Welcome to my page! It's all about pen pals. I created this page for only one purpose. To help people find meaningful friendship through letters.
Categories

Teen Guys

Teen Girls
Email Pen Pals

15-17, 18-20

15-17, 18-20
Snail Mail Pen Pals

15-17, 18-20

15-17, 18-20
Sibling Groups

15-17, 18-20

15-17, 18-20
Twins/Triplets/Etc.

15-17, 18-20

15-17, 18-20
Teen Moms & Teen Dads

15-17, 18-20

15-17, 18-20
Gay, Bi, Lesbian & T*

15-17, 18-20

15-17, 18-20
Punk/Alternative

15-17, 18-20

15-17, 18-20
What is High Sierra Place?
It's the place where I work. If you read my story, below, I talk about the Phoenix Placement Center. High Sierra is the same type of place. There are some differences - High Sierra places kids only locally, is not so high cost, age is not limited to under 18. Many kids stay here much longer than we stayed at Phoenix. I thought to start a page where those who were interested could place their ads and hopefully find someone to talk with - waiting for unknown periods of time, for unknown things to come, can be boring.
Letter writing was more than a hobby for me - it united, reunited, and created my family. Four years ago my parents died - separate accidental deaths three weeks apart. My five siblings and I ... I was the oldest at 15, next was Kassy my sister age 13, my brothers Tristan and Eathan both 8, and my baby brothers Tom 2 and Dillon 8 months ... were separated first by relatives and then, when the relatives did not keep us, by foster care. Our parents had thought in advance to name someone as a guardian in case of something happening to them. We should have immediately been sent to him. But we were not, because of a messed up system that placed the indecisive willfulness of relatives above the wishes of our parents. By the time the relatives had retreated from our lives, my siblings and I had been separated for over a year, and were scattered over three states. Throughout that time, only Tom and Eathan were ever placed in a home together, despite the supposed laws that are in place to prevent sibling groups from being separated if not necessary. I was angry by the fact that we had not been placed together, immediately, as we were supposed to. I was angry because I had lost the only family I had left. I was angry probably at everyone including Alex, the man our parents had appointed our guardian. I kept wondering why he wasn't doing anything - he did have legal guardianship of us - all he had to do was claim it. I eventually realized that not only had no one bothered to contact him, but that no one had any idea of where to find him. Sure, there's ways of finding people. Is anyone going to bother on behalf of a bunch of insignificant kids? Apparently not. All I had was a name, and a despicably common one at that - Alexander Willis. There must be a billion. I knew the four states where he might be, but those were California, Arizona, Illinois, and Utah. And I was in Florida. At that time I barely knew enough to try phone directories. It wouldn't have helped much, there were just too many people with that name, and so many people don't list their full names - I would have had to count in all the A. Willis' as well. Well, to make this a little shorter, I had always had pen pals, and especially during the time when I was being moved around from home to home, we got close. It seemed they were the only friends I had left. I had lost contact with friends from my hometown. I never stayed anywhere long enough to make new friends. And people you've been writing to for a long time can sometimes become as close to you as friends who live a block down the street from you. I remember during that time my letters would reach book-length. I had no one else to talk with who could understand. I have several letters still, from pen pals, where they are almost obviously talking me out of killing myself. I don't remember that though - I suppose I was depressed enough to sound like I might. Eventually a few of them had offered to check out names from phone directories. That's how it all started. I had pen pals in all of the four states except Utah. They would call people (I couldn't afford to call long-distance at that point, so I hadn't been able to do much searching on my own), send letters, get public records. All the things I couldn't have been able to do. A few of their parents had offered suggestions, but no one helped much - people are just so afraid to get involved with kids these days. I think that sucks. When you're that young, there's nothing you can do yourself in some situations. And the people who really should have enough life experience to be able do something for you, are too afraid to step in. I'm not even sure what they're afraid of. Were they afraid they'd end up being responsible for me? Afraid to mess with someone else's family? There's nothing they would have lost by making a few phone calls to those places that, if you were not an adult, would tell you to get lost or stop playing with the phone. I think I'm just about as mad at all the adults who had refused to help me as I am at the people for whom it could have been so easy, at the very beginning, to make one phone call. When we did find him, and I should say when one of my Californian pen pals found him, I really thought "that's it! We did it! There's nothing that will go wrong anymore, everything is going to be perfect because I fixed everything." Not exactly everything. First of all I guess I never did think about what it might be like to be single, in your early 30's (way too early for kids), living comfortably in a kid's-mess-free house, enjoying the freedom that that kind of lifestyle brings with it, and to suddenly get a call ... "hello, nice day, isn't it? You're now dad to six." I can imagine the thought went through his mind that he must have done something damn bad to anger some really mean-spirited gods. So no, everything was not perfect. I also didn't think that the legal guardianship was something there was a question about. Our parents picked him, right? Yeah ... wish someone'd told him about it. There was a second problem besides the fact that at any time he could decide he did not want to "inherit" us, and that being that legal custody of my siblings had already been given to other people. Technically, they did have to hand them over, but things that are technically sound do not always run smoothly when put into practical use. We needed some way to get together - all of us in one place again to get back the right to be legally considered a sibling group. We found Phoenix Placement Center - a place which would take, and keep, all of us until such a time that we could be placed into a permanent home. The cost of travel (seven plane tickets for a total of $3,500, two bus tickets at $36 each, cab fare - $60), the cost of rooms (five rooms at roughly $50 each), the cost of food (six total meals out), and an adult to escort us was provided. A two month stay at the Center, at cost of over a $1,000 for beds, and extra costs for meals, clothing, medical and dental care, school, and legal counseling. The debt is one we'll be paying back for a very long time. But it was there. It was exactly what we needed, in one package, and I don't see how I would be here now if it was not for it. Well, anyway, once we did get to the Center, I think things took a definitive turn for the better. I don't know if I realized just how much money we were running up and just what we'd owe these people by the time we'd get out of there. Or maybe it didn't matter. It's not like we had anyplace else to go. They did do a lot. I think anyone who manages to convince a person who a few months prior thought he needed kids same as the plague, that he, in fact, wants to be a parent, is working on a higher level. They did get him to, pretty quickly, take responsibility for us. There was a "parent guide", well, that's what we called them - people who came in everyday for part of the day to teach him what exactly to do with six kids. After that, still nothing was perfect. It still isn't. I finished high school a year late, a year early. Having missed a year I had a take more classes the following years to complete that grade without repeating the year. In two school years I completed three grades. I started college, this year, but can't be a full time student because of work - I work full time and that pays for everything ... and doesn't pay enough to cover even half. I've paid back roughly 5% of the debts we'd run up. And with every month the amount owned goes up ... a few times it would actually be higher the next month than it had been before my payment the previous. My sister, now 17, did pretty well. Right now she is studying art in Europe - having been accepted to art college this year. As for Alex, I think we corrupted him. With all our problems I think he figured he couldn't do worse. He did. Last year he had an illegitimate baby with a woman whom I saw once - the day she showed up to say she didn't want his kid anymore and could he take it, like, right now? I moved out a few months afterwards - it was either that or we would have had to get a smaller house, apartment, or ... I don't know. He made a pretty good parent though, maybe not to me (being not exactly old enough to play that type of role for me). I think that for Tom, now 6, and Dillon 5, and even Tristan and Eathan, 12, he's the only parent they have had. Having been 7 at the time our parents died, I don't know how much influence Tristan and Eathan had had from them. Their memories are practically nothing, probably due to the confusion afterwards, being jerked around, and being separated from the rest of us and each other. Tom was 2, there's no way he could remember anything prior to arriving here. And Dillon was a baby when the whole thing took place, he was just old enough to know what we were talking about when we were trying to make sense to a 1-1/2 year old, explaining things he basically didn't know anything about - family. I do remember him screaming for the foster mother, but it was for the wrong one (not the one he had been with last), and I figure that it was more due to the new situation and not knowing who any of us were than to any ties he could have formed with anyone during the time he was separated from us. And now there's baby Scott, almost 1-1/2. I used to feel guilty about him having been brought into the world in not exactly the correct circumstances (whatever those would be ... I don't suppose being abandoned by a parent is a good way to start out), but now I don't, not much. I don't have any way of knowing just what we did to Alex's life. Probably, in truth, ruined it by bringing with us all the chaos and problems, and, really, expecting him to fix it all - in fact believing that it was his responsibility to do so. Then again, having a baby with the wrong person, or at the wrong time, or at a time when it would be best to work on the problems already at hand and not go looking for potential new ones, is too common a thing to be able to blame it on something as specific as me. Besides, at least with this one, no one did stick him with it.
My e-mail address is connerquinn@
You can reach me by snail mail (my preferred way of communicating) at Sierra, my address is
Conner Quinn
High Sierra 6-a
2055 Olympus 6
Hercules, CA 94547
United States