Note:
There are few pictures from this time in my life. I am trying to locate some
from friends. If I can do that I will try to return and insert them where
practical.
It
is necessary for me to speak about my anger before going on with this story. It
explains, but does not excuse, my behavior. I want to be clear about that,
because much of what I cover in succeeding posts will not—and should not—be
easily dismissed. I was simply selfish and wrong and I cannot be proud of that.
It is also necessary that in some cases I will not use names of others who were
involved in some of the incidents. There are two good reasons for this: 1) my
goal is not to harm anyone or embarrass them; and, 2) I don’t want to take the
chance that my memory might be in error and could hurt someone unnecessarily.
There are, however, times when names must be used to frame this narrative properly and
there I will use them. Sometimes this may result in hurt feelings—but I can’t
help that and apologize in advance.
So
what (or who) was I angry at, and why? The “why” is easily answered and should
be obvious: I was angry because I had lost my dad who just happened to be my
hero. I felt cheated and lost and alone and I didn’t think it was fair.
It
wasn’t fair, but as anyone who has lived more than a few years learns, life isn’t
fair. Furthermore it isn’t meant to be fair and it will never be fair. Life
(yours and mine) is simply what it is. Deal with it.
I wasn’t dealing with it
very well.
Below
is the list of the sources of my anger--and I am going to be brutally honest here.
1.
God. I had believed
in him and in my own immature way I expected him to answer my prayers for dad’s
life—Even offering my own in exchange. Instead (I thought) he had let dad
suffer and die for no reason. This anger later led into hate. I still believed
in God but I didn’t like him. If I can muster up the courage (hard for someone
who is now a pastor to do) I’ll print a poem I wrote expressing my anger. It is
not pretty.
2. Mom. I loved her
but somehow in my own twisted grief I resented that she was there and dad was
not. It was obvious that she was trying to be him for us—but of course that was
impossible.
3. Dad. He had asked
me to be the man of the family and I hadn’t a clue how to do that. I had
neither the maturity, nor did I have the authority. What’s more I didn’t even
know what a man was—let alone how to be one. I felt he had abandoned me.
4. Myself. For failing
my father and family by not living up to dad’s expectations. (Now it will be
obvious to anyone reading this now that dad didn’t mean it the way I took it,
and in a way it was his blessing, but I didn’t understand and it became a
curse.)
5. My sisters. They
had, in my mind, become my charges, but they resented my trying to help or
direct them. Of course it never entered my mind that they were as angry and
confused as I was.
6. Authority figures:
God was an authority figure and he had let me down—more than that I thought he
had done it on purpose. Thus, I didn’t like authority figures and I didn’t
trust them.
7. My mother’s family.
She had moved us from Cincinnati with the hope that they she would receive help
from them. She didn’t get it. They were involved in their own families, she had
been away for years, and they seldom even visited, let alone helped.
To be fair to mom’s family I think it is
fair to say that in the beginning, when mom was struggling with the house and
work and us kids that her family—particularly her brothers Roy and Bill really
let her down—But in the long run it was my behavior that kept them away.
They had no way of understanding my anger,
or that I had been raised in a city so different from Genoa City that I had no
clue about the things they took for granted. For example: I had never mowed a
lawn or had a garden. The Ogle place and the apartment in Circleville were the
only places we lived that had a lawn. We lived in the Ogle place in the fall
through early spring so there was no lawn to mow. In Circleville the lawn was
mowed by the owner. Then there was the camp. The lawn there consisted of
stamped down weeds. Dad borrowed a mower to mow it the first time, and after
that we kids trampled the rest.
To them, a nicely mowed and trimmed lawn
was important. I frankly didn’t give a damn—and to the extent I knew it
bothered them I was all the happier. I didn’t care to please them. I wanted to
piss them off. It was the same with shoveling snow, washing the car or anything
else. Whatever the norm I wanted to show my disdain for it. And I did. In
return they felt the same way about me. I don’t blame them. The problem was
that mom suffered for it.
So she was alone; in her work; in her
personal life and in caring for the house. The brightest spots in her life were
Gert Oldenburg (another social outcast—a single mom), Gladys Bill, whose
husband died a couple of years after we moved there, and Bill’s wife Dorothy.
Mom loved Dorothy like a sister/daughter
and Dorothy was always kind to her. Mom might get upset with Bill (and often
did) but she loved Dorothy. What is more, Dorothy loved her back. It never
happened of course, but if someone had said something bad about Dorothy in front
of mom, she would have beaten them like a piñata until they burst.
The thing that kept me going was sports—particularly
baseball. But before we return to baseball let’s go back to grade school for a while.
The school had a basketball team and a new
coach, the Reverend William Alinder. He was young, had a sweet and beautiful
wife, and most importantly, he was a very good basketball player. I admired him
greatly.
I made the team as the 6th man—a
disappointment—but probably the best player, Jack Trimble, broke his ankle or
leg or wrist or something in or immediately after the first game. I had played
in that game and scored six points in the 4th quarter, a good
showing. I assumed his starting role with the next game and kept it all season.
In those days grade school basketball was
not that big a deal. There were no tournaments, no intensive coaching and no
big awards. We played in a league with other small grade schools and had a good
time.
Before each game the cheerleaders would do
the well known cheer, “Joe, Joe, he’s our man, if he can’t do it nobody can.”
Best of all for me, my girlfriend Linda West was a cheerleader and always made
certain she did the “Wray, Wray . . .” portion of the cheer. I liked that a
lot!
I want to veer from the course of this post
to make a very important point. When I was a child and before dad died, I have
already said that there wasn’t a single morning that we woke up at home that
mom wasn’t there. And that was the case for the greatest percentage of all kids in
that era.
That all changed when dad died, and the
family began to unravel. It wasn’t mom’s fault—she had to work. But when we got
up she was gone, and often when we got home from school she wasn’t home yet.
The reason I raise this issue is single
parent families were rare when I was a boy. Most families had a mother at home
and a father who worked. There was stability that we seldom see today.
I doubt
that in my 8th grade class there were more than one or two children
with only one parent.
A report I read (I believe it was from 2010)
said that there we approximately 15 MILLION children being raised without a
father and 5 MILLION without a mother. That indicates that unless a family
member has taken in both parent and child, if the mother is with the child they are
likely living on the streets, and if the mother is working they are living in
poverty. They don’t know what it is like to wake knowing a parent will be
there, or, they are awakened, bundled up and taken to a babysitter while the
parent goes off to work.
From what I know from experience the family
dynamics are a mess under those conditions. How can we expect children to grow
without severe problems in such situations? The answer, it seems to me is
simple. We can’t.
This alone indicates that the old American
dream of rising from nothing (pulling one up by one’s bootstraps) simply isn’t
possible for millions of kids. Without the parenting and mentoring they are
lost. And that is why I detest people who spout that people are poor because
they don’t make the effort. If you are poor you can work your fanny off all of
your life and unless you get a lucky break you will live and die poor. We need
to stop shaming the poor and start helping them. My congregation hears that a lot.
Some people come to understand that the
hard way. The job they have worked at for 25 years gets moved or shut down and
they lose their salary, their pension and insurance. Not long after that goes
the house, the neighborhood and the friends. They are lost—and, by the way—an illness
or injury can put them in the same trick bag.
I began this post by saying life isn’t
fair. It isn’t. Don’t ever forget it.
The poem is below. Please know that I no
longer hold these positions—but I did at the time.
Our father in heaven who knows all,
I sit in my chair and await your call.
My eyes on your throne dear lord.
I calmly and patiently look toward
The time when I first gaze on you countenance
And you shall ask for my repentance.
I await that regal, heavenly face
That rules over all time and space
Mere mortals like myself occupy;
Living to live, living to die.
I know lord that when my time comes to die
I can look you in your omnipotent eye
And speak to you in just this way:
"Your most gracious holiness look on me.
I've lived with pain as you have seen.
You've taken many ere my call came;
Though knowing you would it hurt the same.
I come to ask O lord for just one boon;
That is that you should send me to hell soon.
For I do not wish to dwell in heaven
With you O lord who has been given
The power o'er my life and death.
The suffering you willed with my father's last breath
And the pain my grandmother felt
While beside her bed her family knelt
Before she passed from my life to yours;
That agony of theirs has closed all doors
To your garden of peace O lord.
I prefer to dwell with wretches and whores
And those who've sinned and will ever pay.
There I'll rest until that day
When you will answer to your own mind
Knowing you have harmed your own kind;
And bow your head to those you have hurt--
And free all O lord--when your lesson has been learnt."
Amen.
That is anger .
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