Should I Stay or Should I Go? That Was the Question

When we arrived in Keizer, we set up housekeeping in a small city of tent dwellers. We found an empty tent and set our living quarters until my father could find a better place to live. Somehow, my uncle Art had been able to build a house for himself and his family in this little town, now a suburb of Oregon’s capital city. Sometime later, we moved to a little house adjacent to an old lake bed. By this time, my dad had landed a job with a cold storage facility in the nearby town of Brooks. We might have been able to make it as a family, if it hadn’t been for my fathers nonstop drinking. Finally, the day came when my mom could take no more of this lifestyle, and she left him for good. Mother asked me if I wanted to go with her and my sister, and I told her no, that I would stay with my dad. It certainly wasn’t one of the best decisions in my life.