My Father's World

Father was born in the early 50's to a coal miner father in the Appalachians, and a young mother with two other children before him, his sisters.
Father was the baby, the last to be born and a wake up for Grandmother (his mother). She did not want her boy being a coal miner, then reality hit that her daughters would marry coal miners. She made a plan to flee the mountains they called home.

Need to back track here. Grandmother and Grandfather (his father) did not have great lives from the past. Grandmother was the oldest of many children. One she remembered dying. The rest all died intradgic deaths, except for one, she still lives. One was murdered by her husband, my Aunt, I was small when that took place. One died on the steps of a church, he was wanted by the FBI. One died in a fire, fell asleep while smoking, and one in the mines, heart attack (common way of death back then, she had many men in her life go like this) Grandmother almost died young herself with polio. Great-Grandfather (her father) took her to the river bank and buried her in the mud everyday and waited until she freed herself, she could walk up until she died, on a muscle the size of a drinking straw, a impossible miracle. Great-Grandfather had a twin, that he never met. Great-Grandmother died after all her children did, except for the one still living. Grandmother fell in love with a man that went to war and came back different. Grandfather lost more than his youth in WWII at the Battle of the Bulge. He watched as his friend was yelling his name, to warn him of unfriendly fire to take coer, watched as his jaw was blew clean off and died right there. Not to mention all the other things that went on with the war. After the war, he was still stationed over there waiting to come home, when some drunk loud mouth pushy Germans started picking on someone, Grandfather jumped in his jeep and ran one of the Germans over. He went to prison, he got out and was released with a dishonorable discharge and was only released from prison because the man lived. They were going to go to court if he died and hae him tried for murder. Thank Goodness he lived, for my sake, anyways.
Grandfather took to playing music and drinking as a way to settle his memories of pieces of his friends lie about him and a youthfulness riped away. With drinking comes the flakeyness. Grandfather lived to drink and worked to pay for it. He owned his soul to the company store.
Many a nights Father and Aunts had one potato to eat and Grandmother sat there watching, pretending not to be hungry and not upset her dirty coal dust covered children.
Grandfather traded sugar for moonshine and anything else he could trade, so he could get high.
Later in his life, and this I remember too, Grandfather spoke of and attempted, but failed to kill himself. This was usually done with a drunken slur and blurry eyes.
Grandmother finally had enough of Grandfather when I was very very young. Years of coming home and everything was gone from the house and locked up, sitting on the porch for him to pull up and tell you he moved during the day without prior notice to the whole family unit. Years of him spending the money on his drinking habit, running around with a new woman every night, never stable at anything. This took it's toll on Grandmother. She was the one that moved the faamily out of the mountains into the Midwest. To pay off the company store she started working on a plan. She moved the family into a dirt floor shack. Grew all of her own food, and ALL the money went into paying the company store off, after they were paid she saved enough to travel to the Midwest with Father, he was 5. Left the Aunts in the mountains with Great-Grandmother. Came to the Midwest with Father and stayed with family. She got a job as a waitress. Six months later she went back to the mountains for the Aunts, told Grandfather if he wanted to see his kids to coe, if not say good-bye, she was going. He went.
This is where my Father began his childhood. This is where my life begins too, although no one knows it yet.

Questions then to ponder, how did all this death affect my father? How did all this drunkeness affect him? Poverty? Moving to another culture completely? A strong willed mother? How does his father's experiences with the war shape his life? His mother's memory of her baby sister dead from Scarlet Fever at the age of 2? How did that affect the way she raised my father? How did that affect the way he raised me? How about his Uncle that killed his Aunt, his mother's other baby sister, how did that affect him? How did that affect my life? I don't remember her, but there are pictures of her with me. How does it affect him knowing the man that did it lives still, not in prison? How does this affect my children?

Next post I will die deeper into what it means for me, now.......... My Fathers Life, My Life