I have decided to make these writings tell my story as it has evolved to this moment. It is the story of a man, in late middle age, who must start over again and make his life finally make sense. This is not an easy story for me to tell. Secrets will be revealed, feelings and thoughts I thought I had buried long ago will have to surface if I am to tell the entire truth.
It begins, skipping over my early childhood, when I am seventeen. Off I go to college in the midwest, not really wanting to go, but feeling I had no choice. Needless to say, from the first day, I brought difficulties and stresses into my life that I was entirely unprepared to cope with, but under the bright lights of student court my mis-deeds were simply more than I could bear. After being caught in another county in Iowa, with an underage girl (I had no idea, honestly), I got to do something most other students never do in four years of college.
I met the dean. In fact, it was the dean who personally bailed me out of the Ottomwa County Jail. It was not a happy scene and after talking the police out of prosecuting me, I was told I'd have to go before student court, who would meet out my sentence. Student court is a holdover from the Nazi era. I never had a chance to defend myself and was given a sentence of ninety (90) work hours on the commons. During my shift, the temperature often dipped to 25 below zero. My job involved the use of a long piece of wood with a nail sticking out over the bottom end. It was my job to pick up the wrappers and other garbage through the use of this pointed stick. (MORE TOMORROW)
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