"Being Average!"

“Being Average!”


I was a young man who dreamed about simply being an average person, while alone walking up that old dirt road to school in back of my house. In those days, I could feel the Lord walking with me, a garden angel at times. And now after 61-years old that boy has not yet left me, not completely, and I was never unlucky, thank goodness, in that I ever felt alone, I always knew the Lord, Jesus Christ was by my side, always, He once told me because I didn’t have a father, “Don’t worry, I be your father.”
I was thin, and gaunt with deep emotions, and when I got in my first fight, four boys beat me up, I ran home to tell my mother about it, and she said, “You better get some muscles, and learn how to fight, or run.” And I did, I weight lifted, ran in track, and learned karate. I was as white as a ghost, got some summer tans and learned how to flex my muscles so a few girls would be interested in me, and kept the bullies away, or at a distance.
I wasn’t a quick learner, and that left some mental scars in me. Although I was creative, I could draw just about anything, learned how to play the guitar at ten-years old, and started writing my poetry at twelve-years old. And none of these scars would stop me in life, matter-of-fact, they were my catalyst. Now they are old scars, erosion on them, fleshless. Everything about me was different than those around me. So I felt.
My eyes were the same color of the sea, my hair the color of autumn leaves, my physical build at fifteen was like Bruce Lee at twenty-one. At nineteen, I learned Karate in St. Paul, and then headed onto San Francisco at twenty, to learn from the Masters.
“Chick Evens,” Gosei said, the Karate Master, 6th degree, said to me as I had used up all my money to travel to the city by the bay across two-thousand miles, and couldn’t find a job, “Here’s some money, it will tie you over until you find a job,” Gosei said in a most humble voice. And he taught me the fine art of Goju Kai Karate, within that interesting year I spent in the city.
“No,” the Master said. “You are young, do not keep drinking, and do not hurt anyone with your skills.”
I remembered that all my life.
“I got to go,” I told him. I was drafted into the Army. “I know,” he said, “you are not leaving because you want to.”
I was still a boy mentally in a man’s body, and I followed my longing, whatever that was, it seemed to change every mile of my life, and traveling was part of it. Actually at this point of my life I had lived in Seattle, and Omaha, and of course those are interesting stories in themselves, but we must move on.
Gosei had a lot of faith in me back then. Actually it appeared to me, he made it look normal. So I was normal. But all I ever wanted to be was average. Like everyone else, because I felt different than everyone else.
My curse was the drink, and I drank like obsessed fishermen, fish. Like women comb their hair, constantly; like children chasing a dog, unwaveringly. Between drinking and sleeping, I did more drinking.

In the Army, in Basic Training, they did not show me much in the art of body building and karate, it made me feel superior, which made me feel for a while, average to everyone else. But because they could do what I could do, I demand respect; they did now show it politely. I learned successful people, lose friends. I would have to learn how to deal with this.

In the old neighborhood, the guys would ask me to play baseball. I really tried to avoid it, or football. I never liked hanging out with my male relatives, as my brother did, I often said, when they invited me, and they did not invite me much, “I would like to go,” where I never know, while visiting their houses, my aunts and uncles, but I’d end up going for a walk by myself. I knew they didn’t care for me to be their in the first place, nor did I care even going over there; it was a demand from my mother.
I suppose they thought I was a strange young man (boy), my uncles and aunts, and cousins and so forth; but I am a strange old man now, I think so, and they still think so, and so I must have been. My brother’s kids feel the same way, and my kids feel that way, they like putting everyone in boxes, as if they are bait, their bait, subdue them with a club, and get the big fish.

Slowly I cut that net over my head, and went to college, quite drinking, got degrees more than I ever thought, they called me Doctor now. Wrote books, traveled the world, and made a million. I asked myself, “Who can do that? Do you think you can find someone at my age who is a poet laureate? Can I order one?” Well, I was feeling average now, but it took a long time. It wasn’t easy. We start out as kids, and we work on our baggage all our lives until we get it tidy.
I never leaned on any ones shoulders, they were all strange to me, I thanked God, the Lord, Jesus Christ, I leaned on him, his were the only ones, oh I suppose I could say my mother’s a few times, I think so. And I always felt I should give Him something more than a belly full of complaints, so I didn’t complain much in life, I did drink a lot of bottles of booze though. Smoked a lot of cigarettes, three packs a day and I leaned on His shoulders one day, twenty-five years ago, and said, “You’re God, you stop this mess, I mean you take the edge away please, and I’ll stop the motion for grabbing it.” So I put three packs of cigarettes by my bed stand, and never had the desire to smoke again, same story, say ending with booze.
I’m really now just an old man, with no dirty habits, all washed up you might say, for the killing, to put me into the stew.
I have much more than I deserve, a few houses, money in the bank, lots of Ginger Ale, and so forth. I know it was a great mistake to start drinking and smoking, but after I stopped I felt more normal, more average, it all makes a difference. I have learned by sticking it out, pushing ahead, not stopping because someone says, ‘you can’t’ is a bunch of bull…! Misery wants company.
They’ve stopped, that’s the problem, and they don’t want you to pass them up. The best revenge is success. I’ve been married four times, I never get revenge, just more successful, and they say, “How come he’s…?” And so forth and on; I’ve also learned to take charge of my life, when you let someone else do it, that is exactly what they do, and it is never, never ever for the better (unless it is your mother), because self-interest dominates.
So through all my trials and tribulations, I became average, and to be quite honest, you can’t do much better than that, and if you can, your blessed, double blessed, and thank God, or the devil, because the devil believe it or not, tries to duplicate God’s works, but he’ll never work against himself, so I know who has helped me.

3-30-2009