I was nearly five when Jeff and Susie got married, and I was the little ring bearer at their wedding. My mother sewed me a small brown suit, and I was feeling really sick and feverish that day and was delirious. It goes without saying that I was in a dream when I walked down that aisle, though I still do remember it. Pastor MacLearn had prayed for my extreme headache earlier and kindly smiled at me as he took the rings from the pillow I was clutching tightly in my stupor. He could see I did not feel good, and he was a kind man.
I enrolled in kindergarten nearly a year later than most of the kids. Missouri had a strange birthday policy, and I did not quite meet the requirements, which I think was actually a blessing in disguise, as I was a little more mature than my peers. We were required to take a speech test, which I passed with flying colors. I wasn’t in the least bothered, as Janet, a church friend of our family’s, was the speech therapist. It seemed funny to me to think she was really a teacher and especially to hear the other kids call her Mrs. Neill.
After my kindergarten year, we moved to Scottville, Michigan. Vicky soon went away to Mid America Nazarene College in Olathe, Kansas, and I missed her terribly. I never really cared too much for Michigan, though I think part of it was the fact that because I was so somber, my memories reflected that mood. There were some good points about the state, but I hated the gray skies six months out of the year. I’ve been told the Upper Peninsula has a lot more sunshine.
I was soon put into a special education class at Riverton Elementary, the little country school where I attended first grade. To this day I have yet to understand why. The only possibility I can think of was that my southern accent might have made me sound ignorant, as some Northerners tended to be a little biased. I was doing well in the regular class and did not find the specialty one to be a challenge, easily sitting at the top of the class. I did not question it at the time though, being a tongue-tied, self-conscious kid.
I awoke each morning with a nagging dread in the pit of my stomach. My single friend was really only an acquaintance, a Spanish boy named Loupe. I spent most of my time in lonely solitude, though I longed for true friendship. It never occurred to me to tell my folks about such feelings. I just figured I wasn’t cut out for friends. It did not make me happy, but I did not feel I measured up, and I simply accepted it. I believed it was my fate and there was nothing I could do to change it.
I sometimes made up my own “assignments” that I turned in because I wanted to please. Among these were some extra stories that I wrote and bound myself. I recently reread one I wrote about a ghost on a swing. There wasn’t much to it from my adult viewpoint, but to a six- or seven-year-old it seemed magical and had a sense of boyish wonder and delight in invisible imagery expressed in its pages.
Michigan is famous for cold, wintry weather with snow, and a few years after we moved back some friends mailed us a couple of newspaper clippings. They had gotten eight feet of snow and the snowdrifts were so deep they covered the telephone lines. Needless to say, it was not an uncommon sight to see dealerships selling snowmobiles side by side with other recreational vehicles.
Riverton Elementary required us to have snowsuits before we were allowed out at recess. Naturally, coming from Missouri, where the climate was warmer, I did not have one. We were running real low on cash, so it took my folks a week or so before they had the money to buy one at a thrift store. In the meantime I spent a lot of lonesome recesses inside.
I finally got one. It was yellow, stained, and the zipper soon broke on it, but I wasn’t complaining. It was a lot better than spending all those lonely recesses inside. Truthfully though, I was actually very self-conscious about all of my clothes, because I always wore second hand, inexpensive clothes that were usually hopelessly dated and out of style. I guess it was better than going naked, at any rate.
Anyway, the school would hose down the basketball court, allowing it to freeze solid. They had a box of old ice skates, and many of the kids would glide gracefully around the playground at recess. It looked so easy, and I decided I had to try it too. Having never been on skates before, I couldn’t even stand up. I was so embarrassed! I quickly changed out of them, but by that time recess was nearly over. I still don’t know how to ice skate, though I have since learned to roller skate. Maybe one of these days . . .
One thing I did enjoy, however, was riding down the hill outside the schoolhouse on the flat inexpensive plastic sleds that were so popular there at the time. They were basically a flexible quarter inch thick piece of plastic with two holes in either end attaching a rope for steering capability. I never owned one, but the other kids would sometimes let me ride, even though I did not really have any friends. It was a lot of fun whenever I got the chance.
We would first back up a little ways from the hill. Then we would carefully grip the sled just so in front of us and then take off running, jumping on the sled at just the right instant and sail down the hill. It was a blast.
One winter day I got locked out of the house after school. I don’t remember why now, but it was an oversight, as someone was always there. We had a really kind-natured dog, and she was a mongrel, allegedly including in the mix a large part Australian Shepherd. Her name was Duchess. It was extremely cold, and I was very distraught. After repeatedly trying to get in, I lay down in the snow, and she curled herself around me, trying to keep me warm.
When my folks finally got home, I was feeling upset, sick and befuddled. I was huddled up on the couch crying, and she kept trying to come up and put her muzzle sympathetically in my face, her big brown eyes filled with compassion. I kept pushing her away and yelling at her, and she kept coming back, desperate to make me feel better. Poor dog.
She was probably one of the gentlest creatures I’ve ever seen and one of the best dogs Mom and Dad have ever owned. She genuinely cared about people and was unconditionally forgiving. She loved me and was only trying to make me feel better. She’d do anything to help make a person feel better if she knew that he or she was down. She always could tell when you were depressed, sick, or hurting. She just seemed to have a natural intuition or sixth sense about her, and she was always there trying to comfort you: whether she was appreciated or not. I have never seen a more compassionate animal in my entire life.
My folks began attending a Nazarene Church in Ludington, a small town about seven miles from Scottville. When I wasn’t in Children’s Church, I would often sit through the service and write and draw in the diary I carried with me. It was green with floral designs on it and it locked, which was a feature that captivated me. I’d bought it at a thrift store for something like a dime.
I soon began to realize an obvious talent for drawing and decided I wanted to be a professional artist when I grew up. For the next several years I spent hours drawing, devouring art books and supplies. Little did I realize I would end up doing more with the writing.
Ludington was a town right next to Lake Michigan in the Lower Peninsula. We would stand there and watch the ferryboats shuttling people to and fro across the water. There was also a lighthouse on the lake with a long walkway stretching out to it. My family and I would often venture out on its surface, which seemed to rock with the waves. It was pretty neat getting to see a lighthouse up so close.
Sand is one thing Michigan had no shortage of, and it amazes me how well things grow there. I never would have thought sandy soil would be so fertile. There wasn’t much vegetation on the sand dunes however, as the wind shifted the grains before they could settle. Despite getting an occasional gritty particle in my eye, I really enjoyed climbing over them.
Also, I enjoyed the church youth group. They took some interesting nature hikes, and I enjoyed tramping along the sandy trails. Pastor Miller’s two youngest daughters (he also had another teenage son and daughter) were really nice to me, though I really did not know them. They were about my same age. During the winter they invited me into the igloo their father had built for them in front of the parsonage. He’d shaped it out of snow and then repeatedly hosed it down with water until it froze solid.
During the summer I went with the church youth group to some area parks and had fun, albeit I really never made any friends. We’d often have a barbecue and play all afternoon, then roast marshmallows over a bonfire in the evening, making delicious smores bars with them. No one really picked on me, though I was a little intimidated and often suffered from headaches riding the church bus because the kids were so loud. In spite of the racket, these outings provided for some of my happiest memories.
When I was seven I decided to give my heart to Jesus, and though I did not really understand what I had done, it did curb my compulsive lying. I always felt like I was such a bad person and still remember my disbelief one time when one of the ladies who worked in Children’s Church complimented my mother on how good of a little boy I was, patting my head affectionately. I had such a low self-esteem I thought she was lying.
To this day, I still don’t totally understand why I felt so worthless. It certainly was not a fault of my parents, because I always knew they loved me. I did not hate myself. I just felt rejected by the rest of the world: the dumb, inferior misfit that nobody liked. Mom and Dad never even realized it until I told them years later.
Eventually Vicky came back, and we both slept upstairs. Michigan is famous for some really bad thunderstorms and our house, like many old farmhouses, had a lightning rod. The walls were pretty thin, and the thunder seemed to literally shake the entire house. I was terrorized of it.
Her bedroom opened to the right of the head of stairs, and mine was adjacent to hers. I would often fearfully cross into her room and ask her if I could climb into bed with her. Sometimes she was just as shaken as I, finding my company more comforting than I knew. We felt safe together snuggled under the warm covers of her canopy bed.
I never really liked that house at night, though I was not afraid of the dark. It just seemed so old and threatening. It was one of those wooden farmhouses that moaned and creaked. Even at that, I usually slept pretty well, and my dad quite often would play hide-and-go-seek with me right before bed. I would go hide behind the dresser or wherever, my dad graciously ignoring my giggles that were sure to give me away. After looking in several places and finally “finding” me, he would read to me and then tuck me in. I thoroughly enjoyed those times.
If I really wanted something, I knew to ask my dad. He was the softie and did not have the mean streak my mother did. She had a heart too, but sometimes it did not seem like it. I think she got her aggression from my granddad.
My folks owned sixty acres and had a chicken coop out back. I remember one time I was throwing water on the chickens, something these birds hate. It was a chilly day, and when I got back to the house my mom was waiting for me at the door with a bucket of water. It was a rather cold surprise, to say the least. That made me mad, and I decided I was going to run away from home. I did—for about an hour or so. After that, I was a little craftier when “watering” the birds and would double-check several times to make sure she wasn’t watching.
During the summer months I was usually barefoot and wore nothing but a pair of shorts. My feet developed some healthy calluses, and I could run over the stubble in the hayfield without harm. Right next to the garage behind the house there was a large cherry tree with a tire swing hung on it. I spent hours there, thinking and swinging. Next to that was the swingset that my dad had made.
It wasn’t sitting quite level, but it was well crafted and stood next to my folks’ house for years before they finally took it down some time ago. It had a trapeze bar made of an iron pipe swinging on chains, hung between two swings. Their seating surfaces were narrow, flexible sections cut from car tires with steel bands bolted through the ends. These had two bars welded on the side forming a triangular shape for affixing chains. The set was completed with a glider wrought of iron pipe, its pivots heavy-duty bolts. This assembly was suspended in a welded track atop the tan-primered frame to which the chains for the swings and trapeze bar were affixed.
My dad kept farm equipment and wood in the garage, and one winter we had a furry friend that just about ruined the building. I’ll bet you’d never guess what it was. It had a tail and was black and white. It stunk really badly when my dad shot it, though the full effect of the perfume fortunately did not reach maximum potential. I did not want to go near there for a while.
I loved to explore, and there was a swampy area near the back of our acreage, nasty nettles growing along its banks. I may have had calluses on my feet, but I did not have any on my legs, and they stung—ooh! Then around dusk the mosquitoes would rise off the stagnant water, and they could bite the you-know-what out of a nearly naked tanned little boy. Still, I never seemed to learn my lesson and would often visit there to watch the aquatic life.
I remember one day I was running around in the hayfield, and I saw an injured killdeer. These birds are notorious for their lame duck impressions, gimping along to detract predators until they lead them a safe distance from their young. They will then suddenly spring into flight, startling the person or animal half to death.
Unlike most, this one was genuinely hurt, and I caught it easily. Since I did not know its gender, I asked my mom for some unisex names, and Tony was her best suggestion, so Tony it was. I really felt sorry for it and tried to nurse it back to health. I put the terrorized bird in an upside down locker basket and hovered around it, trying to get it to drink and eat something. The panicked bird refused, bloodying its beak instead with its frantic efforts to free itself from the wire bars. I eventually had to let it loose.
My mom sold eggs, and she was normally responsible for the sales. She packaged them in recycled egg cartons and asked her repeat customers if they could bring them back. One day she was gone for a short while. A Mexican family drove up and wanted to buy some eggs.
Here I am, a grubby seven year old boy wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, uncertain of exactly how to handle this situation, having a little bit of a hard time understanding their thick English. I emphatically told them my mom wanted the cartons back, and they misunderstood me and started searching around in their car. They managed to find a plastic grocery bag and emptied out the eggs, handing me back the cartoon, smiling. I can only hope they did not break any on the way home!
My folks also raised pigs, and they have naturally curly tails. I would chase them round and around the pen, trying to catch their tails. When I did succeed in catching one, I would pull on its tail, endeavoring to straighten it out. It’s a wonder they did not straighten me out.
I developed a preoccupation with the opposite sex at an early age. I would cut out pictures of women’s legs from magazine ads for pantyhose and then glue them on construction paper to hang on the walls. Vicky thought it was kind of odd.
I asked my mom if it was ok to draw pictures of naked people. Uncertain of what to say, she told me it depended on why I was drawing them. I did not totally understand, but for some reason I still felt a little guilty when I made my best attempts at drawing nude women, or modifying the pantyhose pictures. I think most kids, and especially boys, are extremely curious about such things, so I don’t guess my fetish was too unusual.
My dad was a professional mechanic in need of work, and he couldn’t seem to find an automotive garage that would hire him. Finally, he found a graveyard shift job working maintenance on the machinery at Stokely Van Camp, a factory that canned green beans. Vicky soon started working there too, and that place swallowed them, it seemed. She was working in the production department, supervising the closing machine and feeding it lids for the cans, stopping it only when something went awry.
My dad was working seventeen-hour shifts during the green season, and I would pester him in the few hours he had to sleep because that was the only time I saw him. I missed him a lot, and it seems to be human nature to cast blame. My mother got the brunt of mine, for no better reason than because she was the only one who stayed home. I resented her, and there was no good reason for it. It obviously wasn’t her fault.
I did not complain, however, when it came time to tour the factory and sample their beans. The plant would taste-test every so many cans to make sure the machines were adding the proper amount of salt and other ingredients. I was allowed to eat my fill, and I thought the beans were delicious.
My folks were considering moving, and one day a real estate agent came over. They were all sitting at the picnic table in the yard beside the house, drinking iced tea and talking. Grazing nearby were Trixie and Susie, their two goats they kept tied up there. Next to that was the hayfield and, like most little boys, I had my collections of useless things, though I don’t imagine too many other people kept a collection of mouse nests.
While they were engaged with the gentleman, I was gleefully gathering the latest for my growing assortment, and it seems some bumblebees had moved in and made house in one particularly fine specimen. They were a bit disgruntled at being disturbed by a grimy-faced kid, and you might be amazed at how fast you can run when you have two very angry bumblebees in hot pursuit. I sure was.
I was terrorized and ran straight toward Mom and Dad. Miraculously, there was an indention that I fell in, and I went tumbling to the ground, the bees suddenly sailing over my head. I was close enough that my dad saw them and realized what was happening, standing in readiness to intercept me and intervene. I could always count on my dad to protect me. Fortunately, he did not need to. They disappeared into the distance, never to return.
After living in Michigan for about a year and a half, they finalized negotiations, and we moved back to Bolivar, Missouri. Ironically we moved less than a mile down the road from where we had previously lived onto an 80-acre plot where Mom and Dad still live, though it has since expanded to 115 acres.
There was a blonde girl in my grade by the name of Jenny who had moved into our old house. She and I became pretty good friends, and I would often ride my bicycle over to her house to play, or else Mom and Dad would drive me. We got along well.
Her father was a carpenter, and he tore the guesthouse down. Some time after that they were in town, and their house burned to the ground, the fire determined to be electrical. He soon built a nicer one in its place, and her family hired me to mow their lawn a few years later, though by that time I’d stopped hanging out with her.
A year or so before I met Jenny, I had a little girlfriend by the name of Brandi. She was in my first grade class, a forward little girl with black hair, green eyes, and a smattering of freckles. She was a cute little thing, though I would often end up accidentally making her cry by playing too rough. Our “romance” lasted most of that year.
I often got her into trouble. On one occasion, I showed her how to bump people’s elbows when they were trying to write. After managing to thoroughly annoy some of our classmates, she forgot about it. Soon she started to draw, and I laughingly bumped her elbow. I had once again unintentionally managed to make the fountains pour out of the corners of her eyes.
The teacher firmly but gently chewed me out and told me she would have to separate us. I felt really bad and missed her terribly when she was moved to a distant desk. I’m not sure what happened to her, though I think she moved away. She wasn’t in school the following year.
In second grade I officially gave my life to God at a Billy Graham crusade. My second grade teacher, a nice Christian lady, congratulated me, but this choice of lifestyle further alienated me from my peers. I would often get ridiculed with statements like, “Of course he can’t do it. Jesus wouldn’t like it.” These were usually spoken in belittling and condescending tones when I would refuse to lie, or participate in some activity I deemed inappropriate. I really did not have many friends at all.
Over time, I gradually began to think less and less about my Christian values. I still had to go to church, and that was one place I felt pretty comfortable and had a little respect and admiration from the younger kids. Unfortunately, it often puffed my head up and encouraged me to fabricate lies to seem more authoritative and gain attention. In my effort to satisfy my sense of belonging, I often overextended my welcome and then couldn’t figure out what had happened, which furthered my feelings of inferiority.
Eventually, in church or out, everyone knew I wasn’t a Christian, though I always conducted myself respectfully in church. I did not feel following Jesus had gotten me anywhere. In fact, it had only added to my ridicule from the other kids at school. Why would I want to continue on?
There were several scandalous happenings, one after the other, with some of the pastors we were under. The first was another man’s wife, the second mishandled funds, and the third a power-hungry manipulator. It is tragic that this sort of thing happens period, especially in any high profile organization that is supposed to be a positive influence in the community, but that doesn’t change the fact that it does.
These experiences and the observation of some of the other church kids further reinforced my disdain for Christianity, though I still had a strong belief in God and respect for Mom and Dad. They lived what they believed, and I continued to go through the motions of going to church because I was expected to, even if I really did not want to be there. It would be some years before I abandoned Christian philosophies altogether.
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