Nickey's Life

None to few give a damn enough to read my autobiography, but I am going to write it anyway. When I bought the domain name (my name) the sales guy at GoDaddy asked who I am, implying that since I would write my autobiography I must be famous or something. Famous I am not. I am not wealthy and have no inventions to lend prestige to my name, at least none that have been credited to me, though I do have many inventions in my mind awaiting the conquering of the struggle for survival to make their appearance. It seems to me that my life has been remarkable. I have been blessed via the manifestation of love for all with perpetual bliss in life. I have been blessed by an appearance of God and Goddess and the communication of some important, to me, information. These two things alone make me quite unique, as far as I can tell. I have discovered things that no one else seems to have discovered. For certain, I have discovered things that are well known historically and currently. It is quite a wonderful feeling to come to a truth through one’s own means and later get verification from some reputable source. I feel great! My greatness is just my personal feeling. Greatness in the eyes of others seem less desirable to me, but it might be useful. Likewise, it might be very unhelpful, even an impediment. Trying to justify the writing of my own story has little momentum with me. I thought of it because someone asked.

On September 10, 1950 Mary Joyce Bishop gave birth to me on the kitchen table in a little shack next to a large oil mill in Coleman, Texas at 1:45 am after a long arduous labor. Oreal Dean Bishop, my father, was in attendance with my mother’s parents and the local doctor. Mom was soon to be eighteen and Dad was soon to be twenty-one. Mother’s labor was so difficult she says she got too weak to even speak. Apparently the bed she was in was too soft and causing her difficulty, so she was moved to the kitchen table. This particular fact was denied by my mother most of my life. Dad told me about it and when confronted with the story Mom told him and I that is was not true. Later, in her seventies, she announced to me one day that she had given the matter considerable consideration, mostly due to my effort to learn the truth, and that she had come to the memory of the move to the kitchen table. Memory has a way of staying hidden until it gets good and ready to emerge. This seems to have been the case with my mother’s memory of my birth.

I was the first child born to my parents, and there were three others born later, two more boys and a girl. The six of us had a good life for a while during the early years, but things went downhill later. My youngest brother does not remember those good years and missed four of five of them due to his later arrival. He was appalled, even enraged, when I told him not long ago that Daddy was my hero. He was indeed my hero all my life despite the terrible condition he come to before he was killed in a truck wreck in 1979 at the young age of forty-nine, an age that was so old most who knew him were shocked that he made it that far. He was as wild as a West Texas tornado, a virtual hellion flash in the pan. I have a lot to report about him later. The year I was born my dad worked at a gas station. They were quite poor.

I come from a long line of poor, on both sides, but we did alright. There was little ambition to rise up to wealth, though there was plenty of motivation to get better off, and most of my large extended and immediate family did. In 1950 life in Texas was a lot different than it is today and my first year was reportedly quite comfortable for my mom and dad, therefore for me.

I have, or had, thirty-six first cousins. I grew up with many of them. We were close enough to be like brothers and sisters. I had sixteen aunts and uncles and knew all four of my grandparents well enough to consider them as my other four parents, the same can be said of my aunts and uncles. I learned many things and lessons from my grandparents. They were hard working honest people who had deep love for family and the “country,” as we refer to rural life. As for the country, the USA, there was probably more disdain than love. Government was usually seen as a bunch of idiots who couldn’t work making a living by taking from the poor and imposing ridiculous rules upon them. Robin Hood was admirable. My people were self-sufficient, almost all of them. My dad’s parents had a farm in Bangs, Texas most of my life where they raised almost everything they ate. They could have been independent of grocery stores if they had wanted to be. It was more a matter of convenience that they went there at all. They didn’t actually have to. They even raised their own cane to make sugar and sell. They raised the feed for their livestock. These were capable people who maintained values that held work in a high place, and rightly so. Having some bunch of people in government impede their freedoms and force servitude upon them in the forms of armed service and tax was not seen with kindness. They endured the great depression.

My mother told me that when she was born in a big tent near the Colorado River just outside of Rockwood, Texas (population 17) that she didn’t know they were poor. Her parents were Barnetts. This bunch of people were decedents of people who fought for the independence of Texas. Two brothers from my ancestry on that side of the family were killed at the Alamo and another survived fighting the Battle of San Jacinto and was granted over six hundred acres of land for his effort. By the time Lonzo Macman Barnett and Melissa Elizabeth Lawrence gave birth to my mom, their seventh child of seven, times were lean, a depression, but Mom didn’t know it. She said that the only thing she remembers about it is the increase of families living in tents around them.

She spent the early years of her childhood that she remembers living in a large homemade tent on a small spring-fed creek near Bend, Texas, Cherokee Creek. She took me and one of her great-grandsons, Nicholas, there during her sixties. We couldn’t keep up with her. We would come to an area of dense brush blocking her way. I started looking for a way around it convinced a rabbit could not get through it only to look back and see Mom disappearing into it without so much as a “Let’s go this way.” Nicholas and I would just look at each other in disbelief and bail in after her. I thought several times she was going to lose us, and Nicholas was evidently of the same opinion for he ceased lagging behind waiting for me to find a route around. Even when we came to a cliff she would just plunge over the edge with no evident concern for life or limb. She led us from the old one-room school she went to for miles. We were bleeding from many scratches by the time we reached her destination, the creek. We walked for hours along it, trespassing. She didn’t care. Nicholas and I were very nervous and constantly on the lookout for the owners. She showed us her favorite places and told stories of her and Duke, her youngest brother, playing on the river. Her memory of it was a thrill to her and seeing her so exuberantly telling it and reliving it in her memory was a thrill to me. The place is beautiful. The water is shallow and crystal clear, even still. She says many times even to this day that she thinks all children should be so lucky to grow up on a nice creek like she did. She and Duke were the right ages for companionship and for not having to work. So, they played. All the other people seem to have little space in her memory of the times.

The land along the river was owned by a generous person who allowed people to set up their tents and live there at no cost. The depression filled the area with families. The increase in numbers, as I said, is about the only thing of the depression Mom remembers, for it had no other impact on her family. They were already living in poverty so low that the depression didn’t change much in their lives. Work was harder to find. That’s all.

We walked along that creek for hours and Mom was showing some fatigue but no less desire to continue. She was just delighted to be there and didn’t want to leave. I prevailed upon her, with the assistance of Nicholas, to turn back. We had been going upstream the whole time. I knew we were in for it. The distance we had to cover was many miles and the going very rugged. We caught a break, though.

While still in the easy walking along the creek, a pickup drove up beside us. There were about half a dozen people in it, some riding in the back or the bed, and they wanted to know what the hell we were doing on their land and who we were. Nicholas and I were sure we were in trouble. Mom virtually ignored their inquiry and began to speak to them as if they were old friends. Now, Mom has a way of making people comfortable, even in an illegal situation such as we found ourselves in at that time. She began to inquire of the people who owned the land when she lived there and other things. I was interspersing details about why we were there and how we got there. When they learned of the route we had taken, they had a tough time believing us. Mom dealt with that in her deft way. Before I knew it we were, indeed, old friends. The people invited us onto the truck and gave us a ride to the cliff we had descended to reach the valley of the creek. They just loved Mom.

We made it back to the old school house before night fall, but Lola was not there anymore. She was there when we first arrived. Lola was the sister of Mom’s sister-in-law who married her oldest brother, Claude. This small, hearty, and sturdy looking woman was sweeping the very large floor of the school house. In fact, we arrived just before she had completed the task, as evinced by the pile of dirt and debris ready to be picked up. She was well into her nineties, I think, at that time, and looked so much like and had mannerism so much like her sister, Elda, that I was astonished. Elda was an aunt that had long since moved on to heaven who I loved deeply. She raised twelve children. Here was her virtual twin in her nineties working away as a volunteer for the school. Her age was not evident. She looked to be in her fifties or sixties at most and her mind was sharp. A German immigrant as a child, she had an air of serenity and wisdom that was strong and comfortable. It was evident that there was much in her mind that was a treasure.  We visited until Mom could not hold her horses any longer and scurried us on to find her creek, which she was a little vague about exactly how to find after so many years. Lola helped direct her before we left, but I was still not confident. I have a few pictures of Lola. She has since joined her sister in heaven.

Mom is getting on in her years now. Her memory is not what it should be, but she still remembers her childhood, especially the part on Cherokee Creek. She may never see it again, but she sees it all the time just the same. She is in her eighties as I write this and lives in a nursing home in Coleman. It was her idea to move out there and she came to that idea years ago. I have hours of home video of her telling her life story. I interviewed her as best I could to make the videos have continuity and to make sure I got the stuff I wanted. Nowadays, she can’t do that. Her memory is not working well enough and I am sure glad I thought to get her story when I did.

Mother loves to tell the story of her labor birthing me. There is no hint of regret in the recounting of the long, difficult, and painful time she had. In fact, she seems to relish the memory. She will say many times that she got so weak she couldn’t even put together enough energy to speak, saying that her efforts resulted in a very faint, breathy whisper. Fortunately, she was quite young and hearty, a mere 17 years old, but soon to be 18.

It seems evident to me that as soon as I arrived my dad pretty much took over. Being his first child must have given him some measure of delight and according to Mom he spent a lot of time with me from the very start. She tells of him taking me out by the road when I was only six months old and standing me there for people to see. Evidently being able to stand and walk at that age was unusual. Having no memory of it, I can only deduce that this came about due to my father’s abundant attention. Now, there are things in my life that bothered me deeply and for a long time, which further indicated the attitude of my father toward me that I will put into the story later. Clearly I got a lot of attention from the male side of the parental equation.

Mom’s daddy used to tell a story about me that even I find astonishing. It seems he had a water faucet in the yard that rose a couple feet above ground that he used for attaching a garden hose or filling pails. This faucet began to leak. A steady drip only seemed to be an opportunity to make a water trough. He put a large wash tub under it and let the drip keep it full for the animals. Why there was no effort to fix the leak is anybody’s guess. Anyway, this tub was large enough to hold maybe twenty gallons of water. He says he came out one evening when I was less than a year old and discovered me playing in the mud beneath the faucet. Mind you, this is not unusual for people of that time in that place, being outside alone and playing in mud at that age. What got his imagination fired was the fact that I had evidently pulled the tub full of water out of the way. He was fond of saying I was the strongest baby he had ever seen. Who knows? Maybe it wasn’t me who moved the tub. I’m kind of shocked that I was outside playing by myself when I was less than a year old. Boy! Talk about different times!

Strange as it may seem, I have other things to report about my first year of life. There are things that I learned and things that I remember. That’s right, remember.

First of all, we moved to Abilene, which I do not remember, but Mom says we did. Second, I got colic a lot. I don’t remember the colic either, but I do remember something related to it. In the nineties I began to meditate a lot. One day while meditating, I had a strange experience. As is the way of meditation for some, reality vanished and I was in another world. Not a different planet, just a different time. I was watching my mother at the kitchen sink. She had her back to me and was busy with her hands. I didn’t know what she was doing, though it is obvious now. Meanwhile, something was bumping my lips and I was only vaguely aware of it. Suddenly, Mother turned around, looked at me and said, “Not like that Oreal Dean.” Where on, she walked over to me, spun me around, leaned me way back while supporting my head, and poured something down my throat. Then she set me back upright and went on about her business. I was sitting in my father’s lap, in a kind of shock. I think I had swallowed the largest amount of liquid so far in my life. I was still nursing. At this point I returned, my consciousness anyway, to the then present, and the shock was still upon me. That made the shock even more shocking. It was like waking up from a nightmare still feeling the fear generated in the dream, coupled with a more profound shock created by realizing that a simple meditation had resulted in such an incredible experience. I don’t think the shock of the experience has diminished much even still.

I remember my mother at the kitchen sink. Her black hair and youthful appearance stand to this day as a cherished memory. At the time I didn’t know it was a memory. It was just a strange experience that actually frightened me, or disturbed me. With time it became the only possibility. When the first opportunity arrived, I told Mom the story and she said to me that when I was a baby I had colic sometimes and they had to give me medicine, from a cup. The only conclusion I have come up with that seems the least bit reasonable is that I remember the first time I swallowed something other than breast milk, which comes in small amounts per swallow. I now cherish that memory.

I remember my mother when she was eighteen years old, vividly. I have less memory of my dad’s appearance from that experience other than the comfortable feeling of security, but my mom stands out to this day vividly. Now, talk about a precious memory! Another thing that I cherish about the experience is the full awareness of the awareness I had at that time.

I was aware, but it was a very limited awareness. I find it difficult to describe. It is as though there were few thoughts or mental things going on in me, and I felt only limited things. I felt content and secure. I was taking in the view of my mother as she worked at the sink, but I couldn’t fathom what she was doing, and I wanted to. I could see her, but her actions were beyond my conscious ability. My dad was holding me, but I was not much aware of him. I felt something bumping my lips, but even that didn’t distract me from watching Mother do whatever she doing.

The whole experience still stands as a remarkable thing to have happen. I cherish the memory, but still marvel at the oddity of it. I can remember what it feels like to be only months old. I know how unconscious I was and how it felt to try to gain understanding of some rudimentary things, like washing dishes.  I knew I didn’t know what was going on and I was applying myself to a remedy. My self-awareness was strong. I knew I couldn’t fathom much of anything. None of what I could observe was understandable and I knew I should be able to understand it. I wanted to understand it. My ability to observe was very limited, too. I couldn’t get attention to very much of what I was totally immersed in and surrounded by. If the experience was what it seems to be, a baby’s consciousness is just as small as they are. No wonder they say so much of our personality is formed early.

Who knows, maybe there are other such memories buried in the gray matter somewhere waiting for the right path to consciousness. Wouldn’t that be great, or shocking! I had other experiences meditating that were so disturbing that I haven’t attempted meditation since, and it has been about twenty-four years now. I’ll tell you about it later in the story.

It was 1950 and my first year of life. I don’t remember it very well. There are stories that I was told by my parents or grandparents that fill in some of the blanks, but the thing that seems to warrant more disclosure is the fact that my father took a big interest in me. According to Mother, he kept me with him too much of the time. He was obsessed to some extent. She said I was able to walk at such a young age because Daddy was always “messing” with me. His life was probably pretty satisfying at that time. He had been through quite a lot by then and having a wife and child must have made him pretty happy, something that apparently had been rather lacking up to that time, as you will see as this narrative unfolds.

During 1951 my parents moved a couple times. Dad went where the work was and, of course, mother followed, which meant I followed too. He worked, as I said, at a gas station in Abilene for a while but soon was working or a rig. A drilling rig. Mother embarrassed me many times by telling a story about me. I had trouble with the letter “r” while I was mastering speech. I have heard Mom tell someone on numerous occasions that I used to say, “My Daddy’s a dwiller. He woks on a wig.” Now this is a sure indication that Daddy worked in the oilfield, though that would be obvious anyway eventually. Mom said he used to take me to work with him as soon as I was weaned. So, I evidently spent some of my first year on drilling rigs.

I have some strange memories of being on a drilling rig when I was very young. Two of them seem to warrant a recounting here. The one that seems the most interesting to me is the one that made me feel very stupid. Drilling rigs usually come with a one-room building made entirely of iron sheets welded together, usually about three times as long as wide, with about seven feet high walls, and a curved roof. It is called the “dog house.” There was no dog. I don’t know how the name came about, unless the workers were considered dogs. Maybe the structure resembled a dog house somehow, but none I have ever seen. Anyway, I remember, as clear as day even to this day, standing next to the metal bench in the dog house watching my dad and the other men working just outside the door. I was deeply intrigued. It fascinated me and I knew I didn’t know what they were doing. I tried hard to watch and figure it out, but failed. When they were done and Dad came back into the dog house, I asked him what they had been doing. He told me, and I still remember his answer, they were “making a connection.” Well, that was no help at all! I asked him what that meant and he explained, I think. I still didn’t get it. I wanted to understand. I was desperate to comprehend and tried to get more explanation. Dad tried, but it didn’t work. I had to give up without understanding and Dad gave up even before I did. I never got it until I was much older.

When drilling a hole straight down into the earth, one must put a cutting device on the end of a pipe standing vertically on the ground and turn it. The cutting devise is called a “drill bit.” Now, just think. If you put a bit on a pipe, stand it straight up with the bit on the bottom and turn it, it will grind away at the earth. As it grinds the earth into debris something has to be done with that debris, called “cuttings.” The solution, in most cases, is to pump fluid down the pipe and out the bit to wash away the cutting. This is a very simplified explanation, but sufficient for this time. Okay. The pipe and the bit are drilling into the earth. Right? It drills down until you get the entire pipe’s length drilled into the earth. Now what? What do you do if you want to drill deeper? Well, you pull the pipe up out of the hole, take the bit off, screw another section of pipe onto the first pipe, put the bit on that section of pipe and start drilling again. Simple, right! Not to a little boy under two years old. That is what Daddy and the men were doing while I watched and tried to comprehend. They were, “making a connection,” as my dad explained, though not nearly as understandably as I have just done. I think the reason I remember that incident so well is that I felt so stupid.

My dad’s attitude conveyed his frustration with getting me to understand and I was susceptible to his feelings. I didn’t know that he felt some personal inadequacy with his inability to get me to comprehend a connection, but I know now. He gave up in frustration, and I felt like I must be stupid. I thought he was disappointed in me for not understanding. The feeling stayed on me for some time. Eventually, though, it was passed. I now feel that the understanding I sought was beyond my ability due to my age. Daddy probably was cognizant of that fact and less frustrated than I thought, and, thereby, didn’t actually think I was stupid. It seems to me now that my awareness and my desire to comprehend making a connection indicate that I was the opposite of stupid. I will probably never know if Daddy saw me that way. Why wouldn’t he be amazed? Knowing the children I have known, and becoming familiar with their mental development, I am quite proud of myself for being what I was at that age. At the time, though, I felt pretty stupid and thought my daddy was disappointed in me.

The other memory from those early years has to do with eating at the rig, the drilling rig my dad worked on. Again, I was in the dog house while Daddy was working somewhere out there. He told me to stay there while he did something and I was quite obedient as a child. I trusted my dad and wanted to follow his instruction. Well, the dog house has a metal bench that runs about the length of the thing. It is hollow and has a lid of metal, by the way, and stuff is stored inside it. I was standing beside it. I remember it clearly. The bench was about my height. One of the men walked in through the door. I must have known him, but I do not remember who he was. The men were called, “rough necks.” This rough neck saw me standing there, sat down on the bench right beside me and picked me up. He sat me down on the bench right beside him and put his lunch box between us. He then opened it up and displayed its contents to me. I was immediately fascinated. I remember feeling that it was very pretty and had an added quality brought about due to the fact that I recognized some of its contents as food that I liked. He was all smiles and good humor talking to me like adults do to little children. He felt like family to me. Inside the box was two white-bread sandwiches of some kind wrapped in wax paper, a bag of potato chips, a candy bar, and an apple. With a smile as big as Texas, the guy takes the apple and gives it to me. Needless to say, I was delighted. I was very excited, too, by the vision of the food in the lunch box. It was just beautiful to me.

That is all I remember of that episode. It is not connected to any sequence of events, so there is little context. It just stands out as a memory I will never forget. I feel so lucky to have it! I have no idea where it took place, or exactly when. The only frame of reference I have is my memory of being about as tall as that bench in the dog house, and of being virtually unconscious; again that feeling.

By now you can see that my father took quite an inordinate amount of interest in me during my first years. I suppose I got a lot of attention and that may be why I tried to kill my first brother the day they brought him home from the hospital. I don’t remember it at all, and not just conveniently, but Mother says I tried to bash his brains out with a brass elephant. I still claim my innocence. The evidence is purely circumstantial. There were no witnesses, so who is to say what happened. Mother says she heard Gayland, James Gayland Bishop, screaming and came quickly to investigate. She says I was standing next to the bad with a brass elephant in my hand and Gayland had a big swelling red spot on his forehead. Now, I know that is rather an incriminating position to be in, but who is to say what happened. Perhaps I was trying to give Gayland the elephant to play with and he dropped it on his own head, wherewith I picked it up. If that had been what happened, I would have been feeling bad about him getting hurt.  As unlikely as this may seem, it is not right to condemn with insufficient evidence. Justice demands certain things. I have been the victim of injustice many times in my life and that may well have been the first. To be falsely accused is not pleasant.

Any way you look at it, I had a new brother. He was born when I was thirteen months old, and even though I may have tried to get rid of him at first, he became my best friend and I took him under my wing. I tried to teach him things and to show him things. We played together, and you have to admit, having someone to play with has its rewards. It also has its punishments.

I got punished more than once for things that happened while playing with my brother. I still claim innocence, but I can’t deny a role. Several such cases come to mind as I write. I hardly know where to start. So, I think I will start with the fun we had together.

Gayland and I were like little army tanks. We were rugged and very active. Those were the days when children were allowed to play on their own, even outside. In fact, that was where the adults shoved us most of the time. They didn’t want us “under-foot,” as they would say. “Get outside and play!” was a common command. I was content to play outside, but I was also interested in what the adults were doing.

The large family I have made for many reunions and visits in my life. Mother and her sisters were the happiest women you can imagine, and they reveled in one another’s company. I loved to stand by and listen to them talk. Mom, Grandmother, my aunts, and their sisters-in-law would sit at the kitchen table at Grandma’s houses and just visit. I loved it. However, all too soon I was ran off. I’ll never forget one of them saying, “He’s afraid someone will fart and he won’t get to smell it.” Now how is that for crude humiliation? It usually worked, too.

Gayland was not as interested in what the adults were doing. I don’t know if he was worried about missing the smell of a fart or not. Probably not. We played together outside and I took it upon myself to show him the ropes. I had a sense of responsibility even then. Though I don’t remember much about the first three years of his life, I do know that he was my pal. I may have been jealous of the attention he got, but I don’t know that. I know that I was eager for him to learn to walk so we could play together. It’s part of my strange memories from the time. I should have inquired of Mom as to how I behaved with Gayland when he was still an infant. Did I hold him? Did I pay much attention to him? Good questions. Maybe it is not too late to find out, though. Mother is the only one left alive who would know.

My brother, Gayland, is a strong, intelligent, caring man. He was probably pretty strong as a baby. I don’t remember how old he was when he began to be able to do things with me, but I’ll bet he was very young. I would, undoubtedly, have been glad to have someone to do things with, and we did do things together. In fact, we did things together that got me in trouble, not because we were doing something wrong, though we did that sort of thing too, but because I had him doing things he couldn’t, and probably shouldn’t, have been doing.

Gayland got a good dose of the short legs common to some of the Barnetts. I was taller than him when we were children, but no more adventurous. He had a growth spurt when he went into the Army at seventeen, and is nearly my height now. We both have short legs. However, he was disproportionately shorter than me when we were in our first decade and a half. It will be a bit out of context with the timeline, but I will tell of a story that makes the point I am describing, maybe even two.

I was in a tree near our house one evening playing by myself when Gayland came along and saw me up there. By that time I was already aware that he couldn’t climb as well as I could and I didn’t want him to try to join me. Rightly so, too! I told him not to try to climb up where I was, but he ignored me and came scrambling up. He did pretty well until he got to a point where it was more difficult and pretty high. The whole time I was telling him not to come any higher, but he wouldn’t listen. Sure enough, he got up to almost where I was and panicked when he looked down. I knew it would happen. I had already been there and done that with him. Most of the times before, though, I was able to get him down. Not this time.

I was sick with fear, not of one of us falling, but of having my parents angry with me. I tried for all I was worth to get him down. I coaxed, insulted, commanded and even tried to pry his arms loose and take him down. His arms and legs were short, but they almost reached around the limb he clung to, and he was a strong as a bear. I showed him several times how to descend from his position. I did no good at all. I certainly was a little harder for him due to his short legs, but he could have done it. That he came up there in the first place proved it. Fear was the problem. I couldn’t do anything with him. I couldn’t even get him to stop screaming. I was so worried about the trouble I would be in that I tried to beat him out of the tree. I hit him many times, determined to prevent getting adults involved. Even that did no good. It only made him scream more and louder. I know! It was stupid of me. But fear was upon me too. At that age and that size, I didn’t do any real damage to my brother, but I couldn’t get him to shut up or climb down either.

The whole time he was screaming and crying at the top of his lungs and I was doing everything I could to get him to be quiet, only to make it even worse. Eventually, I had to give up and go get my parents. I was virtually sick with dread. Mom was the only one home and she came running. I think her panic exceeded Gayland’s. I tried to convince her that he wasn’t going to fall and the anger came straight at me. It was my fault he was up there, according to her. It was total injustice. I tried to plead my case and only got more scolding. I had tried with all I was worth to prevent him from coming up to where I was. I knew what would happen. I even started to climb down before he started up, but he was fast. He virtually scrambled up. He was so intent of doing it, he probably didn’t really realize how high it was until he got there; as is always the case with heights.

When Mom saw him up there, she panicked too. That didn’t help Gayland at all. By that time it was a nightmare come to life. Mom was crying, Gayland was crying and screaming. I was sick with dread.

Mom was not willing to climb up there and get him, so she had to go for help. Pretty soon, a couple of men she knew arrived and took in the situation. I don’t remember their names, but they were friends of the family and knew Gayland and I. One of them began to climb the tree with the other right behind him. On the way up the guy in the lead had made a spot just below where Gayland was screaming with a face so red it was humorous to me. Gayland had all four limbs, arms and legs, wrapped around the trunk of an artery of the tree. He had been holding on like that for some time at this point. The rescue hero was standing with each foot in a different fork of the tree and this put him in a wide stance, his feet far apart. I noticed right away that those legs were shaking wildly. I thought that was pretty funny and said as much to Mon, “Look Mom, he’s scared too. See how his legs are shaking.” Evidently that was not the right thing to say. She turned and slapped me across the face hard and viciously told me to shut up.

I understand now that she was upset, probably terrified. That fact that I was in trouble was not justice. I felt that way then and I feel that way now. Perhaps my remark was a little insensitive, but being struck in such anger was not right. The man got Gayland down safely, but I could see the disdain in Mom’s face for quite a while afterwards. I pleaded my case fervently. I tried to tell him not to come up there. I tried to get him down. What was I to do? The tree I was in was down and across the street on the side of our house and I chose that one feeling safe that Gayland would not find me up there. My mistake!

I climbed trees a lot back then. We were living at the time in Princeton, Indiana. Daddy had gotten a good job in the oilfield and moved us all up there when I was six and about to start the second grade. Tht part of the world had Sugar Maple trees. They get very large. We had a huge on in the front yard and they lined the street in front of the house on both sides. They were large enough to reach across the street and meet in the middle, shading the whole street and making it like a tunnel. I was able, at that time I was between 6 and 9 years old, to go anywhere I wanted in all the trees except the giant one in the yard, and, believe me, I tried hard to climb that tree.

I don’t know how many times I climbed into that tree hoping to make it to the smaller branches making it possible to reach the top. I was never able to achieve it. The tree had a first fork composed of giant arteries that were so large I could only reach a tenth of the way around them and I spent lots of time on many occasions trying to hug those arteries like a monkey climbing a pole and inch my way up without success. It was much farther up to the accessible branches and I really wanted to get to them.

One day Daddy came out the front door and saw my in one of the trees along the street in our yard. He said something to the effect that I had better be careful. He went on across the street and began a conversation with the neighbor who lived there. You should have seen him jump when I dropped down out of the tree right next to him. It was his habit all my life the use the explicative “Boy!” when startled by me. This time was no exception. He settled quickly though, and demanded to know how I had dropped down next to him when he had just seen me in a tree across the street. He would have seen me go up the tree I had dropped from and wanted to know what was going on. I just explained that I had climbed across the street via the branches that came close together over the center of the street. I thought it was very funny. I didn’t think anything of the fact that I could do that at such a young age. It was easy, to me. I saw him look up at the branches of the trees after  told him.

Now I know, without a doubt, that my dad was very astonished that I had been able to do what I did. I could see it in his expression and the way he behaved for a brief time. I think he was proud of me. However, it was clear that he had no intention of praising me or letting his pride be seen. He quickly ignored me and went on with his conversation with the neighbor. My dad’s lack of praise and his concerted effort to keep such feeling hidden played a large part in the events of my life. It seems unfair to me today, but he did what he believed he needed to do. My whole extended family were like that. They had this notion that it was not good to let your children get “big head.” That’s how they referred to pride. Pride was not desirable, so you had to make sure you didn’t praise your children. I know! It seems crazy to me too. That’s what I had to work with, and I have no regrets. My life is wonderful and I can’t regret anything that ever happened for my life might not be so wonderful had things not happened as they did. On the other hand, I can understand that it is also possible that my life could be even better, though it is hard to imagine. To me the only way to improve my life would be to have my family happier, safer, and longer lived. The thing about such thoughts is that when one considers possibilities there is no limit. When we start with the word “if” we have opened an infinite array of possibilities. The only reason I can find to even bother is as a way to expand one’s consciousness.

We all get our experiences. No one can not. There seems to me to be value in learning from the experiences of others and from contemplating experiences that one did not have. That makes the
“if” word have some value. The problem is accuracy. When we try to visualize something that didn’t happen, to accurately gain the truth, the visualization must be accurate, and who can say what is accurate in such a case. Beyond that, I indulge second guessing as a learning tool and make sure I don’t confuse thought with reality.

Those years in Indians were wonderful years for me, but I still have things to recount about the years before we moved there. By the time Gayland was born we were back in Coleman. Gayland was born at home like I was. For many of his early years of life he and I thought he was born in a tree. Really! I can’t remember who told us that, but some adult in the family did. I think it was Mother’s daddy. It was quite a big deal when we became old enough to realize that it was a big joke. I can remember Gayland telling people he was born in a tree, and that’s even funnier when you realize what a hard time he had climbing them. People laughed, but we didn’t understand why. Being born in a tree seemed perfectly logical to us. In fact, we liked it. However, he was not born in a tree. He was born at home, somewhere in Coleman.

I haven’t been able to learn exactly where we lived when he was born. I just know it was in Coleman, Texas in 1951, October 21^st. It couldn’t have been very long before we were playing together, and any resentment or jealousy I might have felt, and I’m not pleading guilty to any of the charges, were replaced with the joy of having a brother. A brother to play with and to show things became a joy to me. I wanted to show him everything. Unfortunately, he had a mind of his own. I don’t know why he wanted to be that way, but there was little I could do about it. We fought often, but it was not a deal breaker. Sometimes I want to do things without a little brother tagging along. Yea, right! Fat chance! Gayland went everywhere with me. As he began to assert his own will, we began to come to odds.

My brother had a penchant for doing things that were wrong. He got into trouble all the time, most of his young life. It was all we could do to keep him from being sent to reform school. He did a one hundred and eighty degree turn when he became a man, though. We still have different opinions of right and wrong and there are other differences, but we are also very much alike. Our history was made together for all of our formative years. We slept in the same bed until I was fifteen and we got bunk beds.

Gayland’s tendency to get into trouble became apparent to me pretty early. This is probably because his troubles usually ended up getting me in trouble. I was the oldest. My parents ordered me to watch him and my other siblings threatening me with disciplinary action if they got into trouble or got hurt. It was totally unfair! I was just a little kid, and I knew that I couldn’t manage them, especially Gayland. Still, I took the task to heart. I tried my best always. It wasn’t nearly good enough.

I have quite a few examples of the trouble Gayland brought down on me. They will be told as I get along in this story. I want to keep the time line as close to continuity as I can, and there are things to tell that took place before my responsibility for my siblings became an issue.

As I said earlier, we moved a lot. In fact, I never lived in the same place more than three and a half years with my family, and that was only once, the rest being much shorter in duration. Daddy followed the work. When I was about three years old we lived in a two story duplex, one upstairs from the other, with my dad’s parents living in the one on top. Memory tells me now that it was just a poor man’s dwelling, but at the time I didn’t know that. I remember a lot of that time, but there is one incident I think makes me look good.

Daddy and Granddaddy were working on a car in front of the house. It was hot. We were in Midland, Texas according to Daddy. I inquired of him about it before he was killed. He didn’t remember anything about the story I am going to tell, but he remembered the place and the time. I was dressed in nothing but a pair of pants with the legs cut out of them; no shirt, no shoes. As usual, I was at Daddy’s elbow while they were bent over the fenders and under the hood of a car. Fixing it. They were both mechanics. In fact, Granddad had a mechanics shop in Santa Anna while living on the farm in Bangs, as mentioned earlier. So, they were fixing some car and there I was trying to understand what they were doing and to learn to do it too. I couldn’t see over the fenders or the grill of the car, so I just stood by and listened. I did, however, watch what I could.

I noticed something that was interesting to me and asked Daddy about it. It got me the usually, “Boy!” coupled with an “I don’t know!” followed by ignorance, as in being ignored. I had a rather distended belly sticking out over my shorts, not fat, full. We ate well then, evidently. As I watched Daddy work I noticed that his belly was flat and that when he inhaled it didn’t stick out like mine did when I inhaled. This didn’t seem right to me. Every time I breathed in, my stomach bulged out and his nor Granddad’s did. So, I asked Daddy why.

He didn’t even know what I was asking at first. I explained and he got it soon enough. It must have seemed to be a silly question to him, for it got dismissed right away. I didn’t let it go, though I didn’t risk a follow up question.

Later in my life, after I became a martial artist and a yoga practitioner, I discovered the answer to that question asked when I was three and living in Midland. I was breathing diaphragmatically and they were just breathing with their chests. I am skilled in diaphragmatic breathing now. It seems, however, that it came naturally to me, as evinced by that strange memory for so long ago. I am not sure why I remember that of all the things I experienced at that time. I don’t recall anything else, except what happened after asking about the breathing.

I was playing on that old car they were working on and I still bear the scar. The car was probably a forties model of some kind. We surely couldn’t afford a new car, and they wouldn’t have been working on a new one either. Cars back then were made with heavy gauge metal compared to cars today. I could walk all over it without hurting it, and I was. Daddy didn’t care, either. He did tell me to be careful though, and I should have listened. I was walking around the car on the bulge in the sides holding on to the rain gutter; another characteristic of old cars mostly gone now. I was trying to make my way around the radio antenna again when I slipped. The antenna was quite sturdy and had a ball at it tip. I fell right on that antenna and the broke it off before I hit the ground. The ball gouged my rib cage just beneath my armpit. It hurt! Daddy came to examine me and pronounced that I would be alright. Then went right back to work. I doubted his diagnosis, but what was I to do? I don’t remember what I did, probably kept playing. As I said, the scar is still there.

If such a thing happened to a kid today, they would be off to the hospital; not us, not back then. It was a different time. That incident stands clearly in my memory. I must be lucky.

Another memory I have from my early years also stands clearly in my mind. Now that I think about it, it seems that the things that do are the things that embarrassed me or hurt me. One such incident is one that made me feel so stupid that I had trouble coping.

I was standing in the front seat next to my daddy as he drove us to Coleman from Santa Anna. I don’t know where we were coming from or going. I just know it was the eight mile stretch of road between those two towns. It was sunset. There used to be a railroad bridge just outside of Coleman that is gone now, and we were almost to it when I saw a ball out in the pasture along the road. It was pretty and I wanted it. So, I said, “Daddy, let’s get that ball.” and pointed. He looked and said, “What ball.” I am not making this up. I remember the words exactly. I said, “That big ball out there.” He still didn’t see it and I began to wonder how he possibly couldn’t see. I said, “That big pretty ball out there!” Suddenly he realized what I was seeing and said, “Boy, that aint no ball. That’s the sun!”

Sure enough! The setting sun was right on the horizon and looked to me like it was sitting out there in that pasture. It was orange and beautiful. I could look right at it. Who would have thought you could look right at the sun? I thought it was a ball. When Daddy told me it was the sun, I knew I had made a big blunder; at least that’s what I thought at the time. I was humiliated. It was terribly embarrassing. What goof ball I was to think the sun was I ball we could go get and play with.

I was able to talk to Daddy about it before he was killed. He didn’t remember it at all. I will never forget it. It is the humiliation that I remember the most, but the incident that created it is as obvious to me. So is the feeling of standing in the front seat next to my daddy while he drove. Now, how old must I have been? I couldn’t have been over about two feet tall. I remember how content and happy I was. I remember how happy I was to be with my dad. I can remember, and I don’t know if it was the same day, Daddy having to brake suddenly and him putting his arm in front of me to keep me from flying forward into the dash of the car. His arm felt large and as hard as steel. I was touched by his care for me. That he would virtually instantly think first of me in his panic touched me deeply. You know, I just realized that that memory is not one of humiliation. Evidently my memory is not focused strictly on the negative things that happened. That’s a relief!