What will be Your Defining Moment?

 

 The year is 1962, civil rights protests are in full swing. Black people are beginning to stand up and be heard. Sit-ins were trending and on the rise. Gas at the pump was 32 cents a gallon. The following year, 1963, sets off a series of assassinations beginning with JFK.  

Newspaper sales and TV ratings were skyrocketing as people were hungry for instant news. In my child's eye view, the whispers of neighborhood gossip was only second to all the adults gathered around the black and white TV breathlessly waiting for the national news. Buzzing in the background in that adut gathering, like a swarm of flies, was the talk of Mother and Dad's pending divorce. That gossip traveled faster than Walter Cronkite's "We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news". He debuted as head anchor of CBS in April of that year. Vietnam war was the first time Americans had the horrors of war brought into their own living rooms and by 1971 Nixon imposed price controls and took us off the gold standard. 

But in 1962 my security blankie had been yanked out from under me, and all of a sudden life became a scary place. At just nine years old I had no one to rescue me from the night time monsters hiding in my closet, or under the bed, now the scary was everywhere and my fate lay uncertain. 

Mother took us from a cul de' sac with the school at the end of the block of a rural town and all its amenities and moved my sister and I into an upper one bedroom apartment on the edge of Kalamazoo, within the city limits. It was called West Main Hill. The apartment in the victorian style two story house was comfy enough. However quaint it was, it also came complete with it's own voyeur in a tree. The peeping Tom had a birds eye view from the top of a young maple tree just outside the living room window. Mother did her best to shoo him away, almost having nailed him with a fry pan during one battle. At that age I wasn't sure if the young guy was a perv or just someone who wanted to be friends. Mother didn't appreciate him looking in the windows whatever his reason, I remember. Even more earth shattering for my sister and I was when Mother had to leave for work. She worked the overnight shift at a fishing gear factory which left us alone in the apartment overnight, she did ask the downstairs couple to listen for us if we needed anything during the night. But the dark, lonely apartment was creeky scary. The ever present one eyed black and white cyclops that stood in the corner of the living room directly across from our bedroom, never blinking that one shiny eye. Him and I had a staring contest every night to see which one of us would blink first. I fell asleep never winning that battle.

The first school outside my familiar, secure, home away from home was a regimented, tightly laced conservative mega monster elementary. Lots of students attended this school so there wasn't the wherewithal for the teachers to get to know the kids like I was used to. It was an institutionalized city school. Not quite a military setting but damn close. Students were expected to tow the line.

Being born ambidextrous (the ability to write with either hand) I mostly wrote with my left hand when I started school. After a few weeks at this strict teaching unit I felt I was beginning to get back my groove and settled into my new school well enough, I thought. One day the teacher called me to the blackboard to solve a simple math equation. Ok, easy enough, I used my left hand to correctly solve the problem. Maybe my numbers were a little larger than they should have been but after all it was my math problem and I wrote the numbers as I saw fit. I was creative. I liked being creative.

It positively irritated the teacher. She told me repeatedly to use my right hand. "We must all use our right hand. The world is made for the right hand," she explained.  For the next several days we had this ongoing back and forth battle for me to use my right hand. The more she persisted and insisted the more I was determined.

One day, completely out of nowhere, a very large, tall, woman appeared through the classroom door. I had never seen her before. As it turned out, it was the principal of this mega monster education indoctrination center. She was a giant sized woman with bleached yellow hair. Like a bloodhound she instinctively knew exactly where I was seated. Given the fact I was only 3' 9" and 52 pounds at the time she stood next to my desk with a look that was meant to be intimidating and powerful. She meant business! I dropped my pencil into the grooved pencil holder at the top of the desk and waited.

She bent over to get right in my face. "Use your right hand," she growled, the smell of coffee on her breath. "You are to use your right hand only." She stood back up and folded her arms across her massive bosom. Tap, tap, tap, tap. She began tapping her foot on the floor while she, not so patiently, waited for me to comply to her demand.

I gave it some 9 year old thought, briefly. Before I knew what was happening, this towering mass of anger grabbed me by my tiny arms, lifted me into the air and shakes the living shit out of me, then slams me hard back into my seat.

I can honestly, say something from the depths of my soul directed my actions next. I looked up at her, and because of what she just did to me, I defiantly took up my pencil with my left hand. The red faced Goliath turned on her heel and left the room slamming the classroom door behind her. The whole incident lasted only about 3 minutes.  I had just defeated my monster. Who cared if the rest of the class stared at me in horror. Victory was mine!

I didn't tell Mother about my dissonance with that yellow haired Amazon Queen that afternoon or how she manhandled me. I was never sure of her mood on the subject of being defiant, she could get quiet explosive from time to time. Although, I heard some stories of her defiance at school a few times too, seems I came by it naturally. I could see, however, she was tired and stressed, so I didn't want to add to her day. But ladies and gents, this was my line in the sand. I began to see patterns to our world, our government, governments around the globe and to our education system. Modern 1962, divorce became trendy, women were enticed to separate the family and join the workforce and breastfeeding became discouraged. The propaganda machine was in full swing! By 1968 bra burning was all the rage brought to you by Ol' Walter and his news crews.

From that one pivotal moment in 3rd grade, I began to notice other things like independent thinking and genuine creativity was being discouraged by our social order. Learning establishments offered an "education" as long as you stayed within the lines. The rules were meant to keep you as a wage slave and only educate you enough for the hamster wheel, until you dropped. 

Today, 2022, this cancerous system has blossomed into too many people at the rules and laws making level with their hands in your pockets. Each cycle they put more and more pressure on the yoke of ordinary citizens while the people stroking their own interests in governments become god like and wealthy. Rules for ye but not for me. It is obvious one goes into government to get rich, doing their best to keep America unbalanced, divided and weak. I simply don't understand why so many accept it? That's not true, I do understand. Get ready, prepare now, life as we knew it is about to change!

What is your defining moment?