(Segment No. 1)
I was stolen away from my dad when I was five years old.
But you know it was for the best. I say that only because if I hadn’t been in that environment I probably would’ve been a totally different person, but one, I would’ve probably never have known all my brothers and sisters. I would’ve never knowed my grandpa and grandma. I would’ve never knowned those people and that to me would’ve been a bigger loss than…
I have a twin brother. My circumstances are that my mother and father they never got married. And they broke up before I was born. My mom was married to another guy when my dad and her hooked up. I don’t know for sure what happened. I know that my mom and my aunt Cathy were married to two brothers – the Reynolds brothers. And Aunt Cathy and Johnny stayed together till both of them had died. My mom was married to Johnny’s brother, Carl. I don’t know how long they was together, I imagine not very long. And I don’t know how her and dad hooked up. Her and Carl, they broke up but they still remain married I think. So my dad and her hooked up and she got pregnant. And that was me and Bobby, but they was split before we was born though. We was born twins and I was first! My mom never put my dad’s name on the birth certificate, I don’t know why either.
They split up and she started seeing another guy and I don’t think the guy – Todd Turner –like the idea that she had two kids by a black man. So she brought us there one day to be watched and never came back. I don’t know how old we was when that happened.
But I do member living with my dad as a kid. I member being happy and laughing and playing with my brother and playing with my cousin Mikey and my other cousins James and Raleigh. We was all about the same age one or two years apart. My dad’s brother’s children. And Mikey, Ellen’s boy, and my uncle Johnny’s boy and also my aunt’s boys James and Raleigh, and my other uncle Chad’s daughter is Martha and Chucky, and uncle Rich’s daughters is Red and Joe Joe. We was all one or two or three years apart and there was a lot of playing. Dad was working at that plant, and Aunt Ellen was working at the mill. And so they would like to switch off, you know. Someone once asked her if she had triplets, me and Bobby and Mikey, because we was all around the same age.
What I do member is that they coaxed us into the car. I think my step-father and my mother were there at the school to pick us up. And I think my dad was there too but he didn’t know she was there – that’s how they picked us up. I don’t know how that come about. I member ridding the bus sometimes so I don’t know why that work. Maybe the school called him and told him our mom was coming to pick us up that day or something, I don’t know how that came about. I didn’t ask why and I’ve never brought it up.
I member being in the back of my mother’s car not knowing who she was and just screaming and crying. I didn’t understand what was going on. Me and my brother was just screaming and crying because they had us in the back of his car taken off. We both were crying because it had been so much time we forgot who she was. We didn’t understand what was going on.
Next Week: But my dad saw her take us into her car…