Purple Robin

I know this to be true because my Mother told me this was how I was born. We moved to a forty-acre farm, as sharecroppers, about six miles from Qulin, Missouri. The two room rural schoolhouse was three and half miles from our house and we had to walk all the way. I turned six and this was my first year picking cotton. I loved to pick and could pick more than my brother John. Things cooled of in Laos and none of us who worked in the Fleet intelligence Unit for Europe was extended. My enlistment was up and I headed back to Norfolk, Virginia and civilian life. When Caroline was two years old I started having visions of a train wreck. With my eyes full of tears, I said to myself, “This is the worst day of my life!” I decided that I was sick and tired of living my life to please my relatives. I was now forty, Penny is gone and I have two wonderful children to raise and I will do it by myself¬¬¬¬¬¬¬-----my way.¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ My children jumped-up crying and took off running out the door. I ran to the door and called them but they had already run out of sight. I was so mad I told the guy. “Get the hell out of my house before I commit murder. I had won $175,000 in the Fantasy Five Lottery game! I called Daryl and told him the news. He said, “Dad, no one hits it four times, that’s impossible.” I said, “Well your daddy did.” “Which one do you want” I pointed to the poodle that still had her paws wrapped around my neck. “This one right here,” I said.