Hey kids, I know all of you read the last post, so I'll get on with it and continue the tale of the coldest place I've ever lived. We moved in as I said, and the next thing I did was sit down and write letters to my friends and boy friend. I thought to myself, if I keep in touch with everyone it won't be so bad. The neighbors were very snoopy, and watched us move in with binoculars. So I opened the blinds and curtains and my brother and I put on a show for them and danced and waved our fannies at them. I can just imagine how huffy that made them! They didn't like outsiders, but then I didn't like them either so that was fine with me!
The weather was humid and we had occasional bouts of rain during the rest of the summer. I got letters from my best friend, and finally my boyfriend wrote and told me he had gone on one of the cruise ships that went to Alaska as a bus-boy and got to see his Dad and Stepmom. Having heard from everyone, I felt better and began making life interesting for the snooty folks in Minnesota. One snowy day I put on my tights, my shorts and sweatshirt, and my coat over it and it looked for all the world like I didn't have anything on but tights and my coat! Then I went to one of the grocery stores, and as always, one of the clerks started following me around the store. He was at one end of the aisles and I was at the other. He was so busy watching me that he walked into a display of cans of soup. Cans went everywhere and I laughed and left the store. I was very conceited I guess, but I didn't mean to be. I had always been fat, and before we left Kodiak to come to the states I lost a lot of weight. Then my last year of high school, I was in California and I did a lot of walking because the weather was so great, and I lost more weight. In Minnesota, I danced the rest of it off, so I only weighed 125 lbs. and had my long hair, and all the girls in Minnesota wore their hair short and most of them were blonde. My hair was really dark brown with red and gold highlights.
So, anyway, I didn't make any friends while I was there, and soon the weather got really bad. The snow started in November and it was 55 degrees below zero before the winter ended. I got really sick with a bad sore throat, cough, congestion and aches and pains, but I refused to go to the doctor. Punishing my parents I guess. One night I was so depressed and miserable that I took a shower and then went outside without a coat. My hair was wet and my pores were open from the hot shower, but I guess I didn't realize that it was so cold all the germs were dead!!
Then, I was quite alone there and for a reason I didn't understand at the time, I got interested in reading the Bible, and all the sets of books from when I was in school. I found it helped me to fill the time and educate myself since I couldn't afford to go to college up there. There were no job opportunities either. The only industry that existed there was the paper-mill and I think everyone in town worked there. But all I could think about was turning 18 and going back to San Diego.
There were times when I was so depressed I didn't get dressed, or somdays didn't even get out of bed. I don't know how long I was like that, but when I'd look in the mirror, I didn't look like me to myself. I didn't know what that meant, but when I finally came out of the depression, all my white clothes in the closet had turned yellow, and a lot of my favorite dresses and outfits were in the closet floor. No one noticed though, and I stayed in my room most of the time and refused to even eat. I didn't know how sick I was, but it went away on it's own.
Then one night, I was sick again and my ribs hurt so much I thought I had pneumonia. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't eat or sleep and I actually prayed that God would let me die. My parents were fighting, my little brother was crying, and poor little Jan was hiding in the closet biting her fingernails. I actually couldn't take anymore pain and I just wanted to die. Some how I finally drifted off to sleep. The next morning, I felt different. I felt like someone else. I could breathe, and my ribs didn't hurt and I actually saw my parents through different eyes. I felt pity for them, but I knew I had to leave and follow this new inner knowing I had been given. I stopped hearing from my boyfriend in February, and by May when the snow had melted, I got money from my Mom and Grandmother and bought a ticket back to San Diego.
My parents took me to the airport in St. Paul, and I said goodbye to all of them, walked across to the plane and got onboard without even turning around. Then the airplane taxied to the runway and I was soon airborne and on my way home.
I didn't know what awaited me, but I didn't really care. I'd be home and I could handle anything as long as I was back in California. Or so I thought.
My friend Billie had talked to her Mom Pauline, and asked if I could stay with them. Pauline and I had always gotten along and she said I could stay as long as I helped Billie with the house work. I said no problem, and so they met me at the airport. When the plane was coming in to land, all the lights of San Diego turned on and I felt like it was a welcome home! I met up with Billie and her friend Ruth and Pauline, and then I picked up my luggage. I brought my stereo and my Beatle records and my clothes. I had so much luggage I had to pay an extra $65.00 just to bring it all. But we got everything in the trunk of the car and we were on our way to Paulines' house.
The next few days were a lot of fun. I had called my Mom the night I got there and she asked if I was happy now? I said I was very happy, so over the next few weeks she sent me money, not a lot, but enough to buy the necessities. Billie and I signed up at Southwestern to take some evening classes, and during the day, we'd clean if we needed to, visit friends, go for walks, sunbathe and just generaly hang out and have fun. Pauline decided to take a vacation and she took us to Reno, Nevada to visit some friends of hers and for them to gamble in the casinos. We came back through Lake Tahoe and down to San Diego. The trip was fun, but I really missed my family. More than I could have thought possible.
Billie and Ruth and a friend of theirs named Nelda were sort of wild and though I had lost weight and had had fun teasing the boys in Minnesota, I was so naiive. I wasn't prepared for the things that would happen and I certainly wasn't interested in any of the guys the girls would pick up when they went cruising in San Diego. One night they picked up 2 sailors and took them to their home. They all went in and I had to, or stay in the car. The guys poured them drinks, but told me they didn't put anything in mine because I wasn't like the other girls.
I didn't drink it anyway, and after about an hour, the other girls came staggering out of the back of the apartment, and were running for the door. I followed gladly and they all jumped in the car and took off. It was a bad enough experence for me that I never trusted them again and wouldn't go with them when they went out cruising.
My depression was coming back, and when we went up by my Mom's old house, it didn't even look slightly familiar to me. I was always the one the guys wanted to dance with, and Billie began to hate me. The girls had all gained weight while I was gone, and I had lost about 30 more lbs. Then, Billie's cousin Freddie who was a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton just up the coast, started coming down to see her. Soon he started paying attention to me, and Billie had a crush on him even though he was her step-cousin. She really hated me for that even though I had told him I wasn't interested. I was already crazy about somone else even though I hadn't heard from him in so long. Then one night, I walked up to the pay phone at the end of the street with Billie and we called my boyfriends number to see if he might be there. He answered the phone and was so surprised that it was me. I told him I was here in San Diego and the conversation went ok. But I was really mad at him for not writing and I told him to write before I hung up.
A week passed and I got a letter. But it was very casual, like we were just friends. He had written to me that he loved me and begged me to come back to San Diego, and then the letters stopped coming. I was really worried and spent months trying to locate him. I should have stayed in Minnesota until I heard from him, but I loved him. I wanted to be in California anyway, but I came back for him. Just think. If I hadn't come back, I would never have met Grandpa and none of you would be here. Isn't that an odd feeling? Anyway, I wrote him another letter and told him he owed me an explanation. I was really mad, but I had sort of given up on hearing from him. Then, he told me in another letter that he was gay. I didn't believe him. But when I read the letter, I felt like someone had hit me over the head with a brick or something. I was already sick, and his letter on top of it was more than I could take. Grandma got very sick, but in the meanwhile, my Dad got his duty station changed to the USS Constellation which is a carrier ship that carries airplanes when they go out to sea.
My parents decided to move back to San Diego and back into the house we had lived in before. Billie and Pauline had treated me so bad, that I packed all my things a week in advance of my parents coming back. The night they got there, I was already packed and I hurried and put all my things in the car and laid down on the backseat of the car and cried myself sick. Everything was ruined. Not only would I never see my boyfriend again, everyone that I thought were my friends turned against me. Little did I know at the time, but all the things I had read in the Bible gave me strength to deal with the rejection and being alone once again.
When my family finally came out of the house, we went to a motel for the night and I was so glad to be back with them. I hugged all of them, but I was really sick and couldn't really focus on anything. They had to find our furniture and get us all moved back into the house and my Dad had to do a few more months in Minnesota. After we were moved in, he left and it was just Mom and us kids. I really wasn't myself and for months I laid around the house just staring off into space. One day, I finally started feeling better. I actually went outside and helped them plant some trees. I had cut off all friendship with Billie and Pauline and all my phoney friends. I was alone, but I was ok and I knew I'd found something in Minnesota that helped me deal with everything I would face in the future. My Dad had been right in insisting that I go with them to Minnesota. I had found a force so great that I was able to overcome the pain and disappointment I would have to face when I left home and flew back to California.
This may be a little mature for you to understand. I apologize if you are confused, and I will answer any questions you may have. I will close for now, because the next post will tell you about my new life here in San Diego and all the things I was able to overcome. It all ties in to what I did in Kodiak when I accepted Christ as my personal Savior. It will make a beautiful gift from the rag- tag life my friends left me with. It will also show that there's a reason for all the things that happen. Even when we can't see why something happened, we learn to have faith in something greater than ourselves. I overcame a lot. But there would be more trials in the future and I will leave that for next time!
Love you so much,
Grandma
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