Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Tue, 7 Apr 1992 20:16:18 MST
 <WORDS-L%UGA.bitnet@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>
From:         Dan Lester <ALILESTE%IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>
Subject:      childhoods....such as they were
Comments: To: English Language Discussion Group <WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
              6 Apr 1992 11:16:00 PST from <CHRISS%CWU.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>

On Mon, 6 Apr 1992 11:16:00 PST Lobstrosities Unite said:
>Oh, boy. I guess I had my troubles at school (the four-eyes thing, lisping,
>stuttering, etc), but my nemesis was at home.

   Understand that one....I was always fat....didn't have glasses til
age 16, junior in HS, so that wasn't a big problem...but I also had lots of
allergies....and that added to physical limits...couldn't go out for
football even, as got sick....now if they had artificial turf back then....
    8-)

>The scariest part of any day was when dad would come home.  Nightly lickings
>were pretty commmon, for offenses real or otherwise.

  I was blessed with no beatings...or almost none...but my dad travelled
five weeks out of six....but that was better than any beatings...

>This is one of the very few things that I still have a hard time talking
>about. I'm deathly scared to have kids because of it.  I can talk with Heidi
>and she tries to assure me that I won't do those things but I can't guarantee
>that.

   I also know you won't do those things.  And Heidi wouldn't, I bet, put
up with it like your mom did....just in case you did.  You sound to me like
you would be an excellent parent, Chris...you have a wonderful wit and
imagination that is a valuable asset.

>What makes it all the worse is that I know, in his own convoluted way, my dad
>loves me and I love him, although I've had to work awfully hard to like him. I
>can't wish death and destruction on him, although sometimes I have.

  I'm glad you can't.  That's what destroyed me.  In late July 1960 my dad
hadn't been feeling well and had gone to doctor for checkup, who said he
needed more tests for ulcers.  On Aug 1 he went to hospital for tests.
On Aug 3 he was dead.
   It was a shock and surprise...but we learned from autopsy that he had
been full of cancer and that was the problem.

   It wasn't until about 20 years later, while trying to help an ex-wife
(but then-wife) deal with some of her abuse issues that it all came back
to me.  I had buried for all that time....under food and booze and fat....
that the night before he went to hospital we had had a stupid argument and
pushed each other around...no punches thrown....no blood...just shoving and
yelling....and my last line was "I hate you!  I wish you were dead!"
I never saw him alive again, as early next morning he went to hsopital before
I got up.
   Anyway, at the time I didn't deal with it....partly because my then-wife
said "big deal...my shit is worse than your shit..."  (which it was)...
so I reburied it.....

    Two years ago I saw "Field of Dreams" on video at a friend's house.
It all came back.  Took me two hours to see the last 20 minutes of the movie
before I really saw it all.

    I knew there was SOME reason that I believed that you should never go
to bed angry with someone, should always make amends quickly....but never
knew why that was.

   Sure...rationally I know (and undoubtedly did all along) that I did not
CAUSE his death....but of course these things aren't rational.

>That morning, my dad hit my mom with a broom and she'd finally had enough so
>she poured boiling coffee on him and told him to get out.  That was a tramatic
>time but also somewhat of a relief for us all.

    Well, for each of us "it takes what it takes" to get us to learn
that we finally have to do something to take care of ourselves.  Unfortunately
for some folks that line is somewhere beyond where their life ends.  Women
who die of beatings....men who die of booze....and vice versa....and so many
other kinds of shit that we sick people perpetrate on each other.

   Well, if this is too heavy for anyone, they can skip reading it...
(but by now they have read it....so....it....goes....)    8-)

   dan
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