During the summer before I started high school, the two brothers and their mom moved to a different trailer park. The day they left was a moment that I did not welcome. My friends were moving and I could do nothing to change that.
This made me very, very sad.
While I knew that I would still see them on Saturday mornings at the bowling alley in our bowling league, I also knew that I would not be able to see them every day like before they moved. We would no longer be able to hang out together. I hoped that we could still get together and maybe they could occasionally meet me at Pizza Hut on Wednesday nights.
I think this is the time when I began to feel more alone.
My mom worked during the day during the week, along with some nights and weekends when the casino was very busy. And then she would go out with friends and come home after I had already gone to sleep.
She was rarely home when I really needed her to be home.
And on top of the two brothers moving, the girl that I had a huge crush on and her mom also moved out of the trailer park.
The final straw that broke the camel’s back as they say happened when our neighbors who I occasionally baby sat for and took me to the shooting range moved out of the trailer park too.
So, starting high school with no one that I felt comfortable to really talk to and who would give me support were now gone from my daily life.
And yes, I was still working at the A&W Root Beer restaurant, but things were changing there as well.
And quickly.
The girl who would always make my apron fit perfectly and made me smile when she made sure the front of my apron was perfectly smooth, she left. And my teenage boss was let go because he was using the manager’s office for personal business with some of the other girls working at the restaurant. The working environment just wasn’t the same as when I first was hired.
The show was over.
And as the fall headed towards winter, I became locked into more major struggles as a teenager. I felt doomed.
Fortunately, in my new school things started going better for me and my struggles leveled off. I felt like I could breathe again.
In April, just before my spring recess at culinary school, my mom said she had some news that would make me happy. She announced that we would be moving to a new trailer park in the summer.
“How could moving again make me happy,” I asked her.
She said, “We are moving to the trailer park where the two brothers and their mom moved to.”
I looked at her cautiously and said, “Really!”
She confirmed. And yes, this did make me happy.
I would be with the two brothers again. They were both my friends. I secretly needed them to be back in my life.
I was now happy to move again. The two brothers had become an important part of my life and then they disappeared.
Now they would be back in my life again.
As my summer break at culinary school drew near, I knew that I would need to pack all my stuff for the move. The boxes would stay in the trailer for the move though.
Living in a double wide trailer means that when you move the trailer it needs to be taken apart to be moved. My mom was not buying a new trailer which was okay with me because I liked my room. I liked our trailer home, and I have some good memories here.
I remember the day when the moving team arrived to start taking our trailer apart. We could still stay in the trailer until the utilities were disconnected and the separation was starting.
After that we would have to stay somewhere else.
The two brothers were happy that I was moving to their trailer park. During the move I stayed with them for a couple of days while our trailer was being put back together. It was just like old times being with them.
Once our trailer was fully assembled, my mom and I moved back in. Our boxes were in the trailer and so was our furniture. Within a couple of days our home was fully functioning again.
The two brothers came over and hung out in my room listening to music just like old times. They told me more about the new trailer park and the other teens who lived there.
And there were some new girls who moved into the trailer park in the summer that the two brothers developed an interest in. The younger brother would be luckier with the new girls, more than his older brother.
I had limited interest in a couple of girls since I was still recovering from the past school year. However, I would become more interested as the summer progressed.
For me, the most import part about our move was the two brothers. I don’t think that they ever realized or understood what their friendship meant to me. The two brothers were more than just two brothers to me. They had become, in a big way, a very important part of my life.
And I will be honest. I think I had become a little envious of the younger brother. He had a charisma that the girls were attracted too. He was younger and still had the cute, tanned boy looks that all the girls were chasing at this time in the early 1970’s.
Also included in my new group of friends were several still developing teenage boys and a good mix of cute curious teenage girls. We all started hanging out together on Saturday nights watching TV and listening to the latest songs on the radio. We would also play albums on the record player.
This is the summer when the two brothers and I started drinking Boones Farm with others in our group when we could get it. My favorite was Strawberry Hill.
This is also the time when we began to smoke other things from nature that were hand rolled by the older brother who had become our group’s expert roller. He made the perfect nature stick.
I would ask him what country our nature sticks came from. He would always give me a smile with his response identifying a specific country from an international collection that I was familiar with.
The summer of 1971 would become an important milestone summer in my life. I will be getting my driver’s license in late August after my birthday. I was doing well in culinary school.
And I was happy again hanging out with the two brothers. It was like old times with a twist.
Getting high…
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