My life - Chapter 1???

Anytime I think about an autobiography, I think that a person who writes an autobiography does it when they are getting into the later years of life. Only an old person does such a thing. I am only 30, so why would I think about writing a story about my life?

I guess that my life has been a bit different. I was born in June 1976, in a relatively small city in Canada. My mother was 37 at the time. The closest sibling I had was my sister, Maryann, and she was 13-14 years old when I was born. I also had another sister, Debbie, and a brother Ronnie, who are 11 months apart in age from each other, but they had already moved out of the home. Guess you could say that I was an "oops" baby. My mother was already a single mom when I came along. Her husband had died over a year before.

My mother was living on a farm near Lake Manitoba. What a beautiful place that is. You can go walking along the shore for miles, breathing in the fresh lake air and picking berries from nearby bushes. The shoreline was a bit rocky, and the sand was a gray color. Cows can sometimes be heard mooing in the distance. If you look out across the lake you can see an island. About a mile or so down the shore is a relatively primitive campground, only having an outhouse and access to electricity.

My mother was always busy. She worked 1 or 2 jobs most of the time, besides looking after the farm and her kids. I remember her working at several different places over the years. She worked at a place she calls "the Hotel." I don't really remember much about it other than it sold beer and I think it had a restaurant. I don't remember there being actual hotel rooms though, but I could be wrong. A child's mind can be slightly distorted at times. I think that this is the place she met my father.

My mother also worked at a place she called the Legion. The only thing that I really remember about this place was that when my sister got married she had her reception there. That night was pretty interesting for me because I met a boy that night and walked around and around that building for hours just talking to him. Don't really remember what it was that we talked about, considering that was.......about 23 years ago.

The place that she worked at that was most memorable was a place called the Narrows. She worked for Pete and his wife, Winnie. They had a grandson named Chad, who was a year or so older than me. Chad came up to my mother once when she was at work and asked her if I was her kid. She said that I was. He asked her if she could get me to stop bugging him on the bus. Guess I was a bit of a bully then.

The Narrows brought a very important person into my mother's life. While she was working, it wasn't uncommon to meet hunters from various parts of Canada and the United States. This resort was well known in the area and played host to numerous hunters every fall. My mother happened to catch the eye of one particular hunter from Minnesota. He had hunted around the area before, and had met my brother some time before but didn't realize it until later on. Well, my mother exchanged numbers with this Minnesota hunter, and honestly never expected to hear from him again. She was wrong. Not only did she hear from him, but she ended up marrying him.

I was almost seven when she got married to the Minnesota hunter, and my time living in Canada came to an end.