Part three : Minnesota

I'll tell you about my hospital stay at a later date.

Part three of many :

Minnesota. Three months.

I remember :

living a month in a train car in a train car park
catching a salamander there
talking with my mom about Martin Luther King there
moving to a four square house near railroad tracks, living on the first floor
the smell of mom's Aquanet
crossing the tracks to visit the corner store
buying wax lips
buying wax pop bottles
buying candy cigarettes
buying blue bubble gum cigars
putting pennies on the track and waiting for the train
stealing straws for spit wad shooters
shooting toilet paper wads on the ceilings at school
making a couple of friends
hanging out around the tracks
having a friend who lost a finger somehow around the tracks
learning how to hop a moving train from that friend
hopping a moving train with that friend
being scared to death until the train stopped in the freight yard a quarter mile down the track
peeing out of the boxcar

I don't remember :

our car
seeing my dad
our kitchen
much about school
getting in trouble
any girls
what my sisters did
having any rules

We finished my third grade there and moved to Glendale Heights near Chicago into an Italian populated townhouse style housing project while my dad managed a Mcdonald's in Maywood. I would begin fourth grade there, but finish the school year bouncing through a couple schools in the Los Angeles area.
This was the year where my parents began their belated, failed attempt at parenting, long after I'd become my own mother and father. It also marked the beginning of the end of their marriage. I never for one second thought my sisters or I were responsible. None of us were more than collateral damage. I was the least scathed.

Back soon with more.