Isn’t it funny that, at 75 years old, I can remember details of my life at the age of 3 and 4 but not remember what I had for dinner yesterday? I get up sometimes and rush to the store and forget what I was going after. Sometimes, something happens to me and old memories come rushing back. I have learned that I can’t rely on my memory, so I have take the time to write down these new memories in a notebook that I keep with me.
I started out with a perfect situation for storytelling. I was born into abject poverty, orphaned, and lived two and a half years as a street child and then reared in an orphanage. I had no place to go but up, right? You see, ever since I was a young man I just knew that someday I would write about my life. My plan was to get an education, see the world and be somebody! LOL!
Part of that dream was to be a successful business owner like my favorite Uncle, Bud. He had his own business as a wallpaper hanger. He had a new white Ford truck with “Jackson’s Decorators, Inc.” painted on each door in big letters. He was my hero! I wanted to be like him. I dreamed of getting rich, of course. I wanted a big building with my company’s name on it in big letters. Maybe two or three such buildings would be better, huh? I dreamed of owning dozens and dozens of brand new, white Ford trucks emblazoned with my company’s name on them.
When I owned Universal Computer Services Corporation in the 1980’s, I remember telling my CPA that someday I was going to buy the old Beech Grove Amtrak Train Repair Center (it was more than 70 plus acres) just so we would have a place to turn our trucks around faster. That’s really true. There was no limit to my dreams when I was young. I just knew my “rags to riches” book would sell like hotcakes and I would be rich and famous! Everyone would look up to me and I would be somebody! Not a bad way to look to his future for a little poor white trash orphan child, huh? Dreaming big or small is so much better than not having a dream at all! I had no direction to go but up… Life doesn’t always go as planned though.
I had been trying for decades to remember the names of 3 people:
1. My first love in grade school,
2. My grade school art teacher, and
3. My grade school English teacher.
I remember their faces, the stories I wanted to tell in my future “rags to riches” book, but not their actual names. Last night, I fell asleep in my Lazy-Boy watching a science documentary on television. When I woke up about 2AM I was rested and wide awake again. My wife was watching the end of the Titanic movie, so I settled down to watch it with her. In the movie, the main character’s last name is Dawson. Like a flood in my brain, all of what I was searching for came rushing back to me, (except the name of my English teacher). I got my notebook and wrote it all down before I fell back to sleep.
Remember the old Bible verse, “Seek and ye shall find?” I wonder if this kind of craziness happens to others? It happens to me all the time. I told these stories to my wife, three daughters, my friends, and family for decades. Do you want to hear the stories? Well, you can’t hear them but I will write them down for you, OK? LOL. I also suggest that that you carry a diary, notebook, or some memo pads with you to jot down what happens to you in every day in your life. Do it every day. When your memory fades you will have a record. When you get older it will be of great benefit to you. ‘Nuff said about that!
I went to Public School No. 20 when I lived in the orphanage. All 46 of us walked to grade school in a 3-wide formation. This happened in rain or snow every school day. It was only about one quarter of a mile away from the orphanage’s main gate. At the main gate there was the biggest white sycamore tree you could ever imagine. (Remember that tree because it becomes a part of this True Story later.)
I felt very happy when I was in school, even though I was considered, and actually was, incorrigible most of the time. I had a lot of anger all bottled up inside of me at this time in my life. I thought of the orphanage as a jail (and still do, for that matter). When I was in school, though, I seemed to be able to override the anger, except for one or two incidences.
One of those, as an example, happened in my English class. I can’t remember her name but my English teacher was an older woman and was very nice to me. She took a real interest in me even though I was always in trouble, too loud, and even boisterous at times. I had the best grades, though, and still had plenty of time to cause trouble. I remember something she taught me that, to this day, I can’t get out of my head. It was a series of words. I forget what they call them (some type of verb) but it goes like this: Is, Am, Are, Was, Were, Be, Being, Been, Has, Have, Had, Do, Does, Did, Should, Would, May, Might, Must, Can, and Could. Wow, that is a mouthful! And, I can recite it in my sleep! Funny, huh?
This wonderful teacher realized that my knowledge and ability was way ahead of the class. She actually convinced the school system to give me an IQ test which resulted in my being moved up one whole grade in school the very next week.
One day, in her classroom, I was headed for my seat in the front of the class and another boy, who happened to be the class bully, was sitting in my seat. He was very big, rough and tough! I remember he had red-orange hair. Of course, this was upsetting for me, to say the least. This seat, my seat, happened to be right beside Cathy Dawson, who was my first love. She was blond and very pretty. She really liked me and I was in “love” with her. I asked the big school bully to go back to his seat and informed him that this seat was mine. He laughed at me and pushed me away. I asked him again and he said to me, “You are just another one of those stupid orphan kids and I am not moving.”
Well, I was not a violent kid at this time in my life. I hated confrontation and fist fights even at this age. I was beaten many times at the orphanage and also when I ran the streets, before my orphanage days. I had often been the recipient of violence in my young life but I had never dished it out. I was angry, but I got even more angry when he called me a “fat ass” under his breath! He was embarrassing me in front of Cathy Dawson! That was a no-no! That was “the straw that broke the camels back!” It was then when I hit him. I hit him in the mouth with my fist. I put the full weight of my “fat ass” behind the punch, so much so that my hand hurt for a week. I hit him so hard it knocked him clear out of the chair. I was fat but I was strong! While he was on the floor, I righted the chair and sat down in it. He got up, never said a word, wiped his bloody mouth on his sleeve and went back to his own seat. Cathy was laughing and the room resounded with cheers and clapping. The bully was in shock.
Our English teacher walked in just as I hit him and, of course, I was taken to the Principal where I got a spanking with a wooden board. He gave me a note to take to Mrs. Davis, the orphanage Director. After school, I was walking home with the rest of us orphans and the bully and six or seven of his buddies caught up with me at the orphanage’s wrought iron gate. It was there, under that huge Sycamore tree, that I received a beating from him and his friends. Some of the bigger orphans pulled them off of me after about five or six minutes.
I could take a beating better than anyone, so I walked up to the orphanage all bruised and bleeding, handed the note to Mrs. Davis not knowing what to expect for punishment. She yelled at me something I couldn’t understand and promptly pulled out the dreaded leather belt. It was long and about three inches wide. It had three straps so if you got hit once you felt three hits. She whipped me for getting into a fight. I never even cried. I wasn’t going to give her the pleasure of hearing me cry out. I felt good about hitting that idiot and never apologized to anyone. The bully left me alone after that and Cathy Dawson thought I was a hero for some reason. He must have bullied her at some time also, I guess. We were best friends for a year or two and then one day she and her family moved away. She told me the week before she had to move and we cried together on the playground.
This was very traumatic for me and I remember being so sad and distraught. I cried in my bed every night after she left. One night, my House Mother, Mrs. Carpenter, heard me crying during her night time rounds. She pulled out her long thin switch and gave me the beating of my life (up to that time). She beat me for crying, for God’s sake! Remember, this was a Lutheran orphanage. That must have been part of the Bible that says, “Spare the rod and spoil the child!” I didn’t feel spoiled, that was for sure! It took me a long time to accept that I lost the love of my life, Cathy Dawson. I never saw or heard from her again.
Note:
School No. 20 shaped a lot of my future because of three teachers and a very strict principal. He never gave me a whipping I didn’t earn.
My science teacher, Mr. Langel, was great, funny, understanding, and entertaining. It was so much fun to go to his classes. He was a part-time musician and he would enhance scientific principles with a magic trick. I never forgot him. I am a science addict to this day. Science and history are my favorite things.
My art teacher, Mrs. Wright, was the best art teacher ever, in my opinion. Art is another interest I cannot shake. (I made all A’s in art class in college.) She was very pretty, young, had short blond hair with a little curl in front and she always seemed to be happy. She had a cute little poem she used to repeat every once in a while. She told us her father wrote it! (My daughter tells me it was really Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who wrote it. LOL!)
There was a little girl
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
she was very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid!
She influenced me to love art and poetry. I like to draw black and white portraits best. I haven’t drawn for years but I used to be able to get “likeness.” I figured when I retired I would move to Florida and do black and white portrait drawings and write poetry on the pier for extra money! Remember, I was less than 10 years old and thinking ahead to my retirement after I wrote my “rags to riches” book. Yes, I was really a strange kid! I still write poetry and have won several awards for my poems (no money though)!
My music teacher influenced me to sing and write music. Her name was Mrs. Her. No I didn’t make that name up. I have pursued music all my life because of Mrs. Her. I remember like it was yesterday my first kiss from a woman. I was 11 or 12 and I caught Mrs. Her under the mistletoe at our Christmas party in music class. She was a dark haired woman with long strait hair that went half way down her back. She, too, was very pretty. To my surprise, she knelt down and kissed me full on the lips. I remember her lips kissing mine to this very day. I thought I was in heaven!
Years and years later, I visited the school looking for my three favorite teachers to tell them how much they had influenced me. Only Mrs. Her was still there. In fact, the day I was there was the day of her retirement party and they invited me. I did not recognize her. The skinny frail looking lady with white hair and a cane didn’t look anything like Mrs. Her. She had her sense of humor, though, and we both saw the humor in my unrealistic expectations. We laughed and talked for a while. I told her about how she made me a better person. She told me I was the student who ever came back and that my timing, although accidental, was just perfect. I gave her a big hug and took a memory with me that will last a lifetime. I was in the Boy’s Chorus in high school. I learned to play the guitar in the US Marine Corps. (I have another True Story about my constant pursuit of music for you later.) Take time in your life to go back and thank those who helped you. Do it before it is too late!
Roy Lee Barrett
Click to go to the next True Story, “My First Chance to “Show Off””
Roy Lee Unchained 