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..."

RITE OF PASSAGE - PART NINE Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll

"Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll"!

That's the ideal/attitude/memories that seems to paraphrase and summarize the 1970's. Even in my own mind I kind of see it that way; but the phrase itself, wasn't coined until 1979, in music by Ian Dury, a frontman for the UK band, "the Blockheads" - Wikilink:. And fact is, WE didn't live it that way.

In 1975 "we" were pretty straight. At age 18 you were legal to drink alcohol. You were eligible for the draft. You became an adult. There was no "Dirty Dancing", Gangs of any importance, conspiracy to commit fornication, or shirk society. We all knew "drugs" were bad. We all idealized the white house, the beautiful wife, the perfect job, and the picket fence. In NY State anyways most kids in HS had shot-guns in their trucks if they drove to school... there generally wasn't a student parking policy. But in NY and PA most students who were hunters got the day off. That's the way it was. We did think a lot about Sex, and Rock and Roll, but "drugs"? We had alcohol... We thought all the time about alcohol... had we thought about marijuana I believe many of us would be better off today.

Yeah, controversial. But it's the truth. Drugs were a fringe element. Getting drunk was the man thing to do. And smoke tobacco. Seriously, had cannabis been legal, I doubt we would have considered it all that much.

Until 1972 I lived in a country with a military draft. You signed up for the draft, by law, age 18, and at that time, 1972, there was a "draft lottery". On Jan. 01 of the New Year the numbers were drawn for every day of the year. My number was below 20... which meant I was drafted when I turned 18. Headed for Viet Nam.

In those days, the draft wasn't at all popular, especially since if you were "well connected" you could find ways to avoid Viet Nam. And one could always join the Coast Guard, or the Navy or Air Force. But if your mind wasn't on the military, and mine wasn't, what could one do back then?

The idea of the "conscientious objector" was a new one, and most often failed. One went to Canada often, to avoid the draft. Some cut off fingers or toes, some won insanity cases, and some even were bold enough to claim they were gay. But of the latter, few darned claim that.

My father told me sometime in the mid 70's ", he hadn't thought so at the time, but in hindsight he wouldn't have held it against me to have gone to Canada. "The War was wrong," he said.

It was the Beatles truly... who had the most influence on me in the early to mid 1960's. There was a lot of talk then, among my elders, of drugs, and the Beatles with their rock n' roll and long hair, they hated that.

I had an older 2nd cousin who was talked about a lot - John, how he was, "hooked on marijuana" and, had "attempted to jump out a window".

'Really', I wondered? At the time it was very real to me, the idea he had. But I learned later that he'd never tried to jump out a window. He had done acid, LSD, and was found out. "Marijuana and LSD", the parent's worst nightmare! All parent knew what it meant!

Your child would go insane.

I certainly vowed I would never "get hooked on drugs".

What I didn't know then, but do now, is it's a fallacy, born of political and corporate greed and fear.

I grew up on science-fiction, so I was already swimming in my imaginative universe by age 8. At age 6, 1960, I was outside most of the time, or we did have TV, though I forget what I watched that early on... other than cartoons. By age 10 it was "Dennis the Menace", Lassie", "My Three Son's" and "I Love Lucy"... "Combat", "Man from Uncle", and "The Fugitive", "Star-Trek"...

The Civil Rights Movement.

The influence of the Beat Generation and then Hippies... The Summer of Love "The Summer Of Love", The Yellow Submarine by the Beatles. "Pink Floyd", "Led Zeppelin", "David Bowie", Uriah Heap, Black Sabbath, Genesis.... .

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was home alone, sick from school that morning, watching TV in my parents bedroom. I was almost 10. It was an event that would be forever remembered.

The draft ended Aug. 31, 1974. I was, as far as I felt, I was "a free man". The "draft" was dark angel cloaking the country. Promising freedom, and an end to tyranny.

By 1974 things were a changing. I was 20.

In 1970, however, a documentary on Woodstock was released as a movie. Woodstock, The Movie. I was 16. That summer my family visited my father's sister and my cousins in NY City... well, Long Island. I was second oldest to my 1st cousin Wini, and on par with a cousin Kathy, with my own sister and several cousins more. They were going to the movie... my mother absolutely forbid it, so I didn't go. That would be a mistake as it only made me curious, and me being "curious", well, like I said, things started changing in 1974/75.

In 1970 my family took my sister and I on a vacation to western Florida. I smoked marijuana for the first time at age 16 around a campfire on the Sarasota Beach. Nothing happened! I didn't get stoned. I wasn't drugged. I was only a bit drunk from beer.

I didn't even go for a swim, or kiss a girl, or cause trouble. Went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

To Be Continued... Next: The Awakening...

RITE OF PASSAGE - PART EIGHT - Mother's Bitter Pill

Edited Jan. 02, 2011, 8:30PM

It's during your late teens/early 20's that you find the key, or you don't. I found it. It exists!

If my life is for no other reason, it would be my legacy and involvements in a new world order during the `970's. The '60's and 70's earned their place in history, and I'm certain historians will try to delve into people like myself during those years.

What we know of ourselves is not always obvious or understandable. It's obvious there are many different facets to our reality, who we are.

Sociologically We are:

1) Who we see ourselves as.
2) Who we see ourselves as reflected in others.
3) How we feel others perceive us.
4) How others do perceive us.
4) It's the empirical whole of all the above and that makes us who we are.

When I first moved out I faced my life... literally. I I realized I was "on my own". I had decisions to make. A life...

Sink or swim?

Mother's Bitter Pill is that for years after I moved out my mother hovered over me... today what we call "helicopter parents". Every decision I made was wrong. Every single one!

What hurts really bad still today is the fact that I made my decisions with considerable thought. My decisions made sense to me.

My father used to ask me, I think I said already, "why am I rebelling?"

I wasn't.

But to them, I was... and to my mother it was unspeakably and totally unacceptable, "my behavior".

So there, I've said it. But there's more.

I let my hair grow long, then; I worked full-time as a custodian at a college. I lived at the edge of the campus in an apartment. I rode a bike everywhere. I had a dream job, working at the college's Fine Arts Center. I had a bundle of keys I proudly wore from my belt. My position made me an employee, and a student. Tuition was part of the benefits, and I took a lot of free classes.

My father used to joke that "I'd beat the system". Ironically I was never sure how to take that. As sarcasm, since no one could, or as recognition -'job well done"!

As in the story by Ray Bradbury, "R Is For Rocket", and the short-story within, "Frost and Fire", I'd found my way to the "scientists"... I could make my life anything I wanted it to be.

And for four full years I did just that... to describe it is essentially what this topic is about... my Rite of Passage. Heaven and Hell...

Simply put, I was a disgrace to my mother. The phone calls every other day were meant to remind me of that 'fact'. With questions like "when am I going to get a real job?" When am I going to stop fucking whores and get married?" "When am I going to start caring about others?"

A total disconnect... The conversions were mostly one way and upsetting.

The farthest thing from my mind was being a disgrace to the family... but that is what I was! A total 180 degree opposite from the reality I was living.

At age 24 the shit hit the fan... the night before I was to move to Arizona. I didn't really want to move, but even my father said this town "is too small for you and your mother". At the time, the "go west young man" was on everyones mind anyways. Trouble is I gave up a lot when I moved. A huge "lot".

The night before I was to leave I called home... my mother wanted to know who I would be staying with? On the surface not a odd question, but her motive behind the question went far deeper... and I wouldn't answer her. I took the 5th. But eventually she got me to admit I was going to live with a friend that was a woman. A platonic friend.

Mother's Bitter Pill... she cursed me and damned me to hell for my choice to live in sin with a woman.

When people talk about PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), they generally don't consider my experience that night to fall into place. But after 5 years of living the good life, to hear her say that devastated me... it shrunk me back to "child". I stayed in AZ one month... and as if what my parents said would happen had happened, which it didn't, I got on a bus, left my cat, moved back home and it took a year for me to move out again. I was never the same after that night.