The Females in My Life, by Ricky

Like everyone else on this planet, the first woman in my life was my mother.  Mom was the care giver when I was young, but she was also the rat-fink of my life.  She would always tell my father of my daily misdeeds and he was the disciplinarian in the family.  During that time period, discipline consisted of not too gentle spankings, so I learned to fear both of them.  Mom was also the one who came to Minnesota, while I was living with my grandparents, to be a bridesmaid for her sister and then did not take me back to California when she left Minnesota after the wedding.  I think I subconsciously resent her even to this day for leaving me and for being a rat-fink.

The second woman was my father's mother.  After I was born she came to live with us for about one year.  I don't remember that time period much and as I grew up, I did not see her very often.  The next female in my life was my beloved Bonnie, a black and white collie, who became the best baby sitter a two-year old toddler could not escape; that is until I learned to take her with me when I left the yard.  Sadly, she got distemper and passed before her first birthday.  I don't remember if I grieved for her very much.  I only now remember her from old photographs and the stories my parents told me over time.

Next was a girl in my Kindergarten class at the Hawthorn Christian School in Hawthorn, California.  Her name was Sandra Flora.  She was like a girlfriend to me, or more precisely, I was a boyfriend to her.  With long curly hair and the full dress that little girls wore at that time, she looked like a young Shirley Temple.  I carried her Kindergarten school photo in my wallet well into my 40's when I finally lost it.

The next woman in my life would be my mother's mother.  I lived with her and my grandfather for two years on a farm in central Minnesota from the age of 8 until two-weeks before I turned 10.  She was a reasonable surrogate mother but at 9-years of age, I ended up with a mild ‟school boy crush” on my 4^th grade teacher, Mrs. Knoll.  She was a very young beautiful lady and in her second year as a teacher.  The crush was mild because she was married so I knew I had no chance and I was not quite into full blown puberty.  My 3^rd grade teacher, Mrs. Sorensen, was a good but matronly teacher and thus of no interest to me.

Back on the farm, my aunt Darlene, my mother's younger and only sister, would visit occasionally with her husband.  When I was 8, I was a ring-bearer (like Bilbo and Frodo) at her wedding.  My younger cousin, Pamela Anderson, was the flower-girl.  There was one other female on the farm that I had a platonic relationship with, at least on my part.  Her name was Peanuts and she was a Guernsey cow.  Her stall was the first one as I would enter the barn and so she became my favorite, almost like a pet.

One week before I turned 10, my mother and new step-father came to Minnesota to pick me up and take me back to California.  They also introduced me to the next female to enter my life, my little baby sister, Gale.  For the next 9 years she and her twin brother and I had a close family relationship.  They were the kids and I was the babysitter.  Not too much personal time for me, but we did have some amount of fun growing up until I went away to college and then the military.  She still lives at our ‟home town” of South Lake Tahoe.

The next female was never alive in the literal sense but she really was a lady.  She was the Skipalong, my step-father's 39 foot cabin cruiser he used as a tour-boat on Lake Tahoe during 1957 and '58.  I was his deckhand in 1958 and I really loved the ‟job” and the boat.  All I had was that one summer with her as the next summer, at the beginning of the season, she sank at a pier while her engine was being overhauled and was sold for salvage.  I still miss her even today as that summer was perhaps the happiest of my childhood.

She had a colorful career.  It is believed she was built in the 1920's in Morris Heights, New York by the Consolidated Shipbuilding Corporation.  She was originally 36 feet long but upon arrival in San Francisco she was modified to 39 feet long and a ‟lookout cockpit” was added to the bow as she began service as a rum runner during Prohibition.

In the Fall of 1958, after that wonderful summer, I developed another school boy crush.  This time it was during full blown puberty and on my unmarried, first year 5^th grade teacher, Miss Herbert.  She was beautiful, young, and had a wonderful personality.  I was in LOVE!  Then she got married over Christmas vacation.  I was devastated.  It appeared to me that I would never get the women I loved, which due to the age differences, is probably a good thing.

The next female arrived at our house on Red Lake Road, in South Lake Tahoe when I was 12.  She was ¾ Oriental Poodle and ¼ Pomeranian—a little, black, shaggy, and “yippy” lap dog.  She bonded to me the first night in our house and became the first female I slept with for the next 9-years.  I was monogamous but she was a very prolific bitch. No! I was not the father of her litters.

After I joined the Air Force, I met my first girlfriend as an adult.  She was the best friend of the woman I would marry 5-years later.  During the intervening years, I also met the woman who taught me about making out and foreplay.  Then there was the woman who took my virginity.  Actually, I guess it was a mutual thing as she did not have to twist my arm to get it.

Then I married Deborah and we enjoyed 27-years and 9-months together before she passed from complications of breast cancer.  During those years, the final women in my life were born to us—our three daughters, one of which made me a grandfather with her 2-daughters.

So those are the women and other females in my life.  I chose not to tell about my two female cats, so be thankful for small favors.

© 23 November 2014  

About the Author 

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I was sent to live with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.