Blasts

 Downingtown did not have middle schools in the 1950s. You went to Elementary School for six years, not counting kindergarten. There were three years of Junior High School followed by three of Senior High. There was one teacher and one classroom each grade for those first six years. The only deviation was for Music and Gym.  (Picture left: Mrs. Yost and my sixth grade class.)

Beginning with Fourth Grade we had what they called Gyn. A Physical Education teacher would come twice a week and lead us through some kind of activity. In the cold or wet weather we would play such things as Dodge Ball or Steal the Bacon in a large room in the basement. We even had square dancing once in awhile.

We would go outside when the weather permitted. We might still play Dodge Ball out on the blacktop, which was fine by me. If there was one thing I was good at it was dodging. I was quick and skinny. We played sports such as baseball and soccer. We also played Kick Baseball and Capture the Flag. I knew how to play soccer., more than my classmates, the only team sport I could make such a claim about. I must have learned it at West Whiteland, where they played a lot of soccer, which was my only memory of that school. I couldn’t remember actually playing it while there though. I had vague images of bleachers and people playing was all. This was another piece of the puzzle that was West Whiteland for me.

Other than soccer, I was usually chosen near last for teams. I actually wasn’t that bad at most of these games by Sixth Grade, but I still wasn’t popular. I was very bad at Basketball. I wouldn’t have picked me for Basketball either. I could throw the ball through the hoop easily enough. I did well in games such as H-O-R-S-E, but in an actual game of Basketball I got totally confused. I fowled all the time, threw the ball to the other team or simply stood around like a rock.

The Gym teacher who came to East Ward was the principal of the West Ward Elementary School and his name was Mr. Dreibelbis. I remember he wore glasses and had acme scars on his cheeks. He was not a harsh coach.

Once a week we had Music. Mr. Joseph Poltrone was the Music Teacher. I though he had the perfect name, Poltrone sounded like a musical instrument. He also was the director of the bands for both East Ward and West Ward Grade Schools as well as the Junior High. He recruited for Band in fourth grade. I was one of those he talked into it.

I choose to play the Clarinet. The school supplied a loaner instrument and Mr. Poltrone gave some initial lessons. I didn’t last long on the "licorice stick". I could not get the hang of pressing the keys with both my right and left hands. After a couple weeks I switched to the trumpet. The trumpet only had three valves to worry about all played with the right hand. I didn’t have to fool around with those temperamental reeds with a Trumpet either.

My mother and grandmother took me to a store in Coatesville and bought me my own Trumpet. We rode the Short Line Bus both ways because they still hadn’t learned to drive. Next they enrolled me for lessons with a private tutor. My trumpet teacher was Mr. Miller. He was the son of my barber, Clarence Miller. Once a week I would go to Mr. Miller’s house (pictured left) located  on Manor Avenue, near the Jr.-Sr. High School, for an hour and torture the poor man with my bleats.

Actually I learned to play well enough to get by in band. I had trouble tuning the horn because of my hearing glitch, but thankfully the Trumpet didn’t go out of tune very often. It wasn’t as complicated to tune as a guitar, something I taught myself to play many years later.

Some of my friends were in East Ward Band except Ronald, Dave Fidler and Bill Brookover. Bill wasn’t in Band, but he did play the accordion. Gary Kinzey played Saxophone. Teddy Miller played slide trombone and Stuart played a brass instrument called the Baritone (pictured right). It looked something like a tuba, but was smaller and had a higher pitch level. Dave did play the violin, but there weren’t any strings in the East Ward Band.

We didn’t march either. We did play a couple concerts. I played all four years from Fourth through Sixth.

The administrators realized the transition from Grade School to Junior High was difficult for some. When the Sixth Grade school year was nearing its end the school board set aside one day in late spring to acquaint us with Junior High.

On a day in May Mrs. Yost led us through the streets of Downingtown to the Junior High School (on the left is me in front of the Junior High emoting, “I have arrived”, 1953). They brought all the Sixth Grades in the district there on that same day. Mr. Dreibelbis came with the West Warders.

If the visit was to reassure us, it failed. The hallways were crowded with older kids all in a rush between classes. They shoved, bumped into and snarled at us. Everybody looked so much bigger than we were.
Ronald, Stuart and I hoped to stay together, but they split us up and put us in groups with kids we didn’t know. A Seventh Grader guided us throughout the day. Every period it was go to this room and then to that. Sometimes the rooms were at extreme opposite ends of the building. A bell rang and you had a set time to get to the next class. When a second bell rang you had only seconds before being late.

Part way through the day was a lunch hour. There was a cafeteria at East Ward, but it was only a large room in the basement with long wooden tables and chairs. The only thing sold at East Ward was milk. It was fifteen cents for a pint. Duer Smedley’s father was a milkman and delivered the milk to the school each weekday morning. I forget the brand. Everybody brought his or her lunch from home in a brown paper bag or little tin lunchbox. The cafeteria smelled like a concoction of bologna, peanut butter and bananas.

In comparison the High School Cafeteria was huge. Downingtown had one High School building. It served as both Junior and Senior Highs. The Junior High wing was to the South side. There was one cafeteria, one gymnasium and one auditorium for all grades seven through twelve. Long fold up tables of a tan color filled the center of the room. The chairs were folding chairs, too. There was a kitchen to the back and serving stations along its front. The line of kids stretched around the outer walls of the room and into the hallway.

They sold full lunches in the cafeteria. There was a different entrée each day along with side and desert choices. They gave us the menu for the week during the morning orientation. Hot dogs and Beans, Macaroni and Cheese, Sloppy Joes, something called Rigatoni, which sounded like the name of an opera, and something else called Shepherd’s Pie. The school gave us a free lunch that day as visitors.

The line moved slowly. There were two older students behind me. I overheard one say, “Go ahead ask him. I bet he does.” Next thing I knew one of them tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned my head.

“Hey,” he said, “do you play with yourself?”

What a stupid question. I answered it truthfully. “Sure. If I don’t have anyone else to play with, I play with myself.”

They doubled over in laughter. I didn’t see what was so funny. Did they always have a friend around so they never had to play by themselves?

One tapped my shoulder again after they had calmed down. “You have that teacher?”

“Who?” I asked.

“He pointed to a man further ahead in the line. I recognized Mr. Deibelbis, the principal of West Ward.

“Sometimes,” I said.

“Do you know his name?” he asked. He didn’t give me a chance to answer. “Mr. Drivel Piss,” he said and they doubled over in laughter again.

I got my food and found a table. I just wanted the day to be over.

I didn’t feel I was going to like this place very much. I didn’t know the half of it yet.

EXCERPT FROM MRS. CAREY'S CHICKENS

(Written Downingtown, 1954)

Carey led her flock across a quadrangle of walks, through a side entry and down a corridor, through another door into the gymnasium. Waiting beneath the basketball hoop was another gathering of kids, behind which waited a small cluster of adults. They were the West Warders and their chaperones. Mrs. Carey joined these adults leaving her East Warders facing across at their sixth grade counterparts from the “bad side of town”. A moment passed in silence before a thin man slipped from the adult pack waving his arms for attention.

The man gave a brief smile, unused or uncomfortable doing so. His arms still waved, pulling his jacket up a little on his neck. He had a long nose, gray hair and slightly lopsided mouth.

Somebody giggled.

A teacher went, “shhh!”

“Good morning.” said the man. “My name is Mr. Maxilla. I will be your principal next year. I welcome you here. I expect in the three coming years, in fact am certain, you will bring to us much honor, much credit to Wilmillar Junior High. Meanwhile, I wish to make perfectly clear why you are here today.

“As you have probably heard, the school board, with my full agreement by the way, has long felt the transition from grade school, with its one teacher, one classroom tradition, to junior high school, with its many teachers, many classrooms technique, can be traumatic.

“Therefore, it is felt, and I agree, make no mistake about that, a gradual withdrawal from the elementary milieu is best. This visit allows you to obtain knowledge of your future and thus be better prepared to conduct yourselves with honor and dignity when you arrive full time next September.

“Now I must be about the important business of a principal. I leave you to your guides. Thank you for your attention, and good luck.”

With a nod, he rushed from the gym. In the next minutes, they counted off into groups of three. Each group was assigned to a seventh grader to guide them through the labyrinth of junior high. Frank March, Larry Brown and a west warder named Cary John Masters had a guide named Doug Virgilson, a skinny, freckled youngster with floppy brown hair and sleepy eyes.

“The first thing, y’know,” said Doug, “is to see the locker set-up, y’know, and get my books, y’know.”

A Demolition Demon Reaches New Lows Over Heights

The Grade school train was coming to the final station. In the fall of 1952 I began Sixth Grade. I was 11 years old. It may sound as if my life was improving from what I have written in the last chapters. It might even sound as if I was becoming a leader and gaining confidence; “I started the bike racing, I started the Ditching Club”.  It was more a matter of timing and coincidence than confidence. Those things would have come about just by the nature of kids being kids. Somebody would have started racing bikes, but I happened to be there first because I was fortunate enough to be taken to live stock car racing before anyone else. I had such enthusiasm for these races that it spelled over as I talked about it with a couple friends (of what few I had) and they thought racing would be fun to do. It is that way with boys. You give us anything that moves and we want to see who can move it fastest.

The Ditching Club came because I had seen a Destruction Derby the same week Gary Kinzey tried to wreck me during a race.

Gary Kinzey and Michael Myers were among the first to begin racing with me around the blacktop. Gary’s smaller bike put him at a disadvantage. As several more kids began racing against us, Gary  (right, I have no photos of Michael) slipped further back in the pack. We were racing this particular day and I was passing him. He decided he was going to knock me over as I went by. He rammed me with his bike, but he hit my rear wheel. He didn’t realize this was the driving force of a bike. My rear wheel absorbed the shock and its force knocked his front wheel to the side. He lost control and crashed.

The Destruction Derby and Gary’s foolish attack clicked together in my mind. I actually suggested it as a form of duel. It is also in boys to want to play rough and batter each other around, which was the allure for the others. This trying to knock each other off bikes became an instant fad.

As a fad it lost its appeal fairly quickly. As guys began to see the dents and scratches to their bikes and the bruises and abrasions on their elbows they began to drop out. The racing petered out after that as well; perhaps it was too tame now. Besides I had begun to spend less time riding around the school ground as Ronald and I explored the outer limits beyond Downingtown.

The stock car season was winding down as well. As much as I enjoyed that activity, it too had become a bone of contention between my father and I.

Let’s talk about fear. I have many times mentioned being scared of this or that. I was fearful of the hissing steam engines, I couldn’t sleep with the shades drawn, I was afraid of getting my foot caught between railroad tracks and I was frightened by deep water in the swimming holes. I sound like quite the wimp.

We use a lot of words loosely to convey feelings that aren’t as intense or true as the words imply. How many times in life to we say we “love” something? We just love to use the word love. I love “raindrops on roses”.  I love “whiskers on kittens”. I love green Jell-O. “I love Napalm in the morning.” I loved this song, that song, every other song.

We don’t love these things; we like them.

How about expressions of fright?

“I was scared to death by that sudden thunderclap!”

Really? What we mean is the thunder startled us.

When I came to a railroad track I wasn’t afraid to cross over it because of what I saw in that “Dick Tracy vs. Cueball” film. I was simply careful where I stepped. I wasn’t as afraid of the deep water as I was reacting to my father’s approach to teaching me how to swim.

I wasn’t really fearful of steam engines. I didn’t run for my life when one was sitting across the sidewalk downtown. If I could walk around it to go on my way, I did. When my grandfather offered me the ride in the train cab I didn’t refuse because I was scared of the engine or the steam. It was because I had to climb that little ladder to up above my head. I was truly afraid of height.

There are two types of fear, the rational and the irrational. Rational fear is a built in defense mechanism. Fear warns us of danger or risk. We need some fears or we will become reckless in situations that could harm us. A fear of deep water for a person who can’t swim is natural. One knows they could drown. Fear of height for the average person is also normal. Being careless on the edge of a cliff can lead to falling to your death. Normal, rational fear may make us cautious, but does not totally interfere with doing things or bring our life to a halt in certain situations.

Most of my childhood fears were normal and I got over them or didn’t let them control me. My fear of height was a phobia. It was irrational and debilitating. It caused me to miss opportunities, to be miserable where others had fun, to avoid some everyday situations and to bring insult and teasing my way. I don’t know what caused it; I just had it.

My dad had no qualms about heights what so ever. My father did not view mine as an anxiety disorder. He saw it as a weakness. I was just being a sissy. If I wasn’t such a pantywaist I’d climb up that ladder and find out there was nothing to be afraid of.

He even used my fear as a threat. There were these water tank towersalong the road near Philadelphia. My dad always threatened to take me up on those towers and leave me there until I got over my fear of height. If my father did ask me to ride with him I was reluctant because I really believed he might do that.

How did this cause more agitation between my dad and I at the stock car races?

The racetracks had bleachers, not stadiums. The seats were wooden planks bolted on the top of a metal frame. One plank was what you sat upon and a second plank was where you put your feet. If you moved your foot back a few inches or forward too far it dangled over open space. There was row after row of this configuration. You could see down between the rows to the ground below.

I refused to go any higher than the third or fourth row. Frankly, I couldn’t. When I did I broke into a cold sweat, my heart raced, my body shook and I could not think of anything but how high I was. If I had a seat any higher than the fourth row I would sit like a frozen statue, afraid to move, clutching the board edge with both hands with my knuckles white. I was even scared to breath hard, but so scared I couldn’t stop breathing hard. It is difficult to explain to anyone who has never had a phobia how terrifying and paralyzing the fear is.

My father liked to sit up at the very top. He was angry with me for not wanting to go higher. It ended up with me sitting alone while my parents sat where my dad wished. This would have been fine if he could have understood my anguish and let it be what it was. But he could never let it go. He would always be on my case about being a fraidy cat or “a worrywart like your mother.” He would say things loudly when we arrived, such as, “Well, Gertrude, you gonna sit with the men or the girls today?”

Summer ended.

Going into Sixth Grade was going back into the lion’s den. The claws of ridicule were as sharp as ever.

I was also becoming less thrilled about having to go to school. I thought it was boring. I had things I wanted to know, but the school wasn’t teaching those things. I began missing homework assignments in sixth grade and paying less attention in class. I would be doodling in my notebook or daydreaming during class. My marks that year deteriorated badly and for the first time I was getting U for unsatisfactory in more deportment categories than just neatness.

There was the telling comment Mrs. Yost wrote on my report card at the end of the first marking period, “Needs more appreciation.”

I might have needed it, but I wasn’t going to get it.

However, there were two things that probably saved me that year, two things I enjoyed and looked forward to coming to school for.

Mrs. Yost assigned yearlong responsibilities to some of us that first week. One such was Safety Patrol. Safety Patrol members acted as hall monitors and as crossing guards. They wore a white belt and strap with a badge to show their authority. Bonnie Walton and the two Mary Janes, Chudleigh and Sabellico, were members. So were Denny Myers and Jack Swarner. Now Denny and Jack were officially sanctioned bullies.

There was another important post, Flag Monitor. Back then most people were proud of this country for what it stood for. People showed respect for the flag. It was the job of the Flag Monitors to retrieve the flag from the school office, raise it on the flagpole out front and to take it down after school. The Monitors had to make certain it never touched the ground and fold it in the proper triangular shape when putting it away. They also had to hurry outside and lower the flag if it should begin to rain.

Stuart Meisel and I were the Flag Monitors. This teaming up led to “The Daily Star”.

I admit I was somewhat taken aback and a bit hurt when I read Stuart’s account of “The Daily Star” in his autobiography, My Story:

“In Sixth Grade, I decided to print a school newspaper. I was given access to the school mimeograph machine. This was BX time. [He footnoted this as Before Xerox.] Using a mimeo required you to type onto a special type of paper called a master. Then, you would lace it on some totally yucky (or depending upon your point of view, totally cool) jello-like [sic] substance. Then you hand-cranked the machine, and voila, there is your mimeographed page. From a friend Larry Meredith (more about him later), I was able to get one of the items that I wrote in my (using the term loosely) “newspaper”. So, here it is  -- Ya-Ha-Whoey.

“YA-HA-WHOEY

“(By Stuart R. G. Meisel)”

[And he then wrote out the complete lyrics of the song.]

 –Page 25, My Story by Stuart G. Meisel, 2004.

Since these two things, “The Daily Star” and “Ya-Ha-Whoey”, occurred over 60 years ago I will chalk it up to memory failure, but I share credit on both these endeavors and I have always credited Stuart as a co-writer when and wherever I have referenced the newspaper or the poem. Here is my version.

Everyday when we retrieved the flag to hang or brought it in at end of day we entered the school office. Something in the office caught our eye. It was a mimeograph machine. People used a mimeograph to make duplicates before the invention of the photocopier. I think it was Stuart who suggested it after seeing that machine, but we decided to publish a newspaper.

We approached Mrs. Yost (pictured right), who was also the principal of East Ward, with the idea. We wanted to publish a school newspaper, print it with the mimeograph and sell it to the other students. Surprisingly, she agreed to let us. She taught us how to use the machine and told us when we could have access to it.

Stuart and I named our newspaper “The Daily Star”, even though we only published once a week.

He and I did all the writing. In order to make copies on a mimeograph you must first type a stencil. Mrs. Meisel agreed to type this for us. You attach the stencil to a drum on the machine and by turning a crank you apply ink and print the copies. We sold these at lunchtime at a little folding card table set up in the hallway. Our price was one cent a copy. We made enough money to throw a little party for our class at the end of the year.

We wrote about things going on at school, told some jokes and did a crossword puzzle. Stuart got annoyed because his mother wanted us to print these little anecdotes from the Reader’s Digest. We wanted strictly original material done by us. This was my first writing collaboration with Stuart; it would not be my last.

In fact, another collaboration was the aforementioned “Ya-Ha-Whoey” and it was not for and never appeared in “The Daily Star”. It was written more than a year after we left Sixth Grade. One night I was at Stuart’s house and we were watching “Disneyland” on TV. Mr. Meisel was sitting in a chair wearing his usual smoking jacket. Stuart and I were lying on the floor. The show that night was a series of “Goofy” cartoons. Goofy would often yell, “Ya-ha-whoey” if he went down a ski-jump or fell over a cliff.

When the show ended, Stuart and I went up to an upstairs room where he had this antique Dictaphone. We sat in front of it and made up the poem as a song that we recorded on these old wax cylinders. Now the TV show “Disneyland” did not debut on TV until October 1954. We graduated from Mrs. Yost’s sixth grade at East Ward Elementary in June 1953.  Our song could never have appeared in that publication.

I admit, I was much more interested in writing for “The Daily Star” than doing my daily math homework. My marks were suffering. I had been throughout Grade School an A Minus or B Plus student, although my trend was downward. Now I was barely floating about C level. I was also getting unsatisfactory in “self-confidence”, “takes group responsibility”, “starts and completes work on time”, and “tries to do his best”, as well as the perennial “works neatly”.

There was another problem interfering with my ability to do my schoolwork. I wasn’t aware of it, but my eyesight was getting poor.  I was becoming increasingly nearsighted, but to me I had simply accepted the idea that the world always looked a bit blurry. School seating policy made matters worse. I was one of the taller kids in class, next to Ronald, and we tall ones sat in the back rows, furthest from the blackboard. I did know I couldn’t read what Mrs. Yost wrote on the board, but I chalked it up to her handwriting. What I couldn’t make out by squinting, I simply ignored.

The school gave eye tests. An ophthalmologist visited the school one day a year and performed these. I couldn’t get as far down the chart as most. The school informed my parents I needed glasses, but of course they did nothing about it that year. Spectacles cost money.

I finished Sixth Grade with a 2.64 average, just barely enough for a B minus.

My grades were not going to improve in Junior High, even with glasses. Before I left Sixth Grade I got an introduction to what Junior High would be like, and it was not encouraging.



The lyrics of "Ya-Ha-Whoey"
by Stuart G. Meisel & Larry E. Meredith,
Downingtown, Pennsylvania, 1954-55

Grandpa was driving down the mountain on an icy day,

When his car hit the curve, it began to sway.

Off of the road it found its way

And as he went over you could hear him say:

“Ya-ha-whoey!

Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!  Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!”

And they lay him away that day.

As up the first hill the scenic started to creep,

A lady stood up to see how steep.

When she saw she began to leap

And as she fell out you could hear her speak:

“Ya-ha-whoey!

Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!  Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!”

And they lay her away that week.

A man went up into a tower that’s tall.

He took a wrong turn and started to fall.

Though he had a voice what’s small,

As he went you could hear his call:

“Ya-ha-whoey!

Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!  Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!”

And they laid him away in a hole.

A man went up to tie a noose.

He did not know the ladder was loose

And as he fell from his roost,

You heard him call like a stricken moose:

“Ya-ha-whoey!

Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!  Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!”

And six men gave him a boost.

A man went up to a scaffold real high,

A way to roofs simplify.

Got too near the edge, sweet old guy,

And as he slipped, you could hear his cry:

“Ya-ha-whoey!

Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!  Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!”

And they laid him away to lie.

Stuart & Larry, 2011

Into the Weeds

I came into the house at 417 Washington one afternoon. I wanted to speak to my mother about something (I don’t remember what), but the house seemed empty. I wandered to the kitchen and no sign of her...


Up to this point I may be coming across as a fairly decent child. I performed a bit of petty theft one day, but instantly regretted it and to a degree immediately repented. I actually was an honest young boy, perhaps to a fault, always paying and always pointing out if clerks gave me too much change. I wasn't a troublemaker in school, despite not particularly liking to be there and often skimping on my homework. Teachers liked me, too much for my own good. I wasn't a problem child at home either. I didn’t give a lot of backtalk and I generally did my chores without too much fuss. It appears I was having a good time with my few friends as I went through my grade school years.


It is true there were some shadows over those early years. I was a child

born at the beginning of a war and the tension, especially the blackout sirens, terrorized me. Also like most children of my generation, my father was away at that war for my formative years and my mother went out like Rosie the Riveter and worked at a factory. There was some feeling of desertion and abandonment resulting from this, but unlike some I had the advantage of fallback parents.  My grandparents slipped easily into that roll and presented me with valued adult examples. They basically substituted for my mother and father for much of my youth.


In my earliest years I was fairly well adjusted. I was happy and outgoing, or so was told, not particularly intimidated by the world around me (except for those blasted siren blasts).  I was given birthday parties and I had friends on the street where I lived. I went to a private kindergarten for two years and flourished there. 


But then in first grade things began to turn. I was suddenly taken out of

the school I started first grade in and moved from the town I had known since being six months old. The home to which I went was bleak and lonely, situated in the country alongside a swamp, surrounded by little in the way of companions, except occasional cows, birds and small water creatures such as snakes and frogs. I also saw the finality of death an unusual number of times as a young boy. Did this add to my future morbid bent?


My father returned from the war, but he took a job that kept him away from home five days a week. This didn't upset me because in truth I was resentful and fearful of my dad. On weekends, when he did come home, I was bundled off to my grandparents so mom and dad could have time alone. My dad might as well have sailed off into the South Pacific again for all the difference it made his coming home.

Sure, during the week I had my mother around. She was trapped with

me out in the marsh. She didn't know how to drive so she had to give up her job and stay home. We were forced close for those two years, but I was already becoming a more independent lad, going out to explore my environs or holing up in my playroom. I was growing to feel comfortable with loneliness. Mom and I ate simple suppers together, but these were very informal, if not totally haphazard. I developed a habit of reading while I ate my meals; obviously mom and I weren't having long dinner conversations. Any elaborate, family dinners were held at my grandparents over those weekends, usually on Sunday.

Moving back to town after two years introduced new obstacles, mainly teasing and social anxiety. I was thrust into a society that didn't want me. 

Even so, the grade school years had their moments and I cultivated a few friends, mostly outsiders, too. Still I made my peace with East Ward and Washington Avenue and grew satisfied with how my life was progressing, at least through fifth grade.

 I came into the house at 417 Washington one afternoon. I wanted to speak to my mother about something (I don’t remember what), but the house seemed empty. I wandered to the kitchen and no sign of her. I went upstairs to look. She had closed the bedroom door, unusual during the day. She only closed it at night when she went to bed. This was a weekday. I expected dad to be on the road, but mom wasn’t working at this particular time so she should be home…

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Having a real tiny bit of knowledge can be worse and having almost no knowledge of certain things can be real trouble. There were a number of things I had nearly no knowledge of because such things were not talked about openly in the 1950s, not to children anyway. Yet, this was knowledge I would have been better off knowing as I began my journey through sixth grade, junior high school and puberty.

If you read through the Bible there are two warnings about what can lead men astray and into sin.  One is the love of money. Avarice leads many people down a dark path to corruption, theft, deception and even murder.

The second is sexual immorality, which can lead down a very dark path indeed.

I was not greedy. Pursuit of gold was not my lure into the weeds.

I came into the house at 417 Washington one afternoon. I wanted to speak to my mother about something (I don’t remember what), but the house seemed empty. I wandered to the kitchen and no sign of her. I went upstairs to look. She had closed the bedroom door, unusual during the day. She only closed it at night when she went to bed. This was a weekday. I expected dad to be on the road, but mom wasn’t working at this particular time so she should be home.

I walked down the hall and opened the bedroom door. I stepped inside and saw my mother and dad on the bed. They appeared to be naked. Dad was on top of my mother and I didn’t know what he was doing. I thought he was trying to kill her. Should I do something?

But my mother screamed when she saw me and yelled over and over for me to get out of there. So did dad. I got out of there, closing the door behind me and running to my own room. I didn’t know what to make of that. I still thought my dad was hurting her. Maybe she told me to get out so he wouldn’t harm me too.

I sat in my room shaking, not knowing what I should do. After a while my mother came out of the bedroom and came down the hall to me.

This would have been a great opportunity for my mother to explained the other half of what she told me about the “Fat Lady” when she said babies were inside the mother. She could have calmly explained:

“Your father got home from the road early this week and we were putting a baby inside me.”

But she did not complete the story. She sternly told me to never enter their bedroom again without knocking first. I was left with no explanation of what had occurred behind that closed door or why everyone got so freaked out when I walked through that entry. It was still not clear to me whether dad was hurting my mother and I certainly had no idea what part the father played in how the baby ended up inside the mother. My ignorance of these facts of life continued for several more years during the silent ‘fifties. But I was nearing a time I needed to know things no one would tell me about. My little ink sketch illustration was not drawn in my teens.  “Completeness”, as I called it, wasn’t done until I was in my twenties and married.

My childhood world was about to become more difficult and confusing. Not only would there to be a change of school from a one class, one teacher framework to one of multi-classrooms and changing teachers, clanging bells and crowded hallways, but also I would be cast amidst a brand new crowd of classmates. I had been for several years surrounded by kids (friends or enemies) who didn’t change from semester to semester. Now there would be an ever shifting body of strangers and an uptick of the bullying and prejudice.  

On top of the upheaval of social environment about to hit me, my body was changing in ways I did not understand and was unprepared for. My emotions were growing chaotic as well. By the time I was into Junior High I was what might be called a “child at risk”, certainly at risk for a not so good life outcome.

Therefore, here is my disclaimer for what is coming.

When I began this autobiography or memoir or life rant, whatever you wish to call it, I promised to be honest. I was and am a long way from perfect, but I hope I have developed in the right direction when my life turned to its second half. I think everyone has a kind of split personality. We have our public and private personas. No one on earth truly knows any one else completely. Even husbands and wives live parts of their lives completely separate from each other’s knowledge. We all have little closets in our minds where we keep our darkest secrets. It is just unusual for anyone to open those attic chambers to the world. I am going to open mine. Frankly, I don’t think my secrets are near as bad as those many other people store. I think anyone who reads my life probably has shelves full of things as bad as I do and no one should be judging what I was by what I am today.

It does give me pause when I think of my readership, small as that may be, because it contains friends, people I went to a variety of schools with or worked beside at some company. It includes family. It includes people I go to church with each week. Obviously if one writes their life it includes others that you rubbed shoulders with and thus you are also in danger of exposing some of their secrets besides your own. I am being very careful not to do that. You will find I sometimes do not give the name or description of someone engaged with me. I don’t want anyone embarrassed except me.

I do hope anyone reading my rambling opus will do so with an adult  and open mind. I warn you that in some of the episodes ahead there will be frank discussions about life, sex and bodily function, some minor nudity in the illustrations and certain things “which some might find disturbing, so the reader should continue with discretion”.

What you will not find is profanity, blasphemy, pornography, explicit violence or offensive or denigrating remarks about others because of their looks, religion, ethnicity, lifestyle or personal beliefs. (This does not mean my opinions will never clash with your own, especially on faith or politics.) If along the way you find something offensive then the problem lies with your closed mind or too sensitive nature, not with my intensions or me. If you don't like what I tell, then for Pete's sake stop reading me!

Now probably nothing that will follow will come close to being as horrible as what the last two paragraphs have probably put into your imagination. In fact, it may prove a big let down. That said, shall we move further into the weeds and on with my life, such as it is.