Run, Lola, Run!!

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but I am the oldest of 10 yep you read that right!! Ten siblings.........theres, Cathy, Woody Jr, Colleen, Robin, Wayde, Wendall, Laurie, Wes and last but not least........theres the baby JULIE! This morning after reading my blog I got a message from my sister Julie.......so everyone please just be patient with me........I need to stop my story long enough to tell Julie how much I love her and how thankful I am that she is part of my world!! And to share some of her story with her.......because Julie you certainly do have a story to tell honey.

Julie is from my stepfathers second marriage.......therefore making her and I sisters out of love not so much blood......lol  But I have loved her since I first met her when she was five years old and we all gathered in San Diego for my step-fathers funeral. Do you remember that Julie?.......OMG I just remembered that she was being such a brat to her mother Maru that it irritated me and Maru was trying to deal with the death of her husband meanwhile she had a 5 year old to contend with and a houseful of mostly strangers!!! There was my husband, me and my Four kids, my sister Cathy and her TWO girls, the baby being only like a month or two old, Robin with her boyfriend and her THREE kids, Colleen with her TWO girls and then my FOUR brothers who on top of everything else told Maru that they wanted to be the paulbearers!! This should have been a full military funeral but she had to pay for most of it because the boys made that request and she would not tell them NO! So to say the least my heart went out to her.  I had talked to her on the phone several times when I called my Dad but I had never met her......and then there were relatives there from Hawaii also........OMG it was like a zoo!!  At one point Maru had Julie go and spend a couple of nights with one of her teachers to lighten the load......and poor Julie just wanted her Daddy!! She could not understand where he was and why he was not there.......and, we were all there for a week!! I remember telling you the morning we left to come home that if you didn't mind your mama and she had to call me I would drive down there and spank you like I did Robbin and Renee.........lol  And the first time she did call me I heard you in the background yelling at her not to call me!!!

My twins were trying their little selves just as bad as Julie was at one point I had to take them to the backyard as Julie looked on and I spanked them both!! I heard Julie telling Maru......Bunny is mean!! (oh yeah another thing I forgot.......when I was born, someone decided to give me a nickname........Bunny!! How you gonna saddle a kid with that name unless you believe they are not going to grow up!!!) To this day, I am still called that.......it makes me understand that my cousin John  hates being called Johnnyboy!!! hahaha

Julie, when I first met your father, I was about 8 years old.  My mother had come to take me from my gramma and claim her right as a MOTHER!!......wutever! Anyways, after battling with me to stay in the car we arrived at your grandparents house where I had four brothers and sisters and Dad waiting to meet me........I will never forget through all my devastation that day how kind his eyes were!! As an adult I can see that he knew I was truly frightened!  My whole life so far had been wrapped up between two grandmothers and this truly scared me to death! 

Let me share a memory with you........when we lived on Ft Ord I guess money was tight although we never did without anything so we couldn't have told.......but Dad had a part time job at the NCO club as a bartender a couple of nights a week and then he had a daily route in Salinas for the San Francisco Chronicle.  Well it was hard for him to do alone so he asked me and Woody if we would go and help him.  OMG I was thrilled, anything to get away from my mother even if it meant getting out of bed at 2AM and going to school tired as hell in the morning!!  Woody and I would take turns sitting in the front and the one in the back folded the papers and stacked them in the middle of the front seat and Dad and whoever was in the front would throw!!  It was very cool, Dad had a great sense of humor that Woody and I learned about on the route cause I think there was rarely anything in our house to laugh at!! And the very last stop we made was to the SnowWhite Donut shop and when we took the stack of papers in the man who was in there making donuts at 4AM would give us a little bag of donut holes!!! Dad would tell us, "get them ate before we get home there ain't enough in that bag for everybody to get one!!".......me and Woody would laugh!!! and I bet to this day we neither one every told the other kids!!! lmao

Your father Julie was a very soft spoken man.  He rarely raised his voice.  And you are smart partly because of him.  When he was stationed in West Point, NY the military academy he was an instructor there.....of what I don't know but what an honor I would think.  You have so much to be proud of being his biological daughter.  Sometimes I wonder if you know any of the history behind him and your mom meeting.  I just hope she has shared that with you.

When Dad divorced my mother after 18 yrs of marriage he was being stationed in Japan.  Five of the kids decided to go with him and he took them to your grammas in Hawaii while he went on to Japan to get quarters and get settled.  While he was gone, Colleen and Wayde decided they wanted to come back to California and be with my mom........what the hell were they thinkin??? lol The other three eventually went on to Japan with your grandmother who was going to take care of them while Dad worked.  Well Wendall was still quite young but Robin and Woody were approaching the teen years rapidly!!  They were driving your gramma crazy!! So Dad by that time had met your Mom who was a barber on the base I'm thinking I never knew Dad to go off base for much.  Dad sent Gramma back to Hawaii and I think at first your mom just cleaned the house and cooked for the kids and one thing led to another.......I think thats why she was so close to Wendall too because she almost raised him.

When Dads tour there was over he married your mom so he could bring her home with him and he was stationed in Ft Leonard Wood, Mo and I don't remember if you were born there or in San Diego but thats all I know bout that........lol  I know when Dad retired to San Diego he opened your Moms shop so you spent a lot of time with him at the golf course growing up. It was very different for you Julie........he was always busy with the Army and his sports with the other kids but when you came along he spent countless hours with you!  He adored you!! Several times when I talked to him on the phone I could tell his face was in a FULL smile when he would tell me about you!! If nothing else Julie, know this.........you brightened everyday of his life that he could wake up and smile at you!! Dad had such a wonderful smile Julie,.......I see it in some of your pictures when you smile!!  My bad I have never told you that before!! After I read your message I went to look at some pictures of you  and it reached out to me......... funny how as you get older you notice things like that! And how some things......you just never forget!! Dad loved his Hawaiian music Julie!! He played the ukelele and now if he was alive today, him and Dan would have so much in common!! Dad must have owned a hundred aloha shirts!! I know cause I ironed them!! lol I used to watch him getting ready to go and play music (he played with a group in Monterey and they would do rich folks parties) I used to think how handsome he was and what the hell did he see in my mother?? I know my thought process was colored by other things.......lol Everytime I am in a drug store and I see a jar of "Three Roses Brilliantine" I think of him......he used it in his hair and he had jet black hair just like you Julie!  I know you miss him Julie........I miss him too!! After my mother stole me away from my gramma he was the first KIND person I found!! The second was your Uncle John and Aunty Dolly!! They would rescue me sometimes for the weekend and I would get to go to their house and thats why I'm so close to their kids!! Their house was a refuge for me when I was growing up!!  When Aunty Dolly was pregnant with Lei she would tell my mother that she needed me to help her and when we would get to their house and I'd ask Aunty what do you need me to do and she would smile at me and tell me........"go play with the kids, get outta here!!"  I miss her so bad when.......

Julie, I had him for a little bit and you had him for a little bit......but I think between our little bits we do have a story to tell.........cause I had him for a stepfather first then I found my biological father CHARLIE........ok, hang on..........you had him for your biological father first then you found your stepfather CHARLIE!! You know Julie some shit just climbs outta the woodwork and scares the hell outta me!! Laugh my sweet sister!!! Some shit is just funny!!  Coincidence??? hmmm.......who knows?? Now you need to make yourself sit down and write your story Julie!!  I know how much you loved Charlie.......and I want to read it!!!  All my love sweetie...........Bunny!