Who Am I

Let me start by saying that I entered into this world to live an unusual life. I see that now. When I was in college working towards my degree, I had to write a paper about my life thus far. Here it is...enjoy!

I’d like to introduce myself, my name is April Amelung and I was born on April 25, 1960 11:55 P.M. at Oakland General Hospital to Marian and Willie Dickinson. I have been told that there was a big money bet on the day of my birth between my four uncles, Greg, Gene, Gary and Johnny. They were all there to greet me as I entered this world. Uncle Gene’s birthday is April 26th and he bet that I would be born on his birthday, unfortunately he lost the bet because I was born 5 minutes before midnight, the day before his birthday. I guess I wanted my own special birthday. Sixteen months later on August 18th my brother David was born.

I was told that my dad wasn't there for both of our births. He was partying when I was born and in jail for possession of Marijuana while my brother was born. My dad became a heroin junkie/beatnik who hung out in Haight Ashbury with the jazz crowd. My mom fell in love with him when she was in High School and he would come to her school and pick her up and take her for rides on his motorcycle ( He had one of the original motorcycle with the classic “ape hanger” handle bars). I have been told that my mom was a very beautiful and vivacious woman and a good mother to me. But by the time my brother was about 6 months old, she started having a nervous breakdown. She was using prescription pills and drinking. She hurt my little brother and wasn’t taking proper care of me. California Child Protection Services removed us from the home. repeatedly. We lived in foster homes, orphanages and went back and forth with her and our stepfather for the first 8 years of my life. I don’t have many memories of my stepfather other than seeing him sitting at the kitchen table in his t shirt and underwear drinking from a bottle of whiskey.

Eventually my Aunt Pat and Uncle Robbie, who loved us and couldn't continue to watch us go through so many homes, decided to get legal custody of us when the system wanted to separate me and my brother into two different homes.

My life was happy and I finally had some stability in my life and I loved my new family, which included my baby cousin, Debora. Debora knew me and David as her brother and sister, if anyone said that we weren't her brother and sister, she would punch them....And eventually Aunt Pat and Uncle Robbie were mom and dad.

After leaving Hayward,we moved to Tucson Arizona and a year later to Mt. Lemmon, Arizona and I grew up there till I was about 15 years old. My best memories are of this mountain life.

My parents decided to get a divorce and when they told us, it totaled our world. Our mountain A-frame cabin had to be sold and we moved off of my beloved mountain.

This was a difficult time for me. My Mom sister and brother and I went to live with my grandpa and grandma in Wheatland California to get back up on our feet and find an affordable home. My grandparents owned a motel with housekeeping cabins on highway 99., just on the outskirts of Wheatland. My mom and sisiter stayed in a one of the cabins and me and my brother stayed in the big house with my grandparents. I started my first year of High School in Wheatland. After about a year, my mom was able to get us into a low-cost house through a special low income interest loan. We moved into our new home and she continued to work as a cocktail waitress and bartender.

I and my brother and cousin pretty much raised ourselves. I don’t ever remember her at home at night. She had a lot of different boyfriends and got married to one which didn't work out. He was a controlling and angry man. She divorced him.

I know now that she was a very strong woman and did all that she could to take care of three wild children on her own. And she needed to be loved by a man to fill the void of losing her husband. She was a fun mom when she was in a good mood and had money, we always went on road trips. I will always remember our trip to Mexico with one of her boyfriends; we camped and stayed for two weeks at Rocky Point Beach. I got stung on my breast by a “Man O War” jellyfish, boy that hurt so bad! I remember just laying in a hot tent for hours waiting for the swelling and pain to go away.

I didn’t do well academically in High School. I was always a really bright student up to Junior high, but I believe the divorce and moving off the mountain hurt me emotionally and academically. When I arrived in Wheatland, I started partying a lot more. I hung around with the fun, wild people. I loved to get high and drink with my friends. I ran around free, barefoot and untamed. I dated my first husband when I was 17 and we moved in together. We got married when I turned 21. Speed and the partying lifestyle were destroying us, especially him, he was getting violent. I begged him to leave Wheatland and get away from the drugs and start a new life somewhere else, but we never did accomplish this and I filed an annulment 6 months after our wedding day. I ended up staying in Wheatland for another 6 years working at Bills Place, a bar and restaurant. I worked in the kitchen for four years and worked up at the bar for 4 years. And then the accident happened. I already wrote about that in a previous this blog entry.

I like to study astrology a bit ( my aunt who was interested in it taught me some and instilled the interest in me) this is a small astrological profile of my personality: "Your Sagittarius Ascendant makes you look like a drought, whereas owing to your Taurus Sun, you are a deep-rooted plant! Since your Sagittarius Ascendant influences your outward appearance, you seem to be interested in all exotic and various discoveries, and you travel with your body as well as with your mind, so as to open up to other cultures and different ways of thinking. You come across as a sociable person who has a broad general knowledge when people meet you for the first time. But as they get to know you better, they gradually discover your Taurus Sun, your composed personality marked by your well-established certainties, and they understand that you are more reasonable than they thought. You fundamentally need regularity and calm in your life despite your apparent restlessness and your fondness for trips and movement. Nevertheless, these two signs, which endow your character with such contrasting facets, share the same taste for good food and conviviality."