Pg 25 - My Story

Good day today. I want to thank you all for reading my manuscript in the making.  I do hope you jump to the front page of my website and notice my books I have written with the thought of giving them a try. If you like them maybe you will share them with another person to enjoy.  When you read them, you will notice similarities of My Life in my novels. I have taken certain things out of my life and made them more romantic and fun to read. I am working on a book during the Al Capone time. A bit of history for you, my grandpa use to work for Al Capone. But no this story is not about him, I have made up my vision of Romeo and Juliet during that time. I will let you know when I publish it.  I have a new partner at work that is helping me design the cover right now.  OK on with my story.

First I want to say that being a paramedic or let’s just say wearing the uniform I noticed that I was being
treated differently.  When I would walk into a store with my uniform on people would act nicer to me, and give me more respect than I was use to. I was having trouble understanding this. After all I am the same person with or without the uniform.  This was quit an adjustment for me to take and still to this day I don’t
understand why.

Well we moved to soy bean and corn field country. That was all we could see for miles around as we went into Decatur, Illinois.  Life was to start again. All the kids still were living with us, except Kristina. I got Jessica and Regina back into school.  Jennifer and Erik got back into college and found jobs. Jimmy was real busy at his new job, and still seemed distant.  Looking for a job, busy helping to get the kids adjusted I didn’t have the time to figure out what was wrong. There was only one Ambulance Company in town, and so I was put on a waiting list. I needed a job so my first job in Decatur was a school bus driver.  I will tell you, I really have a lot of respect for school bus drivers after having my feet in their shoes.  After the hours of learning how to drive and back up the bus, I had to get a CDL license. It really wasn’t too hard because they gave us the answers to memorize.  

As a bus driver, I had to have a lot of patience for my kids I was driving around every day.  Some would get real rowdy and I would pull over and stop the bus until they decided to settle down.  It would actually work, because they wanted to get home and I didn’t care how long I would keep them on the side of the road. Sometimes I would have to assign seats and keep certain kids away from each other.  I tried being kind and would go to the hostess  store and pick up apple fruit pies for breakfast for the kids who didn’t get a chance to eat before school.  I made the promise that if they were good all week I would have hostess cupcakes for a snake on Fridays after school. This worked sometimes, and I got to see how many kids left the house hungry in the morning grateful for my treat.  

In September Jessica wanted to go to her homecoming dance and yes, you know it, Zack came down to bring her.  I think that is when I found out Zack was four years older than Jessica.

Zack & Jessica

 We found a good church in Mt Zion and on September 24, Jimmy, Jessica, and Erik got baptized. 
I cried as I watched them, and took their pictures. I think that is every mothers dream to have your kids want to get baptized.  I was baptized when I was a freshman in high school.  I still remember it like it was just yesterday.  I was this shy quiet girl in high school and for some reason a greaser boy named John Taylor liked me.  He was just a little taller than me, with his hair greased back, wearing a black leather jacket and had cleats on his shoes.  He hung around with the bad greaser boys who were always smoking in the bathroom and when they talked they swore a lot. But when they were around me, he would have them use manners and they watched their tongues.  He would walk me to my classes with his arm around me and kiss me every time he dropped me off at my class.  One day he brought me to his house which was next to a little church. It seemed this bad greaser boy was the son of a preacher man which surprised me. He didn’t act like a church going kid.  The day I got baptized the two front rows of my church were full of the greaser boys and girls.  Now don’t get me wrong, I was not a greaser. I don’t know why he liked me, but I was friends with this group which was a good thing, because if anyone would give me a hard time in school, one of my greaser friends would stick up for me.  In my year book, he put a circle around my name and wrote, John Taylor loves this girl a lot.  Sigh, the things that come back to your mind from the past.

Anyway life went on with me and Adias checking out the zoo and going to the park. We were friends with some of the people at the church and just had fun with them having soft ball games and picnics.  Halloween came by with Jenny now showing Adias how to carve a pumpkin and yes we still made jack o lanterns and got dressed up for Halloween.

Regina (devil), Jessica (angel), Adias (little mermaid), Marie (clown)

 The nice part of being in Mt Zion was we were only three hours away from Jimmy’s dad’s house. So when Thanksgiving came around we went home to see my father in law and spend time with him and my Aunt Annie and a couple of Jimmy’s cousins and his sister for dinner.

When Christmas came around we went back to Chicago and had Christmas Eve at Aunt Mary’s house. She is my father in law sister. It was great to be with family again. It was a nice feeling to know that we would not be alone for the holidays again. Even Kristina came up for our family reunion.  Plus I finally
landed a job at Decatur Ambulance.  January showed up and Zack was in town for Jessica’s 17 birthdays with a dozen red roses. We had all the January birthdays together at a restaurant celebrating Jimmy, Aaron, Jessica and Jennifer’s. We went to Chicago where Joanne had a surprise birthday party for my father in law and all the relatives were there, you know the ones usually at the family Gaeta Picnics. 

My new job in Decatur was pretty hard for me. It seems that in Illinois you don’t have to have a National
Registry to work and only one of the owners had one. I guess he talked about me about having this certificate to his employees before I started working. Since the other employees didn’t have this they didn’t give me a very good reception.  I had a few ride along and the medics I worked with seemed like what you would call Para-god. I had never worked 911 before and I was honest up front about it, but when we would go on a call I was tested to the limit by the employees.  We worked with two paramedics on a truck so we would take turns driving. I had to make a map so I knew where I was going because if I asked where to go, they would just get angry with me.   I was being talked about behind my back and no one was really being nice to me except one guy, Eric, but I didn’t see him too often.  I remember when I had to do a long distance transport with him and when we stopped to eat I wanted to pay for my dinner and he wouldn’t let me, saying he was my supervisor and wanted me to not feel bad about how everyone else was treating me.

One time when I was on a call the medic that was driving was so cruel to me she would actually stop the ambulance so fast I would go flying to the front of the truck. I had never seen such mean people  before.

I finally had enough and my boss could see it so he took me out for lunch and I finally started to cry. I told him I was probably going to quit because I had never worked anywhere with such rude people before. I was still new and still learning so I could not understand why they were all so cruel.  He gave me a lot of encouragement to keep trying and not to quit so I took his advice, but thank heavens it was only part time and I still had my bus job. 

One time I went on a call for a woman who was having trouble breathing. She was sitting up, oxygen on, and the nursing home had given her some Lasix.  Another truck rolled up as I was bringing the gurney with this patient to my truck. They asked me what was going on, and when I told them, they were angry I wasn’t aggressive enough with the Respiratory Distress protocol.  They rolled her into their truck and
quickly shot some nitro into her mouth, drew up the Lasix and Morphine and gave one right after the other without taking vitals in between.  They laid this woman back and she instantly died with the rice crispy feeling on her chest and neck.  This was enough to scare me.

While this was all going on, I got on the computer and to my surprise a picture of a naked woman flashed up on the screen. I told Jimmy who said that it was probably just an advertisement. I was to naive to know that he was lying to me. I guess this is when the trouble began, only I didn't see it yet.

Adias had her fifth birthday and we had a party for her at skate land. Jenny had made some friends and they had kids and all was good. Regina had her 14th birthday and had a house full of kids for a sleep over.  Easter flew by with a trip to see my father in law and Aunty Anne.  Before you knew it Jessica was going to her prom and yes you guessed it Zack flew down to bring her.

Jessica prom

 OK that is enough for today. I really talked a lot haven’t I. Hope I am not boring you. Have a great day. If you get the chance be an angel and practice an act of kindness.