My story: How far is too far?

[wax]

We all have a responsibility to teach our children the important skills that they will require to survive even if they must survive without us.

I'm nearly forty years old, and I was taught by the best... or the worst depending on how you look at it.

In 1977 I was taken from my family by human services on the grounds of abuse... I have never decided whether society was right in doing that or not.
It depends on whether my father's predictions come to pass in my lifetime I guess.

He was seventeen years old when a judge offered him a choice - he could serve five years in prison or sign up to serve his country in a far away place called Korea.
He chose to go to war and he never really came back.

The country he loved (even though he himself was on the bottom rung of society in it) sent him into a frozen Hell without gloves or adaquate supplies.
But it turned out that a "white-trash loser from the dirt farms of Southern Minnesota" can be harder to kill than one might think.
No matter what he eventually became he was a hero then; old men I had never seen or heard of fell to thier knees and wept at his graveside when he was burried.

But even the stories from the time he spent in that war display an aspect of the potential problem he would face in normal society. Allen Miller could get anything you needed, and some things you never thought could be obtained!
But he didn't take orders well.
In fact, if it hadn't been for his bravory and leadership during battle he would have been court-martialed dozens of times.
He wasn't drummed out because when it hit the fan and the enemy started pouring over the hill, no brass wanted to be there without him... and of course others like him.

His discharge listed him as "other than honorable" but the military he served kept a promise to bury him anyway. Most claimed that he simply walked away and refused to sign off when he got back to the states.

It is universally held to be absolute truth that my father would not have lived for long after the war had he not gotten a young Betty Knowles pregnant.
He was too dangerous and too wild but she clamed him down and kept him from going over the edge completely.
She died of cancer in March of 1973, I was four years old.
He was at the funeral in handcuffs and I didn't see him again for eighteen months.
But I will never forget what he said to my brother before they led him away, "This was bound to happen eventually."
My first brush with fatalism was both harsh and permanent.

[wax]

More to follow of course:

[bookwormom]

spellbinding (I hope that is a word)

[wax]

I went to live with my mother's sister Dorathy and her husband Oscar Olsen. They were good, hardworking, God fearing farmers and they deserved much better than they got with me. Looking back I can't blame myself for the anger and resentment, I was just too young to understand that they were doing the best they could.

My brothers however were ten years older, it is hard enough to handle a 4 year old who is angry at the world but a 14 year old in the same state can get into real trouble.
And of course being older my father had already trained them a great deal.

Family legend has it that Gary was held in Sauk Center juvi correctional facility for exactly four days... that was how long it took for his older brother Rodney (who of course hadn't been caught) to break him out.
I don't really know I guess, but I don't doubt it for a moment.

Early memories are strange in that none of them are formed completely. I don't remember my mother's funeral as much as snapshots of it.
I remember her in the casket, my aunts sobbing, my father standing next to me in handcuffs. And I remember that one of the officers next to him was crying. But not my dad.

I knew he would come for me, and I would declare it to anyone who could hear.
Christmas came and went, so did my birthday, but it didn't matter because he would come for me... he would!
I didn't understand why the adults got so quiet when i made these declarations.
At the time I thought it was some sort of silent denial but looking back I realized it was fear: Yes, Allen Miller would come for his son someday, and choices had to be made.

I was in the basement when he came to the door one night.
I heard my aunt yelling and I came upstairs to see my uncle barring the door.
It was confusing to say the least, my dreams had been answered but they weren't happy about it.
For some reason my aunt and uncle didn't want me to go with my father, and they had called the sheriff to stop it.

But my father was very calm.
And I remember he said, "I understand everything your saying Oscar, I really do. But my son is either going to leave here with me tonight or I am going to die. It doesn't matter how many police show up. If I die, I won't die alone."
We drove away as I watched out the rear window.
I saw flashing lights in the distance but they didn't follow us.

It is hard to explain how a five year old thinks.
Not really understanding the situation I felt great love and pride for my father at that moment.
I was worth more than life itself to him... Oscar wasn't willing to risk dying for me and the cops certainly weren't going to take that chance, but my father would without hesitation!
I could not be safer with any other person on Earth!

[wax]

I spent most of the next two years sleeping in the back window of one car or another. This was the early seventies and things like seat belts were for bankers who had more to lose than everyone else.

Thinking back, I can't believe that I enjoyed that time so much. We were running from something, but I didn't know what.
I saw a great deal of America from backroads and radio stations: sleeping in the back window sill of a 1972 Chevy means that your ear is right on the speaker... I had no choice but to learn the words to "One Tin Soldier" but I certainly didn't mind.
And there were songs then that could really make you think.
Alices Resturaunt and American Pie have an impact whether you are actually listening or not.

My sisters had a very bad time, cramped up with three brothers and a crazy man driving all over without notice. They were largely ignored and Tammy was forced to take care of baby Tracy as if she were here mother.
We would stay in very strange places:
A nice house with a woman named Mrs. Jones (no I'm not kidding) in Pine River Minnesota, an extremely nasty shack with a freak named Shiela in some town by Lake of the Woods.

As I said I was young, so I didn't understand some of the places until I got older.
There was a compound in the hills of Montana where men did silly things like walk funny and raise their arms whenever they met each other shouting "heil!" at the top of thier lungs. That can be funny when you are six.
But there were other places which were not fun at all, in fact were quite frightening; places like northern Alabama where men dressed in white hoods and swore alot.
I had no choice but to listen at the meetings even if I didn't understand what was being said completely.
No matter where we went people were angry, they couldn't stop without shouting and swearing and carrying on.

Unlike my brothers who were always with my sisters (because there were some men you couldn't trust my father would say) I never left my father's side. I felt sort of like a mascot and I suppose in a way I was.
As long as I did what was expected of me I was always rewarded. There are some places in this country where a young blond blue eyed kid who salutes with a raised hand gets quite a bit of reward for it believe it or not.
After the noisy meetings things would get quiet, and I would rest on a sleeping bag or something similar in a small room where men would sit and talk quietly with my father about silencers and ordinances, blueprints and plans.
My father was usually refered to as a "specialist" but it always struck me in how much respect others gave him.
For some reason it didn't matter whether he hated "blacks" or not... dangerous men feared him, noisy men got quiet around him.

There are some crimes that do not have a statutory limit, my father is long dead (and my brothers no longer have much to worry about but more on that later) but I still won't go into the specifics of things I saw.

Life was somehow sureal at the time: you could be watching the Tonight Show on a tiny black & white when every adult would scramble and run out of the building with weapons... everything would go dark and all you could do is listen to shots in the distance.
My father would return and everything would go back to normal.
Being young has its benefits!

[wax]

Again... how far is too far?

As I got older things changed a bit to say the least.
The "Gooks" were always preparing to invade and "Mommy Gov'ment" was always looking over our shoulder.
There were "Pigs" in this world, there were also "Wolves" like us but most people were sheep and deserved everything they got!

The games my father played with me were clearly defined and very easy to win... as long as you followed the rules.
One of the earliest "games" we played was known as "which way is north?"
To win means that you have a slight chance of surviving when the need arrises... a good thing when you think about it!
But to lose meant that I would not survive if my father was not there to save me and thus I deserved to be reminded.

Here is how the game went:
I would be sleeping, or just not paying attention at the moment. My father would kick me in the ribs and demand, "Which way is north!"
I would have exactly three seconds to stand at attention and point to north and declare, "That way is north sir, south is at my back!".
Any deviation from absolute north would mean severe pain.
One also needed to be aware of body orientation because if your shoulders are not squared then your second statement would be a complete lie and you would deserve a bruised rear at the least.
It wasn't a particularily fun game to play.
But as I said, the rules were precise and easily understood.

And it turns out that a small group of quiet men with guns sitting in a room are easily impressed by your winning the game. You would hear, "Now that's what I'm talking about!" and feel good... not because you were good, but simply because you were not one of the "sheep".

I became over time (and remain to this day) a master concerning which way is north. It is simple really, there are many tricks.
The main thing is to never lose track of it.
When you lie down orient yourself to something in the room (the corner of that desk is absolute north, and if someone swhould kick me in the ribs, I will stand and square my shoulders with it and make my declaration).
But of course, as I got older, the game advanced.
My father was not only concerned with the directional properties of north but with orientation.
One not only needed to know which way north was but which way was up.
Most people reading this probably just went, "huh?" and for good reason.
It is important because this "abuse" in particular saved my life.
I was expected to know which way north was while hanging upside down in a zippered sleeping bag.
It is not as easy as the reader might think!
But it can be done with the proper incentive.

Before we continue I must say this:
Many who have heard these details of my childhood automatically declare how evil my father was for abusing me in such a way.
I play the same game with my sons but they have never been beaten for being wrong.
I have no real answers.
But I can say that my father believed that there was an urgency to what he could teach me.
He was preparing me for a higher purpose.
Would that fact make him right?
Again I have no answers.

[wax]

I don't even know the name of the town where it happened.
It was in northern Minnesota and the town has a river that passes underneath a bridge.
There is a swimming area which is clearly marked and most nine year old kids know for a fact that adults only mark off areas because they don't want you to have any real fun!
I knew it for a fact, which is why I swam outside those markers.
Everything was fine, which just proved the hypocracy of being stopped from swimming in one of God's rivers by "the man"!

But I of course went too far.
It was sort of cool at first, you could dive off the shore and come to the surface twenty-five feet downstream!
The reader can guess what the problem was.
I was just too young and foolish.
My last dive was the farthest out I had made, but then that it the way these things go.
The current took me so deep that I could feel the water pressure increase on my lungs.
I had no time to think before I was slammed against the grate that kept back the river passing under the bridge.
A number of my father's lessons flashed through my mind:

Lesson: Do not question the reality of your situation!
Accept that you are about to die and take whatever action appears to be required. Any action is better than no action. Vampires are not real, unless you have evidence that they are real... then grab a stake and drive it through the m*th*rf*ck*rs heart!

Lesson: A breath is only a breath if you take it.
Recognize the pain and then absorb it. It hurts to not breath but you are not an unthinking "sheep" and so you will not gulp water into your lungs (being held down in a bathtub while this is being screamed at you can actually help in comprehension... but I don't recommend it).

Lessen: Your first action is reactive and unthinking. Assess before you take it... think... you are not prey!

Lessen: Which way is north?

I was going to die... and while I can't prove it in any way I declare without hesitation that 99.99% of any young man in my situation at that time would have.
You simply can't beat a current like that.
But you can use it.
I was blind, but I could feel.
The current was so strong that while I could move parts of my body there was no way to push off from the grate.
My first reaction was to pull myself "up" using the grate.
I would have died if I had continued, because my head was pointed toward the bottom of the river.
Opening my eyes simply allowed mud to get in.
But I could feel that the current at my head was stronger than the current at my feet.
But what did that mean?
Would the current be stronger at the surface?
Not likely but of course the current was being altered by a grate which might or might not increase it toward the top.
So the question was, which way was up?
I'd like to say I knew for a fact, but once I made the decision I didn't second guess myself (another lesson).
I began to pull myself toward my feet and then further.
I was rewarded with not only a lessening current but brighter mud.
Even so, I would claim that my head broke the surface with perhaps one second to spare before I passed out. It was so bad that I might have died anyway if the current wasn't strong enough to hold me against the grate while I recovered enough to breath normally again.

After I pulled myself up onto the bridge I pretended nothing had happened, too embarrassed to even consider telling someone.
But I was elated in a way that few people alive can really understand.
Death had come for me.
I had felt it's kiss.
It had wrapped its arms aqround me and found itself unable to finish the job!
A skydiver can pretend he has felt it, but it is not possible.
I know which way is up for a reason.

[wax]

So anyway... back to the narration of My Story.

Things got very hot and very confusing in the southwest.
Something had taken place in the hills of Nevada and we scrambled back to Southern Minnesota.
My father's mother was eighty nine years old and I'm not even sure how to describe her.
Certainly my time with her can not define who she was:

She had run alcohol for gangsters located in St Paul during the thirties from her home in the Kentucky hills. She had actually met "John dillenger" and knew "Baby faced Nelson" personally.
She had given birth to nine children in two batches (my father being in the second one) and had burried three husbands.
She was nobody to f*ck with and it became apparent that my father did not become the man he did in a vaccume.

To this day I haven't decided whether I liked her or not, even thirty-one years after her death.
One of the problems of course was that she was "old-school".
I had a penis, which meant that I was the "man of the house" until an older man came along... 8 years old or not!
When the man came to shear our sheep it was my duty to talk to him, that wasn't what women did.
When it came time to slaughter "Charlie" the only ram I will ever love... well... killing is a man's duty.
Was she completely wrong?
No... but I am certain that a number of women on this site would have adjusted better for me.
I can't despise her in any way, her ways were old but solid.
And she was left with three kids (my sisters and I) in her twighlight years... did I mention that she knew she was dying?

My grandmother had cancer.
Not cancer in the way we think of it today, an unseen and unfelt malady that requires treatment but cancer in its natural form, untreated and known by all.
I mentioned that my mother had died of cancer.
She was twenty-nine years old when she died.
In the early seventies of course chemo-therapy was a whole different treatment than it is today but my father's mother watched her daughter-in-law waste away... not from cancer, but from the treatment for cancer.
My grandmother decided that she would take a different path.
When I was taken by social services I heard one worker joking about the fact that put too much faith in her "God".
I wasn't in any mood for laughing but it wasn't funny anyway because it simply wasn't the truth.
My grandmother collapsed on her kitchen floor on a Tuesday night (right as the CBS evening news finished), she was dead by Wednesday morning.
She went as far as she could, then she stopped.
Don't get me wrong, she was "God fearing" (though my brother later claimed that she had only "found" religion prior to her death) but what she truly feared was being helpless.
I'd say she did a good job of avoiding that.

Anyway... the "miracle" was that I was with her when she died. Social workers had been at our door many times, sheriffs in tow. They didn't like the dirt floor our bathroom had among other things.
The "authorities" decided that they should wait rather than attempting to take us away from her. It was the first time I had ever held a gun in anger, but I would have used it with deadly results if forced to.
The deadly resolve my father displayed was inherited, my grandmother held a double barrel shotgun like she was born to it... and maybe she was.

Anyway, she died.
Blue Earth County Minnesota was nice enough to take my sisters and I into custody.
Like other things in my life, I'm still not sure how I feel about that.

This is getting long I know, but it is rather nice to get it out!

[wax]

As I said before, I'm not really sure how I feel about foster care.

The fact is that I am alive and not in prison when others... but more on that later.

I don't want to bore people too much, one would think I am writing an entire biography here.

I was told that my father could get me back any time he wanted as long as he obtained housing and secured a room for each of us children... obtained legal employment... adhered to the many stipulations of whatever parole he might be under... you know, he could easily get us back if only he wanted to!
I took all of that with a "grain of salt" considering the fact that I was sleeping in a room filled with triple bunk beds (my own room huh?).

But my father could and did take me for visits, and extended ones during summer.
He seemed to have mellowed some, he lost four toes on his right foot in Stillwater State Prison.
But my brothers had gotten even more dangerous than he had been in the olden days.

I got by until I was 14 and then I fled the system, convinced it was corrupt anyway.
My father had access to a little farm by Waterville Minnesota and I moved in hoping for a normal life.
Of course the reader could guess that the environment was far from normal.
I was fourteen now after all, able to hold my own when required.
I just didn't expect that it would be required so much.

Again I won't go into great detail, but I spent my time filing identification numbers and reloading shells.

So let's wrap it up so the reader at least comprehends that the story has an end.
My brother Gary spent about ten years in prison for burglary.
He had a skill that isn't required in the society we live in.
However... if my father had been right in the 70's I would have taken Gary's skills for a SHTF situation anyday.
But his life was too screwed up, and combined with my father's ideals of loyalty and conviction got the better of him.
He tried to start a family by getting a prostitute (I'm sorry... perhaps whore would be a better term, I don't know if she ever directly sold it) pregnant.
I'm certain he was convinced that he could change her and settle down.

She left him of course, but she had his child.
There is no excuse for what he did, but knowing the way we were raised I can understand it.
One night, Gary Miller used a bolt-cutter to enter the house of Debra Huck. He shot her in the head along with some guy that was in bed with her.
As he came back downstairs the sister of the man in Debra's bed happened to wake up from the couch and Gary shot her to death as well.
The police were confused because the children in the house never woke up and there was white powder all over the place.
I wasn't confused at all because I had taken that training course.
Gary had used a two liter pop bottle filled with talcum powder as a silencer.
I testified against him in court, it was the hardest thing I have ever done!
Gary will be elligible for parole when he turns 123.
He has no possiblility for parole until then.
We have not spoken since his trial... but I think about him often, and I assume he thinks about me.

But Rodney... dear noble Rodney.
A man named Smith (of all names) threatened my family directly in 1984.
I was there when it happened.
A short time later an informant announced that Rodney had killed that man... he was convicted for it.
He got out of prison in June of 1995 and came to see me.
I saw alot of my father in him.
He went back into prison in October of 1995 after agents picked him up in a hotel passed out. They were after someone else but it is probably a good thing they grabbed him then.

He went to the Florence Colorado Federal facility.
He was an artist, he was a brother.
He also became a father shortly after being caught when the woman he was seeing gave birth.
But most of all he was a son.

He was shot and killed by officer Chad Mills on the side of a highway not far from his grandmother's old farmstead on Christmas Eve in 2004.
He was not armed.
He had attempted to force a delivery truck off the side of the road and a chase insued.
The officer shot him three times through the back window of the car he was driving because it was claimed that Rodney was attempting to back into him.
However... I don't believe that story for a minute.
For one thing they tazered him after they shot him, so if he had wanted to back over the officer he could have after being shot and before dying.
But the fact is that Rodney had not intended to hurt anyone that Christmas morning... and I am thankful for that!
If he had had a gun in his hand... well... things would have turned out worse than they did.

The point to all of this rambling (other than to get it off my chest of course) is that... well I don't really know what the point is now.

There is a very fine line, but a very clear one, between skills that might be required after a SHTF scenerio and ones that society can accept.
My story is quite far from typical.
But your older children must be told what that line is and how it is defined.
Survival skills can easily become predatory ones.
And in a SHTF scenerio that is good, but lacking that reality one is good while the other is very bad.

In the end of course the average reader can be comforted by the fact that this is largely a morality tale.
Morality is largely a mechanism of society.
I am not my brothers, nor am I a keeper of my brothers.
Yet the only substancial material difference between them and I is that society collapsed for them in March of 1973, while for me it just faltered a bit.

PS: For those who would balk: everything I have posted here is absolute fact (mixed with my own impressions of the facts of course). Yet I haven't told my story yet without the listener (or reader in this case) wanting some sort of "proof".

I don't see how to upload images here but I assume it would be easy as others have done it.
Rodney's death certificate clearly states "multiple gunshot wounds due to police shooting" and i would be willing to post it if required.

[American_Infidel]

Interesting insight into your life. It is refreshing to see someone tell about their past without pulling punches or making excuses.

[hunter63]

There is a very fine line, but a very clear one, between skills that might be required after a SHTF scenerio and ones that society can accept.
My story is quite far from typical.
But your older children must be told what that line is and how it is defined.
Survival skills can easily become predatory ones.
And in a SHTF scenerio that is good, but lacking that reality one is good while the other is very bad.
* * *
Very good point, intresting way of getting to it.
Lot of people would never get the point if the story wasn't included.
Thanks

[bookwormom]

thanks for posting wax. I am very serious.

truth is stranger than fiction and there are people who are just great in war, but in peace they are like a fish out of water.

[Txanne]

I am totally taken by this hard hitting and honest story.

I am breathless.


Txanne

[wax]

Now the reader has some background we can discuss individual skills and of course "How far is too far".

I named this post "Playing with fire" but perhaps it would have been better to name it "Quest for fire" or better yet, "Chasing the sun".

My wife and I have watched every season of "Survivor" that CBS has ever shown. No matter what we are doing we set aside one hour on Thursday nights (when it is on obviously) to spend some time together and just watch a show.
But she and I watch it for two very different reasons: She watches it because she likes the "drama" and is interested in the relationships that form, the bickering and backstabbing.
I watch it because it is proof that at least some of my father's complaints concerning modern society were absolutely correct!

Twenty Americans in the prime of their lives surrounded by resources and not one can start a fire!
Not one!
Not a single one... dear reader!

And it gets better than that, in the eleven or so seasons only two groups to my knowledge have accomplished this most basic and simple task that every adult human being must be able to complete if required!

That means something like 180 had no chance of survival if the situation were real, 180 out of 220 would die... in fact 200 out of 220 would have eventually died because only two groups accomplished... well... the quest for fire.

I have three sons, 7 - 15 - and 21.
The seven year old is a helpless and pretty useless "puppy" who would die if he ever had to take control of his destiny! *I say this half jokingly and now that the reader has had a chance to understand my background a bit such a statement might be understood in context.
I don't beat him for failing to start a fire with two sticks, but of course he is seven and has a right to be a child.
I haven't punished any of my children because they failed to start a fire but my two older boys are almost as good as I was at seven... almost.

The fire game was just as simple as other games my father and I played.
We would pull up to an unknown location and get out of the vehicle. I would look for resources and often stop to glare at the sun because I knew what was coming.
I had to wait because it didn't matter when we arrived, what mattered was when the sun would be going down.
So I would wait.

And I would realize that the sun and I have two very different relationships... or at least we did then.
In the morning the sun was a dear associate who basked me in bright light, he danced for me on the water and warmed my child body on many occassions.
Later it became something else.

The game would begin; my father would point and say, "Not that, not that, and not that"
And I would react as though I was shot from a cannon... and perhaps I was because the sun was going down, and believe me when I say that a failing sun can not be stopped by prayers and tears, it can not be begged into standing still, and it doesn't really care how much you beg!

For my father "that" could be any number of things. All of those things of course would make the game too easy, like an engine or a river covered in ice (my father considered starting a fire with a prism as little more than using a cigarette lighter... that was something sheep did, not wolves). But sometimes he could be downright nasty with his "that" like a pile of cedar.
Try using a bow drill on pine once and you will understand... sometimes the game really sucked!

But I never had time to worry about any of that, because the sun wouldn't stop, and if that sun set before I had a sustainable flame (not just fire, but one which would last) I would not be enjoying the rest of my night.

So again... how far is too far?
I would admit that teaching a child under the age of ten how to cross battery terminals to cause a spark... and of course how every spark can be made into a fire, even if it hurts a great deal... is not a good idea.
Some of the things I did to start fires would cause cause mothers to weep in fear.
But it turns out that with the proper motivation one comes to realize that fire surrounds us, it just hasn't been released yet.

And again, my father was wrong in many ways but the sun was at least in on it!
One way or the other I must produce 700 degrees before the sun went down, I once did it with a push-lawnmower magneto and a handfull of hairspray soaked birds nest but I don't recommend it!

The times I failed I paid the price; but they were fewer than the reader might think. The next day my father would calmly explain why I failed, how my approach had failed me, and how I might save myself a great deal of pain in the future.
But I knew in my heart at least one reason why I failed on those occassions... believe it or not, the sun sometimes speeds up!
I know it because I was there damn it!
And I heard it chuckle as it gave it's last failing light!
Don't believe me?
Fine... maybe it was just in my head.

Just so you don't think my father never "lost" in this game:
One day I was in a very bad mood and didn't feel much like playing. He wasn't paying attention and failed to point at a small shed, and thus declaring it off-limits.

One gallon of varnish mixed with... I don't know how many pints of paint-thinner... lit with a burning stick soaked in furniture polish... well let's just say, "Good luck putting it out old man! I won this game!"

So back to "how far is too far".
Can your children start a fire with a shoe-lace and two pieces of wood (along with a rock if you're lucky) found... well... anywhere?
Perhaps more importantly can you?
* * *

[Txanne]

I admire very few humans in this world.

But in just reading [[you]] I have found a new respect for honesty.

I grew up on the edge of how you had to live and I find old memories coming to the surface.


Bravo----your fan club

annie

[nancy1340]

I don't know if this is fiction or not but it's powerful.
Thanks for a good read and for making me think.

[wax]

nancy- I don't know if this is fiction or not but it's powerful.

Wax- It is absolute truth... well... it is the truth plus my perception of events, we must accept that I am filtering and do not really know the intent of others.

[wax]

OK folks... this is going to be a long one... in fact so long that I will need to splkt it up as before.
I have received encouragement so it is really your fault!

Living with a racist:

Yes dear reader, we are going to go there!
But I promise at least that it will be more painful for me to recall than for you to observe.

You see I have a problem remembering that aspect of my father because I suffer from residual haunting of his anger concerning others to this day. I'll explain later.

There are two beatings in my life which passed over from any acceptable corporal punishment, in any moral much less legal sense, and while I condemn both of them I face the contradiction of understanding one and not the other.

First for the one I can understand if not support: I was very young and had just enough understanding of fire to get in real trouble. I knew that polyester would melt instead of burning in some instances… and so I decided to melt my sister’s doll. I quickly lost control and the entire toy-box went up in flames.
I did the right thing and called for help.
The fact is that the toy-box in question was located beneath the only stairway leading to the second floor of that house… where my sisters were sleeping.
I suspect that my father, after losing more loved ones in his lifetime than any man should… after watching his father’s head being taken off by a broken chain in his youth, after seeing his closest sister die beneath her favorite horse, after having a daughter drown in a bathtub and then watching the only woman he had ever loved waste away from cancer… well I suspect he wasn’t really beating me.
But he did, and while I was too young to remember everything in detail I will never forget the lesson (it took me weeks to recover and we had to move because the school I was in wanted to know why I no longer attended… I couldn’t of course because the police would have been called).
I understand why and how he lost control, but I understood even then that he had indeed lost it.

But the second time was wrong in every way, and while I have struggled to understand why he had the problem he did concerning the issue; I can not give him any credit for his weakness concerning it.

So back to explain why I am still affected by his problem: I say things I do not believe are true without being able to stop myself. There are two examples of this weakness that I wish I could negate. If I am angered or hurt the object of that pain becomes a “whore” or much worse, a “c*nt”. I can not stop myself and I have really tried. The problem of course is that the response is automatic and called from my subconscious. It makes a sick sort of sense in a way because a strong man… a man of resolve as my father was want to say… can not be harmed by anything other than a woman. Therefore anything that hurts me must be female and must have intended to do it! Thus the water pump on my car becomes a “worthless, thankless, whore!”
Makes sense doesn’t it?
Not really of course but we can pretend.
I have never felt weaker or more helpless in my life than hearing those words slip out in front of my children and dear wife. One because the last thing I wish to do is curse my sons with the same weakness that I carry and the other… well… there has never been a woman who deserves to not hear those phrases used against her more than my gentle wife. I have explained my problem to her and she understands but if I could erase every instance of momentary pain brought about by this malady in our relationship I gladly would.
But I can at least sort of understand where those words come from and why.

A much worse problem is my use of racial slurs because I do not believe in the concept of race as most people use it! A black person just walking into my view might produce a complete sentence that offends me to my very core, but I sometimes can not stop myself.

So perhaps it would be best to go back to my father again.
I suspect that until he entered the military my father had never seen or spoken to a human being who wasn’t white. I don’t know it for a fact but Southern Minnesota was not then… and isn’t even now… a Mecca for integration. He didn’t appear to have a huge problem with Mexicans, so maybe Madelia, MN had the same migrant workers then as they do now. My grandmother appeared to have the same deep seated hatred for blacks as he did so maybe it started before his time in the war, but Korea had an impact to be sure.
The younger reader (under forty or so) must remember that integration was not what we grew up with for the generations who went before us. Combining institutional racism with the stresses of battle destroyed my father’s ability to see anything other than what was burned into him concerning ethnic value.
Blacks did not fight along side whites in general in Korea, and whether true or not they were blamed for mistakes in supply and battle planning.

My father believed that his men lost toes to frostbite because the “worthless n*gg*r cowards” (who of course wouldn’t fight like a white man and thus only ran supplies up to the front… a “fact” that was absolutely wrong but could not be erased from him) were afraid to bring up cold weather boots to the line. The beliefs he had concerning this were wrong in every factual way but they were there.
Later, his time in prison simply reinforced his delusions of superiority. Prison populations even today are divided along ethnic and racial lines but in the 70’s one either joined “The Brotherhood” or stood alone waiting to be caught in the middle. And of course once one joins that system everything becomes reinforced again.
Even so… perhaps amazingly… my father was not an Aryan when it came to blacks. He used the words, but at most you could say that he viewed what he knew as blacks as slightly inferior and he often viewed that inferiority in a progressive way. I even saw him face down a few Aryans and declaring that a certain black man would be left alone. And there was one group that my father varied so much that it left his Aryan associates in dismay. At least one of the men my father fought beside in Korea was a Jew. I’m not sure what that man did during the war but it was enough to place my father firmly on “his” side! But then that brings us to the real ethnicity that “earned” my father’s wrath.

[wax]

My sister and I once spent hours huddled under a blanket with a flashlight postulating what my brother Gary had said to my father earlier in the evening. Neither of us heard what he said but he had definitely called Allen Miller something that would not… could not… be tolerated. She was under the obviously mistaken belief (because it did not agree with mine of course, and to this day she makes the same mistake) that he had called my father something like, “White trash” a term that she despises but my father never really did.
I suspected, and still do to this day, that Gary either called my father a “chink” or a “gook”. We both heard our father say, “Don’t ever even think you can call me that again. The next time I will forget you are my son.”
We knew what that meant and so did Gary, the next time he uttered whatever he had said… even if it was alone in the dark and only a whisper… my father would kill him. If he even thought it he was at risk; it was a fact of life which can not be avoided. My father has been dead for many years, but I suspect that even under the threat of torture Gary would not utter what he did that night. Fear of a possible death is one thing, but choosing between that and absolute knowledge that death shall occur is fairly easy!

In giving Gary his “one warning” my father had taken his arm, placed it on the counter in the small kitchen somewhere in Wisconsin that they were standing in, taken out his knife and broken Gary’s arm. He did it slowly and methodically, as if he were splitting a piece of wood with a wedge and the pommel of his knife. As bizarre as it might sound he did it “carefully” so as not to cause “too much” damage!
He did it seemingly without emotion or room for regret, and that is how I knew exactly (even if the particular phrase was open) what Gary had said.
My father had “a hatred” so deep for anyone who even might be of Asian heritage that we children rushed to prevent any possible contact. I’m not kidding on that, if we noticed that the person at the counter of a gas station might be Asian we would beg to be allowed to go in and pay for the gas he was pumping. We had all seen examples of such a “coincidental” meeting and we didn’t want to see another.

I would almost understand if my father had only hated “Asians”; he had experienced the horrors of war and enemies are sometimes hard to lose. And hearing his drunken descriptions of the combat he saw against the “Chinks” and the “Gooks” late at night when he probably thought I was sleeping I can at least comprehend how he couldn’t leave those frozen fields.
The Chinese were not officially there.
They didn’t really exist.
Yet they poured over the hill in waves.
They climbed over the bodies of the seemingly millions who died in shell and machinegun fire before them and kept coming.
And eventually the shells would run out and the machineguns melted down.
And they would still come.
And your barrels would overheat before you shot them all even if you could load clips fast enough… which you couldn’t because they would keep coming.

And there they would be.
Tiny little men looking like twelve year olds and you wouldn’t have a choice anymore because the only thing between you and them was a bayonet.
But their insides were made of glue and your bayonet would stick and all you could do is pick their little bodies up and throw them as far as you could… sometimes it was like bailing hay in your childhood but of course what you threw was not hay and the field never ended and it never would as long as you lived.

And you felt… like a God!
You were happy and strong and they were sad and weak and you had never been more grateful to be alive then at that one moment!
They couldn’t shoot; no bullet could strike you even if the barrel appeared to be pressed to your belly. The grenades they threw were filled with flower and even if one went off feet from you stood nothing was felt.
You couldn’t hear anymore and that was just fine because the man next to you… the man who didn’t like gravy so he gave it to you during chow… he was screaming something and you didn’t know what it was but you didn’t want to know because he was holding a part of his body that no living human should ever see and there was nothing you could do for him if you could hear anyway!
And you hated… and you killed… and you hated yourself because you secretly were elated that the man falling next to you wasn’t you!
And it never really stopped.
Twenty years later it was still going, you just weren’t expected to notice.
You buried your wife and you fed your children and you put gas in your car and right there… right there next to you… is a man screaming because he really wants to keep his spleen inside his body!

Man…. ! Is this getting long or what ?!?

I am sorry dear reader, but it is cathartic for me. Memories you haven’t looked at for a long time are funny that way.

So anyway… this brings us to my second beating. The one I mentioned way back at the beginning of all of this. The one that was wrong in every way.
My father was talking to someone else and he used the term “Chink”.
I wasn’t really thinking and pronounced, “There’s only one race of man dad.”
I don’t know why I said it; I wasn’t really trying to prove a point or anything.
I was in my late teens (perhaps ironically about the same age Gary was when my father broke his arm… or perhaps by design now that I think about it).
I was a very dangerous young man myself by that time; I had a number of real battles under my own belt and had yet to lose a violent confrontation. But then violence is a relative thing, up until that moment I had been a boxer but I was standing next to a killer and making the claim that he might be no better than what he despised!

[wax]

I would like to think that if the event happened today I could have held my own. I have learned a few tricks but… well… I have never been faster than I was at that age and the fact is that there was something supernatural about his speed (I know I am biased but I tell you I have never seen such a thing repeated, even in the movies).
His right arm shot up between my left arm and my body and he wrapped his hand around the back of my head and slammed my skull into the table.
I don’t know what else he might have done to allow that to happen, maybe a leg sweep; perhaps he changed the laws of physics themselves.
But I know this much… the last thing I recall is my head hitting the table.

A long time later a guy named Charlie was attempting to put a tube down my throat to give me some fluids. He laughed when I choked and “welcomed me back to the land of the living”. I wasn’t all that sure I wanted to be alive.

I don’t know exactly what damage was done, but to this day a doctor will surprise me with some new unknown declaration, “Oh, it appears you broke your clavicle at some time.” And I can only respond, “Yea… I’m sure I did.” I suspect that someday a doctor will declare that someone removed my liver, turned it inside out, then replaced one of my lungs with it. I will have no choice but to admit, “Yea, I’m sure he did.”

Charlie claimed that I “put up one hell of a fight” but if I did I can’t really recall.
He also made claims that were outright lies like the fact that I had hurt my father and he barely got the better of me… now we all know that is a joke!
The fact is that my father beat me nearly to death because I believe that the amount of melatonin in someone’s skin has nothing to do with whether they are human or not.
He and I never discussed it again (if you can call what occurred a discussion in any way) but I suspect that he died knowing that I had not changed my mind since some of my closest and dearest friends in my early twenties (and to this day of course) have a harder time getting a sun-burn than I do.

The problem he had of course is that his experience (however Hellish) could not replace my powers of observation. There is one race of man.

Modern society confuses “Race” with “Ethnicity” and it causes all sorts of silliness (and not so silliness).

I don’t like the Chinese government and my father’s fears are deeply placed in my psyche concerning them. But they are not a Race any more than the Scotts are.
They are an ethnic subdivision, nothing more and nothing less.

There is one race of man, Homo Sapiens; unless someone produces an example of Homo Neanderthal or Homo Erectus we are sort of stuck with the fact that speciation does not occur and thus is not a factor in the human race.

Yes, my recent ancestors came from the great frozen north and so I have very blond hair and very blue eyes (something a nut-job who did not have blond hair or blue eyes claimed was a good thing not too long ago).
But every time I am in Belize I wish I had darker skin and darker eyes!
It is a joke which is not funny but would be if it wasn’t so damn sad!

And it goes “both ways” sadly enough!
We are all “half breeds” if not complete mixes. One would think that every black person in America has slavery in their background when the fact is that… well… perhaps we shouldn’t even go there.

Everyone on Earth today has slavery in their background! Whether the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Romans, or early America, everyone… and that includes those descended from the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Romans over generations.

So where does that leave us: In a pretty good spot once you let the old things go.
Our enemy today is radical Islam, not people who look like Osama Bin Laden (in fact the next attack on America is just as likely to be from blond haired, blue eyed Chechnyans as Arabs) and the fact is that just like in olden days we must fight a culture… not a skin color.

Interning American Japanese during WWII is understandable if not completely justified, and the problem isn’t that we asked them to “volunteer” to be segregated but that they were willing to do so at great hardship… and by doing so served our country just as much as our soldiers! There is no reason to beat ourselves over that decision, what we should do is honor that sacrifice because it was made!

I promise that if the Swedes ever attack (and you know they have been planning it!) that I will show my loyalty by allowing myself as an American to be set aside in the struggle against them.

Other than that specific instance, it is time to get over the whole “racial thing” because it means nothing! My wife has a little “Mongolian” in her… her father is from Hungary and fought his way out in 57’.
My father, having died years before I met Kim would have sat outside in his car and refused to enter our house because of the slight slant in her eye… and you know what, if he were alive that is exactly where he would belong.
Segregated… and justifiably so, even if it is self imposed.

[wax]

The mechanics of depression:

It is at this point in my story… this point exactly… when the same thing happens no matter who I am talking to.
Whether sitting around a campfire with a beer in hand or explaining to in-laws why every holiday is spent at their house, at this point a strange silence becomes apparent.

It is an understandable silence from an emotional mechanical viewpoint but it is based on an assumption that is completely wrong.
The listener (or dear reader in your case) has reached a point in which certain conclusions must be made; the conclusion that most make is that I had a terrible, horrid, childhood.
Nothing could be farther from the truth!

And at this point, with that declaration of fact, a rather funny phenomenon takes place.
It is rather hard to explain so perhaps an example is best:
I once had a woman who I didn’t even realize was listening stand up and declare that I was a liar!
She declared that I had had a horrible childhood that can not be denied… even by me!
In fact she pronounced (to no one in particular with tears in her eyes) that I was actually suffering from denial as a mechanism of my suffering and abuse.
There was just no way that I could deny that my entire youth was spent in misery and fear, traumatic suffering and total helplessness and if I tried to pretend such a thing it was simply proof of the damage done to me. I spent years suffering from clinical depression… she claimed… and there is no possible way that I could deny it!

But I do.

And while I sort of understand why that might piss some people off, and I could get a great deal of mileage and sympathy out of pretending it was otherwise, I have never suffered from clinical depression in my life.

I enjoyed my childhood more than the vast majority of humans on Earth today ever could! Sorry but it is true.
There are many things I would change if I could, many losses that I wish had not occurred, many brief moments and actions of myself and others that I would prevent: but I enjoyed my childhood a great deal.

And that fact is something that some (like the woman in question) simply can not comprehend, and in a way it forms a severe threat. Suffering is universal and one of her dogs passed away and if I am not completely traumatized by what I witnessed then how can she even consider feeling pain over that loss?

She (and others like her… you know who you are) can be right in a way while being wrong in another. Suffering is universal… and it is individually incremental.
Smart people fail to realize that everyday and it is sad in a way.
And I suppose in order to truly explain the mechanisms involved, requires another story. I am sorry but anyone still reading has already displayed a certain perseverance that most lack anyway.

When I was eighteen I fell in love with a beautiful Irish girl.
Well… “love” is a dangerous word because suggesting that an 18 year old male could identify it even if it existed is a stretch at best.
Yet you get the idea.

She lived with her mother and father in a very nice house. They were very nice people.
But there was something about them I just didn’t understand at the time.
They had a dog that should have been put to sleep years before I met her.
I am not kidding!
First of all it was one of those ankle-biters that I have always despised; a poodle mix. I didn’t that against them because even at that age I realized this was a personal opinion and I didn’t have a right to force it on others.
But this poor dog had outlived its expected service date: one eye was glazed over with glaucoma and it would go into epileptic seizures if you made a loud noise near it, shaking and drooling until it fell over and wheezed like a horse that had been run hard and put away wet!

But she adored that dog. So did her parents.
I went to her house to grill and got yelled at because I used the “good” hamburger instead of the much cheaper and less lean stuff. The “good” hamburger was for the dog.

The dog died on a Friday and I panicked when I spoke to the girl because she was so upset. I actually avoided her until the following Friday because I was a bit uncomfortable and more than a bit afraid that I would proclaim, “Come on… it is just a damn dog for Pete’s sake!”
I didn’t consider myself an insensitive person; I understood that “Chicks” can get attached to pets you know.

But I didn’t expect what I found when I went over the next Friday hoping to take her out to a flick and… well… you know.
The entire family was in mourning!
Not just her and her mother but her father as well. In fact he was the one that took me out to the little grave and cried as he explained that his daughter really wanted me to be there when they had the “funeral” for the damn thing.
I should have known I was “in deep trouble” because she and I not only never dated again, she never spoke to me again after venting her rage at me for not standing beside her during such a traumatic time in her life. I had avoided her in her hour of “need” and she never wanted to see me again. I didn’t even know what to say back but I was confused because her mother and father stood there supporting her decision and judgment of my obvious failure!

[wax]

I might have driven away confused but of course turned that confusion into rage, “What the… Are they trying to… over a dog?!”
During the most intense moments of her outburst I kept glancing at her mother and father expecting all of them to start laughing and declare, “Gotcha!” but they didn’t.

I really cared for her, so after my anger (mostly based on embarrassment) subsided I was forced to think long and hard about the entire thing. Is it even possible that the grief they displayed was justified? It was a dog right?

I began to realize that it wasn’t, it took awhile but I did finally figure it out. One of the keys was the cards of sympathy displayed on the table they had turned into a shrine for the mutt!
“We are so sorry for your loss, please be strong!” signed Grandma and Grandpa something… Aunts and uncles, cousins and second cousins and believe it or not… church members and a pastor! And then it hit me… and that realization changed me in a real way.
These people had never lost anyone or anything they ever cared for!
Not only did this adult girl still have grandparents… she still had a mother and a father and actually not only knew who her aunts and uncles were but communicated with them!

And because they had never suffered loss in any way, the pain they felt in losing this “little” thing was just as great as mine would be in losing a brother!
What I had done to her was the same as if my brother had died and I told her, but she never came to the funeral or even offered an “I’m sorry to hear that.”

To this day I don’t really agree with pretending a pet is a family member, but I understand what happened.

Suffering is universal… and it is individually incremental.

My losses were incremental as well, a number of my grandparents were dead or lost to me long before my mother died when I was four. And after that event pain became subjective and something that is simply expected even if it wasn’t desired.
And as much as our current atmosphere of political correctness and self-delusion would like us to think that children are sensitive little crystals which must be protected from every painful memory that might later produce ill-affect the truth is the opposite: children are designed by nature to shrug off emotional trauma like a tin roof!

Don’t get me wrong, losing a parent is not an easy thing by any means, but once the fact that life is not fair is established children do not suffer the same problems as adults concerning that fact.
I suffered many intense moments of severe pain… buffered by large periods of ignorance and indifference. And as a child I didn’t dwell on those moments because children are not designed to do that. They are designed by nature to move on; and by perpetual motion continue to stumble forward until they can stand again.

There are two huge mistakes that are often made with children when dealing with loss.

1: Adults feel a need to dwell on an issue until an adult would understand it. Children will never understand as an adult would or could… and that is a good thing. Answer questions when they are asked but understand that a butterfly must be chased sometimes! One example of this mistake is swarming schools with psychologists every time a classmate gets killed. First of all… most children in that school don’t care!
I know that sounds bad and frightens many a psychologist because it assumes a lack of empathy but… well… a lack of empathy is expected in youth!
So little Freddy… a kid I hardly knew and didn’t really like much… hung himself in his garage last night. And one time a volcano blew up and killed everyone in Pompeii… what is the point?
One of the bad side affects of this adult overkill in emotional assistance is the presumption that every child should be informed and care about every other!
If the child is informed and isn’t traumatized the worst thing to do is inform the child that he or she should be!
All we are doing then is implying that there is something wrong by not being devastated by… whatever.

2: Adults rarely talk to children about death correctly… largely because we don’t talk to each other correctly. Death comes for all of us and yet few adults can bring themselves top explain this properly to children, so they use all sorts of double talk which can be very harmful.
Think about what a child is asking… what is the nature of the problem, what does it do?
“Will my mother ever come home?”
The answer of course is an absolute no… “No, she will never come home, but she loved you very much and I will be here for you.”
“Will you die too?”
The answer of course is “Yes I will. We all die. Hopefully I will not die until you are very old but even if I did there will always be someone here with you like (insert name) who will love you as much as I do and you will never be left completely alone.

Again, most adults can not address a child in such a way, but largely because they are afraid to address death themselves. But they must… because if they use the platitudes that adults have developed for each other they risk doing real damage to a child.
Telling another adult that a loved one is “in a better place” is perfectly fine, it is understood to be an attempt at support, to be uplifting. It provides comfort to an adult who believes in heaven and a loving father who will someday sooth all grief.
Telling a child this implies something very different but few adults think about it.

If my mother is in “a better place” it implies that being with me wasn’t what she wanted!

If she has “gone home to Jesus” then she was never at home with me and everything I ever assumed to know was a lie! And since I miss her and she “chose” this f*cker named Jesus instead (who you can’t show me but claim to know his address) then I guess the big joke has always been on my hasn’t it… well hasn’t it?

[wax]

The point of course is that children can not handle issues like faith the way adults can. Sugar is sweet and lemons are sour and my mother would have done everything within her power to stay here with me, children deal with absolutes.

So we are brought back once again full circle to that woman who can not allow a happy childhood concerning the story I have thus far relayed: she relates my tale to herself… or even to me as an adult… without realizing that in the words of Mr. Dylan, “I was much older then; I am younger than that now.”

Take heart dear reader, we are over the hump!
Tom Sawyer was an orphan, but he was far too busy to cry in his soup and sulk in his condition.
Huck Finn was beaten by his father but that doesn’t define his character (it might describe it is some way) but it doesn’t define it.
And I had resources in my childhood that Tom and Huck could never have imagined!
Aside from once instance in my life (which we haven’t discussed yet and I don’t know if we will here) I have never suffered anything that would be described as depression in any way!

Next we enter the realm that only a child who has both freedom and resources can attain: I have even more stories to tell!

[wax]

The art of hooky-bobbin’

(Declaration) Let’s get the important stuff out of the way: (For anyone reading this) what I describe here is behavior which can and will kill you!
I am describing things I did in my youth and I am not suggesting that anything within should ever be duplicated or repeated in any way!
If you are under 18 (and I do not judge by years but capacity meaning not an adult) discuss this post with an adult.
Ask questions and accept guidance, allow any wisdom obtained to limit your actions because there are no second chances in life! My own sons are forbidden from attempting what I describe here because I fully understand what is involved concerning risk in this matter.
What I am describing in these posts is the freedom I had to take such risks: not that they should be taken in any way by any other individual. Again the theme of this thread is “How far is too far”.
I am confident that the readers here understand risk and it is inherent to the community which is formed by these forums.


I drove a tank over a 1974 Gremlin before I was old enough to legally drive the Gremlin. I drove it over, and then backed up. Then I drove it over again!

I had a luxury in my youth which few (even those rich prince types all men secretly wanted to be in our youth) ever came close to having. I had the freedom to risk killing myself and access to men who not only didn’t care if I did… but had all sorts of things I could try with!

I had a brother (who really was a prince in disguise even if the rest of society didn’t know it) who could not only get whatever was required for insane risk but who would have put Leonardo Divinci to shame concerning not only design but the balls to try it!

But we will limit this post to hooky-bobbin’ and we will start with the fact that the term is in dispute. Depending upon where you grow up the term has two meanings:

One: If you are not from the “Great White North” it is likely to mean dragging oneself behind a motorized vehicle through “slush”. I emphasize slush because places like New York City and Chicago wouldn’t understand the concept of snow or ice even if you rubbed their noses in it!
Sorry… can’t describe it, you can’t comprehend.

So in those places they started grabbing onto a passing bus or cab and ducking down for a short ride. (Yawn)… whatever… been there.

It must be admitted that a number of these journeys were impressive, and a number of cab drivers were known to slam on the brakes (if not throw the vehicle in reverse for added fun) and so the practice has merit even if it is a bit weak by all accepted standards.

No… in my youth hooky-bobbin’ was quite specific and standards concerning description were clearly defined.
Skill was required by all involved.

First: One needed real snow on a real road with a real ditch, no blacktop need apply.

Second: One needed a real vehicle: the rules are that it must be a vehicle that one could drive on either Interstate highway 35 or 90. I don’t know who defined that but I suppose it has to do with federal highways and they were chosen to cover both north to south and east to west.
The point being that the vehicle must be able to reach highway speeds.
This eliminated the “wannabes” who tried to use a tractor or a farm truck to claim participation. Sorry… not the same… move along!

Third: One must use a log chain without alteration. Any stiffness or straight connection is outlawed by convention.

Fourth: One must use a hood from a vehicle without alterations other than a hole created for the chain to attach. The chain in question must be attached at only one point on the hood (this one was surprisingly violated often as “wannabes” attempted a three point harness attachment. This would actually increase danger once the affect was obtained!)

Fifth: And this one was always the most misunderstood: One was not hooky bobbin’ unless you left the ground because of air pressure produced by the vehicles speed, jumping over field roads did not qualify!

So here is the deal folks: There are so many essential factors that most could not officially hooky bob even when they tried.

You needed a car or truck with plenty of power.

You needed enough skill to offset the chain which is attached to the hood so that it will slide along in the ditch while the vehicle is driven.

You needed a driver… and I’m not kidding when I say that most failed in this arena in particular.
My brother Rodney was the best (yes I said it you want to fight about it)!

He/she must be skilled enough to maintain a steady speed and keep two tires exactly where they needed to be. Not in the ditch but just before being in the ditch.
Too timid and the riders get pulled up on the road, too aggressive and the vehicle goes in the ditch.
Tension on the chain must be kept at all times by the driver, and any error will not only ruin a good hooky bob but well… Choosing your driver is a life or death decision!

You need a rider (and preferable between two and three)… They must work together and they must understand weight distribution. It is easier with more and it is dangerous no matter how many one has.
One person who makes a mistake can hurt everybody.
That means that any hooky bob team must have a director who is obeyed absolutely without question; if he/she tells you to shift right and let go of your handgrip on the rim you must do it even if you fear being blown off the hood!

An early 70’s Chevy hood can remain airborne at around fifty miles per hour indefinitely with three kids on it as long as the kid in the middle weighs approximately one third of the combined weight of the other two. Believe me when I say that calculation is more scientific than anything Galileo ever produced. I suffered through the failures myself!

And I happened to have perfected the ultimate in hood control (with a bit of help by Rodney’s IQ) in that I could direct my hood, with my brother Gary’s and my sister Tammi’s help from the right side ditch (a universally help hooky bob normal) to the left side ditch, passing over the road without touching by use or a release mechanism which disengaged the offset and allowed transference.

And they say that Alexander the Great had access to philosophers in his youth… hmm… oh really… That is cool I guess! Alex couldn’t hold a candle to hooky bobbin’!

Now back to my original declaration in this post (and more of the same is bound to follow).
We had no supervision and we had no fear. That combination can create fools.
But we had examples of young men and women who suffered “losses” to curb our enthusiasm. No one to my knowledge was ever killed but broken bones are a given in such an endeavor.
We of course (as only a young Tom or Huck can be) were above such mistakes!
Guide your young accordingly.
Tell them that it was a different time, before far too many mistakes were learned from and corrected.
If they have read this take them on a ride behind a snowmobile with a chain and show them how easily one can be harmed.

Life… now… today… is precious.
I make no excuses for the fact that it was not in my youth. Other than this entire thread of course in asking, How Far is Too Far?

[wax]

Now of course a number of adults who read my description of hooky bobbin' will rightfully declare "Shenanigans!"

And it brings us back to the point that absolutely everything I say here is truth... skewed by the memory of youth.

The above description is creative license at best: you can not treat a steel car hood attached to a chain as a kite and keep it in the air, the laws of physics simply do not allow it.
And when you are ten years old and being pulled on said hood it might feel as though you are traveling at 50 miles per hour but I doubt if Rodney actually reached those speeds or maintained them for long.

Again, there are laws involved, and gravity always wins.

We never broke the laws of nature but we sure stretched them!

And a number of us payed the price for that; it is truly amazing that none of us were killed.
And my poor sister Tammi decided she didn't want to play anymore a number of times.
Nature is a cruel mistress and the lightest person on the hood is likely to suffer the most casualties.
I can't count the number of times she was flung off into the horizen, always just missing something that would have caused great harm.
For some reason there was always a pole, a sign, or a post that Tammi barely avoided.
We never decided if that meant that Tammi was somehow blessed or cursed... being flung into the abyss is unlucky but there was always something Rodney could point out to her that would have made things infinately worse.
And of course we could always talk her into trying it one more time, "Come on, I won't go that fast."

Most kids who had any sort of freedom at all learned an important lesson about pulling things with a chain. Yes it is incredible fun but there are two very big downsides involved.

First was the dreaded fact that an object in motion remains in motion until said object hits the rear of the vehicle pulling it like a run away train!
We tried every sort of breaking mechanism we could imagine but they caused problems of thier own.
Ramming a stick in front of a moving sled can be a very stressful endeavor.

The second problem involves centrifical force and the reaction of a pendulum when it's control is broken... in other words, if the chain hits a post or a tree whatever being pulled will be wrapped around the object with excellerated force.

But there was no greater nemesis to the hooky bobber than the dreaded culvert! If the lip or edge of the hood should catch on a culvert as you passed over a field road you were doomed by the Gods of fun to visit the realm of... well... not having anymore fun!

We always knew when a field road was approaching because Tammi acted as a sort of siren screaming, "Look out, look out, look out!"
Of course she had a vested interest in keeping us informed because there was a chance that she would be flung off and not noticed to be missing for miles. So she made alot of noise to keep our attention to the fact that she was still there.
This often backfired on her as Gary and I decided to enjoy a few moments of peace and quiet before signaling to Rodney to turn around and go back for her.
Poor... poor Tammi.

[JAK]

Tammi Flew ?

[wax]

Jak- Tammi Flew ?

Wax- Well... she was flung and remained airborne for at least the amount of time it took gravity to notice and then take action.
Seing your icon; I will admit that it was not like "Rocky" but it was impressive!

[JAK]

Very good. I though there might be bit of a joke there with tamiflu, but it was a bit of a stretch. Nice writing by the way. When I look back on the stuff I did as a kid I don't know how I mad it past 20 myself. I'm glad your clan made it. Cheers. Now kids today seem to have specialized helmets for everyhthing. I wonder what a CSA certified hooky bobbin' helmet might look like.

[wax]

Another thread made me think of "Jim"; I haven't thought of him in awhile.

I am not authorized to give his full name, but there are many out there like him anyway.

My father served his country and came away bitter.
Jim has served his country and simply hasn't come away.

He was one of the funniest kids I ever met, and that is truly saying something. We had the same sense of humor and often we didn't even need to say what we were thinking but just look at each other in a knowing way and we would crack up.
He suffered from some of the same maladies that I did when I met him; too wise for his years and yet young enough to make poor decisions.

And that is why I was simply floored when he announced on his 18th birthday that he was joining the Army.
I spent hours trying to talk him out of it.
It wasn't that I was against serving our country in any way but in my mind at that time it wasn't the "smart" thing to do.
He smoked far more pot than I ever even considered and he didn't like authority, I just couldn't see him making it through basic training much less serving an entire enlistment term.
And in my mind at that time (I am rather sad to say) he wasn't even going for the right reasons!
He wanted to actually serve his country, not just earn money for college or see the world!

We (his so called freinds) mutually decided that he wouldn't last six months in the military and would come back crawling to us. Of course we planned severe punishment for his mistake but we secretly just wanted him back!

I didn't hear directly from him for almost three years, but another associate heard from him often being closer to his mother. It was 1990 and I had just turned twenty-one, Jim asked me to be a groomsman in his wedding.

I traveled to Wisconsin where I met his very pretty bride... who came from a very good family. But I didn't get to talk to Jim too much and it worried me more than a bit.
He had changed while I had not.
He was in shape and wearing a uniform and I was just another American kid with ketchup stains on my shirt and beer on my shoes.
He had become a man while I was somehow something less.
But he didn't appear to be happier for it.
He was somehow detached and he smiled only forcefully the whole time, even to his blushing bride.
Her father was a very powerful judge who also had military ties and it was almost like watching an arranged marriage; one in which formalities are being utilized to meet needs, needs determined by higher powers than the two involved.

Jim was "being made" just like any thug entering the mafia, he was being welcomed into a family that had deeper meaning than just a civil union.

Anyway... that was my impression and others have pointed out that I might not even be close to what was happening in reality. Perhaps I was simply sad at "losing" a closeness with him that I had not had in awhile.

But we met up again in 1993 and it was clear that his training had gone far beyond being a simple soldier.
He came to me and it became obvious that he did so because he understood I was someone he could talk to, someone he could trust. And it was just as obvious that he needed that someone a great deal!
I understood security, I would not continue to ask questions that could not be answered.
I would just sit and drink and allow him to vent.
I take pride in knowing that few could do it, it is a skill I possess which might seem unimportant but to him is required out of desperation.

Jim can never tell his story to anyone.
But he knows that I know enough information about places and events in the world that I can gleen an understanding even if he can not give too many details.
Since 1993 I have learned things that he could not say by the way he was not saying them.

Jim is officially a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Rangers... or something like that. I think his laughter at the question when other former freinds ask it gives away the fact that he can not predict from day to day what his designation will be tomorrow. Sometimes Jim doesn't exist... officially.
But he has existed and he has made an impact in the events of the world.

He rode a gunship through the fog of a Bosnian morning in a location that no American soldier ever officially saw.
He stepped into the streets of Mogadishu knowing two facts: he wasn't going to get his "passengers" out alive and he would not survive the mission.
He was right in only one of those facts, but he was fully prepared for both.

As time went on I saw the damage that his service to me was doing to him. By early 2001 he had become something that even my father couldn't have predicted: a shell somehow.
He would show up at my door from out of nowhere just strung out, and there was no other option but to change any plan I had and spend the next day or two with him.
He would open a bottle and then simply pour every emotion he had out.
I of course was just there to nod... and perhaps cry a bit.

By then Jim had been married and divorced three times, and had fathered eight children... a shocking number of which he had only seen pictures of!

His first lovely wife gave him two beautiful daughters before sending him a letter stating, "I can't do this anymore."
He still loves her but the problem is clear, he went where he was sent and she stayed behind.
When he gets really drunk he sometimes slips into other languages... I have no idea how many he speaks because he claims that there are really only three human dialects anyway and once you know them you can communicate all over the world.

But one of those languages belong to his second wife, he never loved her and she never really loved him.
But they needed each other for a short time in some hot and steamy Philippine nowhere.
The picture of her he carries is worn by mileage but I swear I can see her winking at the camera, a little sprite standing in front of a village hut that has obviously been shredded by weapons of war. There is not a hint of fear in her eyes, it is just life as she knows it.

His third wife is a "bad" memory and he holds her somewhere deeper than I have ever been brave enough to go. There is a real betrayal there I suspect.
Jim really doesn't mind "being used" as long as he is told up front that he is.

He was payed to leave the Army. His skills were no longer required and the military gave him a large chunk of money and a civilian job in Germany.
I suspect he would have slowly faded away there in Germany had not some very stupid people done something very foolish on the morning of 9-11-2001.
They gave Jim a purpose again... and I have absolutely no doubt that a great many of them have regretted that mistake since.

By the evening of 9-11 (our time) Jim was going places he wouldn't officially be in, with millions of dollars that didn't officially exist, he was my vengeance and he knew his job well!

He saw men on horseback take out tanks.
He asked questions that he knew would not... in fact could not be answered... because his intent was to make a point and not to learn anything.
He has skirted the line between right and wrong so many times that he has lost the ability to see it clearly anymore.
It is sometimes sane to do what is insane in order to restore sanity.
But one can't live in a world like that for long before a return to the reality most of us live in becomes impossible.

Jim has no problem with Abu Ghraib... in fact he can no longer comprehend how anyone could imagine having a problem with it.
He doesn't understand complaints over Constitutional rights; one either cedes to leadership or fights back, there is no middle road for him.
In saving humanity he has lost his own.

His greatest fear now has become surviving the battle he is engaged in.
He doesn't know how he could come home, there is nothing left for him to come home to.
He has passed the point where he even needs to re-enlist because his handlers know what he has become.
You can't kick a dog and train him to attack and then send him back into the house to play with your children.

So again where does all of that leave us?
What is the point?

I love Jim more today than I ever have in the past.
But I don't know what I think about him.
I wish that men like him were not required in the world I live in but I understand that they are.
Like my father Jim... well... I don't know.

I have spent days with Jim floating in the bluest water that has ever been imagined off the coast of Belize.
If there is such a thing as justice then someday he will return there with me and we will laugh the rest of our lives away. His liver is likely to give out before mine but that is perfectly fine by me... because he deserves to be allowed to forget for the rest of his life, no matter how short that might be.

And I will never forget something he said, floating on that water with a bottle of rum in his hand, "I have died and gone to heaven... but of course I have died many times before. Sometimes death is a temporary thing, even if we wished it wasn't".
He said it quietly, thoughtfully, almost introspectively. The Stones were wailing, "Paint it Black" in the background and I have never been more at peace!
Dying doesn't frighten Jim, like all men in his position it is living that scares him.

Now I have to get out of here and wipe my damn tears aside instead of weeping at my keyboard like a baby!
It is theraputic in a way, but not constructive.