Kevin's Story by Kevin S (librera reader txt) 📕

So off I go, put on a plane in Chicago and picked up in LA., by strangers. Dad had married again and I had never met my stepmother. They had two boys, my half brothers. Bruce the oldest at three and Larry at 1 year old.
I remember them picking me up, I knew who Dad was from his picture. The rest of them were unknown. I went from being the only child to the oldest of three.
Everything was fine until some time had passed and I realized this was real. I started to get homesick, I felt like I had no one to turn to. My dad was busy with the navy, he had joined the navy after the army or he had his head under the hood of a car. He was also very taciturn, it seems to run in the family. After awhile I tried to avoid him, so he would have any reason to be mad at me. He also didn’t put up with much nonsense. I was shooed put of the garage many times.
My step mother tried to comfort me and do special things with me. But she had two and one on the way. There wasn’t much time left over for me. I understood that even then, but still wanted the attention.
I can’t ever remember my Dad hugging me or any show of affection. He seemed not want the kids around. Any homework help came from my step mother. She was not the evil stepmother
from stories and legends. I think she came to love me.
But late at night I would be in my bed crying, wondering what I had done wrong for grandmother to ship me out. I have no idea how many times I cried myself to sleep. Or how many promises to god to be an extra good boy if I could just go home. I enjoyed school and most of my time with them, but it never felt like home. I figured out that I must really bad, because no one wanted me. My mom wanted my brother and not me, My grandmother didn’t want me I was so bad that she couldn’t stand me any more. So she shipped me here. It sure didn’t seem like my Dad wanted me. But he had to take me. I knew I had done something but could never figure it out. I knew if I was a perfect little boy maybe things would change.
After a year with Dad and his family, Dad asked me if I wanted to live with him or go back to my grandma. Without any hesitation I said yes I want to go home. I think this might have hurt his feelings but eight year olds don’t think about stuff like that. He than asked if I wanted to go now or after the family vacation to see the redwoods. Again I said now. So in a couple of weeks I was back on the plane taking me home. But I also tried to figure out what I had done right in order to go home and how not to get sent away again

The Store

The picture was getting clearer and clearer. Were there any happy times growing up? Kevin answered that with “the store.”


When I was four, My grandmother and My aunt Judy opened up a bar/store in northern Wi near the town of Park Falls. It was a small bar about ten bar stools. The other half of the building was a little general story. We served the surrounding area, resorts mostly. If you did not want to deal with us for that loaf of bread or a pack of hot dogs fine, the next store was about 23 miles away over twisting lousy roads.
There was a bar area where we spent most of the time, the store The store where I played when the weather was bad. One bedroom, where my grandma and my Aunt Judy slept, and the kitchen.
I had an army cot to sleep on. It wasn’t a bad place to live; I had 40 acres of woods to call my back yard. People were coming in all the time. I spent a lot of time playing in the woods, mostly alone. The nearest neighbor was just over a mile away. And that was through wild woods. Just a little far for a four year old to wander.
My Great Great Grandfather, lived about a mile away and would walk to our store for his daily shot of brandy. And he would tell me stories about life in the lumber jack era.
My Aunt took a leave of absence from her job, to get the place up and running. So from opening day of the fishing season until after Deer hunting, we were open. This was the late fifties and there were no such thing as a snowmobile.
In the winter we went to Florida to live with my great Grandfather and great Grandmother. I have lots good memories of this time in my life. Of course I was around liquor all the time. And people drunk and acting the fool, after all they were on vacation. So I saw happy drunks and sad ones, even a few who couldn’t walk. At night I would sit behind the bar and listen. Told to keep quiet because no one wanted to hear what a four year old thinks. I can clearly remember running and opening a beer for someone, I was helping. I was sent to bed at a normal time, but would lay in bed listening. People drinking and getting drunk was normal for me, it happened everyday.
One thing happened when I was four a babysitter was watching me and reading me a story. And all of a sudden it clicked, the marks on the page stood for something. The first word I learned to read was “come”.
It opened a new world for me, I lucked out, my grandmother and aunt were both avid readers. They decided that it didn’t matter what I read so long as I read, so I had an endless supply of comic books and when I wanted, books as well. They both told me later, that they would encourage my reading and would work on my taste later.
From the age of four to the age of six we ran the store, Grandmother wanted to buy the land, but the owner wanted way too much and our lease ran out so we closed the store and moved back to Janesville WI. AJ went back to the phone company.


Hi Letty
I had the night off and tried to write something. To try and give you an idea about my early childhood and why I was sure that there was something wrong with me. It came out later, the perfectionist, the feeling, if people really knew me. I would be cast into the outer darkness.
This crap is hard to write without sounding like a cry wimp. It is supposed to be an explanation and not a pity party.
Look forward to hearing your thought.
I do plan on spend the most time on the recovery phase of my life.
Kevin


Dear Kevin:

I can see clearly that your early experience was simply awful and painful. You are good at telling the story poignantly but not asking for sympathy. I like that. That keeps the pity party under control. Keep working hard.
We'll plug in a bit of this letter.
Whoops, this is the first I've heard of Donner/Setzer. Who is Adeline's son's kid? I know its you, but who are the other characters? Just when I feel like I'm getting my arms around this task, up comes something from left field. Help.
________________________________________

Hi Letty
Thanks for the encouraging word. I have some more questions. Do you feel the dispassionate viewer, is the right voice to use. Some of this material is very emotional. It still upsets me, not like it used to but none the less.
I didn't add everything, for example when they would line up for family pictures, they just wanted the Donner family, and I was a Setzer. FYI the Donner family, I thought I was a member of is the same Donner's of a very famous mountain pass, out your way.
Does what I have written come across as someone looking for a pity party? I hope not I have written what I have in order to give a reader an Idea of just how much I felt like a second class citizen.
And what I would do to try and get back into the family. It's not supposed to be an excuse but rather a explanation. When I start to talk about AA and my recovery I have a tendency to get up on my soap box.
If I go with the dispassionate voice, can it be changed later. I think I can do dispassionate, but will that type of writing stir up emotions in the reader?
Does any of the stuff I have sent you, raise any feelings in you?
Do you get a sense of how painful all this was. To be over sensitive to everyone's actions and spoken words. Always looking for that frown of disapproval. you know tuck my tail between my legs and make myself as small as I could. Never taking anything upon my self Hoping that it would end with just a look. I knew that everyone else had a memory like mine, so they would remember everything I did wrong, and build a case to throw me out of the family, after all I was just tag along. Adeline's son's kid.
you know the one who got dumped on her. I haven't written about it yet but I over heard my grandmother say if she just didn't have the kid she would be able to...........you fill in the blank.
Right next door. and I heard it many times
Let me stop this for now
So if you can find my questions in all if that I would like your opinion.
Kevin
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( I think I had made a mistake to mention “voice” at all; a fault left over from 8 years of teaching writing at the junior college level. He was doing just fine without knowing that.
Lots more correspondence followed about “was he doing it right, etc” but I was tickled pink. Reading his work was really the same pleasure I got when one of my students “woke up” and realized what a story was telling him.
I was waiting for his recovery story and his tying up of all the loose ends like Michelle and Kate and his son whose name I forgot. He replied:)

Good morning I'm just about to crawl into bed. But thought I could clear up some of your confusion
this is as much as I know about the Donner side of my family
Ben Donner was my great great grandfather. I had him in my life until I was 15
He used to tell me stories almost everyday when I lived in the store. He had three sons( I knew them all) Orly is the oldest. there was Orly Orvid, and Bernie
Orly Donner is my greatgrand father I had him in my life until I was 30. He is also the man who set me of