So when I was about 16 yrs old I was having a hard time with life at home and school was really, really stupid.
My mother was engaged to this moron named Paul. Ugh I really, really hated him. I was 16 and he was 40 something but I swear he was the biggest baby when he didn't get his own way. He was a paraplegic. He wore a colostomy bag and my sisters and I called him Pee Pee Paul. Not to his face of course. We weren't that mean. We also referred to this as my mother's Florence Nightingale stage of her life. Anywho her wedding date was set and all the matchbooks were ordered for the reception, but one thing was missing..a Maid Of Honor.
What made me hate him the most was when she and Paul left for a vacation on Easter weekend. Easter Sunday I sat at home alone eating ramen noodles. She pulled in the driveway in her car that she had converted so he could drive it yet I wasn't allowed to drive it and took cabs to work. She came in the house and told me to stop eating my ramens ( I think they were ham and green bean casserole flavored..you know holiday ramens right?) and bring the suitcases in from the car. That was the low point in my life I swear.
When my mother asked me to be Maid of Honor at her wedding to him (maybe she thought buying me a dress would change my attitude.. who knows) I wrote a long letter to her telling her I would be a hypocrite if I were to stand up for her.. and left it on the kitchen counter and hit the road for a couple of days. My version of running away. I think I made it to Worcester that day and then a few day later I made it back to Beverly and was staying with my sister.
Sometime later.. a day, a week, I'm really not sure about the time frame.. my sister and I went to the Navy recruiting station in Salem. We sat and talked to Chief Petty Officer Grubbs. He told me I was eligible to enlist even though I was NOT a high school graduate but because I was not 18 I did need my mother to sign me in. I would have had my father do it but he died when I was 8.
Mother went to the recruiting station and met Chief Petty Officer Grubbs. She signed me in and I left for boot camp December 23rd 1985. I met my husband while stationed on board the USS Puget Sound. We married August 29th 1987. I was honorably discharged September 17th 1987. I stood as Matron of Honor at my mothers wedding when she married Chief Petty Officer Grubbs.....
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