There are times in life that you go through that seem to bring out what you really are made of, or at least the measure of what really matters to you in life up to that point. In my own life, I had a father who was strict. We were to respect our elders, yes sir no sir, etc. Also, he taught me and my brother to have an old fashioned work ethic. All the virtues and some made up were tossed in the mix in my upbringing but like a true Team Capitan this was the rules of his game and it was played his way.
Love, caring, compassion, all these wonderful traits just were not installed automatically they had to be taught and learned. Through interaction with my dads system of discipline and teaching these things eventually came to me as natural as breathing but there was one thing that we seemed to always be in disagreement on. That was education, at first I actually enjoyed going to school but at a later higher grade time in the process I saw that the poor kids were at a real disadvantage and so it went with me. I became disillusioned with the public school system in the way that the well off kids were coddled by the teachers and the poor kids were not really paid much attention as if they were destined to failure in life early on. so it was with a great sense of adventure that me and about three particular buddies would randomly skip school, playing hooky was what it was called back then. We would devise ways to fake notes and signatures, etc. Real rebels.
But there was still the problem of me caring enough about my dad’s good name that held me back from actually doing bigger and badder things. Bad enough as it was I actually hurt myself physically one time during a “skip” school day. Me and a friend by the name of Dennis Lee skipped school one day and we decided to double back around to my house after my dad had gone on to work. When there we watched TV and had something to eat but my dad usually came home from work to eat lunch, as he didn’t live very far from his workplace. Just before it was time for him to come home from work we went and hid out in the attic. Man up there it was dirty and very dusty and dark, but we had a flashlight and a boy scout canteen and comic books to read.
Down at the end of the attic there was a vent that we could see the parking place outside where my dad always parked. Here he came, it was the time for us to be real quite until he left again. We got through that okay, so we decided that we would be better off down out of the attic. I agreed to that. Dennis went down first but as I was making a step to get down my feet slipped from under me on the layer of dirt on the rafters and down through the kitchen ceiling I went, the rafters being not very wide at all scraped up both my sides, coming to rest just under each arm. There I was hanging from the ceiling, yelling for Dennis to get me down, which he had to drag a chair over and finally I was able to get myself unhung.
Oh man, was I hurting, and bleeding. But I was determined to get out of there as quickly as possible. “Come on Dennis, lets get outta here, man my dad is going to kill me,” to which he replied, “well it kind of looks like someone tried that already,” yeah it felt like it too. We took off to go hide out under the railroad bridge at the edge of town. this edge wasn’t too far from my house though. When it came time for us to be home from school, I had a great sense of dread pour over me for obvious reasons. With ever heavier and slower steps, I made it to my front door. I went in and there was my dad sitting at the kitchen table with his coffee and he was sitting there in the middle of all this busted plaster mess like it wasn’t even there. Finally he looked up at me and asked me how school was. Well, I couldn’t lie my way out of this one but i gave it a shot anyway.
“Well I guess it was okay,” then he asked me if I had any idea as to what happened to the kitchen ceiling. Well, I tried to tell him some scientific story about how the vibrations put off by the big rigs driving by had vibrated loose all this bad plaster. Hummm well that didn’t go over. He didn’t whip my hind end he figured I was hurt enough and he was sure right about that. But I did have to do what I could in making money to pay for the repair and help him do the repair work.
