My story - the school years

My experience in first grade was fairly uneventful but second grade was quite different. After the first grade year was over we moved back to Eldon, MO. The school year started off good and I was making new friends and I even found a girl who caught my eye. Being the boy I was I liked to tease her but one morning she got back at me. She was sitting at her desk right in front of me and I said something and she got out of her chair and took her scarf and placed it over my head. I laughed and reached up to take it off just as the teacher walked into the room. The teacher saw me and asked me to come to the front of the room and bring whatever it was that was on my head.

When I reached her desk she had me tie the scarf on my head and face the other students and she asked everyone how they liked her little monkey. She then had me get under our reading desk. turned the chairs around to make it like a cage and then when someone walked by the room she would have them come in and view her little monkey.

I can still remember how I felt that morning as the students and adults laughed at me. I vowed that I would never stand in front of the class again and I began to withdraw into shyness.

For the next few years I stayed out of view. I avoided every opportunity to get in front of the class by being below average in my learning. And then came fifth grade and the little musical instrument the recorder.

Our school had a beginning band in sixth grade and they used the recorder in the fifth grade to find students who had some interest playing a musical instrument.

I decided in the beginning that I would not learn the instrument because I knew those who did well with it would give a solo in front of the class. I did not practice our lessons and purposely struggled with playing it. I thought for sure I would not be asked to do a solo. Then the day came when we were to play for the music teacher at her desk. As I struggled through our assignment the teacher stopped me about half way through. Feeling confident that I had avoided standing in front of the class one more time I started to head back to my seat. She stopped me and asked me to face the class.

She then told the class that I was going to play the recorder so that they would know how not to play the recorder.

The laughter by the students drove me deeper into my shell.

Sisth grade was better. I played on the basketball team and the coach at the end of the year told each player their strengths and when he came to me he praised me for my attempts to follow his instructions and my improvement.

Junior High and Senior High were fairly uneventful years except that I was involved in football, basketball and golf. I was popular and well liked by most of the student. One important event took place during seventh grade when Charlie and James Thorton, the only two black boys in our school, came to my aid when I was attacked by the school bullies. When I asked them why they told me I was one of the only students who was nice to them.

Because of what happened to me in second and fifth grades I avoided standing in front of groups until I was 36 years old and made the decision to overcome the feelings that resulted from those events in my life.

I am sure that some of you have had similar experiences. I encourage you to share those events with us and begin the process of moving beyond them but more importantly maybe help someone else begin the process.

How my first 6 years affected who I am

I remember that after my mom left I was focused on being around my dad. I remember him taking me to job sites and how I was fascinated by the big trackhoes, called steam shovels then, and the events such as blasting the rock so the trackhoe could dig a ditch. I remember the men who worked for my dad. Men like Clayton who would call me Larrie. Rough men who worked hard but who had big hearts for a little guy like me.

I remember a baby sitter who also cleaned our trailer house telling me on Friday afternoon not to play in the sandbox over the weekend. Being the little rebel I was I would jump into the sandbox as soon as she left when my dad got home. Beginning about noon on Sunday I began to regret that I had enjoyed the sandbox my dad had made for me because I knew what would happen Monday morning.

Monday morning the sitter would arrive and as soon as dad left for work she would head straight for me because there was sand on the floor. She would take me and sit me on the couch and scold me for playing in the sandbox and then take clothes pins and place them on my ears, fingers and nose. I can still feel the pain of those pins pinching my ear lobes.

One Monday morning I remember sitting there with the pins on when my dad walked back into the trailer. My dad did not ask a question he just fired the woman told her to get out and took me with him to work after he dropped my sister with a woman he had met at a local diner.

Later that woman who watched my sister would become our new mom.

It would be years before I would realize the impact on my life until after I had suffered two divorces and several encounters with women who I used for my own pleasure.

I married early and within four weeks after getting married I headed off to the US Navy. My first wife divorced me after 6 years of marriage. In between my first marriage and my second marriage I would seek women who were easy to get into bed, spend a few days enjoying them and then walking away without any regard for their feelings. After spending a few years in a pot haze I remarried cleaned up my life. My second wife divorced me after six years of marriage.

During both of these marriages I was a good husband, one who worked hard, did not run around, hardly ever went out with the guys and always spent time with my wife and children. In some ways I was the ideal husband and father. I believe the reason both women divorced me was I had no clue how to relate to a woman.

During the early years of my life I was focused on my dad because my mom was not around so I related to women like I would a man. There are some other events in my childhood that also fed into shaping how I related to women.

Guys each of you have experienced things in your early life that have shaped who you are. These events, the good and bad, have helped shape us. They do not define us unless we allow them to but they do shape the person we have become. We can take these experiences and use them to make us a better man.

I encourage you to share your experiences here for the benefit of other men.