It is funny, my mother tells me that my natural father was really hard on me. She says he yelled at me and critized me a lot, telling me over and over again how stupid I was. I don't recall much of it though, I adored him. My sister, Sarah, was the apple of his eye, she could do nothing wrong. I guess Bess was too little for anything, she was just a baby.

He was gone a lot, traveling because of his work. When he was home I recall desperately wanting his approval and attention.

One time when he was home, he was trying to teach me to ride a bike. I was around 5 and I kept falling down and crying. He would promise to hold the bike and then let go without telling me. So I started to panic and look behind me all the time, afraid he would lie and let go again. This of course caused me to fall all the more, and soon my father was screaming at me and telling me I was such a baby that I should be in diapers again.

We lived in upstate New York at the time, but we lived in so many places when I was young, that they all blend together now. New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Mass. and Maine. We moved about every six months because of my father's work. He was a programmer and computer wiz for RCA, back in the 60's they made computers and when one was sold, my father was sent to the company to train people to use.

Summer came and my mom wanted to take us back to California to see her parents and family. My father said he had work and could not come, so my mother took us alone. I was 5, Sarah was 3 and Bessie was 1. I still hear stories today of that plane flight. LOL

We arrived at night and I recall looking out the plane window and seeing all these pools with their lights on. I thought they looked like diamonds.

It was a lovely week, we went to the zoo and to Disneyland and I got a dark tan from being in the sun so much.

Then my father called my mom. She commented on how clear the phone connection seemed and he confessed that it was because he was just down the street. He asked her to meet him at a park to talk. My mom left us with our aunt.

Once there my mom found my dad sitting on a picinic blanket with the wife of their good friends. I don't know the words that happened, but I know he told my mother he was leaving her so he could get married to Martha. I remember my mom coming home and telling us we were going to live in California now and how Daddy would not be with us. I remember not understanding why Daddy was not going to be with us and thinking I must have done something very, very bad. My mother assured me I had not, but I didn't believe her. And I remember my mother crying and crying.