The Beginning

I was born in Kinston. It's a small eastern town. The town has were my mother was from and raised. On the other hand my father was from the capital, Raleigh. My mother worked as a public school teacher and my father has a locomotive engineer with the railroad. At some point our family moved back to Raleigh where my father's side of the family lived. That is where we remained for the most part of my childhood. I was not an only child even though I felt like it most of my childhood. I have two sisters and one older brother. The oldest is Ron (which is a Jr.) named directly after my father. Then it's Elizabeth (Beth), then Cassy and myself. Cassy was from my mother's first marriage; My father always acted like she was his daughter and it wasn't till I was much older did I find out otherwise. Ron and Beth are from my father's first marriage but growing up I never put much stock in (half or in law status) brothers were brothers and sisters were sisters. I was a baby when all my brother and sisters lived with my parents. My memories are mainly of Cassy living with us. As for my brother Ron and sister Beth  they were in and out of my life which didn't really give me a chance to get to know them as well my sister Cassy.

The oldest memories that come to mind would be my "Granny" watching me. Granny wasn't a family member like you might think. She was an older lady that my mother begged to watch me so my parents could work. Granny was out of the business of daycare because of her age. She took one look at me and couldn't say No, says my mother. Granny had a husband named Marshall which I remember too. He was a really awesome man, gentle and kind. Somewhere in the time frame of her watching me Marshall passed. I remember that was the first person I knew that life as I knew it just stopped.  It was really scary. Next I fast forward several years where I'm riding my bike for the first time and driving a red Jeep power wheels vehicle in the yard with my puppy. Stephie. She was a mintier schnauzer that was large (in her case small) in charge. She was my buddy and best friend. She would attack the neighbors cat just to protect me when she wasn't riding in the passenger seat. Stephie was my first dog of many. There are only two dogs that money itself couldn't buy. The first is Stephie and then next is a German Shepherd named Tag". I'll tell more about them later.

At this point in my life I didn't know I had Dyslexia nor did my parents or anyone else for that matter. It was hidden from me and the world. Only if I would have known what an effect it was going to have on the rest of my life.