Unlike many children, I did not go to Kindergarten. At that time, Kindergarten was not part of the public school system. Many Kindergartens were privatized, mostly by churches, who would infuse the education with some Sunday School-type lessons. Mind you, when I was five years old, I didn't really need Kindergarten. I already knew how to read and write. So, before I started the official first grade, I wound up going to Head Start the summer before.
I was not aware it was Head Start. I was just told I was going to school. For about two months during the summer of 1970, I lived with my Grandma Bend in Fort Sumner Monday through Friday. On the weekends, I would be with the rest of my family in Portales, where my parents were pursuing their Master's degrees. My grandmother lived one block from the school.
The first day of school, my aunt Cind decided to take a picture of me going to school. I started walking and waved at the camera. She took the picture and went into the house. I kept walking. Along the way, I wondered if I would be in first grade or third grade. (I was not aware that second was in-between). When I got to the end of the block before crossing the street, I realized that I had no idea where I was supposed to go at the school. I started freaking out and crying and walked back to my grandmother's house. Cind saw me and told me I wasn't supposed to leave yet. She just did that for the picture. They were going to walk me there, but it wasn't time. A few minutes later, my grandmother and Cind walked me to the school and introduced me to my teachers. There were already a lot of kids there on the playground equipment. I felt a lot better.
I learned something very important on my first day of school. I found out that I was NOT supposed to drop my pants to the floor whenever I have to pee. This was something my parents never told me I was doing wrong. I guess they hadn't gone into the bathroom with me in a couple of years. Fortunately, I discovered this by watching the other boys go to the bathroom. Otherwise, I would have looked like a real loser that first day.
The most surprising thing to me my first day was that I discovered that most of the other students did not know how to read. I wondered why that was (especially since I just figured out how to urinate properly). And I should add that I don't remember a lot of effort from the teachers on getting them to learn how to read. I guess they focused on that issue in the first grade.
The days consisted of us playing games and the teachers reading stories to us. We would then act out the stories. Once, the story was "Sleeping Beauty." It was a book version of the Disney movie with pictures from the film. When we acted it out, I got to play the prince. I remembered how the story went chronologically and knew when I was supposed to come and cut through the thorns. But when we got to that part, I was told I wasn't supposed to do that yet. When I looked at the book later, I determined that I was right.
This was also my first experience with school cafeteria food. They almost never had anything that I liked. I often did not eat most of the food. The worst was spinach. It was all wet and slimy. I wasn't going to put that stuff in my mouth. I remember one of the boys knew to pour vinegar on the spinach and eat it that way. I did not think that was going to make it taste any better.
All in all, this version of school was mostly fun. But looking back, it didn't really seem to prepare me for what the first grade was going to offer. Fortunately, I would find out that I didn't need much preparation.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
The drop that probably started my path toward losing
Going back through my childhood memories, I have to consider the first time I looked like a loser in front of other people. It would have to be when I was five years old. I had been asked to be the ring bearer at a wedding. (Actually, my mother was asked if I could be the ring bearer. No one asked me.)
For the rehearsal, my mother dressed me up in this fancy little suit and took me to the local Methodist Church. (Years later, I would wonder why I was forced to wear the suit when no one else had to wear their wedding clothes for the rehearsal.) I was given a pillow and told that no matter what, I was not to drop that pillow. I had no idea why the pillow was so important, but I didn't want to goof it up. I was instructed to walk up the aisle at the church and walk back. That was basically it. I had no idea what was going on.
The next night, we returned to the church. Everything was different. All the other partipcants were dressed fancy and everybody was running back and forth. The church was filled with people. I was told when to walk down the aisle with the pillow. (I should point out that I do not remember there being rings on the pillow.) I walked up the steps on the pulpit to the preacher. He turned me around and pointed for me to go down the steps and back down the aisle. I started down the steps, and... I dropped the pillow. I watched it tumble down the steps, virtually in slow motion. All the thoughts that went through my mind. I thought I was going to get beaten. I knew that I had to pick up that pillow and walk back down the aisle.
I don't remember anybody in the audience reacting, like laughter or gasping or anything. I don't remember what happened after I got to the back of the church. I don't know if I cried or begged my mother for forgiveness or anything. I just know that I did the worst possible thing by dropping the pillow. I felt like such a loser.
A few years later, I was asked to be a groom's attendant for the wedding of that bride's sister. While this was at a different church, I wonder how many people in the crowd recognized me as the boy who dropped the pillow at the last wedding. I do know that the photos of the wedding show me walking down the aisle with my head hung down. My brother wound up being the ringbearer at that wedding. He did not drop the pillow.
For the rehearsal, my mother dressed me up in this fancy little suit and took me to the local Methodist Church. (Years later, I would wonder why I was forced to wear the suit when no one else had to wear their wedding clothes for the rehearsal.) I was given a pillow and told that no matter what, I was not to drop that pillow. I had no idea why the pillow was so important, but I didn't want to goof it up. I was instructed to walk up the aisle at the church and walk back. That was basically it. I had no idea what was going on.
The next night, we returned to the church. Everything was different. All the other partipcants were dressed fancy and everybody was running back and forth. The church was filled with people. I was told when to walk down the aisle with the pillow. (I should point out that I do not remember there being rings on the pillow.) I walked up the steps on the pulpit to the preacher. He turned me around and pointed for me to go down the steps and back down the aisle. I started down the steps, and... I dropped the pillow. I watched it tumble down the steps, virtually in slow motion. All the thoughts that went through my mind. I thought I was going to get beaten. I knew that I had to pick up that pillow and walk back down the aisle.
I don't remember anybody in the audience reacting, like laughter or gasping or anything. I don't remember what happened after I got to the back of the church. I don't know if I cried or begged my mother for forgiveness or anything. I just know that I did the worst possible thing by dropping the pillow. I felt like such a loser.
A few years later, I was asked to be a groom's attendant for the wedding of that bride's sister. While this was at a different church, I wonder how many people in the crowd recognized me as the boy who dropped the pillow at the last wedding. I do know that the photos of the wedding show me walking down the aisle with my head hung down. My brother wound up being the ringbearer at that wedding. He did not drop the pillow.
It's Video Friday!
If you liked hearing about life in Loserville, here's some more information about living in Artesia, NM.
Life just really wasn't what it seemed to be.
Life just really wasn't what it seemed to be.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Living in Loserville
I feel that one of the main contributing factors to being forced to live life as a loser has to do with where my parents decided to make their living. I grew up in Artesia, NM. It's a small town in the southeastern part of the state. At any given time, the population would fluctuate between 9,500 and 12,000 people. When I lived in Denver, I used to work at a concert venue that could seat 18,000 people. It's funny to think about the entire population of my hometown all together in one place with plenty of elbow room.
Now, there were advantages to growing up in a small town. One was that you felt safer as a youth. There's not any traffic and you can get to where you want to in about five minutes, even on a bicycle. Even though I will be making disparaging remarks about the local educational system in future posts, someone of average intelligence can get a decent education there (or at least, when I went to school there).
I guess the number one disadvantage to living in a small town is that, even though you may have felt safer, youth was despised there. Similar to the experience I had in my family, if you were young and unmarried, you couldn't get any respect. If you were a teenager, you had two choices for fun: You could either sit at home and watch TV, or go out and get into trouble. In fact, the police force would chase down any teenager in a car out after 10pm.
Growing up in a small town can also stunt your ambitions. I never felt the desire to try to go to an Ivy League school, or Stanford or someplace else that was prestigious. I never thought about the possibility of coming up with a great idea that would result in me making millions of dollars. For a period in my life, I thought I was destined to live in small towns forever.
Even though youth was despised in the town, the majority of Artesia's culture came from the public school system. It was the school bands, choirs and drama clubs that would perform at the local auditorium on a regular basis. For the most part, the only other performances we got were from the Community Concert circuit and traveling church shows. It wasn't until my junior year of high school that a local arts group got organized enough to put on their own community theatre productions.
Now, let's say you wanted to try your hand at being a rock musician. If you were in a band that wrote and performed its own material, there was nowhere to play in town. The bars rarely had live music, and if they did, they were cover bands. And there was nowhere else to play in any town within a 200-mile radius. It was pointless to try to start a band. There was no possible way anyone could pay attention.
When I moved to a larger city as an adult, I was astonished at how many people in the local music scene were teenagers. And they were able to perform on a regular basis and had large followings. I felt so cheated. Trying to form a band as an adult is much more complicated because your musical tastes become so much more diverse by then that it's hard to find other people starting out who want to be on the same page as you.
This is not to completely disrespect the importance of small towns. A small town is a great place to spend the early part of your childhood. However, once you turn 12, it just isn't enough.
Now, there were advantages to growing up in a small town. One was that you felt safer as a youth. There's not any traffic and you can get to where you want to in about five minutes, even on a bicycle. Even though I will be making disparaging remarks about the local educational system in future posts, someone of average intelligence can get a decent education there (or at least, when I went to school there).
I guess the number one disadvantage to living in a small town is that, even though you may have felt safer, youth was despised there. Similar to the experience I had in my family, if you were young and unmarried, you couldn't get any respect. If you were a teenager, you had two choices for fun: You could either sit at home and watch TV, or go out and get into trouble. In fact, the police force would chase down any teenager in a car out after 10pm.
Growing up in a small town can also stunt your ambitions. I never felt the desire to try to go to an Ivy League school, or Stanford or someplace else that was prestigious. I never thought about the possibility of coming up with a great idea that would result in me making millions of dollars. For a period in my life, I thought I was destined to live in small towns forever.
Even though youth was despised in the town, the majority of Artesia's culture came from the public school system. It was the school bands, choirs and drama clubs that would perform at the local auditorium on a regular basis. For the most part, the only other performances we got were from the Community Concert circuit and traveling church shows. It wasn't until my junior year of high school that a local arts group got organized enough to put on their own community theatre productions.
Now, let's say you wanted to try your hand at being a rock musician. If you were in a band that wrote and performed its own material, there was nowhere to play in town. The bars rarely had live music, and if they did, they were cover bands. And there was nowhere else to play in any town within a 200-mile radius. It was pointless to try to start a band. There was no possible way anyone could pay attention.
When I moved to a larger city as an adult, I was astonished at how many people in the local music scene were teenagers. And they were able to perform on a regular basis and had large followings. I felt so cheated. Trying to form a band as an adult is much more complicated because your musical tastes become so much more diverse by then that it's hard to find other people starting out who want to be on the same page as you.
This is not to completely disrespect the importance of small towns. A small town is a great place to spend the early part of your childhood. However, once you turn 12, it just isn't enough.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Focusing on my brother
The one thing that probably had the greatest impact on my life is my brother Loyd. For the first 2 1/2 years of my life, I was an only child, but I don't recall any of that. For as long as I can remember, I have had a younger brother. So this means I do not remember my mother being pregnant. I do not remember her and Dad going to the hospital. I do not remember them bringing this little baby home.
What you need to know about my brother and me is that we are similar in many ways, but different in so many more. One of our similarities is that we are both on the autism spectrum. I have Asperger Syndrome. He has ADHD. We were both adults before we found out about these conditions. Another is that we are both very intelligent individuals. And while we looked very different as children, the facial resemblance we now share with each other is pretty remarkable. People can definitely tell now that we are brothers. As for the differences, we can actually start at the beginning.
Before I was born, my parents were warned by relatives that the first night the baby is brought home from the hospital is the worst. They were told that I was going to cry all night long and they wouldn't be able to sooth me. Well, they brought me home and I slept through the night. They were told that they would have to get up and feed me in the middle of the night every single night. That also turned out not to be the case. I basically slept every night. Mom and Dad found themselves well-rested for being new parents.
2 1/2 years later, my brother was born. They thought they had this "parenting" thing down. They soon found out how wrong they were. Loyd SCREAMED all night long after coming home from the hospital. They knew then and there what everyone had warned them about before I was born. According to Mom and Dad, he spent a lot of time screaming. However, once he was able to talk, he stopped screaming.
(UPDATE: When I originally posted this article, it had just these four paragraphs above. When I reviewed it for re-posting, I realized that I did not include everything I had wanted to write on this topic. What follows is what I intended to include and what I thought I had included, but must have posted without properly reviewing it.)
Loyd had a typical sibling rivalry with me. It likely intensified from him constantly having to hear "Why can't you be more like Fayd?" ever since coming home from the hospital. He HATED being the youngest. As he put it, he felt like I was always leaving him behind. I would go play with children my age and he would be left behind. I went to school and he was left behind. As a result, he took it upon himself to try to outshine me in any given social setting, whether we were with family or friends.
For the most part, Loyd and I tried to be on our best behavior when there were other people around. However, Mom says there was one time when Grandma and Granddad Ogolon, Grandma Bend, Aunt Cind and good friends of my parents were at the house and something happened that made Loyd and me break out into a fight in the living room while everyone else was in the dining room. I actually don't remember the incident, but Aunt Cind recalled it very well, to the point that she could identify all of the guests who were there to witness it.
This rivalry also led to us tearing up our bathroom. At the time, we had a problem with running out of hot water in the morning, so we were constantly trying to get up earlier than the other to take a shower. This particular day, it all came to a head and we were trying to push and pull each other out of the bathroom. I grabbed a hold of the towel rack and Loyd started pulling on me. The towel rack came out of the wall! I figured I'd done enough damage already, so I just gave up and let Loyd take the bathroom. Mom told Dad that day she was going to buy a larger hot water heater and if he wasn't going to install it, she was going to hire someone to put it in for us. Dad wound up installing it himself, and we never had hot water problems after that.
One Easter, we were at a location in New Mexico referred to as "The Breaks" with my father's side of the family. Loyd was walking with cousin Grid and his much younger brother Mad was having trouble keeping up. Loyd suggested to Grid that they just leave Mad behind. Grid said, "No, that's my brother. You don't do that to your brother." Loyd was stunned by this. I certainly NEVER gave him that kind of consideration. He felt like this was how brothers were supposed to treat each other and I was just giving him the short end of the stick all the time.
(But I want to be clear about something: There was an 8-year age difference between Grid and Mad. Grid probably felt more like he had to protect his brother. In addition, Grid was three years younger than his older brother Wend, who likely left him behind all the time when they were growing up. This probably hurt Grid and he made a conscious decision to never do that to Mad.)
I always wondered how different my life would have been if Loyd had never been born and I remained an only child. For starters, I would probably have no social skills whatsoever. I would have stayed inside my shell and it would have taken my parents years to figure out something was wrong with me. But there's no getting around it: My parents were bound and determined to have a full family.
Today, Loyd and I have a comfortable and friendly relationship, even though we don't get to see each other that much. He's apologized for the things he's done to me and I've apologized to him. And now that I'm getting older, he doesn't seem to mind being the youngest.
(I've shared the video below in a separate post. Because it's on the same subject and because I've added so much new material to this article anyway, I'm including it here as well.)
What you need to know about my brother and me is that we are similar in many ways, but different in so many more. One of our similarities is that we are both on the autism spectrum. I have Asperger Syndrome. He has ADHD. We were both adults before we found out about these conditions. Another is that we are both very intelligent individuals. And while we looked very different as children, the facial resemblance we now share with each other is pretty remarkable. People can definitely tell now that we are brothers. As for the differences, we can actually start at the beginning.
Before I was born, my parents were warned by relatives that the first night the baby is brought home from the hospital is the worst. They were told that I was going to cry all night long and they wouldn't be able to sooth me. Well, they brought me home and I slept through the night. They were told that they would have to get up and feed me in the middle of the night every single night. That also turned out not to be the case. I basically slept every night. Mom and Dad found themselves well-rested for being new parents.
2 1/2 years later, my brother was born. They thought they had this "parenting" thing down. They soon found out how wrong they were. Loyd SCREAMED all night long after coming home from the hospital. They knew then and there what everyone had warned them about before I was born. According to Mom and Dad, he spent a lot of time screaming. However, once he was able to talk, he stopped screaming.
(UPDATE: When I originally posted this article, it had just these four paragraphs above. When I reviewed it for re-posting, I realized that I did not include everything I had wanted to write on this topic. What follows is what I intended to include and what I thought I had included, but must have posted without properly reviewing it.)
Loyd had a typical sibling rivalry with me. It likely intensified from him constantly having to hear "Why can't you be more like Fayd?" ever since coming home from the hospital. He HATED being the youngest. As he put it, he felt like I was always leaving him behind. I would go play with children my age and he would be left behind. I went to school and he was left behind. As a result, he took it upon himself to try to outshine me in any given social setting, whether we were with family or friends.
For the most part, Loyd and I tried to be on our best behavior when there were other people around. However, Mom says there was one time when Grandma and Granddad Ogolon, Grandma Bend, Aunt Cind and good friends of my parents were at the house and something happened that made Loyd and me break out into a fight in the living room while everyone else was in the dining room. I actually don't remember the incident, but Aunt Cind recalled it very well, to the point that she could identify all of the guests who were there to witness it.
This rivalry also led to us tearing up our bathroom. At the time, we had a problem with running out of hot water in the morning, so we were constantly trying to get up earlier than the other to take a shower. This particular day, it all came to a head and we were trying to push and pull each other out of the bathroom. I grabbed a hold of the towel rack and Loyd started pulling on me. The towel rack came out of the wall! I figured I'd done enough damage already, so I just gave up and let Loyd take the bathroom. Mom told Dad that day she was going to buy a larger hot water heater and if he wasn't going to install it, she was going to hire someone to put it in for us. Dad wound up installing it himself, and we never had hot water problems after that.
One Easter, we were at a location in New Mexico referred to as "The Breaks" with my father's side of the family. Loyd was walking with cousin Grid and his much younger brother Mad was having trouble keeping up. Loyd suggested to Grid that they just leave Mad behind. Grid said, "No, that's my brother. You don't do that to your brother." Loyd was stunned by this. I certainly NEVER gave him that kind of consideration. He felt like this was how brothers were supposed to treat each other and I was just giving him the short end of the stick all the time.
(But I want to be clear about something: There was an 8-year age difference between Grid and Mad. Grid probably felt more like he had to protect his brother. In addition, Grid was three years younger than his older brother Wend, who likely left him behind all the time when they were growing up. This probably hurt Grid and he made a conscious decision to never do that to Mad.)
I always wondered how different my life would have been if Loyd had never been born and I remained an only child. For starters, I would probably have no social skills whatsoever. I would have stayed inside my shell and it would have taken my parents years to figure out something was wrong with me. But there's no getting around it: My parents were bound and determined to have a full family.
Today, Loyd and I have a comfortable and friendly relationship, even though we don't get to see each other that much. He's apologized for the things he's done to me and I've apologized to him. And now that I'm getting older, he doesn't seem to mind being the youngest.
(I've shared the video below in a separate post. Because it's on the same subject and because I've added so much new material to this article anyway, I'm including it here as well.)
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Details on the family dynamic
You may be wondering what my family was like growing up. Well, they were dysfunctional, to put it bluntly. I'm certain that it gets discussed a lot that children in these situations believe that every other child they know goes through the same thing. When they grow up and talk to other peers about their childhoods, they find it isn't the case and that everyone had a different experience. Some were better and some were worse.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that beatings were par for the course when I was growing up. Dad doled out most of the punishment, sometimes with his belt. Please keep in mind that back then, these was considered normal disciplinary measures. If this had taken place today, it would be considered abuse. I do understand that my father had it a lot worse from his parents.
Even though I may have been under the impression that this happened within other families, I often felt like the beatings were rarely justified. After a while, I was able to deal with the pain and not cry when it happened. I mainly accomplished this by holding my breath for the entire duration of the beating. It didn't seem to sting as much.
How unjustified were some of those beatings? Well, here's an example: When I was about eight years old, Dad had purchased a new curtain rod system for the kitchen. The drawstring was bundled together by a piece of tape. Somehow, that piece of tape came off and Dad was very angry that someone had removed it. Dad asked us which one of us did it. I know I didn't do it and told him so. Loyd also said he didn't do it. Well, he knew that one of us did it. He told us we were going to stay in our room until one of us told him who did it. He also said that he would come in the room every five minutes and beat us until one of us admitted doing it.
Five minutes later he came in and gave us both a beating. At this point, I theorized that a mouse had removed the tape. In my mind, this was possible, because we had a pretty bad mouse problem in the house. We caught mice in traps at least once a week. Dad wasn't buying it. He came back in five minutes later and beat us again. At this point, I could not see anything else happening in my life. We weren't going to eat dinner. We weren't going to sleep that night. We weren't going to school the next day. I wasn't going to celebrate my birthday. I wasn't going to enjoy Christmas. I wasn't going to grow up. All that was ahead of me for the rest of my life was Dad coming in and beating me every five minutes. I decided that this madness had to stop and I confessed to removing the tape, even though I hadn't. Dad beat me one last time that day. After he left the room, Loyd said, "Fayd? A mouse? Reeeally!"
Now, keep in mind the point of this is that we went all through this just because a piece of tape was removed from a curtain cord. Why would Dad get so angry over something so petty? The tape could have easily been replaced. The punishment clearly did not fit the crime. However, as mentioned above, Dad continued to have problems with Mom and looking back, I guess he was just taking all his frustration out on us. I should note that I never saw Dad hit Mom.
We never did find out who removed the tape from the curtain cord. A few years ago, I recounted this incident to Loyd. Loyd didn't remember it. At first he said it may have been him, but when I told him about Dad coming in every five minutes to beat us, he didn't think that he would have been able to endure the multiple beatings just to keep from admitting it.
Dad has never apologized for the frequent beatings we received. In his mind, he was far more lenient than his parents had been to him. He has never mentioned the beatings since. I keep hoping that one of these days, he'll say something to the effect that we were never abused, and I can tell him about this incident and see whether or not he considers it abuse.
Dad recently admitted that he knew that he had made a mistake marrying Mom about two years into the marriage. I was born a little more than one year and eight months after they were married, so I wonder if he really meant he came this this realization after Loyd was born. About 23 years later, after Dad left Mom, she was diagnosed with having suffered from depression virtually since that time.
Dad says that he kept asking Mom to get help, that this type of behavior was not normal. He says Mom would reply that there was nothing wrong with her. However, Mom says she doesn't recall Dad ever saying this. However, in my personal experience with women, one that I dated would admit that when she got angry at me, she could not hear a word I was saying while I was trying to reason with her. It would not surprise me to find that Mom was the same way.
And of course, I have always wondered if Mom's experience with her own mother indicated that it was something she grew up with. I can only imagine that after her father passed away, her mother became a rather bitter and depressed individual who could only put on a happy face when around other relatives and friends. (That is something that Mom herself frequently did. I really didn't like that the Mom at social gatherings and the Mom at home appeared to be two different people). I don't think Mom ever saw joy in her mother's face between the ages of 12 and 21, but that all changed after I was born and she had a grandchild to love. Mom probably figured it was normal to be bitter at home and was biding her time until her first grandchild appeared.
This would probably explain why it appeared that Mom had us spend more time with Grandma Bend over Grandma and Granddad Ogolon. Her mother was suddenly more pleasant to be around now there was a grandchild in the picture. We drove to see Grandma Bend at least once a month, but only when to Grandma and Granddad Ogolon's once every three months, even though it was about equal distance to both. I'm certain my Dad had something to say about us not spending equal time with his parents, but Mom probably countered that with the fact that his parents had six other grandchildren and Loyd and I were the only ones Grandma Bend had. (And I think the lack of indoor toilet facilities at Grandma and Granddad's also played into this, but when they made this home improvement, the frequency of visits didn't change.)
At this time, I should point out that this blog is not going to be all about the beatings I received from Dad or the emotional struggles I had with Mom, but they may come into play every once in a while. I do want to mention that after I completed 5th grade, Dad said he was going to stop beating me. However, he still continued to beat Loyd until he got out of the 5th grade. Dad kept his word to me and I was never beaten again by him.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that beatings were par for the course when I was growing up. Dad doled out most of the punishment, sometimes with his belt. Please keep in mind that back then, these was considered normal disciplinary measures. If this had taken place today, it would be considered abuse. I do understand that my father had it a lot worse from his parents.
Even though I may have been under the impression that this happened within other families, I often felt like the beatings were rarely justified. After a while, I was able to deal with the pain and not cry when it happened. I mainly accomplished this by holding my breath for the entire duration of the beating. It didn't seem to sting as much.
How unjustified were some of those beatings? Well, here's an example: When I was about eight years old, Dad had purchased a new curtain rod system for the kitchen. The drawstring was bundled together by a piece of tape. Somehow, that piece of tape came off and Dad was very angry that someone had removed it. Dad asked us which one of us did it. I know I didn't do it and told him so. Loyd also said he didn't do it. Well, he knew that one of us did it. He told us we were going to stay in our room until one of us told him who did it. He also said that he would come in the room every five minutes and beat us until one of us admitted doing it.
Five minutes later he came in and gave us both a beating. At this point, I theorized that a mouse had removed the tape. In my mind, this was possible, because we had a pretty bad mouse problem in the house. We caught mice in traps at least once a week. Dad wasn't buying it. He came back in five minutes later and beat us again. At this point, I could not see anything else happening in my life. We weren't going to eat dinner. We weren't going to sleep that night. We weren't going to school the next day. I wasn't going to celebrate my birthday. I wasn't going to enjoy Christmas. I wasn't going to grow up. All that was ahead of me for the rest of my life was Dad coming in and beating me every five minutes. I decided that this madness had to stop and I confessed to removing the tape, even though I hadn't. Dad beat me one last time that day. After he left the room, Loyd said, "Fayd? A mouse? Reeeally!"
Now, keep in mind the point of this is that we went all through this just because a piece of tape was removed from a curtain cord. Why would Dad get so angry over something so petty? The tape could have easily been replaced. The punishment clearly did not fit the crime. However, as mentioned above, Dad continued to have problems with Mom and looking back, I guess he was just taking all his frustration out on us. I should note that I never saw Dad hit Mom.
We never did find out who removed the tape from the curtain cord. A few years ago, I recounted this incident to Loyd. Loyd didn't remember it. At first he said it may have been him, but when I told him about Dad coming in every five minutes to beat us, he didn't think that he would have been able to endure the multiple beatings just to keep from admitting it.
Dad has never apologized for the frequent beatings we received. In his mind, he was far more lenient than his parents had been to him. He has never mentioned the beatings since. I keep hoping that one of these days, he'll say something to the effect that we were never abused, and I can tell him about this incident and see whether or not he considers it abuse.
Dad recently admitted that he knew that he had made a mistake marrying Mom about two years into the marriage. I was born a little more than one year and eight months after they were married, so I wonder if he really meant he came this this realization after Loyd was born. About 23 years later, after Dad left Mom, she was diagnosed with having suffered from depression virtually since that time.
Dad says that he kept asking Mom to get help, that this type of behavior was not normal. He says Mom would reply that there was nothing wrong with her. However, Mom says she doesn't recall Dad ever saying this. However, in my personal experience with women, one that I dated would admit that when she got angry at me, she could not hear a word I was saying while I was trying to reason with her. It would not surprise me to find that Mom was the same way.
And of course, I have always wondered if Mom's experience with her own mother indicated that it was something she grew up with. I can only imagine that after her father passed away, her mother became a rather bitter and depressed individual who could only put on a happy face when around other relatives and friends. (That is something that Mom herself frequently did. I really didn't like that the Mom at social gatherings and the Mom at home appeared to be two different people). I don't think Mom ever saw joy in her mother's face between the ages of 12 and 21, but that all changed after I was born and she had a grandchild to love. Mom probably figured it was normal to be bitter at home and was biding her time until her first grandchild appeared.
This would probably explain why it appeared that Mom had us spend more time with Grandma Bend over Grandma and Granddad Ogolon. Her mother was suddenly more pleasant to be around now there was a grandchild in the picture. We drove to see Grandma Bend at least once a month, but only when to Grandma and Granddad Ogolon's once every three months, even though it was about equal distance to both. I'm certain my Dad had something to say about us not spending equal time with his parents, but Mom probably countered that with the fact that his parents had six other grandchildren and Loyd and I were the only ones Grandma Bend had. (And I think the lack of indoor toilet facilities at Grandma and Granddad's also played into this, but when they made this home improvement, the frequency of visits didn't change.)
At this time, I should point out that this blog is not going to be all about the beatings I received from Dad or the emotional struggles I had with Mom, but they may come into play every once in a while. I do want to mention that after I completed 5th grade, Dad said he was going to stop beating me. However, he still continued to beat Loyd until he got out of the 5th grade. Dad kept his word to me and I was never beaten again by him.
Monday, September 23, 2013
An early reveal regarding myself
Before writing further about my life, there is one aspect which I should probably share. I was actually going to write about this much later, but I determined that it will put all the weird things in my life in perspective if I actually discuss this now instead of waiting until the period of my life when I discovered this, which was in my mid 40's.
I appear to have Asperger Syndrome. Discovering the possible existence of this neurological disorder in my mind didn't really change the way I live my life. It just answered a lot of questions I've had about myself for 40 years.
However, I should note that my parents raised me like there was nothing wrong with me, so I attribute that to my ability to adapt to certain situations. But I do have to admit that I do struggle somewhat with socializing. I wouldn't call myself shy. I am very good at meeting people, but I soon run out of things to talk about and there are awkward silences that frequently take place.
I had always been aware that my brain functions much differently than other people. I know there is a certain way that I process information that somehow wouldn't make sense to your average neuro-typical person. I was also aware about how I would obsess over certain things and couldn't explain why I liked them so much and had a hard time trying to avoid bringing them up in conversation.
You may remember in my previous blog entry in which I mentioned that my parents were concerned about me not talking very much. When I was first told as an adult about the examination, I was under the impression that it was some kind of psychologial evaluation. After determining that I might have Asperger Syndrome, I would remark that if that examination had taken place today, the person I met with would have immediately diagnosed me with Asperger's. Not long ago, I found out that person was actually a speech therapist, and unless she was aware of neurological disorders, that kid today would likely still not be properly diagnosed on the autism spectrum.
I am aware that the disorder does not affect me as much as other people. I have met people with Asperger's who will look at you in the face when you are talking to them, but when they start talking, they turn their heads completely around to say what they have to say. I have a tendency to act like a normal person when meeting people the first time. However, as I become more comfortable, my quirkiness tends to come through a lot more and people start thinking I'm weird. After this happens a few dozen times, it's no wonder I'm socially awkward.
The stupid thing is that I want to socialize more. I want to be the type of person that people look forward to seeing. I want to be the person who gets invited to do things in a group setting. I don't like feeling that the only reason I'm invited to take part in something is because everybody else in class had to be invited as well.
On the bright side, I have learned to entertain myself and don't feel the need to have to be around people to have a good time. This blog is a good example of that.
I appear to have Asperger Syndrome. Discovering the possible existence of this neurological disorder in my mind didn't really change the way I live my life. It just answered a lot of questions I've had about myself for 40 years.
However, I should note that my parents raised me like there was nothing wrong with me, so I attribute that to my ability to adapt to certain situations. But I do have to admit that I do struggle somewhat with socializing. I wouldn't call myself shy. I am very good at meeting people, but I soon run out of things to talk about and there are awkward silences that frequently take place.
I had always been aware that my brain functions much differently than other people. I know there is a certain way that I process information that somehow wouldn't make sense to your average neuro-typical person. I was also aware about how I would obsess over certain things and couldn't explain why I liked them so much and had a hard time trying to avoid bringing them up in conversation.
You may remember in my previous blog entry in which I mentioned that my parents were concerned about me not talking very much. When I was first told as an adult about the examination, I was under the impression that it was some kind of psychologial evaluation. After determining that I might have Asperger Syndrome, I would remark that if that examination had taken place today, the person I met with would have immediately diagnosed me with Asperger's. Not long ago, I found out that person was actually a speech therapist, and unless she was aware of neurological disorders, that kid today would likely still not be properly diagnosed on the autism spectrum.
I am aware that the disorder does not affect me as much as other people. I have met people with Asperger's who will look at you in the face when you are talking to them, but when they start talking, they turn their heads completely around to say what they have to say. I have a tendency to act like a normal person when meeting people the first time. However, as I become more comfortable, my quirkiness tends to come through a lot more and people start thinking I'm weird. After this happens a few dozen times, it's no wonder I'm socially awkward.
The stupid thing is that I want to socialize more. I want to be the type of person that people look forward to seeing. I want to be the person who gets invited to do things in a group setting. I don't like feeling that the only reason I'm invited to take part in something is because everybody else in class had to be invited as well.
On the bright side, I have learned to entertain myself and don't feel the need to have to be around people to have a good time. This blog is a good example of that.
I do have joy in my life
This blog is literally written weeks in advance. I find it is helpful to get all my thoughts down the first time and then go back and edit them a few weeks later before publishing.
The point at where I am writing now, I find that almost every one of my entries either deals with a dark subject or appears that all I am doing is complaining about how my life turned out. It also looks like I am spreading the blame around, in particular, to my family and the public education system. I want you to know that there are many times when I do accept responsbility for a lot of my problems.
I also want you to know that there has been a lot of joy throughout my life. (If there wasn't, I would either be dead or in prison right now.) While it appears that there are nothing but blunders in this blog, understand that I had a majority of days as a child when I wasn't being beaten, bullied or berated.
The only thing is that those incidents are a lot more difficult to write unless they're really funny. I do have some lighter material to pass along in my YouTube videos, but, in the meantime, expect any articles on my joyful experiences to be considerably shorter than the other entries.
The point at where I am writing now, I find that almost every one of my entries either deals with a dark subject or appears that all I am doing is complaining about how my life turned out. It also looks like I am spreading the blame around, in particular, to my family and the public education system. I want you to know that there are many times when I do accept responsbility for a lot of my problems.
I also want you to know that there has been a lot of joy throughout my life. (If there wasn't, I would either be dead or in prison right now.) While it appears that there are nothing but blunders in this blog, understand that I had a majority of days as a child when I wasn't being beaten, bullied or berated.
The only thing is that those incidents are a lot more difficult to write unless they're really funny. I do have some lighter material to pass along in my YouTube videos, but, in the meantime, expect any articles on my joyful experiences to be considerably shorter than the other entries.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Recalling my first memory
I guess a good way to start off writing about my life is my first memory from childhood. As you may have noticed, I enjoy writing rules for me to live my life. I guess that's one of the many things that forces me to live as a loser, so I have rules for what should constitute a first memory.
1. There cannot be any photos, video, film or audio recording of the event you describe.
2. No one can have told you about the event before you start remembering it.
3. You watching a historical event on TV does not count. However, if you personally experienced the historical event, I will grant you some leeway.
4. It helps if you can recall the period of time when the memory took place, but I won't knock off points for not knowing the exact date.
Some people will make claims about their first memory at the age of two or three, but I'm certain if they did some research, they would find that there was some sort of image regarding that memory. The question becomes: Do they actually remember what happened or do they just remember the image?
So, here is my first memory. I have pinpointed the exact date, although I have to admit I was unaware of how the date system worked at the time. Anyway, it was 12/19/1969. I was 5 and Loyd was 2. My family lived next door to the school where Dad taught the 5th grade. He brought us to school with him one afternoon. It happened to be the last day before the Christmas break and the class was having a Christmas party. Loyd and I sat in the back of the class. I remember receiving a brown bag that had an apple, an orange and some nuts inside it. I know that I was aware that it was the Christmas season and that Christmas meant Santa Claus. To the best of my knowledge, no one back then would have had a camera to take pictures in the classroom.
Now, I do have other memories of things that took place before then, but they go against my rules. I remember the moon landing in the summer of 1969. I do recall that I was rather disappointed in the images from the moon because they weren't in color. Yes, landing on the moon was not high-tech enough for me. Even though I remember that little tidbit about my feelings during the moon landing, and I never shared them with anyone at the time, it doesn't count because it is tied to a huge historical event. Please keep in mind that even though I remember the moon landing, I knew nothing about Woodstock or Charles Manson at the time.
I also remember a summer when my parents went to college to work on their Masters degrees. They would go up every summer and we would live in campus housing set aside for families. Once, they told me I was going to school. Maybe I was 4 at this time. I recall that I spent a couple of days talking with some woman. We mostly stayed outside. If we weren't talking, I would so some reading. It didn't really seem like what I thought school would be. Years later, my Dad told me that at about that age, he and Mom were concerned because I wasn't talking very much. So, they had someone from the college meet with me to see if there was anything wrong. After those meetings, the response was that I could talk fine. I just didn't have anything to say. Again, I didn't remember any of that until he told me. That sparked the memory, but it's still fuzzy, because I don't remember if it was only one day that I did that, or if it took place over two days. Even enhanced memories are not 100% clear.
1. There cannot be any photos, video, film or audio recording of the event you describe.
2. No one can have told you about the event before you start remembering it.
3. You watching a historical event on TV does not count. However, if you personally experienced the historical event, I will grant you some leeway.
4. It helps if you can recall the period of time when the memory took place, but I won't knock off points for not knowing the exact date.
Some people will make claims about their first memory at the age of two or three, but I'm certain if they did some research, they would find that there was some sort of image regarding that memory. The question becomes: Do they actually remember what happened or do they just remember the image?
So, here is my first memory. I have pinpointed the exact date, although I have to admit I was unaware of how the date system worked at the time. Anyway, it was 12/19/1969. I was 5 and Loyd was 2. My family lived next door to the school where Dad taught the 5th grade. He brought us to school with him one afternoon. It happened to be the last day before the Christmas break and the class was having a Christmas party. Loyd and I sat in the back of the class. I remember receiving a brown bag that had an apple, an orange and some nuts inside it. I know that I was aware that it was the Christmas season and that Christmas meant Santa Claus. To the best of my knowledge, no one back then would have had a camera to take pictures in the classroom.
Now, I do have other memories of things that took place before then, but they go against my rules. I remember the moon landing in the summer of 1969. I do recall that I was rather disappointed in the images from the moon because they weren't in color. Yes, landing on the moon was not high-tech enough for me. Even though I remember that little tidbit about my feelings during the moon landing, and I never shared them with anyone at the time, it doesn't count because it is tied to a huge historical event. Please keep in mind that even though I remember the moon landing, I knew nothing about Woodstock or Charles Manson at the time.
I also remember a summer when my parents went to college to work on their Masters degrees. They would go up every summer and we would live in campus housing set aside for families. Once, they told me I was going to school. Maybe I was 4 at this time. I recall that I spent a couple of days talking with some woman. We mostly stayed outside. If we weren't talking, I would so some reading. It didn't really seem like what I thought school would be. Years later, my Dad told me that at about that age, he and Mom were concerned because I wasn't talking very much. So, they had someone from the college meet with me to see if there was anything wrong. After those meetings, the response was that I could talk fine. I just didn't have anything to say. Again, I didn't remember any of that until he told me. That sparked the memory, but it's still fuzzy, because I don't remember if it was only one day that I did that, or if it took place over two days. Even enhanced memories are not 100% clear.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
How my parents lived
(A personal note: I had originally imagined that the titles of all my blog posts would feature the word "force." However, there are only so many ways I can work that into a title, so with this posting, I am dropping that routine.)
Before I get started with my life, I guess I need to give the background on my parents because that had a strong bearing on how I was raised.
My father was raised on a ranch and was the only boy in the family. That meant he had to do most of the heavy work with his father. My father was brought up in a household where beatings were the normal mode of discipline.
My mother lived in a few different places until her father died when she was 12 years old. Whippings were also a part of her childhood.
My parents' lives are much more complex than what I have described here. I am certain I will visit these other aspects in future blog entries and how they impacted my life.
One thing both my parents had in common in their upbringing was the culture of adults. In their families, if you were a child, your needs did not come first. The needs of the parents almost always outweighed those of the children. My father told me about Sunday dinners, where people from church would gather together afterward to eat a pot luck. The children were made to play outside and the adults helped themself to the food. Once the adults were done eating their fill, then the children could come in and have their share of whatever was left. In my mother's case, she told about how her father would first use any money he had to buy liquor and cigarettes. Even if the rest of the family was starving, he would still spend his money first on himself.
Now, in this environment, the only way the adults would stop treating you like a child and show you some respect was for you to get married. Thus, my parents got married when my father was 20 and my mother was 19.
I was somewhat subjected to this culture. Not to the extreme of starvation, but my parents had a hard time viewing me as an adult even after I turned 30 because I had not "settled down." This is actually one area in which I consider myself someone who was forced to live as a loser.
It looks like I will have a lot of ground to cover in this blog.
Before I get started with my life, I guess I need to give the background on my parents because that had a strong bearing on how I was raised.
My father was raised on a ranch and was the only boy in the family. That meant he had to do most of the heavy work with his father. My father was brought up in a household where beatings were the normal mode of discipline.
My mother lived in a few different places until her father died when she was 12 years old. Whippings were also a part of her childhood.
My parents' lives are much more complex than what I have described here. I am certain I will visit these other aspects in future blog entries and how they impacted my life.
One thing both my parents had in common in their upbringing was the culture of adults. In their families, if you were a child, your needs did not come first. The needs of the parents almost always outweighed those of the children. My father told me about Sunday dinners, where people from church would gather together afterward to eat a pot luck. The children were made to play outside and the adults helped themself to the food. Once the adults were done eating their fill, then the children could come in and have their share of whatever was left. In my mother's case, she told about how her father would first use any money he had to buy liquor and cigarettes. Even if the rest of the family was starving, he would still spend his money first on himself.
Now, in this environment, the only way the adults would stop treating you like a child and show you some respect was for you to get married. Thus, my parents got married when my father was 20 and my mother was 19.
I was somewhat subjected to this culture. Not to the extreme of starvation, but my parents had a hard time viewing me as an adult even after I turned 30 because I had not "settled down." This is actually one area in which I consider myself someone who was forced to live as a loser.
It looks like I will have a lot of ground to cover in this blog.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
If I was forced to live my life over
There are some people who say that if they were to live their lives over, they wouldn't change a thing. I find it hard to believe that anyone is that content with their life. I will tell you there would definitely be a few changes I would make in mine.
For this post, I am setting down some ground rules for how people in general should be able to re-live their lives, although I would likely be the only one who follows them. The first is that you cannot do anything unethical that will purposefully alter your destiny. This means that you cannot know the winning lottery numbers on a particular date. You cannot do something to someone you know is going to be chosen over you in a certain situation in order to permit you to move ahead. You also cannot do something that would keep your parents from creating younger brothers and sisters. You cannot run away from home to do something like join a teen punk band in LA until you turn 18 (unless you already did that the first time around).
Again, those are things that would significantly alter your destiny. If you want to re-live your life a little on the wild side with some petty crimes, like driving your car a little faster, doing some shoplifting, getting in a few fights, yes, you could do that.
Also, you are allowed to make changes in some of your life's major choices. Like, where you go to college, what you would study, whether to go to college, whether to hook up with a certain person, whether to marry them, and whether to have children with them. These do not require any breach of ethics.
With that exposition out of the way, here is the main thing I would change: I would keep my mouth shut a lot more often. I believe that a lot of what makes me appear to be a loser to other people while I was growing up had to do with the things I said. I didn't seem to care if what I said hurt anyone or wasn't true. I actually appeared to lack a tact filter. I had a tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time for the sake of trying to be funny. I now know that this was probably related to my Asperger's. I wasn't able to control it while I was growing up. I'm able to somewhat control it now, but I will still occasionally say something absurd that will change people's perspective of me.
I also felt compelled to try to answer every single question my teachers asked the class. I'll bet this made me look like a real twerp. I do wish that one of my teachers had taken me aside and told me to cut it out and to let other members of the class try to answer more often. If given the chance to do it over, I would probably just skulk in the back of the classroom and never take part. The only bad thing about this is that I know that if I wasn't more active in class, my academic performance in high school likely would have suffered and that would create other problems down the line.
Another thing I would change is that I wouldn't watch so much TV. However, when I was growing up, there wasn't much else to do in my little town. If I was addicted to TV, it was again probably due to my Asperger's. I don't like blaming everything on that, but it seems to be responsible for a lot of the problems I had in my past.
As to whether I would go to the same college, I am rather torn. I went to major in Radio/TV Communications at Eastern New Mexico University, which had a GREAT department. The only problem was that the main focus was on producing news and not entertainment. While I am grateful for the news experience because it helped me land a full-time job as a newsradio reporter much later in life, that wasn't why I majored in Radio/TV and there was no one qualified to advise me in the career direction I wanted to take. None of the professors would even advise me to seek out someplace like UCLA or something. (I guess they couldn't, because student retention was a big issue at the college.) The only reason I would go back to ENMU on a second run-through of my life is to keep my friendship with one of the best friends I have ever had. I will likely go into greater detail about this friend much later in this blog.
After that, there would definitely be jobs I would want to avoid and other jobs I would try to get much earlier to provide me with enough seniority to avoid layoffs that occurred later on. Maybe I wouldn't accept that transfer to California that I got. Who knows how I would relive my adult life? Who knows which relationships I would avoid? Which ones would I work harder on?
Re-living your life means that you can avoid certain mistakes. However, it also means that you may have a whole bunch of new mistakes to replace the old ones. Can you really make your life better by trying to avoid those mistakes? I know I could improve my relationships with people by not trying to prove something every time I open my mouth. But would it make my life better? Probably, but we can only deal with our lives on the first go-round. No one really gets a second chance.
For this post, I am setting down some ground rules for how people in general should be able to re-live their lives, although I would likely be the only one who follows them. The first is that you cannot do anything unethical that will purposefully alter your destiny. This means that you cannot know the winning lottery numbers on a particular date. You cannot do something to someone you know is going to be chosen over you in a certain situation in order to permit you to move ahead. You also cannot do something that would keep your parents from creating younger brothers and sisters. You cannot run away from home to do something like join a teen punk band in LA until you turn 18 (unless you already did that the first time around).
Again, those are things that would significantly alter your destiny. If you want to re-live your life a little on the wild side with some petty crimes, like driving your car a little faster, doing some shoplifting, getting in a few fights, yes, you could do that.
Also, you are allowed to make changes in some of your life's major choices. Like, where you go to college, what you would study, whether to go to college, whether to hook up with a certain person, whether to marry them, and whether to have children with them. These do not require any breach of ethics.
With that exposition out of the way, here is the main thing I would change: I would keep my mouth shut a lot more often. I believe that a lot of what makes me appear to be a loser to other people while I was growing up had to do with the things I said. I didn't seem to care if what I said hurt anyone or wasn't true. I actually appeared to lack a tact filter. I had a tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time for the sake of trying to be funny. I now know that this was probably related to my Asperger's. I wasn't able to control it while I was growing up. I'm able to somewhat control it now, but I will still occasionally say something absurd that will change people's perspective of me.
I also felt compelled to try to answer every single question my teachers asked the class. I'll bet this made me look like a real twerp. I do wish that one of my teachers had taken me aside and told me to cut it out and to let other members of the class try to answer more often. If given the chance to do it over, I would probably just skulk in the back of the classroom and never take part. The only bad thing about this is that I know that if I wasn't more active in class, my academic performance in high school likely would have suffered and that would create other problems down the line.
Another thing I would change is that I wouldn't watch so much TV. However, when I was growing up, there wasn't much else to do in my little town. If I was addicted to TV, it was again probably due to my Asperger's. I don't like blaming everything on that, but it seems to be responsible for a lot of the problems I had in my past.
As to whether I would go to the same college, I am rather torn. I went to major in Radio/TV Communications at Eastern New Mexico University, which had a GREAT department. The only problem was that the main focus was on producing news and not entertainment. While I am grateful for the news experience because it helped me land a full-time job as a newsradio reporter much later in life, that wasn't why I majored in Radio/TV and there was no one qualified to advise me in the career direction I wanted to take. None of the professors would even advise me to seek out someplace like UCLA or something. (I guess they couldn't, because student retention was a big issue at the college.) The only reason I would go back to ENMU on a second run-through of my life is to keep my friendship with one of the best friends I have ever had. I will likely go into greater detail about this friend much later in this blog.
After that, there would definitely be jobs I would want to avoid and other jobs I would try to get much earlier to provide me with enough seniority to avoid layoffs that occurred later on. Maybe I wouldn't accept that transfer to California that I got. Who knows how I would relive my adult life? Who knows which relationships I would avoid? Which ones would I work harder on?
Re-living your life means that you can avoid certain mistakes. However, it also means that you may have a whole bunch of new mistakes to replace the old ones. Can you really make your life better by trying to avoid those mistakes? I know I could improve my relationships with people by not trying to prove something every time I open my mouth. But would it make my life better? Probably, but we can only deal with our lives on the first go-round. No one really gets a second chance.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
A few rules I'm forcing myself to blog by
There are a lot of things you should know about this blog. The first is that I will be covering a lot of ground in my childhood. If you only want to read about my life as an adult and skip my childhood David Copperfield-style, maybe you should check back here in a couple of months. I do not have my chapters planned out at this point.
I should also add that I am not going to be writing my life's story as if it were a Charles Dickens novel. If I write about something happening in my childhood that comes back and bites me in the butt as an adult, I'll just cut to the chase and give you the payoff.
I will not be discussing my religious upbringing. I already did that with my "A Liberal Christian" YouTube commentaries. You can check those out by going to youtube.com/aliberalchristian. I spent a year on this project, and for the time being, I am not planning on making further contributions to it, except to respond to any comments that may be posted on the videos.
I will be doing video commentaries connected to this blog along the way on YouTube. The material in the commentaries will be separate from what gets written here. Now, there will be times when I may use a commentary to touch on a theme I bring up in this blog, but it will be completely fresh and amend the points that I make in my writings. I will likely post the YouTube videos as blog entries here.
While we're still on the subject of YouTube, I do not plan on monetizing my YouTube channel. I didn't monetize my "A Liberal Christian" channel, either. The main reason being that I don't think you should sit through a 30-second advertisement to see a 60-second video. However, if this project really takes off, I may change my mind about that. With the A Liberal Christian project, I never would have tried to make money from it on YouTube.
I will not be using anyone's real names in this blog. This will keep me from getting into any kind of legal trouble down the line. Just to keep them separated, family and friends have a "d" as the last letter of their first name. Any girls or women that I dated or was interested in dating will end with a "z."
I will not be going into deep details about my sexual encounters. I will probably just go as far as to say that I made love with someone and leave it at that.
I will also not detail the wrongdoings of people I know, unless the activity had a direct impact on me. So, if any of my friends or family members spent time in jail, you're not going to know about it unless I was actually involved. This blog is about me and my personal drama (or comedy, if you want to look at it that way. That's how I have to look at it).
I should add that I will not detail any meetings with celebrities, of which I've had several. However, I do have one exception to this rule and you will see that much later on.
Now, with the initial rules out of the way, let's introduce you to the initial cast of characters that will be populating various aspects of this blog.
First is myself. I am Fayd Ogolon. While it is not my real name, I am known in many circles by this and since it has been part of my artistic endeavors and I can include this among them, I will keep this moniker for my blog. I was born 09/01/1964 in Fort Sumner, NM.
Since I am not using my real name, it is only fitting that I not use the real names of my family members, or other people I have associated with. This will keep me from getting into a lot of trouble down the line.
My father will be referred to as Dad. He was born 08/16/1942 in rural Curry County, NM. My mother will just be Mom. She was born 08/18/1943 in Garner, TX. My parents were married on 12/27/1962 in Fort Sumner, NM.
My brother will be known as Loyd. He was born 03/18/1968 in Artesia, NM.
Since I'll be starting with the early part of my life, expect me to make mention of my Grandfather and Grandmother Ogolon and my Grandmother Bend. I never knew my Grandfather Bend. He died about nine years before I was born.
Dad had two sisters that I knew, one older and one younger. They will be called Pand and Berd. Mom had an older sister, a younger brother and a younger sister. They will be called Mard, Ord and Cind.
There also numerous other uncles, aunts and cousins. They will be named as we go along.
My family played an important part in shaping me as an individual. Some of it good and some of it bad. You will likely find that even the good parts still contributed to me being a loser.
I should also add that I am not going to be writing my life's story as if it were a Charles Dickens novel. If I write about something happening in my childhood that comes back and bites me in the butt as an adult, I'll just cut to the chase and give you the payoff.
I will not be discussing my religious upbringing. I already did that with my "A Liberal Christian" YouTube commentaries. You can check those out by going to youtube.com/aliberalchristian. I spent a year on this project, and for the time being, I am not planning on making further contributions to it, except to respond to any comments that may be posted on the videos.
I will be doing video commentaries connected to this blog along the way on YouTube. The material in the commentaries will be separate from what gets written here. Now, there will be times when I may use a commentary to touch on a theme I bring up in this blog, but it will be completely fresh and amend the points that I make in my writings. I will likely post the YouTube videos as blog entries here.
While we're still on the subject of YouTube, I do not plan on monetizing my YouTube channel. I didn't monetize my "A Liberal Christian" channel, either. The main reason being that I don't think you should sit through a 30-second advertisement to see a 60-second video. However, if this project really takes off, I may change my mind about that. With the A Liberal Christian project, I never would have tried to make money from it on YouTube.
I will not be using anyone's real names in this blog. This will keep me from getting into any kind of legal trouble down the line. Just to keep them separated, family and friends have a "d" as the last letter of their first name. Any girls or women that I dated or was interested in dating will end with a "z."
I will not be going into deep details about my sexual encounters. I will probably just go as far as to say that I made love with someone and leave it at that.
I will also not detail the wrongdoings of people I know, unless the activity had a direct impact on me. So, if any of my friends or family members spent time in jail, you're not going to know about it unless I was actually involved. This blog is about me and my personal drama (or comedy, if you want to look at it that way. That's how I have to look at it).
I should add that I will not detail any meetings with celebrities, of which I've had several. However, I do have one exception to this rule and you will see that much later on.
Now, with the initial rules out of the way, let's introduce you to the initial cast of characters that will be populating various aspects of this blog.
First is myself. I am Fayd Ogolon. While it is not my real name, I am known in many circles by this and since it has been part of my artistic endeavors and I can include this among them, I will keep this moniker for my blog. I was born 09/01/1964 in Fort Sumner, NM.
Since I am not using my real name, it is only fitting that I not use the real names of my family members, or other people I have associated with. This will keep me from getting into a lot of trouble down the line.
My father will be referred to as Dad. He was born 08/16/1942 in rural Curry County, NM. My mother will just be Mom. She was born 08/18/1943 in Garner, TX. My parents were married on 12/27/1962 in Fort Sumner, NM.
My brother will be known as Loyd. He was born 03/18/1968 in Artesia, NM.
Since I'll be starting with the early part of my life, expect me to make mention of my Grandfather and Grandmother Ogolon and my Grandmother Bend. I never knew my Grandfather Bend. He died about nine years before I was born.
Dad had two sisters that I knew, one older and one younger. They will be called Pand and Berd. Mom had an older sister, a younger brother and a younger sister. They will be called Mard, Ord and Cind.
There also numerous other uncles, aunts and cousins. They will be named as we go along.
My family played an important part in shaping me as an individual. Some of it good and some of it bad. You will likely find that even the good parts still contributed to me being a loser.
I don't just do words. My voice and images are also a part of this!
Here's more about me being a loser in a YouTube video commentary:
Monday, September 16, 2013
Why am I forced to live life as a loser?
What makes me a loser and what forced me to be a loser? Well, I guess I think that even though I have done everything I can to be a success, any number of obstacles, including my own shortcomings, have kept me from achieving the things I have wanted most out of life. I feel that a series of wrong decisions and circumstances beyond my control are responsible for not putting me at the right place at the right time where I can feel satisfied with my position in life.
Keep in mind that I have never taken the course of alcoholism or drug addiction. I have never experienced being drunk or stoned, so this means that I have always had a clear head in every path I have taken so I cannot blame that for any situation I have found myself in. This blog will contain a series of stories from throughout my life. A LOT of stories.
One of my main problems is the way people respond to me. If I am in a group situation discussing something and I throw out an idea or try to get everyone to understand the reason something is happening, everybody acts like I didn't say anything. I don't know why this is. I am certainly able to articulate my point with some semblance of authority, but I just don't get any real feedback. And you know the usual thing happens, in which someone takes my idea that everyone ignored as passes it off as their own and I don't get any credit despite my protests.
Another situation is that if some people appear to be talking about someone else who is not present and I approach them, they will just stop talking. Now, I know they weren't talking about me, but it sure feels like it. If I ask what's going on, I'll be treated with, "None of your business," and that's just the clean version. And this did not just happen to me in high school. It is a problem that has plagued me my entire adult life.
I'm basically doing this blog because, as I approach the age of 50, I'm beginning to realize that no one is going to ask me to write an autobiography, let alone pay me to do it. I want to be able to capture as much of my life as possible before I start forgetting it. Since I have not subjected myself to drugs and alcohol, a lot of material is still very clear in my mind, but I find that there are times when I have trouble recalling people's names. I also want to understand myself better by revisiting the past to get more perspective on a lot of things that may not have made sense at the time, but appear to see them from a different viewpoint now.
I should also explain that this will not just include the story of my life. I will have several essays about certain situations that I have encountered throughout. When they happened at those times, I was never able to find the right thoughts or words to express how I feel. Now, it seems like I have a lot less trouble finding them and I will put them to good use here.
While this blog is primarily for my own therapeutic reasons, I hope that what I write will be entertaining for most people to read. Please note that while I am not a success, I am not completely unhappy with my lot in life and I'm able to look back at my past with a sense of humor.
I will also have some video commentary from time to time to accompany this blog. You can check it out here: youtube.com/faydogolon
Keep in mind that I have never taken the course of alcoholism or drug addiction. I have never experienced being drunk or stoned, so this means that I have always had a clear head in every path I have taken so I cannot blame that for any situation I have found myself in. This blog will contain a series of stories from throughout my life. A LOT of stories.
One of my main problems is the way people respond to me. If I am in a group situation discussing something and I throw out an idea or try to get everyone to understand the reason something is happening, everybody acts like I didn't say anything. I don't know why this is. I am certainly able to articulate my point with some semblance of authority, but I just don't get any real feedback. And you know the usual thing happens, in which someone takes my idea that everyone ignored as passes it off as their own and I don't get any credit despite my protests.
Another situation is that if some people appear to be talking about someone else who is not present and I approach them, they will just stop talking. Now, I know they weren't talking about me, but it sure feels like it. If I ask what's going on, I'll be treated with, "None of your business," and that's just the clean version. And this did not just happen to me in high school. It is a problem that has plagued me my entire adult life.
I'm basically doing this blog because, as I approach the age of 50, I'm beginning to realize that no one is going to ask me to write an autobiography, let alone pay me to do it. I want to be able to capture as much of my life as possible before I start forgetting it. Since I have not subjected myself to drugs and alcohol, a lot of material is still very clear in my mind, but I find that there are times when I have trouble recalling people's names. I also want to understand myself better by revisiting the past to get more perspective on a lot of things that may not have made sense at the time, but appear to see them from a different viewpoint now.
I should also explain that this will not just include the story of my life. I will have several essays about certain situations that I have encountered throughout. When they happened at those times, I was never able to find the right thoughts or words to express how I feel. Now, it seems like I have a lot less trouble finding them and I will put them to good use here.
While this blog is primarily for my own therapeutic reasons, I hope that what I write will be entertaining for most people to read. Please note that while I am not a success, I am not completely unhappy with my lot in life and I'm able to look back at my past with a sense of humor.
I will also have some video commentary from time to time to accompany this blog. You can check it out here: youtube.com/faydogolon
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