The "good" old days.

Back in the 70's our family was dirt poor and as a kid I did not know it nor did I care, having fun was all that was on my mind. Days spent riding my bike up and down the streets, in a new neighborhood, we moved into which was full of kids and no crime unless it was one of us kids being mischievous, I was living life to the fullest. I later found out the town we had moved into was a hotbed of suspicious activity but no one was talking. I remember passing the local park on Saturday mornings with my dad and seeing a KKK membership drive in progress and thinking nothing of it. When I was 12 years old I did not care that my own father was mixed up in the Klan or to what extent, I never found out nor did I ever dig too deep. In later years, some of the most intense arguments between my father and I were because he wanted me to become a member of the KKK and I refused. I don't know why but even at an early age I knew something was not right about hating groups of people because of their race or religious affiliations.

I believe my mother and her prayers are the only reasons I never spent a night in jail because had I followed in my dad's footsteps I would either be doing life in prison or dead. I have had men tell me I should not tell others that my dad was a criminal because it could reflect bad on me. I look at it this way, the mere fact I am 49 years old and running free is a miracle in and of itself because I have not always been a man one would call good. I have always had a good heart but have done some really stupid things in my life. I am not going to even call them mistakes because at the time I knew exactly what I was doing and did them anyway. Discussing all of my stupidity in this way would be rather stupid if you know what I mean so I hope to take this in a different direction, one which will touch on some of the better characteristics of my nature.

I have always been the kind of guy who when asked to do something would at least make an attempt even if I failed except when it came to some of the things my father would ask of me. I knew he was a scoundrel and although I loved him I would sometimes refuse his request which would make him furious. He first introduced me drugs at a very early age 13 or 14. First, it was speed and later narcotics in the form of "pain" killers and sedatives. I had been huffing gasoline since the age of 9 or so although, at the time, I had no clue what I was doing all I knew is that it made me feel really lightheaded and out of my mind. I actually drank my first glass of wine and smoked my first cigarette around 10 years old with a neighbor kid. I could never figure out why my parents never knew I was getting high (Huffing Gasoline) because I never really hid it. I later found out that my dad had other things on his mind (like chasing women, attending KKK meetings, work, etc...) and my mom was not well during those days having to deal with my father's antics and some other medical issues.

The "good" old days were not so good and they scarred some of us mentally but we would never admit that because to do such a thing would make us weak and to be weak is to be a victim and no one wants to be a victim, right?

I was brought up attending church on Sunday morning, nights and Wednesday nights as a minimum and going to "revivals" which sometimes lasted for weeks on end. No matter how many sermons I heard it never took hold on me like it should have because I was not only listening to the words being spoken I was watching and learning from the actions of the adults doing the speaking and the ones on the receiving end. I could never correlate what I was seeing with what I was hearing and to this day over 40 years later it's still a mystery to me how people who call themselves Christians or Men of Faith are able to harbor such diametrically opposing value systems and how Love and Hate can occupy the same space at the same time. In my opinion, in order to pull off such a feat, one must have split personalities.