Everybody Must Get Stoned

To borrow a chorus from a tremendously great balladeer, Bob Dylan from his song, "Rainy Day Women",

Well, they’ll stone you when you walk all alone
They’ll stone you when you are walking home
They’ll stone you and then say you are brave
They’ll stone you when you are set down in your grave
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

There is so much truth to this song, but it's not just referring to women, although this has taken place with my ex-wife.  It will come from all those that you grew up with that were jealous of you for this reason or that.  Their jealousy and insecurities became such that they had to pick on you, harass you, persecute you, and ostracize you.  It might even come from your own siblings.  You might be made to feel like you are the bad seed, the little chick in the nest that needs to be pushed out of the nest to the ground and wither away.  With some it will last for a short period.  With some it will last a while.  Others, it will last a life time.  Yes, friends, everybody must get stoned.

So, I have walked alone.  I have entertained myself and have depended upon no one for my entertainment.  I have been self supporting and even attained a six figure salary at one time doing laboring work like being an aircraft  mechanic.  But after awhile I just got tired of being a gypsy, moving from one place to another, so that I could stay in the aircraft field and at that salary.  Oh, I landed a job with this corporation or that for awhile, until a layoff would come.  That would be because of something peculiar with the economy.  If I wanted to stay in that salary range, then I would have to move where I could land the next aircraft job.  That was part of the reason for my first marriage to become so disrupted.  The constant moving.  I stayed in the field after the divorce because where else am I going to find that kind of money to pay my child support?  I am one of those fathers that is responsible for those whom he brought into the world.  But then, when the money came to a halt, so did the relationship from the children.  They were legally bound by the court to continue my visitation, but after that, no longer legally bound and the mother knew that and she made damned sure that she made that impression upon the children.  I have not seen them since.  If it has not been mentioned before in this blog, but mentioned in my book, you have to remember that the mother also had ADHD.  She was just able to hide it from me very well.  My son also has ADHD.  Both are focused only on what is important to them and them only.  If anyone gets in the way of their focus, they become mean and hateful, and everyone else becomes the villain because everyone else is wrong except for them.  Yes.  Everybody must get stoned.  This will last even when I am set down in my grave.  For my brother, whom is nine years older than myself, if by the graces of God, I expire first, I wouldn't be surprised if he came to my grave and pissed on it.  That's how much my brother cares about his little brother.  Everybody must get stoned.  

The Do Gooder

So, my ex-wife left.  She left taking the children without my permission.  She left playing on my ignorance and fear of the law.  I was trying to be nice throughout the whole ordeal.  Nice.  In a divorce, one cannot be "nice".  Your being "nice" will be taken advantage of every time.  I certainly didn't find the proper attorney either.  I did a little research and found that mostly, the men that had male attorneys did not gain as much as the ones whom had female attorneys.  I relied upon a female attorney.  I also did not read the "signs".  You know.  What I had discussed earlier in this blog.  When I walked into her office, there were books all over the floor and papers every where, all in disarray.  With an office such as this I was wondering how her practice was.  I sat and talked with her and she talked a good game.  After spending my money with her, it turned out she couldn't do a thing for me anyway because my wife had run back to her home state which she had not been in for eight months.  My ignorance of the law.  During the process, my brother played on my emotions and ignorance.  After a life time with the bastard treating me as though I was the gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe, I still played into his hands.  He was the information gatherer for my wife and she used it all against me.  As she professed, she made sure that the children would never see me again.  Only, that was after my daughter would turn eighteen.  Remember, my son had ADHD and he would listen to no one.  He stayed in touch as long as he was able to get financial help from me.  But, if the help was not there, I would not hear from him.  The good ol' bro was explaining how I should be and how I should react and what I should do for the children, all the while, he was giving my soon to be ex-wife money and food to support the children.  Falling back to the definition of bully.  I didn't realize it until too late and I was still trying to be nice so that I could still see my children.  After it was all said and done, the children also became the information gatherers and when there was no more information to gather, there were no more visits from them.  And the daughter also turned eighteen.  Even so, she made another attempt of getting money from me.  She told me, "God needed money so that she could go to Germany and pray for some hookers".  Sounded to me like Oral Roberts was on the attack again.  First, if God needed the money, why didn't he contact me himself?  Second, if some hookers in Germany needed her prayers to help them leave the business, why couldn't she pray for them right here at home just like we do for our soldiers off in another land fighting a foreign war?  Third, by this time, she was now into her college years of religious indoctrination and she didn't feel the need to visit with me any longer.  If someone needed money, I would give it to those that come and visit with me.  I was not going to pay someone to stay away from me.  I'm quite sure she could do that on her own.  Instead, she turned to the good ol' bro and he supplied her the money.  The good ol' bro.  The "do gooder".  It seems to me if he wanted to do some good, he would have encouraged the ex to get the son on medication so he could be closer to "normal" whatever normal is.  And if he was any kind of brother at all, he would have stayed the fuck out of my affairs rather than fuck up the relationship I had with my daughter.  Instead, since he was married to a bitter, selfish, dyke-like woman that was just like him, he encouraged my daughter just to stay away.  Hell!  He already hated my guts for coming into the picture at birth and infiltrating in territory.  Now, he had to bust up everything that meant anything to me.

Finally realizing all of this, still having the dream that has plagued me for so long, I decided to follow the suggestions of professional psychologists and start a journal.  Writing a journal of all of my emotions was actually a release of my contained emotions.  It began to flow out like Niagara Falls and I began to let go.  Once I began to let go, all things began to fall in place.  Once they started to fall in place, I began to step over the debris and find my way.  I found my way to satisfaction and happiness.  And no more dreams However, the ones trying to make me feel bad as a person, still make their attempt at trying to make me feel bad.  What pisses them off the most is the fact that I have found my satisfaction and happiness and they obviously have not.  The things that they attempt to do to me just runs off like water on a ducks back and it pisses them off even more because they don't know what to do now except just to keep me ostracized.  Really?  Is that all that you have?  Really?  I am still alive and well.  I haven't committed suicide at your behest.  Is that really all that you have?

Focused

As a parent, you want to give as much room to your child as possible, but at the same time you want to set limits.  In other words, when you take your child to a friends house for a visit, do you want to be asked back, or is your friend anxious and looking for a nice way to ask you to hurry up and leave so that they can put back all the things they had to take out of your children's hands that they weren't supposed to pick up to start with?  As often quoted by our grandparents, children should be seen and not heard.  In other words, "Here are some things I will allow you to play with and quietly so that I may talk to your mother, but beyond that, you may not play with anything you want in this house and you may not get so loud that I cannot hear your mother speak".  Rarely is that practiced today by parents and I simply can't wait for them to leave my house and God forbid they ever come back.  If a parent notices that their child not only is focused upon something, but becomes obsessed with it, that is not a good thing.  In the case of my son, afflicted with ADHD, not only did he focus on whatever it was at the time that by either removing the item or removing him, he became angry.  He became so angry that he "turned blue in the face".  Sometimes I would have to physically restrain him in my arms until he calmed down to let him know that "play time" was over.  This is the time to notice that there may be something not right with the child.  After growing up and "learning" what to do...lie, cheat, steal, defy...once focused, they don't change if they are not medicated.  In his case, at his high school he was introduced to the United States Army by way of a school "presentation".  The Army was in search of a new crop of soldiers.  They presented to the high school students just how much fun it is to be in the Army.  They did not present the fact that they have to follow orders 24/7.  They didn't present the fact that their uniform must be wrinkle free, or make their own bed, or organize their trunk, or even so much as respond with "Yes Sir!"  All my son was able to focus on was the fact that it looked like fun to join.  He signed up without my permission, but he was over eighteen at the time.  His birthday came after the start of school, so that's why he was still eighteen and still in high school.  When he began his shenanigans and I explained to him that I had had enough, I sent him back to his mother whom got rid of him in the first place because she could no longer handle him.  She didn't care if he got into the Army.  She was rid of him.  As a young child, he couldn't follow orders.  "Learning the legalities of what children can do after turning eighteen", he didn't have to follow mine either.  I gave him a choice.  The street or his mother.  He couldn't follow orders in the Army either.  He wound up with seventeen discrepancies of not being accommodating to a soldier and was later "less than honorably" discharged.  Something of which to this day he will deny because he no longer possesses all the copies of his DD214 that he once showed me.  They don't exist in his possession, therefore the charges did not happen.  He was focused on a girl while here, I explained would not be a good  choice for him.  After being sent back to his mother, he was so focused on her that he came back to marry her while he was in the Army.  She happens to be an illegal immigrant with thirty other members of her family that all live with her under one roof.  All of them illegal.  And, they are pumping out the anchor babies like it is going out of style.

If a couple is going to have children, they need to be agreeable parents, they need to concentrate on the future of their children, and they need to do what is best for the child.  In my son's case, had he been handled properly, medically, I believe his future would have been brighter.  As it is now, he and his family will be nothing more than wards of the welfare system.  I am of the opinion that parents really need to pay attention to the daily lives of their children, turn off the television, put down the cell phone, and interact with their children.  Even medicated, they can become something special as is the case with Michael Phelps.

Some People Never Grow Up

Some people aren't mature enough to get married.  Some people are more mature than others. Some are too selfish to get married.  Some are too hateful.   Some never grow up.  And some, have no idea about marriage.  In my case, maybe I was too young, and my wife then, was too selfish as well as too young.  I was twenty five.  Twenty five.  It's only a number.  Maybe inside, I was going on sixteen.  Not that I still wanted to party.  I just saw things in a different light than what I thought it was supposed to be.  I grew up thinking marriage is supposed to be filled with love, giving, caring, respect, and yes I can't forget sex.  The sex was there that's for sure.  I think we were about equal in not being able to get enough.  But, unbeknownst to me, my ex-wife had hidden well the fact that she had ADHD.  We had some vial arguments.  I'm not going to say that I was an angel, but sometimes I didn't even know what I did except give enough in "things" that she wanted.  In the arguments, her name calling came out unlike what I had imagined marriage to be.  Sometimes I would wonder how I ever fell for this person, but I was married now, and there was no turning back.  I did not want to be another government statistic on failed marriages.  Eventually, I was given no choice.  I lost that battle.  Along with that, the older sibling brother whom held a dislike for me since the day I invaded his territory, began waging a war against me that hasn't quit yet.  As I said, some people never grow up.  It was a long, arduous battle.  It still wages on.  I don't know whom he is battling with now, but in that war, knowing that I lost, I walked away.  I no longer exist.  I no longer exist in his eyes, my ex-wife's eyes, or my children's eyes.  My ex-wife told me when she left, she would make damned sure I never saw my children again.  She has held true to her word.  A nice thing coming from one who praises the Lord day in and day out.  She told my mother one time she is even praying for her glorification in God so that when she meets with Him, she will be virgin again and bear his children.  Talk about being eaten up with religious crap!  One child is lost with all that religious indoctrination and I will never be able to see her again.  The other is lost with not treating his ADHD and going through life feeling everyone else is a fault, but him.  People have as much disdain for the word "retarded" as they do for the "N" word.  What they don't realize is a handicapped person is one that realizes that they are deficient in some manner and acquire as much help as they possibly can so that they can "make" it through life.  A retarded person is one that has an affliction and refuses help of any kind and refuses to acknowledge that they have a problem.  My son has ADHD really bad, refuses to medicate, and finds everyone else at fault.  My son wound up in jail for assault on his pregnant wife.  After my help of getting him out of jail, I have not seen him since.  He also is lost and most probably from the beckoning of my ex-wife and "loving" brother.

So, during the divorce, I stepped back.  I stepped back into drugging because my ex had visions of taking all of my money.  Her goal was to break me as much as possible, and going back to her original wish early in our marriage, that I commit suicide.  Obviously, the latter never happened.  My goal was to show I had too many expenses except to take care of my children to the limits of the law, which I did.  I was drugging again because it felt good inside.  It took away the pain.  It made me feel good on the outside.  I could "see" things "I ain't never seen before".  I was finding satisfaction.  But, it wasn't enough.  Finally, I reached for an area that my ex was hoping for.  But, I got interrupted.  After that, I decided to take a trip across the country for my vacation that I earned from work.  I packed up my backpack and hitchhiked across the country.  During my week of hitchhiking, I was finding fresh air, God's sunlight, and association with people that I would ordinarily not have met.  I also forgot to take my drugs with me.  The withdrawals began while out on the road.  The one thing about it, I don't possess that gene that tells me I am going to be addicted to this or to that.  While out on the road, I had to quit because I had no choice.  Recognizing the symptoms, sometimes I would turn down rides.  I didn't want people to see me like that.  My withdrawal wasn't as bad as other people's withdrawals.  I have been around some that I would just rather shoot them between the eyes with a 12 gauge shotgun just to put them out of their misery.  By the end of two weeks, I was my old self again, appreciating the fact that I was still alive, even more so, that I defied the wishes of my ex-wife and sibling brother.  To this day, he has yet to give up on trying to crush me, yet I continue to step over his debris field, and march on because I have to.  And that is what pisses him off the most.  I ignore all his attempts.  I move on and I am satisfied.

Through The Eyes Of A Child

We as "normal", for whatever "normal" is, responsible parents of children that are different try to raise our children the best that we can.  We who are attentive try to notice something in our children.  We may notice a great talent in our children.  We may notice something peculiar.  We may see that they don't do "what others do"  We may notice difference in them.  Those parents that are truly intent about their child, and most are not, just as the Moody Blues Song says, "With the eyes of a child You must come out and see...", if parents could just resolve themselves to see through the eyes of a child once, you will come out of your busy life, your daily stresses, your distractions of everyday life, and you will see what your child sees, what they are going through, and how they are reacting to the situation.  Just as in meditation, one must close off everything.  Shut the door on all distractions, stop concerning one's self with what must be done in the next moment, forget about their selfishness for a moment.  If a parent could just do that for a moment and visualize the world that their children are in, they just might be more helpful to their children.

When married to my first wife, I used to get down on the floor with my son.  I would not interfere with his play.  I would "study" him.  I would look at what he was playing with at the moment and try to visualize just what the heck is going on "upstairs".  My wife would be watching television, or doing some sort of craft that would only wind up in the corner collecting dust when complete, or doing something that had no business with the child.  I could almost see what he saw, but not quite.  What I could not see was the busy-ness that was taking place.  I could not see the infliction that was taking place.  Inside, it was growing like some bacterial disease.  He began to become less focused on any one subject.  He would become more upset with things he could not accomplish.  As our world around us began to change, the cold war coming to an end changing the economical needs of our country like less dependent upon military weapons, the aircraft industry which was an excellent paying job began to waiver and lay off people.  The stresses of a "new" life began to change.  I was less able to "see" and through no fault of myself and not blaming my wife at the time, We could not see that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder was taking hold.  He was constantly irritating his younger sister.  Having grown up with a tormenting older brother,  I was not about to let that happen in a second generation.  All of these stresses not to mention having to move yet to another location just to keep employed, apparently was too much for my wife and she just left one day taking the kids with her.  By law, in her mind, she can take the kids with her anywhere she wants and there is nothing the husband can do about it.  Today, however, there is everything one can do about it, but without digressing, when you now have two parents, where one feels cheated in life and will do everything she possibly can to turn the children against their father, and having an ADHD child, this kind of situation can be very stressful, even a detriment to the child.  To add salt to the wound, I had a weak, "do gooder" brother that hated my every action.  When asked not to interfere, he became a monster only for his own selfishness instead of what was good for the child.

If we could only see through the eyes of a child.

The Stress

So, I acquired this new job in St. Louis, Missouri building implements of destruction.  The money being offered was the best so far, not to mention the benefits to go with it.  However, the only way to maintain that job was to join the union.  Union.  I never appreciated unions.  I find them only to be good for those that are fat, lazy, and ignorant.  On the job, if they can't keep up for one reason or another and their supervisor comes over and has a chat with them trying to encourage them to excel at what they do, then the employee deems it as harassment because they want to continue working while they keep their elbows on the bench and their ass firmly planted on a stool.  Or maybe you walk into a fuel cell of an aircraft and find a bunch of the slugs just stretched out on some mats sleeping when they should be working.  And while this is going on you discover the president of the union has not only been laundering money, but he has also been spending the hard earned union dues on hookers.  This is what use I have found of unions in this day and age.  They were good in the 1920's and '30's when people really were being maltreated, but the lot of that has long since been gone and it is only for the weak minded who doesn't want to work, but they damn sure want the money.  But, I have digressed.  This new area that we moved to, the furthest north we had ever lived, was different.  Instead of having definite divisions in the city of races, they were mixed here.  Sometimes jobs were in the predominately black area.  So?  It's a freakin' job.  But, since the then wife had never experienced that kind of element before in her life, the stress of living there, the stress of traveling to those areas for work, the stress of having to start over again, the stress of moving there, the stress of....the stress, the stress, the stress.  And for the rest of the story of what happens you have to read The Train Runs No More.  After getting divorced, and having to pay court costs, attorney's fees, and child support, this now great salary has become, just barely.  So, I dealt with it.  I got in as many visits as possible with my children, but with one of them, I began to discover something was seriously wrong.  I tried discussing civilly with the ex,  but that only went so far until she also discovered on her own that something was seriously wrong.  As a couple, I guess we never paid attention and the situation just sort of snuck up on us.  It was discovered that my son had Attention Deficit Hypertension Disorder, ADHD.  What an ordeal to have.  Some children have it only mildly.  Others have the full force of it.  I got lucky.  My son had the full force of it.  Always busy, hard to get his attention focused, difficult for him to follow direction, obstinate, when focused, it was only on what he wanted and if he couldn't get it, the tantrums would fly.  As a couple, you have to work together.  As a single parent, it's difficult when you have to maintain a full time job and all you have surrounding you are people that "watch" children instead of baby sit them, yet they want to be paid the same.  If the job becomes too difficult, they tell you they don't want to do it anymore because it's not easy.  Good thing there is no union involved in baby sitting.  You have now, two divorced parents where one didn't get what she thought she deserved, both are at odds, and be damned with getting along.  It is always the children that suffer in divorce, especially when one child is afflicted with something.  Because it is so difficult for the mother to constantly correct the child at school while having to work, she took him out of school to home school him.  Home school.  What a farce!  Especially with a child afflicted with ADHD.  Her version of home schooling was to place the books and homework in front of him, expect him to have the work done by the time she returns home, and all is good.  How ridiculous for a child like that.  My son missed three months of school because of that stupid shit.  At his age, approximately nine or ten at the time, that was a lot.  I have to say that my son now has not grown to be the most brilliant kid of all.  He has done some pretty stupid shit because of his obstinateness, and our not being able to get along as divorced parents.  Not to mention that there is the weakness of the all knowing, overbearing, hateful sibling that can't stand me to start with.  Because he does, no matter how ill fated, he would rather aid someone that is against me than to aid the environment of the afflicted child.  So, now we are all on this railroad of stupidity like an out of control locomotive.  All the while, I am still contending with this dream that I have had every single night since being a child, with no way to counter act the dream  All of these stresses I have to deal with and I have to deal with it alone.

Not From My School

Because of the issues of being treated like the gum stuck to the bottom of someone's shoe all of the time, I made it a point not to find any girlfriends from my own school.  I didn't need anyone to tell my potential girlfriend just how uncoordinated I was or how ridiculous I could be, or even the world issues I was concerned about that no one else was.  I could do all that on my own and with grace instead viciousness. So, of the ones that did show any likeness toward me, I ignored.  I was friendly, but I ignored their "advances" if you will.  I found one that I became quite attached to.  Unfortunately, if you want to know the full detail of that relationship, you will have to either read my book, The Train Runs No More, or download the Kindle version.  I can tell you the relationship did not turn out to be a happy one.  Afterwards, I went through several stages in my life.  Some were fun, memorable stages, all done without the so called "friends" from high school.  Why travel down the same road with someone that was not desirable to me or me to them?  Sometimes I turned off the road and took a different avenue which lead me either to a dead end or one with disastrous results.  But, I would find my way back.  I eventually found two other women, one of which I wasn't ready to get married, the other that when I was ready to marry, she finally came out and told me that while her husband was out having a good time with other women, she was doing likewise with me.  The one thing I was able to leave her with was a memory.  She became pregnant, but tried to brush it off as not mine.  I know better, because all the parameters added up just nicely.  However, I wasn't able to get her to divorce her husband and marry me.  I had to move on rather than dwell on something I couldn't have.  There was also one that was looking for a husband to be father to her daughter.  She wasn't looking for a husband she could love.  She was looking to be financially taken care of.  End of story.  She saw that maybe I was too weak for that so she moved on.  Just as well because when I ran into her, she was one from my high school that I was not good enough for then and still wasn't.  She had just divorced from a husband that couldn't greet her any other way but beating the hell out of her and then raping her.  I'm glad that relationship never worked out because I eventually realized that it would not have been good for me.  Not from my school.  I finally settled on one.  She had all the things I was looking for, except for her family.  There was just something about her family that was not right.  I just couldn't read the signs.  Refer to the blog spot, Signs.  After all was said and done, I was speaking with a counselor to help me get back on track and he explained that by all accounts, she was a victim of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder that knew how to hide her affliction very well.  She also was one that wanted to be taken care of.  In this day and age, one can't be taken care of because it is simply too expensive to live.  It takes two salaries to make a relationship work unless one wants to continue living in the dump they came from.  I also became my own entertainer.  Everyone else had brothers and sisters to run around with and party with.  Mine hated me to the point of having little association with me.  But then, I look at other people's brothers and sisters.  They were all closer in age group.  They grew up together.  I was nine years apart from my brother.  I infiltrated his little domain.  I was imposing.  Needless to say, the relationship was not close with him.  I even received a letter one day from my dying father telling me to watch out for him because even he did not trust him anymore.  Being that the ol' bro was the stronger of the two, more calculating than the younger, and had a larger "army", I lost the war.  There's one thing I have that my brother will never have.  I have my father's love, I have my father's trust, I have my father's blessing of my current beautiful wife, and his wishes that we do well.  That is something the brother will never be able to have nor will he ever be able to take that away from me.  And THAT is what pisses him off the most!  He has been trying to break me emotionally, ever since, and it hasn't worked yet!