My Life by Kuyong (Pseudonym)

Chapter 2: Leaving South Carolina

     I was seven years old and in the second grade with a mean cruel teacher that I really hated because of the way she treated me so when I was told that we were moving I had mixed emotions about it. First I was glad that I would be getting away from “Her” an glad I would be seeing my other grandparent's that I didn't get to see very much since they lived so far away. On the other hand I was sad too because I would be leaving my friends behind including my first “girl friend” She was my best friend an we did everything together. We had the same classes and teachers, we lived right down the road from one another so she would come over my house or I would go there all the time. Most of the time my Mom would be watching her, and her brother and sister. Her sister was a year younger than we were and her brother was two years older than we were. She was the first girl that was not family to ever kiss me and your know how kids are when they are at that young age, if they are best friends and they are of the opposite sex they are our “girl friend” or “boy friend”. In this case we really did care about one another. For years we would get a card from her parents and we would send cards to them too and she would always write me a note on the card telling me what she had been doing. I really hate that in the moves between them and us moving a few times we lost touch and to this day I often wonder about her and her sister since we were so close.

     Well the company my Dad worked for was transferring him to a new plant that they were opening up in Southeast Missouri. This meant a promotion, and more money which was needed badly since my little brother had been born. I am the oldest of us three kids and we are about three years apart. So much so that me and my sister are nine days shy of being exactly three years apart. My little brother is a little more than three years younger than my little sister, he is three years and four months younger than she and six years and four months younger than I. At the time of the move he was 13 months old and my sister was 4 and since nether had started school yet they went with my parents to the show me state to get everything ready to move. Dad had went there first and stayed in a motel while they were building the new plant and he was helping with it. Mom took my siblings with her and she got busy looking for us a new house to live in there. While they were gone I stayed with my Grandparents in Tennessee and finished up my last few months of the 2nd grade there with my Mom stopping to visit me each time she was traveling back and forth getting everything moved since it was on the way both ways.

     I really missed my Folks and my friends from back home but I was also glad to be away from “Her” and glad to be with my grandmother which I loved dearly. We would go to the park and other places when I was not in school. I got to see my Aunts, Uncles, and cousins that lived there in Nashville that I very rarely got to see and some I have never met till then. I was having a blast so much so that after everything was moved I wanted to stay the summer after school was out and my folks let me stay at least part of the summer there even though they missed me they just wanted me to be happy with them knowing how upset I was losing my friends from Carolina. There at my grandmothers house the “friends” I was hanging out with were all my cousins so I knew I was not going to lose them too. When we left Carolina one of the hardest things to leave was my dog Lucky. Since my folks had to stay in a motel till they found a house, Lucky couldn't move with us plus she had just had pups just weeks before the move so that made it impossible for us to take her with us. So Mom talked to my “girl friends” folks and they agreed to take them and take care of them. Once we got settled Dad brought me and my sister the cutest little black lab pup for our birthdays to go along with our other gifts. Since our birthdays are so close to one another we used to have one party and two cakes on one of the Saturdays between our birthdays. I let my little sister name the pup and she named him Blackie then me and my Dad went to the plant and built him a dog house out of used pallets together. That wood must have been treated wood because that dog house is still standing all these years later unless someone has tore it down in the last few years since I have seen it last. So now I am the new kid in a new state, and new town, and a new school.