Then & Now (re-edited)

Printer-friendly version

Thanks Goes out to a couple of good folks here on this: Stanman & one other whom I cannot remember the name at this time. But this is the formatted version with their help.


 
 
Where to start? That is the question of the day. To tell this tale you would have to go back through the years. You see, it covers almost 40 years. I am going to try to let you all know how it all happened, the dates of such landmarks would be as close to accurate as I can get them. Maybe I should start by telling you about whom I am and how things have come about.

Just keep in mind that as we grow older things change both you and those around you. See I was born in November of 1972. This is the first thing of note. For this was a month early for the blessed event. When I was born, the doctor said that I was a boy. Well we know that was wrong but, I will get into that in a bit. I was named Clarence Daniel Parker. Now with my Father being a Dental Tech. in the Navy. It is not surprising that I was born away from the main part of our family. You see I was born out in California,where as our family was mostly in Missouri, this was the way of things.

Now is the time for, some background on my family. I believe that my Father should be first, but all of my family will be included in this. Well, my Father as I have stated was in the Navy that time. His name was Marcus David Parker. Dad was not what you would call a small man at all. You see he stands 6’4” and weighed in around 280 at the time. Well he was stationed at NAS Moffette Field. This happened to be located just outside of San Jose. My Mother was Janet Grace Parker. What can I say accept that she was a stay at home mom with two kids now, including myself. Mom was not that tall standing only at 5’2” weighing around 110. Then you have my older sister who was named Charlotte Dianna Parker. She was born a couple of years before me. That is to say, she was born in January 1970. Well that pretty much describes the family such as it was.

Now as with all thing Military, there comes the moving and the different duty stations of the personal. This happened to my Dad in 1974. We did not get to stay on post this time, as was put on Sea Duty. Therefore, the whole family went to Missouri to visit with my grandparents on Dad’s side. Dad had to report for duty at his new duty post. This was aboard the USS Enterprise. Well, with my mom not working, we stayed with Grandma & Grandpa. Alas, things were starting to turn rocky for us.

See, with my dad at sea, mom was getting lonely. This did not set well with dad even though he was not exactly faithful to my mom at the time either. In any event this, lead to the events of 1976 — 1978. This started with their divorce, in which dad got custody of us. Therefore, for a while we lived with our grandparents. We move a couple of times as they were renting a house and, later dad bought one for us as he planned on coming back to Missouri when he retired from the Navy.

Now dad was stationed with that ship until 1980. That is not to say that we never saw him. It was during a leave of his that he met our step-mom. Her name is Barbara Pearl Jones. Now this is not to say that all was well as there was also that added sibling to deal with. Her name was Lisa Helen Jones. Lisa was also a November baby just a year younger then I.

Overall, you can say things were going well, what with two children on one side and another child on the other. This was a good thing, but you know, this is where I start to find myself. Well, as things go, dad remarried in March of 1978. This was when the fun began.

You see, we had to move the whole family from Missouri to Washington. This was done by way of a Ryder truck and tow dolly for Barb’s car. Well, we ended up broke down in a rest area about 40 miles north west of Denver in a blizzard which of course was not that much fun as we were sleeping in the back of that truck on the trip.

We did get to our new digs. That was the town of Bremerton, Washington. This is where the story starts to go more into how I found myself. I should note here it was and, is a slow process. It started innocent enough. With two sisters, one would think that I was going to be the protective one. That is not what happened at all. One night in 1979, we were playing house that is my sisters and me. I was playing the daughter to my younger sister being the dad, the older sister being the mom. When it came time for bed, we all hugged & kissed our folks goodnight. Dad smelt the perfume on me and said that if I wanted to stink, that he had some thing for me. What he gave me was bottle of after-shave. You know I never did use it. It just sat in our medicine cabinet.

Now I always like playing with the girls as my sisters always made friends faster than I did. As stated before with the Military it came time to move again. This came about in the summer of 1980. If you can recall there was some excitement in that spring as there was volcanic eruption that occurred at that time. That was when Mt. St. Helen's blew. My elder sister and I was visiting with an older woman from our church when that happened. We watched it from her back yard. When we left for dad’s new post, we drove though some places of thick ash.

There is nothing like it on your feet as you walk though it to go to the rest room at a rest area. Not that we walked through it barefooted, mind you. We had flip-flops on. Since dad had to be trained for his new duties with good old Uncle Sam, we stayed with Barb’s folks on their farm. Things happen and the one that was good for us kids was we were allowed to stay by ourselves in the little house that was on the farm.

However, alas all good things come to an end. We moved to our new home, but this one is a rental house as there was no housing open at the time good old Navy. The house was in the town of Newark, IL. The school was walking distance from us and so were three of our cousins. These were on Barb’s side of the family.

In 1981, we moved into the base housing for the area. That was located in the town of Wilmington, IL. Now we had to ride a bus to school, which was not fun. Who knew that I would be getting into trouble that year in school? This led me going to yet another school the following year.

Well, in all I was still trying to find the one thing that was not right with me, as I knew something was. In the summer of 1983, we were on the move once again this time to the sunny south or should that be the muggy south? I will let you all decide that one for me.

We rolled into the state of Florida in late July. Which once again no quarters were open yet at the new duty station! Do you get the feeling that the Navy just does not know how to keep up with its personal? A week of living in a tent with the folks and pets, what could be better than that? Well, we got into the Navy Lodge on the new base. The pets had to go to a kennel, which just ruined our little dog’s potty training. Finally, we were moved into our home for the next couple of years.

More of my finding myself came about on the Halloween of 1984, that one I went as a young woman. I wore a dress of my younger sisters, which was a hand, me down, plus the bra and panties of hers. My hair was a wig that was Barb’s. I went to school dressed. That year I was one of the school’s safety patrol. To say that I felt at ease in the dress was an understatement. When it came time for trick or treating, I talked another little boy to go dress as I was. This is the interesting thing about that he had younger sisters, and the family were Mormons. That alone was a hoot.

What still gets me to this day is the fact that he was hit on more than me. This is surprising in the fact the kids in our housing area knew who he was. Well now, we come to the fall of 1985, and my dad is retiring from his career in the Navy. This means, you guessed it, another move. This time the folks decided to stay in Florida. Therefore, they found a place with two houses on it.

You are asking why the second house right. That is simple, Barb’s folks asked to come and stay with us as they were getting older and wanted to be near her so she could help look out for them. During all of this, I had been doing the bulk of the cooking for the family because Barb was working, her daughter could, not be bothered and our older sister just did not get it.

Just before, we moved into the new house we were cleaning and painting it one night it was the whole family. Barb asked for a meal that we could eat there as there was not a way to cook at the new place, yet. I went with a cold salad dish. Now let me tell you that was the first meal at my folk’s house.

Still, I was having trouble in school. Just could not fit into the way the boys did things. I still cooked and did the vacuuming. I was always being picked on, which caused a lot of trouble from day one. Therefore, I shall go into that a bit as I did sneak wearing the clothes of my sisters. Back to being picked on and the fun, it brought. Being picked on was never any fun, it always reduced me to tears.

Yes, my normal reaction was to cry like any other girl, but the doctor remember him? The one that said I was a boy. That was the whole problem for me the outside was boy. The inside was girl. My younger sister was a fighter, so she came to my defense. This was also a problem as it show that I needed a girl to defend me.

Let us move forward a few years to 1991, this is when I first left home. I had a roommate that was gay and he found out about who I was on the inside. That was good, but I ended up having to drop out of school my senior year. That in itself was not all bad as it got rid of a lot of stress in my life. That was in the start of 1992. If you know anything about Job Corps then you know that is where I went. I got my GED; I also tried my hand at a couple of trades.

All was going ok up until one of my fellow classmates got me mad at him. They kicked me out of there saying I had a personality conflict. I would say they were right, but they just did not know how right they were. Any way, that was in 1994, when I got back home to dad’s, I found a job in a fabrication shop. As all things in my life it did not last too long as we had been laid off about a month and a half later.

However, I found work with a shipping company loading and unloading trucks as well as work at a local restaurant. The shipping company job did not last long, the other job lasted until around the spring of 1996. There were a couple of moves on my part. The last one before I came back up to Missouri was where I was raped.

I will it at that no need to get into it. This brings me to my Uncle's house in Cuba, Missouri. Well, I did not stay long with him and moved in with my Aunt who was in Bourbon, Missouri. Things got strained there, so we work it out for me move on to Springfield by way of Rolla. I stayed in a shelter here.

This brings me to my second round with Job Corps. This did not end well either. As anyone can tell when someone is different, they get rid of him or her. It happened that is what happened with me. By the way, of a female that came in when I did. I was accused of sexually harassing her. This ended that part of my life.

I spent Valentine’s weekend on the bus back to that state. This ended up both good and bad as I did get a job until someone started a fight with me. Any way, all things worked out where I got back to my Aunts place got working and a place of my own. During this time my elder sister found our mom.

up
96 users have voted.
If you liked this post, you can leave a comment and/or a kudos! Click the "Thumbs Up!" button above to leave a Kudos

Comments

Then & Now (reedited)

I was glad to help an authoress with her story, and looking forward to many more.

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine