Double Clutching

My father worked many different jobs when I was young but he kept returning to driving trucks. He said it was in his blood. He warned me that he would kick my tail if I ever became a trucker.

I remember him first driving a bread truck. Dad was a bread man, delivering fresh bakery goods to homes each morning. Bread men carried a big metal basket from the truck to the front door. Dad outfitted his with large fold-out trays and colorful display cards featuring the specialty pastries he left on the truck. The new trays boosted sales and Dad was promoted to district sales manager. But he soon found himself back behind the wheel. This became a pattern repeated often in his career; start as a driver, move up to the office, return to the truck. It happened, he said, because driving was in his blood.

A succession of trucks followed; cement mixers, ice delivery trucks, coal trucks, fuel oil trucks. My favorites were the tractor trailer rigs. He drove Macks in the fifties, long-nosed LFs and JTs with sleeper cabs, followed by a variety of early tilt-cab models like Gs and Hs. I also remember an awessome old Autocar, several Whites, a tilt-cab International, some Peterbilts and Freightliners. I especially liked a simple red Mack B-61 with black fenders and an aluminum add-on sleeper.

Some tractors were twin-screw, others had tag-axles. Some carried Road Ranger transmissions with two-speed electric rear ends, others were equipped with the Mack Triplex. My Dad was like an artist when shifting and could glide those twin sticks effortlessly through the gears with one hand, coaxing the knobs with his finger tips while executing a choreography of hand and wrist movements. I watched in awe as he would dispense with the clutch altogether, instead listening for the RPMs to fall to that sweet spot where engine and transmision spun in perfect unison until the shifter knob just fell into the next gear, guided by just the slightest nudge. It was poetry.

Can you tell what I wanted to be when I grew up?

I rode with Dad in the summers when school was out. He would awaken me at three in the morning to get a jump on traffic. We dressed alike, white T-shirt with a pack of Luckies in the sleeve, jeans with rolled cuffs, black engineer boots. We would catch breakfast at some road-side diner or truck stop, usually eggs and sausage with home fries and black coffee.

Those were the fifties, before air conditioning and CB radios. The wind was in our hair and drivers communicated by flashing lights and cryptic hand signals as they sped past each other in opposite directions.

Dad said I was there to keep him awake. I think he really just wanted the company. I learned to drink black coffee, smoke cigarettes, laugh at bad jokes and spend long hours in numbing silence watching an endless progression of utility poles and road stripes race toward me, then shrink away just as quickly, swallowed by a distant point in the center of the big side mirror.

Man, how I wanted to drive trucks! I still do. But I never did nor will, in tribute to my father. That may be the one decision in my life that pleased him most. I had not followed him onto the road and into a life of painful loneliness.

I never did become a truck driver. But, it is still the only thing I ever REALLY wanted to do.

Stop The World

When I was a child I could stop the world. It was a skill I learned out of necessity. I could stop all sight, sound, thought and feeling by lying on my stomach in bed with the covers over my head and my pillow pressed tightly against my ears.

Frightening and horrible things seemed to disappear when I wrapped myself in the safety of my bedroom sanctuary. I could not hear ugly words shouted in anger from the rooms below. The sound of a fist striking a face or an upraised arm was muffled into silence. The whooshing of my own heartbeat drowned cries of anguish and pain. Sometimes I still could feel a vibration in my chest if someone was knocked to the floor or against a wall. But even these became unnoticeable if I tapped the mattress with my foot to the rhythm of my pulse.

I continued to seek refuge from the world even as an adult. Then I would create my sanctuary by drinking alcohol to alter sights, sounds, thoughts and feelings. The world no longer disappeared, it simply became more to my liking. I distorted my perception of the real world until I could no longer distinguish what was real from what was false.

My skill at distorting reality seemed for years to be a gift. It enabled me to live with a false sense of peace and security, believing that all was well. Gradually alcohol ceased to work its magic. At the end I was forced to face the problems I had allowed to grow around me as well as the consequences of not dealing with them.

Through denial or procrastination I had allowed little problems to become big ones. The problems and their consequences took many forms; lost credibility, damaged relationships, bad personal habits, poor health, debt. My growing awareness produced fear and anxiety. Alcohol no longer numbed those feelings.

I didn’t know how to fix what was wrong. I wanted it all to go away. It wouldn’t. I was desperate. In my desperation I became willing to admit powerlessness. The admission of powerlessness overcame the influence of my ego and I was able to ask for help.

Those I asked offered their help without conditions. Look, they said, try what we did. It worked for us. I did what they suggested. It worked for me too.

Now I don’t seek refuge from the world. I awaken each morning embracing it with a positive attitude. I deal with problems as they arise so they don’t grow larger. If a problem is the result of something I cannot change then I accept that and I move on. I try always to do the right thing, which has helped to restore my credibility and repair my relationships. I now depend upon a Higher Power in my life, a sensible thing since I recognize and have admitted that I am powerless in nearly all things.

Life is better. I no longer seek refuge from it. I no longer drink. I don’t have to. I have changed.

Peculiar

Sometimes, as a boy, it bothered me to feel different from the other boys. I was the only one at school on crutches. I stuttered when I spoke. My family moved often so I usually was the "new kid". Stuttering new kids on crutches weren’t the most popular people. Being unpopular didn’t bother me so much. What I disliked most was being stared at by almost everyone.

Not everything that made me different also made me uncomfortable. I was thankful for many of my peculiarities, like these:

I drew well. From an early age I would sit alone and draw for hours, elaborate battles between World War I biplanes, landscapes filled with mountains and waterfalls under ominous storm clouds, dinosaurs both real and born in my imagination.

I had a reel-to-reel tape recorder in 1958. I didn’t know anyone else with a tape recorder, not even an adult. I would record interviews with friends, music from the record collections of others, original dramas complete with sound effects and musical segues between scenes.

My musical interests were boundless. At the age of thirteen I enjoyed rock and roll, classical, jazz, Broadway and vaudeville show tunes, movie soundtracks and barbershop harmony.

I attended a one-room schoolhouse. It was 1956, I was in the sixth grade. The students ranged from grade one through six. Each grade occupied its own row. We had one teacher. She spent time with each grade in turn and would have one grade help with the lessons of another; second graders helping first graders learn numbers and the alphabet, fourth graders helping third graders with arithmetic, sixth graders coaching fifth graders on geography. It was a rewarding experience and my most valuable lessons were in citizenship and cooperation.

My first car was a 1950 Studebaker. It was 1961 and I was sixteen. NOBODYdrove a Studebaker. I thought it was stupid. Somehow, the other kids thought it was cool. Eventually, I thought it was cool too.

At sixteen I took a job as a hospital orderly. It was a welfare hospital filled with elderly patients. They were the most amazing people, full of wisdom and stories. Some were bitter and sad, most were painfully lonely. I learned from them all, especially the several who died as I sat holding their hand in mine.

I really cared about people. It seemed that I could feel their pain and their joy. I believed I could sense their thoughts through their facial expressions and body language. I don’t know if I interpretted them accurately but it was fascinating to watch people closely while wondering at their motives and imagining their intentions.

As I young adult I imagined that my peculiar childhood made me somehow special. I now believe that may just have been another manifestation of an inferiority complex. Perhaps I was over-compensating for feelings of inadequacy, or something like that.

I don’t feel special today. I just feel well, thank you very much. I am grateful that my childhood was filled with such unusual experiences. The memories are like treasures I can turn over in my mind to examine, appreciate and learn from. Someday they may be my most valuable possessions, they will be all I have.

The Same Only Different

I am following the contest between George W. Bush and John Kerry, but not too closely. I’ve lived long enough now to understand what George Carlin meant when he said, "Everything is the same only a little different."

Here are two men, backed by influential contributors and powerful political parties, painting themselves in the best possible light while casting their opponent in the worst. They turn each emotionally charged and controversial issue at hand into a weapon of advantage. They withhold their most serious criticism of the other out of fear that similar charges might be hurled back at themselves. Each candidate really has only one objective, to win.

This election is the same as all the others I remember, only a little different. The candidates are different. The issues are different. The tactics and the objective are the same. When it is over they still will shake hands, pledge each other their support on the "important" issues and reassume their roles as the "loyal" opposition.

I don’t pay much attention to the election process anymore. I have watched enough "reality" television to understand that all this really is just a sham. The media has helped to blur the line between our elected government and the entertainment business. Persons who seek employment in either field seem to follow the same general path. Both market their personalities to the public then, while the politician seeks votes in order to maintain an office, the entertainer seeks ratings to maintain a program series. Both require frequent exposure in the press so we won’t forget them and to stay ahead of the newcomers vying for our attention.

The strength of a candidate’s personality cannot win my vote. My vote will be determined by the manner in which I believe each candidate’s character will guide his response to the issues and threats facing the nation. I am looking for a man who is honest and decisive. He must be willing to be unpopular while taking the actions that history will prove to be the right ones. He should believe that power and fame are not a man’s greatest personal achievements.

If neither candidate meets these ideals then I must vote for the man who comes closest.

It Is What It Was

I had an unusual childhood. My parents seemed not to really love each other. Every year I lived in a different house, attended a new school. Chronic illness and the fear of an early death haunted me well into my teens. A stuttering habit set me apart from other children and rendered me nearly uncommunicative.

Those years often were difficult and filled with suprises but they also could be exciting. One summer Dad brought home three horses with saddles, tack and all the accessories. He was impulsive. Suddenly we were a family of equestrians. Usually Dad only came home with a new dog. We lost a lot of dogs to traffic.

I began sixth grade in a one-room schoolhouse in rural Minnesota, then I transferred to Leavenworth, Kansas, then to Raytown, Missouri, then to Wichita Falls, Texas and finally to Marshallton, Delaware, all in the same year. How many kids could claim a resume’ like that? Fifth grade wasn’t nearly so exciting. I stayed in one place all year, a hospital bed while taught by tutors.

Three neighborhood boys once left me unconscious and bleeding in the woods after I fell from the trail into a ravine. They believed I was dead and so swore a pact of secrecy. They were Boy Scouts. Later I awoke and stumbled home. A neighbor, one of the boy’s mothers, drove me to the hospital for stitches. The boys were not glad to see me. Fortunately, we moved soon afterwards, as usual. I never did join the Scouts.

When I was thirteen I found a black leather motorcycle jacket on the ground while walking to school. It fit perfectly. My classmates began treating me differently. I slicked my hair back and wore a sneer on my face. No one messed with me. It was cool. But, I grew fast that year and eventually the jacket didn’t fit. One morning I tossed it on the ground where I had found it months earlier. Within a week my hair was back in a flattop and soon things returned to normal.

I spent several years on crutches because of a bone disease discovered while I lay in traction recovering from polio. Schoolmates are not kind to a "crippled kid." But their comments weren’t nearly as painful as those from adults; "Oh, you poor thing." "How unfortunate." "I feel so sorry for you."

My siblings struggled with their own challenges. In most cases, I preferred mine to theirs.

What would I change in my past? It is a meaningless question since the past cannot be changed. It is what it was. My past molded me into the man I am. Had things been different I would not posses the same emotional perspective or priorities or sense of humor. I would not be the person I am today. It is the store of experience carried from my past that truly makes me unique.

I don’t feel special just because my DNA sequence has never been duplicated in another human being. But it humbles me to know that I alone may appreciate the depth of my Father’s love for his children that day when he brought home three old saddle ponies. I was there and saw his face, the happiness in his smile, the softness in his eyes. He wanted us to have the childhood that he had only dreamed of.

Experiences like those were the building blocks of my life. What would I change if I could? Not a thing.

The King of Dog Shit

I am the King of Dog Shit. A title of dubious distinction but one I have earned the right to bear. It was bestowed upon me by a friend to acknowledge my talent for weaving elaborate schemes with scant chance of a payoff. I am a creative dreamer. So was Thomas Edison. He is only remembered as the Father of Electricity. I was named a King.

Years ago I worked in an office, one of many salaried drones wishing he was somewhere else doing anything else. I had a coworker named Benny. We hit it off immediately. I think we each recognized in the other something of ourselves; bored intelligent underachievers cynically resigned to act out the absurd roles in which we had allowed ourselves to be cast.

We made each other laugh. At first just in passing but eventually over extended lunches at The Beanery, a fly speckled diner tucked behind an industrial park near the office. Our usual fare was black beans with white rice, chopped onion and Texas Pete hot sauce. The dish was noteworthy for its value, cheap and piled high.

We joked, traded stories from the office and shared about the fears and joys, dreams and frustrations that filled our lives. It was good to have a friend with whom I could be real in the middle of the workday.

At some point we began to hatch schemes. The first was to sell pieces of the Berlin Wall. The dismantling had just begun and we figured we could market hunks of concrete, boxed with a Letter of Authenticity, for less than ten dollars. The more we talked about it the more we believed it was a sure thing. We fine tuned the plan over weeks, learning where the rubble had been transported around Berlin, pricing the cost of Trans-Atlantic shipping containers, talking with printers and box fabricators, determining the most cost-effective method of cutting the rubble into symmetrical blocks, sorting, stuffing. We identified and tackled a seemingly endless stream of details.

I don’t know which of us first noticed the television commercial, "Buy a Piece of History!" "Letter of Authenticity!" "$9.95!" We were crushed! But, at the same time, validated. Our failure had been one of speed; we had taken too long. Next time we would be ready.

A Berlin Wall doesn’t come along every day. We waited for the next opportunity, certain that we would know it when we saw it. But, if one came along it must have passed while our backs were turned.

We turned our attention to individual projects. Benny's plan was to market school locker accessories to students by mail order through teen magazines. It sounded like a great idea but it required up-front money for product and advertising and shipping. A great idea, but too ambitious in my opinion.

My own idea was a model of simplicity, a sure winner. Our city recently had passed a "Pooper Scooper" ordinance. Owners were required to clean up after their pets. I reasoned that a product which pet owners could obtain easily, at low cost and dispose of after one use, was bound to succeed. The product itself could be assembled from readily available materials; brown lunch bags, disposable plastic gloves, and rectangles of thin cardboard. Assembly could be accomplished inexpensively at a local Disability Employment Center where workers would slip a single glove into each bag, include a rectangle of cardboard to serve as a scoop, band the bags into bundles of 20 and stamp the band with the logo "The Original Doggie Bag."

I pictured every convenience store, grocery and pet shop as a potential outlet. The profit potential seemed staggering; multiply the number of dogs in the city by 2 or 3 daily uses, assume a price of 15 cents per bag and it didn’t take long to imagine myself spending my days on the golf course and my nights in the clubs.

Well, Benny’s plan came together admirably. He obtained inexpensive plastic items originally designed for other uses and turned them into locker accessories. He sold them by mail order and marketed through magazines. He didn’t get rich but he made a handsome profit. Benny followed through on his plan and realized a dream. He developed a proven formula for success.

And I, well I made some phone calls. The labor cost of occupationally challenged workers turned out to be higher than I had imagined. And, outside of the Beanery, I didn’t find a lot of interest in my product. I suppose my enthusiasm really began to wane as I began noticing the people out walking their pets early in the morning as I drove to work. Each was a potential customer. Each one carried an old plastic grocery bag.

Benny came away from our entrepreneurial experiment as a moderately successful mail order businessman with real world experience. He should feel confident in his ability to repeat the process in the future with a different product, a different target market and a reasonable expectation of turning a profit.

And I came away with a title, the King of Dog Shit.

Marriage With Options

I recently celebrated my twenty-eighth wedding anniversary. Twenty-eight years is a long time, though not necessarily as long as "till death do us part." That was how long I promised to honor my wedding vows, both times.

My first marriage lasted seven years. I married a wonderful woman with whom I wanted to share the rest of my life. I couldn’t imagine anything that might come between us and cause us to break our wedding vows. Well, maybe a few things. But they were really terrible, unforgivable things and I made it very clear right at the beginning that, despite any vows to the contrary, if any of those things were to occur then our marriage was over.

My second marriage was to another wonderful woman with whom I wanted to share the rest of my life. The experience of my first marriage made me more cautious the second time. So, I did not tell this woman that there were some things that, were they to occur, could destroy our marriage. I still considered them terrible things and could not imagine myself forgiving them. I just didn’t tell her what those thing were or what might happen if they occurred.

So, why has the second marriage lasted twenty-eight years while the first one only seven? Perhaps because I drew no lines in the sand.

True, marriage is the union of two souls in the eyes of God and a declaration of unwavering love before family and friends. But, equally important, it is a contract. The vows are spoken in a public ceremony, scripted decades earlier by unknown hands and recited formally between organ renditions. The contract is crafted in the months preceding the ceremony, negotiated at soft-spoken meetings where dreams and fears and hopes and wishes are expressed between lovers.

During my first pre-nuptial negotiation I inserted a non-negotiable termination clause, do any of these things and it is over. I had drawn lines in the sand, warning my partner that to cross them was unforgivable. Imagine my dilemma when she came to me years later asking forgiveness for having crossed a line.

I had painted myself into a corner, trapping myself between walls of animal rage and male pride. In my youthful ignorance I searched in vain for a solution that would save the relationship while erasing the feelings of shame and embarrassment that fueled my growing anger. To forgive might have been the only true solution but I had eliminated that as an option years earlier.

I drew no lines this time. There still are frightening things that might threaten my marriage. But if any of them were to occur I have options to exercise. First among them is to forgive.

Closet Torch Singer?

My wife was out of town last weekend so my routine was suspended. I found myself with an abundance of idle time and the yearning for a little adventure. In past years these ingredients could create a recipe for trouble.

The local 12-Step club hosted a dance on Saturday, a karaoke dance. Now that sounded like an adventure, to stand in public and sing. I had sung karaoke before but only while drunk, to a bunch of other drunks. Then my courage was measured by the shot glass and six of them could propel me to the stage, straining at the high notes of an Elton John ballad. My past karaoke performances had been like shameless, ego-driven cries for attention. "Look at me! I'm doing something special. I AM special!"

As I drove to the club I found myself asking, why do I want to sing karaoke tonight? I wasn't wrestling with self-doubt. I was examining my motives, a thing I have learned to do since living in recovery. I wondered, was I seeking praise and attention? Was I trying to set myself apart from my fellows and demonstrate that I was different, that I was special, somehow better than them?

No, those were not my motives. Had they been I would have turned around and driven home. By the time I parked the car at the club I had begun to understand why I wanted to sing.

Singing is special to me. I have sung all my life. I sing when I am happy and when I am sad, sometimes in a spontaneous outpouring of feelings. It is my most natural and honest means of self-expression. There was a time when singing was the only way I could express myself. As a child, and into my late teens, I stuttered so badly that I tried to avoid speaking altogether. But even during the most troubling of those times I was able to sing without hesitancy. In time, my ability to sing evolved into almost-fluent speech so that today few people appreciate the severity of my handicap.

Singing is my greatest personal pleasure, and among my most private. When I sing I usually am alone. Only the people I love most have heard me sing from my heart.

My drinking years were lonely years. I used alcohol to distance myself from the world and the people around me. But every so often, if I was just drunk and lonely enough, I would seize the opportunity to reach out in the only way I felt comfortable, through singing. Whatever the song's true lyrics, my heart would cry "I am here, I have feelings, please hear me....." Those karaoke nights seldom left me feeling good. At best, I felt unburdened but sad.

Last Saturday night I stood before a room filled with people I had come to think of as brothers and sisters in spirit. I sang for them from my heart. It felt good to hear the words flow from me as easily as my breath. When I finished I felt not just unburdened, but joyous.

I once had thought the ability to sing was just a fortunate accident of nature that gave me pleasure. Now I understand it to be a gift that brings me joy. I believe that any talent I may have is a gift from my Higher Power and that the joy I feel comes from sharing with others.

I sang Saturday night out of gratitude for the many unearned gifts that enrich my life. Among these are the ability to sing, the courage to share my life with others and just to be alive.

Sound corny? I make no apology. This is the reality of my life as I understand it, born of experience, expressed here honestly.

On Being a Writer

I always wanted to be a writer. I met a published writer one day quite by accident. His name was Cameron Mitchell. (No, not the old cowboy movie actor.) While hiking to the observation deck at the top of Mount Mitchell in North Carolina I paused to ask a sophisticated, older gentleman to snap my picture against the backdrop of distant mountain peaks. He agreed. As I handed him my camera it slipped, fell, and bounced off his boot. Fortunately, the camera was not damaged.

After joking about our lucky breaks (his foot breaking my camera's fall and the camera not breaking his foot), he took the photograph and we introduced ourselves. He said he was a writer, mostly magazine articles and short stories. I told him I had always dreamed of being a writer. There was an embarrassed pause.

Then, to demonstrate my talent for turning a phrase and my keen sense of irony, I said, "Gee, isn't this ironic? I dropped my camera on Cameron Mitchell on Mount Mitchell."

Another embarrassed pause, this one longer than the first.

"Could you offer me advice on how to get started as a writer?" I asked.

"Well" he said, "a writer writes."

"About what?"

"About what he knows", he said.

We muttered a few parting pleasantries and then I was alone to steep in my humiliation.

I never forgot my encounter with Cameron Mitchell nor the simple, valuable advice he offered that day. I began writing with purpose. I limited my topics to things I knew. I explored them deliberately and expressed the feelings they awakened in me. I tried to convey the importance I discovered in simple things when viewed from my perspective.

I call myself a writer now. I write. A writer writes.

First Blog Post

And so I begin, my first post.

My intent here is to share honestly. I am relatively new to both of these, sharing and honesty. I learned them in the rooms of a 12 Step program. Previously I did not share so much as boast and pontificate. To be honest made me feel frightened and vulnerable so I molded the truth into something more comfortable.

In 58 years my greatest accomplishment is this, I have learned to be comfortable in my own skin. I can look in the mirror each morning as I shave and not be awash in negative emotions. No shame, no self-loathing, not even the dull ache of just not feeling good enough.

How did I grow from an innocent child into a troubled misfit, becomming at last a man at peace with himself?

Let me tell you....