Let's fire up the shit show again

Jonny died May of 1980. My life changed forever from that point forward. Now, in my life, his impact has continued to impact me in massively positive ways. At that point, being 12, and losing the one positive father figure I ever really had......it wasn't good....not good at all. 

Mom, doing what mom did in her own life, moved on from Jonny's death pretty fast. I am pretty certain it was within a six month window that she started dating, and married, Uncle Tom. Now, since you read that right, mom married Uncle Tom, I am going to give the backstory.

Remember my brother's biological father, Gerry Emmerson?  Ok. Well, Tom was his brother. The story is this....mom, years and years prior met Tom Emmerson first and they had dated.  Gerry swooped in on his brother's girl and mom shifted her attention to Gerry. They married and you can read how that went in my previous blogs. So, years later, literally 20 plus years laters, long after mom and Gerry had divorced, Tom came back into the picture. 

Tom Emmerson, while it was super weird that our Uncle became our step-dad, he was a good one.  For me, being 12, having just lost the father I believed to be the one father who gave a shit about me, well, Tom coming in the picture at that point wasn't good for me. The other thing that happened is when Tom and Mom married, our two cousins, Terry and Kenny, they moved in and became our instant step-brothers. Yeah, another oddity for sure. 

The household make up instantly changed for me in many ways. From a sibling standpoint I was still the youngest.  Also, by this point, my brother Bob was still out of the house, Tina and Cheri where there, and Kenny & Terry, and me. 

The house we were living in at the time, remember, it was small.  But, mom and Tom managed to fit us all in there.  I remember the dining area being converted to a bedroom for Kenny and I.  Terry got his own room and Tina and Cheri must have shared own room.  Somewhere in this time period Tina marry's and moves out and Cheri follows not to long after.   

But, for now, less than six months after Jonny died, we are still in the same house he lived in with us, but, here we were with a whole new family. This, my friends, while pretty normal given our history, this time, with the added bonus of mom marrying someone we knew as our Uncle....it was fucking weird.  But, we were kids, our life was crazy anyway, so, why not.  Here we go.

Kenny was a year older than me, and Terry one year older than Kenny. I should also note, because this plays into the family dynamic scenario, that directly prior to all of these changes, Kenny and Terry had not been living with Tom. They had been living with their mom.  Tom getting married helped him get his boys.  Terry and Kenny have their own stories about the craziness of living with their mother.  It wasn't pretty for them at all. 

Kenny and I became close right away. Being just a year apart it was an easy thing to have happen. We had to share a room right away and we went to the same school.  Honestly, I latched on to Kenny fast.  Terry and Kenny were already doing things like smoking and skipping school and such.  Prior to Jonny's death I had been a straight A student and never missed a day of school. To really no fault of them, I latched right on to their behavior almost immediately.  In a nutshell, as far as school went, I went from being a 4.0 GPA student to a .67 GPA student between the 7th and 9th grade.  

I was 12 when I started skipping school, not doing school work, smoking cigarettes/pot, and, drinking.  My behavior declined pretty fast after the latest marriage for mom. Poor Tom really didn't stand a chance with any of us.  He was a good man, really, he was.  I know my sister Cheri and him were always close. But, for me, it didn't click at all. I am certain now, looking back, the reason I was acting out in very unhealthy ways,  was due to the loss of Jonny.  Our family had zero skills in the way of communication and processing emotions, we just didn't.  Thus, for us kids, it came out in other ways. 

We moved, shocker I know, from the house on 61st to a house off of 36th and L Street in Tacoma for more space which we desperately needed.  Mom, was again, wanting to have a family, at least as far as it might look to the outside world. 

So, to conclude todays writing, let me describe who all lived in the house on L Street....you will love it. It was an older house with a main floor that had two bedrooms, upstairs I believe had another two bedrooms, and, and there was an unfinished basement.  At one point we had the following living there:  Mom and Uncle Tom in a bedroom on the main floor, our Grandma Turco in a bedroom on the main floor, Gerry Emmerson on a couch in the living room (yup, you heard that right), Tina and Cheri in a room upstairs, Terry in another (and he shared a room with my brother Bob for a short period I think), and Kenny made a room out of closet upstairs.  Now, honestly just writing that out.......I do NOT remember where my room was......Interesting.  But, I was there and had space somewhere.  So, count it up, in a not so big house really, we had 9 people!   Oh shoot,  I am pretty sure my sister Tina and her first husband were there at one point....that would make it 10.

More tomorrow......