Hard to remember...

As i have said before most of my life before 13 or 14 years of age i just do not remember. there are spots of light, like the A&W rootbeer story that are vivid to me , and then there may be years later when i have another spot of memory.
The next bright spot is several years later. I'm about 6 or 7 and we are living in another house in another city. but we are still having problems with prowlers, i suppose as a result of the bank robbery my father commited. you would think that people would get the idea that if we had any money we would be spending it, like on decent houses or nice cars or clothes without holes in them. anyway we were living in this house that has an attached shed next to it. because of the lay of the land in the back yard you could step up onto the roof of the shed, as easily as climbing a short stair. you could then walk on the roof of our house. i recall waking up one night to a disturbance. i go into the living room and my entire family is standing around looking at the ceiling. my mother has a broom in her hand and she is knocking on the ceiling with the broom handle... there is a pause and then someone knocks back. There was someone on the roof of our house.
so my family decides that my oldest brother should run next door for help. this vote was taken without his consent or approval. this was evidenced by my mother literally shoving him to the front door, opening it, and shoving him out and then pulling the door closed behind him. my brother was not stupid, he knew that his only hope was to get help because my mother was not going to let him back in no matter what. So he ran, i believe faster than he ever had before. he was running so fast that when he got to our neighbors front porch he jumped up on it, slid past the front door, through the furniture there and completely off the other side. the neighbor hearing the commotion of my brother came out to see what animal was on his porch.
eventially the police arrived. but of course by then the prowler was gone. the next day i and everyone else saw the muddy footprints that led from the back yard, up to the roof..
I have another memory of that house so it must be around that time because we often did not live in one spot long.
I recall my oldest brotherand, The same one from the previous memory, and i was playing in the back yard of that house. my brother had a pole, it was long and sharp on one end.. You know boys will play with anything. My brother was throwing the pole like a javelin. i remember my mother coming to the back door and telling my brother to stop throwing the pole before he hurt me.. Well life being what is is my mother had no more that stepped back into the house then my brother threw the pole into the air and it came down right onto my head. I remember that it hurt some but i was not knocked out or anything. My brother knew more than i because he turned pale as a ghost. and i noticed something running down into my eyes. my brother came over to me and told me to go into the house and find my sister. i still didnt know what was going on especially when i saw my brother running as hard as he could into the woods behind our house. i walked into the kitchen and my mother or sister or both was there washing dishes . i remember screaming and i remember someone taking the dish cloth that was being used to do the dishes and putting it on my head.. i also remember my mother running through the house yelling " my babys gonna die" !!
Well i discovered at an early age that head woulds, even small ones, bleed profusely. the gash i had on my head resulted in a trip to the emergency room for me and several nights spent living in the woods for my brother. my sisters tell me that that was a smart thing for my brother to do because my mother was not , at that point in her life, into forgiveness.. my poor brother..

Back to the original story

O.K. my dad is in prison for bank robbery and my mother has 6 kids and no means of support..
what about the money from the robbery you say, well most of it was given back . what was not given back is what my family spent to pay the rent and buy groceries..
interestingly enough for months after my dads photo and name appeared in the papers we had prowlers.
my mom said she thought that is was people who thought we still had some of the money hid around the house and wanted it. there were people under our house and wandering around our yard reqularly at night. and of course this scared the crap ( fine scottish verbage) out of us kids.
most of this i dont remember but bits and pieces do come through. i remember being scared because someone was outside our house at night. times were hard then, hard enough that people would steal from a woman and 6 hungry kids..
I vividly remember my mothers going to work at an A & W rootbeer restaurant. i remember this because she would have to work until late at night and i remember that she would wake us kids up when she would come in to feed us. they would let her bring home the left over food for us and i remember like it was last night the smells and the taste of the mama and papa burgers and the way they looked wrapped in the foil they came in. mom would bring home root beer in glass jars and we would have our main and sometimes only meal of the day late at night.. that was some of the best food i have ever eaten..