From time to time, I remember bits and pieces from my past. Sometimes it's distant past; others are recent past.
One such flashback surrounds the mid 70's. I had gone to Tri C to appease my parents. 3 years and several changes in major fields of study later, I found myself at B-W, again to appease my parents as well as my Aunt and Uncle.
It was the same Aunt and especially Uncle who were very supportive of my drumming and bought me my drum set.
Dad's eventual life course was already charted: after a lifetime of smoking, drinking continued and he gained weight. His pulmonary edema started in 1976 when he pushed the car in winter. So his course was already set.
Mom, being an enabler, kept dad boozed up at his own wishes. He wasn't working. Mom's view was that I was destined to be the man of the house and from 1968 when dad had his heart attacks, until 1981 and my marriage, I was there to be at mom's beckon call.
Afterwards, a marriage, 4 kids, dad's death and the estate work, and mom's house maintainance were my destiny clear through mom's death in 2007 and the house foreclosure in 2009, weighed very heavily as my second job.
Since then, failed relationships come and go. In total, a half dozen or so relationships, two marriages, 2 divorces, 6 bankruptcies, 2 foreclosures occurred. The estrangement of my family is now complete.
Then, just about two weeks ago, a moment of clarity. Now retired for 10 months, I often take cameras out in nature to clear my mind. Suddenly, it hits:
1. Dad's heart attacks were 50 years ago starting last March and then May.
2. I started drumming 50 years ago last September.
3. I was 12... in 6th grade... Not even an adolescent when my life changed. I had six more years in school before high school graduation.
4. My first choices of being a carpenter, electrician or brick mason, all were inspired by Pete Scimone, John Carlson and Bon Fritz respectively, were ridiculed and shot down by mom. She claimed they were all beneath me.
I'd have made far more money doing my choice of trades that what my path eventually yielded in a desk job. Thanks mom... NOT!
Two weeks ago, I began to wonder what my life would have been like had I just rejected college all together after graduation and moved away.... FAR away... to start my life. I'd not have 4 kids; 6 bankruptcies; 2 divorces; 2 foreclosures either.
My life unfolded as it did because I was weak and afraid. Too fearful to disappoint my parents and their peers. I took THEIR path, not mine.
I now wonder what I would be like had I moved to another state back in September, 1974, to become a tradesman, instead of being everyone else's beckon call.
