2nd thru fourth grades-

2ND GRADE-

It was not any better than the last, and I had he first in a long line of bullies-David. He just push me and make me cry as I did often about the littlest things. He was good at it and gave my life even more negativity. It began in the fall with Mrs. Hubbard as my teacher. I love fall weather and still do to this day. But it also meant that now I had no safe haven. We where asked the first week or two what we did that summer. Others would talks about how their families went on vacations and camped out and had fun things happen. I didn't have that. When I was asked I would say, “Nothing.”

I was still not human because I was not one. I was something else. That is why I had anger and took it out on my brothers. That led to getting into trouble with Chernobyl. Around this time I had two traumas. First my younger brother and I where playing in the dining room of the house we rented on Center street. Apparently we where too loud, so my dad, who was in the adjacent living room came in and forced me, not Michael out and took the plastic baseball bat and swung at me. He tried to hit my backside but missed and blew out my right knee for the first time. I don't remember the next day but I didn't go to school because I couldn't walk.

Maybe it was because of my parents blood feud. You see they split up for awhile before I was in school in Viroqua. Chernobyl had left my dad because he is an alcoholic and lost his job in Readstown working for the town maintenance. I remember the day clearly. She packed up all of our clothes and her dishes. But didn't take the dog or cats, our toys, or anything else but her Elvis records. She pulled my older brother out of school, who was in second grade. He was crying and she was hurrying him up so we could make a quick escape. She took the back roads to My aunt and uncles place outside of Viroqua.

We live DuWayne and Carolyn and their three kids, Laura, Paul and Amy. We where there for four months if I remember. I started pre-school at this time and was afraid to get on the bus. Amy and my older brother had to drag me on. I vaguely remember any of pre-school with Mrs. Krambs. I once was playing next to and electrical outlet and stuck a key into a electrical socket and was electrocuted. What would a normal mother do. Feel bad for her offspring and comfort them? We Chernobyl ripped into me for being dumb and berated me and left me there on the floor to cry as my aunt looked on in horror. My cousin Amy also tried to keep Chernobyl at bay as well, but she was not going to be stopped from exacting revenge on her children for her supposed past.

One good thing is that others saw how she treated her children or us 'brats'. Whatever her past is or was I didn't give her the right to be the abuser. The other thing is that she was into taking over-the-counter and the prescription painkillers. She started on a script called Chlorinil-which she pronounced Chlorininal. She once told me that she took as many as 20-24 Tylenol and ibuprofen a day until she went on the prescriptions. I remember how many she took because my little brother and I used to play with the empty bottles when she couldn't get her scripts.

In second grade I also had my first bad ear infection. My mother made it out to be a burden to take us to the doctor and made damn sure we had to wait and we would go to the smallest clinic in the county-Kickapoo Valley Medical clinic. I lost part of my hearing in my right ear because of the wait.

That is where her dealer-Dr. Devitt was. She always went to him so she could get checked out for her pain from arthritis. Being a former nursing assistant she knew how and what they did, but she continued to do them anyway. At the age of 30-35 she had advanced arteriosclerosis arthritis from popping 20 pills or more a day for at least ten years. That is what destroyed your goddamn joints and immune system because you had to have your 'pain pills!' When she was on them she was good but when she ran out, usually before the script was up she was a pain.

She didn't take me to the doctor this time though. It was usually a half day thing, but my dad took me and we where in and out in a hour. At least being down with an ear infection allowed me to see my grandparents following the checkup. It was nice. I helped them move from the apartment they had in the low income housing to another one in the same building. I was nice to hang out with them and do fun things with my family. My grandfather George would always give us a quarter when we visited. This time he gave me a whole dollar. When I visited his grave not too long ago I left a quarter to him for the pleasant memories.

Trying to adjust to school was a task proving to be difficult. My dad was still unemployed and it didn't help with the worst recession we had at the time. He spent his time assembling jigsaw puzzles and watching television.
He was injured working on his truck at a farm near Readstown where he used to farmhand at. A jack stand fell over trapping him underneath. My mother verbally abused him wasting money for the ambulance ride to Vernon Memorial and verbally abused Bud, the farmhand's son who was helping him, and everyone else involved.

My dad was transferred to La Crosse's Gundersen-Luthuren hospital. This was the first non-school related trip there. My mother's brother drove us there. My dad broke his right arm, separated his left shoulder and broke two ribs.

I went to the doctor again this year when I accidentally slammed my thumb in a car door when closing it. Chernobyl was furious and let me sit in pain as she did the laundry. Eventually I went to Hirsch clinic and got my first x-ray. It was negative but I lost my first fingernail. I also did the dishes for the first time at age seven because the soapy water would help the wound. I also broke my nose and had a bad nosebleed from a line drive softball by my older brother. It was an accident, but Chernobyl didn't have any simpathy for it.

Rules number 2-There is no such things as accidents, they are all mistakes.

So no job yet again following the four months of recovery. We eventually moved from that house on Center street to the house my mother inherited from her late aunt June. This would be known as the domain of evil as it was the place I went after school. It was no house nor home but simply the place I kept my stuff for the next eleven years.

How can a home or house be so bad. Keep reading.

3rd grade-

I still didn't have any social skill. Just like this sentence I had no idea how to be. I learned personal space from my desk mate, as we had double seated desks that shared once table top. In would go into his stuff without permission, only to find out that this was wrong, unbeknownst to me. All of the class was together for the first time as the students from Liberty pole grades 1-2 came to the main school now. So we have more new student show I had no idea how to talk to.

At this time my mother became a fully devoted member of the Jehovah's witness's and as usual she bitched about everything about it. I really think it was to push us kids further in not being accepted by others because no one like someone who is different.

Maybe that's why some kids from the fourth grade trampled me down one afternoon and blew my knee out for the second time. My cousin Jessica and next door neighbor had to carry me into school and to my class.




4th grade-

Everyone else's emotional and mental well being-on par. Mine-far behind.

Fourth grade started up and went downhill from there. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Welch was fine but this year I had a male teacher-Mr. Weltzin. He didn't last long because a student filed a sexual harassment claim, which I think was false, but nevertheless he was fired. Then began the long line of six substitute teachers, among them Mrs. Hoffland, Mrs. Getter and Mrs. King.

The class was in chaos. One morning I went up the stair to the class on the third floor and the door was locked. I saw kids in there so I knocked and asked to come in and they said no. The where flashing the lights on and off and using the overhead projector as a disco ball. They didn't get into trouble for it either. My tormenter for this year was Eric. He was a wise ass little shit who always made me look bad and him good. He once took my moon boots-winter snow boots and disposed of them in the girls bathroom. Try to explain why I was wearing my school shoes home to Chernobyl. I went home crying and was forced back by Chernobyl, because the school was half a block from the house. They found them, sprayed with hairspray, in the toilet. Eric had stated that he would take them and others heard him. But I got in trouble with the school counselor Mr. Fischel and Chernobyl for lying. I also got the belt when I went home.

The belt- 'which if us brats didn't behave we would get a whipping. Spare the rod spoil the child.'

It was a 1 ¾ inch by 60 inch by ¼ inch thick real leather belt my dad used as intended until he got a new one. It hung by the stairway as a reminder for us. She would relish if we didn't behave we would get the ¼ inch thick belt. My brothers where not whipped as much as I. They also where treated better than me. I shared a bed with my little brother until we got bunks. My older brother had a dresser all to himself and my little brother and I shared one until Chernobyl put and end to that. We then got a big heavy table which I improvised a shelf on the bottom. This is where I had my clothes along with an old display clothes hanger. Whenever my brothers got hurt they went to the hospital and received proper care. When I did, I got shit on. Do you see a pattern forming here?

I was in the fourth grade but played like I was in kindergarten because I didn't have a normal life like everyone else.