Let’s dive in.

Diving into my childhood, into what made me who I am today. I have given you a few glances, but I am going to really just dive in and start telling from what I can remember. My childhood was not a fancy rainbows and unicorns’ kind of childhood. Mine was filled with traumatic experiences, and tribulations, but that made me who I am today. So, let’s dive in shall we.

We will start with around the age of 6, I remember parts of that age but not a whole lot, what I do remember was that we lived across the street from my mother’s parents. My Granny, Peggy Weissinger and Papaw, Thomas Weissinger. You see Granny’s house was the hang out of the family. We would do holidays there and birthdays, us cousins would hang out and ride bikes and fish and play hide and seek. While, I wasn’t the youngest grandbaby, I was the one that would talk a lot and tell on them when they weren’t doing the right things. So, my cousins were kind of mean to me when I was a kid. So, as payback for not playing with me I would tell on them for doing things they were not supposed to do. Which I know was a vicious cycle I got myself into, because I told on them, they didn’t want to play with me, and because they didn’t want to play with me, I told on them. They say they didn’t play with me because I talked ALL THE TIME. To be fair I did talk a lot as a child. But, when you are an only child and you are not always heard when you talk, you talk more.

My cousins on my mom’s side liked to play this game where they would duct tape me to a wagon and duct tape my mouth shut. I know right not really a game; well, they made it sound like it was a game to see if I could escape it. And well when you forget to duct tape my hands down, I am able to get the duct tape off my mouth to holler for Granny. I can still hear Granny “What are y’all doing to her? She is awfully quiet!” That was when I was able to get the duct tape off my mouth and tell her what they were doing. I think that was the last time they were allowed to have duct tape at Granny’s house for years after that. They did not hurt me or even leave me alone while I was duct tapped to the wagon, and I was probably only duct taped to, the wagon for less than 10 mins however they thought it was hilarious, and I think they still do to some degree.

My cousins well I have four cousins on my mom’s side and on my dad’s side I have a bit too many to name. On mom’s side I have Stephanie, James, Melissa, and Steven. Stephanie being the oldest of us all is about 9 years older than me, James her brother is about 6 years older than me, Melissa is just about 4 years older than me, and Steven well he comes in at about 6 months younger than me. On my dad’s side I have one older cousin Jackie, and two younger cousins Carson and Alli. I do have stepcousins however I wasn’t always around them a lot.

Most of the cousin memories I had were of my mom’s side of the family. My dad’s side of the family was just Jackie and I, and Jackie is about 6 years older than me, so he really didn’t want to hang out with me growing up, and Carson is 9 years younger than me and Alli is 10 years younger than me. So, I didn’t spend much time with them growing up, and they did not live near me. Matter of fact neither did Jackie. So, we really weren’t that close. But we will dive deeper into why later.

Grandma my dad’s mom Elfrida Roberts, and my Pawpaw Michael Roberts. My grandma is from Germany, born and raised. My Pawpaw is actually my step grandfather, however he was the only grandfather I really knew on my dad’s side, so he was always and will always be my Pawpaw. My biological grandfather Louis Ray passed away when I was around the age of 3 and due to circumstances in my father’s younger years we were estranged from him. So, I never really knew him.

As a young child for some reason that really bothered my soul. I remember at night while saying my goodnight prayers for God to tell Grandpa Louis, I loved him and sorry that I never got to meet him. As a child I felt like that was ripped away from me. However, looking back now and knowing what I do know about my grandfather Louis, I can see why I didn’t get to meet him and why my father was estranged from him.

My Grandma having grown up in German with German heritage and German beliefs was not always a soft cuddly teddy bear but looking back I never thought of her as mean or harsh, matter of fact I don’t think I ever really got in trouble at Grandma and Pawpaw’s house. But hey that’s how grandparents are supposed to be.

Back to the age of 6 I was an only child, my father had gotten out of the Navy when I was around a year and a half old, so he was home for good after that. My mother moved back “home” to our small town when I was just about 9 months old. She was never good at staying away from family. My mother became pregnant with my brother sometime in 1996, and he was born in January of 1997. So, in January of 1997 I was no longer an only child.