Life at 12

Junior high school awaited me that summer of 1970, but there was a precursor event in June that allowed for a different avenue of expression. Like many things in life, this was just a case of seemingly random fate intervening in a strange way. I was riding my bike near the house when a car pulled up beside me.

“Hey Miller”. It was Jim Hale being driven by his mom, leaning out the passenger window. He was a guy that I had been in class with at Belle Point, but whom I wasn't friends with. “Come with me I'm going to band practice at the high school". I was surprised, but excited at the opportunity, and quickly rode back to ask my Mom, who as usual was more than happy to be rid of any kid for ANY period of time. When we arrived at the HS band hall, I met Mr. Garner, the Darby Junior High band teacher, who asked what instrument I would like to play. I sampled several he offered, and was able to get a pleasing sound out of a spiraling conch shell of an instrument he called a “french horn”.

Not only was it my first time playing it, I had never even seen one before. I found the 2 hour practice to be fun, and agreed to finish out the 4 weeks of lessons. This was the start of 3 years spent in Band, which gave me much of the basis for music theory that carried over into my adult life with songwriting.

Another new element in my life that summer was swimming. Although I could save myself from drowning before this stage, my crawl stroke at 12 finally gelled and swimming became fun. Coupled with the freedom that my bike gave me, I spent many weekdays at the outdoor Olympic-sized pool at Creekmore Park, which only cost 25¢ to get in, an amount that was easy to obtain by returning discarded soda bottles to the store 5¢ apiece (as a brief explanatory digression, all sugared beverages in that era were sold in glass bottles. To facilitate recycling of these, a deposit was charged per bottle when buying them from the stores in six-packs, and was added to the cost of the singles bought from vending machines. This incentive had largely by 1970 cured the blight of discarded bottles by the roadsides, but there were still enough lazy people leaving theirs for the picking that monetarily-strapped boys like myself could find at least 5 of them in short order). There was just one slight problem that my outdoor fun created. In 1970, the only effective sunblock available (Coppertone washed off easily) for swimming was zinc oxide, better known in our current era as Desitin or Boudreaux's Butt Paste. The substance would create a solid white film as a reflective block to the Sun's rays. While the classic application of this was to the nose, my melanin-deficient skin demanded a whole-body application. The powers-that-be of the park did not smile kindly upon such a liberal blanketing of the metallic paste however, and the one time that I showed up in my ghostly covering they summarily rejected my entrance. So I began showing up sans any protection, and after a few hours in the summer sun my skin would be broiled well-done, returning home a fire red, with the added bonus of a multitude of blisters erupting later that evening. I have a vague recollection of the pain, but it obviously wasn't enough to scare me off, for as soon as it had somewhat healed, I would be back at the pool with the same predictable results.

I remember Mom taking me to the Dr. in desperation for help with the serious burns I was developing, and I recall this great pearl of wisdom - “He's a redhead – he should stay out of the sun”. He did write a note for me to give to the pool management stating that I should be allowed to wear a T-shirt, but when I tried to submit it they simply refused to bend the rules. As I rode away from Creekmore that day, I didn't realize that even though I would live in Fort Smith until 18, this would be the last time I would ever swim there. I guess the accumulated suffering finally became too much for me. I have marveled at making it into my mid-50's without developing terminal skin cancer, since the DNA in my skin cells must have mutated many times over from the radiation. When the modern sunblocks first came on the market in the late 70's, it re-opened the world of summer sunshine to me, like a vampire allowed to finally walk in the daylight. I know all the downsides of the substances, but for me they have been godsends.

School began at Darby in late August. Like all of us, the anticipated freedom of going from class to class every hour seemed a seductive reality that of course disappointed. We had 5 minutes to go from one period classroom to the next, and this entailed returning to our lockers which often were far away from our previous class, depositing those books then getting the next classes texts. The modern backpack had not yet come into vogue, and carrying a “book bag” was considered a seriously uncool move, so our arms bulked up carrying those items between class and locker. Darby had just finished an updating and built an entire new wing which contained almost all of the 7^th grade classes. The liberal arts classes were held in a new-for-then concept called “pods, where a large space was subdivided by retractable curtains, such that lessons could either be given to a large group over the PA system, or broken down into traditional 30-person sections.

My homeroom teacher was Ms. Beneau, a 20-something young woman who was both cool and hot, so I along with every other guy she taught had a huge crush on her. Discipline in those days was a tad different than in the era of “Cult of the Child”. Nowadays, I surmise that if one acts up in school they are given medals for good behavior along with extra dessert and a hug. The 1970's way, well... coaches on their off-periods were assigned to roam through the pods, and were given carte blanche to handle things in their own inimitable way, which as any who are of my generation would affirm was pretty uniformly the following: 

1) Yank supposed offender out of seat by scruff of neck. 

2) Slam said offending 12 year old's body against the wall like a cop ready to frisk a subject, except instead they would 

3) Pull out their oversized paddles, drilled with holes for greater stinging and begin to absolutely TEAR ass up. 

Now I had always been, with the exception of Faggy Frank's provocation from 5^th grade, the opposite of troublemaker. One rainy afternoon while Ms Beneau was expounding on some or another facet of US history, someone passed a note which piqued the teacher, and she gave her standard head nod identifying the culprit to the coach patrolling the room at the time. Suddenly though, it was MY neck being yanked out of the seat and spread-eagled against the wall before my mind could mount a protest. I could feel the WHOOSH of the back swing, and my bitterness at the injustice at once again being punished for something I didn't so was washed out by my realization that I was going to cry. Not that this was unusual – EVERYBODY cried, save the psychopaths-in-training who sat at the back of the class, amusing themselves by seeing how far they could stick safety pins into their arms before their audience members passed out. But SHE – my teacher who I obsessed about making love to on a desert island - SHE would see me cry and that was one injustice I couldn't take.

“NO, NOT HIM – JIMMY!” her voice interrupted my imminent doom. Without a word of apology, the coach relaxed his hold on me and swooped over to the real offender. Shaken but with unmolested buttocks, I regained my seat. There and then, my obsession with Donna Beneau ended. If she could so carelessly throw me to the lions, she no longer could be my future Queen. I would have to find others to fuel my nighttime fantasies.

My relationships with coaches were only slightly more positive during actual PE class. I was saddled with the unfortunate fate of having one Danny Henderson as my football coach. Though I easily made the team, Henderson made every day of practice miserable. You never did things right – you only were ignored or you were blamed. When the latter, the feedback was powerful and visceral: screaming in your face, kicking you in the butt, or his favorite grabbing your face mask twisting it and tossing you to the ground. Now this behavior today would be considered abusive and not allowed, but in that day it seemed to be the norm, and their was no avenue of protest or intervention. The season bubbled along, the team went 5-5, and in this my last year of organized tackle football I actually had some good moments, a fumble recovery and some sacks of the quarterback. Henderson reluctantly picked me for the all-star team, an intersection of the best players from the four 7^th grade teams, less out of regard for my talents and more because he hated his other options even more. He had given me the moniker “Big Red” which of course I absolutely hated but endured in seething silence. During the week of practice for the game against the rival junior high team, he wasn't happy with my inability to get through the blocks to make tackles, so he screamed in my ear “GAWDDAMMIT BIG RED, YOU BETTER FUCKING MAKE THE TACKLE OR YOU'RE OFF THE TEAM!” My adrenalin coursed, and on the next snap like Moses parting the Red Sea I separated the center and guard's blocks and propelled myself like a torpedo at the QB. I hit him before he could even hand the ball off and impaled him to the ground. His scream told us something wasn't right as he was holding his arm off the ground. I had accidentally broken our best player's arm 2 days before the championship game. Henderson went apoplectic on me, ignoring the fact that he was the one who had inspired me to the effort in the first place. He sent me to the showers early and I assumed from the dirty looks I got from the other players that my time was done.

But on game day, I suited out, got on the bus, and was on the sidelines but not expecting to play. Unexpectedly the center was hurt early on, and Henderson's eyes scoured the bench. “Big Red you're playing center” he commanded. I ran out onto the field buckling my chin strap thinking “what do I do?” because I had never played the position before. To my credit, I suppose, I made all the snaps without creating fumbles, but the backup QB was terrible and we could not find a way to score. As I walked off the field after the last play, I had not a remote notion that this was the last time I would wear pads and feel the exhilaration of competing like that. But I had grown weary of the psychological abuse that I had already endured and I surmised correctly it would only amp up as the stakes got higher.

Did I mention Mom was pregnant?. It came as a surprise to me too, since she didn't tell us until she was far along, as I recall just as school began. Liz was starting 1^st grade, Henry and Nancy were still toddlers, and Dad had decided to go to school; in this instance it was a waste-water treatment program in Camden at the southern border of the state. This meant that he was gone for two weeks at a time, since he could only afford to make the drive every other weekend. That left me as man of the house for practical purposes, but again it was the steady presence of my grandma that kept the ship afloat. I still have a memory of my 1^st concert during the Christmas season. I often brought my French horn home with me to practice, which was problematic since it was bulky, weighed quite a bit, and I usually also had homework with me as well. My feet were my only locomotion between home and school and I lived almost 2 miles away. So the night of the concert I implored the family to come which meant 2 adults, me, 3 children and the horn being crammed into a cab. But it was worth the difficulty, I found playing in the Darby auditorium, which was a grand relic from the early 1900's when it was built, complete with balcony and opera boxes to be an acoustic wonder and I loved the applause from the audience for my solo on “O Holy Night." Our relative poverty faded for the evening and for a small slice of time I felt normal and accomplished.

William Alan (Billy) was born on the 1^st of December. By now the routine of adding another (at least, thankfully, the last) child to the Miller clan was a well-greased path, so I have few memories of his first year; he was just another in a long line of diapers, bottles, and colicky cries during the night. It is in retrospect that, regardless of her inability to control the already-unmanageable size of our family, it took tremendous effort to glue together a household with kids of 6, 3, 2 and then a newborn as the cherry on top. It was no wonder that whatever vestiges of relationship I had with her became a memory. There was an unstated expectation that at the age of 12 I had become a de facto adult and was on my own. She stopped even asking me where I was going, when I would be back, and even if I was coming back. Invisible Bob.

This was the year of my ulcer, a tiny hole rotting away at my stomach lining, and with it a pain that was almost crippling. The diagnosis was to me almost as bad as the ailment itself – drinking a large, nauseating cup of what seemed like liquid chalk. After the problem was confirmed on x-ray, all the Dr. had to offer was for me to drink milk when the attacks happened. This was at least a decade before the discovery that a bacterium was responsible for most stomach ulcers, and a simple course of antibiotics cured the ill. Instead, I was a child of the then-1970's and dairy products were the ineffectual treatment.

Because of the pain and the testing, I missed a huge swath of days from school, and found myself playing catchup when I returned. In my English class, my regular teacher had also been sidelined, in her case by surgery so she was out for a few months. I had made the dutiful rounds to each teacher asking for the makeup work I had missed, but somehow in the parade of substitutes the assignments for that class weren't given, and when the 3^rd nine weeks report cards were handed out, I discovered I had been given a “F”. Shocked, I asked the substitute after class why I had gotten such a low grade and he told me I had not turned in 2 assignments. I of course tried to argue, but he told me I'd have to take it up with my regular teacher when she came back. In tears, I walked out of the class and across the 2nd floor breezeway that connected the newer part of Darby from the older building. An irrational impulse grabbed me and I climbed to the top of the iron railing ready to jump off. My identity, as crushed by my reality as it was, had been positively bolstered only by my intelligence, and the measure of that was the report cards that I brought home with only “A”'s and a rare “B”. The idea of showing my Mom a seeming failure, even though in retrospect I realize that she really wouldn't have given a shit about it anyway as tsunami-ed as she was by her life, was at that moment too much to bear. This was not the last time that I would feel that crazy desire to escape it all, but thankfully a deeper-seated sense of self brought me down that day.

By the end of the school year, I had righted the ship to an overall “C” in English, and fared much better in all my other classes. Dad finished the waste-water treatment program, came back to Fort Smith, then announced that he wasn't going to spend his life dealing with shit, and jumped into a job as a cab driver. Alrighty then. That was yet another piece of Toby's World that I would never get a satisfying answer from. We were approaching 2 years at the duplex, which of course meant that it was time to pack our stuff like thieves in the night. This time, the outcome was bizarrely different. Toby had convinced a guy who was going through a divorce to rent us his place while the proceedings were taking place, which given that the guy was in 1971 terms well-off was going to take a bit. I was floored when I saw the new house. It was a relative mansion compared to the shitholes we had lived in before. I had my own bedroom, the house had a downstairs game room complete with pool table, and the property sat on a cliff out-looking all of south Fort Smith. It was literally Hillbillies go to Hollywood time. There were times I pinched myself as my 13^th birthday came near: ignoring the reality that Dad was bringing home maybe $30 a day from driving cabs, it gave me the illusion, once again, that THINGS ARE LOOKING UP. Next installment: Balloon of hope pops.

Life at 11

This is one I have been avoiding; I knew from the beginning of this project that this would be one of the hard years to archive (not as though there were any easy ones). This was the year that I lost illusions, had my full-fledged sexual awakening, ran away from home and, though it would not be the last time, considered killing myself. I became a brief football hero, had at least 10 fistfights, joined the Boy Scouts, learned to roller-skate and ride a bike, smoked my first cigarette, saw my first real-life nude girl, had my first job, stopped my mother from stabbing my Dad with a knife, endured the shame of neighbors being awakened by the police coming to our house subsequent to said encounter, and somehow survived the coldest winter I have to date endured in a house with inadequate heating. I’m tired just summing it up.

The summer of ’69 may have been awesome for those

attending Woodstock or getting to play footloose hippies, but for adolescent me, that era was much less fun and games. Baby Nancy proved to be a bit of a screamer, and the time soaked up with her and toddler James Henry made Mom persona non grata for me. Liz had attached herself to Maw-Maw, and since Dad was still rapped up in the dying throes of YES stamps, it was a world of one that I inhabited. 6^th grade began in that desultory manner that only non-air conditioned schools of that era could – large fans blowing from the corners, the teacher screaming, unsuccessfully, to be heard over them, and sweat soaking our cotton clothing. 

An interesting distraction was available though, I had been

made an officer of the crossing guard (another relic of the past, the kids empowered to protect street crossings instead of adults), and it was my job as lieutenant along with my compatriot captain to make the rounds of all the crossing sites and entry doors where guards were stationed to insure no one entered the school without permission. It was my first taste of authority and I must admit to liking it, maybe even more than a bit. We had an equipment room where the flags and bright arm bands we wore were stored along with rubber rain gear. It happened that this would be a rainy and stormy year, and I still remember the tactile sensation of the wet boots and slicks that we hung to dry after enduring deluges. This would always make us minutes late to class which I why I suppose they picked the smartest students for the positions.

It was just a few weeks into fall when I was blindsided by our latest surreptitious move out of a house where we were ostensibly in arrears several months. I hated leaving the relatively spacious house at 618, and when I saw what we were exchanging it for at 1101 on the same street, it was almost instant depression. It was a duplex, two-bedroom, with small rooms, small kitchen and bathroom, and just a feeling of being dirty no matter how many times we swept and mopped the floors. Even worse, the washer and dryer that Mom had been so happy with had to be given up since there were no connections. This put us back into the matrix of having to trundle the dirty clothes to a laundromat, an

odyssey that would often occupy half of one day on the weekends.

I was not happy about the change, nor did it have a positive effect on Mom and Dad’s relationship, as their conflicts began to amp up to levels I had never experienced before. Maw-Maw would often have to leave the bed in the backroom, climbing over both Henry and Nancy, her latest nighttime companions, then navigating past the separate twin beds of Liz and mine (yes, three beds in a small bedroom, and now I live in a 3500 square foot house. Life is often ironic) just to drag her then 67 year old self down the hallway where Toby and Janet were having animated discussions on his inability to: A. Earn money; B. Stop impregnating her; and C. Stop sharing his penis with other women. More often than not, she was able to be an effective mediator to defuse the conflicts, as much as I could tell from my position of burying my head in the pillow wishing I could just disappear. One night in November, Maw-Maw lost her magic touch with getting them off their ledges, and my pillow could not block it out. Out of desperation, I suppose, I went down the hallway. The living room was dark, I saw Dad’s silhouette in front of me, clad only in underwear, yelling taunts in the mocking tone he used to goad Mom into abandoning her autistic coldness and engage him in word wars. The came a blood-curdling scream from the kitchen and Mom came around the corner like a wraith in a white nightgown with a knife raised in her hand. Instead of recoiling in fear, this just amped Toby up.

“You don’t have the guts to do it” he taunted. Without thinking, not being as convinced that she wouldn’t plunge the knife into his neck, I placed myself between them. “Kill me then” I said, and I’m sure at the time I meant it, because the prospect of the misery of any given night turning into this insanity had finally pushed that heretofore-unknown button within me labeled “FUCK THIS SHIT!!!”.

That moment for me is still frozen in time, Mom with the knife poised over her head, Maw-Maw in the background looking on in horror, the echo of their screams still reverberating in the tiny living room. That broke the cycle. Mom dropped the knife and collapsed into a heap of sobs and tears on the couch. It was just a minute later that the police arrived; summoned no doubt by our neighbors on the other side of the wall, and all of the subsequent memories are hidden from me. To this day, I do question whether she would have done it if I hadn’t stepped between them, and speculate on how all of our destinies would have taken a different vector if I hadn’t. Like so many other events yet to be told of my life, my decision had nothing to do with logic, it was purely instinctual and as such I can only accept that this and so many other happenings are what have led me to be sitting at this keyboard in the first place.

To forget the turmoil at home, I joined Boys Club football for the first time in 3 years. Again stuck on the line because of my girth, I took out my frustrations in the hitting drills and practices, and I became a defensive line starter which in my estimation was far superior to being a blocker. As the season started, I made my fair share of tackles and found to my happiness that there was a literal bonus for my performance, a “pay-for-play” plan. Our coach was a fairly wealthy owner of a local car dealership, and would hand out money at the end of games for tackles behind the line of scrimmage, and fumbles and interceptions recovered. A game midway through the season was at Paris about 40 miles to the east which we traveled to by the now-unacceptable method of piling into open truck beds. The black players on the team must have been particularly hungry that night because try as I might I could not get to anyone first for a loss. We were behind late in the game, and they had driven into our end of the field and looked in good shape to run out the clock. On a snap with a few minutes left I fought through a block only to see that my teammate on the other side was about to sack the quarterback. The QB in desperation tried to pitch the ball, but it was batted the opposite direction, landing perfectly in my arms. I took off for our end zone with a head of steam, while the Paris squad was going the other direction. Slow though I was, my head start let me get near the goal line before someone caught up to me and took my legs out. The feeling of making such a huge play was exhilarating, the joy was increased as we scored the next play and held on to win the game, and was capped off with the $5 I received for nabbing the fumble. We stopped at a drive-in on the way back, and I felt justified in having an extra hamburger and milk shake with my reward.

A classmate that October asked me to visit his Boy Scout

   meeting which was held at a church just a few blocks from my house. I did, and enjoyed it enough to join, somehow getting Mom to agree to the $1 weekly dues. This brought me into my first experience with outdoors life and camping, skills from which have remained through my life. The troop leader’s son Mark, my squad leader, was 13 and a bit on the wild side. He had a garage hangout that he had installed a stereo in, along with psychedelic posters and accompanying black lights. He would occasionally invite us to hangout with him there, and while we listened to the Beatle’s “Sgt. Pepper’s” I was offered cigarettes which I usually turned down because I had already had my fill of what I thought was a disgusting habit due to my Dad’s constant smoking. But one day my curiosity prompted me to do it. I barely inhaled, yet I still felt woozy and out of sorts. I couldn’t imagine what drove people to do it, and it would be another 6 years before I tried again. Most other elements of Boy Scouts provided a positive distraction though. I worked on and achieved several merit badges, and the weekend outings were a welcome escape from Miller Hell. One of the other squad leaders, Mike, had a motorcycle which all of us envied of course. I remember looking up to him and dreaming that my life could be a fraction of his. But I was shocked and saddened just a few years later to hear of his death on the bike. Not all that glitters ends up as gold, obviously.

One night after a meeting, one of the guys suggested we go with him to his girlfriend’s house. Her name was Nancy, and she was the object of great adoration and not a little bit of lust on the part of every guy in school, as her face and body were mature far beyond her 12 years. We went to the porch; one of her family answered and told us she was taking a bath and to come in to wait as they settled back down to watch TV. Where we were standing was directly in line with the bathroom at the end of a hallway, recessed so her parents couldn’t see. The door opened, and Nancy came out covered in just a towel. When she saw the five of us staring at her, she began a provocative tease with moving the towel, then suddenly dropped the whole thing, allowing us full-frontal vision for a brazen five seconds until she ducked into her bedroom. Those moments would be replayed countless times in my memory, and doubtless in that of the others who witnessed that pubescent miracle.

Across the street, a classmate named Ricky lived with his Dad and step mom. It was a solidly-middle class house in contrast to the somewhat dilapidated housing on the rest of the block. We began hanging out and developed something of a friendship. One day, Ricky asked me if I knew how to “beat it”. I didn’t even understand what he meant, but in his garage he gave a demonstration that left no doubt. He encouraged me to join him, and so in the semi-darkness there I reached my first conscious climax. There were no overtones of anything else between us; it was more in the vein of “look at this remarkable thing I discovered”. We never did that together again, but I quickly became a fanatic devotee of self-abuse, and though I felt that perhaps I was unusual in that regard I would learn that this is simply the norm for teenagers of both sexes.

Ricky loved to roller-skate and had me tag along with him.

Though I took many falls at first, I eventually became competent enough that I could join the couple’s skate where the girls would line up and you would skate up and offer your hand, hoping they would assent. I surely had rejections, and that stung, but I stayed consistent and finally a few girls took my offer and tooled around the rink with me. The feel of a girl’s hand in mine might as well have been third base. Other boys in my circle were faster – Ricky bragged that he had made out, gotten hand jobs and had explored under a girls panties, and Nancy’s boyfriend said they’d gone all the way several times. That all seemed unapproachable for me; I wanted to just have a kiss. If I had known that milestone was still years off into the future, I might have been even more depressed than I was.

School was as always underwhelming for me, but the social mix became more volatile with the explosion of hormones. Simple conflicts turned into wars, and I wasn’t able to keep my peaceful persona alive in that jungle. There were at least ten fights that I was involved in, 3 of which were severe. The first was one where I tried to play rescuer for a 3^rd grader who was having the snot beat out of him by a fellow 6^th grader. I pulled the bully off, who turned his attention to me. The younger kid ran off, leaving the two of us to be nabbed by a teacher and sent to the principal, who lit up our asses with her oversized paddle. The next was with my on-again, off-again friend Dennis, whom I genuinely liked but he would burn hot and cold due to no act of mine. One afternoon at softball I was covering second base, he was running from first and dove headlong into me, causing pain and scratches.

“Meet me after school” he snarled.

“Why, what did I do?” I genuinely was bewildered.

“You know” he snapped, and spun away. I was to find out later that someone had started some shit by saying that I told them he was a faggot, our code word for homosexual back then. I of course had said no such thing, but Dennis’ fury was palpable, and I sought to take a back way to home after school. It didn’t work – Dennis, along with a crowd of about 20 blood-thirsty onlookers blocked my path just a block away from my house.

I shed tears, not of fear or of pain, but because of the injustice that I was being put through. He threw the first punch, and it was on. We literally rolled down the hill end over end fists flying at each other. Across the street from my house, there was a four-foot wide stump in the ground next to the curb. When we reached that spot, Dennis connected with a punch that knocked me back, my head hit the stump, and there was nothing but blackness. The next image I recall is Mom screaming at everyone as I literally saw stars circling around her. My first concussion, but not even the last one involving that stump. The last memorable fight that year involved my neighbor Ricky. We had gone to some free event at the auditorium and were walking back. Somehow a disagreement began as we walked past a vacant lot and fisticuffs ensued. This went on for at least 20 minutes until we both were so exhausted we just quit. After we gathered ourselves, we continued walking back just as if nothing had happened until curiously at the next vacant lot it started again, and absurdly for a third time would be repeated yet again at another open space. I don’t think we ever figured out what the conflict was about, but in retrospect it’s clear that adolescent angst and testosterone surges were the causation.

For that Christmas, I finally received what I’d been asking for so many times – a bicycle. In short order, I learned how to balance myself and a new world of freedom expanded for me. Ricky and I liked to race down the side street and then curve opposite directions onto South 20^th. One time, I miscalculated and went into the turn too fast, hitting the curve, and my body flew over the handlebars with my head landing on my old nemesis, the stump. Unconsciousness part 2, with again my Mom and circling stars being my greeting on my return from never-never land. Those were significant concussions, but they would pale with the big one to come years later.

A man in a van with the imprint of our local paper, the Southwest Times-Record, saw me riding my bike one day and asked if I’d like to make some money. That was music to my ears, and it didn’t take much cajoling of Mom to get her to agree. I was given a sack that hung from my front handlebars, and it was my job 7 days a week to take the stack of papers that were dropped on my porch, roll them up, rubberband them and then load the sack before taking off on the route, which stretched about 20 blocks.

Though that part was hard enough, the collection part was

ridiculous. I had to make several trips to each house to collect the paltry few dollars the paper cost at that time, and when you totaled up all of my efforts, I was making maybe 25 cents per hour of work. Dad, who had gotten drafted to take me on the route in the car especially on Sundays when the weight of the paper made it impossible to throw all of them without coming back to reload, told the manager after about 6 futile weeks that I was done. I think I had $25 to show for all of that, but a life lesson in pocket for sure.

Immediately after Christmas, we were socked in with the worst cold snap I have seen to this date. There was close to a foot of snow and ice that, because of the steady below-freezing temps that lasted for weeks, never melted. Walking to school was like skating a mountain uphill on the way in, and then dangerously downhill coming back. Still performing my duties as crossing guard, I forgot my ear muffs one morning and after that they stayed frozen the entire day, only grudgingly thawing out with what felt like needles shooting through them. Our heating system at school was barely adequate, but it was a hot desert compared to our duplex. The gas furnace was undersized even for our small place, windows were single-paned and leaky and insulation was non-existent. The ambient temp inside couldn’t have been more than 50 for a solid month. We stayed curled up in blankets and shivering, especially in the nights. Finally as February began, there was at least a small break rising to the 40’s and 50’s which felt almost tropical compared to our Artic January.

Spring brought back the freedom of riding my bike all over town. On weekdays after school, I would first check in at home then ride to the library, often returning with 10 or more books that I would devour within the week then turn those in to check out more. On weekends, a favorite place

of mine was Creekmore Park, with picnic benches tucked in the trees where I loved to park myself to read books then take naps on sunny afternoons. A great hiding spot I found was in a large culvert that ran under the entrance road. Graffiti on the inner walls told me I wasn’t the first to discover it, but happily for me all the times I retreated there I was the lone occupant.

As the school year ended, I exerted my leadership abilities for the first time in cajoling classmates to join me in creating a bike club. The idea was that we would ride enmasse in various functions the town sponsored, such as parades. The annual rodeo parade was at the end of May, and so I wrote a letter to the chairman using my best penmanship, to which I received a nicely-worded but definite “No”. Not deterred by this rejection, I rode downtown to the offices of the chairman, confidently strode in to his secretary and was rewarded with an audience with the boss, who politely yet firmly rejected the notion again. I left shaken that I had thrown my best precocious sales pitch at him and yet did not succeed. When I told the other guys about the turndown, they decided that a bike club wasn’t that cool after all, and so my first attempt at being the straw that stirred the drink went to the wayside.

A big highlight of early summer was supposed to be State Boys Scout camp, a week-long excursion far away from Fort Smith and its attendant problems. I had briefed my parents on it beginning at the first of the year, and had elicited what I thought was a promise that I would be able to. I remember that it was $75, which at that time was considerable but doable for most. The Millers were of course never to be counted among the most. As the time drew near, I packed my bag carefully, got my immunization, and waited. The morning of, I asked Dad to take me to the church. He exploded “I don’t have the money!" I burst into tears, feeling shame that I would be the only member of the troop left behind. I sat on my steps and watched the bus drive past a block away. I was overcome with anger about our constant poverty, and ventilated on both of my parents before walking off without a plan. I ended up at the culvert, and felt an irrational desire to bang my head against the wall to end the constant pain that was a background of my life. A calmer voice within me held sway and kept my cranium intact. Darkness began to cast shadows, and though I had been determined to run away from home, logic informed me that there were simply no options for me anywhere but with my family, dysfunctional though it may have been. I returned with my tail between my legs, received the silent treatment from the parents, and wolfed down mac-and-cheese like it was steak. My 11^th year marked the end of elementary school, the end of innocence, and sadly the end of idealistic hope for things ever being better as long as I was trapped with my family.

Life at 10

Ensconced in what until then was the nicest place I had ever lived in Arkansas (the California mansion of my grandparents was too high of a bar to even use as comparison), my 10^th year began on a positive note. I had begged for a record player, the mono phonographs that played 33, 45 and 78 rpm vinyl records, for at least a year, and my wish came true for my birthday. I would like to pretend that I was an auteur of great musical taste, but instead my companion first LP was …drum roll please “More of the Monkees”, a presentation of that faux TV

show rip-off of the Beatles. Ok, even I am embarrassed at this admission, but for posterity’s sake it must be noted. As this year crept forward though, my ears became increasingly entranced by the sounds of what was collectively being labeled as “rock” music, and my choices evolved to the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and the bright driving tunes of the British group called “Cream”. The Monkees thankfully became a relic of my relatively immature past, and other elements of my life also followed the pattern.

This was the year I became interested in more adult TV series, having grown dissatisfied with the fare which for most of my young life had been mainly westerns and sitcoms. Luckily, 1968 was sort of a watershed year as television networks began producing entertainment that was both more relevant to the changing times, ala the dissatisfaction with the Vietnam conflict and the generalized rebellion of young people collectively called the “hippie movement”. My burgeoning political consciousness had new input to chew on: “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and “The Smothers Brothers” brought a trove of fresh perspective to my fertile mind, ideas that impressed me that perhaps the world wasn’t as well put-together as it had before seemed, or that at the very least there was an agitation beneath the surface. This was also when I became intrigued with watching TV news, and I especially loved the delivery and gravitas of the man who had broken the news of JFK's murder, Walter Cronkite - a respect that I was to later learn was shared with millions of others. It was natural then that the political conventions and election of 1968 was great theater for me. My middle-aged cynicism was nowhere to be found in my 10 year old psyche, and the machinations of the democratic process became my new “must-see TV”.

Dad was still unemployed that fall, and was involved in his usual mix of hustling, gambling and alcohol. In one of his forays to the bars, he had met a man who worked for the local glass company. The scenario was, the plant allowed him to purchase the scrap cuttings of mirrored glass for very little, which he then took home where in his garage he had a cutting machine that allowed him to produce hand mirrors with scalloped designs on the frame part, and a handled extension sans protective covering. A ¼” piece of glass with edges that were borderline sharp enough to use as a weapon.

This is an EXACT replica of the mirrors I sold door-to-door

After a few, or probably many drinks, Dad struck a deal where the guy would give him the mirror on consignment and he would attempt to sell them, and then bring back what was left and split the proceeds. Without a store front to sell these from, Dad relied upon the method that until our recent era was time-honored AND accepted path of commerce – door-to-door sales. Apparently there were a few Fort Smithian females who couldn’t get enough of their visage and/or who were mirror-deficient such that he was able to eke out a few dollars profit each day selling these potential weapons of mass destruction. But his motivation to knock doors and be rebuffed eventually got to him - at least that is my theory- because he soon enlisted me to be his front man, using the guilt of possible familial starvation as my buy-in to the process. So my reluctant self, in complete juxtaposition to my innate shy, self-conscious Cancerian vibe, was thrust out of the vehicle which Dad would park at the end of the block, carrying several of the scary pieces of glass, expected to make the oval circuit of both sides until I returned with the proceeds, which usually would be at best just a few dollars. I was blissfully unaware at the time that Dad kept small bottles of Scotch under the seat that he would nip on as I made the rounds. In retrospect, what really torques me about this is that given the circumstances, the liquor should have been flowing down MY gullet – I was the one in need of liquid courage.

So my September mornings proceeded, knocking hundreds of doors, perhaps selling 3 or 4, on a good day 6-8 hand mirrors, which only meant a few dollars profit that doubtless was absorbed and more by Papa’s Delicate Condition. All such enterprises come to their eventual close, and this one was met one sunny morning a few weeks into the process. I had just been rejected by an older woman and was walking the sidewalk toward the next house when I ran into a large group of black teens, 5 or more of them, who blocked the path. The verbal taunts began, and then one of them grabbed the mirrors away from me and threw them to the concrete, shattering them. I looked back at where the car SHOULD have been parked but, no car, no Dad. Then the shoving ensued as the pack of animals (Yes, this is exactly what low-vibrational human beings are in every respect, ESPECIALLY when empowered by numbers and fueled by racial hatred. You want faux political correctness? Run as far from me as you can.) amped up their aggression. I was crying because I had never been in a situation of this kind, and could not understand the obvious hatred that was projected against me by them. My fate that day, as with so many other events in life, hinged on a chance occurrence. The old lady whose house I had just been at had lingered on her porch just long enough to see the trouble I was in. She now charged down the sidewalk screaming at my tormentors that she had called the police, which acted as a magic repellent to the vermin who turned and ran en masse. Seconds later, Dad’s car, ostensibly having been released from the pernicious tractor beam that teleported it to a nearby liquor store, reappeared and braked to a stop, with the sight of an old woman comforting his shaken son, pieces of broken mirror strewn all over the sidewalk. Thus ended my not-so-excellent career as child door-to-door salesman.

Perhaps a week after this, Mom’s latest pregnancy was at an end. My newest sister came into the world with urgency, Mom having to be transported by ambulance since her labor began when Dad and I were at a high school football game. The ambulance was just leaving the house when we returned and we followed it to the hospital. I remember seeing Mom in agony on a cart just outside the ER when she screamed “IT’S COMING” and she was whisked away, and it was only moments later that my second Libra sister,

Nancy Elaine, arrived. So now our crew had 3 adults and 4 kids, none of the adults with a job and the inheritance money dissipated. Enter the latest “strike it rich” scheme for Dad – “YES Stamps”.

Back in the day (oh I know how I date myself with this sort of language, but sometimes one who IS old school has to represent), merchants subscribed to programs that rewarded customer loyalty by giving them lickable stamps they could collect in books then

take to local redemption centers to trade a certain number of these books for gifts, ranging from cheesy to utilitarian to quite cool, ala cameras and telescopes. S&H Green Stamps was the 800 pound gorilla in this space during that era. YES Stamps was created as a competitor to these programs, with a twist – the stamps collected would be deposited at banks and instead of redeemed for merchandise would accrue in a Christmas savings account that could only be tapped post-Thanksgiving. Sort of a rebate program with delayed gratification. The startup had attracted investment and active management from an actor who was very familiar to our family since he starred on Maw-Maw’s favorite show “Bonanza”. Dan Blocker, who played the character

“Hoss Cartwright” was advertised as appearing at our newly-built Municipal Auditorium in what turned out to be a thinly disguised rah-rah event for YES Stamps. Our whole family attended, and at some point while watching Blocker speak Dad disappeared and didn’t return to us until long after proceedings had tied up. He was ebullient – he had somehow charmed his way backstage and, due to his silvery tongue and advanced capabilities of handling large amounts of Scotch, Dan Blocker had personally hired him to be part of their sales team, members of whom were about to take off in a matter of days to Texarkana on the state’s southern border to begin ground work on the pilot project there.

This had a two-fold effect that in the main was positive – Dad being gone the majority of the time so no fighting - and a steady income for us for the first time in years. I have no inkling of how hard it was for Mom to have four kids, two of whom were both babies, but the lack of parenting that came my direction was a hint that she was certainly overwhelmed. This new-found lack of supervision I found intoxicating and addictive. I suppose it was just the default position of women that when a male child exceeds both their statures as I had, you gave up worrying about their physical security. I roamed near and far, all of it by foot since I did not have a bicycle as yet. The public library became my home away from home, and I steered clear of the kids section in favor of adult books. There, ensconced for hours in comfortable seating, a world previously hidden from me opened up, both in fiction and fact-based writing. In particular, I fell in love with a writing of Jules Verne titled

“Mysterious Island” a tale of how some ingenious escapees from a Confederate prison camp flew across the world in a hot air balloon, became stranded on a desert island, and through miraculous application of “can-do” spirit recreated all the comforts of then-modern society in just a few years. My more mainstream tastes were fulfilled with stories by Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susann, which may explain why many of my idea’s about human amour were initially a bit stilted.

A more hands-on approach to human sexuality also emerged from my sudden invisibility. Dad would come home most weekends, driving a company van painted in garish purple and yellow colors. I would often climb in and pretend to be behind the wheel driving down the highway. A girl down the street who was a year behind me in 4^th grade by the name of Darlene began to walk past and ask what I was doing in there. Part of what I was also doing was I had discovered a stash of soft-core porn, mostly topless women in garter

type stuff, but intriguing enough to mental sensibilities, albeit that certain physical structures had yet to petition to join the fray. Once inside our private cave, where we luckily were never discovered, Darlene became equally intrigued with the images of sensuality and decided to strike similar poses, with the exception of having nothing as visually captivating to match the mags. Though younger, Darlene was much faster than I, and by the next year she was reputed to have gone all the way with boys from middle school. Whatever titillation was gained from these escapades did not equal my growing sense of the power imbalance in male-female relations, as in we males simply were powerless until a given female decided to turn on her charms toward us. And that, I did not like. In many ways, still don’t until this day.

In March ’69, Dad brought all of us to Texarkana for the kick-off weekend of YES Stamps. Dan Blocker was there doing photo-ops with people as they put the full-court press to get people enthused and have more merchants sign on to the program. Dad took Liz and me to Blocker’s hotel room to meet him. He was a giant bear of a man, with a deep resonant voice that filled the room. I of course was in awe having never been so close to a celebrity before, but to Dad it was by now old hat, having spent dozens of evenings with the huge actor draining bottles of Scotch. I remember him looking extremely tired as he spoke with us, and as he posed with us and so many others for photos. YES Stamps would hold on until the fall of ‘69 before the money ran out, returning Dad to unemployment, and Blocker was sadly to die just a few years later from a blood clot post-surgery. But that brief fling with fame, fanned by other Hollywood types he met through the actor, fueled Dad’s desire to produce movies and a few years after it would nearly become a flame.

My 5^th grade year was equivocal in that while the academic part was smooth, the social part was less so. I developed a tormentor, one of those kids who for some reason took a dislike to me based on nothing more than how I looked. Frank Holloway was what we called in those days a “momma’s boy”, or “sissy”, because there was no information we could have used to understand that Frank was then, and would later in high school flamingly present himself as, homosexual. Frank was very tall and would use his stature over me to intimidate when were in lunch line. At first I was confused when it happened, then as others began to laugh at the obvious gauntlet that was being thrown down, I began to meet his hostility. Multiple times we ended up in the principal’s office, a place I had rarely seen since I never caused trouble, and it always seemed that somehow the blame ended up placed on me, probably due in no small measure to Mrs. Holloway being a fixture in the PTA.

One rainy afternoon the tension exploded. Like some other male homosexuals I have known, underneath Frank’s superficial charm he projected to teachers and authority figures laid a nasty, revengeful streak, and he pushed the envelope too far that day. I had a habit, noticeable to Frank’s eye at least, of sliding into my desk with one knee. The teacher had left the room for a minute, and I had gotten up to sharpen my pencil. When I returned to my desk and put my knee down a lightning bolt of pain shot up. When I looked down I saw a thumbtack sticking through my jeans and a growing red spot from my blood. There was no doubt as to who did it because Frank started laughing uproariously. There have been just a handful of times in my life when I have snapped, and this was my earliest recollection. I jumped over the row of desks separating us, people in them and he just as quickly backpedaled, slapping at me in the girlish way that effeminate men do. But I weathered the pain of his slaps this day, and we began a pier 6 brawl that went all over the room, even after my teacher and her colleague from across the hall pulled us apart. This time Frank couldn’t play innocent, other kids had seen him place the tack and although we both were suspended for 2 days I at least had the satisfaction of him finally getting the blame and afterwards he never said a word to me or looked in my direction for the many years afterward that we attended the same schools.

Part of my traipsing about town was spent at the downtown Boy’s Club which offered an indoor pool which I utilized in teaching myself to passably swim. I saw a signup for Pony League baseball and added my name to the list though I had never played the sport before. But there was a genetic impetus behind it also – Toby had been an athlete, played every sport in high school, but was most renowned for his pitching ability, in specific his 90+ mph fastball. When he came home and I told him about playing, he for the first time worked with me on the mechanics of pitching and this few month swath was one of the best I ever spent with him. He was able to attend a few practices and suggested to my coach that I was less suited to play right field where he had me installed, and I would be far better at pitching. My coach resisted the idea and the season neared the end without me taking the mound.

Our last game was against a team that had beaten us badly earlier in the year, and this game started out no better. Sometime in the middle of the game, Dad showed up for the first time and I saw him approach Coach and speak for a minute. That’s when I heard the words I had longed for “Miller, warm up”. Things were no better on the field, and when the bases were loaded I was motioned to take the mound. It was scary and exhilarating at the same time. It became even more so when the very first pitch I threw was crushed toward left field. I felt the agony of the impeding grand slam, but was saved by an unbelievable catch by the outfielder of the ball by his jumping high above the fence line and improbably catching it cleanly to end the inning. The next inning, we somehow strung hits together to climb within 2 runs. When my spot came up, the bases were full, and after several pitches I saw the perfect blob of white come into my hitting zone and drove the ball into the gap, scoring three to put us ahead by one. By the time I went back to the mound, my nerves had calmed and I struck out the side to win the game, It is perhaps my best athletic memory and I was happy that my Dad was able to see that small bit of success I had.

As Year 10 reached its end, the whole world was captivated by the Apollo 11 mission that was to culminate with the first manned

landing on the Moon on July 20^th, my birthday. My dreams of possible futures were inflamed by the celestial event, in stark contrast to the deepening poverty that my family was descending into.

Life at 9

I have to apologize for my first breakage of our implied contract, reader-o-mine. The events I am about to describe happened in June, one month before I turned 9, but they were such vivid and detailed memories that I wanted to maintain some sort of symmetry with the length of the preceding chapters (Symmetry has always been a major esthetic influence in my life and writing; it is sort of an OCD manifestation but harmless enough. Makes me a GREAT editor, something most of my fellow writers detest and avoid at all costs). 
At the end of my 3^rd grade school year, I was told that we were going to take a trip to Northern California to visit my Uncle Harry and his daughter, my cousin Jeri. She had been diagnosed with leukemia some time before, and I later inferred that Harry had called saying we should maybe come say our goodbyes. A few weeks later, Dad bought a 1960 Chevy Impala. it was loaded up, and the Miller clan, plus one – Lorena also came with us - began what was to be a singular and calamity-filled trip.

My Dad did almost all of the driving (crucial detail for later), my Mom and Liz sat beside him in front, Lorena, Maw-Maw and I occupied the back. No A/C. Sweltering heat. We took off sometime in the afternoon, not because that was optimal, but because of the adult’s inability to organize themselves to get going earlier. That Keystone Kops epic finally settled, we headed west out of Fort Smith across the Arkansas River Bridge. I suppose the plan was to drive through the night, with my Dad and his Mom Lorena sharing the driving. It should be noted at this point that my Mom Janet, had never, did not, and was to never, learn to drive, so she was unable to give breaks. Maw Maw at this point in her life with deteriorating vision was just downright scary. In all, a disaster waiting to happen. Which it did, minus any great bodily injury. The Impala, seemingly a good reliable vehicle, began to rebel almost immediately, belching black smoke. Dad pulled over in one of the small towns on Route 66 (hard to imagine, but the

Interstate 40 highway was not even close to being complete in 1967, so most of the trip was on the now decommissioned auxiliary highway) and got the bad news – the car was burning oil at a rapid rate. In those days, gas stations sold what was known as “bulk oil” which I’m sure was code for “you sure you want to put THIS into your engine?” and thrifty Toby scooped up a case after refilling the reservoir. This began a herky, jerky process wherein every 30-40 miles he would have to stop, put 2-3 quarts in, and then repeat the process until the next station and the next case of bulk. 

The next crossroad came when the generator, that balky precrsor to the much-more reliable alternator, began to fritz out. In the dark of night, somewhere between Flagstaff AZ and God-Knows-Where, it went out completely. No lights of any kind, no emergency flashers. Dad of course pulled over to the shoulder, but it was narrow and as 18-wheelers came rushing up they were just inches away from our stalled car. This scary situation went on for what seemed like hours before he was able to flag someone down who took pity on us and went out of their way to take us in two shifts back to the outskirts of Flagstaff, where we spent the night and most of the next day in a hotel waiting for the car, which had presumably been towed in, to be repaired.

This accomplished, we started again late that next afternoon, but by the time we reached Barstow, California the same problem began to exert itself again. Dad alternated between silence and rage, though of course there was no one to blame but himself for buying a lemon used car (I was to learn much later that the major American car manufacturers of that era engaged in deliberate planned obsolescence, using inferior parts to build cars that were destined to fail prematurely, in the hope of driving consumers to keep the new car buying pump primed). Somehow, with fitful stops and starts, late that night we limped into Uncle Harry’s home in Lodi just north of Fresno.

Uncle Harry had an interesting back story, as do many of the people who inhabit my history, and this would be an appropriate time to expound. He was just reaching adulthood when America entered World War 2, and unlike his older brother James who joined the Army he attached to the Navy. He was in Japan as part of the occupation force for a year before leaving the service, but instead of returning to Alma stayed in California. Within a few years, he had joined the California Highway Patrol as an officer (the famous CHIP’s) sometimes on motorcycle, at others in patrol cars. It was during one such shift in the latter that his story became compelling.

Officer Harry Miller, C.H.I.P.

What I am about to relate was told to me by my father, initially sometime in the early 80’s, and was rehashed during subsequent conversations over the years. The information was given to my Dad by Harry during phone conversations that began over 20 years after the original event. So, you the reader can decide on your own what to make of it, what to believe and what not, I am just the messenger. But if you ask me, I have no reason to doubt it. Except for the fact that it violates reason and all known laws of physics.

One night in 1959, my Uncle and his partner were patrolling a state highway in Northern California. They came up on a dark car parked on the side of the road, no lights to be seen in an area where the road could be seen for miles each direction. They parked behind it and approached as per protocol one on each side. When Harry reached the rolled-up passenger window, shining his flashlight into it, the light did not penetrate (this was a decade before dark window tinting was produced). The window began to roll down and Harry’s beam illuminated the passengers. 4 men, two in back two in front dressed in identical black suits, gazing forward and, improbably, all wearing sunglasses.

(OK, I know YOU know where this might be going, but please indulge me and continue)

By now Harry’s partner is agitated, starting to yell at the passenger side occupant to “ROLL THE FUCKING WINDOW DOWN!” Harry is frozen at the unreal sight in front of him. The driver turns his head and looks Harry in the eyes through his dark tinted glasses as Harry’s flashlight scans over all four men. The man’s neutral expression changes and he smiles at my Uncle.

And then the men, and their car disappear. All that’s left on the dark deserted highway are two cops, one flashlight beam. It wasn’t long before their screaming began to fill up the otherwise silent landscape.

After coming back from the shock of seeing their world disintegrate in front of their eyes, they agreed that there would be no way to explain it, and indeed they themselves would be targets of mental health evaluations. So they tried to forget, and for Harry it worked, but not so much for his partner, who ended up being committed to the state mental hospital, from which he never was released.

Fast forward to the early 70’s. Harry has long since quit the force, divorced, then remarried and is living in a newer house than the one we visited in 1967. This house, which I was to stay at for several days in 1977, had a den at the front. On this night in question, Uncle Harry was sitting in a recliner after dinner, reading a newspaper. His wife Mary was washing dishes in the kitchen. Without any warning, the man in black last seen in the driver's seat of the disappearing car a decade prior came into his den – through the closed door as if it didn’t exist - saying “Hello Harry, we need to talk”.

And that’s where the information that Harry gave my Dad ended. He would only further say that “I’m not scared anymore” and that there was a reason and plan that made his encounter with the MIB’s not an accident. Dad kept trying over the years to get him to divulge more, which he would not. In a conversation with Mary at some point, he did get an indirect epilogue to the incredible story. From the early 70’s on, Harry, who had never angled before, started making trips to Northern Canada to ostensibly go fishing, trips that lasted two weeks. Mary herself was perplexed by this, but she could get no more info out of her husband than my Dad did. After Harry retired, he spent a great deal of time and money helping the homeless and alcohol addicts in his town, and was the driving force behind the creation of a day center for these less fortunate, later managing the charitable enterprise. Though my curiosity was insanely piqued by learning of all this, I had not spoken with Harry since the late 70’s and regrettably before I mustered the resolve to reestablish contact with him, he passed away in 2008.

My 9 year old mind could not have comprehended the paranormalities that my Uncle was already holding within himself, nor the mind-boggling events to come. Harry was simply to me the fulfillment of what our family COULD be: a stable, successful non-emotional and kind person. So that week in Northern California was an enjoyable one and, as it turned out, was to be the last family vacation that these Millers ever took. This drove me when I became a father to make trips a priority, and though money was at times tight when my children were younger, we always took one substantial vacation every year.

Poor Jeri was bed-ridden, I felt great sympathy for her plight and did my best to cheer her up, but there was little spark of life left even then. I say this because amazingly Jeri would live almost 7 years more before mercifully passing. The Impala was in the shop the entire week, and from my understanding the mechanic finally gave up trying to fix the problem and dictated that it needed a new engine. Whoosh – several hundred unexpected dollars flew out the window. Loaded up once again, we began the return trip, which didn’t last more than a few hundred miles before the water pump failed. Another highway stranding, more kind Samaritans rescuing us, another night in a motel. The journey was nearing its end a few days later when Dad, who had been driving forever, was exhausted and turned the wheel over to Lorena before passing out. I remember clearly being in Oklahoma City around midnight, which was 3 hours away from home and Lorena asked me which way she should go. I was flattered and totally unprepared for the request which I answered by telling her to go left. Then I went to sleep, not knowing that “left” took us north to Kansas, but when Dad awoke hours later his cursing let us know that the cherry had been placed on top of the messed-up sundae that our trip had become, and it would be yet another 5 hours after that before we finally limped across the finish line.

August 17^th brought the newest member of our clan, James Henry, into the world. He was named first for the afore-mentioned eldest son of Ida’s James, and middle for her brother Henry, whom had died the year prior and of whom my Mom was very fond of. The tragedy of James’ death was one that had hung over the family for as long as I could remember. Tracking back to 1958, I was two weeks old, and was ensconced in a small frame house in Alma with Dad, Mom, and Maw-Maw, along with James, his wife Ellen and their children Patsy and Robert.

James and Ellen 1958

Sardine-like it apparently was, I never had the full explanation as to why so many were sharing the same living space, but can guess that money woes were the prime reason. On this summer afternoon, James and Ellen with some friends had gone to a creek to swim (this was in the age where in impoverished Arkansas public or private swimming pools were virtually non-existent). Ellen became distressed, was pulled under by a current, and my Uncle James dove in to save her. He pulled her to the bank, and while the others attended to her, they didn’t see him collapse and fall back into the water. He drowned before they could reach him.

My uncle was such a respected and well-known man in Alma the town stopped business during the afternoon of the funeral to pay respects. Ida never recovered from the death of her eldest, and apparently favorite child. His picture from the war in uniform always adorned a central place on our wall, and she spoke with great emotion whenever he was the subject. From the time of James Henry’s birth, Dad insisted that he was the reincarnation of his brother. 50 years later, my brother has earned similar respect in his community, has raised a son and daughter, served in the Army, and lived all his other years in Arkansas. Symmetry over multiple lifetimes?

This was my 4^th grade year, and though school remained quite easy for me to excel at, the social game was still problematic. What saved me from feeling more outcast than I otherwise would have was that at Belle Point, softball was a quasi-religion, as every good weather day saw us playing at recess in the morning, during the remainder of lunch break, and in the afternoon. The game only required competence, not social skills – unlike the girls who were confined to the see-saw and monkey bar quarter of the yard -and since I was capable of hitting and catching adequately, I was always chosen somewhere in the middle of the pack and was relieved from the pressure of finding my place in the schoolyard pecking order.

It was not more than a few months forward from James Henry’s birth that another bulge appeared in Mom’s midsection – she was pregnant again! Though the money from her inheritance had made hunger just a bad memory, the job situation had not improved for Dad and so things began to get tight again. The fights continued, even escalated, and I have to give credit to Ida for her steadiness in keeping Liz and me from feeling that the world was crumbling beneath our feet. One particularly bad event saw Mom lock herself into the bathroom, and Dad ripping the door off its hinges. In retrospect, it was 2 people equally incapable of bearing the responsibility for what they had, and were continuing to, create. At 9 however, there was no understanding, only pain. It became a relief when Dad would disappear for days though the payback Mom had ready for him when he finally did come back just poured gasoline onto smoldering flames.

One profound event I remember in March 1968 was a fierce violent storm that turned the day into pitch

black darkness. I had stayed home sick from school and was playing on the porch with Liz when insanely huge lightning bolts began to strike around us, and I heard what sounded like a howling train above us. That mass was indeed a tornado that, while missing us, struck a few miles south in the town of Greenwood, making a shambles of it and killing 13 people. It was another of my early glimpses of our fragile mortality and while dramatic had none of the personal sting that was to occur a few months later in June. It was Lorena’s birthday, and Dad had picked her up to go with us to a buffet restaurant. What I wasn’t able to understand until later was that Lorena was malnourished, being in the days before plentiful food stamps and other public support, and her pride kept her from calling her mother Ida or her biological son Toby for help. So like any starving person, she ate far more than her system could handle. She was later taken from her apartment to the hospital with nausea, which strained her already-weak heart, and she died of cardiac arrest. I still have the image burnt into my mind of Dad getting the call from the hospital, and turning into a heaving wreck when told the news.

A few weeks later, I was told that once again we were relocating, and the usual whirlwind of insanity ensued before we ended up just 8 blocks away at 618 S. 20^th. But this was a positive move for two reasons – it had a fenced yard and 3 bedrooms, which allowed me for the first time my own space. The house had been freshly painted, and from all respects this seemed like a new beginning. Baby James Henry (or, the Beaver as we called him for his propensity to gnaw on the slats upon his crib while teething) in my parent’s bedroom, Liz and Maw-Maw in the middle bedroom, and me in my own bed in the back. It was my first taste of perspective away from the ever-present pressure of conversation and bickering that hallmarked daily Miller life, and it was no coincidence that my love affair with reading dovetailed with having the separate leisure time to do it. As a bonus, the change of scenery seemed to have placed a cap on the tensions between Dad and Mom so daily life, at least for that moment in time, was free of flying dishes or holes punched in walls

The two tragic assassinations of MLK and RFK in April and June respectively dominated the emotional landscape in this latter part of Life at 9. I had begun to get a political sense of the world, and to understand the symbolic significance of their lives and deaths.I recall the profound sense of sadness I felt while watching the story unfold on television. I can point to this period of time as being the end of my innocence. If I couldn't trust adults to keep the world sane, either in my micro life or in the macro world, thn I only had myself to rely upon, and that was a scary realization indeed.

This picture of Ida, Liz and me was taken in the backyard of this rental house. You can see how my body had continued to swell under the barrage of cheap carbohydrates that I had by now become addicted to. You can also see the rapid aging of Ida in her face. Though only 65 then, she looked in her 80’s. The physical demands of life growing up in the badlands of eastern Oklahoma territory is inconceivable to us in 2013, but they were profound and real. But as her life ebbed, mine began to swell, both literally and figuratively. As my 10^th birthday neared I was perhaps, except for that magical 5^th year in California, the most content with the world I had ever been. And Yin would turn to Yang.