RIGHT OF PASSAGE - Part Thirteen - All The Luck, Algernon!

The most poignant, haunting, self descriptive book I ever read was "Flowers For Algernon", by Daniel Keyes. I think I was around 23 at the time, 1976 perhaps. I knew as I was reading it, it was a prophecy of things to come. I really didn't understand then how much of a prophecy it would become.

For a moment, let's step back to when I was around 20. I started community college in the Fall of 1972, fresh out of HS. It was expected of me to go to college, and initially my parents paid the tuition. Since I was a electronics buff, I majored in "electronic technology". I already mentioned the pain I endured passing two semesters of physics.

What I haven't mentioned is, I was going nowhere. Maybe our society is all about people going nowhere, finding themselves somewhere. By definition, that would be the professional career, the beautiful wife, the house with the white picket fence, etc.

All fine, if that's okay to you. What I'm trying to say is the person I was then was not alive. My whole life I was either the underdog among my friends, both physically and mentally, and also, beginning especially in MS, the target of every bully in the school. My life was looking around corners, avoiding certain places. I had very little extra-curricular activity, though for a year I was a member of the ski-club, and had no problems. Unless shyness, and a sense of not belonging counts?

Yes I was very much into electronics and chemistry. I was also into playing by myself in my back-yard at 16 with Matchbox cars and trucks, building roads and cities and dams. I was a loner. Some of the girls liked me, but no way did I know it. Or if I did, what to do. In HS I craved English classes, physics and chemistry, shop and mechanical drawing. In most every place there was a bully or two that made learning second to survival.

HS was a total loss... though A Mr Gunnard, a counselor, made a difference, as did a handful of other teachers, so I did survive. Surviving MS/HS was my victory! What did I learn? Nothing more at the time other than I'd survived. And surviving meant risking going to a school dance only to get punched, or a knife held at my throat. Once by a Native American blood-brother. Now this event would be vitally important... as the dichotomy was we had been friends enough at one point to cut and blend blood, yet later, he held a knife at my throat.

It should be noted, well several things should be noted:

1) My sister, a 1 and 1/2 younger than me was probably one of the most popular girls in MS/HS. And in several cases the very guys that liked to bully me, she was friends with.

Two ways this can work out. 1) leverage 2) getting a lucky break.

2) My parents donated their life at the time trying to help me. They were constantly at the school. They spoke personally to the parents of some of my worst bullies. Ironically, it fed into my dependence on them, and their's of me. This dynamic would contribute to the disaster to follow.

My sister remained and continues to be my best friend. I was the oldest, but she was the wiser, the smarter, the most popular. And in my early 20's I would become the brother she turned to... and essentially, we are like satellites, revolving and holding each other together.

I rarely se my sister, haven't for over 20 years. You might recall I eventually had little choice but to move away. My sister didn't. So we talk occassionally on the phone, have vacations when we meet. I have two brothers too. Both now live in Florida. I live in NH... Land of Lynch, since the Old Man of the Mountain crumbled. An obvious sign that Gov. Lynch was wrong for NH, yet here he is in his third term as governor.

Sorry, ahead of myself.

What I'm trying to say is I had no sense of self. At age 18 I was destined to be a serial killer, sorry to say. I had all the hallmarks... liked to play with fire, no regard for nature, a loner, a late aged bed-wetter, like Sarah Silverman!

But so I'm in college and I have very few friends. Finding a girlfriend is out of the question - my body or mind do not even consider it.I'm on kiddo-pilot, believing adults tell you what to do, and don't trust anyone.

So the mouse Algernon was given an experimental drug, designed to boost it's IQ. It was an apparent, total success! Algernon could wind through the mazes like nothing, and even started to exhibit self-awareness.

Algernon had a partner - a man with a very low IQ. He was a subject just as Algernon was. The story recount the amazing success of the experiment with both the man and Algernon. With one tragic twist; Algernon dies, and the man? He doesn't die... far worse that that fate. Haunting.

In my early 20's I first moved onto the second floor of a renovated horse-barn, at the edge of the property of the community college I attended. I was in my 3rd semester in college, having just moved out, away from home. And a lot of things happened.

I want to leave you here with this thought...

The "experimental drug" might just as well have been marijuana... since near then is when I used it a second time and my life changed.

There are continuous news articles trying to cast marijuana as the demon weed, schizophrenia, in particular, and yet nothing about how good it is as a natural medicine, a natural high, far safer than legal alternatives, alcohol and tobacco.

There was a time I couldn't go to a college dance, a bluegrass festival, a rock-concert without feeling paranoid. Until the effects of cannabis hit, around that time. The effects were gradual, and at times difficult, as cannabis had a way of bringing out one's paranoia, and the fact that it was illegal tripled that sense of fear. To my advantage was it was near the mid 70's, and pot was mainstream. 90% of the people I knew between age 21 and 27 smoked pot at least once. Rather significant considering I got a job as a custodian at the community college, at the fine arts center... a victory! The culmination of a dream, since Ray Bradbury's "Frost and Fire".

I was not only among the "scientists" at the college, but all the artists too. Almost overnight my life changed. I began to find myself, and others most importantly. I developed a hunger for knowledge, and my job provided me the benefit of free tuition - unlimited.

Because of the influence of cannabis, my life literally opened up and soon I was enjoying learning, loving Nature, hiking, girlfriends, friends, and writing... within four years I wrote my required million words, my future became clear, I felt great...

Flower's For Algernon!!!

NEXT: The Magical, Mystery, Truth...

RITE OF PASSAGE - PART 12 - FOCUS: ON BRASS TACKS

I hope you'll excuse the delay in getting my next blog out. I've had a serious health issue, a cold or flu since the beginning of the year. In addition, the following is a more focused view on my experiences in the mid 1970's...

I didn't know what to expect - moving away from home, age 18. It was pretty much expected, my doing so, back then in the earl 70's. I was simply, an unlikely candidate; I'd never exhibited a streak of Independence. I'd lived, dependent upon my routine and controlled environment. My traditional and predictable environment. For all practical purposes I'm the kind of guy who would have lived at home, with the parents until at least age 30.

I wasn't raised in the type of family that encouraged independent thinking, self-sufficiency, or self-esteem for that matter. Most decisions were approved, and then reversed by my mother as if my mother decided I should do what I I'd just asked, or a plain, "no". My father was a sales manager, traveled a lot, and so my mother ruled the nest. To make things worse, I was a collector, of what she called "itsy-bitsy's". Pretty much everything from books, to Matchbox cars, baseball cards, and I loved to draw and write.

My mother would both look at me with pride suggesting I'd write the next "Gone With the Wind", someday, but at the same time it was a joke. In her words, "I wasn't a writer". Having said that, I wasn't a writer. That was my reality. I was to be a teacher or sales manager like my father. The collectibles I collected constantly vanished as my mother constantly cleaned. And as soon as my "childhood" waned, my drawing and writings vanished too. A passing phase she was sure I'd grown out of. Baby pictures were priceless, my drawing and writing, not at all important - just clutter.

Our's was a "proper, Christian family". Church on Sundays, though my Dad, when around, rarely went to church. In the early days they had the occasional beer, then later the Manhattans. My mother was as pure as an angel when it came to sex, no talk of it, no discussions. My father was a flirt. A damn good flirt. I'm always wondering how far he went on those business trips he often took. My mother never questioned him, and I never asked. But he made no mistake about the fact that sex was something good, and something to have whenever the opportunity might present itself. He used to say, "it's the one you could have had and didn't that will haunt you the most". And it's true. So while my mother nurtured "the husband" in me, the "faithful husband", my father secretly encouraged me to sow my seed... which was a joke as growing up I was not only extremely naive, but geeky, gawky, and thin. I was every bully's target... and up to a couple years after graduating HS I still didn't know how to talk to a woman.

Recall, at age 6 my mother forbade me to hang out with my sister and her friends, and "fixed me up with boys", to be friends with.That "forbadence" stayed with me for a long time, and still haunts me today. I was in a traffic accident a few years ago, a woman in a mini-van rear-ended me. A young, attractive woman was driving the other vehicle, and when I told my mother about the accident she made a snide comment that if a "man had been driving, I would have fought tooth and nail in court to get everything out of the accident I could". Guilt.

But to be fair, my real handicap wasn't women, it wasn't lack of motivation, but rather, my parents had protected me as much as they could while I grew up, and were constantly trying to protect me from the bullies that latched onto me. Without intending to, at least overtly, they made me dependent on them.

Now ironically, at age 18, having graduated HS and gone onto college, I was destined to be the "perfect sheep" in the family pasture. I literally didn't have a mind of my own. I fit in perfectly with a neurotic family in which the child never grows up, but is expected to behave in a way that feigns growth. I probably would have married the woman I couldn't touch, would have become a store manager at a dept. store, bought a modest house and like everyone else, hated it. But I'd learn to pretend, like everyone else, that everything was perfect.

Only one problem.

Marijuana!

Age 19 I was beginning my junior year of community college. I was pursuing an Associates of Science degree, in electrical technology. I'd begun college on schedule the fall after graduating high school. I had two terms of physics under my belt... and for anyone familiar with physics, you'll know why I'm proud of that. I carried a B average for two terms, but the math, the calculus was coming next.

It was, near as I recall the summer of 1973, I was not yet 18. At 18 I could legally drink alcohol at that time. It was, something to look forwards to. Getting drafted wasn't. I was in college because that is what a middle class person at my age did. I'd chosen "electrical technology", being as I was a home electronics hobbyist. I was also a chemist... chemistry sets being popular back then, I had a room in the attic where I had both an electronics lab, plus chemistry lab. God only knows what I created, with the chemistry set!? I had crystals, scums, bubbling mases the likes of Dr. Frankenstein. I accomplished nothing. The rest of the time I was in HS, and generally home by myself isolating myself in my room or the backyard, playing with matchbox toys.

I was a loner growing up. My first friends were my sister and her tow friends, Julie and Susie. But by age 6, my mother was actively breaking up the friendship - boys don't belong with girls.

She was afraid I'd grow up gay. I've told the story before. Her fears were totally unfounded and dysfunctional. The current controversy over "this princess" concept of raising girls is proof of that. Fact is, there was no reason my sister and her friends couldn't be my best friends around age six.

By age 19 I'd had 3 girlfriends. Brenda, in 8th grade, lasted a long, hot week... over the phone we talked about heady topics like breast size. But i broke up with her after a week, for totally insane reasons. Then, Diane, whom I met through a co-worker, a women whom I consider to be my GF, but there really was no connection; the physical attraction and personal experience was quite limited. We didn't "French-kiss" nor physically touch flesh to flesh for the 3 years I called her my GF. Then, a "fling" one Friday night when I visited a friend I'd met through my sister. Four of us were in the room. Myself and the two men played cards along with a woman sitting on a couch. My friend said if I wanted sex, just ask her. I did, but truly, I didn't know what sex was, and I was around 18 years old. I asked her, we bedded together, but all i remember is how erotic it was French kissing her. We didn't have intercourse, nor anything oral.

Around a year and a half after graduating HS, after losing my virginity to a stranger woman at a state park, I met my first "real" GF. Her name was Sue.

I met her at a party, and despite my shyness, struck up a conversation with her. By this time I had moved away from home. I was so scared... a male friend who was at my apartment, who knew Sue, I had asked his advice. His response: "If you don't ask her out, someone else will".

I asked her out.

Our first date, I hitch-hiked 20 miles in a storm of pouring rain to her house... to be with her. My friend came by later to bring me home. I honestly don't remember the first time we had sex, but I know it was very good. We eventually moved into an apartment together. We had sex at least 10 times a day... we were a couple for almost 3 years. My mother despised her, and it began the war - the war of morals.

I can honestly say "the war" escalated to the point that my relationship with Sue led to a quandary - a war between my mother and myself, a war between right and wrong, a war that ultimately made me believe I was cursed. I wasn't, but I was... because, I loved Sue with all my heart, and my mother despised her with hers.

The rebellion of youth began.

And I lost...

"Brass-Tacks"... moral, don't question authority.

I did, and I still do...

RITE OF PASSAGE - Part Eleven - Pursuing the Dream

Dreams and Reality, quite the combination!

With few friends growing up, and "the underdog" to those I had, I was operating on level 2 self-esteem. 10 being ideal.

I see signs these days, newspaper articles and school billboards announcing "Understanding Bullying".

Ironic. Since age 5 I was bullied. I can still remember, age 6 maybe, crossing the road to "see" my neighborhood, stranger, to me. His name was mike T. And we got into a fight, and he rubbed my face in the dirt. I lost. Have no idea why, or why?

Then, getting older, i had neighborhood friends, very good friends, but when in a group, I was the underdog ( which puts it quite well).

Those days were a dream. Age 4 - 8... constant exploring... walking miles, anywhere, alone. Parks woods, and later, age 13, hunting with childhood friends, never killing deer, but we did get some ducks. Hunted age 13 -16, then things changed. Again.

Hunting ended. Focusing on graduating HS took priority. Women were not in my life, or at that age girls... sex was not even something I really knew existed. Naive.

Age 16 through 19 remain vague... mostly working, at a dept store and planning my exodus from parents and home.

Come age 20 I believe things started to assemble itself.

Two years of community college was a "no go". I was majoring in electronic technology ( before home computers were even dreamed about). My parents were paying my tuition, and by the third term i wanted out - about age 19.

On a dreary, rainy night I said "good-bye, I love you", to my parents, in bed, and they were very nonchalant about it. As I was driving to my new apartment, I considered that a good sign. I was off to new beginnings, I had ideas and most important dreams. But I knew it might be impossible. I'd grown up the under-dog, the excluded, the bullied for 8 years, unless you add the original bully incident with Mike T., age 6.

But that dreary, rainy night was perfect. I arrived at my new home, a room on the second floor of a rebuilt horse-barn, at the edge of the college campus. There were two large apartments downstairs, and 5 rooms upstairs, bathroom, and kitchen. We all used cannabis, plus other substances... we had fun together, and I made friends.

I switched my major to Liberal Arts, dropping the technology, and wanted to write. I sold my car, a 1969 Ford Mustang, I bought a bike.

Said it before, a sci-fi book I got as a present at age 8, "R is for Rocket", by Ray Bradbury, was key to my future... a short-story within it called "Frost and Fire", set my goal.

In the story, the humans live on the planet Mercury, survivors of a manned expedition of the planet. They somehow made emergency landings, saving the ships, but ultimately they had to abandon the ships, survive a near death run to some caves and from there, those that survived multiplied. Two primary problems.

Ultimately the caves the survivors lived in were too small to support the growing population. They divided... exiled to caves lower down the mountains, where the protection from the Sun's radiation was more acute. After an undisclosed time, though hinted as 100, 200 years, the two societies were enemies, though they rarely met. The environment of Mercury gave them half an hour at best, morning and night to wander outside, and enjoy a sudden plume of flowers and plants.

One other vital effect of living on Mercury. In that 100 - 200 year span, those in the lower caves were born, grew up, became adults, parents, and grandparents all within 7 days. Those in the upper valley, lived ten days.

The hero of the story is named Sim. And around age 8, second day after birth, he hears rumor that there are "scientists" still living and searching for an answer, to end the suffering. Mostly they are laughed at, and said to be a myth.

Sim by day 3 is already planning and trying to find where the "scientists" are. And he gets a break... he finds them. Deeper in the caves his aging slows some, so he spends time taking in decades of history in hours... and discovers that two space-ships are intact, and located some mile away, very close, from the upper caves.

Sim lives in the lower caves. Nearly half an hour from the upper caves. Only one way he can move there, and that is challenge a resident to a duel... a fight to the death, winner takes refuge.

Along the way he meets his soul-mate, nice touch. Wins the duel in the blazing hot afternoon sun, and he and his lover move into their new cave and gain 3 extra days of life. Time to plan.

I did pretty much the same. The story became my guide in my early 20's... I had little time... by age 24 I needed a life-plan.

I had a lot to do ahead... but on that rainy, dreary night I moved out on my own... I was ready to build my life.

Next Time Brass Tacks...

RITE OF PASSAGE - PART TEN - The Awakening

The Awakening...

Edited Jan. 18, 2011

This is a story that must be told. I really have no choice. Well I do, and I choose to share it.

Over the years, friends and co-workers have said - "you ought to write a book".

And yeah, I know.I should.

That was my original goal, in fact, in my early twenties. To write, become an author. Between 1974 and 1979 I wrote well over one million words, the number ascribed to what makes a hobbyist in writing different from a true writer. One million words...

I wrote in 6X9inch notebooks. I was always writing. One of the benefits from my job at the time, custodian at the Fine Arts Center was that I knew what work had to be done, so I made time in-between to go down to my office, and sit at my desk and write. Heck, my co-worker on the 3 to 11 shift worked on "projects" in our workshop at the time. Things like rubber band guns, birdhouses, doll-houses, and the like... that would be Oats, my work-partner, half Italian/half Apache Indian. He was quite the co-worker, as you'll discover.

In a previous post, a reader commented that I became who I became in large part due to the books I'd read. In general that would be true. But there's much more to the story.

In the entirety of my Blog I may repeat myself from time to time. Expect it. My blog is my story, it's me... so I'll repeat things, until I get it right. The best thing about being able to blog is being able to be a presence on the WWW. This is an age 50's fantasy, as when I was in my early 20's and this story was unfolding, there was no WWW (World Wide Web), nor even a hint such a day might come when such a thing - a medium of WW communication would exist. There was very little to any internet then, no e-mail, not even telephone answering machine, though all that changed quickly. Too quickly, really, for the average person to realize. Fact is, society was simply social back then, and there was little in the way of extensions, except for the opinion pages in news-papers.

My point - until approximately 1990, there was no WWW!!! We were strictly a social society. In 1975 when "my awakening" occurred, there weren't dating magazines, much in the way of support groups, and knowledge was dispensed in a limited number of ways - books, newspapers, magazines, word-of mouth, schools and colleges.

As a voracious reader since age 8, and experiences both very good and bad, I had a hunger for knowledge. My parents were the type that pushed, me, to become what they thought I should become. No blame there, they simply were the type to push. I got it, my sister got it. We both had our own ideas!

At age 16, as described in my last post, I smoked marijuana; yes, a common theme in my blog, and for good reason, the best reason, in that, it helped shape my life. And not in a bad way. Though some might initially be skeptical about that.

When you grow up struggling in school, with a C average as your norm, social issues that make you a target of bullies, limited self-awareness, and very little regard for life, nature and the environment, to suddenly "awaken" to all of that and more, to me, it's a miracle.

Well, I get ahead of myself. At age 16 I was pretty naive and mostly doing what was expected of me, or pretending.

So during a family vacation, in Sarasota, Florida, 1970, my sister and I enjoyed 10 day vacation days, with parties on the beach at night around a campfire. Groups of young people came from everywhere, and we drank beer, listened to music, smoked pot, and i'm sure aroused suspicion among the adult community. But we behaved, and the drinking age was 18 at the time, though I was only 16. Thing is - I didn't get stoned, just drunk, and every night we returned to the motel and simply went to sleep.

My point? "I didn't get stoned". I used pot, marijuana, "a drug", and nothing happened. Many people would agree the first time they may have tried it, nothing happened. That's the difference between and herb and a drug. Yet William Bennett, the 1980's Drug Czar, made the popular yet incorrect statement - "use it once and you're doomed..."

Yeah. "Doomed".

It was two years later when I used it again. In the meantime I remained a strict opponent to "drugs". While trying hard as I could to hold my liquor, which was impossible. Two beers and I was drunk. The 3rd and I got sick. Meanwhile, my friends counted the beers they drank at the keg-parties we had... the usual bravado was 20 - 35 beers... and then while I stayed where we camped, they went off driving, to pick up girls which they found walking, for sex. This was routine in the late 60's... and if one reads current police logs today, one would find that DUI is still one of the most common offenses police are involved in.

My failure to be able to hold my beer was a real setback, socially. I was shy as it was, and not being able to hang out with my friends, drive around drinking and picking up girls was quite a blow. Of course, looking back now, it was a Godsend. That wasn't me. I was the shy guy.

Today, most right-wing conservatives would look upon me and say this is exactly the person we are trying to save. Me. My friends today, would by now, todays standards, would have been arrested for DWI, many times over. Would have quite the rap-sheet (They don't). But me, DARE we say, at age 18 or 19, I discovered marijuana was much more that the Devil's Weed... Recall earlier I said I had very little awareness of myself, nature or others. All that changed.

Fortunately, there was no DARE at the time to intervene. There was considerable attention to illicit drug use, no doubt about that, but then, and until "my awakening" I would have been the perfect narc, except, I was straight as an arrow; I almost turned in my own sister when I discovered she used "drugs"...

I didn't. So, sometime around age 18/19 I found myself with two close friends, on an average summer night, with the one friend having a "dime-bag" of Panama Red, marijuana. I almost screamed out loud like he had a gun on me; but fortunately I thought twice. By then i was able to "question authority"... I'd had enough exposure to the real world to take an objective look at life. What i saw was a plant in a baggie... and I realized, here was a risk for experience in the real world that is being offered. And if there is a God, and I mean that, then here is an opportunity I have to make a decision on.

I chose to use it... my second time, and this time was different. This time the effects changed my life. I became aware of myself. I experienced the world in a way that suddenly i saw I wasn't an isolated, bullied, shy kid, but rather, everything I'd ever experienced, read, imagined fell into place. I saw myself as an "agent", not "a victim". I saw myself as an individual in society, and that I had choices to make on how to best become a part of my society. Beginning with, I wasn't a child anymore... I was an adult.

Next Time - "Follow Your Dreams..."