The role of Loyalty in my life...(part 1)

I was just thinking about my life, where I am and how I got there. And if I had to sum up in one word what got me where, it would be the word "loyalty". When I was growing up, I had a very good mother. She taught me how to read before I started school. No "pre-K" shit, no daycare, just me and mom.I was the first of three children so my mom had that excitement of being a new mom.That was before the invention of "post partum depression" and all those other things women get now that allows some of them to ignore their new children.She didn't know she was supposed to be depressed so she was thrilled to have a new baby.My father was still a little wild, still doing what he wanted to do. Yes he was an extemely hard worker, an intense man, and a good man. But like a lot of young fathers he wasn't ready for a child yet. There were times he would stay out doing his "thing" which was usually gambling or whatever else he was involved in. So when mom wasn't getting the attention she needed from dad, she put all her efforts into raising me. My dad used to bring me home toys from wherever he went.Usually some cheap yet unusual stuff, but I thought they were all "special". So my connection to my dad sort of ended up being the things he gave me. He carved me a wooden gun, which I still have to this day. I cherished everything dad ever gave me. I can go to my mom's attic right now and most of my toys are still intact. I felt that I owed my dad taking care of my things because they reperesented our relationship. I had a vivid imagination, which fostered my love of art and movies and creativity. My mom encouraged me to dream and to draw and also she wanted me to have the love of God she had. I remebered not wanting to go to church as a four year old, remember the spankings and the fear of going to hell my mom and grandmother put in me. As I got older, I didn't fit in at church. When I tried to tell my mother that , she acted as if I had a lack of "loyalty" to her and to God. My father, who had calmed down in later years, basically acted as if going to church was just one of those things you just had to do. Part of the whole "loyalty" thing.My dad's favorite thing to say was "you do what you have to do." I went to church, felt unwelcome and watched the other kids smoking pot and having sex all while I tried to be "loyal" the belief system. Finally I went to a church camp, and the prettiest girl there ( I mean grown woman/playboy pretty) paid me attention. She liked me because I was different. I finally felt like my "loyalty" had paid off. God sent me the prettiest girl in the church and finally I wouldn't be alone anymore. But that wasn't the case. I called her and wrote her and was totally filled with happiness. She ended up with one of the popular "conformists" guys who did all the "popular guy" stuff. So I was heartbroken, but I stayed loyal. I ended up working in the church camps as a councelor because I wanted to "stay loyal" no matter what. And I thought maybe I'd meet another girl, maybe some girl my age would be a camp councelor for the younger kids and I'd meet someone. I had "faith" that it would work out.But it didn't. I ended up working with a guy my age who had dated my "dream girl" I met earlier. I had to hear stories about the girl I liked the whole time. And to top it off the guy was a complete dork. The kind of guy who thinks he's really hot and has all this confidence but he's actually physically ugly. He had these buck teeth and was skinny with a pot belly. He was dark, like he was half south american and half white or somthing. I guess the "tan" got him over on the girls. And it gets worse.The guy running that session of camp was a child predator. He had that "peter pan" complex, kind of like that whole Micheal Jackson thing. He was approaching thirty and would constantly hang out with groups of young boys. They's have water gun and shaving cream fights, and he's wrestle with them. He would pull boys pants down and act like it was an "accident".Everyone in my mom's church thought he was gay,but his parents were very nice people in the church. So "loyalty" to his family allowed the church to put a gay child predator in a position of running a camp with young kids. He thought I saw him and another boy fooling around. I almost walked up on somthing when I was walking the trails outside the camp, but they got themselves together before I actually "saw" anything. So he made up a story about me being rumored to be "smoking pot" at camp, and whe the final day came I was totally ousted from the camp. I was not even recognized as being a councelor. He told the church people he was afraid I'd make the camp "look bad". Now I didn't do any drugs. I did my job, and the kids had no problem with me. My "loyalty" didn't allow me to speculate that this guy was trying to bang kids. Oh I could feel it was going on, but back in the 70's and 80's people looked at outing child predators differently. You had to have a whole lot of proof. Nowdays if you accidently see a child undressed by walking past their room at the wrong time you can be accused. But back then it was all about absolute proof. People acted as if that kind of thing was rare. Especially if it was some "alleged pot somker" accusing some "prominent church member's son".Plus it would embarass my mother if I made these accusations, because his family were more important to the church than she was. She was one of those church women who taught sunday school and prepared meals and actually did "God's work". Not one of those rich people who have all the right friends and get all the credit for keeping the church in business.Church was my mom's life. So I took the humiliation. When parents day came I sat there like an idiot, while all the other kids my age I worked with went up and met the parents, and were "praised for their work with the kids". So in my heart I started to say the hell with these people. The guy ended up being a gay crossdresser who left the church anyway. He finally came out. So I just retreated into myself and developed a "loyalty" to who I was inside. I kept on lifting the weights my dad had given me at 15 years old. I felt I would be loyal and respect his gift by showing him I would get muscular and in shape. One year prior to that, my dad's sister came to stay with us. She used to be a pretty woman. Her Italian immigrant husband had those "control issues" he brought from the "old country" I guess. He beat her and took her kids away. She left New York and moved all the way to the other side of the country in San Diego. She became addicted to countless prescriptions. Now she wasn't like these "Oxycotin" junkies of today. She took everything you could imagine for "illnesses" or pain or whatever. She wasn't the kind of woman to steal or lie for drugs. She just had all these medications she felt she needed to live. She came to visit us and had a bag full of pill bottles. If you'd cough, she's offer you a pill. Yawn, offer you a pill to wake you up. She wasn't what you'd call a "drug addict" in the classic sense. She was never "high". Just medicated. I saw a sadness in her I had never seen in anyone before. A sadness a woman gets who feel she has no more options. Before she left she gave me a 3 speed bike that she didn't ride anymore. I saw her misery. I felt I owed it to her to do somthing positive with her "gift". I was a slightly overweight kid at the time. I rode her bike all summer, cahnged my diet,and lost all my "baby fat " I had as a young kid. I wrote her a letter and told her how she helped change my life with her gift. I felt a sense of loyalty to her as a person. I felt maybe she'd see she was still able to make a difference in a kid's life. So if it wasn't for loyalty, I'd proably be a fat guy or less happy person today.So loyalty paid off for me in some ways. But as I got older , I realized many people don't have the same concept of life as I do. Many people I helped out decided my help was just some sort of character flaw or weakness on my part. I worked on the good and bad sides of the track. During all these years of running and opening businesses , helping friends, being a husband and father , loyalty or lack therof has played a big part in my success and failures. But that's another article for another day.Think about these things, and have a great day...

posted by anthonygrieco @ 8:56 AM Comments: 0