Pink Floyd And Time

Some would say that my elementary school years were a waste. Just look at would be the typical final year of elementary school. In the year 1971 The Dayton City Public School System became a pioneer in the new busing laws. A good number school children were yanked out of the neighborhood schools they were accustomed to and carted across town to new schools, teachers, and peer faces. Relationships we had grown comfortable with were shattered over night, and to make matters worse, nearly every child didn't see it coming. Blam! A right to the development years. Tensions were high during my eight grade year, as nervous children from all parts of town were thrown into an awkward mix.

Peeking out from my fallout shelter, I knew I'd have to survive not only home life with a father who was absent half of the time on a booze trip, but also the social situation at a school that was shattered into violent anarchy. The end of school bell rang on the first day and five minutes later a friend of mine lay on the sidewalk bleeding from a knife wound. From the second school day forward, not only were their cops at every door, at the end of the day, but I also had a different path home for each day.

But wait! There's More! Dayton Public Schools slipped a fast one in. There was a complete restructuring of the system that in effect eliminated grades six through eight in favor of a ground breaking Middle School system, complete with a strictly sixth grade curriculum. What a brainstorm that was, putting already awkward aged eighth graders through the same material they had two years before.

So, after my last elementary school year, my parents grabbed up their four children and participated in what was quietly known in wide circles as The Great White flight from the inner city of Dayton, and moved us into suburbia. So, it was another year of trying to fit in a social system that was a far cry from my previous nine years (including Kindergarten). Most of the students in the new to me school had been established in the system their entire lives. In fact, at least half were second and third generation, and quick not to let just anyone in the group. For three years I shifted from one group to another; Jocks, Hoods, and Eggheads. Finally, early in my senior year, I found the group that accepted with genuine open arms and care; The Misfits. We were potheads and everyone knew it, but there was plenty of pot being smoked in the other groups as well, it was just kept quiet.

I was recruited by Drake University's School of Journalism, but didn't even look. I was too busy partying and trying stay near the friends I knew were true. I began dating the girl who would eventually become my first wife during my post high school summer and began making plans to attend Wright State University in the Winter Quarter. That lasted two whole semesters and I never looked back.

I took up a job in a machine shop and other bad habits. Marijuana was already ingrained in my life and my father had unintentionally taught me to drink, but I found out about cocaine, hash, smoking opium, Quaaludes, and LSD pretty much through my own curiosity. A pattern was started before I was twenty. I wouldn't allow myself to do better on the outside, but hiding in all the smoke and haze on the inside was a man who wanted to scream.

I got married at the age of twenty-one to a girl I had dated for three years. I thought it was love, but now that I reflect, it wasn't. I've recently come to grips with the fact that I really never loved her and have known for quite a few years that she didn't love me. I married her because I was supposed to. This was what everyone expected, this was society's rule. She married me to have a husband. I was to be her status symbol, she was to be my validation.

We bought the white picket fence.

While working 50 hours, 60 hours, sometimes more per week, I began to attend a local community college. This was 1980, and we didn't have our first child, Sonya, at this point. But, I still had my drugs and alcohol and I added to my growing resume of recreational substances, amphetamines. Oddly, I hadn't started smoking cigarettes as of yet.

Sonya was born in 1984, five years after our wedding, and four years into my two year Associates Degree program. I was aware by then that I was in a miserable relationship, so classes were scheduled one per quarter mostly to keep me out of the house. I was getting off of work at 5:00 p.m. and classes didn't generally start until 6:30. Living thirty-five miles from there didn't give enough time to get home, shower, eat, and get back, so I showered at work, stayed in town to eat and drink before class.

But, Sonya changed my life at home, as I couldn't wait to see that little bright bundle of joy every chance I got. I sped my degree program up and tested out of classes, got my degree and began to clean my life up. Well, let's just say that I dropped most everything but Marijuana and liquor.

Four miscarriages and five years later, Alex was born. Alex is my personal hero. Born mildly handicapped, he has been a model citizen his entire life. A monument for other young people. He too changed my life as I looked for reasons to stay at home or take my children places that I also wanted to see. The Smokies, the ocean, museums, fishing, and on and on.

Yet, I was still hiding.The most important relationship in my life was a sham, and had been from the start. My wife was accelerating her metamorphosis of the flesh and bones she called her husband. Rarely did she call me by my name and I was far from rarely resenting her. Once, after a horrific one vehicle accident (sober as a rock, but tired from 70 hours of work) that I walked away from, she was my first call. Before I got a chance to say I was okay, she angrily asked how bad the truck was damaged. Right then and there, a cold reality set in. This was all the better our relationship would ever be.

After twenty years of hiding from myself and letting everyone else use me as a doormat, I left. There was a lifting of a great weight. The feeling that, twenty years later, somebody discovered that it really wasn't my DNA at the crime scene.

In 1999, I started to crawl from my fallout shelter and onto the seat of a motorcycle. Running south. and quitting all drugs and heavy drinking, I settled in forty miles away from my family. I rarely saw them and was the last to know that my mom had developed cancer.I began to spend as much time as possible with my family at that point.

I began looking for ways to find independence from working for The Man. I set out to use my education in Industrial Management and experience in effective team building while working for a company that seemed to be in the catbird seat, poised to be a powerhouse in the area.In 2006, special machine building had become a bust in the Dayton area and the company I worked for was struggling to keep its doors open, so I took on an opportunity to work my skills at for a mid-sized company that was rebuilding. There seemed great promise in those walls, that is until this current world economic downturn which caught the rebuilding company right at the kneecaps.

I was laid off, January 6th, 2009.

Whoa! Stop the tape and rewind it a couple of years.

In 2007, I began exploring ways to gain to additional income without having to work outside home at a second job. I had my back pocket dipped into by just about $100,000 dollars in just under ten years by my ex-wife and I was strapped. But the real reason was I wanted to eventually not have to work for anyone but myself.

By February of 2008, I was building an e-commerce site to sell biker leathers. March I was published and continuing to be self taught in Internet Marketing. Traffic has been increasing every month, and since May of 2008, sales are on the rise as well. The store is coming to life and requires more of my time every week.

In October of 2008, I signed on at Squidoo to help promote my store and found something all together surprising. After thirty years, hadn't lost my talent to write. I have also met some very special people here, people that have become family, and one in particular that has taught me that sometimes a moment can be a lifetime.

My layoff is just an accelerated exit from having to work for anyone else. I may catch the sun yet.

Just beyond reach is the end, and I so desperately desire to reach the end in a comfortable frame of mind. Happy knowing that I have made a difference in the lives of people who are searching as I have.

Each day brings yet another growth spurt in the confidence of who I really am. Each day is a step farther away from that burned out husk of who I was ten years ago.

But, each day is a step closer to the final chapter. I don't fear that chapter as of yet, because the journey has become one filled with the wonder of discovery.

Until destiny dips its quill in the ink to begin my final chapter, I will continue to grow and love. It is my quest to leave destiny with an ending chapter on my life that leaves no pages with half scribbled lines.

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Death!

I have witnessed much of it my lifetime. Watched as the Grim Reaper knocked on doors and let himself in. Gory deaths, quiet deaths, and deaths that didn't come easy.

But, no death will have the impact on me like my mother's. I sat with her, as did the rest of my family, and watched as the cancer she fought for seven years finally wrested her final breath. Mother held on for over a week for only one reason; because we wouldn't let go. Now it occurs to me why I didn't cry then. I was ashamed of not letting her find the peace she so well deserved. Instead, I played a part in her last hours being in the state of morphine fog that Hospice kept her in so she would not feel the painful final act of her illness.

I have cried several times since then. I have missed her dearly, but I have also realized that she has never left us. Looking around, I can see my mother in everyone that knew her, even if briefly. This is a lesson I have learned about each and every one of us. We have impact. We rub off. This is a lesson I've tried to pass on to a few people I have met at Squidoo and elsewhere. Maybe this is the difference I'll make.

My mother was no more special than any other mother. Not by a long shot. She was just as spectacular, loving, kind, warm, generous, funny, and strong as the next mother. Nothing stellar really. She was the world's best mother, just like so many millions of others.

Mom, I hope death leaves me as alive and vivid in the world as it has you. I wear my sunglasses at night because of your glow.

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