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Tuesday, July 19, 2011

19 JUL 11

One's fate:

When I was a child, my mother almost married a fellow from Kansas.
He was a serviceman, stationed in the Philadelphia area, with
either the navy or the air force. (I tend to think of him as air force.)
This was back in the very early fifties.
His name was Butch.
He wanted to become a doctor. (That's what I've been told.)
He wanted my mother to marry him.
I was six at the time.
I didn't like him.

While watching me one day, he became enraged
because I wouldn't eat his strange form of spaghetti
(pasta with vinegar and oil). He slammed me into the kitchen wall
and stuffed spaghetti into my mouth, all the while screaming at me to eat!
He had a temper... that he did.
(And I don't think that I ever told my mother about this incident.)

My mother traveled with him to visit his parents in Kansas.
Things were becoming serious.
Then there was the car accident.
Mom was thrown through the windshield,
slicing open her left cheek, from just below her eye to corner of her mouth.
She was lucky, in that the surgeon who worked on her was progressive
and used Scotch Tape instead of sutures to close the wound.
There was no discernible scar.
I was given to understand that the accident was a result of Butch's temper.
Anyway... my mother stopped dating him.
He went away.
I was glad.

PICTURE:
Somewhere down the NJ shore... from left, Butch, Mom, a friend.
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j33/snuffyny/KA_133.jpg

So... I could've been from Kansas... could've had an abusive step-father.
Everything in my life would have been radically different.
Who would I be today?

-Fini

PS: My experiences with Butch weren't entirely bad... he did introduce me to the wonder that is the chocolate-covered eclair.

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