I was born. My due date was March 28th and Easter was on March 26th of year I was born. According to my mother Easter Sunday was very stressful because everyone kept staring at her and wishing her into labor so I would be an Easter baby. They waited in vain because I refused to set things in motion until March 28th. My mother knew she would go into labor on my due date and around 8pm she began to feel labor pains. My father rushed her to the hospital and after that he is not mentioned again. My mother was taken to a room and evaluated and found to be only one centimeter dilated even though she was in excruciating pain and hollering out with each contraction; the process of getting her looked at took about three hours and it was getting close to midnight. The doctor told my mother it could be awhile before she was ready to deliver so they put her in a room and left her. She was left alone on a small gurney with no means of getting help from anyone; soon, she began to experience full on labor. She called out over and over for help but no one came to her aide and then she had to push; out I popped teetering on the edge of the gurney, about to fall to the hard floor. My mother sat up and was about to stop my decent when a nurse finally showed up to check on her; the nurse scooped me up scolding my mother for not calling out for help and whisked me away. The room became very busy as everyone was in shock and disbelief that my mother had gone from pretty much a standstill to having a baby in less than 30 min; without medical assistance. The next day my mother and father were ready to take me home when they were informed that I would not be going with them, that their baby was jaundiced and needing monitoring. This threw my mother into a rage and it took some doing to calm her down; she felt the hospital was responsible for my newborn illness because of the lack of support she received while delivering me. I was released two days later to begin my roller-coaster life.

I turned around to look at what I had stepped on and was horrified, terrified at what I saw, what I had done.

Some of my best childhood memories are from when we lived n the green house on Corson Street; before my father was injured and before my mother became ill and took us away to Sacramento. We had a dog; Kelly, cats; Tiger then Patty and Fluffy who had kittens which we kept two of Qeeny and DingDongDingalingOgden and two bunnies; I don't remember their names just that they were grey and white and that they didn't appreciate my five year old hands trying to pick them up. That is how I learned that bunny bites hurt. We had a big patio with a built in BBQ that was surrounded by a wall. My sister and I loved to ride our noisy Big Wheels back there. There was a gate that led into the big back yard that was also surround by a wall; the backyard was sunny and had one huge tree at the back center near the patio wall. There was also a tree in the far right corner that my sister and I could climb so we could look into our neighbors yard; they had chickens and goats. My father tried to make a bunny pen in the back yard but the bunnies learned they could dig and escaped under the fence into our garden; they particularly enjoyed munching on the carrots. One day our mother said we were invited over to the neighbors house to see the baby chicks that had hatched; they were so cute. I am not sure how many chicks there were but they seemed to be all over the place; I did my best not to step on them but . . .I was moving out of the way of one chick when my foot came down on something behind me; I turned around to look at what I had stepped on and was horrified, terrified at what I saw, what I had done. There lay a baby chick; it was twitching on the ground with blood coming out of it's beak. I somehow climbed over the wall and ran into our house crying the whole way; I felt so bad, so icky for killing the baby chick. My mother followed me home; she gave me hugs and reassured me that it wasn't my fault the it was an accident. Later that day she told me that the baby chick was going to be OK, that is had a broken wing and leg; I really wanted to believe her but I couldn't help but feel she was just trying to make me feel better so I would stop crying. Years later my mother confessed to me what I had known all along; Do you remember that chick you stepped on when you were five? Well, you killed it.

I felt ashamed and embarrassed but there was nothing I could do.

Both of my parents were heavy smokers; most of the adults I knew smoked. I never noticed the smell because it permeated everything and only when I was in high-school did one of my friends mention how horrible I smelled; I felt ashamed and embarrassed but there was nothing I could do. I remember another time when I felt shame at my parents smoking; I was nine years old and my mother took my little sister and me grocery shopping at Safeway. I loved going to Safeway, they had a cool toy section that included metal horses; I was into horses at the time and collected them when I could but this day there wouldn't be any collecting. My family received food-stamps and welfare checks because we were poor and my parents were disabled; my mother because of her MS and my father because a refrigerator had fallen on his back and messed it up for good. This stipend from the government is what paid for everything, including my parents cigarettes; at this time one could buy smokes with food-stamps. My sister and I followed my mother around the store and helped pick out yummy food for dinner which included TV dinners and Twinkies. There were some healthy items but not many; my father was the one who purchased the real food, fruits, vegetables and meat. Once in line my mother requested a couple of boxes of cigarettes then proceeded to check out. When everything was rung up my mother realized we did not have enough food-stamps and money to cover all she had bought and had to decide what to put back; she did not put back the cigarettes, she put back food, a lot of food. I felt sad and wanted to cry because everyone was looking at us and shaking their heads in judgement. That night my parents had a very big argument about the cigarettes and the fact that my mother kept them and not the food. I covered my head to drown out their voices and vowed never ever to smoke. That was the last time my mother ever went shopping.

One would think Mrs. Butterbalm would nurture the budding artist in me but she didn't let me paint again.

I knew from a young age that I loved to draw and color but didn't know I had a talent until I was in kindergarten. In my class, which seemed very large to my little five year old mind, my teacher Mrs. Butterbalm (I am not sure if that was her name but it is the way I remember it) had set up free-time stations; art easels for painting, building blocks, a play house area with an oven, sink and stove and coloring area and couple of others that I know were there but do not remember. Some how in the two months since school had started I had yet to experience the "painting area" and once there I did not want to leave. I remember creating an image of a black cat wearing a witches hat on an orange background; I can still see it in my mind! Mrs. Butterbalm was very impressed and sent a nice letter home along with my painting. One would think Mrs. Butterbalm would nurture the budding artist in me but she didn't let me paint again; I understood about taking turns but when more than a week had gone and she kept telling me no while insisting that I go play house, I became very very upset. So upset that the next time my teacher told me to go "play house" I started crying and crawled into the oven declaring that I was pumpkin pie and would not come out. They had to call my mother to come get me. My mother did not like Mrs. Butterbalm and I do not think Mrs. Butterbalm liked her; my mother was very pretty while Mrs. Butterbalm looked like Margaret Thatcher but there was more; at the beginning of the school year Mrs. Butterbalm sent a letter home informing my mother that I was left handed and that she would be "switching me over". My mother blew a gasket and stormed in telling her that under no condition was she to try and make me right handed! I did get a scolding from my parents; so did Mrs. Butterbalm. I am not sure what was said but after that day I was given equal time at the easel.

We stayed to the lighted streets when we could and were about a block away from home when an old pick-up truck came racing down the road toward us.

My father let my little sister and I do whatever we wanted to do and go wherever we wanted to go. I am sure he cared about about what we did but I can't imagine the strain of having to raise two young girls on his own. He was 16 years older than my mother and in his 50's when she became very ill and unable to take care of a family. I think this made his drinking worse and he was drunk more often than not. When my father was sober or slightly inebriated he was wonderful, funny and charming; I loved my father then and could forget the bad times, almost. One evening in the summer of 1980 (I was 13) my little sister and I wanted to go to a movie; Xanadu, I loved that movie! My father said sure but because it would be dark out, when the movie ended, he wanted to be there to walk us home; we lived about 6 or seven blocks from the theater on Colorado Blvd. What a fun time my sister and I had, we threw popcorn at a couple of cute guys in front of us, drank our soda and sang along to ELO (I think this was our 4th time seeing Xanadu). Once over, my sister and I went outside to wait and wait and wait and wait. No Dad. We would have called home but our phone had been disconnected. After about 45 minutes we decided we had to walk home without an escort. We stayed to the lighted streets when we could and were about a block away from home when an old pick-up truck came racing down the road toward us. My sister said she recognized one of the men as our school janitor and waved. The truck made a u-turn and then we noticed there were at least five men in the back whistling at us and not one of them was the janitor from school. RUN RUN! I screamed. We did and luckily we were not followed. When we got back to our little apartment the door was unlocked and we found our father passed out on the couch with a drink spilled on the floor next to him. We tiptoed quietly upstairs to bed. I had trouble falling asleep; the adrenaline from running still pumping through my veins. I hugged and petted my kitten ChaCha and eventually drifted off. The next morning my father didn't even mention not picking us up; I wanted to scream at him for forgetting.