The Runaway

Okay - I realize it has been forever but I am blocked from this site at work and I rarely have access to the internet, but I do for the next 3 weeks or so and I am going to try to take advantange of it.

It was the first day of summer and I had been sent out to do some kind of work, whether it was pulling stick tights, clearing the manure pile or whatever I was hating life. This was my first summer after my brother had been kicked out -(I will get to my brother -VERY SOON) and most of the outdoor chores were left up to me to do. I was the only one sent out that day to work. Previous summers they would usually send out all four of us (two sisters, one brother and me) to pull stick tights so the cows wouldn't eat them and get sick. We would pull most of the morning but when we were sent out in the afternoons there was a little work and a lot of goofing off. If they didn't want to give us play time we would make it ourselves. We were sort of sly I guess but you got to do what you got to do. I guess Mom just wanted us out of her hair. The check for keeping us was nice though! All four in our teens. This summer my oldest sister was living there but they were probably not getting money for her upkeep because she had just graduated high school. So anyway let me get back to my story.

After working all morning my little brother Charles came out to call me in for lunch. I remember we had tomato soup. I had already made up my mind that I was going to runaway and go see the social worker, even though I hadn't met her yet. She had been in charge of us for 9 months or so and I didn't even know her name. So after lunch I make sure to tell Charles that I loved him and I was feeling emotional but I didn't show it because I didn't want him or anyone to know what I was planning. So I walked out the house and back towards the barn and I just kept going. I ran through the backwoods until I passed my Uncle's house that was 3/4 miles away. The Uncle and his sons were working in the hay field so I had to crawl in the ditch for the next mile until I reached our church. Once there I decided it would be okay to walk along the gravel road but whenver I heard a car (which was rare) I would hit the ditch. I actually probably saw the dust before hearing a car if it was coming toward me. Finally I made it the next two miles and I was on a paved Highway. HWY 35 to be exact and I was tired and lonely and desperate but I wasn't going to turn back.

Shortly after arriving on the paved road a dog starting following me. I let him walk along, not that I could have stopped him and I was talking to him. I reached the corner where 35 met Blaine road (I think that is the name of the road) and a woman pulled her car off the side of the road (the wrong side for the direction she was driving) and asked me if that was my dog. I told her no and she said she thinks it is hers and calls the dog over. The dog trots over to her and then she asks me if I need a ride. I said, yeah I am going into town so she tells me to hop in and off we go. Town was probably another 8 miles away and if it hadn't been for that ride I wouldn't have ever made my escape but I would have been so busted.

I know where I want to go but I just don't know how to get there so when we get into town I asked her to drop me off at the B&B store. I hardly could have been further away and still be in the same town. I started walking in the general direction and when i hit main street I headed south. It was about 2 miles total I would guess. I arrived about 5 minutes before 5 O'Clock and I broke into tears from sheer exhaustion (emotional and mental mostly but also physically just tired from the journey)

Well I was introduced to my social worker, Ann and we talked for about an hour and I told her that I hated it out there and that they treated me like dirt. I gave her a few examples of my situation and she wanted to call them and let them know where I was. I agreed that they would probably be looking for me by now. Sure enough when Ann called Mom told her she had just sent Charles out looking for me and he had returned stating I didn't answer and he didn't know where I was. So essentially for five + hours they left me outside without checking on me or seeing if I needed even a drink of water. Not that I couldn't fend for myself but it does paint a picture.

After Ann and Mom had talked it was decided that due to the lateness of the evening that she would return me and in the morning we would all meet at the welfare building and discuss the problems I was having. I arrived around 8 or 8:30 and let me put it this way - UNCOMFORTABLE - Everyone was looking at me and no one was saying a word. Next thing we know the parents decide to let us all go roller skating at the resort my sister works at. This was the only time we ever went rolling skating there. We got home around midnight ( a tree was struck by lightning that night along the road I had crawled through the ditch in) so that was exciting (as if my day hadn't been already) and then everyone takes a shower with me being last. Usually I was one of the first but they knew what they were doing. About 2 hours later my parents decide that we need to have a chat. We talked until 4:30 in the morning and I was up at 6:30 putting on my pretty little blue strawberry skirt that their eldest daughter had made for me and off to town we went.

The only accomplishment that was made on this fateful trip was the girls were allowed to wear pants at home except on Sundays and the story I initially told on Thursday night was replaced with a new version that I told with the parents present on Friday where they had convinced me that all my problems revolved around the fact that me and my oldest sister Kelli were not getting along.

The irony of this is: Kelli would have turned 50 years old today if she were still alive. Of course here in Iraq it is the 14th but in the states it is the 13th which is her date of birth. I read the "transcript" in the case file, if you will, shortly after she died in 1986 and I live with the fact that I ended up blaming her. Why the story that I initially told was left out I will never know.