Pipeline
by Jack Hutchison

Well, I don't know what to write about tonight, so I'll just put down whatever comes out.

You know I don't understand if a person can't spell well and has a hard time to remember how he can pick up spelling.

From the first day I started school I had problems. I can't even sound out a word.

When I first started school I couldn't speak. It was hard in school because kids and sometimes even my teacher would make fun out of me. I could finally say my last name when I was around 10 or 11 years old. I had seven major operations on my mouth when I was young to try to help me be able to speak and also to help me look better than what I was born like.

When I was young and in school I never was able to get to have friends because we used to move on the average of 35 to 40 times in one year. We used to live by the pipeline and move along with it. It always seemed I would just be starting something in a school and there we would be moved again. I even had a hard time to try to learn my alphabet.

A lot of times my mom would be my teacher, and when she was, all hell would break loose. If I couldn't do something I wouldn't get help, but a real good beating. I remember one time I was about six years old and she left me alone in a log cabin in the bush while she went out somewhere.

When she came back I was hidden under a bed because a bear came in the cabin and it scared me half to death. When she found me she was very angry at me for being under the bed, so she took this butcher knife out and put my hand down and cut all my fingers for being bad and hiding.

I left home when I was 12 years old. I lived on a farm in Ontario and I worked for my room and board. A few times I tried to go to school and learn but I found it very hard to do.

When I was about 14 years old I became very sick and one night I went into a coma; I was in the hospital 3 to 4 months before I came to and I found I lost so much of my memory.

I guess it was just about 8 to 12 months before I could walk again on my own.

The night before this happened I was at my mom's house and I fell to the floor. That's when I went into a coma. My sister was there at the time with her boyfriend and told my mom that she should take me into the hospital, but my mom said, "no", that I would be alright. Finally my sister got mad at my mom and told her that if she wouldn't take me in, that she and her boyfriend would. When I got to the hospital the doctor said I would have died right away if the poison in my brain broke, and he told my family I would have died in about 20 minutes time if I wasn't brought in.

But you know all the hurt and hate to me is water under the bridge. I forgive my family for any reasons they had in the past. I guess I can still say I love my family.