Small Town Kid

I’m in training at work this week and as I’ve sat here with quite a bit of downtime, my mind has wandered to my childhood. Most people are completely aware that I come from a split family…my parents married and divorced twice, truly trying to make things work and give me a loving household and upbringing…trust me, I had both, even if it came from two (or three) households along the way. My parents never said ugly things about one another in front of me, as the years moved on, I saw that my dad wasn’t always a quality time type of individual, but he did try. Unfortunately, he chose a career path that didn’t allow him to be there for everything in my life. I was in the school spelling bee in fifth grade and I wanted him to be there and he said, “If you win it, I’ll be at county”. Well I won it and I was so excited he’d be at county and he said, “Sorry kiddo, if you win it, I’ll be at state”…that’s just the type of man he was. He had awesome intentions, they just hardly ever panned out. But the times I did spend with him, were freakin’ awesome! I went to New York City the summer before sixth grade started because my dad was delivering to a huge project at Madison Square Garden and mom and I got to tag along. I saw real street people, cabs, prostitutes, chaos, the Statue of Liberty, the Twin Towers…it was unreal to see these things, as I’m just a simple, small town girl from Gaston County. Furthermore, if it was a random Friday night and dad had to deliver a weekend run, I’d hop in the 18 wheeler and go see somewhere else in this great country. I might have only seen all these wonderful places from an 18 wheeler windshield, but I was spending time with my daddy and I was on top of the world. I remember other truckers all over the place grinning and commenting on the lil’ girl that could scale the side of an 18 wheeler at seven years old, even though she was so tiny. “Yep”, my daddy would say, “that’s my lil monkey.” He left this world when I was twenty and I still answered to “Monkey” until the day he was gone.

An equal amount of my childhood was spent growing up on a big ol’ farm near the South Carolina state line with the coolest grandma you could ever dream of. Dubbed "Nanny" by all of us grandkids, Dorothy Stockton Bullard was a pistol in every sense of the word. So, when you think of your granny, I bet she bakes cookies and wears dresses and knits blankets…well, my Nanny fried taters, swigged Old Milwaukee and wore jeans and muddy boots. She taught me how to make it in the real world and how to be a tough girl. Thanks to that lady, I can start a fire, cook outside, peel taters, shoot a shotgun, drive a truck, ride a bike, fish with a bamboo stick (because I kept throwing fishing poles in the lake when I got a bite), bait my own hook, pick blackberries without getting stuck by briars…you name it, she taught me! I remember once her biggest hog had piglets and nothing would suit me but to pet a baby pig, but I couldn’t catch one. Those little boogers are fast. So my Nanny gave me a five gallon bucket with some bread in it and I turned the bucket on it’s side and lo and behold, one of those piglets ran in that bucket and I turned the bucket upright. Well, I’ll have you know, that piglet squealed so loud at me, I dropped the bucket and turned the pig loose and ran to the creek to catch tadpoles again. I tried to step onto a bull’s back from the tailgate of the truck once…I landed flat on my back AND got my butt tore up. Life lessons, nothing like ‘em! I stood in the back of the truck for hours on end throwing slices of bread like little frisbees out to those animals. Those were truly the “good ol’ days”. A few years ago, my Nanny became an angel and I can’t think of any better person to hang out up in Heaven. I bet she’s giving that Noah a lesson!

I’m sure you’re wondering where all this reminiscing is coming from, since I rarely speak of these things and this is it. I have a very special person in my life right now who can’t see their daughter. It kills me to see what they go through. The best memories in my life are of my childhood and if I remember the good times, that means if there were bad times, I remember those too. I could have told you just as much about the verbal, mental and emotional abuse I endured from my dad’s side of the family through two divorces, but the good outweighs the bad. No matter what the situation, a child should NEVER be kept from a good parent, just because a marriage didn’t work out. You aren’t hurting anyone in the overall situation except for the CHILD. Yeah, you’re hurting the other parent too, but that’s your intentions, so you see that and nothing else. It truly shows your ignorance. Just because you’re selfish and scorned (due to your own actions, I might add), you scramble your child’s life up with complete disregard and lack of remorse. You make the child’s other parent watch them grow up in pictures because you are that spiteful. I don’t know how you even lay your head down at night and close your eyes with a conscience like that, much less look at your face in the mirror every morning. I’m a firm believer in Karma and I hope when it starts walking a mudhole in your ass, I have a front row seat to watch. People like you do not prosper or win. Trust and believe that with all of your stone, ice cold heart.

End rant…back to the butterflies and unicorns!