'Coz Someday, Somebody Might Wonder...

This will likely be a series of posts, because there is a lot of stuff I want to write about - the history of Spoiled Rottenweilers, music, family, etc... mostly unrelated topics, but each a part of my life.
When my mom died, I never realized til it was too late how many stories about her life were left half-finished, stories about her running off to CA in her teens, what all she did there, her marriage to my Dad, her early childhood, I have all these fragments but no way to put any of them together - and it makes me sad that so much of her history was lost because I was too young, she was too busy, then I was too busy, then she was too sick, and then.... she was gone. I don't want that to be how it is with my daughter, or sister, or grandbaby, or anyone. So I have decided to use my little platform here to make sure they have more than fragments to cry over with regret if time runs out. After all, we all lead lives, have families, jobs, responsibilities, and all that normal-life stuff & our conversations usually focus mostly on the present. 
Of course, as I have proclaimed since the day I wrote my first blog post,
"(And) I Don't Care Who Knows It" means exactly that- this is not personal, or private, if you are bored or just curious, feel free to see what I have to say- hell some of it I know will be pretty interesting even to a stranger.
Just wanted to give anyone who cares a little heads-up - probably be seeing more notifications from me here than usual.
It took longer than I would have thought to actual get started but, here we go.

Mid-Late 70's (little kid yrs)
In my head tonight -- this long tale is a bit on the personal side, but I warned ya it would be that way sometimes. And I don't want to sound like a whiny brat, I am just remembering -to the best of my ability, almost half a century later- some of the insanity of my formative years in that crazy era.
When my parents divorced, it was around 1975. I was 8 that year, my little brothers were 4 & 2. I didn't know any other kids with divorced parents, not then- or for quite a few years after. What I did know was that we no longer lived in the beautiful 2-story house on a lake in Georgia, with our parents - nope, we now lived in a one-bedroom cabin in Florida at my Aunt & Uncle's fish camp. All four of us, one bedroom. My Aunt and Mom were sisters. Momma had returned home, but no prodigal daughter was she. She came with 3 spoiled kids (I admit it, but it was she who did it) who didn't quite know if we were in the middle of an adventure or a disaster. Both my mom's sisters still lived in the small rural county she was born and raised in, still married to their husbands - all our cousins were significantly older than us (high school (at the least) to my 4th grade) and established by the names of their fathers in ways my brothers and I would never get the chance to be. My grandmother also still lived there, but she was on hubby 3 or maybe 4, by the time we got there. That first year, all my teachers, from the moment they learned "who I was" (which meant, who I was related to, of course)  dubbed me "Little C***** M*****" after my poised, perfect, perky, & pretty majorette older cousin - who, in reality, I didn't resemble much at all, in looks, or personality, or really anything! But I did learn to twirl a baton pretty quick - she was GOOD and she was a good teacher, and I wanted so badly to be like her, to fit in so perfectly, like she did. See, back in Georgia, I had tap, ballet, music lessons, the works, but down in Florida, money was scarce and Cousin C let me join her classes and march in the parades wearing her mini-majorette uniform for free. So baton it was to be. And I loved it. I even grew to love being nicknamed Little C***** - for a while at least. It gave me a sense of place and belonging in a world I was thrust in to.
But it didn't take long to get hit with one of the first hard truths of my childhood - poor kids with no dad & small towns don't mix too well. Cousin C graduated high school & left for college (of course) so there were no more parades, baton lessons, fitting in by holding on to her coat-tails. I was suddenly...just...me. And my dad was... who? some invisible dude from Georgia who had already remarried & cut his only 3 kids out of his life like loose strings on a jacket. He quit paying child support before the ink had even dried on the court order, and back then out of state might as well have been out of this galaxy. Nobody cared. Mom struggled and did her best, but extras were just not available, unless they were free. (Like our lunches, and our hand-me-down clothes) And speaking of hand-me-down clothes, you are gonna LOVE this little side-story...
It would have been totally amazing - had there been fewer years between my cousins and I - at least in terms of those hand-me-downs. BUT, by the time it mattered in a sense of social only teens can understand - they were off living adult lives, those clothes were long-since handed to someone else, and so, MY wardrobe came from... My grandmothers closest friend & neighbor... An Oriental woman, old enough to be my grandmother - who was the same height as me, at least my 6th grade year. BUT height was the only place we were equal. Her waist was several inches bigger than mine, and yet her bra size (in terms of inches, that is) was several inches larger than mine, too - but her cup size was significantly smaller. So nothing ever fit right, no matter what. I looked like some kind of freak-show as I began middle school - the years when this kind of stuff really starts to matter. Doomed. Seriously.
Since I had not yet grasped the situation I was in, I foolishly tried out for cheerleading that first year of junior high, and somehow my lack of local pedigree had not yet caught on - because I made the squad. I deserved to. I was GOOD -but like I said, I was still naive, I thought good was all it took. Not my cousin's squad, so uniforms had price tags, and were mandatory. Camp was mandatory (only a week (or was it 2)?) didn't matter, what is was NOT was free. And no way was that kind of thing in the budget. But I had made the squad & I was terrified that, if I had to quit because of MONEY, I would forever be doomed to a status lower than anyone in history. (teen age angst and drama, Lord help us all, sadly funny - but still sad)
So, I begged my mom for the chance to earn the money, and she agreed. In summer months, she always worked the fields- picking bell peppers, cukes, whatever was available- and she got me a spot doing the same. I was almost 12, and only good for about half-a-day, but I picked my little heart out, and credit to those who made the decisions, I got paid for every single hour I worked that summer, the same amount everybody else on our "crew" got paid. Usually after lunch, this girl could be found under a tree somewhere snoring - but half a day was enough to not only pay for camp, and my uniforms, but even to buy some clothes that fit both physically and in terms of style. I just knew I was going to love this year, and all the years to follow! Silly, silly foolish girl. I came so close...
First of all, I never thought (and no one ever dropped a hint) about getting to and from the games. We were expected to have someone - a parent, whatever to get us there. That year, my mom was in West Palm Beach (don't ask please, let me just say "loony bin" and please just let it go). My grandma already thought that the whole thing was getting "way out of hand" (my cheerleading, center of attention, selfishness that was) and in fact, not one blood relative of mine ever came to a single game to see me cheer. My step-grandfather did, though, oh, yeah. and not just to watch me cheer, but so I could enjoy the privilege of getting to sit on his lap and learn to drive on the way to and from those games. Yeah, gross. And yet, no one ever once said
"Inappropriate" back then. NOBODY.
What that did, in effect, was cause me to dread every game, and hate being a cheerleader, and further isolate me from every single person - boy or girl - I might otherwise have developed any relationship with. I knew how screwed up it was, but that kind of stuff, well, you didn't talk about back then. Trust me, I know - and I got to learn why first-hand.
I already had made an error in judgement that was disastrous- I didn't budget for bras when I was buying my school clothes with the money I worked so hard for. Honestly, it never crossed my mind, I hadn't been wearing them that long at that point, and by the time I realized, the money had been spent. Imagine, too lose around and too tight in the cup, what an odd sight my pre-teen breasts were to my classmates in the bleachers, on the field, their families, my teachers, the world... No one ELSE'S breasts looked so odd and so off, so naturally, the only possible reason HAD to be that I STUFFED MY BRA! Of COURSE that HAD to be it! So, now I get to be molested to and from every game by the perverted pedophile my grandma married, cotton balls thrown at me in the bathrooms, on the bus to and from school, in class, it's a wonder I didn't just disappear. But survival was in my blood and the worse it got, the more outrageous I became. After that first year, I decided I was "done cheering" (knowing that they would never vote me on the squad again, saving myself that humiliation, at least). I got suspended from the bus for pulling shirt and odd-fit bra up and flashing everybody - yelling YEAH I DO STUFF MY BRA, BUT I STUFF IT WITH SKIN! That stunt got me a week off the bus (but yet all those flying cotton balls and catcalls of "STUFFER" never got anyone punished - not once)_- that was when I started ripping my clothes on purpose and learning all the words to every song by Heart, Pat Benatar, Stevie Nicks, Quarterflash, etc... and singing in to my hairbrush in front of the mirror preparing for a rock-n-roll lead singer life that would leave this small town full of small minds in the dust. That was when I told my grandmother, aunts, cousins, and mom about "grampa" and his "driving lessons" - my grandma actually called me a liar, said I "asked for it" basically, and continued to do so even after more than one of my older cousins said he also did the same to them when they were my age. Yeah, STOP right there. I had cousins and Aunts who KNEW what this sob was likely to do to me, and just turned away and LET IT HAPPEN TO ME. How screwed up is YOUR family? Bet not many of my age group can top this family o' mine.
And better yet, when I told my mother, she checked herself out of the loony bin, came and scooped me and brothers up and whisked us off to west palm, FREE AT LAST, PARADISE FOR REAL. Only to crack up again a couple of short months later, and thanks to me and my big mouth, going back to grandma's was not an option. so we got put in foster homes (separated from each other) - and believe it or not, my "foster parents" were all about education- educating young girls on how to properly perform blowjobs, especially. Wifey taught, her hubby was the "practice dummy" - and did I ever tell? FUCK NO. I'd already seen what doing THAT could get you. Funny end-note on that, can you believe that I recently saw wifey's picture on Facebook? Close to 40 years later, hell I am older now than she probably was then, and looking at some random friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend's page and her face pops out at me, and it's really HER! What would YOU do in this position? Guess what, I am not telling what I did. Think what you will.
Anyway, that is where I close this bit of ancient history. Told ya it was gonna be random, if I didn't tell ya it might be a bit odd, you either should have already known that, or you don't know me at all. :) Hopefully more cheerful stuff next time, but no guarantees. Gotta love the use of the word "cheer-ful" right?