Dad-General Motors

 Dad worked in General Motors for about 23 years- the 1960s-1980s. He started out on the assembly line. I am pretty sure that he was putting the tires on the cars. Then he became a forklift operator.

These photos are from the early-mid-1980s.

1985

Dad's lunchbox

Dad- Grill Guy

 The first photo is from a family summer party in 1968 and the second from about 25 years later

The Sandbox

Here I am having some fun in my sandbox in 1971. I was only about a year and a half so I can't remember this. My earliest memory is not a happy one like this, it's of my dad carrying me in the cemetary and accidentally burning my arm with his cigarette. I see that he is smoking in this photo too. I was probably around 3 or 4 when that happened. It seems that my most vivid memories are often the upsetting ones. What are some of your earliest memories?

Classic Horror Movies

I don't have that many happy memories of my Dad. He basically was distant and thought of himself as the King of the Household so most of them are negative. I do remember enjoying watching the horror movies of the 1930s with him. We liked Dracula, The Wolfman, The Mummy, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. I don't really associate with my Dad much and haven't since even a year or 2 before my parent's divorce in 1992. I can't help having this feeling that God is displeased with me because of this.

My Ginger pup

I think about my dog Ginger alot. I only had her for about 7 years but it should have been longer. She was really sick but my dad wouldn't pay the vet bill to find out what was wrong with her and just had her put to sleep. It might have been just something like an infection and medicine would have made her better. I can never forgive him for this. Maybe God is displeased with me for thinking this way. She was my best friend and would always comfort me when I was upset, especially when my parents were arguing. She's a terrier mix who looked a little like Benji. We got her in 1979, I think, and by the fall of 1986 she was no longer around. I hope that someday I get to see her and all my doggies again. One day she somehow got into a bottle of cough syrup and drank nearly the whole thing and was foaming at the mouth- poor baby. She loved playing with empty plastic soda bottles. I wish that I could remember more of the good times that I had with her but my brain seems to hold onto the bad memories which are very vivid and the good ones are hazy and seem just like a dream.

I wish that my family and I never took that trip to Virginia in late summer 1986. Ginger started getting sick shortly after we returned. We had put her in the boarding place at the vet's office- she must have picked up a sickness of some sort there. Usually my uncle took care of her when we went away but he wasn't able to that time. Am I a terrible person for still being so angry at my dad? He was always willing to lend money to his brothers and sister which they hardly ever paid back yet he wouldn't give us money to find out what was wrong with my doggie- he knew how much that I loved her. Maybe he was mad at me for some reason and took out his anger in this way. Maybe if I visited his mother more like he wanted me to he would've paid for that vet bill. It's really not fair if that's the case. I can't seem to let this go. Ginger was the best doggie ever. I love our Buffy now too, but she's more of a grandma's girl and Ginger was definitely my girl.