CHAPTER TWO

It is just a little after 8 AM. This is an early start for me. We are having our house painted and the painters were here at seven. I didn't get to bed until almost 1 AM. The commotion got me up before I was ready; but, I feel like I had enough sleep. I haven't done all my chores yet, so there will be interruptions.

I didn't think I would ever write about my life, as I did Monday. My daughter, Naomi, urged me to write more about what I actually experienced. She said I had a lot of good stories. It seemed that I couldn't write about other aspects of my life without beginning at the beginning.

Of course, there is much more to the beginning than my early academic career. One of the reasons I was reluctant to broach the subject, is that, one needs to forgive and forget. We need to learn to live in the moment. However, the past must become the past. If one has strong feelings about it, it isn't the past. It is still lurking below our consciousness affecting how we think and feel. I realized when I was writing about it, that I still had tears for that forlorn child.

I don't think my life was any more difficult than anybody else's. We all come in with the things we need to learn. I still have more to learn.

I have long since forgiven the priest, nuns, teachers and my parents. I appreciate how they were all trapped in their roles and were victims, as much as I was. When I cry, I cry for all the children who are caught in a milieu of abuse and misunderstanding.

I [we] need to forgive the world. We are all trapped in a world of pain. We need to see all, as victims of the craziness. When we can change our perception, and acknowledge the love, the craziness will melt away.

We don't want to be crazy anymore. We live in paradise. Let us stop pooping in our nest.

My parents were only nineteen and seventeen when they got married. My grandmother, taught my mother, the rhythm method backwards, and they had their first four children without readiness. My Mother was Catholic. My Father had no stated religion. My Father suffered from the Norwegian disease {difficulty expressing feelings or opinions} but, I think he resented his kids being brought up Catholic. We went to parochial school as charity cases, my Father would never have paid for it.

My Mother was the oldest of nine children. I had an aunt and [I think] an uncle in high school when I went. I think my uncle was a senior when I was a freshman. I remember my aunt more clearly.

My Mother's family were intellectual achievers. My Grandfather was on the school board and the principal told him, my Mother had the highest I.Q. in the history of the school. She graduated, the salutatorian, at fifteen. Her sister graduate, the valedictorian, at fourteen. And achieving, at school, was as easy as breathing; it was not something they struggled at. Another one of my aunts wrote the school anthem that is still sung today.

You would think that my failure at school would have made quite a ripple in a family like this. We were very close to my Mother's family, they lived only two blocks away. We were over there all the time. It was one big family. I don't think anybody in my family questioned my intelligence. My great aunt was the city librarian and I spent much of my spare time there. I read constantly. When I was in high school, I averaged one book a day. Of course I was reading instead of paying attention in class. So, why didn't anybody talk to me?

I was ashamed and hid my failure as much as I could. I would sign my own report card, using my Father's signature, I figured they would recognize the forgery if I used my Mother's. Nobody ever said, “Where is your report card Gregg?” Did they just write me off? That is not a happy thought. I can't believe I was that difficult to deal with; but maybe. I think my parents were just overwhelmed.

At some point I started skipping school {I wrote my own excuses too}. When I was in seventh or eighth grade I skipped school and was playing in a swamp near our house. Some nosy person must have called the police. A police car stopped on the road, and one officer got out and gave chase, why the car cut off my escape route. They took me down to the station. They were very nice and treated me with respect. I spent the afternoon in the chief of police's office. When it was time for school to be out, he said, “I am going to let you go home and I won't tell anybody you skipped school if you promise to tell your Mother.” Wow, I thought, I dodged a bullet. I walked home thinking I was free and clear.

When I got home, my mother looked at me expectantly. It soon came out. Neither the chief or myself were planning to keep the bargain. He called, when I was on my way home.

I have to get busy. I still have some chores to do.

Let us keep our light shining and look upon a forgiven world. It is all just a story.

Love and Peace, Gregg