Take Three

Ok now I could go on and on about how hard it was, but I will just give you the highlights. My father was not an alcoholic, and when he stuck to only beer he was fine. He was funny and gregarious; when he was great he was great. But when he drank hard liquor he became a different person. My brother and I could always tell when it was about to hit the fan. There was a look in my fathers eye, which started this transformation. Just like the werewolf movies. He would become violent to an extreme and all reason was thrown out. And the other problem was he was one tough son of a bitch. I mean he was able to devastate anyone.

 At least all the fights I seen him in, never seen him lose, so here you have a man who is more than capable of causing havoc and he did. Now me being here for the first time being new to the world I thought this was how life was. To give you an idea why I thought this was because it wasnt only my father who was nuts I had a couple of uncles on my mothers side who were also over the top when it came to life. While my Dad was a responsible person in making sure we had money to make ends meet even to the point of working up to 3 jobs at once just to keep us going. These two were just in it for the ride. Whatever their life was about it was about them. Though again I did learn about life in the strangest of ways. The incredible fact that I live through most of these experiences was astonishing. But thats for later in the story.

 I remember the happy times of going fishing with Dad and mom. Two stories come to mind, once we were fishing of the jetties and it was raining hard. My brother mother and I had given up. But Dad was determined to catch a dam fish. He was wearing an old army fatigue coat watching the wind and rain whip around for hours then all of a sudden the pole bent and he was smiling so big because it was really bending the pole. So we thought oh my this is going to be big. He played that fish back and forth making sure he didnt break the line reeling in a bit at a time.

Something right out of those fishing shows you watch on TV. He attracted the few other crazys out there still fishing in this storm and everyone was excited with him. Then he finely got the catch to the edge and pulled up. And we lost it I mean us and the guys out there with him as he pulled up a toilet seat. Yes a toilet seat all ten pounds of it with the lid. And was he angry man oh man he was cussing and carrying on. But he was also laughing along with everyone else. Another time we were fishing we were all over the jetties again and all fishing in different spots.

We had packed a lunch which was next to our gear and my mother ask me to get something out of the plaid bag. Now my brother tells this better than I do. My parents ask me again to get something out of the plaid bag. There were at least 3-4 bags sitting there and I kept staring at them as they started to yell in unison, ITS IN THE PLAID BAG. And I just kept looking at the bags and they were just going on and on “ITS IN THE PLAID BAG”

And I was desperate to find this bag, only problem was I didnt know what plaid was. And rather than admit I didnt I just kept staring at the bags at my feet.

 So needless to say for the rest of my life I have never lived down the plaid bag. Every time someone would ask me to get something and I could not find it you would hear everyone yell “IT’S IN THE PLAID BAG. Just to let you know it wasnt always hard but when it got hard it was hard. We had days fun and sun, beaches and swimming. Had times of play and as we grew up my brother had baseball, he was a catcher and was pretty good at it as he seemed to be in anything he has attempted. My father was proud of my brother, he was his name sake which my brother hated being called Jr. But my dad wanted his first son to have his name and so Fred was stuck.

But as we grew I could always tell my father, not so much that he preferred Fred over me, its just Fred was always first in his eyes. First borns are that to fathers, their first offspring is the fruit of their loins, their legacy. And Freddy was an avid sports fan like my father and they would watch baseball football and hockey and such while discussing the merits of the game or the stats of their favorite team. Me I could never get sports, I was to young it seemed and really not as interested as Fred was. I remember dad taking Freddy to a Mets game and was disappointed I couldnt go but it was because Freddy had done well in school.

And while I was disappointed I wasnt devastated just a kid who wanted to do what his older brother was doing. As time went on the family just started to fall apart, arguments over money and such. My parents had been able to buy a house in the middle of all of this and my mother decided to remodel it from the top to the bottom. I mean this woman took it apart. By this time my mother was working in the city and had been promoted up from switchboard operator which I have a neat picture of me sitting on the floor next to her as she is operating the old time switch board with all the plugs and wires that had to be manually pushed in and unplugged to connect and disconnect.

My dad at this time was working up to 3 jobs and I have a great memory of mom getting a large poodle from someone while dad was at work, and my father came in about 2 in the morning to go to bed before work at 7 and the dog would not let him upstairs. That dog was defending us from him.  So here is my dad standing down stairs and yelling up to my mother to come get this dam dog. We were all awake laughing but not dad. He wanted to shoot the dog.

Ok so say it was difficult, it still was simply the way it was. I learned from my Dad my Mom even my crazy uncles and a few lovely aunts. My cousins where also having to deal with the same kinda crap it was all in different degrees, some had better situations others had it worse.

 So lets just say life was good and when it went bad it just went over the top bad. I have great empathy for my cousins, my brother and I were the oldest and we got to watch as they grew and all they had to deal with. During a particular bad time in my life, my brother had gone into the military to get away from the drama. (And I wish I had more time to go into his life because some of it was pretty funny)Maybe I will J

But he was gone and my mother and I were having a difficult time with my father. My Mom wanted a divorce and my Dad did not. Which because he was being so aggressive and adamant about it all, my Mom was just being beat down emotionally and physically though it all. She did try to fight back but it was almost impossible with the amount of pushback my Dad was able to apply. So one day as I come home from school, I notice cop cars in front of my house so I go racing down to see what happen just fearing the worse because seldom would the cops be called and it was at a time even if they came nothing would ever happen. Domestic violence was dealt with like it is now.

So I go running into the house not knowing what to expect and I see my Father in tears talking to a cop about Mom and he turns and faces me and says your Mother has left a note that she has taken pills and drove off in her car to go die. I am a kid standing in my house with my heart and mind just not being able to understand this at all. My thoughts were all at once, my feelings were extreme, hurt, pain, anger and a sense I was so alone. As the cops finished taking information, my Father decided we should go look for her.

Remember we are an island and not a very large one so my thoughts were yes lets go. We took off and started looking down every road and lane we could think of that would be secluded which was just about everywhere. So my heart was sinking because all of a sudden this small island became very large.

As we were driving my Father started telling me how sorry he was and telling me things he had done some of which I knew and other things, you know what I really didnt need or want to know. I finally said Dad its not about you right now thats not important lets just look for mom. Look at this incredible moment of my life all I know is my mother is trying to die and I want to save her.

 Man what a helpless feeling for me. This is one of those memories which no matter what I do whenever it comes around I never know what to do with the emotion it brings or what emotion to have when it for whatever reason pops up. Well she didnt die, she came home the next morning and the short of it God didnt want her dead. She had taken enough pills to do the job but also drank a bottle of whisky to wash it down and make it easier.

Well she started to get sleepy a followed a big rig to someplace in jersey. (just a personal note I would not want to die in jersey) So she parked her car and went to fall asleep but before she did she puked. I mean everything whiskey, pills food and then fell asleep. Which saved her life and in fact gave her a new set of huevos  (balls to you Yankees)   My mom was quite the woman , she never backed down to my father but over the years a sense of hopelessness and brokenness just beat her down and she reached a point she just wanted it over. But she came back that morning with a fury and told my father to get out she was done and done she was. He was so happy to see her and wanted to just it all be ok but she refused and she was adamant. She had a new lease on life and it would never be the same between her and my father again.

 He left, but this is a good time to interject my understanding about my father. I do not think my father wanted to be as he was. I think he fought himself and wanted to be different. I watched my father struggle with himself over so many things, but his thought process was skewed and he seemed willing but unable to change and regretful about it his entire life.

Like I said I seen him do so many wonderful things and care for some many in such a sweet way, this side of him was just ingrained and almost organic in a way to where he was captured in it. So as you can see my life had a hard edge to it in so many ways, but do not feel sorry for me or say oh how sad. Because as tough as my earlier life was as I got older it didnt get easier but this things helped me to cope with the rest of my life and something was about to happen to me that changed me to the core for the rest of my life.  

        

Life of a Mam take two

Take Two

And insane, as I have aged has reached a new level of understanding, but that is for later. Ok here I am at 3-5 and learning lessons that I would never understand till I was older. Well maybe lesson is not the true word for what I have gone through at this time. Three was when I can really say is my earliest remembrance, the time I realized I was. I started seeing and then my brain started like a tape and I started to begin Memories!!!! Now trying to remember how I felt at the time is funny because I think I kind of do. Fascinated, really it is what comes to mind when I go back and look at it. Just like a sudden wow. Wonder is another way to say it. I was amazed at life. So here I am as I write this trying to remember what was the first thing that happened at that time to make me feel that way and I cannot for the life of me remember. So I hope the sense of wonderment that I believe I remember is true, it sure feels that way. So what memory do I have which comes to mine. There are a few that are seeming trying edge to the lead. Hmmmm. one is aunt Bernice’s and uncle Joes place, a few acres in what was the best place ever to grow up in, Staten Island in the fifties, So close to Manhattan and Brooklyn we got all the latest music on the radio and still country enough that we roamed the woods without fear. We would stay out till it was dark then we would hear our parents, or who ever we were staying with call our names to tell us to come in. Man it was a truly wonderful time. So easy, peaceful and incredibly enriching in so many ways, my brother and I playing for hours on end. That’s where I learn to make up stuff to do. We would play so many made up scenarios it would go on for days, we would take up where we left off the next day in our made up world and got so good at it we would even start making up rules over it and then argue over the application of the rules we made up to our little world we invented. The air was clean the water clear. Fresh vegetables, fresh fruits even the meat was not tainted yet. It was grain fed animals, chickens, beef and any other beast was unscathed by science yet. Our farmer’s fields were just starting to come into using pesticides and chemicals to grow food. But in our little community it had not happened yet. Staten Island was pretty secluded, having only the Ferry to and from Manhattan as the only from access the other five boroughs which included Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens. We also have three bridges to New Jersey which was our access to going even to greater places like Pennsylvania and Connecticut which was even more incredible in its pristine abundance of nature. So as we were growing up in our earliest time my first memories are of a great deal of exploration in the woods. And they are the predominate ones that I smile as I remember them. Now comes the hard parts, I remember also the chaos in the middle of my young times that would come to devastate these times of peace and ease I was enjoying. We were very broke at the time but my parents, and as they were finding their way in life, were having trouble with just simply living together. The fights were extreme to the point of violence, arguments turned to fights. Here I am fresh into realizing life and life is already beating the crap out of me. Having this to deal with at such a young age was weird to say the least. On one hand seeing life even as young as I was as easy and fruitful and watching those who I loved dearly being so unable to get along. So much I can say here, so much I can write to this because it was so overwhelming to my brand new life. They would fight then separate then get back together then fight then do it all over again. Man it was tough for me and my brother, never knowing what to do but wanting to fix it and finding ourselves so unable to. But even in the midst of this I found great family to find comfort in. We would either be at Joe and Bernice’s or Pops and Nanas house. Where we would be dropped off as my parents attempted to work it out. My first memory of seeing someone stand with me was my Uncle Joe, I was in kindergarten and had won an award for something which I cannot remember and they wanted my father with me when I accepted the award at school. And I remember when I was told he could not make it being so sad that I would have no one and having Uncle Joe tell me the day before he would take me and stand with me. That memory still brings me to tears even as I write it down, I remember when I got my award, which turned out to be a casserole dish, don’t ask. J But the knowing he was there with me has stuck with me all these years. He helped me so much it is hard to say. I remember going to the farmers market with him to pick up fresh fruits and vegetables and on the way back he handing me a fresh tomato and said eat. I look at him confused, like really just eat it like an apple and he smile and said oh yeah. And man was it sooooo good. So plump and juicy that’s when I learned it was a fruit not a vegetable. Uncle Joe was special to me after that, stern but fair and always looking to teach me something, and Aunt Bernice was sweet and gentle and always comforting me and my brother about our situation trying her best to not allow it to be that hard on us. I have to tell you this story that happen at this time. It still makes me laugh. My Dad was not there but was coming over to see us later that day. It had snowed so much the night before it was waist high to me and Fred my brother, which when we donned our snowsuits which made us walk like gingerbread men. I mean these suits were so funny that you could hardly enjoy the snow but we were not cold to say the least. Anyway Fred and I took off outside into this incredible winter wonderland and played and played and played. Like I said they had a few acres so it wasn’t like we didn’t have enough to play with between snowball fights and just trying to get around in them dumbass snowsuits. We decided and I will blame this on Fred, to go out of the fenced area of the property to go explore the woods and surrounding areas. Good plan really, the trees and snow where too much to resist with all how quiet and enchanting it was, yes I said enchanting. Get over it. So anyway we find a pond in the middle of the woods and again I will blame this on Fred, we wanted to go slipping and sliding on this pond. And man we had fun just two boys and snow world. It does not get any better than that. Well all of a sudden we here a great and scary sound. Dad!!!! And was he pissed. Because as we were lost in our winter wonderland and enjoying the time. We had lost track of time and had been gone for quite awhile. They are searching for us and when you have acres it becomes hard. Then only thing he was able to do was find our footprints where they left the yard which was quite the feat if you think about it because the yard was full of our footprints, it was not until he seen some leaving the yard he was  able to at least track us to the woods. So you have a father who is seeking his lost children and finding them on an ice pond that come to find out later would probably not held our weight, So here he is in full blown mad, I mean angry times ten. He is across from us and demanding we come to him right now. Here where it gets funny, he is able to snatch my brother right away. And has him in the air, remember we are little people at this time so envision a giant with an elf. And is explaining all the things he is going to do to him back at the house. So me in my thought process decided to run for my life. And run did I, man I ran for all I was worth. My father yelling for me to stop and me thinking, oh no I am not, I look back and the sight of my brother in one hand of my father dangling helplessly in his grip my father yelling and me running through the snow. Quite the site really. My thought process was to avoid my father at all costs the problem is I knew I was going to run out of places to run to. And while that thought was so present in my mind I just had to continue to run. So I did. Right into the kitchen at Joe and Bernice’s finding aunt Bernice in the kitchen sitting having coffee or tea and me running and hiding behind her pleading with her to help me and so surprise at her reply sweetie there is nothing I can do for you. And I realized she was right. As my father stepped into the kitchen with Fred still dangling from his hand I knew my life was over. And yes there was a whooping involved and deservedly so. I found out two things that day. One stay and take the whippin and two my father was deservedly angry. His sons were lost and in danger and his concern for us was our safety, But it still is a great memory for me even with the whippin.                

Life of a Man

Ok I am just going to write whatever is on my mind, which is probably a dangerous endeavor. To start off I will first tell you who I am, then try to give you an account of my life. The parts I can remember anyway. And this might help to explain my thoughts as I express them. I am a 58 year old man, a professional in the construction industry. I am married with two grown children with who have children of their own, all of which I have learned to love more dearly as I get older. Well where do I start, ok I was born in 1953 on Staten Island NY. To a family who dysfunctional would be something to shoot for. We started out dirt poor living with different relatives through the difficult times, and while I was young, it was where I first started to learn about helping out people. Even though in the midst of this lesson the family as whole was pretty nuts. So this is where it started getting weird for me. On one hand tenderness and giving hearts, on the other hands verbal and physical abuse, sometimes to the point of extreme. And most of this I experienced before I was five years of age. It also was a great time to be a kid. The late fifty’s and early sixties was a incredible time easy and free, also extreme, in my life and the world around me. My first understanding of world events in my life came with the Cuba missile crisis. And if you were around then you know what I mean. Extreme was the way of the times. 

How I started noticing it was by the fear and concern I was seeing in the faces of the adults around me. Parents and family friends and hearing the discussions of the uncertainty of life as we knew it continuing as it had. School where we practiced air raids as we ducked under our desks to save us from thermo nuclear war which was so solidly enforced with daily television programs showing the absolute devastation of such a thing occurring , that I didn’t think the desk let alone the building in which it was in, even I at my young age knew that was not going to work out to well. And this is when I started to see how insane it all was.

MORE TO COME