Preface
I started writing this a long time ago, when I was 27. It was a project. To delve into the past and relive vivid memories. To remember, to write, from brain to the keyboard without holding back. To get personal, to be as transparent and as uncaring about consequences as possible. To show "me".
I've published it a few times on my blogs--password protected and have shown it to close friends and they've in turn written their own and shared it with me.
There's always something that holds me back from full disclosure, and finishing it at that, because I'm always afraid of who I'll hurt in the process. Who I'll hurt in present time by finishing the book recalling things honestly, and who I'll hurt in what I've already written because they'll know what I'm talking about when they read it. Who I'll offend by being blatantly honest because the details are a little too personal to have people that know you read those intimate details.
One of my favorite autobiographies is Marilyn Manson's "The Long Hard Road Out of Hell". It was raw with no apologies. But I'm not exactly a rockstar who capitalizes off of shock value.
In any case, I'll publish Chapter One, the innocent beginnings, in this blog and see what people think.
Should I continue?
CHAPTER ONE: "The Awakening"
My bedroom was like a chameleon that changed colors depending upon the mood and ambition level of my mother. Sometimes it was enamel white until she decided that change was in order and would paint everything entirely red. She must have deemed the red too strong of a color because it was later modified to a more rustic, softer tone of red.
My parents had bought the house for under five thousand dollars when my father, a traveling evangelist, centralized in the Northwest Ohio area. At the top of the yellow carpeted stairway stood two bedrooms on the left and an enlarged closet off to the right.
The closet, my bedroom, was next to the only bathroom which encased a bathtub that stood on four legs and always had an amber stain around the drain. The stain later became a worthy opponent to my S.O.S. ridden hands when I was assigned duties for incomplete or imperfect work assignments. The stain was matched by a sink that stood much taller upon the skinny metal pipes that lead down through the pea green linoleum to the bottom floor cellar.
It was Christmas eve when I was first awakened by “Rose", my oldest sister.
Although my desire to see if Santa Clause had gotten my plethora of letters was a high priority it was no match to my heavy eyelids seeking refuge in the darkness of my room.
Moments later I awakened once again to the sound of my sister’s voice and mustered up the ambition to allow myself to be lead halfway down the stairs in my blue pajamas that zipped up the middle, complete with footies and a Winnie The Pooh emblem attached to the left side of my chest.
On my third introduction to the December morning, barely conscious enough to stand, I leaned over the stairway rail where I could see into the living room. In the shadows of the dimly lit rainbow of color emanating from the Christmas tree I could see my father, Philip, struggling to remove an elongated package from beneath it. The package was probably twice my size.
To this day I have no recollection as to whether or not I held the title to the silver-blue vehicle encased within. I suspect that it was intended for my oldest sister Rose but at the time I don’t think that I cared and adopted it as my own after my father dedicated his time to constructing it from the mess of wheels, pedals, and metal. Not only was this my first memory of my childhood but it was also my first and only memory of my father ever living within our household although the homemade photo albums that exist to this day show that I must have forgotten a lot within those first two years of my life.
My mother, Beverly, tells me that I was extremely upset the day he left, watching from the small window of my upstairs bedroom as his car pulled out of the driveway for the last time, crying, and wondering if he was coming back.
My mother eventually took a job working at Atlas Crankshaft in Fostoria, Ohio, a silt and grease infected factory adorned with metal chips all over its floors.
Across the street from the white tattered house we lived in lived the Crawford’s who watched me for awhile when my mother would fulfill her shifts at work. Ryan was about my age and we would play with the GI Joe collection he had in his upstairs bedroom.
After staring out at that same house for years I never could understand why they had a door on their top floor that led out to the rooftop of their porch. There was no floor, just a door that I’d never seen opened.
I would pass a lot of my time exploring the neighborhood and would occupy myself with a rusty metal tractor that must have existed since the 40’s in the back of the community park in the midst of a line of evergreen trees. The steering wheel was thin and was barely movable, caked with years of rust. The hard rusted seat reminded me of an over sized hockey mask and the pedals reminded me of the pedals that powered the car that my sister got for Christmas.
When I bored of the tractor I’d set out to a nearby drain pipe where thousands of snails skimmed the oily layer of the murky water free for the taking. I would run home and get large jars that my mother would use to refill the milk that she got from a nearby farm and would fill it one by one with my captives. On a good day, tadpoles would try to emerge from the smell of the drain pipe and I would capture them and throw them into the jar as well.
One of the most captivating landmarks in Vanlue, Ohio was what we called the “Old Elevator” which was occasionally used for storage of the trucks of local farmers. Although rat infested it was probably one of the creepiest of my explorations. The main entry consisted of two large doors that would pull open given enough force and an identical set on the other side where trucks could drive in one way and out the other.
On any given day one could find a dead cat, a dead rat, or a dead bird that somehow managed to get in but could not find their way back out.
The building was like a gigantic haunted house with many rooms and crevices that seemed never ending. My friends and I would climb the ladder that lead to the second floor revealing a maze of grainery stalls and passage ways. The smell of dirt, aged grain and dust filled the air and the only light available was provided by the many holes in the barred up windows throughout. I imagined that horses used to live in these bins but looking back I don’t think they were anything more than storage areas for the grain brought in by local farmers. We would take dares to see who could get the furthest into the unholy maze of bat infested evil until our fears subsided and dwindled down to mere curiosity.
To miss a day of church, which consisted of Thursday night meetings and two on Sunday; one in the morning, one in the evening; meant that either there was a church related event planned or someone in the family was very ill. In the cool summer air after the evening services games of tag were common and as if an ironic representation the brick sign in the front of the church was always the safe zone. As long as we were touching it nothing and no one could hurt us with their touch of death relieving us from the responsibility of the corruption imposed by whoever was “it”.
Ridge Chapel Church of the Nazarene stood on the top of one of the few hills in the area called “The Ridge”.
Out of a yearning for variety, doubled in purpose as a family event, we would sometimes ride our bikes to church, I on the back of my mother’s brown bicycle sitting in the wire framed seat. The three mile ride was considered to be a special event. We were easily amused. Beverly had a way of making even the simplest of things seem like we’d just won the lottery.
When I got older we would take walks to the end of the town and back and I would have her tell me stories of when she was little. It would become a tradition when I would accompany her on her walks that I would have her tell them to me over and over. In ways I don’t think that her childhood was much different than mine, yet there was a darker side to hers that I think she tried not to carry with her into my generation.
In My Mother’s Words
“I was the oldest, had a bit too much responsibility, cleaning house, cooking etc. (So much so, that I was never able to do homework when they started giving it to us in 7th grade). Mom and Dad having not finished high school , didn’t really value education. I was the first and only kid for many years, that even went off to college."
[ The rest is retracted for now, for privacy purposes.]
Since the majority of my childhood revolved around church related activities I spent much of my time in summer church camps, Vacation Bible School, and events that were planned after regular church services.
I grew very accustomed to the strange behavior of church goers and accepted it as normal and eventual adopted it as my own to a certain extent. It was common to watch old men jumping straight up in the air like a startled cat, hurdle a few benches (with people sitting in them) and running several laps around the church, balling their eyes out and screaming at the top of their lungs “Glory be to God!”
My sister Rose once got hit over the head by a gentlemen consumed within the heat of his prayer which would start out very calm and composed, but would eventually crescendo to the point of beating the wooden benches everyone had to sit on and screaming and yelling because God was not doing his job in changing mankind. Apparently there must have been static on the line with God because he had to yell louder and louder for God to hear him.
For the longest time I thought black people were painted that way. One evening out of several missionary services Mrs. Spencer came out of the women’s restroom and proceeded down to the front of the church. She had suddenly turned into a black person in order to identify with the pygmies in Africa that needed God. I asked my stepfather how she got that way and he told me she painted herself that way. From then on I always thought that black people just painted themselves black.
My stepfather spent most of his time laying on the green couch in his bathrobe, smelling of shaving cream, reading books about Hitler and World War II.
He met my mother in the factory she worked at and always came home smelling of grease, with metal chips stuck to his work boots. He was what my mother called a “new convert” in that he was new to Christianity and was learning the ways of his new found religion.
Apparently he had spent some time in the United States Navy. I’m thinking he was in the Viet Nam war but I was never really sure about that, but he did use those green metal military containers to store some of his stuff in with his initials spray painted in black on the side.
Richard was what I would consider to be an intelligent man. He was heavily into electronics and would sit down with me when I was not doing well in math and explain the different algorithms to me in terms that I could understand.
I’ll never forget the look on his face, running after the car slowly gliding down the road. I’d always played with the gear shifts before when alone in the car and nothing ever seemed to happen. Unfortunately, this time was different. I have no idea how I managed to back out of the parking spot and to put the car in “drive” but whether it was accidental or not I ended up on Interstate 568, in the left lane. Call it human instinct, but it was no accident that I drove right into a tree.
I figured it was as good of a way to stop the car as any. I won’t mention the disciplinary action taken once I got home, but I think it’s safe to say that I didn’t drive again until I was 15.
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About the Author
Currently a Lakewood Ranch, Florida resident, Philip has authored various interactive blog websites since the early 2000’s. Most content will be based primarily on matters of opinion as usual.