Who's Winning?

Your classmates, if that's what you want to call them, pick on you daily.  They say horrendous things to you to make you feel inadequate.  They say things in front of the entire class or in front of a special person that you like and make you feel incompetent. These so called classmates do everything they can to make you feel pathetic.  Your reaction to this because you don't feel accepting to the things they say or do is to skip a day or so of school.  Then that day or so will turn to a week or so.  Then eventually you decide to drop out of school because you feel better about just staying away altogether.  Who won?  Do you know who won?  They won.  They were able to drive you away from the circle of people they wish they could attract.  There was something about you that they became jealous of and they felt the need to drive you away.  You walk around the halls of your school with a scowl on your face because you feel unpleasant about the way you have been treated when you should be doing exactly the opposite.  You should be walking around with a smile on your face big enough to out shine the sun.  Face your enemy and show them that whatever they are doing to you, hasn't effected you.  Carry your head high, stick your chest out like a good soldier and march on through the mud.  Your weapon will be your smile and your outward projection.

When you get home, if you feel the need, breakdown.  Cry.  Scream.  Do something that makes you feel better at getting the frustrations out so long as it does not harm others.  When you are done, write it down.  Journal it.  You think, 'Oh, what a stupid idea!'  Really?  I used to say the same thing.  As described in my book, The Train Runs No More I was bothered by a dream for thirty eight years because I did not think that by writing all of my disappointments down would do any good.  The moment I began to write is the moment a pressure valve opened and began letting off all the steam.  You will be amazed at how well it works.  For years I would refuse this suggestion by professional psychologists that I would go and express myself to.  Then I began to write.  A week after I began to write, the dreams had stopped.  I began to get more sleep.  I began to feel rested when I woke up in the morning.  I should have done this years ago.  For those of you reading this and are still young, you should do this now while you are still in your formative years.  If you feel you must find another school to attend, find it.  Stay in school and get your education.  While these other people are burning up their energy to figure out another way to drive you nuts, you are getting your education to possibly do some good in the world or place yourself in a better position than they could ever dream of.  Your happiness may not be now.  Your satisfaction may not be now.  Your gratitude may not be now.  All of this you have to work at.  Once your satisfaction and happiness come, you will be able to appreciate more.  Everything does not have to be now. 

As a teenager, you know more than your parents.  At least you think you do.  Even though your parents have lived a lifetime more than you, you still feel you know more than your parents.  It's when you become educated and have children that grow to be teenagers that you begin to know less than their children.  It happens with every generation.  You, yourself will be thought of as knowing less than your children when the time comes.  You will be amazed at how that works.  However, once you begin to sit and talk with your parents and I mean actually talk, then you will become as well educated as your parents and you will be able to handle your position in the world so much better.  You just have to be willing to open your mind and throw away the lock.  Listen to what they have to say.  Apply their ideas of yesterday to your issues of today and your world could be a better place.  Open up and listen.

The Debris Field

I never thought that I would "make it" after leaving high school.  Having lived a life so far of being ridiculed by both family and friends, I didn't have the best self esteem there ever was.  I grew up with a mother whose "post" was always in the kitchen holding a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other.  I grew up with a father that was the nicest man that walked the face of the earth, but he put up with a lot of crap.  If you ever crossed him, he had a temper.  Although he would get frustrated and angry at times when he spanked, he never abused us.  As described earlier, I grew up with a brother who never could say anything to me without ridiculing me.  I went to catechism on Saturdays only to find priests stumbling around from having too much wine, or speaking coarsely to the parishioners as one did to my mother when I had an altercation there and I didn't even start it.  There was a nun I knew that once she met a man, she couldn't rip that habit off soon enough to get in bed with the guy. I was surrounded by such fine examples that I could almost just throw up.  These fellow classmates in high school that tried to "save" me for Christ also were in the backseat of their boyfriends car hammering it out contrary to what they would preach to me.  When one of these students parents found out what their nice daughter was doing, they yanked her from school and moved to Georgia.  Never heard from her again.  I even had an art teacher who couldn't even speak decent English ridicule me of a craft project that she gave each of us to do.  Because she didn't understand the design of it, it meant nothing to her and therefore, was nothing but crap to her.  It was the yin and yang Chinese design symbolizing how things interact with one another.  Because of her public ridicule of me right there in class, it's a wonder Adolf Hitler was not reborn again.  Being bombarded by all these people, plus the ridicule adding to the stress of trying to find myself, I was having this dream every night of being run over by a train.  Every night.  I would wake up in a cold sweat and then go back to sleep once I realized it was only a dream.  Some people don't realize what they do to another when they constantly ridicule.  Or maybe they do and it's sad that they don't feel guilty that they drove their victim to suicide.  They walk away, unfeeling of what they do and absolve themselves with the graciousness of God.  Contrary to that, some parents try to boost their children with everything that they do is right, when one can see that what they do is definitely wrong.  There is a matter of encouraging a child, but when the child is electrocuting a creature to death, I can't see why the parents write it off as a science project.  This being described in The Train Runs No More.  Again, Karma came back around on that one.

Having excelled in my field of aircraft work, ascertaining a salary that I found quite liveable, and having money left over at the end of the week that I didn't know what to do with, I found quite astonishing to myself.  I looked back at my classmates and those that I still heard about were making merely a living.  Big deal.  What I was doing, I did not even have to sell drugs doing it.  I built quite a bank account too.  I am so glad that I never hooked up with one girl from school who married a fireman only to wind up getting herself beat up on a daily basis and raped after.  She was merely looking for a financially supporting father to her daughter.  She wasn't looking for a husband that could love her and her love him.  She deemed me not capable of being financially supportive.  She found one of those, weeks after she left me.  It was so quick, I know being loved by her did not enter the picture.

Having this element of life to grow up with, I left, but I left with baggage that I thought cared for me, and later turned out that she also only wanted to be taken care of.  Without going over the same history again, I kept my chin up and marched on through the "mud of life" and am still doing well.  It just takes time and patience to find that satisfaction.  Some try to find it immediately, some search for a while, others never find it.  When it is found, others are not happy for you and never will be.  They try as much as they can to disrupt that satisfaction that has been found.  If you ignore them, that only pisses them off more, and they try to rub you out of the picture.  So they did that.  So what?  If people are that easily led that they can forget all about you, then they never cared for you in the first place.  All you can do is just step over the debris and keep on marching.  It's either you or them.  Who is most important?  You or them?

Finding Solace

As described in my book, The Train Runs No More , once I fell in the dirt in and after high school, it followed me every where.  But once I left San Antonio, Texas, it began to shake off.  Still, every once in a while, a pile would show up; and it did again in St. Louis, but only for the moment.  Then I began to find a new interest since the wife decided to kidnap my children.  Yes. Kidnap.  As long as children are removed by one parent or the other without the permission of one parent or the other, it is called kidnapping.  I could understand it if I beat the hell out of them on a regular basis, or molested them in some form or fashion, but that couldn't be further from the truth.  These two kids were my pride and joy.  So, she took them with intentions of crushing me like a bug and expecting me to just roll over like a dog in the street with my legs up in the air.  I didn't.  I wasn't going to give her that energy.  I was treating her just as though she were one of the bullies in my school.  I refused to give her that energy of being hurt.  I had the money.  Why not keep myself distracted from the pain and hurt?  So I did.  I turned to some friends right down the walk from me at the apartment that I had first moved to.  We were always doing something together every evening.  If I wasn't there, then I turned to some of the night clubs across the river, in Illinois.  I found solace there and much more.  My book describes in detail what I found.  What I found is really defined as adult content and is advisable for parents that read my book to decide whether they want their harassed teenager to read it and find out how I was able to release bad energy.  I began spending more of my time there because that was my release.   Everyone has their own way to find release.  This was my way.  Some may stoop as low as indulgence into drugs and alcohol.  I would not condone that method too much as that way is too easy and does nothing because you have to come back to the real world.  My release happened in the real world.  It was suggested that I sit and journal.  But I resisted that method thinking not only do I not need to do that, but that won't do any good.  I am not understanding of psychology too well, but had I performed that method at that time, I might even be a better person than I am right now.  Somehow, writing something down like that is like taking the top off of a pressure cooker.  As I say, I don't understand how, but it works now, and it would have worked then.  I didn't do it and I was plagued not only but the childhood dream in my book , but other dreams began to crop up because my wife had kidnapped my children from me and got away with it.  Satisfaction for me.  I began finding satisfaction and it worked for me.  I was determined not to dwell.  However, the sibling brother whom hated me from birth, began to interfere.  And interfere he did.  To this day the hateful person that he is still believes he has done nothing wrong.  Karma will come his way.  Sooner or later, it will come.  It always does.  It may not look like it will come soon enough, but belief and prayer to whatever entity that one believes in, will make it come.  All it requires is a little patience.  In the meantime, if you constantly wish for one's death, you had better build two coffins, because it will eat you up inside if you let it.

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!

The Dream

Just as the title of this blog mentions, as well as my book, it is about a dream that has persisted for well over 25 years.  The Train Runs No More. This dream came about because I defied my parents once when I was younger and was almost killed.  Because of the fact that I defied my parents once, because I was almost killed, and because I had other external forces always against me, I was haunted by this dream continuously, every night.  The same goes today for children in school except in these days, children are bolder and meaner.  The more you rebel against it, the more they aspire to getting some sort of reaction from their victim.  I have yet to determine if it is because they aren't getting any attention at home, not enough from their friends, or maybe they see too much on television, or it could even be in the video games they play.  The writers of some television shows have tremendous imaginations, not to say that that is a bad thing, but some children fall into the trap of "trying this at home".  Some children spend so much time with television that the unreal becomes real.  The parents, both of whom are working and maybe even one of them is working two jobs just to keep up with the souring economy, have little time to be with their children.  When they are, they are so tired from working they don't want to be bothered.  Or if something is wrong, they put their head in the sand and hope the situation goes away.  Those that go to church seeking guidance, are distracted with the "wonderful works" that either have been done or need to be done around the world without regard for the need of help right here at home.  If one looks beyond the curtain, they find there is trouble within the church.  The pastors, priests, and preachers all have taken advantage of the power that they possess and have feathered there own nest with the tithing that has been received from its followers and use it for ill gain.  The Lord was supposed to swoop down on Oral Roberts if he didn't receive $8 million dollars by a certain date.  Really?  I was waiting to see the Lord make his swoop.  The way the media is and was, I was waiting for a televised cast of it.  Ol' Oral never got the money, and he never got swooped.  Jimmy Swaggart used his tithing for hookers, and ol' Jimmy Bakker did the same thing.  The Catholic organization took their donations and used it for legal services for the protection of their priests whom raped and molested children.  When it wasn't used for legal services, it was used to pay off the victims hoping they would go away.  Nowadays that same money is used to help illegal immigrants coming into this country, most of whom only want to come here rob, rape, and steal because when they go to jail in this country, they know we will put them up with three hots and a cot.  The Crystal Cathedral is being auctioned off because of the sins of the son.  But, I have digressed too far from the point.  Parents need to pay more attention to what is being said by their children.  Study their body language, look between the lines of the story being told.  As in the last topic, I have been ostracized by those I have attended school with, even by my own family, just because I am different.  However, having moved to another area and developing a whole new world of friends, I have learned to become resourceful and depend on no one for anything.  When you do become needful of your friends, you really find out just who your friends really are.  Even being denied a chance to tell my children goodbye when being kidnapped by their mother, or being denied ability to attend funeral services for my mother by my wonderful brother, has yet to incapacitate me any.  All of these people will answer soon enough for what they have done.  It may not be as soon as I wish for, but it will come.  In the end, the energy I expend, is and will always be positive energy.  I now have been with the same woman for almost twenty years because we respect each other and take care of each other whereas I couldn't ever find that with the first wife.  Yet I am deemed at fault.  The proof is in the pudding as they says.  The Train Runs No More.

Beyond the surface

So, you find somebody; like I did.  They were fun to be with.  They were happy to go out with you.  They were enjoying spending your money with you, not to mention the sex that was exchanged.  As long as they kept the sex coming, you kept the money coming, no pun intended.  But what was really behind all of that?  Did they really want to be with you?  Or were you just an escape bridge to get them out of the home they were in or the situation they were in.  My encounter is described in The Train Runs No More.  In my case, one attractive blonde lady was living with her divorced, alcoholic mother in a place that I wouldn't even house my dog in.  But the sex was great.  When she saw that I wasn't ready to get married or even ask her to marry me, she decided to call it quits.  She was married within a month after leaving me.  She wanted out of the house that she was in.  I was dating a beautiful Mexican lady for a while.  She had two beautiful, young daughters that I used to help her carry in from the car when they fell asleep on the way home from the baby sitter's house, as though I were their father.  I had been under the impression that she was divorced.  After several months of constant sex with her and I decided to ask for her hand.  She tells me her husband would not be happy with that.  Husband!  Bitch! Aren't you divorced!  Her answer was no and that her husband would not allow her to get divorced.  I was her escape while her husband was out running around with some other whore.  And then there was one that didn't care if she loved me or not.  She just needed a man with a good income to help raise her daughter.  When she could see that I was not quite set with a good job or income, off she went to find one that was.  She also married within a few months.  So, when your looking for someone, look beyond the surface. Find out why they are with you.  What is behind all of their efforts of being with you?  Just what the hell is their intention?  I wound up getting married to a person whom I thought had loved me.  It turned out that after six and a half years of marriage, she didn't get out of married life what her parents had in the thirty years of marriage that they had gotten.  She only married me because she was knocked up.  Not because she was in love with me.  All of her siblings were married and she felt left out. Besides, had she been in love with me, she wouldn't have tried to attack me once or ask me to commit suicide.  Who would do that to their spouse if they loved them?  Defined in The Train Runs No More, before you take on a partner, you had better know what you're getting into.  To this day, because my ex-wife didn't get what she wanted, even in divorce, she vowed that I would never see my children again and she has held true to her word.  She even caters to the hatred that my brother holds for me because he caters to her very wishes.  Have I missed my children?  On the one hand yes.  But, on the other, after being raised by someone with all that resentment and influence upon them, I have not missed a thing.  That only tells me just how simple minded my children are, as well as my brother, even though he thinks he is the cock of the walk.  Be careful of the shit that you step in.  You just might track it all over the place.

The World Is A Small Place

When one enters high school, that will be the period of forming who one is, who one becomes.  It not only begins to take on this mold with your academics, but also the type of friends you select, or that select you.  Your personality, your thought patterns, your image, and your friends all begin to take shape.  One doesn't really think about this when they are in high school.  All they think about is the clique they can join, the friends that they want to select so that they will make them look good, and the clothes that they wear.  For me, it was the Vietnam War years.  The Vietnam War was and undeclared war.  We were over there beginning in 1950 only as advisers to the French because the French didn't know how to fight a jungle war.  Our military had already fought many skirmishes in the Pacific Islands with the Japanese.  So our military had experience that the French needed.  In the early sixties, the French gave up, cut and ran leaving our military holding the bag.  Then we had a president whom was not paying attention to any of his Generals and the war escalated with sending more and more of our troops to their death.  I was paying more attention to this than my high school mates and I began communicating with radical groups protesting against the war.  In speaking with some of my classmates, they were more involved in the back seat of their boyfriend's cars, or trying to help me get "saved".  I didn't want to get saved.  I wanted some of that ass in the back seat just like everyone else was getting.  But, I was different.  I vowed I would never date anyone from the same high school that I was in.  I didn't need any gossip.  I didn't need any humiliation that might arise from it should a break up occur.  Shit!  I was already getting enough humiliation from my older brother.  I passed out an "underground" newspaper in high school trying to bring awareness of the Vietnam war.  The problem was the paper was not a local paper.  San Antonio had their head shoved too far up their ass to pay attention to anything like that outside the city limits.  So, while others were in the back seat banging it out, playing football to make a big impression on the next piece of ass they could get, or trying like Hell to be a hypocritical Christian, I was communicating with groups like the Black Panthers, the Yippies, the SLA, and so forth.  I even got removed from class several times because I refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  The only allegiance I had at the time was to help stop sending our boys overseas for a death march.  Being in a small "head in the sand" town like San Antonio, Texas, I protested where I could, described in The Train Runs No More.  I gave up real quick on my conversion of other classmates to become more aware of our politics.  I even had issues with my parents because of the posters of Patty Hearst and the SLA, Abbie Hoffman, and Bobby Seale on my bedroom walls.  I was in  my own world on this one.  So, here I was doing the protesting that I could where it made the most sense which was no where in the city of San Antonio.  And there were my classmates.  After high school ended and I began looking for real work, I had run into employers where my classmates had already gotten a job.  When completing the employment applications, I referenced those classmates that were working there.  Because of my reputation that I had formed in high school with those classmates, I never got the job.  So.  Always remember.  The world is a small place.  Be careful of whom you piss off.  You just might need them some day.  In today's world with computers, the world has become even smaller.  I had a boss at Lockheed in Marietta, Georgia that I became very close with.  He needed someone to perform a certain job on a C-5 one Saturday.  He needed someone that was going to work.  Detailed in my book, The Train Runs No More, he called me up and asked me to come in.  I asked how he was going to get around the union.  He told me, "Fuck the union!  I want somebody that wants to work and I know that you know the job and when you go in there, you're going to work on the job until it's done.  Now.  Do you want to work or not?"  I was at work within a few minutes since I lived right down the street from Dobbs, A. F. B.  In a crew meeting one day, he was explaining working as a team.  One of the things that he said and that I will always remember, "Be careful of who you piss off.  They just might be your boss one day".  He was right.  But I didn't adhere to that philosophy until after the fact.

In Treatment

If it hasn't been mentioned before my book, The Train Runs No More, refers to a reoccurring dream that has awoken me for years; since I was a child.  I understand that with children, most of their dreams involve trains.  I don't know what the association of trains and children are, but children are always drawn to trains.  This dream plagued me for years until one night I thought the train had actually run over me.  I had awoken from my sleep and that time, I decided I would journal it.  After some time of writing it down the dream began to dissipate until it finally went away.  I didn't learn to do that until I was in my late forties.  I was told by other people when I was much younger that I should journal my dreams and then I will be able to sleep better.  Too bad I didn't listen to them earlier.  As a child, since I had little interaction with an older sibling that hated the fact that another child came into his world and subtracted some of the attention that he was receiving, I had to create my own games so that I would have something to do when no one else was around.  When he was just as annoying as he could be, or as mean as he could be, I had to have a "place" to go.  I had to entertain myself.  I didn't understand why I was on the receiving end of all of this until many years later.  Then I deduced that if I were being treated this way by him all of the time, then when only a babe in the crib, why didn't he just simply put a pillow over my head and he would have been rid of all of those problems.  In those days, it would have been determined an accident and nothing would have happened to him.  Instead, I was persecuted by him and to this day, he still does.  When my mother passed away this past May, he never told me that her days were about to end when she was taken to a hospital.  He only called to say that she passed away.  Unbeknownst to him, my mother had contacted my wife to let her know it was time.  By that, I mean I was watching television when my wife announced, "You know?  I don't know why, but I have this feeling you should call your mother today".  Listening to my wife, I turned off the television and went into my office.  I sat down at the desk, looked up her phone number to call her, and the phone rang.  It was my brother calling, announcing that mother had passed away.  It is my feeling that he simply called to say that she died and I wasn't there when she died and he wanted to rub it in my face.  He told me there would be a service for her when her body was cremated.  I didn't know it takes eight months to cremate a body because I am still waiting for that phone call.  To know how he acted at my father's funeral, read, The Train Runs No More. Even my daughter, whom my brother felt it necessary to take over the rearing of her since he chose a wife that either didn't want to have children or couldn't have children, didn't even have the courtesy to call and give me her condolences.  An oh so Christian person that she is, walking in the light of the Lord the way she thinks she does, praising his name, yet defies one of the Ten Commandments.  Do not forsake your mother or your father.  I am now dead to her.  She is so religious that she couldn't say shit even if she had a mouth full of it.  The footsteps that she does follow in is her hateful, vengeful mother's.  Her mother couldn't have in our short history together, all the things that her parents took years to get, so when she left me, she made damned sure that I would never see my children again.  She has held true to her word ever since.  That is the only religious thing she has really done in her gracious walk with GOD.  She is so eaten up with all of that religious shit that she said she is praying for her glorification to become a virgin again so that when she meets with GOD she can have his children, or some ridiculous religious bullshit as that.  When you are that far into religion, it's called a cult.  My daughter with her college education can't even see that she also is absorbed by a cult.  She is lost to me forever, and I will never have the chance to see her ever again.  I could dwell on that and allow them to know how much it hurts, or I could move on with my life, unencumbered by that depression and be happy with the woman, the wife, my best friend that is with me now and  continue to acquire with someone all the things that they are patiently willing to work for.  I have been with this current person for almost twenty years and all the things my ex-wife wanted in the first year of marriage, I now have with this person.  It took years to acquire, it took hard work to acquire, even that area of happiness that few married couples are able to find, we now have.  Others have to seek out some form of religion because of their unhappiness.  Some resort to drugs or alcohol to find that kind of happiness.  We have it because we respect each other and care for and about each other.  It's all in the treatment.  How you treat others, how you expect to get treated, and what you expect from your treatment.  Find me on Twitter @yuhaftarun.

Emulation

The act of emulation is to be like the others.  For one to have friends, one has to be like the people they are trying to attract.  Sometimes that can work for you.  Other times that can work against you.  The question that took me sometime to answer was why and try to be like them?  Why not just try to be myself?  If I couldn't attract friends, then I must have been standing in the wrong crowd.  I was standing in the wrong crowd lots of times and for a long time before I realized that I did not have to be entertained by someone.  Of the girls I was trying to attract, they were praising the Lord every other breath, but at the same time, I would find them in the back seat of their boyfriend's car.  They would be doing some heavy praying.  Of the guys that would praise the Lord, they had an agenda and it was between the legs of their girlfriend.  Or, they were off performing some other undesirable act such as my next door neighbor blowing off his friends head with a shot gun.  The Jehovah's Witnesses across the street, they were just off, period.  Even though the husband was religious, he was religiously seeing another woman.  The priests at my church weren't much better.  They were either drunk, putting a meat shot on some parishioner or both.  There was an incident at my church described in The Train Runs No More.  This was at the time of the Jimmy and Tammy Faye Bakker's, Jimmy Swaggert, The Rev. Jesse, and so on and so forth.  There is a whole list of these evangelist's out to "save" us from sin.  All were womanizing, money laundering, extortionists, preaching how we should act, how we should be, and how we should treat others.  All the while, they were caught behind doors, cheating on their wives, with hookers of both genders, and extorting money in the name of GOD.  Because of the sins of the fathers, the children of these same people just manage to keep it quiet.  Slowly, it is evolving once again.  Growing up trying to find my way through this forest of life ahead, I am supposed to emulate these people?  If it doesn't feel comfortable why do it?  Why not just be who you are?

Karma

I grew up next door to an only child that was about 2 years older than I was.  His parents spoiled the crap out of that kid and if he did anything wrong, they never lifted a finger against him.  "My child didn't do it" syndrome.  In front of his parents, he was always an angel.  Once he was away from his parents, always causing mischief.  One time, it was just he and I playing with his Lionel railroad set outside in what was called the carport.  After a time, he became bored so he caught a green lizard.  He disconnected part of the track so that the leads of the rail were sticking out.  He turned the train on just enough so that there was electricity flowing through the track.  He forced the lizards mouth open and held it to the leads.  Immediately, the lizard began to contort and change colours.  I told him to stop because I think he is killing the lizard.  He wanted to see what happens he said.  The lizard was looking worse.  I couldn't stop this kid because I was much smaller in stature and he was a bully anyway.  I don't even know why I was over there except that he was just next door and I had no one else to play with.  I couldn't stand watching him torture one of God's creatures, so I left.  Along Six Mile Creek, someone must have had a lot of time on their hands.  They had dug a series of tunnels into the bank of the creek.  One of  them even had a radio installed into the wall of one of the tunnels.  The next door neighbor kid and several others rode our bicycles to the creek to do some exploring.  While crawling through one of the tunnels "Mr. Mischief" let's call him, was having one of his moments.  He had caused a cave in.  It was not a serious one, but for a child of our age, it was serious enough.  He couldn't stop what he had caused, so he climbed on his bike and rode home; not to get help, but to pretend that he had nothing to do with the situation.  The rest of us were left to dig out the poor sap that was covered up.  Another time, we were riding our bikes through an old grave yard.  We all got off to walk our bikes through for a better look at the grave stones.  We all came upon a bee's nest that was on the ground.  We had the good sense to see the swarm swirling in the air and to leave it alone.  We gave wide clearance for the swarm.  I had noticed that "Mr.  Mischief" had turned around and went back, but I didn't pay attention to why.  It wasn't but a few seconds later and he had run by us like he was running for his life. I wound up getting stung by a couple of the bees and we ran like hell also.  He had gone back to poke at the nest on the ground and stirred the bees up good.  By the end of the day my arm where I had been stung, began to swell.  The next day my arm was twice its size.  My father was asking questions and I couldn't tell him because I wasn't supposed to be so far from the house.   I didn't have his or my mothers permission to ride for miles away.  On the third day my arm was so swollen that the skin on my arm began to split and look nasty.  My father said, "Ok.  That's it.  I'm taking you to the hospital".  It turned out that I was allergic to bees and I had to have a shot of antihistamine.  The swelling had gone done in a couple of days.  Years later, this same kid and a group of other bad asses from school that this kid was hanging with were out at the property that his parents bought for him to go deer hunting on.  I never heard all of the story because few ever spoke of what actually happened, but as the story goes, they were sitting around the campfire after a day of hunting.  All had been smoking grass and doing other "stuff".  Someone had a shotgun laying across their lap and pointed right at the head of the kid sitting next to him.  The gun accidentally went off.  I'm sure that after looking the situation over, they decided that this kid was surely dead.  Too much of his head if that was his head, was missing.  Rather than take him to the hospital to be pronounced dead, they just took him straight to the morgue.  I never did catch who all was involved and it really doesn't matter.  Later in time, "Mr. Mischief's" father was looking for his guns.  "Mr. Mischief" had stolen them and hocked them at the pawn shop to buy some smack.  He was an addict.  Probably trying to forget what had happened with the kid.  His parents later sent him to a rehabilitation clinic, he married, had a kid, and divorced.  He found a job up in Dallas, Texas and was working up there.  One weekend on his drive home, he stopped off at one of his friend's home because he was so tired he would have never made it home safely.  His friends made him a pallet to lay down on and go to sleep.  He did.  At thirty three years old, he had done enough smack to wreck his body.  When he went to sleep, he never work up again.  Karma. Karma always comes around sooner or later.
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As A Child...

As a child, I grew up second to one nine years my senior.  It was not a grandiose situation since the first born gets all the attention, all the love, all the teachings, and rearing that parents are supposed to bring forth.  If you were to see pictures of myself and the older brother, there were no pictures of how pleased he was to have a little brother.  No smiles.  Just posing for the camera as parents would do trying to bring another child into the world of another, while the new child is invading the first one's territory.  Growing up, I don't recall having any good times with the older brother.  If there were, they were far out shadowed by the bad.  I was constantly antagonized, to the point of crying.  It was more of a science project.  "Let's see.  If I continue this repeated action, let's see how long it takes for him to bust out in tears".  Then I would tattle to my mother.  I would get popped for tattling.  He would get popped for antagonizing me to the point of crying, then I would get popped by the brother for tattling and getting him into trouble.  It was a vicious cycle.  I don't believe either of us were supposed to be in this world to begin with.  One of my parents closest friends came over one Christmas to visit.  As things go, you eat, you drink, and then you drink more.  When you drink more, you become inebriated.  While inebriated, you loosen up and begin to talk more.  The husband of my parents friends became inebriated past the point of being able to spell the word anymore.  He was explaining how my mother became pregnant and that was not supposed to occur.  It happened, so my parents dealt with it.  I just knew what was coming next in the conversation, so as I began to get up and leave the room, sure enough, the explanation of the second pregnancy came about.  Again my parents dealt with it and so, here we are.  Although, me especially, am the product of an unwanted pregnancy, you could never tell it by at least my father.  He paid attention to me, played with me, took me places, even took me fishing.  Not to say he did any less of that with the older brother.  I'm just saying he never made us feel unwanted.  My mother came off of a farm where cows and vegetables are raised for food.  Sometimes I would feel like I was just another offspring of live stock, however, if I were in need of caring for, she was there.  So, I grew up being antagonized.  To alleviate the antagonism, I would create my own dreams just to have some escape if you will, or a place to go that was mine.  Mostly at night I would have these dreams as described in my book, The Train Runs No More.  That was the only pleasure I could find in all of this.  Rarely was I included in any brotherly games or associations that I recall.  I suppose that as parents, if my parents were more attentive to any given situation of their children, they would have talked with them.  That is the one thing that my family never did is talk.  By talking with one another, ones makes discoveries about another.  That is how parents discover something happening with their children, but few know how to talk, even to their own wife or husband.  It's all about talking.