Aside from the fashionable shirt, I was a fairly average boy. I was raised in relative poverty, but we didn’t know we were poor so all was well. Not long after this photo was taken I was diagnosed with a vision problem and started wearing glasses. “Dr. Carl” they would call me.
When I started out I found I was ambidextrous – I could use either hand to write or do detailed work. But in those days “lefties” were frowned upon so it wasn’t long before my right hand became dominate in most activities. The big ears are a family trait as is the dark brown hard and dark brown eyes.
I have a brother and two sisters but unfortunately we are not what I would call close. Many years were lost in the turmoil of dogma brought about with religion after my mom died when I was 19. My kid sister Lois was eventually removed from my father and step-mother’s home and made a ward of the State of California. I was subpoenaed to be in a courtroom with my father at odds over the laws of the land. I wanted no part of it but didn’t think I had a choice. Today I would accept prison as a good alternative to going to court with family members. God knew what He was doing when the scriptures said don’t take family to court.
The state of California placed Lois in my custody. My wife Sharlene and I raised Lois from when she was 15 until she was 18. She helped us learn a lot about raising teenagers while our two children were still babies.
After 10 years of discord, I was finally reunited with my father after my grandmother died. She had left each of my father’s four children enough money we could afford to have a reunion and try to reconcile with my father. Actually I was the one that needed reconciling. And indeed my father made a real effort to meet me in the middle. We had a private talk at the beginning of that time when we agreed to disagree, and to try to establish some relationship again to recover lost years. Given the circumstances we did well.
I will always remember our final time many many years later when he, as an old man, drove from Oregon to Southern California and we spent most of a week together. We went fishing to sea, and then again fishing around a big clear water lake (my dad loved fishing). Much was said between the two of us. My father had become a sad figure in his religious isolation. And for the first time I believe he understood that his 5 year old boy was 50 years old and was an adult. He seems surprised to know my walk with God was in good shape even though we had different dogmas. But it was good. He also expressed many words, as best he could, to let me know he was proud of what I had done with what he had taught me many years earlier about electronics. I believe he finally understood that each of us has a cross to bear, and that family life with children and spouses doesn’t always conform to some fundamentalist religious view of how the world should be. I know it didn’t work for him. But with that visit we restored some sort of a father-son relationship. But I would never again open myself up in vulnerability to him to be hurt. We never enjoyed the union we had when I was a child.
He was a good father. He gave me wonderful gifts of knowledge and discipline. He did the best he could with what he had.
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In my research I have learned that my father’s family was torn apart by religious dogma when he was just a little boy. His aunt helped rescue her sister with the children from a trip to the mountain top to wait for God (my great aunt Fannie told me many details in the freedom of old age and borderline dementia during the few visits I paid her before her passing. She was a wonderful, independent, battle-scarred woman).
I suspect that many of my father’s extreme religious views were in fact inherited, though his brother and sister didn’t seem to posses the same canon. Despite my fervent efforts to discover the facts about my father’s real father there is definitely a man-made blind spot covering up some dark family secret.
At one point in my high school years I stumbled upon information that led me to believe my father’s father was alive in an institution near Placerville, CA. for the mentally insane. Unfortunately my father became enraged with me when I told him about my information, and my respect for him prevented me from following that lead. Today I wish I had investigated further, either to its truth or to let the lead fall apart in fabrication. Either way I would know more about my true heritage. I have specific health ailments and traits whose potential treatment have been hidden in that road block. One day soon the fingers of DNA testing will likely overcome the frivolity of well-meaning human protections. But until that day I am still that 5 year old kindergartner with respect to the true knowledge of my father.
Today with my young wife and five new children in my home I know all too well the need for openness and honesty. But I have also gained a new respect for my step-mother, a person I never really like much when she was alive. Being a step-parent is probably the most challenging task I have ever taken on. Gaining the respect of another man’s children is damn near impossible. Developing love, and some bond of love, is a most prized endeavor if it is achievable. Perhaps I will live long enough to find out, perhaps not. But every day provides me with a new opportunity to try.
I also see that becoming a step parent after your new children are teenagers or young adults poses special problems. It is my firm belief that a person’s trajectory in life is established before they become 12 or 13 years old. After that trying to help them change course is pretty much a lost cause. All you can do is love them along the path they’ve chosen. But that kind of love isn’t always warm and fuzzy. In my own case I am the last of the dying disciplinary dinosaurs. I know many facets of chivalry and the ten commandments still establish areas in my life that are black and white. Mixing these ideas with the generation called “millennials” is like trying to mix water and oil. I have much growing up to do to learn from this new generation.
A step parent is obliged to do what is in the best interest of the child while preserving the relationship, love and bond he has with his spouse. That’s a tough obligation to fulfill. Nonetheless I can see much better now how my father needed a new spouse to live forward. And I have a much more honest view of the role my younger sister and I played in the turmoil of my step-mother’s endeavor. She was a a good woman with a daunting challenge. She did good with what she had.
Yes, it’s been a few years since I was 5 in kindergarten. However some days I still feel like that little 5 year old boy. Other days I feel like a 5 year old with 62 years of experience.