.....what lieth in wait.....

SUNDAY OFFLECTION

For Sunday October 11, 2009

On an early summer day, in a pleasant northwest Chicago neighborhood, a crooked beautiful tree had just shared some of its secrets with my other four year old buddies and me. Christine, Johnny, Darlene, and I were hanging in metaphysical perfection ….a state of supreme well-being like nothing else; except perhaps the watching of Howdy Dowdy while eating a mom-made lunch in front of the new black and white television. Then, like the click of Dorothy's heels transported her back to Kansas, the click of opening latches remanded us to the custody of our parents - as an arrow swift through meutriere – the call to come home for a nap was swift. I waved bye to my friends as I jumped, skipped, and walked past the 4 other houses in such a way to touch every square inch of earth on my journey between Christine’s home and mine.

I was excited. I had formulated a question, upon my death, to ask God in heaven to get me beyond infinity. I was happy. I had the time to nap and gather my forces.

Before I could breach the laws of the known universe, I knew that I had some everyday things to take care of. I had to survive my two older brothers - older brothers who delighted in torturing me to within a breath of my life – with my youth and size allowing me few to no countermeasures. There did exist though, a single instrument of battle that not only possessed a reasonable degree of stopping power; but delivered revenge. Drawing from the reptilian sub-brain most active in children between the ages of 3 and 6 when being ignored by their parents or are being killed by a sibling, I would activate................ the taunt.

This weapon is used best to create emotio-spiritual havoc, and the more truth in a taunt, of course, the more destructive it is. I seized on a simple but powerful reality.

My parents loved me more than they loved my brothers.

Eminently, my parents would often tell me, much to my joy, that I was their “love baby”. The world called for a “love baby” my parents often explained. “World war two was over!’ “Hitler was dead!” So I would taunt my brothers about their inferiority in being "things" other than “love babies”.

At those moments when my older brother, Jerry, would have his knees on my upper arms to hold them still while he practiced his “spit controlling” abilities; I may well have thought that him to be the “hate baby”. Anyway, in practicing his spit control with me pinned below him, he would release some spit very slowly down towards my face. Now the object of this Olympic sport for which he was preparing, was to create the world’s record length of spit that could be sucked back up into the mouth before gravity overcame it; and, yes, hit me in the face.

I may well have thought of Bob, the eldest, as the family’s “jerk baby”. Bob seemed to lack the Olympic spirit and creativity that effused from Jerry’s twisted torments which actually took practice. Bob would simply come in fast and furious for some simple basic pain delivering act like twisting the skin on my forearm in reverse directions, referred to in the 1950s as an “Indian burn”. Bob did have, though, a talent for aiming criticism at some major psychological organ. I remember, about the age of 5, being “hammered. Bob, at the time, was in high school; and, therefore had attained a rank similar to the archangels. I was happily herding cattle among the tumbleweeds on my pretend horse. My trusty stead galloped and raced wildly to the beat of a 78 vinyl LP recording of “Riders in the sky” blaring from the large family phonograph cabinet. Well, Bob then cruises in and drops: “what are you doing!? they’re riding to hell! What's the matter with you! That took all of the fun out – in a flash - and on top of it all, I felt guilty!! Oh Brother ……

So it was clear that when my parents said that I was their “love baby” they were right.

Being the favorite and most loved child was okay with me, but I was eager for adventure. I packed up all that love – in my heart pockets I guess since I didn't have a lunch box because I was only going to half day Kindergarten – and was off. Soon enough, I discovered the first of many menacing obstacles to getting past infinity – learning to write the number eight.