Back in California

We did visit the Grand Canyon once or Twice growing up.

Our time was up in Mexico. We said very sad good-byes and went back to California. One time we went on a trip to the Grand Canyon and while we were there we visited our relatives in Arizona. We had some in Mesa. we were there a while. I had an uncle that was a really great guy. He was my Grandma's brother. His wife N scared the pants off me though. She was a perfectionist and would get angry if anyone did not do what she wanted. I look at her now and she is half my size. How was I possibly ever afraid of her? Well, I was.
  It was when We had come back from Mexico and I was about three that my Grandpa and uncles and my two aunts came to California to visit us. We went to Tijuana and Disneyland. we went all over San Diego with my uncles and aunts. It was so much fun. My mom bought me a doll which I still have. My mom taught me how to hold the doll so that her dress would not get ruined. she taught me to hold the doll with her legs. I still remember to this day. I really loved dolls and collected them all of  my life. Because of us moving so much, sadly, some of the dolls I had I had lost. 
  My mom had a friend named Charlie Callahan. Charlie was a great guy. He drove around in a V.W. Bus and had bright red hair. He was a good friend of my mom's. He would take us places. One time I had to go to the hospital and get my kidneys tested and Charlie took my mom and I in the morning. We went, for some reason to the V.A. Hospital. I think because my birth father was in the Air Force and so, the V.A. Hospital paid for all our medical tests. Well, They had to poke me with a lot of needles and I thought it was torture, and so they had to restrain me. In the midst of testing me, I was in a room hooked up to a machine, when a huge Gorilla came in my room. In the wisdom of one of the Doctors, they thought it would be nice for sick children to be visited with a horrifying creature, such as a Gorilla, so that when you left the Hospital, you appreciated leaving. Honestly, I don2t know which is more terrifying, Gorilla or Clown.They are both absolutely the most horrific thing to ever visit me in the Hospital. The Gorilla came in, as I am screaming, drew a happy face on my tummy, tied a balloon to my bed, and walked back to my door, turned around, tilted his head to the side, waved, and went out the door. To this day that is the most insane creepiest thing that happened to me at that point in my life. 
Another visit to the same Hospital or maybe the same visit, I was sitting in the waiting section with my mom. 
 There were many people coming and going. We were sitting on chairs along a wall, they were big and soft chairs. A man came with a wheel chair, rolling by me and he had a mustache, long hair and I saw, he had no legs. In hte mind of a three year old, I did not know he would understand me if I spoke to him, but I knew that my mom had all the answers, and so I said,"Momma, What happened to his legs?" "Well,"  was all my mom could say when she was interrupted by this guy. He turned around with his wheel chair and we were just about eye level, he started yelling at me. He said "Have you ever heard of NAM? HAVE YOU???" And with that started swearing and cussing and yelling some more. He yelled about how no one appreciated what the troops did for me, and fighting for freedom, and he would not stop yelling. I was scared, and could not understand why he was yelling at me. My mom told him to stop yelling at me. My mom said something about how I was only three years years old and to calm down, tell me what happened with out yelling and swearing. My mom ended up telling him to get lost and if he had something intelligent to say, use real words and not swear words.
Laundry time was done every week, If I remember right, on Sundays. But I am sure my mom would now say, Never on Sundays. My om was not active the the church that she was raised in the time that we lived in California. I mean, at times she was but not all the time. Us girls would pile up the clothes in the Radio Flyer, mom would make sandwiches and we would hit the laundromat.People would drive by and whistle at my mom and she would tell us,"Only Jerks whistle at women, never answer to cat calls, girls." 
  D and I never did.