One of My First Memories  − 1 August, 1977

One of my first memories was when my mother was separating from her second husband.  They had been married for 8 months and fought constantly.  I'm not sure about the timing but I think I was 3 or 4 years old at the time.

Our house was on a pretty quiet street.  The sidewalks were a little strange.  There were no curbs.  The sidewalk slanted down from the front of the yard to the edge of the street.  This allowed you to walk on the sidewalk and then step into the street without stepping off of a curb.

I was riding my big wheel on the sidewalk that morning.  I vividly remember my step-dad coming out of the house with a box in his hand.  Right at that moment I rode into the street to avoid a car that was parked up onto the sidewalk.  As I emerged from the front of the parked car, another car was coming from the other direction.  The car swerved to miss me and honked it's horn as it drove by. My step dad yelled at me to get out of the street.  I distinctively remember thinking to myself "you're not my dad anymore, so you don't get to tell me what to do."  I also remember thinking that I was happy that he was leaving. I would take care of my mom.

A couple years ago I shared this memory with my mother, and she told me that right before he came out of the house, she was telling him to come back later to move his stuff out.  She didn't want him to do it in front of me.  It was a strange to know what was happening moments before this memory began.