born again

friends don't let friends drive....

A friend of mine recently published in her blog a story about an incident that happened during my childhood. Her retelling of the story has inspired me to tell it again

The year is 1973 in Brevard County Florida. My mother in her late 20's after having left her unfaithfull husband moved into a trailor park to start a new life. There were the four of us, 3 boys and a girl. Me being the oldest at 7, two brothers 6 and 4, and sister 3. After day of travelling we arrive home one evening to home with no food. Realizing the endeavor it would take to load up a car again with four children, completely exhausted, to the store for some milk and stuff was too much for my mom. so she put me in charge knowing she would be back in 20 minutes. i was pretty good at telling time at that point in my life and started counting the minutes right away as soon as she left. coupled with the event of my new found responsibility was the freedom from my mother's watchful eye. and that's when everything changed.

i went to the radio and turned it on. some southern rock was playing and almost immediatly starting dancing around with my sister. it had been a scorching day so we all took off our clothes and danced around the house completly naked like little elves . dancing like a maniac and with the minutes counting down the more crazy we got. this time we were singing and dancing and out of the corner of my eye noticed my brother playing with matches. my mother smoked so matches were to be found. he started lighting one after the next bewitched by the tiny flame each one produced...until one burned his fingers. he instantly tossed it and it found the nearest curtain that went up so fast that it may as well had been dowsed in gasoline because suddenly there was a blaze. it had grown so big and so fast that there was no time to try to extinguish it. I made sure everyone left the trailer and we were taken in by a neighbor who put some clothes on us and called the fire department.. there was still no sign of our mother until she arrived just around the time the fire department did.

We lost everything that evening, even our clothes, but not our lives.

post script:
the day after i published this entry i lost my wallet with all my credit cards, cash, and personal identification.