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| rights, wrongs, righting the wrong
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It does not matter to me how the deck chairs are arranged on the Titanic,
when you are having problems with your child, take a look at the bigger picture.
I was raised by two people who probably should not have had any children.
Me for sure. My brother had a different life than I did.
Being dyslexic and hyper ruined my chances for a normal childhood.
School was a nightmare. Punishment was a daily occurance. I was 'too stubborn' to read. WHACK! too stubborn to spell correctly, WHACK! and then again at home. The small town schools I went to were backwards themselves. My Father was a hospital technician at Keesler field in Mississsippi.The lowest and slowest schools in the nation at that time.
My father was fussy and anal, he could spend days arranging rocks for a flower bed and never planted any flowers. He spent years sorting his rock collections, and never used the gemstones for anything. No one ever got use of any of it. My mother was weak and passive, she was his doormat. She was handy at whipping me though. For my own good of course.
They were determined that I learn thier way. I was not wired to be able to do that.
They determined that I was stupid, and ignored anything I did after that.
Good by me, I made my own way, Never stayed home on a weekend,from age 10 or 11. I worked from the time I was 12 gathering and selling pecans to a wholesaler. Bought my own first bike. Worked as a bagboy in a grocery. then in a sporting goods store. I manged the store alone at 15, while the owner took summer vacation in Italy. I am good at numbers.
While in junior high I went to the state science fair with a working model of a 'cloud chamber' which tracks atomic particles. My science teacher made the 80 mile trip to take me.
My parents did not show.
I took Geometry, Trigonometry and Calculus. Chemistry, Biology, Electronics, and managed to graduate high school with a 'B' average, without being able to read well at all.
College for me was hit and miss, my employers picked up most of it. I worked at a few of the larger electronics research companies. When young, I signed away three patents. I needed the jobs.
This week I signed on to consult for a medical diagnostic machine to help with the research and development. And maybe I will leave retirement for a while.
I signed an intellectual rights, and a non-disclosure, so I won't go into the nuts and bolts of it. I have leukemia, and probably this will not be of any benefit to me, but down the line I believe it will be of great benefit to others. Ironically,my dad died of cancer. What if I could be even a small part of it's eradication?
My spelling still won't fill out a minimum wage job application. The secretary I hire at work will do all my typing and spelling for me. At home my wife, does it, and it is way more expensive!
If I haven't bored you with all this,the point is, there is no 'right' way to do a lot of things. No 'right way' to grill a steak,for instance. Some people insist there is only one way. There are many 'right ways'. I like my way, I like my wifes way, and when I go eat at My friend Harry's he blows me away with his version.
There is no 'right way' to raise a child, there are many 'right ways'. The surest way to lose your kids is to be inflexible. The fastest is to abandon them first. The most hurtful is to be untruthful, I was kept in the dark about so much.
My 'kids' are too old for me to admit to here. My grandkids are into the teens now.
There are several of my kids friends who call me "dad' because they are alienated from thier own. Sometimes I have had them stay with us, a lot of times I have given them jobs.
I made peace with my parents, I was as good a son as I could be to both of them. They stayed in one of my houses every winter, all winter, rent free.
We invited them for holidays, and we made them welcome.
We made the 1200 mile trip every weekend the last few weeks of my fathers life.
I was there for my Mother, buying her plane tickets, or train tickets to come visit.
I was with her when she died.
I was the kid who didn't do things 'right'
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Posted by stillkickin on 2008-04-11 02:01:36 | Rating: | Views: 72
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Your blog is very inspiring. It seems like the kid who didn't do things "right", did well for himself.
That means, there might be hope for me!
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Posted by Cecy24
on 2008-04-11 16:38:34
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Cecy24, if that is your age, you can do EVERYTHING, good luck
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Posted by stillkickin
on 2008-04-11 18:09:32
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