My new friend Margaret,
First, and most importantly, do you have a nickname? I’ve been known as Donnie, Don, Donald, Blaine, Donald Blaine, DB and Radar (don’t ask). As we are attempting to become friends via a blog (maybe we will set a trend), I would like to address you as if I had known you all your life. We Americans are pushy that way – just ask Jes. Of course, the millions of our fans and readers will learn your secret pet-name, so you might want to send it to me in an email instead. I promise to only share it on Facebook and Twitter.
So, last week, I foolishly promised to share how my dysfunctional family life lead to rebellion against my father. Before I tell you how I abandoned my strict Catholic upbringing for a life of drug abuse and rock n’ roll, I think it important to reveal another part of my personality, which contributed to my downward spiral.
I was born with a strong sense of equality and fairness. An example of this character flaw comes flooding back to my mind every time I hear the word ‘racism’. I grew up in the late sixties and early seventies. America was just coming out of a very race-charged period and most people had some racial biases, whether they wanted to admit it or not. My father was no exception. He used the ‘N-word’ as if that was the accepted term for black people. I don’t want you, or the two people who might read this, to think that my father was a tyrant or horrible man. He was no different than most white men of his day in this regard. He later stopped using that word and even had black friends. It was as much about the time and our country learning to accept men as men, as it was anything else. We have come a long way.
Anyway, I had just started the third grade in a new school and I made a good friend, who happened to be black. We got along better than anyone I can remember at that time in my life and I wanted my family to meet him – big mistake. I invited him home after school one day. Everything went fine… until he left to go home.
As soon as he walked out, my dad became apoplectic. He looked at me as if I had betrayed him beyond hope. He couldn’t believe that I would invite “one of them” into his house. He warned me that “they” would rob us blind and made me feel like I had opened up our family to thievery and deceit just by bringing a “little nigger boy” into the house.
That was the beginning of the end of the respect I had for my father’s authority. I planned to continue my friendship with the black kid behind my father’s back, but racism from my friend’s father took that option away. My new buddy told me the next day that his father blew-up when he found out that he had spent the afternoon at a white-boy’s house and told him that we could no longer hang out – even at school. I guess he wasn’t as willing to rebel as I was.
This did contribute to my demise as a loving son, but it was not the point I was trying to make. Please be patient – I’m a writer; I like to set a stage.
Well, the natural civility that I was born with didn’t serve me well when it came to the teen years. Young men love to compete in everything they do. I too am very competitive, and I also enjoy sports, the problem is, teenage boys don’t just want to win, they want to destroy and humiliate. I despise this side of my gender. Most women (or girls) will claim to hate it when males act this way, but the strutting rooster usually gets the hen. It didn’t help things that I was born slight in stature and was late to develop physically.
Do you get the picture now? I entered into the formative teen years as a boy who had given up gaining approval from a father he had lost respect for. Hormones were raging, yet the opposite sex wouldn’t give me the time of day because I wouldn’t act like a caveman and I still looked like a child. Is it any wonder that, when my older brother asked me if I would like to smoke some pot, and then told me that I was “cool” because I did, that I jumped with both feet into a world that accepted me as I was, just because I liked to get high? I’m sure I’m not the only one who fell into that trap.
More next week about the high-times of my teen years; I can’t wait to hear about how you coped with losing your father to divorce.
Your American pen-pal,
DB Stephens
Well hello there American pen-pal,
Thinking about former nicknames brought back a flood of memories, and not all of them flattering. At primary school they called me ‘Tortoise’ because of the way I walked around reading a book and bumping into things. Apparently this made me look like one.
Then in high school a friend nicknamed me Maggot. I hoped and prayed that one wouldn’t stick, but of course it did and it took years to shake off. My first real boyfriend used to call me by my surname. “Oy Whibley, do you want to go out Saturday night?” Very romantic.
Nowadays people call me Marg. So you can call me whatever you like, so long as it’s not Maggot. You can even call me Al. I always did see angels in the architecture.
Which brings me to the point in your letter I’d like to respond to, a whole universe that you skipped over in a single sentence: the bit about the strict Catholic upbringing. I wasn’t expecting a strict Catholic upbringing to come out of the closet. I am not sure why. Maybe I just don’t think of Americans as Catholics.
So tell me more about that. I am fascinated by religion, always have been, always will be. I am the person most likely to offend at a dinner party by ignoring the unwritten rule that people should never, ever talk about religion or politics in polite society. This thing about religion even got me fired from a job once. No kidding, not an exaggeration. I wouldn’t shut up about it and everyone, including the boss, got so heartily sick and tired of me going on and on and on they found an excuse to give me the heave-ho.
I am a lot more restrained these days, you will be relieved to hear, but even so, religion is in my veins, along with writing. On my mother’s side of the family there were all these fiery Welsh preachers and evangelists. I am talking the Victorian era here, a time when travelling evangelists went round with great tents and set them up and preached to the masses. The masses didn’t have anything better to do on Sundays in those days, so they’d oblige by at least turning up. And then of course my father was a vicar, which meant every Sunday we were in church at least twice, plus several times during the week.
All this rubbed off on me. I don’t remember a time in early childhood when I wasn’t religious. But then came the rupture of my parents’ divorce and I must have blamed God for that, because I didn’t speak to him for twelve years.
Instead, a bit like you, I turned to drugs and drink and got through more boyfriends than I had time to eat hot dinners. Then the party came screeching to a halt. I’d managed to get myself pregnant. Well, I didn’t get myself pregnant, of course, but nevertheless I was pregnant in the worst possible way: alone, unmarried, and who is yonder man, heading for yonder hills as fast as his legs can carry him?
I’ve jumped ahead of myself now, left out lots and lots of things. But that doesn’t matter. Next time I’ll go back and fill in some of the detail skipped.
I really enjoyed your letter, by the way. There was some powerful stuff in there.
Your pal from across the Atlantic,
Al.
First, and most importantly, do you have a nickname? I’ve been known as Donnie, Don, Donald, Blaine, Donald Blaine, DB and Radar (don’t ask). As we are attempting to become friends via a blog (maybe we will set a trend), I would like to address you as if I had known you all your life. We Americans are pushy that way – just ask Jes. Of course, the millions of our fans and readers will learn your secret pet-name, so you might want to send it to me in an email instead. I promise to only share it on Facebook and Twitter.
So, last week, I foolishly promised to share how my dysfunctional family life lead to rebellion against my father. Before I tell you how I abandoned my strict Catholic upbringing for a life of drug abuse and rock n’ roll, I think it important to reveal another part of my personality, which contributed to my downward spiral.
I was born with a strong sense of equality and fairness. An example of this character flaw comes flooding back to my mind every time I hear the word ‘racism’. I grew up in the late sixties and early seventies. America was just coming out of a very race-charged period and most people had some racial biases, whether they wanted to admit it or not. My father was no exception. He used the ‘N-word’ as if that was the accepted term for black people. I don’t want you, or the two people who might read this, to think that my father was a tyrant or horrible man. He was no different than most white men of his day in this regard. He later stopped using that word and even had black friends. It was as much about the time and our country learning to accept men as men, as it was anything else. We have come a long way.
Anyway, I had just started the third grade in a new school and I made a good friend, who happened to be black. We got along better than anyone I can remember at that time in my life and I wanted my family to meet him – big mistake. I invited him home after school one day. Everything went fine… until he left to go home.
As soon as he walked out, my dad became apoplectic. He looked at me as if I had betrayed him beyond hope. He couldn’t believe that I would invite “one of them” into his house. He warned me that “they” would rob us blind and made me feel like I had opened up our family to thievery and deceit just by bringing a “little nigger boy” into the house.
That was the beginning of the end of the respect I had for my father’s authority. I planned to continue my friendship with the black kid behind my father’s back, but racism from my friend’s father took that option away. My new buddy told me the next day that his father blew-up when he found out that he had spent the afternoon at a white-boy’s house and told him that we could no longer hang out – even at school. I guess he wasn’t as willing to rebel as I was.
This did contribute to my demise as a loving son, but it was not the point I was trying to make. Please be patient – I’m a writer; I like to set a stage.
Well, the natural civility that I was born with didn’t serve me well when it came to the teen years. Young men love to compete in everything they do. I too am very competitive, and I also enjoy sports, the problem is, teenage boys don’t just want to win, they want to destroy and humiliate. I despise this side of my gender. Most women (or girls) will claim to hate it when males act this way, but the strutting rooster usually gets the hen. It didn’t help things that I was born slight in stature and was late to develop physically.
Do you get the picture now? I entered into the formative teen years as a boy who had given up gaining approval from a father he had lost respect for. Hormones were raging, yet the opposite sex wouldn’t give me the time of day because I wouldn’t act like a caveman and I still looked like a child. Is it any wonder that, when my older brother asked me if I would like to smoke some pot, and then told me that I was “cool” because I did, that I jumped with both feet into a world that accepted me as I was, just because I liked to get high? I’m sure I’m not the only one who fell into that trap.
More next week about the high-times of my teen years; I can’t wait to hear about how you coped with losing your father to divorce.
Your American pen-pal,
DB Stephens
Well hello there American pen-pal,
Thinking about former nicknames brought back a flood of memories, and not all of them flattering. At primary school they called me ‘Tortoise’ because of the way I walked around reading a book and bumping into things. Apparently this made me look like one.
Then in high school a friend nicknamed me Maggot. I hoped and prayed that one wouldn’t stick, but of course it did and it took years to shake off. My first real boyfriend used to call me by my surname. “Oy Whibley, do you want to go out Saturday night?” Very romantic.
Nowadays people call me Marg. So you can call me whatever you like, so long as it’s not Maggot. You can even call me Al. I always did see angels in the architecture.
Which brings me to the point in your letter I’d like to respond to, a whole universe that you skipped over in a single sentence: the bit about the strict Catholic upbringing. I wasn’t expecting a strict Catholic upbringing to come out of the closet. I am not sure why. Maybe I just don’t think of Americans as Catholics.
So tell me more about that. I am fascinated by religion, always have been, always will be. I am the person most likely to offend at a dinner party by ignoring the unwritten rule that people should never, ever talk about religion or politics in polite society. This thing about religion even got me fired from a job once. No kidding, not an exaggeration. I wouldn’t shut up about it and everyone, including the boss, got so heartily sick and tired of me going on and on and on they found an excuse to give me the heave-ho.
I am a lot more restrained these days, you will be relieved to hear, but even so, religion is in my veins, along with writing. On my mother’s side of the family there were all these fiery Welsh preachers and evangelists. I am talking the Victorian era here, a time when travelling evangelists went round with great tents and set them up and preached to the masses. The masses didn’t have anything better to do on Sundays in those days, so they’d oblige by at least turning up. And then of course my father was a vicar, which meant every Sunday we were in church at least twice, plus several times during the week.
All this rubbed off on me. I don’t remember a time in early childhood when I wasn’t religious. But then came the rupture of my parents’ divorce and I must have blamed God for that, because I didn’t speak to him for twelve years.
Instead, a bit like you, I turned to drugs and drink and got through more boyfriends than I had time to eat hot dinners. Then the party came screeching to a halt. I’d managed to get myself pregnant. Well, I didn’t get myself pregnant, of course, but nevertheless I was pregnant in the worst possible way: alone, unmarried, and who is yonder man, heading for yonder hills as fast as his legs can carry him?
I’ve jumped ahead of myself now, left out lots and lots of things. But that doesn’t matter. Next time I’ll go back and fill in some of the detail skipped.
I really enjoyed your letter, by the way. There was some powerful stuff in there.
Your pal from across the Atlantic,
Al.