A Flawed Legacy - 36

Well, I am almost done with "flawed legacies".  I am about to leave one behind, that is for certain, and the purpose of this blog is to offer my children now, a look "into" the person they have known so little about and a life they hardly have had a chance to know at all.

One day, I was there, the next day I was gone, and they were left - almost, on their own.  If there was any way I could change any of that, I would do it in a heartbeat.  I hate the feeling they must have and I am to blame.  However, I was left without a father, literally, from the day I was born and only by the grace of God was I raised in a responsible home with grand parents who loved me as their own.  But, my point will be, I have personally known dozens - if not, hundreds, of fatherless children who have made a better life for themselves.  Something that seemed difficult for me to do and so, what follows will take a closer look at my life through my eyes as they were and are today.

"Nan", our grand mother, took me home to Yale, MI, from Ohio, when I was a little over three years old and used to delight telling others, I stood the whole way, gazing out of the windows.  I guess I wanted to see what I could see.  I don't know of the first time I fell and scratched my knees, but I would bet I ran to "Nan" who would hug me and tell me, ..."everything's going to be OK."

And it wasn't until I saw the neighborhood kids getting new bikes and going to new places that I did not and learning to do whatever I was asked to do, that I began to realize, I was somehow, different.  My mother would come up to the farm and ask how I was doing and sometimes, pull me close so that I got a smell of her perfume, but I soon learned that I was living on a "performance based" schedule as far as she was concerned.  I began to pray that she would marry one of the guys who would tag along on her visits, but that never happened.  I did well in school, very well indeed, but when it came time for others to talk about going to college, I was told there was no money.

Along came World War II and the possibilities of a college education and I jumped at the opportunity, even though I had not completed high school.  I would get my diploma because I passed a GED test and that was all that was required.  During the first week in the service - I think I have mentioned that in an earlier blog, I was left behind and that thought fit perfectly with my experience on the farm.  So, I was gone. No one seemed to care.  Fortunately, the military had to care and so I went where I was scheduled to go, according to their schedule.   It would stay that way for the following seven years.  I did not have to think about where I was going, what I would be doing, who was directing me and all of that - and more, and it all began to sink in.  It was not MY fault if something went wrong, it was THEIR fault.

I would wind up in the Korean War and when I came home, no one seemed to notice, no one asked about where I had been, what I had done, even though if they had asked, I was prepared to go on for hours on just a few of my many experience.  I was in Hawaii four different times, for God's sake. Everyone else would drool a the thought of just going there.  But for me, there were no questions, apparently, no one cared.

I got out of the Air Force to go to school, to get a college degree, go back in and retire when I was forty years old.  That was my plan, but I screwed up.  I wound up living in my mother's apartment and I hated it.  A gal said she loved me and so I got out of that apartment and was married, to a gal who worked for the airlines.  We could fly everywhere she said.  I bought into that as well.  But I was popular in college and soon there were social commitments as I became the President of the student body.  I went alone as she did not want to go.  There were pretty girls everywhere, some even daring to ask about the absence of my wife.  I graduated and took a job I would hate because it offered more money than the jobs I thought I might like.  I quit the one I hated and took one I thought would be great and I failed miserably.  Whose fault?   Hers, of course.  So, I left town, got drunk often, found jobs that I enjoyed and succeeded until it was discovered I drank too much.

One morning, I woke up after a night of drinking, felt bad and so, I went to church.  Guess what.  I found people who loved me and one in particular loved me so much, we went to bed together and she became pregnant, so we hurried on with the wedding plans.  Our first child was born and she was beautiful beyond words.  I was so proud of both her and her mother.  It was - to that point, the greatest moment in my life.  I had a great job, really great prospects and it blew up in our faces.   Not my fault, that time! We moved on with thanks to my sister and with a little effort and a boost from a business associate, we were on our way again.  Another pregnancy, but this one almost aborted as a result of an argument.  She survived, however, and then there was a son.  All the while, my job was working for me - for a change, until something happened that I still do not understand.   However, a friend was standing by with an even better job, this one with a car and the harder I worked, the more success we had.  There was another pregnancy and another son.  Again, life was good.  We even found an apartment where part of our rent was paid by our merely collecting the rents for the other tenants.  Then, there was the case of the missing money and my wife confessed to me, it was her fault. 

What I failed to mention a few lines ago, there was money missing from a neighbor's mail box and it was taken by my wife.  She wound up with a Federal charge and a sentence of ten years in prison, but freed on probation.  Now, with another case of missing money, she was headed for prison, for sure.  I loved her, I did not want her in prison, so I accepted the charge and was tried for grand larceny. Before the trial began, an Assistant AG and I had examined the books of the owners and found a number of discrepancies and referred to them as I was on the witness stand.  The Judge listened and declared that I was innocent.  Of course, that caused some questions in the minds of my employer and they fired me, only I found a new job, a better job with more potential.  Unfortunately, they did not return the payroll deductions taken from employees and the IRS closed that business.

At this point, I no longer believed anyone.  I hated myself for being so stupid on a umber of counts and I suspect that wore on my wife.  She took the children and moved out.  When I lost the job I had, we talked and agreed to get back together, to work hings out and even moved to San Diego to get a new start  life, each vowing there would be no more problems.  That didn't last long.  She was arrested again and when I realized our problems were not all of her fault, I sought help.  It meant leaving our children in "Foster" homes while she was being examined prior to her sentencing and before I knew it, she was back out of prison, had taken the children out of the places they were staying.  As far as I know, they are still with her.

I no longer cared.  I cared for our children but as long as she could get in and out of prison and prison sentences, there was nothing further I could do.  I did my best to provide what the State required me to pay for their support and that was all that I could do.

I know, I was for awhile, re-united with my youngest daughter but I made a mistake she did not care to discuss with me and that ended that.  If you want to know the rest of my story - watch this space in the future

A Flawed Legacy - 23

Other than the unanswered questions as to what Janice doing - out of prison, and the concerns for our children, my life in Tulsa was becoming rather comfortable.  I had established a number of real friendships with members of our church and people I had met, coming and going, to and from work.

The, I received a strange phone call from San Diego, a woman who referred to herself as "Mrs. Mac" and she claimed to know a lot about Janice and the children.  I always suspected that she might be the "other" woman in a relationship that Janice may have established, but she seemed to know each of our children and told me they were doing well - in school.  I was grateful to hear that.  Unfortunately, after she finally asked me for money and I refused to pay her without specific evidence that she knew for a fact, everything she had been telling me, the communications ended.

I made a mistake after that.  Noting an ad for an employment counselor in the newspaper, I responded and was immediately hired, only to discover that this particular agency was not really being honest with applicants; so, I started looking at others.  Answering a "blind" ad, I soon discovered it was placed by my employer, so I was gone.  It did not take me long to find another and we seemed to be doing quite well until the owner suffered a heart attack and his wife closed the agency.  

In the midst of these changes, I had a phone call from Janice asking me to take the boys for the summer. It so happened that I did have a friend with a nice home and two younger boys of her own.  She graciously accepted them and Janice flew them out to Tulsa.  And that was the beginning of more than just confusion, it seemed to be a conspiracy.  Other friends had asked me to "house sit" their home while on vacation and suddenly, I had to arrange for the boys to stay with me.  There had to have been conversations that I knew nothing about, but I was doing the best I could considering that fact.  I had a new offer from an excellent agency which I accepted, but begged off for a couple of days so that I could take the boys to see Dallas, TX, where I met with some people I had known in CA with the idea that they might have plans for me in the future.  It would make more sense as the fees in that area were substantially more than I was earning in Tulsa.

When we got back, the home owners had returned so we had to get another apartment and this time, I found one near to schools as it was my unannounced intention to keep the boys with me.  My new job was paying me much more money, so I felt quite comfortable with the new arrangements.  I had purchased a new car - for me, but it needed some repairs and I would pick it up the next week.  In the meantime, I bought the boys some new school clothes and we caught a ride to church on Sunday,

We all went to Sunday School and as I went to get the boys, I was told that their "Mother" had picked them up and obviously, had left the church area.  I borrowed a car and raced out to our apartment where I discovered, the kitchen window had been broken and the boys' things were gone.  I immediately called my daughter and was met by a tirade on how bad I was and that their Mother had only done what was right to do.  I thought for a minute of heading them off before they got to California, but on the advice of friends, I decided to let them go.

That was the last time I ever saw them, my (now) ex-wife, my sons and my oldest daughter.  Thanks be to God, I have since been re-united with my youngest daughter, but even that relationship has had its problems over the years - more to come on that.

A Flawed Legacy - 18

Now, with four youngsters and a marriage that had so many questions, it was difficult for me to focus on the future.  My former friends, the ones I had literally given all of my energies to to so that we might succeed, were planning on another enterprise, but like before, most of their ideas were figments of their imagination and so I set out to find another opportunity with little or no credentials.  It wasn't easy.

I made a number of attempts.  The most promising - in my mind, was to convince others of the promise I saw in marketing cassette tapes being used to carry messages to the people who needed to know that life was what you make of it, by the energies one will employ to make it possibile.  I found a source for the tape players and recorders - in Europe and they were eager to provide them by the millions if required.  A source for the tapes themselves was much easier.  A former customer in Los Angeles had several contacts in Mexico.  My first prospect was the area's largest ministry where it was my opinion, they could record the sermons and the music played every Sunday for the thousands of listeners they claimed to have and distribute these cassettes by merely maintaining their mail lists.  My contact was eager to get started, but the ministry with a vision had trouble envisioning my proposal.

I had also made contacts within one of the nation's largest manufacturers of washing machines and driers and I thought they were convinced enough for me to fly to their facilities in middle America and demonstrate my proposal.  Place a recorder/player in each of their units with a tape that helped the new buyer take advantage of all of the unit's features.  I thought they had bought the idea until they asked to see proof that I could deliver as many units as I had proposed.

I returned to the West Coast with a belief I could convince my former contacts within the banks we had used to finance our employment business, but would soon discover they had lost a lot of their money when the IRS closed us down.   Unfortunately, my resources dwindled to next to nothing with that turn of events.

So, I hit the streets promoting the sales of a Marketing plan that I had personally used to promote our former business.   Along the way, I ran into a former USAF Colonel who had bought a franchise in a temporary help business and was struggling to get it off the ground.  To make a longer story shorter, we joined forces and were successful enough to help him envision a string of such offices across the Los Angeles basin.  He opened another office with a loan secured on the basis that his Latino wife was a corporate officer and the banks were open to promoting minority owned enterprises.  I stayed in Long Beach to operate that facility while he was using the Orange county office as his headquarters.

It looked as though we might become quite successful when I discovered that without my knowledge, my wife convinced my sister - apparently, she needed to get away from me and they moved to San Clemente and before I knew anything about it, they were gone.

With that, I was literally destroyed.   Finding an apartment downtown I started to develop new friends among the bar operators nearby and began to visit them rather than taking case of business.  Along the way, I began to entertain thoughts of suicide.  I never tried, but I lost my enthusiasm to live and things went downhill until I was fired   I thought I had reached the end of the line.

I called my wife, wondering if there was any possibility that we might get started again if I moved to San Clemente.  For some reason, she agreed.

I found a job immediately, developing a mailing list for a store operator who was importing goods from the Far East.  They were barely making it financially, so I found another job, a night job at a local factory, operating a punch press, and then a third job I could handle, cleaning KFC units in the middle of the night.  It was not easy and made more difficult by the fact I discovered some of the bills my wife had run up when I wasn't there.  The worst case was a store owner who was surprised to learn I was not a Marine Corps pilot who had been shot down in Vietnam.

I thought I had proved my point that I would do anything - legal, to maintain our family, but that we needed a new start.  An old friend had offered me a job in San Diego and with the promise that I was done with my drinking and that she would stop lying about some of the things that had happened in our lives, we decided to move and I had hopes it would all work out, some way.

February 15, 2014

It was May 10, 1975, Saturday, tomorrow would be Mother's Day, only there would not be any cards, any telephone calls, we were not on the same page, regarding either of our lives.  Today, I was on a bus headed for Tulsa, OK, hoping to find answers for my life so that I could get on with it.

Night was falling and we were crossing the desert, in route to Phoenix, AZ.  I had always loved seeing the desert as the sun came up; now, I was enjoying it as the sun was setting.  Beautiful.. peaceful...

I went to sleep, awoke as we were pulling into the bus station.  Time for breakfast.  Afterwards, we were headed towards Flagstaff, such a beautiful day.  I began to realize that I was going to meet with a "man of God" who probably would have forgotten more about the Bible than I had ever learned.  I had an opportunity to review what I did know.  I knew about the "red" letters, the words that Jesus used as He moved about.  I looked for the "red" letters where he started His ministry - Matthew 4:17.

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."  I had learned a lot about His origin, I knew that He was God incarnate, so I could understand most of what He was saying, but - repent?  What did that mean?  I had been attending church for most of my life, but I could not recall ever hearing anyone talk about the need to - repent.   I looked out of the window in the direction the bus was travelling and in the distance I could see a mountain.  I looked at it for a few minutes and decided to ask of the mountain, "God, if you are there, tell me about this word, repent."

I cannot recall how long it took, but soon after I asked that question, I began to think of life on the farm, of the days when I felt like I had been abandoned by my Mother, and the arguments I had overheard between my Mother and my Grandfather concerning the costs of my care and the times I had seen my Mother come to the farm dressed in such fancy clothes, often in the company of men dressed in fancy clothes and the tears I had shed, wondering why my pals all had Fathers except me.  And now I was thinking about my feelings toward my Mother.  She never seemed like a Mother.   I compared her to her younger Sister who always seemed to care for me; often it seemed, out of pity for me.  I began to realize, I had very little love for her as a Mother.  And now in this moment on the bus, I began to realize how wrong I had been as I knew nothing of the life she had to live after the death of my Father. Now, I realized, I had reason to repent and I burst into tears, pleading with God to forgive me.

To my amazement, the day had passed, the sun had set and now it was raining.  As the lightning flashed in the distance, I looked more closely at the window and it seemed, the wind had rolled the water up and it was passing across the window, washing the dirt away   I was fascinated by this experience.

And then I recalled an old song from my distant past that went something like this, ..." your sins have been washed away and you have been made whiter than snow.'  I burst out crying and sobbing, I asked "Can this be true?"  And it was like all of heaven applauded..

Before I noticed that phenomenon of the wind and the water and the window, I had tried to turn on the overhead light so I might read more of my Bible.  It did not work.  Now, an hour or two later, I tried again and now, it worked.  Again the tears flowed.  Something had happened, but what?

I knew the answers would be found in my Bible so I started reading and the more I read, the more eager I was to read even more. It was so exciting.  I would discover familiar passages that now made real sense to me and then discover questions, I had often asked of others, now followed by answers I had longed to hear.

It wasn't long before we pulled into a rest stop in Elk City, OK.  I hurried to the restaurant, not stopping to realize, I had very little money in my pocket.  As I came through the door, the waitress looked at me and said, "My, you look bright and chipper this morning" and I replied, "I think I have been 'born again.'
and she replied, "Well, praise the Lord, sit right down and I'll fix you a breakfast worthy of your new calling."  I didn't order.  She brought me steak and eggs and biscuits and I began to wonder if I had enough to pay her.  "No way," she exclaimed, "the Father has already paid me enough."  Well, I left her a tip and moved on.

All the way into Tulsa, I kept reading and marveling at the experience.  As soon as I got off the bus, I went to a pay phone and called ORU where I hoped to meet my new mentor.  "I'm sorry, but this is Commencement Day and afterwards, he and his wife are leaving on vacation."  "That's OK," I replied, "I think I have been talking with his boss."