Tell me how you really feel.  OK, I promise I will, but I need to tell you a little bit about where I grew up.

My parents divorced when I was young.  My dad moved away, back to San Antonio, and my mom stayed just outside of Detroit in Utica, Michigan.  This, however, is not a story about my Dad.  My mom, my brother Chris, and I lived in a town home off of Kensington Street.

My Home Where I Grew Up

It’s funny some of the things that I remember, and I’m sure that there is so much that I can’t remember.  I’ll share a few things I do remember.  I’ll start with the grassy area on the end of our town home and work around.  The grassy area was a great place to gather with the neighborhood kids and play games.  There was one of those green electrical boxes there and we would climb all over.  The side of the building was great to play games off of, but he guy that lived there hated it, because we were constantly banging on the side of the wall.  After his house was Jill and her son Jason.  Jason was my age and we would hang out sometimes.  He dressed as the Greatest American Hero one year for Halloween.  My mom would go to Jill’s home sometimes and play Tri-ominos.  Next to her was Barbara.  Barbara was an elderly lady who would always make cookies for my brother and me.

Our town home was next, followed by the high school girl with a speech impediment and learning disability.  I don’t remember the ones in the corner, but around the corner was the kid who had an Atari 2600 and Pacman.  It was either his mom or the one next to his house whose mom worked at Kmart.  Then I have to skip a bunch of houses, one of which I think Sarah Press lived in, and go around the corner again to get to Sarah’s house, the other Sarah.

Behind our house was some open space and a playground with a sandbox and a concrete dolphin that had it’s nose knocked off.  I remember going out back and playing on the slip and slide, I remember spraining my ankle on it.  Behind the playground was “the swamp” and then the freeway.  I remember my brother Chris going out there and mooning the cars driving by.  I don’t know why, but Chris always seemed to like mooning.

Even without my Dad around, I have lots of fond memories of this time.  I don’t remember them all, but I felt like I belonged, and I felt accepted and loved during this time in my life.  That was until my mom met Larry.

Larry Sr. and Little Larry.

At some point after my parents divorced my mom started dating a guy named Larry.  Larry either owned or managed a small produce market on the side of the freeway.  His son was around my age and he was fun to play with.  Out behind the market they grew several different types of vegetables.  I remember having to go out back and pick rhubarb.  During fall we “helped” with putting up Indian corn.  One time during the winter my brother and I were allowed to ride the snowmobile.  I think it was me that rode the snowmobile right into the greenhouse.  Larry was not happy with us and we never rode that snowmobile again.

Larry had a temper and he would spank my brother and I often, and for things that may have been minor.  There is a quote that says,

“They may forget what you said — but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
—Carl W. Buehner

Larry made us feel scared.  All. Of. The. Time.  He even had a scary dog that lived on that property.  Bear.  Bear was a large dog, or it was large to us, and I remember that we were deathly afraid of this dog.  Thankfully he was on a tether, but it was a long rope.  If we wanted to go to the bathroom while we were there, we could either go to the nasty outhouse or cross the yard to go to the house.  To get to the house, you had to get past Bear.  It’s funny because Chris, Little Larry, and I would have to try and distract Bear one direction and one of us would have to make a run for it to get to the house.  We ended up in the outhouse most of the time.  Bear was scary, but Larry was scarier.

One day we were playing in a large wood pile.  They sold firewood at this market, and I remember two or three large mounds.  These mounds seemed so large to us at the time.  The three of us boys decided to build “houses” into the wood piles, and each of us had a specialty that we did to enhance each others’ homes.  I can’t remember each specialty, but one of them was to make an archway over the door.  Chris was building this on my “house” when the wood pile collapsed.  Chris was crying because he was hurt, but Little Larry and I were terrified that Larry Sr. would hear him crying.  We dug him out of the woodpile and tried to get him to stop crying.  We weren’t worried about him being hurt by the wood, we were worried that Larry would hear him, come over, and say those words we dreaded to hear “Stop your crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”.

For some reason, he always seemed to hurt my brother, Chris, more than me.  I hated him for spanking me and making me afraid, but I REALLY hated him for hurting my brother.  I’ve since forgiven that man, but to this day, I still struggle with the thought of how he treated Chris.

On another occasion, we were at Pizza Hut, and at the time I only ate pepperoni pizza.  Of course now I’ve expanded to Pineapple and Pepperoni, but back then I was pretty basic.  I also hated vegetables, but especially on pizza.  Larry was a selfish man, and he ordered mushrooms and onions on his pizza.  When the pizza arrived, I refused to eat it.  Larry tried to force me to eat it, but I resisted.  I resisted until he got up from the table with a pizza slice in one hand, and with the other he grabbed my arm and dragged me into the bathroom.  He spanked me several times, but I still didn’t eat it.  He then grabbed me and held my head inside of a urinal and he forced fed that slice of mushroom and onion pizza as I gagged.

My mom left Larry after that.

I don’t remember 99.9% of the things Larry ever said to me, except “I’ll give you something to cry about”, but I will always remember how he made me feel.