Chickens, aquariums and white plastic tea cups...
I saw a post on SPO about chickens tonight and it reminded me that I had had chicken as a child, so I wanted to write about them tonight...
Anyways, I had chickens as a child when I was living with my aunt and uncle. My mom was sick with some form of cancer and I had been sent to foster care until my uncle could make the trip from Florida to bring me home. This was after child services took me away from my father who was supposed to be caring for me while mom was sick. A few months after I was sent to live with them my mom came to join us and we all lived together for a long time, or at least it seemed long to me.
I was close to my two cousins, Jenny, who is in her late 20's now, and Jessica who is 6 months older then I am, Jenny was probably 13 or so, at the time, (even though she always seemed so much older then us) and Jessica and I were both 6 or so, I don't think we had started first grade yet...
So about the chickens, my uncle brought them home (for me Jessica I think) one summer and built a big fenced in kennel type area with a little coop for them to sleep in and a lean to roof for shade. i can't even remember what we called them of what specific type they were, but I really liked those chickens.
At the time we were living in a house with a stretch of woods in the back, some cow and horse pastures down the road, and across the street there was this girl who kept tormenting our chickens. She would throw rocks at them or chase them around and try to kick them, I think her name was Rea. (pronounced Ree) After talking to her parents, which did no good, my uncle decided the chickens pen needed a lock on it, figuring that the girl would leave them alone after that.
It didn't unfortunately, and one day my uncle came out to find all but one of our chickens dead. The one who survived had been hurt so badly my uncle had no choice but to do the right thing and put her down. Now I didn't see the chickens, or the state they were in when they were found, my uncle made sure of that, but I knew when he told me they had died that Rea had done it. The adults eventually came to the same conclusion and went to go talk to her parents.
Her parents of course got angry and defensive, upset that we would even suggest such a thing. So nothing ever came of it. Time passes and school starts, Rea begins to bully my cousin and I, and so I stand up for us even though this girl was huge compared to me, and I was never a skinny child. She was also taller, but that wasn't really anything new, I was the shortest child int he whole school, (no exaggeration, Im a midget and have always been small) but despite that I picked a fight, or rather Rea said I picked a fight while trying to defend myself against her and her big brother.
During this fight Rea brags to me that she had killed our chickens, and she laughed about it! What kind of child is so messed up that she would kill defenseless chickens then brag about it to the owners? I don't remember much after that, I heard Rea moved away sometime after my mom and I had found our own house close by.
Why do I remember all of this now? usually my childhood is locked away in whatever part of my mind that was damaged by the amnesia I suffered from a head injury. Why do these memories come back to me at the oddest of times? why can I not remember the good along with the bad?
I remember being abused by my father, him hitting me and "punishing" me when I cried over a slap to the face he had given me, I remember the smell and feel of ice cold beer as it ran over my head and face when he threw his half empty cans at me all the time, having to drink from the bathroom sink out of a white plastic tea cup when I had to go pee because he refused to let me have anything to eat or drink. All of the good memories of those times Im sure were there are gone.
Like the time he took mom and me to the aquarium, I remember the aquarium, remember how much fun I had, but I don't remember him being the one who took us, or even being there with us at all. I remember the place we went to see a civil war cannon and battle reenactment, the old prison where Geronimo had been held, how mom couldn't climb down the stairs to the dungeon to see the cells, but again, I don't remember these things as things he did with us.
My memory is such a tricky thing, and I will probably forget all of this tomorrow, but right now its as clear as if it happened yesterday, all fresh and raw. It hurts now like it must have hurt then, my chickens, the fight, all these memories of my father that aren't really memories of him at all, just recollections of times when I was younger, some happy, some sad, and all of them confusing.
Maybe they never happened? Maybe I remember wrong. Maybe the abuse he put me through and all the happy times as well never happened. But if they never happened why do I remember them so well?
Anyways, I had chickens as a child when I was living with my aunt and uncle. My mom was sick with some form of cancer and I had been sent to foster care until my uncle could make the trip from Florida to bring me home. This was after child services took me away from my father who was supposed to be caring for me while mom was sick. A few months after I was sent to live with them my mom came to join us and we all lived together for a long time, or at least it seemed long to me.
I was close to my two cousins, Jenny, who is in her late 20's now, and Jessica who is 6 months older then I am, Jenny was probably 13 or so, at the time, (even though she always seemed so much older then us) and Jessica and I were both 6 or so, I don't think we had started first grade yet...
So about the chickens, my uncle brought them home (for me Jessica I think) one summer and built a big fenced in kennel type area with a little coop for them to sleep in and a lean to roof for shade. i can't even remember what we called them of what specific type they were, but I really liked those chickens.
At the time we were living in a house with a stretch of woods in the back, some cow and horse pastures down the road, and across the street there was this girl who kept tormenting our chickens. She would throw rocks at them or chase them around and try to kick them, I think her name was Rea. (pronounced Ree) After talking to her parents, which did no good, my uncle decided the chickens pen needed a lock on it, figuring that the girl would leave them alone after that.
It didn't unfortunately, and one day my uncle came out to find all but one of our chickens dead. The one who survived had been hurt so badly my uncle had no choice but to do the right thing and put her down. Now I didn't see the chickens, or the state they were in when they were found, my uncle made sure of that, but I knew when he told me they had died that Rea had done it. The adults eventually came to the same conclusion and went to go talk to her parents.
Her parents of course got angry and defensive, upset that we would even suggest such a thing. So nothing ever came of it. Time passes and school starts, Rea begins to bully my cousin and I, and so I stand up for us even though this girl was huge compared to me, and I was never a skinny child. She was also taller, but that wasn't really anything new, I was the shortest child int he whole school, (no exaggeration, Im a midget and have always been small) but despite that I picked a fight, or rather Rea said I picked a fight while trying to defend myself against her and her big brother.
During this fight Rea brags to me that she had killed our chickens, and she laughed about it! What kind of child is so messed up that she would kill defenseless chickens then brag about it to the owners? I don't remember much after that, I heard Rea moved away sometime after my mom and I had found our own house close by.
Why do I remember all of this now? usually my childhood is locked away in whatever part of my mind that was damaged by the amnesia I suffered from a head injury. Why do these memories come back to me at the oddest of times? why can I not remember the good along with the bad?
I remember being abused by my father, him hitting me and "punishing" me when I cried over a slap to the face he had given me, I remember the smell and feel of ice cold beer as it ran over my head and face when he threw his half empty cans at me all the time, having to drink from the bathroom sink out of a white plastic tea cup when I had to go pee because he refused to let me have anything to eat or drink. All of the good memories of those times Im sure were there are gone.
Like the time he took mom and me to the aquarium, I remember the aquarium, remember how much fun I had, but I don't remember him being the one who took us, or even being there with us at all. I remember the place we went to see a civil war cannon and battle reenactment, the old prison where Geronimo had been held, how mom couldn't climb down the stairs to the dungeon to see the cells, but again, I don't remember these things as things he did with us.
My memory is such a tricky thing, and I will probably forget all of this tomorrow, but right now its as clear as if it happened yesterday, all fresh and raw. It hurts now like it must have hurt then, my chickens, the fight, all these memories of my father that aren't really memories of him at all, just recollections of times when I was younger, some happy, some sad, and all of them confusing.
Maybe they never happened? Maybe I remember wrong. Maybe the abuse he put me through and all the happy times as well never happened. But if they never happened why do I remember them so well?