David of Troy

Right after I finished eighth grade, it was decided by my mother that we needed to move...to leave Apple Valley, the only place I remember living, and head to the big city, where she could hopefully find some work. So, we packed up, pulled up stakes and headed for San Diego, home of...well, home of a lot of things, actually. The trip was totally uneventful, so much so that I don't remember it at all.

We ended up in a small apartment in El Cajon, just outside of San Diego (probably a major part of it by now), and my first real impression of the place took place the first morning when I woke up. I went to the window, lifted the drapes, looked out and saw...nothing...nothing at all...just a totally gray, blank scene. It seems we were, at the time in middle of a fog bank that had rolled in during the night...something completely new and totally foreign to me. So, I dressed, ready for school (first day at St. Augustine High School0, went outside, and discovered that fog is cold...and damp.

That cold and damp threw us into the Foster Care system. The weather proved too much for my mother, who was ultimately told by her doctor to get out of San Diego, and head for the desert...you know, the area we had just moved out of. She felt that she should go to Palm Springs...always warm there...and work and live there. Aw, but then, what about the children? She actually didn't want to pull them (us) out of school, since they had just started...so, she talked to our father, and he decided to find a foster family to care for us during the school year. When school ended, then we could join our mother.

He found such a family...and we were moved in with them, like it or not. And thus, I met and got to know Walter and Sallie Troy, and their three children, Ginny, Pat and Mike. Actually, just Pat and Mike...Ginny was gone, off to college, studying at Marquette University, and we didn't meet her for awhile.

Life with Walt and Sallie was actually a wonderful experience, amazingly enough...Walt was a professional person, although I don't exactly remember the profession. Sallie was a homemaker, and a damned good one...and a fantastic cook. For us, it was almost like being at home, except that it was a more loving home than we had known in the recent past. We did all the things normal kids our age did...skateboarded all over San Diego...went to the Zoo...hung out with friends...you know, the usual stuff.

The holidays were hard without our Mom, but the Troys made us feel totally at home. The hardest part came as school was ending for the year. By then, we had grown to love the Troys, and almost didn't want to leave them...but, there was no choice; it was time to return to the parents house...except...which parent? It seems that since we were put into a foster home, my father decided that my mother was unfit (because she was ill, and needed drier air to breathe), so he sued for custody of the both of us.

By this point, my parents had been divorced for 12 years, and we had had spent the entire time with our mother, at least during the school year. In the summers, we were put on a train and sent to our father. I don't know how acrimonious the divorce was; I was only 1 at the time. But the custody battle was messy, to say the least...accusations shot back and forth between the two parents, while the kids (us) sat in the middle and wondered what in the hell was going on. Finally, it boiled down to the fact that the judge wanted to talk to us (the kids) to see where we wanted to go.

Pete was the first to go see the judge. He was in the office for about 15 minutes. When he came out, I had a chance to talk to him, and I asked him who he was going with...Then I went to see the judge. The judge was very businesslike, but knew the feelings of two boys torn between their parents. We talked for about 10 minutes, he asked me the important question, I answered it, and I left. Then we all went into court...then Pete and I broke our mothers heart. Pete was 16...I was 14. I ended up staying with my father for one school year...then he shipped me back to my mother...and we started a 15 year silence with each other, broken only once due to a death in the family. Pete stayed with my father for the rest of his life, until his death at age 20.

I kept in touch with the Troys, going to see them whenever possible. The last time I saw any of them was 1977...when I saw Sallie, Ginny and Mike. Walt had died a few years earlier, and Sallie had remarried; Ginny had married and had children...Mike was still unmarried at that time. At that time, Sallie was in her 70's and not in the best of health. I assume she is no longer with us, but I think of her often and am grateful to both of the Troys for their love and friendship.