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My Letter from God: Get a Life!
Di Mike Welsh
Azioni libro
Inizia a leggereLunghezza: 557 pagine10 ore
- Editore:
- Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
- Pubblicato:
- Aug 4, 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781645317807
- Formato:
- Libro
Descrizione
While vacationing in Southern California, an unassuming and ill-equipped young man was directly and inexplicably addressed by an individual who suddenly appeared close to him, only to identify himself as “Angel.” At this time, “Angel” proclaimed he held in his possession, an actual “Letter from God!” The young man’s rightful birth-name graced the cover of the unblemished, stark-white envelope. Within the folds of the letter, it spoke of direct and specific occurrences from his past, present, and more importantly, his future. God wished for him to weather the storm and allow himself to be molded into a man who may serve a greater purpose. He was later entrusted with specific knowledge of a prophecy revealing God’s direct blessing and approval, towards who shall be his bride! Yet, an arduous path awaited.
Informazioni sul libro
My Letter from God: Get a Life!
Di Mike Welsh
Lunghezza: 557 pagine10 ore
Descrizione
While vacationing in Southern California, an unassuming and ill-equipped young man was directly and inexplicably addressed by an individual who suddenly appeared close to him, only to identify himself as “Angel.” At this time, “Angel” proclaimed he held in his possession, an actual “Letter from God!” The young man’s rightful birth-name graced the cover of the unblemished, stark-white envelope. Within the folds of the letter, it spoke of direct and specific occurrences from his past, present, and more importantly, his future. God wished for him to weather the storm and allow himself to be molded into a man who may serve a greater purpose. He was later entrusted with specific knowledge of a prophecy revealing God’s direct blessing and approval, towards who shall be his bride! Yet, an arduous path awaited.
- Editore:
- Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
- Pubblicato:
- Aug 4, 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781645317807
- Formato:
- Libro
Informazioni sull'autore
Correlati a My Letter from God
Anteprima del libro
My Letter from God - Mike Welsh
My Letter from God
Get a Life!
Mike F. Welsh
Copyright © 2020 Mike F. Welsh
All rights reserved
First Edition
NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING
320 Broad Street
Red Bank, NJ 07701
First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2020
ISBN 978-1-64531-779-1 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-64531-781-4 (Hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-64531-780-7 (Digital)
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
The Early Years
High School (Insert Moan Here)
The Letter
Time to Make the Donuts!
Bad Breaks and Worse Mistakes
The Bottom Drops Out
The New Beginning
Into Something Good
It’s Official: I Had the Worst Roommate in History
The Tip
My Best Friend’s Wedding
Graduation
And So It Begins
Full Speed Ahead!
My Chance to Fit In
Administration
Living the Dream!
One for the Road
Grad School Admissions
Dorm Life, Glorious Dorm Life!
Graduate School
Thesis
Mike F. Welsh, Psychologist
Are You Paying Attention?
Destination: A Whole New World!
God’s Promise Revealed!
Chapter 1
The Early Years
Having the pleasure of growing up on the sun baked suburban streets of San Diego, I logged in more than my fair share of deep sunshine. Despite being born in the multi-seasonal farmlands of Iowa, my family quickly moved to the arid climate of Tucson, Arizona, where we lived until I began kindergarten. Suffice it to say, for the longest time, all I knew were warm climates where snow existed on TV, and that’s about it. As a young kid, all in all, I must say that life was pretty good. In my early years, I lived what I would consider a rather normal existence with its expected peaks and valleys, intermixed with its trials and tribulations. It was only when I hit my teenage years, as I struggled to find acceptance, did my abrupt brush with divinity come to pass. Broken was the seal to my future, ushering in a long road which lay before me, subsequently unfolding into the story that is now before you. For starters, it looks like I better go back and inform you of how things were for me back in the day. Aside from avoiding my homework, it seemed that my only real problem in life was attempting to mask the fact that I was born with two different sized ears of all things. Yep, it’s impossible to hide such a feature as a short haired little boy, so I did my best to simply not to worry about it as the two I had worked fine. Yes life was new, the world was infinitely huge, and my allowance got me little to nowhere when the ice-cream man came by.
I can still hear that euphoric song in the distance gradually, but steadily, getting closer and closer. Talk about excitement! My friends and I would immediately drop the ever-present Wiffle ball as that is just about all I did as a kid and scramble for all the change we could find to make a beeline for the truck as it grew near. I never could get half as much as the other kids, but I got what I could and made the best of what I had. You see, for my allowance, all I got was a measly twenty-five cents a week! Now this wasn’t the hip ’50s when you could see a movie for a dime or something crazy like that. This was back in the mid-’70s, just after Star Wars mania had suddenly and indescribably altered the collective conscience of millions throughout the world like a blue lightning bolt to a wet hamster. From what I could remember, it cost a little less than three dollars to watch a movie. So, if I saved with reckless abandon, I would have to wait about 3 months to watch one. Buying popcorn when I got there, you ask? Riiiggght. Not likely. That would be another three months of savings. Suffice it to say, I never had much money lying around, and when I did, it quickly burned a hole in my pocket and disappeared. I never really understand that lesson my parents were persistently trying to teach me. Clearly, they wanted me to learn the value of a dollar, but if you never have any real money to lose, you are going to have a very difficult time learning that lesson.
Hospitals—My Second Home
My siblings told me that I skipped walking altogether. I went from crawling to standing to running! If I had a place to go, I was going to get there as fast as I could! I was fast. So fast that lots of kids would call me Speedy Gonzalez
(like the crazy-fast mouse cartoon back then). I also was a bit reckless, and my folks told me that I visited the emergency room just about every year. I got stitches for lots of stuff. I’ll give you three injuries and move on. I rocked too fast on a rocking horse (hey, I was going to town on that thing), but while doing so, my hands got too slippery, so I lost my grip and bucked myself off. I did a flip over the front of the horse and landed square on my forehead. I once jammed my foot into the moving spokes of my mom’s bike as I was riding in the back with my bare foot just to see what would happen. I know, I know, talk about stupid. And a third one was when I was playing tag with my brother and not paying attention to my surroundings, when I literally ran myself straight into a speeding dirt bike where my forehead landed squarely on the goose-neck of his lower handlebars. My head went flying! It was so bad my folks thought that I had lost my eye, but it was not the case. I survived, intact—battered and bruised, but intact.
Family Dynamic or Pecking Order?
I was the youngest of four with two older brothers who were five and six years my senior, who were just that—brothers. During the course of any given day, one would end up pummeling my right shoulder, while the other would thump my left. How I survived such a constant pounding from them continually smacking me around for this or that is still a mystery. That said, as the little brother, did I ever do anything to have it coming? Um…yes! Absolutely. I was a pistol. They loved me, and I loved them, so it was all good. They were the only ones allowed to smack me around, but it does get old after a while.
My sister was great. She loved me a little too much though. She liked to keep me young at heart, but a little too young for my own good. As such, she would often take my mom’s side on preventing me from essentially growing up—I mean being able to do things virtually every other kid my age was doing at the time. If there was a movie out that was rated PG and wasn’t named Star Wars, I was not allowed to see it. Once my family tried getting a movie channel, but they soon discovered it was hard to watch shows with me at home sandbagging the fun.
One evening I was required to sit in an adjacent room where they apologetically shut the door in front of me to take in a popular movie. While they rolled with laughter during the show, I sat dejected and alone with only my thoughts to keep me company. Hearing such ongoing enjoyment emanating from the next room, I interrupted their amusement to plead my case that it was unfair to be excluded. All I received in return was an apology ladened new directive that I now needed to sit further away from the door so I would not be able to listen to it either. Thankfully, they only did that to me once! They learned to wait until I went to bed to laugh and carry on, but I knew what was going on, and it’s very difficult to sleep when you know you are the only one missing out.
I guess you could say that I was also missing out on having my own room as well. My sister and brothers each had their own rooms, but I just had a couch. When we moved in, my folks told me that they would build walls around a loft area in the house they bought but never did, I guess because I didn’t whine about it. Sure, I would have liked to have my own room, but I was just not one to complain. When I would have friends over to play and they asked to see my room,
yeah, it seemed pretty weird to walk over and abruptly sit down on a couch. At the time I should have said something like, Here it is—I know you are jealous!
Some wanted to know if I ever had any privacy. My response was that I was able to shut the door when I used the restroom; that was nice.
Bananas, My Downfall
My mom once astonished me with the shocking revelation that for one episode, I was to be a kid on the preschool television show Romper Room. After recovering from my initial shock, I was terribly excited and rather giddy to actively participate in the show. Unfortunately, my fate turned ugly during tasting time
as I was seated last (more than likely alphabetically), so I was the last to receive my banana. All the other kids got normal ripe yellow ones, but they ran out of those, and I was given a green one. Now I had eaten my fair share of bananas, so I knew all too well that you needed to open green ones differently. Still, I was starstruck at the time and wanted to follow every rule I was given as my mom had told me to be on my best behavior. So when given the instruction to take the top stem and peel it down the back, I tried.
Yep, as expected, mine split down the back and failed to crack open from the top. I gripped it good and tight and yanked the top down some more. The rest of the kids had begun eating theirs, and no one had noticed little ol’ Michael still wrestling with his. Not wanting to give up, I sunk my feet in the ground and yanked and pulled all the more. I ended up pulling so hard that I failed to notice that I was tilting my chair back. Soon—WHAP! I fell smack back on my chair on what I think was live TV. They immediately cut to a commercial, and a crowd soon followed to see if I was okay. Yes, I hit my head. Yes, it hurt. But when they asked me if I was okay, all I could say through my tears was, I just want my banana open!
I was given a brief checkup and then told that I need to open a green banana differently.
I knew that, but I was trying to follow the instructions the lady gave me. Sadly, that’s all I remember about the show.
Trash for Cash
Since I wasn’t one of the lucky kids who got a crazy good allowance for effectively breathing out of their nose, I had to find ways of my own to earn some coin. One day I discovered that you could make good money recycling aluminum cans and instantly launched a plan. I would go outside and trash dive into everyone’s garbage to find that treasured aluminum gold!
I convinced my friend nicknamed, Flea,
to join me in systematically milking this cash cow. Sure enough, that is exactly what we did, and we did it for a long time. Each trash day, we would wake up crazy early in the morning, grab several large plastic bags in tow and set out for success. Some mornings were a bust while others scored some serious cans.
This was far from easy, or should I say pleasant. Without question, the worst part had nothing to do with being tired or the morning chill; it was the ghastly odor! Despite similar instruments lurking inside, each orchestrated its own unique symphony of stench as it sang its pungent melody once its lid opened for business. Within each new olfactory composition, my fine-tuned senses were quick to detect which cans were flat,
and which were more sharp.
Yep, some orchestrated renditions smelled so bad they might harmonize convicts to choirboys as they melted the hair in your nose and just stunk something unfathomably awful.
One of the most difficult decisions was opening up a can to discover the big three. A plethora of cans infused with funk-nasty, squishy, drippy, funk-a-fide diaper dumpage along with little squirmy white solders on patrol. I came to call these nasal delights maggot-mountains.
As a kid, this to me was a security measure which rivaled Fort Knox. The aluminum gold
was there and oh so close, but was it worth it? They were soundly protected twelve ways from Sunday, so sometimes the diapers won, and sometimes the Can Bandit broke the bank and still lived to dive another day. Once I got too messy, or my three dollar pimp-daddy approved plastic watch informed me it was time to get back, the stink master flash that I was quickly booked it back home to take a shower so that I could still get to school on time. Once a month, we would strap all our booty to our bikes and slowly navigate ourselves some three or four miles away to cash them in at a recycling truck that parked at a local mall. If we were really, really lucky, my parents might drive us, but that did not happen very often.
Lemonade?
Now, you guys might be thinking, you were living in Southern California during that time, and it’s usually warm. Why the heck didn’t you just set up a lemonade stand and make money the good ol’-fashioned way? Well, I tried that. As fate would have it, we lived on a road that was very busy, so busy in fact that we had double yellow lines down the center indicating a no passing zone. It was a major thoroughfare, so not too many cars would slow down or even stop as they passed directly by our front yard. Now some of them did, and I was able to sell a few lemonades and brownies here and there. But here is the deal. My mom would charge me for both the brownie and lemonade mix so at times I lost money in the endeavor! I’m just lucky she didn’t charge me a rental fee for the table and chairs or lease the location to me out on the sidewalk. Oh yeah, there was no question that I would be doing all the baking and mixing myself. As a result, I usually ended up making under a dollar, so the cost-to-benefit ratio of doing the traditional kid activity to make money just didn’t pan out for me. In retrospect, if I had more of a business mind, I should have paid my exceedingly popular high school varsity cheerleading sister to hang out around the stand for me. I never did understand why so many cars would slow down and honk at her or yell something about her butt. When that happened, I just rolled with laughter as that was one of the silliest things you can ever hear as a young boy. Yep, I may have made some serious bank with her by my side, even with mom charging me for overhead.
Clothes
Not having a room to myself was one thing, but never wearing anything cool was another bitter pill I had to swallow. I just never got anything remotely cool
to wear. I admit it, K-Mart was the place to be in my parents’ mind’s eye. When the popular singer named Prince came out with his song Blue Light,
all it did was give me unpleasant flashbacks! Name-brand clothes in my closet were about as likely as getting a prized diamond in a Cracker Jack box. My folks did not care that I was decades away from being fashionable, nor did they care the least bit about what the other kids were wearing. I remember feeling remotely cool wearing shoes that were called Zips.
I thought I was finally in fashion as they had their own TV commercial. Score! Yep, I was one hip kid sporting Zips as it was the best I could do (sigh). So you know, I really wanted to own a Ralph Lauren polo shirt so bad I could not see straight. A close second was to wear an OP (Ocean Pacific) shirt as that was a major brand back then. Such things were just not in the cards for me. That says all you really need to know about my wardrobe. A kid joke at the time asked a bird it’s thoughts on my attire, after looking me over its reply was cheap, cheap, cheap
as if flew away.
Taste?
Speaking of cereal, I should mention that we were seriously deprived of kids’ cereal. I’m not sure what the real deal was, but someone in the family had to be plugged up like a dormant volcano. As such, the Welsh quest to poop good and proper was on! So if the cereal box managed to display the word "bran" in the title, it made its way on our shelf. I’m here to tell you we had a cornucopia of bran infested goodness. We are talking, and I am not kidding either: Raisin Bran, Oat Bran, All-Bran, Corn Bran, Bran Chex, Bran Flakes, 100% Bran, 40% Bran, Shredded Wheat, and Grape Nuts (which tasted like small pebbles from out of the backyard)—Yes, as did most kids in America, we also had plain Cheerios and Kix, the tasteless round rabbit droppings. Suffice it to say that in my forties, I still buy sugar cereal to help fill the void for this thing called "taste" when it came to breakfast! That said, back then and to this day, I’m as regular as a champion racehorse rip-roaring to go. Once that bell sounds, you better have placed your bet ’cause the race will not last long. Win place or show, everyone’s a winner. Too much information,
I know, but it’s true.
It’s a Gusher!
Had I been born a reindeer, millions of kids would be singing my praises, not some four-hoofed young outcast searching to find his way as well. See, ol’ Rudy and I have this little thing called a nose that quite often turns red. He has it easy as his schnoz made him the most beloved reindeer in history while all my red nose ever got me is a pass to the nurse’s office. This terribly sexy attribute only made the ladies come running all the more when I got older. Trouble is, they were always running the wrong way! Countless times, I would be minding my own business when it would inexplicably decide to do its thing. I know what you are thinking, I must have been looking to pick a winner
or had dug for gold
too often, but that was just not the case. I was just born with weak veins up there that liked to atrophy, which is when I would receive its outpouring
of love.
My parents even took me to clinics a few times to see if any doctors could do anything about it. Can’t remember if it was twice or three times, I had what seemed to be the world’s longest lava-dipped Q-tip jammed up my nose for what seemed like an hour. Afterward they would inform me that they had been attempting to cauterize
my nose. I wasn’t sure what President Carter had to do with it, but if he wanted to fix my nose, I was certainly okay with it. In the end, it looks like my nose turned more stubborn than a jaded mule as no matter how many times measures were taken to convince it to change its ways, it decided to keep doing what it had been doing since it was placed in office. Since there is no term limit for it, looks like I’m stuck with it for the foreseeable future. From time to time, the dang thing still bleeds for no good reason. What ya gonna do? Well, Rudolf, you taught me to turn a negative thing to a positive. I may have to apply that principle later on down the line as it worked for him; should work for me as well.
The Valentine’s Day Disaster
I certainly wasn’t the luckiest kid on the planet. When I was in elementary school and Valentine’s Day came around, all us kids would scramble to make our classmates those virtually meaningless cards that say Be Mine,
or You Are the Tops.
You could really care less what the card said as you just wanted the candy attached to it. That was unless the card was coming from that special girl that you had a crush on, and you were earnestly yearning for her to send you a small message professing her undying devotion and explaining in so many words that she never knew how to adequately express her feelings until this day came around. (Yes, I’m still looking at you, Carol Selig!) Either that or any other semblance of a sentence remotely expressing interest would also work as well. In any case, I went along with the game, judiciously following along my list of names provided by the teacher, while my imagination raced in anticipation of the treats I was soon to acquire.
I finished making my Valentines for every one of the kids on my list and made sure to attach the obligatory piece of candy. At last, the special day came and as a class we spent a good hour decorating our little paper bags now in full multicolor décor, ready to gleefully accept the incoming plunder of goodies and sugar-laden evocations. The time came to distribute the cards, so off I went, reading each name and gently placing them in each bag as I watched them all gradually fill up, all the while wondering what wonderful pleasantries awaited in mine. I just couldn’t help myself so I needed to take a peek. Just as a kid likes to glance into his Halloween bag to bask in the tidings of the event, I did the same. I went by my bag to behold its glory, but all I saw inside was the bottom of the bag! I had got nothing. Not a gosh-darn thing! How could this be? I frantically looked at my list of names; all my classmates were on there. How on earth could they all forget about me?
Then the realization of what likely had happened occurred to me. The teacher had made the list of all the class members, but when she got to the bottom of the class, she must have gotten distracted at the time and neglected to put my name down. I had not noticed the omission as who looks for their own name when making Valentines cards? Dejected, I finished handing out my Valentines and sat down. No candy for me. No secret admirer. No fun. No nothing.
One of my best friends noticed his completely crushed friend sitting forlorn at his desk and came up to me to give me his Valentine in person (with no candy attached) and told me that my name was not on the list, but he remembered me. Well, that was better than nothing, I guess. My teacher came by to see why I looked so bummed and was instantly horrified. She didn’t know what to say. She quickly announced to the class that she had forgotten to put my name down, and I had no Valentines. If anyone had any extras, please give them to Michael,
she implored. Some parents had brought in cupcakes and caramel apples and such, but they didn’t have any extras. They had only bought enough so that every student on the list got one and no more, and none of my classmates would sacrifice theirs so that I could have something too. Sadly, that again left me with nothing. After the teacher made the announcement a few kids scratched off their name on some basic Valentines which they had received and gave those to me, but that didn’t mask the pain any. In all actuality, it sort of made it worse. I learned very quickly that life was not fair. It’s a lesson we all learn growing up. I’ll gripe about this later too.
I Must Be Doing It to Get Attention!
For some bizarre reason, I could never stop wetting my bed at night. My parents must have spoken to some quack psychologist who told them that at my age, I was likely doing it on purpose (good grief) and what my mom needed to do was to put me in charge of changing my sheets when they got wet, so that is just what she did! This way, I would learn
that I would not be rewarded with added attention for wetting my bed, and I would stop. It would also help me develop what parents are always wanting their kids to learn to be: more responsible. Now I am not sure where that crackpot of a psychologist got his diploma from, but I can assure you I was far from being in charge of my own elimination whilst I was unconscious. The word moron comes to mind, but I guess those kids are out there someplace. Suffice it to say, I was not one of them! That psych certainly had me pegged wrong.
Years passed, and I became an expert at doing my own bedsheets. At some point, since this crack-brained idea never worked, they figured something might actually be physiologically wrong with me as my siblings had all hit puberty early. Heck, my brother John had a thick and bushy dark brown mustache as a freshman in high school while I was still rocking peach fuzz at the same age. Long after their consultation with Dr. Dumpforbrains,
another doctor pondered the notion that I may not actually be doing this on purpose. He understood that wetting the bed crushed my self-esteem as it made me feel like I was still physiologically an infant! Unfortunately, in this person’s infinite wisdom, I was given a medieval device that I had to wear each night. Mom diligently took several pairs of underwear and sewn on special pouches right in the middle, as well as a large battery pack holder on the side. As a kid, I might have imagined that I was going to sleep as Batman with a magic electrical tool belt. Trouble is, since I was in middle school at the time, there was no getting by that fact that I felt like a baby as I was forced to wear special underwear.
While other kids my age were wearing comfortable undergarments and sleeping in luxurious comfort, bedtime would find me whipping out my special elite, ultrafashionable tighty-whities with wires flopping about everywhere. After putting them on, I had the distinct pleasure of connecting the wires to an electrical gizmo attached right outside my boys
and afterwards needing to ensure that they were properly connected to the huge battery pack before attempting to sleep. When properly equipped, my junior stud muffin Chippendale approved lake maker-waker
was now locked and loaded for the night. Attempting to get comfortable with multiple size D batteries affixed to my hip was indeed challenging, but eventually I found my way to Snoozeland, USA. Then when I least expected it, as the clock swept past crazy early in the middle of the night, the blasted contraption would go off and scream at me to wake up as I was beginning to wet the bed. Quite often, it woke me up from such a deep sleep that I would forget how to shut it off so I often resorted to just hitting it to shut it up. Not the best decision, as I ended up hurting myself adding injury to insult.
Many times, it just refused to stop beeping, so I eventually got really good at ripping out the wires and throwing it against the wall. I loathed the fact that I was forced to wear that stupid thing, but I did so because I was hopeful that it would help me grow up. It honestly felt like cruel and unusual punishment. I did my best not to drink any fluids after eight o’clock, but it hardly did any good at all.
I was far too embarrassed to wear my special electro-undies at a friend’s house when invited for a sleepover. You can only imagine the utter delight of waking up in the middle of the night having whizzed a decent reincarnation of the Gulf of Mexico in the middle of their guest’s bed or having drenched my sleeping bag, where my piddle had cascaded deep into their plush carpeting. Good luck falling back to sleep with pee-drenched pajamas and sheets and such. Nothing like that steadily increasing stench of ammonia filling my nostrils as I lay for hours, wondering, What do I do now? I usually ended up doing the only thing I could think of, which was to take my clothes off, assume the fetal position, try to find something not soaked in urine to lie on, and shiver myself back to sleep. If I could find them, I would put my normal clothes back on; but if not, I had to wait for light to find them. A few times, I was lucky enough to wet the bed a second time, and then I would just be stuck sleeping in my own nastiness until I dried out. Ah, memories.
Trying in Vain to Grow Up!
I did just about everything I could to feel like I was older. I must admit, growing up five years behind your closest sibling blows. As each day passed, I was bestowed the distinct pleasure of having to witness all my siblings having vastly more privileges than I. Knowing that I would have to wait five years to do the same is likened to an abscessed root canal which never ends. You see, years pass by at the speed of your age. It never slows down but gradually gets faster, and I mean gradually. Five years to a young boy is an eternity.
My fervent desire to grow older soon found myself in direct contrast to my mother’s wish to slow the steady hands of time. My ageing became a testament that she was as well, so she seemingly resisted my efforts to grow up with increasing regularity. For example, when I asked her for a wallet while I was in middle school, she went and purchased an arts and crafts kit so I could hand sew my own together. Nothing makes a kid look or feel more like an independent young adult than when he is sporting his own handmade wallet. That said, she was so genuinely excited to give it to me, it would have broken her heart to have acted uninterested. As a result, I accepted the gift as graciously as I could muster and grudgingly crafted my new wallet. I would have truly shared in her exuberance if I was seven. Mercy!
I discovered that most kids my age were wearing fairly nice watches. Wanting to fit in, for my birthday I asked for one. My day arrived! I had just turned twelve, and while other kids were fashionably accessorizing or rocking their basic Seiko or Timex watches, my folks broke the bank and threw down the cash for something that looked like it came out of a Kellogg’s cereal box! A five-year-old might have gotten a wink from the girl next to him sporting that monstrosity, but since it did actually tell time and was in fact called a watch, my mom bought it. It pained me to no end but I put on a brave face and attempted to wear it with pride, as much as my little heart could muster.
I’ll never forget my decision to take it to school the following year in eighth grade. One of the kids who was well on his way to maturity, with hair growing on his arms and chest, looked back and noticed something different about me that day. Since my arms were as thin as pixy sticks, the watch stuck out! He said, Hey, Welshie, I see you got a new…um…watch. Can I see it?
Now this kid was sporting something really nice. That, what he had, was the watch I wanted. I sheepishly took mine off, gave it to him, and braced myself for the eventual impending insult. He looked at it, at me, back at it, and back at me. Then it came. He uttered a basic if not gentle comment which ultimately assaulted and subsequently damaged my heart a great deal. He simply said, It’s you.
My heart dropped like a bird suddenly zapped off a power line—thump! He was right. With all the will I could muster, I accepted my prized watch back and strapped it back on my wrist, completely an unreservedly dejected. For after all, it was the embodiment of what other kids thought about me in middle school. I was as respected by my same-aged peers as much as a cereal-box toy. No more and no less.
Frozen is Cold!
One winter my family decided to visit Lake Tahoe just over the state line in Nevada. Subfreezing temperatures and mass amounts of snow welcomed us upon our arrival. San Diego gets as much snow as a fish gets thirsty so we all relished this unique opportunity to play in this new winter wonderland! After making numerous snowmen, chucking hundreds of snowballs at each other, and making countless snow angels, my siblings were quickly off to rent skis for a couple of hours to try their luck in this new sport as they all had the cash for it. Not having close to the money necessary to rent my own, I was left to my own devices to entertain myself until their rental period expired. Looking around I soon discovered a creek that had frozen over nearby. I had never walked on water
before, so this was a treat this little kid relished. Now this was cool! I felt a little like Jesus being able to walk on water at the time.—well, sort of. I was cruising up and down the creek having a gay old time until I heard an abrupt and ominous crack! What the…? A split second later, down I went—splash! Much to my astonishment, it was only about a foot deep, and I hit the bottom of the creak just as fast as I fell in. I was quickly able to get out, but my happiness towards how shallow the water was quickly subsided as I discovered how dreadfully cold my feet had become. I quickly waddled over to my mom to tell her the news, but she just told me that I would need to do the best I could as we had to wait for the kids to finish skiing.
Now, as a child, you simply can’t advocate for yourself like you can as an adult. Moreover, you simply don’t have the vocabulary to adequately express the degree to which you are uncomfortable. I just kept telling my mom that I was really, really, really, really cold. Unfortunately, my constant repetitive jabbering just seemed to cause her to tune me out. It was only when I just stood there crying, wailing in tears, did my mom seem to figure out that something was truly amiss. She then made arrangements with my dad to gather the rest of the kids when the time came as she was going to finally take the lift to the lodge at top of the mountain so that we could get out of the cold. I don’t remember how long it took to get up the mountain but my fate was already secured.
My feet had gone numb. Their noteworthy blue discoloration now matched my mood as well as my hypothermic breath. I remember taking my shoes and socks off by the resort’s central circular fireplace. I came to discover that my toes were mostly encapsulated in ice. The water in my socks had made perfect molds of the interior of my shoes. At this point I had given up crying and just wanted my feet to stop hurting so much. Over time they indeed thawed and I never went to a doctor as they eventually—and I mean eventually—got warmer. Water crystals had formed under my skin which caused permanent damage to my toes as they were frostbitten. Thankfully we were able to get them warm in time so that I was able to keep them all. I’m sure my family felt sorry for me at the time but I have no memory of any of them offering me any condolences aside from my mom. I suppose they just didn’t realize I had almost lost my toes. Still, I am happy to report they are all still attached. To this day they certainly don’t get the blood circulation they used to; and they are more than hypersensitive to any fluctuation in temperature rendering them stone cold in the blink of an eye, but life goes on. I’m just happy that my feet still look normal.
Walk the Plank—My One Fight
Before nearly losing my toes to frostbite, some screwball neighbor of mine tried breaking my finger for no apparent reason. I knew from the very start that this questionable fuzz ball of a kid scored way up there in the strange department. The first time I saw him, he was out in front of his house, next door dressed to the nines in his Sunday’s best while holding on to an open and raised umbrella. Boys normally do not do such a thing on a very bright and hot summer day breaching the nineties. Yet there he was walking and jumping, walking and jumping, walking and jumping. I couldn’t resist, and out of raw curiosity, walked over to ask him what on earth he was doing. He informed me he was Marry Poppins! Not that he was pretending to be the beloved Disney character made famous in 1964-; he was Marry Poppins, and he was having a dickens of a time as his magic umbrella wasn’t working. He could not understand why he was unable to fly. I questioned his actions several times, and he held firm. He was truly losing his patience and growing increasingly upset because he was not catching air. He would take a few steps then earnestly leap into the sky with his mighty umbrella leading the way, only to fall victim to reality, time and again. He was better serviced impersonating a Mexican jumping bean as he pranced about. In fact, he would have had better luck trying to be one of those beans as at least a moth grows out and takes flight in about a year’s time. Still, he persisted. Wow. I was right; this kid was a piece of work. I decided it would be best to keep my distance as this kid seemed to be a few ingredients short of a full-blown fruitcake. I wished him well as he was clearly going to keep doing his own thing. He was not bothering anyone so I went back to minding my own business.
A few weeks later I went outside to find both of my brothers sitting on our perimeter fence of our property chatting this kid up. Not sure what they were talking about before I got there, but my brothers were laughing quite a bit. They were in no way making fun of him, just listening to what the kid had to say. Upon my arrival, I remember him saying something about being a pirate this time. He kept saying that as a pirate, he could make me walk the plank. This kid was my age, and I had my two much older brothers with me. There was no way this kid was going to make me do anything I didn’t want to do. I kept telling him he couldn’t and we went back and forth. At last he said that he would prove it to me. I’m game, let’s do this. Make me walk the plank. There was no boat around and nothing anyone of a sound mind might consider a plank to walk off of. Curiosity got the best of me, and I wanted a glimpse of what was going through this kid’s mind.
Give me your hand,
he said. Okay.
I extended my hand. Without hesitating, the kid held my wrist with one hand, took my middle finger, and proceeded to bend it back toward the back of my hand. Ouch! This idiot kid was breaking my finger! I immediately began wrestling this kid to change the leverage he had on my finger so it wouldn’t snap. Pain subsided, and I was very pleased that it did not seem to be broken. Completely infuriated, I sought revenge and future protection to ensure that this screwball kid would never try that with me again. So I gave him a good one in his stomach. Batman comics would have been impressed—ka-pwack, I nailed him good. He curled over and dropped like a stone.
My brothers jumped up and howled. Their little brother had never gotten into a fight before. Albeit, not much of a fight, but a fight nonetheless. One thump, and it was over. Heck, I was defending myself from this kid who just tried snapping my finger. He ran inside his house crying and saying he was going to tell his mom. I retreated inside my place, wondering what on earth would happen next. Long story short, this bozo came by with his mom; and sure enough, I was the bad guy for hitting him as he had not done anything wrong. He was playing. No one listened to me that he was trying to break my finger, nor did they apparently ask my two brothers, who would have corroborated my story. In the end, I had to apologize to him! I got nothing out of the deal but a terrible punishment even worse than being restricted. My mom decided it would be best that we learn to play nice,
so the following day, she invited this kid over for a picnic lunch playdate in my own back yard!
I ended up having to spend hours with this fruit ball, where I had to sit down on a blanket and have an unchaperoned lunch. Merciful heavens! This was the last kid on earth that I wanted to play nice-e-nice-e with. Seeing that he was still mentally in deep space, I decided that he had no real malice in his actions, as he just wasn’t that bright. So I did my best to go along with it and make him feel that I was his friend to help him along in his life’s journey. Unfortunately, things actually got worse. After that day, he had managed to become good friends with my Mom! I should have known that was going to happen as my mom is a saint and likes everyone! It got so bad that this kid would not even ring the doorbell to come in. He would simply just walk straight through the front door of our house, stand in the middle of our residence, and ‘openly proclaim his arrival’ to all in his presence as if he was the Duke of York! My mom would not be the slightest bit offended but squeal in delight upon his arrival. I did my best to make myself scarce so that Mom could have a riveting conversation with her new young friend from next door.
Youngest Major League Umpire in History?
Allow me to share a rather unusual story of my life. My parents, in their infinite wisdom, wanted me to learn independence (while thwarting my attempts to grow up almost every step of the way), so when I wanted to become a Little League umpire, like I saw some other kids doing, I asked them to sign me up. They encouraged me to do it myself. Having no clue, and I mean no clue, how to do this. I went to the phone service directory and searched for a phone number where I simply dialed the numbers I found. What happened next, I’m sure sparked raging debates behind closed doors of Major League Baseball. Apparently, I had unintendedly called the professional school for umpires!
This school prepared men for Major League Baseball, not boys for Little League. I asked to sign up, and the woman on the phone asked me for my age. She told me, Don’t you think you are a little young?
I disagreed, saying I saw kids my age doing it, and I wanted to do it too! She told me that it costs money, and I would have to pay for it. I told her that my parents told me they would pay for it since it was a prerequisite for getting a paying job, so I didn’t care how much it was. She took my number and would call me back as they searched their regulations to see if a preteen could be educated in their college. Apparently, there was no statute or prerequisite for them to reject my application, so I was allowed access to the school. It was only when my parents dropped me off somewhere deep in the heart to San Diego that I discovered that I had entered a whole new world. I had entered a room full of about forty men. Wow! What on God’s green earth am I doing here?
I thought. Well, let’s do this.
Schooling began and I attended the lectures, took the tests, and engaged in the debates just as everyone else did. I held my own and got good grades. Not the best in the class but in the top one-third. I was pleased. It was during the later weeks during the field trials
when I received the real education. I remember holding my hand up and saying, Out!
with my thumb in the air. The instructor came over and gently tucked my thumb back into my fist whispering, Son, keep your thumb in your hand. At this level, the players will tell you where to put it.
My thumb was never to be seen again.
Ah yes, the field trials, the time when we wore our official gear and went out and judged balls and strikes was something I will never forget. Standing at about four feet nothing in back of an adult sized catcher, while also attempting to look over my then Captain America-sized jet-black foam body shield, I could not see anything at all but the pitcher’s upper torso. I had absolutely no clue where the ball was going, but I did know one thing. That dang white blur of a ball was moving faster that I had ever seen! I was surprised there wasn’t a tail of smoke coming off it. Shooom—pop. Shoom—pop. How on earth is anyone ever able to hit something coming in that fast? Oh yeah, I’m supposed to be calling balls and strikes.
I would bellow out a ball here and a strike there. I’m guessing, I have virtually no clue, but I am in charge, and I know it. Standing behind home plate I’m the head umpire, and no one has the right to argue with me, so what I call is final, no debate! Then the pitch came, and I hear it was a perfect strike, right down center of the plate. It could not have been any more picture perfect. I scream, Ball!
The catcher finds it hilarious and begins to laugh and informs me that it was perfect. Now I know that I can’t see diddly-squat, but balls and strikes are my decision and mine alone. Not skipping a beat, I screech out the phrase in the most commanding voice a preteen can muster, It was low!
At this, the instructor jumped in and exclaimed something that went like this, Yes, yes, a hundred times yes! You all can learn a lot from this kid. He is in charge, and if he says it was low, then it was low. You do not allow a catcher to get in your head.
He then began laughing, Despite the fact that it was a strike by a country mile.
Something strange happened that day as some men were later seen talking to my dad who came to watch me for the first time. Finals were next week, and all I had to do was get about a 30 percent on the final exam to pass the class since I was such a good student. Suffice it to say, I never got to take the final. The day of the test, my parents went on an impromptu date and left my brother Dave in charge. I was told by my dad that he would be taking me to the final, and they left the house. When I asked him for a ride my brother was not going anywhere. So, I missed my opportunity. Weeks passed, and I was bummed, I did complain, but not that much. It just was not meant to be, and they did not seem like they wanted to talk about it.
One day a few weeks later, my dad took me to a Padres game; and during the seventh-inning stretch, the graduates of the umpiring school walked on the field where they stood at second base to obtain their diplomas. They announced the names of all my classmates. They all passed, but I was conveniently not one of them. Both my parents have now met our Lord and are currently walking streets of gold so I’m still forced to wonder. The only thing I can think of is that they did not want an eleven-year-old receiving his diploma on second base at Jack Murphy Stadium with the rest of the adults as it might have opened up the floodgates for young ones wanting to do the same. So… I should have been the youngest umpire in the history of Major League Baseball, but it was not meant to be.
Some Have It Made, Even My Sister!
From my perspective, and many others, my sister had the life.
She had the magical, charmed, 90210 Beverly Hills show type high school experience. As I mentioned before, she was a varsity cheerleader who had the young men of teenage prestige virtually falling all over her for a date. The in of the in-crowd congregated or flocked to our house. The Captain of the football team, the captain of the water polo team, the captain of the wrestling team etc. were seemingly always clamoring to spend time with her. There was a sea of varsity jackets surrounding my sister like a blue and gold haze of testosterone. By the time she graduated, she was voted runner-up for homecoming queen and received numerous—and I mean numerous—awards
from her graduating class, which ranged from Best Smile, to Best Personality, to Best Legs, and things of that nature. Needless to say, she experienced what I would categorize as a cherished, storybook high school experience—one that all people would like to experience and most dream about. Indeed, the upper echelon of popularity. Naively, I thought my life experience would be the same. Um…it wasn’t. Witnessing how the social elite experienced high school first-hand, only made my own experience that much more troubling or painful as I was well aware of what I was missing out on.
I Should Have Been Rich! Filthy, Ever-So-Spoiled-Kid Rich!
Before I dive into my personal, oh so cherished high school existence, I need to break down the fact that I should be rich. I’m not, but I should be. Many people don’t believe me, but it’s true. Dad had purchased a 50 percent ownership of a racehorse, and I remember twice going with the family to watch it race. The first was just across the border in Mexico. We drove down one day, and I will never forget my dad informing me that under no circumstances was I to drink the water. Instead, I was directed to quench my thirst with only Pepsi or Coke, and I could have as many as I wished to consume in the process. As such, I was forbidden to drink anything from their drinking fountains. At this time, I had less than no understanding of what is known as Montezuma’s Revenge,
but I didn’t care either. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with my parents; but when you receive such amazingly good news, you don’t ask questions, you keep your mouth shut, and you suck down as many drinks as you can get your hands on until
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