Dreams do come true! None of mine of course but I’ve seen other peoples come true. So this is how I know that someday my day in the sun will come…..The days of my youth have faded away…. And I miss them more and more every day. I have always thought that youth was wasted on the young. I’m not some old codger but I remember when 30 were old and I’m 40 now…I was born in 1965. And I lived in Ft. Worth Texas until I was 5. Then we moved to the suburbs and I saw my first Horny Toad. If you have never seen one then I’m so sorry for you because I myself haven’t seen one in over 10 years. For those of you that don’t know about them, they are a lizard looking thing with a frogs head…. And they look like they have little horns all over them… They spit blood at you too… I’m not sure if it’s really blood or just some red substance but who cares as its hurling for you! I got stung more times than I can count by scorpions. Once I was standing on my head against the wall…and as I was coming down I felt the most horrific pain in my for head! I had smashed one! Needless to say my mom pulled a cigarette apart and spit in her hand and stuck it on my for head. I sat there crying with tobacco juice dripping off my nose….well really my moms spit but when you’re a kid your not as tripped out about that as you would be now…. My mom was a decent mom.. I remember her teaching me to Indian leg wrestle… we would lay on the floor and after lifting our legs up and down 4 times we would lock legs and one would flip the other over…. I asked her a few years before she died if she wanted to leg wrestle and she laughed and said she was too old… I said … “Ahhhh come on mom….I’ll let you win like you did for me all those years”…. And she just hugged me…. They say that you never loose the one you love as long as you keep loving the one you lost…. I believe this to be true…. I also believe that Life is the journey and to die is to go home…. I don’t believe in Hell… I don’t think God would send his beloved children to such a horrific place as I’ve heard it described…. My mother told me that God lets his children be reborn until they DO get it right… Until they are worthy to bow down at his feet and are worthy to look upon his face…So from what I gathered from this is that God loves all of us… Even the killers and atheists of this world…. Because they haven’t done enough good they are reborn until they get it right…Until they are worthy to see the face of God…She told me God has a mate too…. She said… why would God make everything in this world with a mate and not have one his self?…. Anyway… I don’t know how I got off on this conversation…I was leading up to a story about a hornets nest….. I was 15 and my cousin Elizabeth was going to her mothers for the summer… She invited me and Connie to go with her… Connie shouldn’t have went really but she and Elizabeth had been friends their whole life and aunt Marylyn didn’t let a little thing like ADULTERY get in the way of her daughters friendship…. Anyway… Elizabeth’s sister, Trisha Ann and her husband Nathan took us to San Antonio were aunt Marylyn lived…. On the way the highway patrol man pulled us over for speeding and Nathan blamed it on us girls screaming and getting on his nerves from the back seat….It didn’t work, He got the ticket anyway. We made it there and we were having a pretty good time. Then we went to Mama and Papa Days house on the McQueeny River… They were her Grand parents on her mom’s side… Elizabeth and I were cousins because our dads were brothers… So this day started out like any other… We went to the river and were sitting in a swing…. Connie started hooking her toes in the dirt and really getting us to swinging… It was a bench swing hung in a huge tree…. She and I were on the ends…we were laughing because Elizabeth started to get a little scared. Then the swing broke… All of us ended up squashed together on my side… For a moment we were laughing and then we heard the buzz…. Not like bee’s…. like humming bird wings! We couldn’t get up fast enough…The only one of us that thought to jump in the river was Elizabeth… I and Connie ran to Momma Days house, which turned out to be a mistake… Hornets flew every where! Huge things! …………. As we sat there at Momma Days table with her and my cousin’s aunt Marie doctoring us up I looked at Connie… Her neck was swoll up and it looked like a soft ball had been shoved down her throat.…Elizabeth hadn’t got stung. I think it was because they had chased us…. I had one sting on my back that was lumped up pretty good… Every one was amazed that we had only been stung 2 times….Her in the neck, me in the back….. That wasn’t the only pain for Connie that summer…. I threw a cactus the next week and it hit her in the back…I would like to say I did it on accident but I didn’t. I aimed and hurled it and got her dead center in the back…. I was just mean like that…. My aunt made me pick all the spines out of her back with tweezers… And let me tell you…that isn’t any fun. That summer turned out to be one of the best summers in my life…. Connie forgave me for the cactus incident but Elizabeth never forgave me for cutting the mole off the back of her neck while I was trimming her hair…That happened a week before we went home… I saw it there…big and disgusting… And thought I would do her a big favor and nip that ugly monstrosity in the bud for her…. She on the other hand didn’t think it much of a favor…. Years later when I saw her at our grand mothers funeral She remarked that she was lucky that I hadn’t caused her to have cancer or something…

This next story happened when I was a teenager.… My two cousins and I were the same age and we were all in the ninth grade together… I had been sick with an ear ache for a week and on my first day to return back to school I met my cousins behind the church across the street to smoke cigarettes. They had told me that they had been skipping school for the past week and having a party every day at an older girls house with boys and every thing!… Me being NOT very responsible was all for it! We got the older girl to call in and say she was my step mother and that I wouldn’t be coming to school again today…. Then we went to the beer store and purchased enough beer and wine to float a Battleship with a full crew….. We then returned to the older girl’s house where boys had already started to arrive… Older boys that I had only dreamed of meeting… I had seen them around but none of them ever said a word to me…. My cousin Connie on the other hand knew all of them quite well…. Not only had she drank with most of them she had slept with most of all of them too… As I look back on her I see her now for what she was…. In those days she was called a dirty tramp…. Truly she just wanted SEX! She liked it!!!… She used to have long talks about it on Friday night sleep over’s…All of us standing by the window of her room….so the smoke from the cigarettes wouldn’t fill up the room…. And she would tell us how it was done! She caught every imaginable transmitted disease … all, lucky for her, could be washed off with a little medicine! I even remember she had caught pin worms! Don’t ask me how…. I have no idea…. I just know it was gross and I didn’t want to ride to school with her for awhile….Anyway back to the party….. There we were…at 10 am in the morning, drunker than Cooter Brown at his daughters weddin’… Laughing and cutting up and one of the older boys by the name of Bobcat had come over to sit by me…. He was looking into my face like he had seen me somewhere before but couldn’t quite place it….His smile was doing something to me that I had never felt… I wanted him to touch me! And just as he was about to there was a knock on the front door….. The older girl that lived in the house looked out the peep hole…. What she said next curdled my blood…. “Connie your mom is at the door….and she has a big fat woman with her!”… I knew who the fat woman was with out even getting up to look. It was my step mother… Her and My aunt worked together… and when the school called to tell my aunt that her two girls’ weren’t in school my step mother decided to call to see if I too had skipped! The beating on the door got louder even though we acted as if no one was home…. Some of the boys stared getting a little scared when my aunt started yelling … “We NO you’re in there! Open the door Connie!”…. No one moved…..hoping that they would just go away…. Then I heard my step mother…. “You want me to call the police Sherrena? You had better come out now if you know what’s good for you!” When she called my name and added the word police to it all eyes seemed to turn on me…. I pleaded with Connie for us to just open the door and go out before we got every one else in trouble…. But we were all drunk…. Connie screamed at the top of her lungs… “There’s NO BODY HOME ya fat bitches!”…. Then she laughed… I didn’t…And nether did Elizabeth… My other cousin… You see, she and I were REAL cousins by blood… Connie’s mom had just married into the family… She had been my real aunt and uncle’s neighbor until my aunt Marilyn had caught my uncle with his hand in the cookie jar…. Then the beating on the door stopped…. I looked out the window and saw my step mother getting in her car… My aunt Glenda still stood on the porch… This was before cell phones so I knew what one of them was leaving for! And so did the older boys…. They took this chance to all run out the back door and I watched nine boys jumping over assorted fences… Then the door banging began again about fifteen minuets later and this time it was the police…. I came out the door first… then Elizabeth followed…. The police had to go in and get Connie…. Her mother tried to grab her arm and slap her as she was coming out but she slapped her back….Then the slug match began and the police broke it up…. Back then I guess it was all right to slap the hell out of your teenager and the law thought it ok….My step mother on the other hand didn’t touch me… She didn’t have too… The way she was looking at me made me sick to my stomach….The police put us in his car and drove us to the school!… I have no Idea why! The three of us sat in the car as the principle came out and told us that we were setting a bad example for the rest of the students… I sat there thinking of Bobcat… and how I had almost had a REAL boy want to talk to me…. REAL meaning not just friendship! Then Connie threw up in the police car…. The cop was mad to say the least…That wasn’t the first time Connie had puked where she shouldn’t… She once thought it funny to throw up in one of the canons at the Alamo…..Our school was asked not to come back….. By the time I got home my head had began to pound…. Again I was told to sit at the kitchen table.. For 4 hours I sat there… but this time the whole family was called in… She was telling them all to look at me…… “All of you look at her! See her for what she really is! A drunkin’ lush!… And I’m sure she was having sex!…Shall I make you pull your panties down?!…” My brother, who was older, said if she did that he would tell my Dad….I looked over at him and loved him more than I had ever loved him in my life…. This was the second time he had saved me from something that was horrific to me….She told him that this wasn’t any of his business… He then replied that she had made it Family business when she had asked them all to come and stare at me!… He didn’t live with us any more.…. He had been there waiting for my Dad to come home from work….SHE had seen to it that he was KICKED Out a few years prier…. That’s when I began doing my step mothers "nursing" home work… As punishment she would have me sit at the table and read her nursing books and DO HER HOMEWORK!… She was going to school her self to be an LVN….Later, after she died, my dad told me that it sure was nice of me to have helped her like that!… I told him that had been punishment… He didn’t believe me… I then told him I would NEVER LIE about the atrocities that his wife had committed against me! I then told him other things that he knew nothing about… His anger surprised me…. that’s when I decided to just keep my thoughts to myself from then on out…. To let sleeping dogs lie…. But it seems that these events have festered in me…. I see what HER treatment of me has really done to me…. When my own step daughter comes to visit I say awful things like… “ Leave your purse and baby bag in the car!… I don’t want those nasty roaches that you and your Mom have been breading at your house to set up residence in mine!”…. “ Jesus Christ!… You have a husband! Ask him for money and stop asking MINE!”….. “No I will not hold your baby while you get something!… Take her with you!”… “ I swear to God If I see a roach in my house!”….And there are several more things I have been known to say… I’m good at making her feel stupid…. Just like my step mother had done to me…. I can’t help it!… When I try to stop myself its already to late!…. My own daughter told me once that I make her feel like a dumb ass. That I talk to her like she has NO mind at all!… And as I thought about that statement I realized ,that is ":exactly" what I had been thinking at the time! She had been right!….

I got a big bunch of virtual flowers!… When I checked my mail on hotornot.com I saw that a soldier had bought me a dozen roses!… The flowers are billed to his credit card….So when I saw it, it was like the real thing!…..Ohhhhhhhhh… I just love soldiers............ The fact that he had spent his "time" thinking of me would have been enough.... It was more than my own husband had done....

So this next little memory comes from when I was 13 years old. I had been sent to church camp along with my step mothers second to the oldest daughter, who just happened to be one month older than me. That one month also put her in the next higher grade than I was but that’s another story…. This ones about church camp…. Now the first week at church camp was a living hell…. (I’m sorry)…. I made no friends and Christie had! So the next week, and to this day I still don’t have any idea why I did such a thing, I refused to make the mile long hike along the side of the mountain and up the stairs, painted gold, that seemed to go on forever….I did this with the excuse that I had been forced against my will to come to this place and this was not even my religion! Both parts were sort of right…. But I over embellished it a bit…. I was called to the head councilors cabin and asked if I could be accommodated in any way since my faith was not theirs and I had been forced there against my will by a rotten step mother that was trying to force me to be something I was not!… I was fully wrapped up in my huge lie… Every moment that passed it seemed to grow and grow like that huge red slimy Blob in the old fifties movie…. A few days passed as I relished in sleeping in while others made the trip up the mountain… climbing those long stares to listen to preaching 3 times a day!…That was definably not my style…. Then the Jig Was Up! Christie had noticed me gone…. We had been split into different cabins and the only time I had seen her really was during that church stuff… all other activities were done with the girls you shared a cabin with….. She quickly seized the opportunity to get me into some trouble and told that I was not Catholic and that I hadn’t been MADE to come there at all!… Needless to say I was in a world of shit….. My dad was called…. He made the 100 mile trip to pick me up and I was NOT glad to see him… On the way home he asked me questions like … “Who gets kicked out of church camp for lying?”… “Why would you do such a thing?”… “What are ya a dumb ass?”…. “I would expect this from one of your idiot brothers but not you!”… “Why would you say such a thing?”…. “What are ya a dumb ass?”….. I sat there looking out the window watching the tree’s go by thinking where HAD I got such an idea? And WHY would I do such a thing? I look back on it now and still I really don’t know…First I had NO idea that LYING was a huge NO NO at church camp…. I do now…. but then I didn’t…and I also know that I should have known at that age……My Dad was humiliated…When I got home my step mother made me sit at the dining room table…. My dad went to his little work shop and I was left there alone with her…She sat there just staring at me…. Then she said….. “Look at you…. Little miss liar! You are despicable! How dare you tell those people that I MADE you go to their camp!…. How dare you!…”… I sat there shrinking in my chair…. Wishing my Dad would come save me but he didn’t…. She said a few other nasty things that I choose not to recall and then I was sent to my room with the promise of a grounding the rest of the summer….. I sat in my room day dreaming about being at her funeral…. How I would act if the police some day came to the door to tell my Dad she had been killed in some horrific accident….You know…practicing the surprised look… then the grief…pretending all the way….. But this didn’t come to pass until long after I became an adult…. I will have to say one thing though…..those Christens hadn’t turned on me near as bad for lying as my step mother had…. Yes…. They were nice people and I am truly sorry for lying to them…………..