All In: The Big Picture

By C. L. Keller

The five-book series All In is about the life of a little girl in South Dakota. The stories that you will read are both shocking and graphic. Even though all the writings are true, the author changed the time, places, and names of many to protect those who would almost certainly be prosecuted. Changes were also made to protect other children who were involved in the events that unfolded before you. They are grown-ups now, but they are still victims, and they are still suffering. The author has no intention to bring more pain by telling everyone in the world about these horrible truths but, rather, to bring awareness that we are not alone. The author feels that once this series becomes public, many others will follow and reveal their stories.

The events will be intrusive and embarrassing to the average adult. Don't be afraid to be offended. You should be. The author shared her life experiences in hopes of educating those who think their children are safe. They are not. They are victims, and no one should be trusted with them, not even their parents. The author wrote the books and all the information in the series so they can be used as a learning/study tool for human behavior. We run from the ugly truth. Maybe it's time we talked more about the real stories of our children. It's the only way to protect them and change the world with truth versus hiding its ugliness.

In a vision, the author was told, "In order to kill darkness and evil, you must drag it into the light." The author in these writings is fulfilling this order.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781646289745

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All In

The Big Picture

C. L. Keller

Copyright © 2023 C. L. Keller

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 978-1-64628-973-8 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-64628-974-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Author's Note

Preface

The Big Picture

The Lake

Apples and Pears

Kindergarten

Attacked

Getting to Know the Neighbors

Pray

The Fighting Irish

High

Expanding My Horizon

The Party

Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n' Roll

Whiskey for My Plants

In the Closet

A White Fur Coat

Naked Truth

Starlight, Star Bright

The Last Dance

Author's Note

If you wonder if you have ever really been in love, you've come to the right place.

Everyone has their first. First boy. First girl. First kiss. First fight. Whatever.

Everything in this book, all in, and the others to come are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me, God.

However, the names, the locations, and the time frames have been changed to protect those of you who did not want to be in my book. I understand that most of you know what character you are and will remember what I have recalled in the chapters, but that doesn't mean anyone else will. So if you just keep your big mouth shut, no one will care.

To my readers and fans, I didn't write this book for you. I wrote it for me. If you are offended, I apologize ahead of time. If you like it, thank you.

To my relatives, if my publications embarrass you, tough shit. You are not half as embarrassed as I was living through it.

I had to wait until now to write and publish my work because I was truly afraid that my dad would kill those who harmed me. Now he is gone, so I don't have to worry about him going to prison.

Please don't be afraid to contact me via Facebook, phone, or letter. Any input, good or bad, is valuable.

I hope most of you will use my work as a tool to teach, preach, lecture, and learn from/with. There is nothing better than knowing what not to do if you can possibly be open to others' experiences! I also hope there are things in my work that you can do to help you through your journey.

This book is volume 1 of 5, so don't be surprised when I leave you hanging.

Preface

Do you believe me when I say that I can remember being in the womb of my mother? And every once in a while, I can taste that taste. Have you ever smelled something that tasted the same? I say it smells like it tastes or tastes like it smells. I cannot explain the taste because I've never tasted anything that resembles it, except when I choke or gag unwillingly. I get that smell/taste, and it is the same as the fluids that used to be in my lungs before I was physically born. I know you don't believe me, but it's true to my reality.

I also remember coming home as a newborn to our house located on Minnesota Avenue in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. As we drove home from the hospital, I threw up in the car. They had me lying on the back seat, and my head was spinning because I wasn't used to that kind of motion. I remember it like it was yesterday. Clear as a bell. Funny thing is that I told that story to my sister Sara years later, and she remembers the day and the ride home and me puking in the car. So there, world!

Sara said I was lying beside her on the back seat of my dad's Volkswagen Buggy when I hurled. I remember my dad yelling at my sisters, asking why they were not holding me instead of me lying on the seat.

I remember thinking to myself, What is this thing I'm in, and who are these talking beings around me? I recognize the voices but cannot see very clearly. Everything was blurry and too bright. Too noisy. Too much motion! I was not comfortable at all! Stop all this, please!

After getting home and nestling into my new crib, I had a dream. More like a nightmare, but still a dream. I dreamed that several people were in the front yard by a tree that had a zillion tiny holes in the trunk and a sticky substance oozing from the holes. The ooze was running into a pool beside the tree. The people were sitting in the pool, and the ooze turned into a creamy white substance. They called me over to get in it with them, but I grabbed a branch, and I hung on to the branch of that tree to save myself from being dragged into that pool of white goo.

I have no idea why I had a dream like that. Maybe it was because when I came out into the world, I had that taste in my mouth, and all I could see was white goo. All I could hear were voices of many people. I went from wet and curled up in a nice, warm womb to being dragged out by someone who grabbed my arm and pulled. I didn't want to leave there, and I certainly didn't like all the noise and chaos! And the light! Arggggg! I did not like it at all. I preferred dark, warm, and mostly quiet. Little did I know that it would be anything but…

Chapter 1

The Big Picture

My crib was in the front room of a house that my dad was renting on Minnesota Avenue in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. My crib was in the corner of the front room by a big front room window and the front door. It was loud, bright, and drafty.

The nightmare that I just had caused me to scream out abruptly and profoundly. Two people were quickly in my view, and they were not my mom and dad.

Oh, my goodness! Such a ruckus from a little, tiny girl! Come here, my little angel… Uncle Ivan's got you.

Do you think she has a tummy ache? said my aunt beside him as he carefully picked me up out of the crib.

Well, I don't know, honey. I know that she is shaking and very upset. Maybe we could give her some warm water with Karo syrup. She hasn't pooped yet this morning.

Okay. I will get it, and you can rock her over here.

Ivan was holding me close to his chest and sat down with me as the woman disappeared.

Betsy! Make sure to test the water on your arm so it's not too hot!

Yes, honey! It's not my first time.

I liked these humans. They were really nice and warm. When they were with me, they held me the whole time. I really liked that. It made me feel good inside, unlike the parents who belonged to me. When I was with Mom and Dad, they fed me and gave me dry clothes, but then it was right back into the crib.

I remember spending a lot of time looking at a big picture hanging on the wall in front of my crib. Not on the window and door wall but on the wall in front of me when I looked out of my crib. The picture was as tall and as long as my crib and was in a beautiful wooden frame. I say was because it was almost completely burned in our house fire some years later and is now only fifteen inches wide and twenty inches tall. Yes, I still have it. Of course, I do. You will know why I say that as you get to know me.

It is a very old and vintage version of The Guardian Angel. She has delicate, powdery white skin and blond hair. She is dressed in an ancient Israelite stola, and it is very heavenly and flowing. Her gown is white with a golden neckline and hagorah made of rope. She is draped with a very long golden kippah and is wearing a tiara of diamonds and gold. Her wings are large and white and has defined feathering that looks strong and powerful.

She is standing behind the two children who are dressed in ancient Israelite tunic. One has an ezor or hagor, so I assume one is a boy and the other a girl. The child on the left is blond, with a white tunic, but the child on the right has black hair and is dressed not only in a tunic but also a red ezor or hagor. This color red would suggest this child comes from money and is not a laborer's child, and because she has an ezor or hagor, it would suggest she is female. People in the old days didn't have access to dyes or colored fabric unless they were royalty or had money.

The most flattering thing about this art is in the fact that this particular piece is not about the guardian angel saving these children from a broken bridge. No, but rather this piece has the children on the edge of a cliff coming out of a heavy forest. The forest is dark and gloomy and downright scary! In the forefront of the cliff is a city that looks like Israel. More importantly, the cliff is decorated with beautiful flowers and grasses that are very appealing to the eye, and the children are reaching beyond the edge of this cliff to pick flowers. The boy is holding a bouquet of flowers he already picked and has the girl by the right arm, and he is reaching up toward the sky. She has not picked her flowers yet.

Why is he dragging her away from the flowers and reaching up to the sky? Weird, right? The angel is there to…what? Save them or take them somewhere? If I didn't know better, it looks like the boy is on his way to heaven, and he's taking the girl with him before she gets a chance to proverbially stop and smell the roses or to pick her own flowers.

The other thing that stands out about this depiction is that all the garb and accessories worn in this picture are from the same time period but are from all different kinds of cultures and religions. Is this why I cannot find another copy of this picture? Did someone or something snuff it because it is so religiously divided?

Now I know what you're thinking. You are thinking, Who cares? Well, I do. And I'll tell you why. To begin, my train of thought here is to say that I spent many, many hours looking up at this piece—day and night for months. How do you suppose this piece of art, in all its wonderfulness, would affect the mind of a child?

This is what I looked at and thought about for the first days, weeks, and months of my life. The fact that it is so religiously and culturally diverse might be the reason why I have a hard time thinking just one way about God or religion.

I think it might have something to do with why I am so politically dubious. Being dubious is negative, but this art has afflicted positive attributes too. I find myself collecting artifacts from every walk of life, and each piece is as exciting and interesting as the next. When it comes to ancient history and religion, I am interested, and you have my attention. I ache to seek out information about both places and things. I am a History channel freak!

People who live with me find me excessive and borderline pathetic because I record every episode of Ancient Aliens on my DVR and will watch these recordings over and over like I have discovered something new again. What can I say other than it is how I have seen things from the beginning of my time?

This damn piece of art defines my very being. It has been burned to a fraction of its original size, and I cannot find another copy! It is how my life is and feels—downsized. Like it is not as large as it's supposed to be or it should be. And it's all because of this picture. This…this piece of art!

I wonder if my parents knew that it would have such a profound effect on me and my life that maybe they would've been more careful as to not let it burn. Well, technically, they didn't let it burn because I still have it, but I wish they would've saved it much earlier so it was still as beautiful as I remember.

You know, it's all about me, right? I mean, seriously. We all know that our parents are supposed to be able to not only read our minds but also fashion out the perfect life for each and every one of us. You know what I'm talking about. I guess I'm just another victim of bad parenting. Yes, I'm being facetious.

Here is another thing about this whole subject that crosses my mind from time to time. I spent a lot of time alone at a very precious age, but more importantly, why do I remember that? Why do I ponder on my alone time as a newborn? I have my own conclusions, but am I right?

I might think about it because I wonder if I bonded with my mother. I don't think I did. I have several reasons for thinking that way but mostly because throughout my whole life, as you will learn in this book, I felt like I was just me and only me. No one anywhere really mattered until I had my own children. My thoughts and feelings about my life and the people in it definitely changed when I became a mother and then again when I had grandchildren.

My mother is of another chapter entirely, and so we will continue with the thoughts of an infant. Believe it or not, I have more memories as a newborn than one might think. Not all that grand, but nonetheless, I remember stuff that is a bit unusual, so I want to share some of these memories.

One time, at band camp, no…no… (I'm joking about a line from an old movie.) Seriously, one time in the front room in my crib with the big picture hanging on the wall, while my sisters were still sleeping, I had the most unusual dream. I use the term dream loosely because I cannot quite decipher the real part from the dream part, but here it is.

I was lying in my crib listening to the gramophone (yes, a gramophone) when it started to slow, creating a very eerie sound as a gramophone does when it runs out of spring action. As it slowed, a dream ensued.

The gramophone turned into this huge brass arm that moved slowly toward my crib, like a giant snake in the forest. It twisted and turned, making its way to the infant in the crib by the window next to the front door across from the big beautiful picture. As it wrapped its handlike tentacle around my tiny neck, I tried to scream or cry but couldn't. No sound came out because I had no air. It squeezed tightly, and I squirmed, trying to get away but couldn't. I did not have the ability to remove it. I squirmed and tried to make some kind of noise to get my dad's attention, but to no avail.

Suddenly, and thankfully, my dad appeared in the front room. The golden brassy tentacle drew back into its original position and form after releasing the grip on my throat. I let out a cry that shook my crib, and I kicked and thrashed violently. I know this because as soon as my dad appeared, he rushed to me and picked me up to provide some comfort.

Oh, my goodness, Cinny-O! [He always called me Cinny-O.] You have quite the set of lungs on you! You're shaking the windows for crying out loud! I must have been loud enough because he sure made a fuss while trying to calm me. After a spell, he tried to put me back in my crib, but I wasn't having no part of it. Each time he put me down, I cried as hard and loud as I could until I won my life back. He instead put me on the floor and gave me a bottle of water. As he started to walk toward the kitchen, I followed crawling until he disappeared into the basement.

I sat at the top of the stairs, waiting for him to reappear. Waited, waited, waited. I was probably around six months now. Every once in a while, I would peek into the front room where the evil-arm-snake-tentacle gramophone was sitting and waiting for me. I tried not to look, but I couldn't help myself. Damn thing was out to get me!

Luckily, my sister Sara woke up and came to me from upstairs and scooped me up. She sat me at the table, and we shared some cinnamon toast. She was for the most part my caretaker. I remember very little of my parents ever doing much with me or even being around. That leaves me with a lot of memories of myself and my three older sisters. Not all good, but not all bad. I sometimes refer to myself as Cinderella, but I kid. I'm a kidder.

My next memory was just as shocking. Mom and Dad went out for the evening. I was walking now, and so my guess would be I was around eleven to thirteen months old. There I was in the front room by the front door and window under the big beautiful picture with my three older sisters when I decided to pull a pot of boiling water off the iron-based heater and onto my chest and stomach. Ouch! I don't remember why I thought that was a good idea, but I did it! Maybe I am a bit crazy.

I was a little shit, I was told by my family. I didn't listen worth a damn.

I would tease the dog and then cry when I got tackled or snapped at by it. One time, that dog got so mad at me it ripped my diaper off and bit me in the butt! Hard! Everyone laughed at me and said it was my own fault. They took a picture of the event. There I am, bottomless, crying, and the dog standing next to me with my cloth diaper hanging out of its mouth!

I would ram my sister Sara in the gut with my head when she pissed me off.

I would take my mom's bobby pins and run like hell while she was trying to put her hair up.

I bit a thermometer in half right after my sister Sara told me to be careful because it could break.

I once stuck a razor blade in my mouth after my dad had just told me to leave them alone.

I remember that incident pretty well. All the way up to the part of peril.

My parents had just gotten back from the grocery store and put the grocery sacks on the dining room table. I got up on the chair to see (probably about one or two years old now) and watched my dad empty a paper sack onto the table. One of the items that lay in front of me was a brand-new package of razor blades for my dad's razor.

Don't touch those, Cinny-O. You will get cut. I mean it! Leave it alone!

I quickly opened the package while they were putting food into the fridge in the kitchen. I was just placing a fresh blade into my mouth when the yelling began. I don't remember the blood. I don't remember going to the hospital and getting stitches in my cheek, but I did.

I was a typical toddler that wielded my own destiny! I had life by the kahunas, and I knew it. Don't mess with me. I am the shit! It doesn't go without saying in my defense, however, that I was provoked, so it was not my fault.

Chapter 2

The Lake

Not much later on, things changed. I had a lot of additions and subtractions to my daily life that made things a bit hard to navigate.

For example, my three sisters just up and disappeared one day, and no one said goodbye. I had no idea what I did wrong, but they weren't playing with me anymore. I was told later that their biological dad had kidnapped them and took them to Kansas or some damn place. How horrible for all of us!

I remember being so lonely and, needless to say, devastated. Now I had no one. I was left with distant parents who both suffered from alcoholism. Both my parents had kids from previous marriages, and this new commotion brought on some heavy nights of drinking and panic.

This time frame was when I took my first drink of beer. It sure helped me sleep, but if I had known the whirlwind it would cause for me later, I would have abstained.

There were a lot of nights that friends and relatives would come over to play cards with my parents. It was smoky, noisy, and a drunken brawl. My dad referred to it as Saturday Night at the Fights, and he wasn't wrong.

Somewhere in that, meanwhile, I grabbed my mom's beer and drank some. Of course, she hastily took it back from me, and that was why it became a game for attention. It also got me drunk. I am sure that wasn't all bad for them because it was nighty night for me soon after, and then they didn't have to deal with me for the rest of the evening. Win-win. I remember drinking my mom's beer every time they had a card game.

I was lonely because the older girls were gone, and my mom slept all the time. She was probably depressed because the girls were kidnapped by their dad, Ronald, and because she drank too much.

Well, I might be exaggerating a little bit. I wasn't totally alone. There was the new babysitter who would sit in front of me at the dining room table and eat. I didn't mind her eating, but I got nothing.

She would say, Your mom didn't leave anything for you to eat, so you will have to wait until they come home.

Seriously. What a bitch, right? She did it all the time. My parents hired her for their nights out, which was often.

That was the first time I had seen shredded wheat in individual wrapped packages. I thought to myself that maybe it was the most delicious thing I had ever seen right up until she pulled out the individually wrapped coconut Sno Balls by Hostess. They were pink and beautiful and still one of my favorites today! I cannot count how many new products she introduced me to without actually tasting, but I do know this—that cow made a vending machine look old school, and this was in 1972! Thank God we moved, and I didn't see her anymore.

I remember the move to a different house located on Menlo Street in Sioux Falls. I helped pack and loaded what I could. I had to