This may be one of the most difficult True Stories I will ever write because it comes from deep inside of my heart and soul. I believe there is too much negative going out on our televisions, radios, newspapers, and internet services these days. So many people see the glass as half empty. I have two close friends and a family member suffering from depression. Young people are committing suicide and overdosing in an effort to escape a world of what they consider is steeped in deep despair. The truth is, although the world news depicts it that way, it is not true. You can’t have up without down. You can’t have shadow without light. Yes, there has to be a “Dark Side of the Force” because if you didn’t, there would be no reason for a Jedi Knight to fight evil. You have to fight for the right every day and not give up! You have to strive to do the right thing every time, all the time, and always. Giving up, avoiding the challenges, or trying to escape difficulty is just not an option. …I will get off my soap box now.
I suspect that this True Story will tell you more about me and what makes me tick than any True Story I have written so far. This True Story is about how I feel about who I am and why I feel the way I do.
When my brother, Bill, and I ran away from home I remember crying almost every day for a week. I was only 5 years old and he was 8. I wasn’t crying from fear of being on the streets with no way to support myself or from fear of the unknown. I was crying because I had to leave my mother and my sisters. I remember seeing the policemen pushing my sisters into the police car and driving away to who-knows-where. They were crying and yelling and fighting with every bit of strength they could muster up! I knew where they were going must be a very bad place. My brother tried his best to console me but he was as shook up as I was. We found a place to sleep that night and scrounged for food behind a busy restaurant. The first two weeks were really difficult and we were very often hungry. Every minute of our time was spent looking for food. Thank goodness it was in the late spring and we were not cold. We found out, after a week or so, that we were not the only kids who found themselves in our situation. This was in 1948 and it was not unusual for parents with no money, job, or hope to literally abandon their children. There wasn’t any welfare or social safety net programs like there are today.
Bill and I came from a loving family. Our mother was a victim of the times. She had no education, work skills, or support system to help her. We met up with and ran with 4 or 5 of the older street kids for a year or two and they taught us what to do, what not to do, and who to trust. If one scored a good food source we all shared the location. If one found a batch of clothes, we all had clothes. If one found a warm place to sleep in the winter, we all slept there in a huddle. We rarely had the time to feel sorry about our situation. We learned from the days and weeks before but we never thought for a moment about what would be happening tomorrow or next week. We lost our families but we never lost our will to survive and every minute was spent just staying alive. Maybe this was the way wolves and buffalo feel in the wild.
There were literally hundreds of kids like us, roaming in groups of five to ten, running the streets of Indianapolis in the late 1940’s. At one time, we had 12 kids in our pack. One winter, we found two of our little band of misfits that died after getting sick. We thought it might have been from them eating spoiled food. Winter was the worst time for us. In the winter, we would steal shopping bags from the vendor boxes and sell them on Monument Circle. We would steal anything of value that we could find and sell it for money to buy food. One time, Bill and I stole 20 or so switch blade knives from a store window and ran like hell out of the back door. We sold them for a dollar a piece to a fence we knew. For a while, we thought we were rich. One summer, I stole a shoe shining kit from an old slow-moving black man at the train station. I made money shining shoes for the rest of the summer. I must have been 6 years old that summer. Somewhere along the way, Bill and I lost track of each other but I knew enough by then to survive on my own. I found out later he had been caught and sent to the orphanage.
I found out that I could sneak into the Circle Theater and hide in the balcony until closing time where I could sleep. I was small and it was easy to hide. One of the young ushers caught me once but never turned me in. He brought me food from home sometimes and found me an old pillow and blanket. I stayed during the day sometimes and watched the movies. I will never forget those movies. My favorite one was called the Lost Continent about a group of explorers stumbling upon a continent full of dinosaurs. (Recently, a friend of mine found the movie on YouTube (here’s the link). It brought back so many memories of my wild and crazy street kid days.)
When I was finally caught, at seven and a half years of age, they put me in the orphanage where my brother was. I was a wild child, like a wolf cub. It was an awful experience for me at the time, even though it probably saved my life. It took them two weeks just to clean me up. I don’t remember that scrubbing but that’s what Mrs. Davis, the Orphanage Director, told me. Now, it the took Indiana decades to fix the street kid situation that I came from. They came up with Section 8 housing, more Foster Parent Programs, and Aid to Dependent Children Programs in an effort to fix it. We, as a people, understood that we needed to keep children and parents together, if possible. We also put people in jail for abandoning children now. I was never abandoned. I knew my mother loved us and when she died I knew she died of a broken heart. I really believe that people who become foster parents deserve a special place in heaven. No child should ever have to go through what my brother and I went through. I also believe that no child should ever be reared in an orphanage or an institution. Eventually, they have to leave with no idea of how to live in the real world. In the real world, there are no monitors to watch what you do or don’t do. With no family support it would be difficult to adjust to the topsy-turvy world we live in today. Many orphans ended up in jail or dead once they were released. Children are society’s most valuable asset and no expense should be spared in efforts to protect and nurture them. I often think about how much better I would have turned out if someone helped my mother keep her children with her via Section 8 and/or Aid to Dependent Children or even if I were adopted. The only thing my suffering accomplished was that it made me stronger. The reality of it is that I was lucky that I didn’t end up dead, even if it did make me stronger.
Looking at the title of this True Story you might think that the “Why Me, Lord?” was a cry out for my awful situation but it’s not. To be honest, I never considered myself in an awful situation. I was just in a situation that I had to accept as my way of life. It was what I thought of as normal at the time. It’s like when you are fat, you don’t really think you are fat, you think everyone else is skinny. The story of my life in the orphanage is one for another time. I will get to that story later, if you don’t mind.
Going forward now to the present, and looking back on my life, I realize how I am a walking miracle of chance and good luck. A young doctor saved my life, a policeman saved my life, and my social worker, James Thurston, did also. I would have been in prison for 20 years if it hadn’t been for a forgiving victim of my discretion. There were four times in my life that I should not have survived. I have often thought I had a guardian angel watching over me. I thought she was preserving me for some higher purpose later in life. I am a walking, talking miracle of good fortune. Under the circumstance of my being a street child at so young an age, I was destined to end up dead or in jail for the rest of my life. I avoided all of that by the skin of my chinny-chin-chin. There is a story I can never tell about me that would have put me in jail for 20 years but the victim forgave me and didn’t turn me in. I was a good person doing everything wrong for the wrong reasons up until I met my future wife, Paula Kay. I never seemed to learn from my mistakes. I never listened to, or at least took advice from anyone. I was headstrong, stubborn, insensitive, and vain (which is the devil’s favorite sin). That all changed when I married a woman who wouldn’t put up with such nonsense. Having children to rear was another reason I changed for the better. Why and how Paula put up with me I will never know, but she did and it changed me. I owe everything good in my life to my family. One thing all orphans want and value is a family. No, the title of “Why Me, Lord?” did not come from a “poor pitiful me” scenario. It came from just the opposite scenario.
As I look back, what I don’t understand is how I was allowed to become who I am today, considering all the many bad choices I made in my life. I could never serve on a jury because I couldn’t convict someone for mistakes I myself have made in my life. I count my blessings every day and fight to be a blessing to everyone I meet. I was saved from death or jail four times. I want to pay that forward.
I have always wanted to make those who saved me proud. I appreciate everything so much it sometimes brings me to tears. I consider myself to be a strong person. I’m even vain enough to take pride in being strong but I still cry when I watch Pinocchio turn into a real live boy. How can a person as strong as me be such a wuss?
I am still looking for my why. I think it is to give back and to pay it forward but I am not sure.
Why me, Lord? What have I ever done to deserve even one of the blessings I’ve known?
“Try me Lord, if you think there’s a way, I could try to repay the kindness you’ve shown.”
–Kris Kristofferson
In a world with so much violence and misery, it’s best to have a purpose. I feel mine, right now anyway, is to express, in my own words, how I feel about my life of good fortune. I hope writing these stories might hit a chord in someone’s heart to influence them in a positive way. I hope to change them for the better, like so many people have helped me see the light in my life. I wouldn’t change anything that’s happened in my life because I truly think everything happened for a purpose. My many mistakes actually made me who I am. My successes made me more aware of my mistakes. Someday, I may write my other book called How To MISTAKE Yourself to Success! After all, I am an expert on that subject, right?
I might have been saved those four times to put a spark in someone’s heart that guides them to become a better person and thus have a better life. Most people are good, no matter what you read or hear in the news. Don’t take on the burdens of the whole world. Very little, if any, of what’s happening that’s bad was caused by you and your shortcomings. What you need to focus on is the one thing you can make better and that is YOU. Look in the mirror. If that person is doing better today than yesterday, then you have made the world a better place. I know it has been a real blessing for me to have such a wonderful and challenging life. And I still ask every day, “Why Me, Lord?”
The older you get, (and I am older than dirt), the more you realize that there is no shortage of negativity in the hearts of men. You begin to understand that very few good things are found groping around in the darkness. Don’t fall prey to the “Dark-Side Of The Force!” Light a Candle in the Darkness and help defeat the negative influence so many people find in their lives. Maybe you can help one or two people find something better, more fulfilling and useful in their lives. If everyone lit a candle in the Darkness, we could change the world! Mr. Lucas must have known that when he wrote “Star Wars” and look how well that did! Be a Jedi Knight! That’s what I try to do with my writing.
Yes, I feel sooo blessed!
Roy Lee Barrett
Click to go to the next True Story,
“My Buy and Rent Houses Ventures”
Roy Lee Unchained 