I have lots of memories from the first 9 years of my life, but things got REALLY interesting the last time I saw my dad.

My dad wasn't very good at responsibility, but he was great at having big aspirations. In '76, when we lost our house, we moved in with Grandma, and Dad moved in with a friend. We saw him for a while, then he moved to Pennsylvania to live with his family. I remember the Easter he was going to visit, where we got a phone call instead. At least he called.
Anyway, in the Spring of 1978, Dad called and told us he was coming back for us. When school let out, we all moved to Crestwood. (a nice suburb of St. Louis) We had a 2 bedroom home with a big back yard and real grass.
This was how I spent my summer vacation.
We went to summer camp for a week. The last day of camp we waited and waited for mom and dad to take us home. All our new friends left with their parents, and we waited.
A very angry camp counselor told us in the afternoon, that he would be taking us home. He had brown hair with sideburns and he was wearing a blue shirt. I could see the muscle in his cheek bulge from gritting his teeth every time I looked at him.
-I know now, he was pissed at my dad, but as a child I thought I had done something wrong.-
I never saw the house in Crestwood again. He drove us to our grandma's house, and I told him we didn't live there. That that was my grandma's house. That we lived in a big house in the county. He said, "You live here now." and I shut up.

My father left a day after we went to camp. He took the car, the TV, his recliner and all but one of the checkbooks.
My mother, gods bless her, gathered her family to move the beds and loveseat. She moved everything else by public bus. -Let me emphasize this- a quarter of a mile walk to catch the Chippewa bus, a transfer to the Broadway bus, and a 6 block walk to our new "home".
She moved every scrap we had, in whatever she could carry, the whole week we were at camp. I admire the hell out of my mom. She didn't break down. She didn't give up. She did what she felt she had to, under the most outrageous circumstances. She never told us. My extended family shared that bit of trivia.
We all lived in one of the upstairs rooms, we all slept on the same bed. There was no space to play in, so we played outside. My sister and I had a lot of fun pretending the bed was a wrestling ring. Start at a corner, ring the imaginary bell, Ding!Ding! Come out and grapple, then take turns falling down and yanking your opponent's legs out from under them. We would lay on that bed and stare at the ceiling and laugh 'til we hurt, then we'd take a corner and start over.