Hereditary Rituals

 It was an outside Spring cleaning kind of day at our house today. You know. Cleaning up sticks from the yard. Trimming the rose bushes back. Putting the snowblower away and breaking out the lawn mower. Cleaning and sweeping the garage. Putting shovels on their seasonal hooks. Because my health isn't as young as it used to be, I got to be supervisor and my 2 sons were the work force. It was the first really beautiful weekend of Spring. Clear blue skies. Shining hot sun. I was a bit surprised of the effort and detail they put into doing the various tasks because I knew my boys had other things on their mind. Fifty-some years ago, I was in their shoes. 

My dad would round up my 2 brothers and me on this first nice weekend of the season and make us help him do the same. He was a stickler for detail. He wanted every speck of dirt and dust cleaned from every little nook and corner. Throwing out old stuff. Minor tune-up on the mower and getting it running. Besides being a bit obsessed with organization and detail, he was also quite direct and terse. He had little patience for incompetence and imperfections and his thundering voice was the crack of his whip to get us to do  better. It would take an entire afternoon for the 4 of us to clean the yard and garage. By then, it was supper time and too late to do stuff with our friends. To us boys, the first beautiful Spring day of the season was ruined.

I loved my dad and I see a lot of his finer qualities in me but when I became a dad, I swore I would not act or raise my children in such a way that they would fear me. I also said I would not be as strict and would not rob them of their free time. 

The job got done. Only 2 hours. Not done perfectly, but done. And my boys still had time to get outside and enjoy the nice weather with their friends. 

My mind started to wander. While my blog is about memories, I stopped myself short before getting carried away with my philosophies and opinions on raising children. I'm still learning.

Bubble Gum and Paddle Boards

 Grades 7 through 9 were called Junior High where I lived in my precocious puberty years. It was during those years, I remember, girls petitioned the school to be allowed to wear slacks for the first time. And this was a public school! It was during these years, if the gym teacher caught us chewing gum, we had to stick it to our nose and wear it the rest of the day. It was during this part in time where laws had not yet been made protecting children from the discipline of teachers. One gym teacher, Mr. Chase, was friends with the shop teacher. Shop class is where guys learned to work and build things with wood, metals, and plastics. On the other side of the fence, there was Home-Ec, where girls learned how to cook and sew. Girls didn't take shop and guys didn't take home-ec. I don't know if that was rules or just accepted practice. Back to Mr. Chase now, being friends with the shop teacher gave him access to the shop and tools. Between the 2 of them, they both had some violent-looking paddles with holes, notches, and grooves carved and etched into them that made my skin crawl just looking at them. I don't remember what type of mis-deed had to be done to get beat with a paddle, but I did see them get used on more than 1 occasion. I remember once seeing one student wearing nothing but his jock, was ordered to bend over and grab his ankles and place his head under the door knob and get his paddling. As of this current moment, I do not remember if  I ever got a paddling or not, but I do remember wearing my gum on my nose once or twice.

Not All Memories Are Good

 We all have them. Memories we don't want to remember...but do. One of my worse I remember is the day I told the doctors I wanted to die, and I was serious! The ambulance had taken me to the hospital because I was having a respiratory exasperation. I've had them before. In fact, this was the 3rd time this month I was in ER because of it. But this time was so much worse. 

Now I love my sons immensely and will do anything possible so they do not have to suffer or experience deep sorrow. I know. It's part of life and I shouldn't try to shield my children from it but it's the parent in me that doesn't want to see them hurt. My youngest son wasn't even 13 yet and the other was almost 24. That previous summer we had experienced the sorrow when our life-long pet dog had died, but how do you prepare them for your own death?

But I was gasping for air. It was taking every little bit of strength I had just to inhale one tiny, little, wisp of air. And again, every ounce of strength I had to exhale a short puff of air. I clearly could not breath and was suffering more so than ever before. I was getting weaker and weaker and profusely miserable and getting worse every minute. I'd like to think the doctors had everything in control but I didn't see it. I'll never forget the moment the words came out of my mouth; "I want to die. Please, help me. I can't take it any longer. I just want to die!" I was scared. I chose dying as being less painful than seeing my boys suffer.

The Only Place To Sleep

 I did a bit of hitchhiking in my mid to late teens. It was the thing to do in those times. One particular time while hitchhiking to California, I wound up at a rest area, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, in pouring rain. My first thought for shelter was to hunker down under a picnic table, but apparently, some other hitchhiker had the same thought and beat me to it. With no other option for refuge from the rain, I reluctantly took to the floor in the men's restroom. In the far corner of the restroom, on the floor, by the door of the last stall. Thoughts of the countless things that could happen to me that would be a good premise of a good horror flick, but too tired to care, it didn't take me long top fall asleep. I don 't know how long I slept or what time it was but I remember waking up to someone using that last stall. I remember hearing the grunting sounds and the smell, but still worried he might be one of those weirdos you hear about when sitting around the campfire telling scary stories. I pretended to be asleep. It kept the boogie man away when I was a young child, maybe it will work again. It did.

A Chapter Begins in Fargo

 This might be a post I frequent to add to, as I've several memories in Fargo. How I wound there is a different story but it was rough starting out. Unemployed. Homeless. Only knew a couple people there, neither of which were in a position to help me much. I was an active Christian during this period, going to church Sundays and bible study classes Wednesday nights. Desperate, I asked the pastor if I could sleep in one of the vacant classrooms in the basement of the church while I looked for work. Thank God he agreed and equally thankful I didn't have to stay there long. It may be contradictive that I found it spooky to be in this tiny, dark room in the basement of this small church late at night when all was quiet. I don't remember how long I stayed there. A couple weeks at least.

Times were hard. I spent days in a restaurant drinking coffee and reading help-wanted ads in the newspaper (pre-PC times). Food was small snacks I could afford from the convenience stores. I bathed in the restroom of a gas station and tried to keep one set of clothes clean and neatly folded so I looked presentable at interviews.