Aldene

Aldene is the street that we lived on when we moved to Cleveland. The duplex was nice enough I guess. It was the 70's, so I remember this fire orange carpet, must have been the hot thing. I also can see lots and lots of brown in the kitchen, ugly brown. Shiny brown, everywhere. We also had an upstairs. This is where I would hear most of the arguments and the screaming. I could hear them downstairs fighting all the time. Now that I am older, and understand a little about distance and space, Rhonda and her family on the other side of the duplex had to hear this as well. At least then, I didn't comprehend that issue so I had no reason to be embarrassed. Sonny, as everyone called my father was a raging alcoholic. He was a mean drunk, and truth be told, he was mean as hell sober.
I was a member of a local Brownies troop. That's what you are before you become the almighty Girl Scout! I had worked long and hard on a project with my mom making several luminaries out of old coffee cans. We made at least 15 to 20 of these things for my troop. Peeling all the coffee labels off, freezing the cans and punching in different designs with a needle so that we could put our candles in them. They were all sitting on the dining room table, as we needed to take them to our meeting in the morning. That night Sonny came home drunk.