So I mentioned the Aunt that flew me off to Oklahoma. She is my fathers sister but for whatever reason she was was Grandma Bye or Bi??? Her name was Viola and probably when people called her Vi for short… I hear Bye or Bi??? Now the Grandma Bye thing maybe stuck because I was leaving her place often. Going back and forth between staying with my father and staying with her. Who ever came up with the Grandma instead of Aunt I don’t know. Also during this time I got the nickname Rusty.
So, I’m doing this in Blocks of years as I don’t quite remember it more accurately than that. Overall I tend to match up memories by where I was living. So i know where I was when I was 5 and these thing happened before that 🙂
OK, so 61-65… Home was above the Bar in Hoboken NJ I don’t remember much to be honest and these pictures have recently been given to me after a Family Reunion where my blood family reached out and I got to meet a number of half sisters and others.
This pic ended up having some meaning for me after all this…..
The only picture of my Real Mother. I certainly got her nose and smile lines.
   I only remember her being around a couple of times. There was the whole history or backstory as to why she couldn’t be around or known that never learned. Plus her few stays ended badly. One time she was in the bed sleeping with the TV playing… I got up out of my crib and sat on the end of the bed to watch TV. When the old man came home o he started screaming and smacked her around for not paying attention to me and how did I manage to get out of my crib unnoticed etc… Maybe she was drunk and fell asleep or something I don’t know…certainly seemed like a no harm no foul situation to me, but….
   Then another time she tried to make a break for it with me in to walking quickly down the sidewalk against traffic in the snow. It felt a little dangerous and along came a car with him in it. He stopped opened the door and we got in. no memories of what followed that but my next memories are of my Aunt flying me off to Oklahoma.
He got arrested for whatever version of child endangerment they had back then and she got wind the state was looking for me so she grabbed me and flew me to stay with a friend, and avoid being placed in State Custody. Back on the run again?
Yeah so turns out doing crazy bar tricks with 2 year olds raised eyebrows even back then.
   To get things going I’m bundling a number of early memories into this one post and it spans a few years. So, “Bar Life”… Yes I was a toddler often in a bar. My father and girlfriend?? ( not mom) lived above a bar and worked in the bar. She may have been the owner?
   So anyways my earliest memories are some scenes from that bar and a couple from upstairs “at home”. One was with him teaching me to ride a 3 speed English bike he just bought me in the back parking lot. This is a visual me a kid less that 5 years old trying to ride such a large bike.
   Others are with him doing little party tricks with me at the bar. One I remember was lighting a match… having me open my mouth…. put the match in my mouth…close my mouth… then opening my mouth and pulling the still light match back out! I could play Mack the Knife on the jukebox. A popular song at the time and the old push button jukeboxes with the 1 letter & 1 number combinations to select what songs to play. Guess I had that one memorized.
   Don’t think Motorcycle Club parents, but the folks did run out of state to “Have Me” under an alias. So yeah, right out of the gate things in my life were a little shady.
   So it was late in 1960, my father was married to someone else and “Mom” may have been Married as well? Nothing learned about her over the years. So despite the run off to Connecticut to give birth I was quickly back in New Jersey living with him over a bar, and spending lots of time in that bar. So as you’ll read later… my earliest memories are from a bar room in Hoboken.
