Run Away

Run Away consists of happenings that I encountered as a child growing up poor. I was number ten in a family of fifteen kids. Most of my young life was spent working hard every day. I had to contend with the usual problems of a poor kid, except my father was an alcoholic. This problem caused my momma and dad to quarrel quite a lot. I was afraid of my dad most of the time, and I always wanted to run away from all the alcohol, quarrelling, and fighting, but there was no safe place I could run to. If I did run away, dad would just find me and beat me to death for it; that was my theory anyhow. I tried to look on the bright side of everything, wondering that there were a lot of kids in the world worse off than I was. I did run away from home once, but that was my first and last time. My dad "cut the blood out of us." My younger brother's legs and mine were marked with a long keen switch. He put the fear of the old man in us for sure. I have recaptured situations that will cause all of us to think twice before we pass judgment on others. We never know what others have been through just to survive.