The years of awareness

Christmas for 1969 was bleak for us. We used a string of green lights, and taped them to a wall in the shape of a Christmas tree. For a little kid you don't notice that times are hard, everything was an adventure for me. My dad was going to hospitals on a weekly basis for his dysentery, but he still tried to sell magnetic signs. My mom found a job as a case worker for the welfare department, when she applied for welfare...go figure. They found a nursery school to put me into, so my mom and I, would ride the bus to nursery school, she would drop me off and pick me up again after work. She would also make my dad his lunch for while he was out selling. Some days he would go to the hospital and take me with him. I remember they had an argument about how he found a hair in the sandwich, and he made her eat the hair in front of him. Then he would take her in the other room and I would hear whack, whack. She would come out crying, but I figured that he was whacking her on the back side, like he would do to me when I was bad. I was quite inventive at 4 years old. My dad would use a paddle from a paddle ball toy to hit me on the behind. Well I started hiding it form him in all kinds of places around the house. Almost always, by the time he found the paddle he calmed down and would not hit me. By the time I was 5 the paddle broke on my behind, and that is when he would use his belt, which I could not hide.
Around this time I realized that I had a brother, well a half brother. My dad was married in 1960, because it was the thing to do when you knocked up a woman. They fought like cats and dogs, from my dad's account the barely made it through the honeymoon. My dad at one point in the honeymoon left her standing at the train station, and told her to go on the honeymoon by yourself, but he came back. His first wife was German and American Indian, so as my dad would put it stubborn and fought with everything from her teeth and finger nails. My dad wanted a divorce, but she said no, so my dad had a private investigator follow her. My dad informed her that she was being followed, and knowing her sexual prowls it would only be mater of time before she slipped up. She readily signed the divorce papers, but wanted my dad to sign papers putting my unborn brother up for adoption. He refused to sign any such papers. So that is how I ended up with my older brother.
My dad would rent a car for the weekends that my brother would visit us. He lived about 100 miles away, so every other weekend we would make the trip up to get him and bring him back. My brother was a few years older than me, and it was great when he was here, because my dad and mom were in a good mood and me and my mom would never get punished when he was around. We went on a few vacations where we went camping and to amusement parks, there was one place where they flew old ford tri-motor planes from the 1920's. We would go sled riding in the winter, where my dad dad would lay down on the old radio flyer sled and I or my brother would lay on his back. To this day I don't know how that old sled stayed together. About 4 years old my dad started teaching me to spell. he would have a list of simple words, like hot,pot, mop, top, tap, lap etc. and would have me spell and say the words every night before bed. About this time hen my mom was picking me up from nursery school, I saw an artist painting across the street, so I lagged behind to watch him (my curiosity) A few weeks later a picture of me was in our local paper. This artist was painting Victorian era buildings, and I guess he could not resist putting a curious little boy in the painting, which happen to win a top prize in a art contest. (That was probably my 15 minutes of fame) Around this time I started kindergarten and then at 5,I started first grade. I started noticing a few things that I didn't understand. My mom and dad opened a post office box up several miles from home, and then they started visiting with couples, that I never saw before. A short time after they met they would send me to a room to take a nap, and wake me a couple of hours later. Also when my dad would punish my mom, I would start paying attention to the sounds. I knew that he was not hitting her with the paddle, since it was broke, and the belt on the behind would make a different noise. I heard whack, whack, then a slight clank. I would go in the other room when nobody was around and pick up things that he could use to hit her and put them down to see if i could make the slight clank noise that he made. As of yet I could not figure it out.
Mister Rodgers was my favorite show. He had one show about how to help your parents. He said you should wash your hands before your meals, eat all your vegetables, and go to bed when you are told. Well I started to think, how is this going to help my parents? I am going to do something that will really help them. So I decided to cook breakfast. At 5 AM I turned on the stove and started putting things into a pot. Well my parents woke to the aroma of melting plastic, I ended up burning the pot handle. Undaunted I decided I was going to help paint. So I went down to the cellar, and I saw a can of spray paint high on the shelf. I pushed together all the junk I could find to make an improvised ladder, and made it to the shelf. I wanted to see what color the paint was so I pushed the button on top, and wham something was in my eye. I put the can back and pushed the pile of junk back to where everything was originally. There it was all back to the way it was and nobody would know. I came upstairs and my mom said what were you doing...I said timidly,"nothing". My mom called my dad into the room, and he ask,"were you painting something" to which I answered, no. Then he asked,"well, how did you get blue paint around your eye?" Well, I knew I was busted, and tried to explain how Mr. Rodgers inspired me, but it was no use and I was punished with the belt.