Children deserve a childhood of innocence and wonder.

It is their right to be protected from child abuse and cruelty.

My Mom married my father in 1950 unaware of his problems with alcohol. His mental condition had not been diagnosed yet. I was supposed to be named “William A-----”, after my father. However dad was in a bar getting drunk while Mom was giving birth. To spite him, Mom had them put on my birth certificate, “A----- William.” As my brother was three and half years older then me, my sister a year older, I was the 'baby' of the family.

Mom got really tired of dad coming home, totally drunk, piling the kids in his Austin Healy and roaring off into the Sausalito fog (dad didn’t use seatbelts). One afternoon Mom, packed us kids into her car, took as much stuff as she could manage, instigated divorce proceedings, left my father and moved to Merced, to a teaching job at McSwain school. I was three.

I imagine dad was in a bar getting drunk and was really surprised when he came staggering home at 2 AM. During their divorce dad moved to Costa Mesa. After things were final, Mom would send us down to stay with dad every summer for six weeks. We never knew if dad was going to pick us up or what. One night my sister and I got off the bus in North Hollywood and looked in vain for him. I think it was about six hours before he picked us up. Dad was in a bar getting drunk, had forgotten he was supposed to pick us up and had driven home. A phone call from the cab company reminded him.

Why wasn't I told that my father had mental problems? If I ever felt threatened by him, to tell an adult? I didn't know he had problems. When he beat me, I assumed there was something wrong with me, I was to blame. It never occured to me that dad was crazy. In 1968, the summer I turned thirteen, a year before the New Orleans trip, dad was acting bizarre; cautioning my sister and me to watch out for a man in a green camaro who wanted to kill him, stealing (shop lifting) stuff and going to garage sales and taking stuff without paying for it.

In Costa Mesa I embarked on the road to financial success - I got a paper route. As luck would have it, the route was on Hamilton Avenue, just down the street from dad's house. I got a used sting ray bicycle and set about becoming a business man. Folding the papers was hard work and delivering them was an exercise in placing them where the customer wanted. Sometimes their sprinklers were on and I had carry the paper to the front door so it wouldn't get wet. There were the customers that called to complain I hadn't delivered the paper, when it was outside their front door, but on the side they hadn't looked on.

Collecting for delivery was a rude awakening. Some people were really nice, giving me milk and cookies for doing a difficult job so well. Other people, however, were really mean and nasty. I guess I did not look very businesslike in the Dodger baseball uniform that dad made me wear all the time. Some people wanted to know which team I was on and I had to admit that I wasn't on a team, I only wore the uniform because my father wanted me to.

One evening I was collecting on the west side of Hamilton. I returned to dad's house (across the street). Dad had been drinking and was in a foul mood. "Sam!(his nickname for me), Where the hell have you been." I explained that I was collecting for my paper route and he got really mad, called me a liar, accused me of, talking back to him, of smarting off etc. He had gone looking for me on the east side of Hamilton. Foolishly I tried to reason with him. He got really angry, sat up and ordered me to bring him the dog leash. I went and found it, a six foot long piece of leather. Duke (dad's german shepherd) was at a kennel and I was mystified as to what he wanted it for.

"No, Bill. Don't" Dad and Franciska (his second wife) were arguing, oblivious of me standing there. I had never seen her so worked up. "I will not permit it!" she was practically shouting, her accent gone. I had never seen her stand up to him before. She swung around to me. "You, put that over there," she ordered and pointed. Meekly I walked across the patio and laid the dog leash where she was pointing to. ` "Sam," dad roared, "Go to your room!" Years later, after his funeral, I remembered that incident. Suddenly I realized that he intended to whip me with the dog leash. If Franciska had not stood up to him, he would have, too. Franciska had beeen socialized to blindly accept and endure whatever her husband wanted. I have no idea where she found the inner strength to oppose her husband's will. I will always be grateful to that German woman for standing up for me.

We never ate dinner until dad came home. If he was in bar getting hammered, dinner might not happen until 11 PM.One time Franciska got us out of bed to sit at the kitchen table in our pajamas (we had gone to bed hungry), because Bill had just got home. We ate plates of cold meat and potatos Franciska had taken from the refrigerator. Dad said nothing. He sat silently, staring at the table, smoking and drinking the Lucky Lager beer Franciska had given him, oblivious of his son and daughter. Things got so weird that I rode my sting ray down Harbor Blvd., to the Jolly Roger Restaurant (where Franciska worked). I was going to call Mom and tell her, but didn't have enough money. The operator asked me if I wanted to make a collect phone call and I said no. My 'kid' logic had intervened: I was afraid of how mad dad would be at me, when Mom told him I had called her collect. It never occurred to me that Mom didn't know what was going on, would want to know and she would protect me from him.

Mom had left him because of his drinking. She did not know until 1984, my father was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the V.A. hospital in Los Angeles. Which makes me wonder why he was ever allowed to see his children unsupervised? He was insane and it was public knowledge. Why wasn't my mother told? If no one knew he was schizophrenic that is one thing, but they knew he was crazy. How could they not know there were children involved? – who let this happen?

Each summer when I was at his house, dad would go down the street to the AA meeting, come home and get drunk. Sometimes he’d get mad at me for ‘making’ him feel like the terrible father he could be, beat me, sober up, realize what he had done, drink to forget, get angry at me . . . When he was in that sort of mood – it was horrible. When his schizophrenia was active and he was drunk, he was the meanest person I have ever known. Conversely, when sober he could be really sweet and loving. I loved to take siestas with him and my siblings – marshalling our strength for another round of go-carts, trampolines, miniature golf or walks along the waterfront. He’d stretch and sit up. my brother, my sister and I would hurriedly gather what ever we needed for our imminent excursion. We’d all pile into dads big Chrysler with all our stuff and off we’d roar.

At Newport Beach we often stopped by The Crab-Cooker on the way to the pier. The restaurant specialized in fresh seafood, even having a fifteen foot tiger shark hanging by chains from the beams of the ceiling. When we were fishing I always imagined something like that, lurking just below the surface, waiting to leap out-of-the-water and grab me. I’d start crying and dad would pick me up and hold me and tell me I was being silly because he would protect me.

Each summer, when Mom would put us on the bus or train to go down to see him, I never knew what to expect. Was dad going to pick us up or was he off somewhere seeing a man (getting drunk)’? Was he going to be mad at me? Was he in a good mood? He treated us kids like we were his property. He always did what he pleased. If I objected, he might beat or just ignore me. He could be really monstrous when he was drunk. I tried to keep a low profile when I knew he had been drinking.

In the summer of 1969 dad had gotten it into his head to fly around the U.S. He left my sister with Franciska. He and I flew on the Disneyland helicopter from New Port Beach to LAX. The helicopter, the way it shook and vibrated, made me sick – I almost barfed. When we reached LAX, we boarded (I crawled onto) a Pan American jet, a 707, and off we zoomed.

One of the places we stopped was New Orleans. I remember us driving ‘up’ to the New Orleans yacht club on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. Dad was being pretty crazy; telling the head of the yacht club how he was not sure if he was going to have his yacht shipped to New Orleans by rail or have it sailed through the Panama Canal. The man left to see about our lunch and dad got really angry with me for questioning his lying to the man (we had no yacht), telling me to keep my mouth shut, to quit smarting off, we were getting a free lunch. After lunch, while the grown-ups talked I caught some small blue-belly lizards on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain and put them in a jar with sand from the shore.

Later, after we had driven back to our hotel, Dad was pointing to a tall building that was leaning and going on about how he was going to ‘fix’ it with hydraulic jacks, floating cement pads and other stuff. Dad always had these grandiose ideas to accomplish the seemingly impossible. Foolishly I questioned him about his latest scheme and he got really angry with me for smarting off to him. The last thing I remember is him ordering me to . . . Afterwards he told me if I ever told anyone what he had done to me; he’d kill my brother and sister.

The next day we went to the airport, dad disappeared into the bar, leaving me alone. To pass the time I was swinging the paper bag which held the jar with the lizards. To my horror the bag tore, the jar flew out and bounced across the carpet, turning end-over-end, throwing out sand and lizards. A black man came over, got on his knees and begin to scoop the sand back in the jar – the lizards had scampered away. I was totally mortified. I went over to him, I managed to tell him how sorry I was. He looked up, smiled and touched my shoulder. He told me not to cry, the jar hadn’t broken, the lizards weren't hurt.

After that summer and that trip I refused to go down to see dad again. As I was fourteen, Mom had to go along with me. I never told her why. I am glad, now, that I didn’t. If Mom had known what dad had done to me, it would have destroyed her; my brother, my sister and I would have been orphans; Our father dead and our mother in prison for his murder.

So, I saw him twice in the two years before he died.. I felt nothing but cold contempt and hostility towards him. At his funeral I didn’t feel happy, I didn’t feel sad – I felt relief.

The death of my best friend and the professor, Tony Fink, I did research for, really floored me. I had known Ray for 34 years and working with Tony was really cool. Doing research with him was very thought provoking, it really excited me and it enabled me to graduate with a degree in biochemistry. Somehow the loss of these two excellent people focused my attention on my childhood. Memories started to come back, memories of a summer in 1969 . . . I had totally forgotten what had happened 40 years ago. Suddenly I had my life back, though my social life is in tatters.

My 'kid' logic told me the adults had an inherent ability to know what was going on. Children need to have it reinforced to them that their thoughts and feelings are important and valid. I never thought anyone wanted to listen to me, wanted to hear what I had to say. I never told my Mom about the beatings that dad was giving me, because, I assumed, she already knew. Remembering what happened, how it affected my self image, has enabled me to get out from under the dark cloud that has been dogging me for 40 years.

The powers-that-be knew my father was mentally ill in 1968. He should never have been allowed to see his children without supervision after that point. I have composed some poems to come to terms with what my father was allowed to do to me many years ago.

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Poetry	Recovery

September 5, 2009