The summer before my sixth grade year, I decided to switch to my middle name, Eric. I was tired of who I was and would be starting at the new middle school building. It was a psychological way to prove to myself that I was no longer a naïve little crybaby.
I spent hours rehearsing my “new” name and daydreaming about the new, improved me that would take the unchristened school by storm that year. I was a big junior high student! I would be in the first class of a brand new school. I would be somebody. I would stand up for myself. I would be tough and cool.
I still had a few problems with some bullies who rode my bus, though. They had a habit of stealing things from me and walking off the bus in plain sight, never to return again with whatever they had taken. They delighted in picking on me incessantly, and I was starting to wear thin, coming home all stressed out. This annoyed my dad, so, after first clearing it with his boss, he suggested I start riding to his place of employment after school.
And so I started going to the Bill Grant Ford-Mercury car dealership every day after school. I did not have any problems on my new bus, though I was pretty nervous the first several days. The guys at the garage were pretty cool and liked having me around, I think.
My dad’s immediate supervisor was a grandpa who loved kids. He wanted to “hire” me to do odd jobs and the like, but my dad did not think that would be a good idea. He and my father would often save cookies out of their lunch for me, or make sure I had a cup of hot coffee, which is a beverage I grew up drinking; in fact, that was the only thing my folks could find to put in my milk to get me to drink it as a very little boy. There is nothing like a cup of fresh black coffee. I could go for one right now—no cream, no sugar—just fresh black coffee. Ahh!
I would often do my homework or read, sitting in the car or old Chevy truck, depending on which he’d driven to work. I looked about as forward to five o’clock as he did, and my mom would usually have a good, hot meal waiting for us; however, my dad has always been the leading chef of the family.
Sometimes I got a little bored and occasionally caused a bit of mayhem, but my dad drilled a valuable lesson into my head that more people would do well to learn. He’d always say, “If you keep on doing such and such, you’re going to wear out your welcome. People aren’t going to want to have you around.”
My sixth grade year I started playing football because I knew Jeff had always wanted to. He had always wanted to play sports, and I lived in his shadow, though I did not know him that well. I was fair at it and continued to play throughout junior high, but it was never totally my thing.
I think it was the summer before our seventh grade year Mike and I went on a youth retreat to a lakehouse with West Side Church of the Nazarene, my sister’s church in Olathe, Kansas. We met a guy by the name of Jeremy we thought was pretty cool. He was a grade ahead of us, the oldest one on the retreat. Mike and I looked and acted older, so we got special privileges a couple of other kids our age that went did not. This obviously caused some jealousy.
We spent a lot of time out at night and could stay out a little longer being thought to be older. I remember the moon was big and bright, and there was a whippoorwill singing in the tree right above us. Jeremy was a city brat, and he was about ready to kill it, but Mike and I were country boys, so it did not bother us. In fact, we liked to hear the whippoorwills.
We would sit in the back of the bus, and he had a real nice boom box that he would blast the tunes out with. He turned us on to a lot of metal music we’d never heard before. In particular, I remember listening to the Metallica remake of the Diamond Head tune “Am I Evil?” from the re-release Kill ’Em All. We thought it was funny, because it obviously wasn’t church music, and here we were riding on the back of a church bus!
There was another boy named Brian that Mike and I both hung out with quite a bit. We had all been Boy Scouts, and we turned him on to metal music and porno magazines. We spent a lot of time over at his house, and he lived just down the road from Mike. He and Mike both attended Mt. Olive Baptist church, and I went with them a time or two. He had the complete Star Wars Trilogy, and I remember one Saturday night we stayed up the entire night and watched all three. I was still required to go to church that Sunday, and I could not stay awake. I kept dreaming I was riding those cruisers through the trees that Darth Vadar’s white-clad warriors rode.
My seventh grade year the school had a designing contest for an official school flag, to be flown side by side with the American one. I drew a design up at home in about a half-hour and turned it in the next day. Some months later I was in class and the math teacher called me to the front. The last thing I expected was to see my drawing on the flag she wordlessly unfurled. I was a little disappointed that they had inverted part of the color scheme, but I did not argue with the ten dollar prize and felt proud of my accomplishment: my design would be flying for years to come. Humans are so vain, aren’t they?
I did not learn to swim until that summer. I dreaded water with a passion, especially after my bad experiences at church camp. The city of Bolivar offered public lessons in the pool, and my mom enrolled me. I was terrified at first, but soon was swimming quite well, though I ended up returning for a second week, because I hadn’t progressed quickly enough in the first. While I still hold water in healthy respect, I could probably save myself if the occasion called for it and enjoy floating in the river or going to the lake. I still hate to swim with my head underwater though and have never learned how to swim with my eyes open.
Due to some bad experiences, my folks and I and some other families from the congregation left the church and got the go ahead to start one of our own, Bolivar New Life Church of the Nazarene. We first moved into an old, large house near Dunnegan Memorial Park and had Brother Lightner, a retired pastor that we all knew and loved, come and preach for us. We all shared responsibilities for its upkeep, and my dad and I often volunteered to mow the lawn.
Soon, we discovered a chance to move into the old Mt. Olive church building. That was the Berean Baptist church Mike attended, vacated when the parishioners built a new structure a few miles away. I visited the new facilities a time or two with him, and it was much nicer and definitely roomier inside.
Pastor Smith, a young minister fresh out of the college, agreed to oversee the church. He drove down from Springfield twice a Sunday and gave it his best. It was his very first pastorate. His sincerity for God and the ministry made up for his lack of experience, and even a seasoned professional might have had a bit of a time invoking great passion in such a small church.
His wife was his number-one fan, and she supported him one-hundred percent, sitting on the very front row, attentively listening whether any of the rest of us were or not. Then in the evenings he sometimes brought his guitar, and he strummed chords while the rest of us sang. The congregation was so small that we did not have a pianist or a Wednesday night service.
I had been responsible for mowing the church lawn for years for some extra money and soon was hired to mow this one. Like everywhere else before, I made about fifteen dollars a pop, and I always kind of liked that church and lawn, as it was in the country and quite beautiful. About this time, Jenny’s parents hired me to mow their lawn. (As you may recall, Jenny was my blonde friend who moved into our old place.)
In time, the church folded. We just did not have the resources or the people to keep our heads above water. For a while we drove to Wheatland Church of the Nazarene. Wheatland was a small town about twenty miles away. Carl and Norma, some long time church friends of the family, volunteered their van and installed some school bus seats in the rear so we could all ride.
Eventually, that fell through; some went here and some went there. Carl and Norma and my folks soon began attending the Bolivar Church of God in town. After some time they stagnated in that church and nearly seven years later, once again returned to the renamed Bolivar First Church of the Nazarene, even though New Life had long since died.
Carl and Norma have two children, Curtis and Carla. I practically grew up with them, and for a year or two they lived right down the road in a nice trailer. I spent a fair amount of time down there, and they’d frequently walk or ride up the road to visit me.
Carla was about four years younger than I was, and Curtis was about two years younger than that. The kids on the bus thought they were my younger brother and sister because we obviously knew each other and looked so much alike, especially Carla and I. We spent a lot of time together, and they knew my devious ways. We sometimes got tired of each other, and I often got them into trouble because I was older and was given a little more rope to hang myself with.
My dad rifled the old homemade pews we used in the “house church,” recycling them as pinewood lumber since we owned them, and no one would have wanted them. I built a sturdy—albeit less than perfectly square—bookcase for my growing collection of mainly fantasy and some science fiction novels, but probably my most memorable carpentry experiment was the boat that did not float. It wasn’t very big, and I built it next to the tool crib (converted from an old milkhouse). Once I had it hammered together, I tried covering the nail holes and gaps between the boards with some roofing tar left over from painting the barn roofs.
Small though it was, the thing weighed a ton, and I had a challenging time dragging it up the hill to one of the five ponds Mom and Dad have on the place. I anxiously awaited my maiden voyage. The boat floated—at least until I got to the middle of the pond. Being wood, it did not completely sink, but it was totally filled to the brim with water, and my legs were soaked.
It was a disappointment showing it off to Curtis and Carla, though I think they were still at least somewhat impressed by all the wasted effort. The thing did look pretty impressive, especially for being crafted by someone who had previously known nothing of boats. I hauled it in for repair and tried several more times, without much better luck.
On more than one occasion, Curtis and especially Carla got in big trouble for coming up to oversee my endeavors. They looked up to me, and I had a tendency to tell them fanciful tales. I recently saw Curtis, now a senior in high school at the time of this writing, and he embarrassed me with one of them: the one about the nonexistent famous rock musician that came and bought eggs from us.
I spent a lot of time floating on my back or on a Styrofoam crate I’d brought home from the garage and blasting a portable radio on the bank. I distinctly remember listening to the Iron Maiden album Powerslave repeatedly after I dubbed it and a bunch more off from Mike’s tape collection. As I recall, I was listening to it on one of the occasions Carla got into big trouble for coming up to visit me—poor girl.
I was getting increasingly into rock music and spent many hours after school and during my summer vacations listening to headphones while lying in my new hammock. I’d clip it between two chains I’d bolted on a couple of trees in the front yard and crank the tunes up. When I went in, I’d take it down, roll it up and tuck it under my arm.
My ears began to crave harder and heavier music, and by my eighth grade year my musical taste included almost entirely thrash and speed metal. It was a wonderful escape from the dreariness of school. I’d lie out until the moon was a silver sphere, soaking up the grooves and further deepening my growing love of the night.
My favorite group was Anthrax, and my bedroom walls were covered with posters of metal bands, guitars and women in bikinis. It was interesting at first to see Mom and Dad’s reaction, but they soon got used to walking into my typically adolescent domain and said very little too me about the racy posters.
I would often stay in my room, close the door, turn off the light and pull the curtains unless there was a bright moon out. Then I’d sprawl across the bed, bouncing my feet against the wall to the rhythm of the music. I could feel it, and there was something about the dark that seemed to encourage my active listening, partly because it kept distractions to a minimum. I would lie there, thinking and daydreaming for hours, often about girls, or playing in a band.
Up the hill, next to the garden, between the “boating” pond and the house was a large oak tree. My dad had hung a porch swing from one of its branches, and I’d sit there and listen to music for hours when I wasn’t in my hammock. I would often stay out until the early morning hours and only regretfully come in once I did. I have many fond memories of longingly staring at the moon listening to all kinds of music. I especially remember listening to the Mötley Crüe album Girls, Girls, Girls!, often daydreaming about that very subject.
It was this same oak tree he had erected a treehouse in a few years before. I had always wanted one though I did not really play in it that much, soon using it more to hide pornographic magazines in and smoke without being seen. He nailed a big piece of plywood across a couple of its branches. The people we bought the place from raised “coon” dogs, and they had left doghouses everywhere. My dad found one of the biggest and best and hauled it up into the tree on top of the platform using come-alongs. That’s what you call prefab at its best.
I also helped my parents pick up black walnuts. They made quite a bit of money selling them, and one year they harvested three and a half tons of husked walnuts. These times were a kind of lonesome solitude I spent listening to my headphones and picking up nuts somewhat grudgingly. I remember listening to the Cacophony album Speed Metal Symphony and dreaming of playing guitar like that. The group was comprised of Marty Friedman and Jason Becker, and both were considered metal virtuosi. Times like these were great to contemplate my identity and life in general.
Mike was also really into music. We had joined a couple of tape clubs and worked very hard to sign people up, because we could get four free tapes for every person we signed. We just had to have the latest metal releases and had a great amount of success, signing at least one person a week on average. As a result, I still have hundreds of cassettes.
One day in band our eighth grade year, Mike and I were sitting behind a “preppy” girl named Allison. I did not know her, but we took turns talking trash to her, telling her how good her butt looked, etc. We thought it was harmless fun. She apparently did not however and told her boyfriend. As we stepped out of class, he laid into us.
I punched him in the back of the head, and he spun around and whopped me good a couple of times. I had never been in a fight before, and I got the worst of it. That really upset my dad, and he decided I ought to take Karate. I agreed, and my mom decided to take it as well. She thought it would be good exercise.
That summer we enrolled in private lessons in Nevada, Missouri. It was about seventy miles away, but we attended faithfully for quite some time. We thought it was better that way, as my dad did not think it was a real good idea to advertise I was in martial arts, and it decreased the chances of anyone finding out.
We were enrolled in Goju Ryu, an Okinawan-style Karate. The ranking system started with a plain white belt, the next level added one green stripe and then two. From there the belts progressed from yellow, green, purple, brown, brown with one white stripe, brown with two white stripes, and black up to nine red stripes to the final status of grand master, displayed with a red belt. Our sensei was a second-degree black belt and incredibly agile for his stocky frame.
I learned a lot and put a large amount of effort into it at first. My mom and I would practice sparring together, and one time I accidentally kicked her really hard in the jaw. It did not cause any major damage, but I still felt really bad. It had to have hurt.
I lost interest fairly quickly, though I am glad I took it. It boosted my morale and taught me I could defend myself. It was pretty good discipline, too.
My mom was a shy person and she did not have the “oomph” needed to truly be a fighter, though she did learn how to defend herself and got some good exercise to boot. Her kiyais (the piercing screams used to intimidate competitors) were never truly what you’d call menacing, though she gave it an honest attempt.
My freshman year was the last that I played football. Karate class overlapped with football practice, and I got the day excused. I told the coaches I did not want anyone to know where I was. They proved their credibility. The very first day I got back everyone knew.
Fortunately, I did not have any challengers, though I did get teased a lot. I was just a little irritated by the whole affair. So much for my secret, huh? My mom and I made it to a yellow belt before dropping out because it was starting to cost too much.
That year I competed in a mandatory decathlon for all the gym classes in our grade. I really enjoyed it, especially the pole vaulting. I got the title of best overall athlete, which I was quite proud of.
That was partly what prompted me to join the track team that spring, plus Mike planned on it too. I still remember my first mile-long run. I started out running well ahead and had the Bolivar kids screaming my name. I did not pace myself however and lost miserably. I always made a better sprinter anyway.
During practice one day the girls raced the guys in a relay, and I was the last runner to get the baton. I procured it from Mike and was gaining fast on Jenny (the same Jenny from my early childhood!), the last female, as I was a strong runner, and the girls were a little ahead. I caught up with her, passed her and only had about ten feet to go, when I suddenly felt an excruciating pain in my leg.
I never made it across the finish line. I’d pulled a muscle and even though I came to class the next day on crutches, there are probably some kids who, if asked today and actually remembered the incident, would swear I was faking it. However, I thought I was going to die. It wasn’t their hamstring!
Also my freshman year, shortly before Christmas, Jeff bought me my first guitar. He insisted I take classical lessons, and I thought he was off in the head. I did not want to take classical lessons. I did not even like classical music. I wasn’t crazy about having a classical guitar either, because my world was metal or die, and I had wanted an electric. I wasn’t exactly in a position to argue though, because I had wanted to play guitar for the longest time and being a gangly high school kid, I had no cash.
My first few lessons were tedious, but my teacher was an exceptional guitarist, a Mexican man in his mid-forties. He was a perfectionist for technique and would literally take my hand, a finger at a time and place it in the proper position on the fretboard, or curl it into the perfect plucking position above the sound hole. He informed me that I would need to grow my nails out on my right hand and trim the ones on my left hand. I was put out. Why couldn’t I just use a pick like the guys in the metal bands?
At first, I refused to use my nails except at the lessons. It soon became evident to me that it was to my advantage to use my nails. I could duplicate everything that could be played with a pick and had even greater tonal and textural flexibility, not to mention I never lost a pick, though I did occasionally break one.
I soon took pride in this unique quirk among the other area guitarists, and it helped further my reputation as a musician, not to mention that it provided for improved sound quality. People did not hassle me about the long nails the way I thought they would, although to this day I still get an occasional comment. A few people that I’m certain are wise to the party scene have seen them and smiled knowingly at me, presumably because some speed freaks grow their nails (often on their thumb and pinkie) to scoop their powder for snorting. Apparently, they interpret the nails as the telltale sign of a tweaker, or perhaps as a sign of occultic involvement.
Since I was still going to the garage after school, I’d pack my guitar in the car or truck that my dad was driving and practice there. I’m sure it entertained a few people waiting in their cars outside, but for the most part it was just me, my classical book, and my boredom. It did not take me long to develop a passion for playing music, and I have long since realized Jeff’s wisdom when he insisted I study classical technique. I really do believe that if you play classical music proficiently that you can play just about anything.
I did not want to just play guitar. Anyone could do that. I wanted to be virtuosic. I spent hours and hours practicing and carried my guitar around with me everywhere I went, playing to anyone who would listen to me. During summer vacation it was not unusual for me to put in eight hours a day of solid practice. It was an obsession that crept into my conversation and nearly every other part of my life. I wrapped a large amount of my self-worth around my ability to play fluidly and fluently. So much of my self-worth rode on my performance that in many ways it was my ego and my identity.
I only had a few lessons with him before he left town. He was escaping across the countryside, struggling with the ugly scars of divorce. In addition to teaching for the music store, he also had a part-time job at a newly opened, tiny authentic Mexican restaurant on the edge of town, playing his music to the patrons. My folks and I went there once to eat and watch him play. It made for a very tranquil environment, and the food was quite good. It is unfortunate that the place closed down shortly thereafter.
The next guitar instructor I had was a student attending Southwest Baptist University. I did not have many lessons with him either, and he was not nearly the classical maestro my previous instructor had been, though he was quite a fluid player. He did not ride me about technique as much, and consequently I have a half-and-half technique: half orthodox, half unorthodox.
He was in his mid-twenties, a Christian, and into Christian metal. He turned me on to some of his tapes, and one time he invited me to a chapel service with him at the auditorium of the college featuring some student and area musicians. At the time I thought it could have been better, but it was something to do. I still have the ticket from the band Live On. I don’t remember anything about their music—much less if they are still performing—but I thought the name was cool. Spell it backward, and it reads “no evil.”
He was quite impressed with my progress and often complimented me that I was the only student who actually put forth the effort to learn. I stopped taking lessons after he quit teaching, but had learned to read music and studied the classical books on my own for several years, though I was steadily becoming more interested in composing my own music.
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