PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

My hometown was a small rural village.  My parents' residence was on a small, dead-end street on the western border of the village.  The street ran north from the village's main street, and then, at about two thirds of its length, turned northwest.  We lived on the east side of the street; the backyards of the homes on the west side literally formed the village's western border, beyond which was the rural township, and just beyond that line was Verging Creek; which had probably flowed through that channel since the last glacier had come through, thousands of years before.

Because the street had very little vehicular traffic or activity, the children who lived there, including myself, took advantage of that condition with our bicycles, tricycles, or other small pedal devices.  When I was about three years old, I had been given a trike and a miniature tractor to pedal, and I delighted in riding these "out front," as we called that part of our street.  However, due to nerve damage that I had been born with (believed to have been caused when my birth-mother's father had attempted to abort me by pushing her down a flight of stairs; although he was an elder in the Presbyterian church, a thirty-second degree freemason, and director of research for a major manufacturing corporation on the strength of the PhD in chemisty that he had earned at Purdue University in the thirties, he was also one mean son-of-a-bitch; and he compelled my birth-mother, who was sixteen years old at my birth, to give me up to adoption), I often fell off my pedal device, skinning my knees and elbow, enough to draw blood (and I still have scars on them from those injuries).  Since the injuries were considered minor, my parents---my adoptive parents---refused to show sympathy or compassion, as they felt this was a weakling response, so they laughed at me.  When my peers, or even the older kids fell, their parents often came to their aid, with comforting words, band-aids and antiseptic; my parents, while laughing, refused to take a step in my direction, so that I had to bring myself and my pedal device to them for assistance.

When I was about seven years old, my adoptive father resumed his participation in his church's summer softball team, playing on a county-wide league.  Most often, my mother and I did not attend, due to the scheduling of game times which would have been past my bedtime; and the games were played in another part of the county, with the additional travel time interfering with my bedtime routine.  I would not have cared, but my mother kept me to a schedule that was as demanding as any railroad's, and that schedule was never altered.  In mid-summer, that year, our church's team was scheduled to play the night's opener, which allowed my mother and I to attend.  The bleachers were prefabricated concrete, not very comfortable.  After a couple of innings, my mother needed to use the bathroom, which was a large porta-potty within sight of the bleachers.  Being a dutiful child, I accompanied her, waited patiently while she peed, and then we walked back up the gravel path to the concrete bleachers.  Just before the path ended, her feet went out from under her, and she hit the ground on her butt.  My memory of this---which I have retained since 1965---is one of those slow motion sequences that many people experience during an accident (I have been in a couple of minor traffic accidents, that always seemed to happen in slow motion, as well).  At the point of her stumble, her feet legs appeared to extend parallel to the horizontal plane of the path as she was, for just a split second, suspended before slamming down to the gravel.  After she hit the gravel path, she also appeared to bounce.  No part of her was actually injured, except her pride---as her stumble happened where everyone present, including the outfielders closest to us on the other side of the fence, witnessed this.  I added insult to that injury, quite unintentionally, when I began to laugh.

Yes, I laughed---quite unintentionally, but also quite boisterously.  I laughed lout and long.  I doubled over and gasped for breath, so hard the laughter came out of me.  My eyes filled with laugh-tears, and drool even flew from my mouth as I laughed---not a giggle, not just a chuckle, but outright, full in the throat, laughter; almost to the point of a pleasant hysteria.  By this time, she had picked herself up.  She was so angered by my response that, upon standing, she seized me by the wrist, lifted me up so that I was dangling from her hand by an arm (I think her rage gave her a sudden surge of strength), and then she began to thrash my rear end with her free hand.  She spanked and spanked me, quite hard, but because I was so hysterical with laughter, and was already replaying the slow motion loop of her fall in my mind, the impact of her slaps on my rear end neither hurt nor frightened me.  I continued to laugh; by that time, my laughter sounded, to my own ears, like shrieking.  My sides began to hurt from the laughter, but not my butt from her continuing slaps.  So, when she realized that the corporal punishment was ineffective, she led me---with my wrist still clutched in her hand---to the parking lot, to our car, where she locked me in and then returned to the bleachers, leaving me alone.  I continued to laugh for some time.

Darkness was just beginning to fall when the game completed its ninth inning, and, shortly thereafter, my parents returned to the car.  As soon as I saw my mother's face, with its still angry expression, I began to laugh again.  Sometime on the drive home, I must have fallen asleep, as I cannot remember the arrival home or being put to bed.

My parents had developed a habit to punish me with embarrassment in front of visiting adult relatives, or their friends, when I had failed a test, been reprimanded at school, or violated decorum, as I had that night when I laughed at my mother's fall and bounce.  Several days after the incident, my paternal grandparents, whom I dearly loved and who loved me very much as well, visited.  As usual when I had failed or violated my parents' expectations, I was summoned into the living room, to stand attentatively while my mother explained, in detail, the failure or violation, and then would demand that I explain it myself (with the expectation of an appropriate remorse on my part).  Until I entered junior high school (that is, seventh grade, this was a routine).  My grandparents, however, were not overly fond of my mother, and did not think much of her style of parenting.  So, when she feigned helplessness to understand why I had laughed so impolitely at her fall, my grandmother immediately spoke up, and asked her, "What do you do when he falls down?"  The immediate silence that followed upon her question was almost tangible.  My mother immediately ordered me to return to my room and get ready for bed.  I did not hear whatever conversations followed, but my parents no longer publicly and openly laughed at me when I took a fall, or some other accident.

Starward