Of Gods who would be men
May. 21st, 2021 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joegodaChildren.
We have all been there. We have all been one, I think. Some of us probably still are. Let's contemplate what that meant, being a child.
For some, it meant play or a sense of freedom from those responsibilities of bills or working or achy bones or bad sinuses or having to miss a great movie because something came up with work, family, religion, life, or some other simulated reason.
Interestingly, children have no religion, and yet religions all claim children. Some claim them through life, some through birth, some, sadly, through death. Interesting, but not necessarily, fun.
Glenn was a child once upon a time. His early memories take him back to when he was either three or six months old, depending upon which dead parent you ask, if you can get them to talk to you at all. The dead, oddly, don't like to speak much, if at all. I suppose it's because they have other things to deal with. Being dead can be quite the ordeal, I imagine.
Regardless, his earliest memories of being a child are of a party or some sort of gathering. There was a tree with lights and tinsel and gaily wrapped presents under the the tree. It was a real tree, all pine and smelling of pine and looking of pine and holding a very festive sort of pineish presence. There were many people gathered there, and though Glenn wasn't sure, he felt he recognized some of those people as relatives. Perhaps that figure was a very young uncle Jim, his father's brother. Perhaps that one was a very lovely aunt Barb. It was all pretty blurry, due to the lights and noise and clinking of glasses and music and the hubbub of conversation, none of which he understood as he was still very young and his language centers had not quite developed yet. And he was very tired, a thing that most parents wait for with great passion as it means their lovely little one would soon be out of the way and fast asleep and they could get on with their very adult sort of games that they play trying to remember what it was like when they didn't have a small bundle of joy to watch constantly and make no mistake, children are a joy, just occasionally a very noisy, very smelly, very expensive, very bothersome sort of joy. It's a joy that comes later, while being at the same time. It's a time traveling joy that nobody expects until it's actually there.
Glenn, the baby, was very tired. And like all tired babies, made no bones about it, it is supposed. Glenn had no memories of crying or being a problem baby or having colic or measles or being whiny or having messy diapers. He just didn't. This little flash of holiday memory was brought to him by the letter S, for silent. He had a flash of laying under the tree, although why any responsible adult would place a baby under a tree is unknown and possibly a very bad idea. Then again, during those years all sorts of things were allowed that are no longer 'proper' for people to do. Back then you could beat your spouse, and on occasion, Glenn's mother did exactly that. Back then, you could also beat your children, and on occasion, Glenn's mother did exactly that, too. Never enough to leave much of a mark because neighbors talk, you know.
The year was 1957.
The Soviet Union - it was a thing, just not any longer. Look it up. Fascinating concept, poor execution. And there were a lot of executions! The Soviet Union had just launched the world's first satellite, besides the moon, called Sputnik I. The moon had no comment and the 'Space Race' was begun. That race was not really much of a race because, it seems, most of the participant quit racing due to politics, money, war, famine, crooked politics, war and politics.
Elvis Presley, a singer, almost an actor, and some said he was an entertainer, purchased a very large mansion named Graceland. People still go there it is said, but there is no one named Grace living there.
The Frisbee was first tossed on to a roof and never retrieved and Theodor Geisel, posing as a doctor, produced an educational children's book with the odd name of 'The Cat in the Hat'.
Glenn's older brother would eventually own an eleven inch statue of said cat and he was, indeed, wearing a hat. Glenn had a greater preference for a cat wearing a stripped floppy top hat then he did for a self indulgent singer of modified and stolen gospel tunes. Seriously, Elvis was okay, and he's easy to make fun of. The greatest thing he did, much like Mr. Cat, was to open the minds of the world's children to new things, new ideas, new concepts, young type of thinking that was built around them. It was the breaking of molds and the releasing of bonds. Children and other young people were starting to be treated as humans.
On that one Christmas day or eve or whenever it was that there was a pine tree with lights lit up and noise all around and alcohol was flowing and music was roasting nuts on open fires, but no Elvis and a little Glenn baby was tired and probably emitting some serious put me to bed sounds, that Glenn's mother, his memories say, picked him up and placed him on his parent's bed so that he could get some much needed sleep and the adults could get some much needed adulting.
Glenn remembered the lacy bedspread, the embroidered pillow cases, the whiteness of it all and the muffled of sounds. He also remembered a great light, next to him. A great, bright light that shone with amazing intensity and called to him. As a baby, who knows what he heard. Certainly not a 'Glenn... come here. Pull my cord, Glenn. Pull it.' sort of sound. Quite likely, it was no sound at all, but much like moth to a flame, baby Glenn wanted more of this. He reached out his chubby little fist and pulled the bright bedside lamp onto the lacy bedspread,where, as expected, the heat from that shining and bright light bulb set the lacy bedspread aflame.
Fortunately, Glenn's mom was also a bit wired differently so she smelled or felt, or sensed or just generally mommed the concept that 'Baby was in Danger!' and rushed in to the rescue before anything serious had been done. Good on her, being that sort of supermom. Doesn't quite make up for some of the almost horrible things that came later, but that's later, isn't it. We're not even close to that yet. Maybe we won't even get there. Probably we will, but maybe not.
That is the earliest memory that Glenn has of this lifetime. It's not the earliest memory he has of all his lifetimes, or this planet or this universe. Those are filed away in his brain's file cabinet as possible false memories, crazy stuff, dreams stuff, and story ideas. If pinned down, Glenn couldn't even guarantee that this life was not a false memory, created by an odd mixing of a dozen drunk quarks, shaken with a few wild neutrinos and given a bit of density by some dark matter who didn't have anything else to do on a boring Sunday night. However, this life is where is now, and really, what are you gonna do? It's the cards you were dealt and if you can't cheat the dealer, then you gotta cheat yourself.
Most memories are lies we tell ourselves. Rarely are they 100 percent accurate. In fact, if you have a spouse the percentage of accuracy of your particular memory of any event drops significantly. If you have been enspoused more than once, you're pretty much SOL. SOL is put there for kiddies, if any happen to read this far in and haven't suffered any major brain damage yet. Any person older that 30 should know what it means, but just because I'm a helpful Storyteller I will tell you that 'OL' means 'Out of Luck'.
How did a phrase with two Ohs become an acronym with only one Oh? It is how old German / English grandmothers spelled it out when their grandson would come running in and asked for a quarter to get a cone from the Mr. Softee that was coming down the street. This was only when said grandmother was visiting the child's home. Said Grandmother lived on a farm in rural Indiana, just north of tiny hamlet named Sandcut, a place so small that it's only claim to fame was that it had no claim to fame. It did have a dandy volunteer fire department and had an old general store, which was very useful to those folks passing from here to there and happened to pass through the crossroads that was Sandcut.
That farm was the place where Glenn and his three brothers were banished to each and every summer. School ended, farming began. That was life. From the age of 'He can walk' until 'We're moving to Oklahoma', Glenn and his brothers learned the way of chickens, hogs, wine making, bootlegging, cows, both for milking and running away from, corn, beans - both soy and green, peas, grapes, fireworks, watermelons, muskmelons (which did not smell of musk), skunks, skinks, lizards, snakes (venomous and non), leaches, minnows, why twenty acres is enough for one family, but fifty acres is too much, creeks, cricks, mud, dams, trees and mushrooms. Oh, and killin'. Squirrel hunting and skinning and salting and brining and cooking and eating. Rabbits too. Shooting and bow shooting and being dead on with every shot because bullets were expensive, Damn it, Glenn, shoot straight son!
It wasn't a bad life. It was life. Any day where you can stand straight, look the world in the eye and ask 'is that all you got?' is a good day. That was grandmother. Grandfather was 'as long as you keep your sense of humor, you will be fine.' Grandfather Joe was the funny one, the all-father of wisdom, the giver of truth. Grandmother EvaPurl was the law bringer, teacher of stories, bringer of magic.
Later on in years, when both had turned into their 70's, EvaPurl 'accidentally' put one of Joe's eyes out with a rock that flew from the ground when Evapurl mowed over it. Funny how things like that work. A billion gazillion to one chance that Joe would be in the exact position for a rock laying just right on the ground would be flung in such and such a direction and at a high velocity that it would remove grandfather Joe's eye. Just the one. What are the odds? Well.. it's a billion gazillion to one, of course. It would only happen in Glenn's universe because it had to, and it would be sixty years later when Glenn would think to himself "Didn't Odin have only one eye?" Funny old world ain't it?
Glenn learned at that farm, in many ways, how he was different from his siblings. He found that a number of things that would just give him the shivers, as EvaPurl would call them, wouldn't even phase his brothers even in the slightest. Here is a short list of shivermakers: Worms, fish (caught, held, touched, eaten, swam near), snakes, horses, molds (like the gelatinous ones found in the forest that have weird black spots and are called frogs eggs), cold water baths, cold water swimming, eating grapes, watermelon and fruits in general (eaten, smelled or touched), dead things that show evidence that they used to be alive.
An example of this is a dead squirrel without it's skin, hanging and draining on the side of the outhouse. This very obviously was a living thing at one time and is now a headless corpse nailed to a wall.
An example of the opposite of this is the hot dog. Nobody really knows or wants to know what is in them and how they are made and if you ever tell me I won't believe you. A hamburger. Same thing here. Ground meat is meat that is no longer recognizable as its original form and can be reshaped into any multitude of yummy goodness. A steak. Can't tell me that used to be Bossy. It's a slice of something on a plate. With a Salad. And a potato. Butter and salt and pepper, please.
Many was the time when Glenn would look at his brothers and wonder...'Am I adopted?'. Then he would look at his father, high forehead, egg shaped head, horn rim glasses and go, 'Nope. That's my tree, without a doubt.'
Still, there were disparaging differences, events and workings that were indicative of a branching of that tree where the odds of being a 'normal' child was three to one. Here's how it stood.
Oldest brother Gary, was older by four years. He was the angry one. Born to a mother without benefit of knowing who his father was. Rumor had it was either Dick Van Dyke or some escaped mental patient who had raped his mother and then ran off. Really. Both are valid possibilities. Most money is placed on Dick Van Dyke, even if it is a great long shot.
What Gary was angry about ranged from being pulled from his safe little kingdom in Sandcut when mom moved to a small town 35 miles away to work at a local college as a dishwasher to having some stranger (stepdad) giving mom three other little attention takers. Gary carried this all the way to his death at 63. He died of stupidity, from over use of drugs, drink, anger and general hatred of all things that could have brought him joy.
Interesting thing about Gary was that he gave Glenn some of his greatest wisdoms. Gary was, at the same time, the evil stepbrother and the gentle thought giver. A great intellect, Gary was well read, could sing like an angel and could punch a line with the best of the great comics. He laughed, he loved, he ran, he sang... not much this guy could not do. One weekend, he hopped a freight train to Indianapolis, hopped off and rode another one back, all in one night. Why did he do this? Just to see, man. Just to see what it felt like.
There was the time that Gary took his younger brother Glenn, five years younger, to a midnight horror show at the local Strand Theater. They were, of course, greatly underage, so they sneaked... snuck... got inside through a side door that Gary knew would be open. Gary had two other friends with him. They were both his age and not once did they make a rude noise about the younger Glenn tagging along. It was a horror anthology they went to see, and that is where Glenn learned that he didn't like to watch folks beheaded, impaled, drawn and quartered, or otherwise dismembered or rendered dead. Gary many times questioned Glenn to make sure he was all right with the movie, which confused Glenn just a bit because generally Gary was a major pain in the ass and acted as if he wanted Glenn dead. Reality was not always what it seemed to be apparently.
Glenn knew he was nothing like his older brother. Well, perhaps just a little. But he didn't like to fish or eat watermelon or could play an instrument or lift as much weight or sing as well or run as far... there were so many things that told Glenn he was not Gary, that after a while he just gave up. He was just different than his half brother. Who was not really a half brother. What is a half brother? He is either your brother or not. There is no half, just as there is no spoon. It is all in perception, not in reality. Or is it the other way around?
Youngest was James. Jamie. No Jim, Jimmy no sirree. Just Jamie. James if you absolutely have to. Smallest, weakest, least mentally agile, hardest working, most honest, most gentle, horrible little brother if there ever was one. In the early days of power assertion that always happens among boys in families, and probably girls as well, Jamie would tell stories about how horribly he was being treated by whichever brother had bought displeasure and then out would come the belt and the older and yet innocent brother would, for lack of a better term, get his hide tanned because 'he was older and should know better' or 'was bigger and should never pick on the youngest' or 'whatever you did, I'm sure you deserved it'. Yes, Jamie was the youngest and most horrible little brother until he turned up on Glenn's doorstep with cancer.
Glenn knew he was nothing like his youngest brother. Well, perhaps just a little. But he didn't have a religion and couldn't take things on face value and didn't feel the need to move around the country trying to find 'his true self' and all those other things that Jamie had in common with Gary. The one thing that Glenn knew made him different from his youngest brother was that Jamie was dead. Killed by an evil thing that Glenn was certain that Jamie could have beat, if he only wanted to. It was Glenn's believe that Jamie was ready to die, had made the choice that it was his time, and simply... gave in. And all this was probably true, and all this was entirely different from how Glenn saw his Universe. From a very early age, Glenn was in a different space from almost everyone in relationship with his Universe.
Stuck in the middle was Samuel. Thirteen months his junior, Samuel was Glenn's closest companion for many decades. They laughed and went places and had adventures and did things and made plans that would never come to pass. They were more than just brothers. They were friends. They got their first job together. They both lived with their mother in a tiny, tiny apartment when their parents divorced and their father's new... um... spouse took everything away that made their family a family. They traveled the country together to visit their mother, when she had to be placed in a nursing home.
Most close in mentality and belief structure, Samuel and Glenn grew closer and closer until the only thing that could break up the band did indeed break up the band. Glenn got married. Married to a woman that his mother and brother didn't approve of. Married to a woman who had traveled and had relationships with all sorts of folks, women and men, and even... even Gary. Yes, Glenn stole this woman, his first wife, away from his older brother. Funny how things work out.
Now, before this story moves on, here's what the family was like before it quit being what it was like. This family believed in discussion and communication. Anything was open for debate.
Father was a Masters in Engineering and a double Bachelors in Physics and Chemistry. He could play almost any instrument, stringed or brass. His basic premise was 'If you can defend it, then do.' and 'You know where the encyclopedias are. Look it up. I'm not going to tell you the answer when you can find it yourself.' Frustrating and knowledgeable, funny and logical to the extreme, Father pushed young Glenn to think, think, think. Father had told Mother 'We need to watch that one. He likes to read.'
The greatest bit of wisdom he passed on was that a person could be whatever they wanted, as long as they put their minds to it. "Even fly to the moon?" young 8 year old Glenn asked. "Even to the moon," Father nodded smiling, "As long as you really, truly believe you can, you will.".
Mother barely graduated high school. She spent a few months in a psychiatric hospital due to having Catatonia. Her parents, she would say, would lock her in a closet when company came over. It is possible. It is also just as possible as Dick Van Dyke being Gary's father. Unless one is wearing the same shoes, one never knows the true experience of another person. Who is to say, I ask of you. Who is to say?
Regardless, Mother brought to the family table, laughter, as she was a great laugh-er, as she was loud and infectious. She brought singing, and could not carry a note to save her life. She brought art, and that is where she excelled. Her painting was sublime, her sewing was amazing, her puzzles, crossword or picture or word search or just simple logic were unsurpassed. She was a genius, true and sure. Her baking, her cooking, her LIFE living was full blown forward into the wind and ran with all the gusto she could gather until two things brought her down.
One was alcohol, because kids, mamma had a lot too much to drink. It was this that was cause of her being the reason for the phrase "When she was good, she was very, very good. But when she was bad, she was a terror". Many a dish smashed. Many a belt flew. Many a threat of death occurred.
Drunk Mother was not a Happy Drunk Mother. Drunk Mother was more than enough to scare the Hulk.
The other was the divorce. Father, using Mother's alcoholic tendencies as a reason, flirted and married a woman who was in the same musical group he was in. This was after the divorce of course. This as after he introduced Glenn to her on Mother's day saying "I'm going to divorce your mother. I'd like you to meet Edra." You can guess how this went over in 18 year old Glenn's mind.
Regardless, the loss of her house, her husband, her way of life was more than enough for Mother. Samuel and Glenn found her an apartment, and Samuel moved in with her to help her make the bills, while Glenn really wanted nothing to do with either parent and for a while, lived hand to mouth, sleeping on park benches, near public swimming pools, in unlocked cars.... where ever he could find a space.
Consider this a learning time in his life.
This doesn't even describe his college years, what few there were. The time he almost froze to death. The incident he fought a demon and won. The incredible people who helped him, pushed him and pulled him until he found his own way back to a world where he was able to stand on his own two feet and figure out that he had been spoiled and pampered by his parents for his entire life.
Get a Job? Why? Father's money was never ending, a consistent pipe line to give me anything I want.
Life has a way of surprising us, yes. When you run your life a hundred miles an hour and trip over a stone, you're going to get a skinned nose at least.
So yeah. Glenn was a bit different from his family, and at the same time, given some incredible gifts by genes and by teaching.
He taught himself to meditate at the age of six. He was visiting other realms in his dreams when he was younger than that. He would sleep in the boughs of the trees in his back yard on a spring night and drink the nectar that had gathered in the leaves next to him. He listened to the trees, talked and had relationships with the little people who lived in the grasses and believed in the eternal everything from which we all sprang. He still does to this day. If all that sounds like BS, then tough. That was probably the most honest and real thing in this whole story.
When he was 7 he caught something. No idea what, and he didn't communicate with his parents about it either. It was late one night, maybe 7 pm, maybe 8 pm... the family was in the living room watching a movie of some sort. Young Glenn wandered into the living room and said "I'm going to bed" and did. A seven year old putting himself to be should have raised suspicions but it apparently did not.
He lay on the bottom bunk of his bed and slept. During that sleep he developed and broke a fever. No idea how high but it was high enough that he had a fever dream. This is it.
He was falling. Falling in the dark. Falling, falling, further and further. There was laughter all round him and there was a sticky sweet feeling to the air. The laughter came from his family, from his friends, from everyone he knew. The laughter, he knew was directed at him, and it wasn't the kind laughter of a shared joke. It was the cruel laughter of when you are the shared joke, and you are the only one who doesn't get the punch line.
Falling, falling, falling. Further and further into the darkness that was this dream. Stickier and sweeter and more sick was the feeling from the dream. Louder the laughter came.
All night the dream lasted. It stopped only when he woke up. Mother told him that he had had a fever of one hundred and three and a half. His bedding was soaked through. His mind was a fog, and he could not stand without shaking. He felt as if he had died and come back.
And who can tell? It's possible. In the years to come there were two other times when he was surely to have died, but did not. Immortality, Glenn would say in his later years, didn't mean you never died. Immortality meant you didn't stay dead. Glenn wasn't 'exactly' sure he was immortal. But he was pretty sure.
And that, dear reader just about sums up the early years. Not really sure where this is headed, but I'm going to hang on for the ride. Hope to see you on the bus.
We have all been there. We have all been one, I think. Some of us probably still are. Let's contemplate what that meant, being a child.
For some, it meant play or a sense of freedom from those responsibilities of bills or working or achy bones or bad sinuses or having to miss a great movie because something came up with work, family, religion, life, or some other simulated reason.
Interestingly, children have no religion, and yet religions all claim children. Some claim them through life, some through birth, some, sadly, through death. Interesting, but not necessarily, fun.
Glenn was a child once upon a time. His early memories take him back to when he was either three or six months old, depending upon which dead parent you ask, if you can get them to talk to you at all. The dead, oddly, don't like to speak much, if at all. I suppose it's because they have other things to deal with. Being dead can be quite the ordeal, I imagine.
Regardless, his earliest memories of being a child are of a party or some sort of gathering. There was a tree with lights and tinsel and gaily wrapped presents under the the tree. It was a real tree, all pine and smelling of pine and looking of pine and holding a very festive sort of pineish presence. There were many people gathered there, and though Glenn wasn't sure, he felt he recognized some of those people as relatives. Perhaps that figure was a very young uncle Jim, his father's brother. Perhaps that one was a very lovely aunt Barb. It was all pretty blurry, due to the lights and noise and clinking of glasses and music and the hubbub of conversation, none of which he understood as he was still very young and his language centers had not quite developed yet. And he was very tired, a thing that most parents wait for with great passion as it means their lovely little one would soon be out of the way and fast asleep and they could get on with their very adult sort of games that they play trying to remember what it was like when they didn't have a small bundle of joy to watch constantly and make no mistake, children are a joy, just occasionally a very noisy, very smelly, very expensive, very bothersome sort of joy. It's a joy that comes later, while being at the same time. It's a time traveling joy that nobody expects until it's actually there.
Glenn, the baby, was very tired. And like all tired babies, made no bones about it, it is supposed. Glenn had no memories of crying or being a problem baby or having colic or measles or being whiny or having messy diapers. He just didn't. This little flash of holiday memory was brought to him by the letter S, for silent. He had a flash of laying under the tree, although why any responsible adult would place a baby under a tree is unknown and possibly a very bad idea. Then again, during those years all sorts of things were allowed that are no longer 'proper' for people to do. Back then you could beat your spouse, and on occasion, Glenn's mother did exactly that. Back then, you could also beat your children, and on occasion, Glenn's mother did exactly that, too. Never enough to leave much of a mark because neighbors talk, you know.
The year was 1957.
The Soviet Union - it was a thing, just not any longer. Look it up. Fascinating concept, poor execution. And there were a lot of executions! The Soviet Union had just launched the world's first satellite, besides the moon, called Sputnik I. The moon had no comment and the 'Space Race' was begun. That race was not really much of a race because, it seems, most of the participant quit racing due to politics, money, war, famine, crooked politics, war and politics.
Elvis Presley, a singer, almost an actor, and some said he was an entertainer, purchased a very large mansion named Graceland. People still go there it is said, but there is no one named Grace living there.
The Frisbee was first tossed on to a roof and never retrieved and Theodor Geisel, posing as a doctor, produced an educational children's book with the odd name of 'The Cat in the Hat'.
Glenn's older brother would eventually own an eleven inch statue of said cat and he was, indeed, wearing a hat. Glenn had a greater preference for a cat wearing a stripped floppy top hat then he did for a self indulgent singer of modified and stolen gospel tunes. Seriously, Elvis was okay, and he's easy to make fun of. The greatest thing he did, much like Mr. Cat, was to open the minds of the world's children to new things, new ideas, new concepts, young type of thinking that was built around them. It was the breaking of molds and the releasing of bonds. Children and other young people were starting to be treated as humans.
On that one Christmas day or eve or whenever it was that there was a pine tree with lights lit up and noise all around and alcohol was flowing and music was roasting nuts on open fires, but no Elvis and a little Glenn baby was tired and probably emitting some serious put me to bed sounds, that Glenn's mother, his memories say, picked him up and placed him on his parent's bed so that he could get some much needed sleep and the adults could get some much needed adulting.
Glenn remembered the lacy bedspread, the embroidered pillow cases, the whiteness of it all and the muffled of sounds. He also remembered a great light, next to him. A great, bright light that shone with amazing intensity and called to him. As a baby, who knows what he heard. Certainly not a 'Glenn... come here. Pull my cord, Glenn. Pull it.' sort of sound. Quite likely, it was no sound at all, but much like moth to a flame, baby Glenn wanted more of this. He reached out his chubby little fist and pulled the bright bedside lamp onto the lacy bedspread,where, as expected, the heat from that shining and bright light bulb set the lacy bedspread aflame.
Fortunately, Glenn's mom was also a bit wired differently so she smelled or felt, or sensed or just generally mommed the concept that 'Baby was in Danger!' and rushed in to the rescue before anything serious had been done. Good on her, being that sort of supermom. Doesn't quite make up for some of the almost horrible things that came later, but that's later, isn't it. We're not even close to that yet. Maybe we won't even get there. Probably we will, but maybe not.
That is the earliest memory that Glenn has of this lifetime. It's not the earliest memory he has of all his lifetimes, or this planet or this universe. Those are filed away in his brain's file cabinet as possible false memories, crazy stuff, dreams stuff, and story ideas. If pinned down, Glenn couldn't even guarantee that this life was not a false memory, created by an odd mixing of a dozen drunk quarks, shaken with a few wild neutrinos and given a bit of density by some dark matter who didn't have anything else to do on a boring Sunday night. However, this life is where is now, and really, what are you gonna do? It's the cards you were dealt and if you can't cheat the dealer, then you gotta cheat yourself.
Most memories are lies we tell ourselves. Rarely are they 100 percent accurate. In fact, if you have a spouse the percentage of accuracy of your particular memory of any event drops significantly. If you have been enspoused more than once, you're pretty much SOL. SOL is put there for kiddies, if any happen to read this far in and haven't suffered any major brain damage yet. Any person older that 30 should know what it means, but just because I'm a helpful Storyteller I will tell you that 'OL' means 'Out of Luck'.
How did a phrase with two Ohs become an acronym with only one Oh? It is how old German / English grandmothers spelled it out when their grandson would come running in and asked for a quarter to get a cone from the Mr. Softee that was coming down the street. This was only when said grandmother was visiting the child's home. Said Grandmother lived on a farm in rural Indiana, just north of tiny hamlet named Sandcut, a place so small that it's only claim to fame was that it had no claim to fame. It did have a dandy volunteer fire department and had an old general store, which was very useful to those folks passing from here to there and happened to pass through the crossroads that was Sandcut.
That farm was the place where Glenn and his three brothers were banished to each and every summer. School ended, farming began. That was life. From the age of 'He can walk' until 'We're moving to Oklahoma', Glenn and his brothers learned the way of chickens, hogs, wine making, bootlegging, cows, both for milking and running away from, corn, beans - both soy and green, peas, grapes, fireworks, watermelons, muskmelons (which did not smell of musk), skunks, skinks, lizards, snakes (venomous and non), leaches, minnows, why twenty acres is enough for one family, but fifty acres is too much, creeks, cricks, mud, dams, trees and mushrooms. Oh, and killin'. Squirrel hunting and skinning and salting and brining and cooking and eating. Rabbits too. Shooting and bow shooting and being dead on with every shot because bullets were expensive, Damn it, Glenn, shoot straight son!
It wasn't a bad life. It was life. Any day where you can stand straight, look the world in the eye and ask 'is that all you got?' is a good day. That was grandmother. Grandfather was 'as long as you keep your sense of humor, you will be fine.' Grandfather Joe was the funny one, the all-father of wisdom, the giver of truth. Grandmother EvaPurl was the law bringer, teacher of stories, bringer of magic.
Later on in years, when both had turned into their 70's, EvaPurl 'accidentally' put one of Joe's eyes out with a rock that flew from the ground when Evapurl mowed over it. Funny how things like that work. A billion gazillion to one chance that Joe would be in the exact position for a rock laying just right on the ground would be flung in such and such a direction and at a high velocity that it would remove grandfather Joe's eye. Just the one. What are the odds? Well.. it's a billion gazillion to one, of course. It would only happen in Glenn's universe because it had to, and it would be sixty years later when Glenn would think to himself "Didn't Odin have only one eye?" Funny old world ain't it?
Glenn learned at that farm, in many ways, how he was different from his siblings. He found that a number of things that would just give him the shivers, as EvaPurl would call them, wouldn't even phase his brothers even in the slightest. Here is a short list of shivermakers: Worms, fish (caught, held, touched, eaten, swam near), snakes, horses, molds (like the gelatinous ones found in the forest that have weird black spots and are called frogs eggs), cold water baths, cold water swimming, eating grapes, watermelon and fruits in general (eaten, smelled or touched), dead things that show evidence that they used to be alive.
An example of this is a dead squirrel without it's skin, hanging and draining on the side of the outhouse. This very obviously was a living thing at one time and is now a headless corpse nailed to a wall.
An example of the opposite of this is the hot dog. Nobody really knows or wants to know what is in them and how they are made and if you ever tell me I won't believe you. A hamburger. Same thing here. Ground meat is meat that is no longer recognizable as its original form and can be reshaped into any multitude of yummy goodness. A steak. Can't tell me that used to be Bossy. It's a slice of something on a plate. With a Salad. And a potato. Butter and salt and pepper, please.
Many was the time when Glenn would look at his brothers and wonder...'Am I adopted?'. Then he would look at his father, high forehead, egg shaped head, horn rim glasses and go, 'Nope. That's my tree, without a doubt.'
Still, there were disparaging differences, events and workings that were indicative of a branching of that tree where the odds of being a 'normal' child was three to one. Here's how it stood.
Oldest brother Gary, was older by four years. He was the angry one. Born to a mother without benefit of knowing who his father was. Rumor had it was either Dick Van Dyke or some escaped mental patient who had raped his mother and then ran off. Really. Both are valid possibilities. Most money is placed on Dick Van Dyke, even if it is a great long shot.
What Gary was angry about ranged from being pulled from his safe little kingdom in Sandcut when mom moved to a small town 35 miles away to work at a local college as a dishwasher to having some stranger (stepdad) giving mom three other little attention takers. Gary carried this all the way to his death at 63. He died of stupidity, from over use of drugs, drink, anger and general hatred of all things that could have brought him joy.
Interesting thing about Gary was that he gave Glenn some of his greatest wisdoms. Gary was, at the same time, the evil stepbrother and the gentle thought giver. A great intellect, Gary was well read, could sing like an angel and could punch a line with the best of the great comics. He laughed, he loved, he ran, he sang... not much this guy could not do. One weekend, he hopped a freight train to Indianapolis, hopped off and rode another one back, all in one night. Why did he do this? Just to see, man. Just to see what it felt like.
There was the time that Gary took his younger brother Glenn, five years younger, to a midnight horror show at the local Strand Theater. They were, of course, greatly underage, so they sneaked... snuck... got inside through a side door that Gary knew would be open. Gary had two other friends with him. They were both his age and not once did they make a rude noise about the younger Glenn tagging along. It was a horror anthology they went to see, and that is where Glenn learned that he didn't like to watch folks beheaded, impaled, drawn and quartered, or otherwise dismembered or rendered dead. Gary many times questioned Glenn to make sure he was all right with the movie, which confused Glenn just a bit because generally Gary was a major pain in the ass and acted as if he wanted Glenn dead. Reality was not always what it seemed to be apparently.
Glenn knew he was nothing like his older brother. Well, perhaps just a little. But he didn't like to fish or eat watermelon or could play an instrument or lift as much weight or sing as well or run as far... there were so many things that told Glenn he was not Gary, that after a while he just gave up. He was just different than his half brother. Who was not really a half brother. What is a half brother? He is either your brother or not. There is no half, just as there is no spoon. It is all in perception, not in reality. Or is it the other way around?
Youngest was James. Jamie. No Jim, Jimmy no sirree. Just Jamie. James if you absolutely have to. Smallest, weakest, least mentally agile, hardest working, most honest, most gentle, horrible little brother if there ever was one. In the early days of power assertion that always happens among boys in families, and probably girls as well, Jamie would tell stories about how horribly he was being treated by whichever brother had bought displeasure and then out would come the belt and the older and yet innocent brother would, for lack of a better term, get his hide tanned because 'he was older and should know better' or 'was bigger and should never pick on the youngest' or 'whatever you did, I'm sure you deserved it'. Yes, Jamie was the youngest and most horrible little brother until he turned up on Glenn's doorstep with cancer.
Glenn knew he was nothing like his youngest brother. Well, perhaps just a little. But he didn't have a religion and couldn't take things on face value and didn't feel the need to move around the country trying to find 'his true self' and all those other things that Jamie had in common with Gary. The one thing that Glenn knew made him different from his youngest brother was that Jamie was dead. Killed by an evil thing that Glenn was certain that Jamie could have beat, if he only wanted to. It was Glenn's believe that Jamie was ready to die, had made the choice that it was his time, and simply... gave in. And all this was probably true, and all this was entirely different from how Glenn saw his Universe. From a very early age, Glenn was in a different space from almost everyone in relationship with his Universe.
Stuck in the middle was Samuel. Thirteen months his junior, Samuel was Glenn's closest companion for many decades. They laughed and went places and had adventures and did things and made plans that would never come to pass. They were more than just brothers. They were friends. They got their first job together. They both lived with their mother in a tiny, tiny apartment when their parents divorced and their father's new... um... spouse took everything away that made their family a family. They traveled the country together to visit their mother, when she had to be placed in a nursing home.
Most close in mentality and belief structure, Samuel and Glenn grew closer and closer until the only thing that could break up the band did indeed break up the band. Glenn got married. Married to a woman that his mother and brother didn't approve of. Married to a woman who had traveled and had relationships with all sorts of folks, women and men, and even... even Gary. Yes, Glenn stole this woman, his first wife, away from his older brother. Funny how things work out.
Now, before this story moves on, here's what the family was like before it quit being what it was like. This family believed in discussion and communication. Anything was open for debate.
Father was a Masters in Engineering and a double Bachelors in Physics and Chemistry. He could play almost any instrument, stringed or brass. His basic premise was 'If you can defend it, then do.' and 'You know where the encyclopedias are. Look it up. I'm not going to tell you the answer when you can find it yourself.' Frustrating and knowledgeable, funny and logical to the extreme, Father pushed young Glenn to think, think, think. Father had told Mother 'We need to watch that one. He likes to read.'
The greatest bit of wisdom he passed on was that a person could be whatever they wanted, as long as they put their minds to it. "Even fly to the moon?" young 8 year old Glenn asked. "Even to the moon," Father nodded smiling, "As long as you really, truly believe you can, you will.".
Mother barely graduated high school. She spent a few months in a psychiatric hospital due to having Catatonia. Her parents, she would say, would lock her in a closet when company came over. It is possible. It is also just as possible as Dick Van Dyke being Gary's father. Unless one is wearing the same shoes, one never knows the true experience of another person. Who is to say, I ask of you. Who is to say?
Regardless, Mother brought to the family table, laughter, as she was a great laugh-er, as she was loud and infectious. She brought singing, and could not carry a note to save her life. She brought art, and that is where she excelled. Her painting was sublime, her sewing was amazing, her puzzles, crossword or picture or word search or just simple logic were unsurpassed. She was a genius, true and sure. Her baking, her cooking, her LIFE living was full blown forward into the wind and ran with all the gusto she could gather until two things brought her down.
One was alcohol, because kids, mamma had a lot too much to drink. It was this that was cause of her being the reason for the phrase "When she was good, she was very, very good. But when she was bad, she was a terror". Many a dish smashed. Many a belt flew. Many a threat of death occurred.
Drunk Mother was not a Happy Drunk Mother. Drunk Mother was more than enough to scare the Hulk.
The other was the divorce. Father, using Mother's alcoholic tendencies as a reason, flirted and married a woman who was in the same musical group he was in. This was after the divorce of course. This as after he introduced Glenn to her on Mother's day saying "I'm going to divorce your mother. I'd like you to meet Edra." You can guess how this went over in 18 year old Glenn's mind.
Regardless, the loss of her house, her husband, her way of life was more than enough for Mother. Samuel and Glenn found her an apartment, and Samuel moved in with her to help her make the bills, while Glenn really wanted nothing to do with either parent and for a while, lived hand to mouth, sleeping on park benches, near public swimming pools, in unlocked cars.... where ever he could find a space.
Consider this a learning time in his life.
This doesn't even describe his college years, what few there were. The time he almost froze to death. The incident he fought a demon and won. The incredible people who helped him, pushed him and pulled him until he found his own way back to a world where he was able to stand on his own two feet and figure out that he had been spoiled and pampered by his parents for his entire life.
Get a Job? Why? Father's money was never ending, a consistent pipe line to give me anything I want.
Life has a way of surprising us, yes. When you run your life a hundred miles an hour and trip over a stone, you're going to get a skinned nose at least.
So yeah. Glenn was a bit different from his family, and at the same time, given some incredible gifts by genes and by teaching.
He taught himself to meditate at the age of six. He was visiting other realms in his dreams when he was younger than that. He would sleep in the boughs of the trees in his back yard on a spring night and drink the nectar that had gathered in the leaves next to him. He listened to the trees, talked and had relationships with the little people who lived in the grasses and believed in the eternal everything from which we all sprang. He still does to this day. If all that sounds like BS, then tough. That was probably the most honest and real thing in this whole story.
When he was 7 he caught something. No idea what, and he didn't communicate with his parents about it either. It was late one night, maybe 7 pm, maybe 8 pm... the family was in the living room watching a movie of some sort. Young Glenn wandered into the living room and said "I'm going to bed" and did. A seven year old putting himself to be should have raised suspicions but it apparently did not.
He lay on the bottom bunk of his bed and slept. During that sleep he developed and broke a fever. No idea how high but it was high enough that he had a fever dream. This is it.
He was falling. Falling in the dark. Falling, falling, further and further. There was laughter all round him and there was a sticky sweet feeling to the air. The laughter came from his family, from his friends, from everyone he knew. The laughter, he knew was directed at him, and it wasn't the kind laughter of a shared joke. It was the cruel laughter of when you are the shared joke, and you are the only one who doesn't get the punch line.
Falling, falling, falling. Further and further into the darkness that was this dream. Stickier and sweeter and more sick was the feeling from the dream. Louder the laughter came.
All night the dream lasted. It stopped only when he woke up. Mother told him that he had had a fever of one hundred and three and a half. His bedding was soaked through. His mind was a fog, and he could not stand without shaking. He felt as if he had died and come back.
And who can tell? It's possible. In the years to come there were two other times when he was surely to have died, but did not. Immortality, Glenn would say in his later years, didn't mean you never died. Immortality meant you didn't stay dead. Glenn wasn't 'exactly' sure he was immortal. But he was pretty sure.
And that, dear reader just about sums up the early years. Not really sure where this is headed, but I'm going to hang on for the ride. Hope to see you on the bus.
