I never expected to live to be 25 years of age, so you can imagine my surprise to be approaching 57. The problem with not expecting to live long, is that you tend to live for the moment; but moments soon become days and days become weeks and weeks; months and months; years and before you know it you not only lived to be 21 and then 25, but soon you are 55.
I remember the day, I believe I was about 53; that's when I realized that I was no longer a boy. Wasn't it only a few weeks ago that wel-intentioned adults would prod me; asking, "What do you want to be when you grow-up?"
I always thought it a most ridiculas question. What do suppose I will be? Don't all young boys grow-up to be men and then boys again, or was I a rare biological mistake who would morph into some kind of alternative life-form? I always wanted to answer something silly and sometimes did; "I think I would fancy to be a horse, or a cow; yes a cow and then when I am thirsty, I could just milk myself!"
Of couse young men in my day were'nt suppose to answer an adult in such a flippant manner, after all it hadn't been that long since adults routinely said "Children are supposed to be seen and not heard", so to be spoken to at all was considered an honor and of course we were expected to answer an adult; i.e. "anyone older than yourself - even your brother or sister" with respect. I once said to Mrs. Junk, "with all due respect, I rather think I would fancy to be a horse, no a cow . . ." My father's large hand left a stinging ringing in my left ear and I said immediately, "A Boxer".
Of all the difficult lessons for me to learn was the one about silence being golden. I would often lie awake at night in my bed, my twin brother snoring a few feet away from me. I would replay every careless word that I had said throughout the previous day, "You dummy, why did you say THAT?" Why didn't you say something else instead?" "When Cindy Junk asked you if you thought she was cute, why did you say, "yeah - for a girl!" "What does THAT mean? She probably thinks you like boys!"
I would often move from chastising myself for what I said to harping on myself for how much I said; "Tonight,in the Olson car, do you really think that it was necessary to go into a half-hour story about your boring life just because Mike's mom ask you how you were?" "She is never going to drive you anywhere again!"
My worries were not confined to merely the things I said, but I also burn a lot of midnght oil talking out loud to myself about my future failings. You see, there was no question that I might succeed, I had wrinkles by the time I was 15 from hundeds of late night hours of planning to fail. I spent from the time I was 10 until I was 16 arranging alabi's for why I failed my driver's test. Then when my twin wrecked mom's robin blue Ford Falcon the week after our 16th birthday, I wasn't allowed to go for my license for another two years. Another two years of twighlight alabi collecting to do.
I also remember hours of talking to myself about what I would tell everyone when I didn't graduate High School with my class. This didn't really become an obsession until I was in my Freshman year at Adena High School, so I only had four years of jeering over this to endure. Some kids may have worried that they wouldn't finish High School at all. However, in our house, that was not an option. My mother always said that Jerry and I would graduate if we had to keep going until we were 25. I could imagine me walking across the football field to receive my diployma with a wife and two kids in tow.
I did have a wife and 2 kids by the time I was 25, but fortunately, I had already graduated High School, probably because this was before state mandatory testing and A's in Art, Music and Drama were still credits which counted toward a High School diploma. I failed Mr. Vetters practical Math Class 3 times, because, A. I didn't see where it was THAT practical and B. I refused to stand-up at the chalk board and allow him to humiliate me.
Mr. Vetter had a particularly cruel teaching methodology in which it was his practice to make students go to the chalk board to work out problems in front of the whole class. Each time you answered correctly, he would give you another problem and he would continue giving you consistently tougher problems until you missed one, which was his cue to ridicule you with "snappy" little remarks like, "I hope you have a bank someday, I would love to do business with someone who can't count any better than you." This treatment wasn't reserved or just special stuents; Mr. Veters was an equal opportunity humiliater.
The first day in his class he got me to the board once; "Holman, John and Peter are traveling down the road at 60 miles an hour. They run their car off a steep cliff and are falling at a rate of 6 feet per second, if the cliff is a hundred feet high, how long will it take them before they crash into the rocks below - what do you think?" : "Mr. Vetters this is practical math right?" "Yes, Holman, quit stalling, what do you think?" "Well, practically speaking, I think John is grabbing Peter and they could care less how long it's gonna take them to hit the bottom!" The class roared, but not as loud as Mr. Vetters as he ecourted me out into the hallway. I got to sit down but not until he nearly crcked his paddle across my backside.
I never went to the chalk board again. Evey day, Mr. Vetters would come to me first and say, "You get up to the board or you get a zero for the day" And I would say, "I may get a zero, but you are not going to humiliate me in front of the class ever again!" Three years of zeros and X's for the days I skipped his class - my record looked like a giant Tic -Tac Toe Game. However Mr. Vetters never got me to the chalk board again.
On the last day of my Junior year I approached Mr. Vetters after class. "I know you have given me all zeros and you have the right to flunk me again, but if you do I will be in your class again next fall!"
Somehow, I finally passed Freshman Math with a low D, but I passed it.Perhaps it was the honest conversation that I had engaged him in or perhaps it was finding his VW Bug on it's roof in the middle of the gym floor that same day that made him question whether he wanted me as a student again the next year. I am not saying I had anything to do with flipping that car, but finding it minutes after our talk was sort of an exclamation point to how upset a whole lot of students were with his teaching methods and perhaps he was hoping to prevent future demonstrations of frustration the next year by weeding out the most likely suspects.
No, I never expected that a long-haired Rock n Roll playing, math flunkin skinny kid would ever live to be 21 or 25, but here I am today 56 and looking downhill at 57. It hasn't been an easy trip. I hit my mid-life crises at 30. I clearly remember nearly going hysterical to my wife;afraid that I wouldn't get all m songs recorded for posterity before I went horizontal. "What have I done with my life? I have no Grammys or Oscars or Gold or Platinum Records! I don't want to die a failure!" Tammy in her most composed, logical voice argued, What about me and the girls; don't we count for something?" Then, in my most grievous speak-before-you-think moments, I said, "You were easy!" That couldn't be further from the truth and I certainly didn't mean to cast aspersions toward my wife's purity, however it was going to be difficult for me to explain that to the mad woman rushing me. For once in my life my mouth couldn't move fast enough - the words which had always taunted me by their abundant fluidity couldn't find their way out of my big mouth! "Wait!" I stammered looking into the abyss of Hell, "I mean I want to do something meaningful!" "I'm NOT meaningful, no I'm easy!" "No, I meant loving you is easy - (good save Gary) - "and of course having you and the girls are important - you're all great, but I want to be SOMEBODY!' "You are somebody Gary because God loves you." "Yeah, well that's only because He has too - God IS Love, be kind of hard for him not to love me!" With a "you-wanna-bet-look" in her eyes, she stopped coming toward me when I said through sobs, "Tammy, I am not even a has-been; I'm a NEVER-WAS!" Tammy softened and said "I want us to be enough". Now how do you argue with that?
I can finally say, without a lot of effort, I may never get a grammy or the recording career I should have pursued when I was a younger man. I may never get all my songs recorded, although I have gotten some of them done. I may slip out of this life, the way I came in, unnoticed, except by those closest to me, those who love for for who I am, not what I am, and isn't that better than slipping out not noticed or loved at all?
I can now look at the woman who slept with me nearly every night for the past nearly 26 years and I realize that we love each other more now than we ever have and that has to count for something. I look at my four daughter, each so beautiful and yet each so different and I see what lovely young women and hard workers they each are and that has to count for something. I have seen them struggle and persevere and use some of the lessons mom and I have tried to teach them and that has to count for something. I look at my grandchildren; Callie a young woman herself says, "BaBa, I love you." Her sister Jessie hugs my neck and kisses me, Desirae, our granddaughter who is deaf, signs and vocalizes "I uv ou baba" and that counts for so much. My grandson Julian, his shy smile at me and head and shoulders taller than me nearly breaks me in two, Levi and I glue models together and he says, "You're pretty good " . . that all has to count for something and it does. The youngest, little Wyatt can't speak yet at only four months old, but when I speak he smiles and no sunrise has ever warmed me more than his smiles of recognition do, and now, I say, "Give me a kiss" and he turns and pushes his little lips against my cheek and I tell you, that makes-up for all the years of heartache and disappointment it took to get me to see what really matters in life. I am so glad I didn't burn out like Janis and Jimmy. I wouldn't trade all the fame or all the gold records in the world if it meant any of these loved ones not knowing who I was or how much I love them.
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