I have decided to start a one year project. Every day I will find something to write at least 10 meaningful and considered paragraphs of opinion about, and share them here. I think tonight, autobiography for groundwork is the subject, and I will do my best to not be annoying about myself.
I am 46 years old, white, married, the father of 3 daughters and a son. I have a brother and sister, and many very dear and important friends. I grew up in a small place in a small state, away from most excitement and hysteria. It was a place of farms and watermen and mechanics, not protestors and high level dignitaries. I grew up on a small truck farm, working with animals and crops, enjoying myself immensely. I do not regret nor revile any part of my childhood, except the Catholic Church, which I am sure will come along in its due time.
I love my Mom, Dad, grandparents, uncles, aunts. I say that without hesitation, though they were all people with flaws, issues and foibles. I just think that made them even more interesting and delightful. I mean, like almost everyone my age who had access to family with a pickup truck, I rode standing in the center of the bench seat, staring out 600 square foot of untempered glass at 60 mph. WE DID NOT WEAR SEATBELTS BECAUSE THE VEHICLE DID NOT COME WITH THEM. I also gleefully rode in the back of those trucks and waved at the cops as they rode behind us. And those cops were friends or family, and people we respected and enjoyed seeing. Many of the males in my family were volunteer fire fighters, there were not women fire fighters then.
It was a different time and a different place. Understand me that I know all too well that that place no longer exists except in memories. It was mostly gone or dying by the time I turned 17 and realized that I was neither athlete enough to be interesting, poor enough to be funded by the government or rich enough to be self funded. I had a couple of options, and I explored them all. I did not want to be a farmer, and I still have no desire for that. I did not like doing construction labor, not because I couldn't or it was beneath me, it was just hard. And I couldn't afford college to be a teacher, nor qualify for any financial aid. (The least attractive person to a college in 1984-5 was a white male whose parents made more than $25,000 and was not over 6 foot tall and a real athlete. I was unattractive on all accounts to the government, save one.)
I was very smart. I don't know what happened, honestly, but I was. I aced tests because my brain was wired to be good at tests. I had read so much and so varied a body of material, I was more informed than most people twice my age in my home town. I equated that with being way smarter than everyone else, and that made me intellectually arrogant. I would find out later that it was unwarranted. But, I took this military qualification test and scored a 99. I was pissed I did not ace it, and accused the recruiter of grading it wrong, because I knew every answer and got them right. I didn't believe him that 99 was the highest you could get. It made no sense there could be a 99, but we couldn't find the gumption to score a 100 where deserved. But, I was a neophyte to statistical curves. However, it was an indicator that I could do any job the military had available, and I got pitched them all. I like the Navy guy the best because he led with promises of money. I liked the Marine least, because he was mostly retarded and a DICK. Weird, how little that has changed.
My beautiful, intelligent and gifted Mother had absolutely no illusions. She forbade me to talk to any of them but the Navy recruiter, because he said I could earn $5000 just for finishing some school. "You are good at school, and he said $5000, so you are going to sign the damn paper after I sign it." I am sure it was much more lovingly expressed, but that is how I remember it. I signed up for the Navy and that was where the government found me most attractive. I would go on to serve for more than 21 years and love it completely at the end. I spent the first 12 years planning to get out, but not planning too well. I got married, had kids and did all those things that a very good job and stable income make possible. You can do it without stability, but remember where I shared I did not want to farm or do construction because it was hard...
I married one of my best friends from high school. She was a beautiful person and soul, and I loved her intensely and with all of me. We had a son and daughter. We tried our very best to give them stability, because I remembered it fondly and she so craved having it as a child. We did one stint out of Virginia, 3 years of me instructing in Idaho. The only advise I can give about Idaho is to not go there. Nothing is beautiful enough to make the trade off worthwhile. Just trust me on that.
I retired after watching Click, a forgettable Adam Sandler movie for 99% of the population. For me it was a horrible autobiography of watching me miss all of my family's life. I went to work the next day and filed my retirement paperwork. I have never looked back, other than to wonder if some of the pain and tragedy that would follow, could have been avoided.
I found a job in maintenance at a pharmaceutical plant, and have had the most wonderful civilian job I could have ever imagined. We have a beautiful home in a beautiful part of the country, that is very close to the small place I grew up in. I am glad we managed to give the kids some experience with that before they were done with school. They both were gifted students and eventually became teachers. Their Mama would have been very proud of that, and may well be where she is now. She died unexpectedly in 2012 after a courageous battle with cancer. Cancer did not kill her. I am sure we will get to that at some point. I loved her, and nothing will change that. It is an inexhaustible well, love is, and I am so glad to have found that out.
I married my soulmate in 2013, I did not know what my life and soul could become, but she has helped me to find out. She brings out all the best in me, and gladly puts up with the worst. She will most definitely figure prominently throughout this project. I love her, and just pray God gifts us with long lives to fully understand what happiness is. He has been so good to us so far. She creates happiness in my home I have not known. We knew happiness here before without Katrina, but, not in the way and breadth and depth I fell it now. She also brought my other two daughters to the equation, both beautiful souls and lovely additions to my life. We focus on happiness, because you can fill your bucket with whatever you wish, and that is what we wish. I can promise that will be much of what I focus upon.
I am a Christian, a believer in Jesus Christ, the resurrected Lord, who will return and judge us all. I believe that with all of me, and that will figure prominently throughout this project. If you do not believe as I do, it does not threaten me or my validity. I will not apologize for what I believe, but I will do my best to never denigrate what someone else believes. Not because they might possibly be right, but because it is not how Jesus taught us to behave. He taught us to love, not condone. Love does not require allowances, it just requires love. That might end up being what most of this project is about.
I have always considered myself a writer. I don't know that I am an author, or someone that would earn a living from the written word. I just write to make my own sense of things. It is also how I remember. If I write it, I will almost always get it right later. I have a fantastic memory because I almost always have a pen and paper with me. I make lists constantly. It is me, and it is my method.
To that regard, I also love the lay of language, properly secured to a page, in its correct order and way. There is something very emotional to me in very good writing. The Sound and the Fury, Lonesome Dove, Blue Highways, Grapes of Wrath, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Look Homeward Angel, The Great Gatsby, and The Prince of Tides, all these have informed and influenced my life in ways that permeate my existence. There are hundreds of others that I have read that have influenced me. I spent 21 years in the Navy, with little to do underway except work and read. And I am a voracious, intense and amazingly fast reader. We would buy the kids the Harry Potter books when they went on sale at midnight, and I would have it finished by the time they awoke the next morning, so that they could read them. (Yes, we read all the books we allowed the children to have, before we let them have them, until they reached high school.)
So, when I say I devoured the library of the aircraft carriers I was stationed aboard, I mean that. I have little tolerance for sports, media or film biography, so I am shockingly uninformed about Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Marilyn Monroe or Hemingway. I have, however, read most biographies printed of the Roosevelts, Teddy and Franklin, Truman, Lincoln, most of the Founding Fathers, George Rogers Clark (the greatest American military conqueror you have never heard of), Ford, Edison, Tesla (immensely interesting), Whitney, McArthur (Arthur and Douglas), and just about everyone you know from the Civil War. I have read the military accounts of the both oceanic theaters of WWII. I have a working knowledge of the Spanish American War and WWI. I deplore the terrible writing that is characteristic of most Vietnam era non-fiction, just a regrettable period of lazy, formless, op-ed oriented dreg that sold one political viewpoint or the other. The most regrettable thing about Martin Luther King Jr's remarkable life was the poor quality of the biographers available anywhere in America to write his story contemporaneously.
I am also opinionated, extremely confident in the veracity of my own viewpoint, otherwise why would I have it? That does not mean that I am infallible, or have any delusions as to the superiority of my knowledge to anyone else's. It just means that I am not shy about finding out if you are able to support, defend and disclaim your competing opinion at the level I disclaim mine. If not, I work at not rubbing it in or being insufferable. If you are superior in your abilities, I generally learn something useful and enjoy the process immensely. In other words, I quite enjoy losing the argument, as long as I feel I gave it my best effort. There is no shame in learning, ever.
All this being prelude to the beginning of this project by way of biography. You will find that I utilize that background and groundwork. I will try to do it with as much interest as possible. But, the challenge will be finding one thing each day to put at least 10 paragraphs of thought and meaning to. Not because I believe I have the ability to edify the world based on my pronouncements, but because I think some of what I may share could be worthwhile. And I think God gave me a brain bucket that is pretty full for a reason, and that I have not been using it, or the love of language He gave me very usefully for years.
So, if you are reading this, I have invited you to join because I love you, I value your opinion, I benefit from your experience, I know you have my best interest foremost, and I will enjoy thoroughly when you point out my errors, my hubris and my foibles. I welcome any and all corrections, I offer all opinion without malice, and I will accept feedback and criticism with an open heart. I may choose not to utilize it to its intended meaning, but I will be very grateful to have received it.
So, tonight, the lesson is to start, however strained it may feel. And this has felt disjointed and strained. But, we are on our way, and that is the end result. I don't know what tomorrow will hold, and I will try very hard to not repeat often. But my life involves happiness and fulfillment and love, and I feel like those will often be the subject of this project. If that is not what you are up for, I apologize and will not be offended if you fall away from the following. If you are up for it, and can get through the occasional not so rosy days, I hope it will find its way to giving you something for your time investment.
And, I will close as I will every night. I love you all. If you need to hear that, call me, 919-820-2833. Whatever time, it does not matter. I will gladly, unashamedly tell you those words and mean them just as completely as I humanly can. If reading it is enough, that is fine too. But, I love you all. You should know it every day, because I feel it every day. And having done my start I return you to your regularly scheduled pursuits.
God Bless! I love you all!
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