Chapter 2: Some Very Early Memories

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Some Very early memories


I guess that I was somewhere around the age of 3 years old, when I started asking questions about the difference between myself and other kids. Most children by the age of 2 years old are walking. I could see that kids younger then me were up on thair feet moving around in ways that I couldn’t and I did wonder why and if I would ever be like other kids.When I ask my mother she often said that no one knew exactly why but that I was born handicapped for some special purpose. My parents were told when I was just 18 months old that I had C.P and therefor would probably never walk.

However my parents were not ready to give up and just take no for there answer. For sereveral years they tried every idea or suggestion given to them, in the hope that something would increese my chances of walking someday. I remember my dad spending a lot of his time trying to help train my legs to move in the normal manner. He would hold me upright on my feet and walk with me down our hallway. We thought evenually this effort just might over time teach my legs to move an allow me to start walking. Even though that effort was never sugsessful it did however provide me with some idea of what it feels like to walk leaving me with very special memories of my dad an myself that I will remember as long as I live.

Another early memory I have of my dad is of watching him cut wood with his chainsaw. Something that I always looked forward to each year as dad prepared the seasons firewood. As much as I enjoyed watching him, sometimes the loud sound of the chainsaw nearly made me jump out of my skin. But my memory of all that time spent with dad was well worth it. Oh how I wanted to help him do that so much. In a little childs voice I would ask “CAN I HELP YOU DAD?” and he would say”NO,BUT I KNOW THAT YOU WOULD IF YOU COULD.

1 chore that I did for dad was watering the grass, and not the kind that you smoke haha. Most of the time I did a decent job. Accept for those times when, I either got more water on myself then I did on the grass. Or sometimes if I had the chance I would try and water a moving target. Useally my bother or sister but when I tried that the war was on, haha

As I think back now, I remember two very early memories of my sweet sister and myself whitch are very special to me. Even at a young age, for the most part she wanted to include me in whatever she did. So on Saturday mornings as a favor to me knowing I would want to watch cartoons with her. She would pull me out of bed by my legs and drag me acrossed the floor into the livingroom. It was always a lot of fun for me accept for all the rug burns. At least she kept me from being bord and missing bugs bunney, haha.

The other special memory I will never forget, also deals my transportaion. Only this time it involes my first manual wheelchair an a very sweet sister who was two little to see over the top of it. However she often tried to push my wheelchair wherever I needed to go. I never stoped her because I was so happy she wanted to do it. In the early years we crashed a lot, the wheelchair tiped over and sometimes I came back up bloody. It was painfull and scarey then for both of us but now just a memory that makes us laugh and smile.

Now for some memories of big brother. My big bro is almost 5 years older then I am and I was just beginning to reach the age where I understood what being made fun of felt like. On this summers day I was in my wheelchair in our driveway waiting to play. When the BULLY of our neighborhood saw me, he opened his big fat mouth to pick a fight with me. That was all she wrote, my brother got very angery and went off all over him. My brother chased that BULLY all the way around our block. When they both came back the BULLY named BILLY said that he was very sorry. Plus my big bro let him know if he ever did that again he would be dead meat. That was very special for me to see. This was the very first time my brother ever did that to defend me and man I felt great.

Like a lot of little boys growing up in the late 20th century I loved and admired the police. When my brother was still in school, he took part in a after school jobs program. One of his first real jobs was cleaning police cars for the highway patrol. Knowing just how much
I enjoyed playing cops and robers. One day he came home with a list of police radio and license plate identification codes, for exsample the letter F on a plate means FANK. I used those codes quite often durring my short corereer as the state of california’s finest beat cop ha ha. All thanks to my big brother, it’s funny that after all these years that I would still remember that little act of kindness. I wonder if he will even remember giving me that little gift. I guess I’ll find out when my big bro reads my book.