DON'T PUT YOUR FEET ON THE FURNITURE!

Stories, articles, books, have an ending and a beginning. Writing them, they grow from the middle outwards. The beginning is already there, as is the end. The only part that can grow is the middle. Now, this is fine for stories, articles and books, but Blogs? They can only grow from the end. Like a diary. So I gotta hop around a lot as I think of new things to write. Some of it is bound to be a repeat, since my memory isn't perfect. I'll bet yours ain't either, so don't go laying any trips on me.

So back to Dr. Burke and my analysis.

I once pulled K. P. at the cadet squadron back in 1949. I was so envious of them. I wanted to be a cadet so badly I could taste it. This was where I belonged. Where I could never be.

Years later, I took a test for OCS (Officer's Candidate School). There were some people in the testing room testing for cadet flying training. I didn't take that test because I didn't feel I had what it took to go through pilot training. I wanted to, but what was the use? I realize now that I did have what it took except for this damn self esteem problem. So on the other hand, I didn't have what it took.

I was standing outside the shop where I worked after taking the test -- knowing I had passed the OCS test when my buddy, who knew me well, said, "You know, as an officer, you'll, be required to go to parties." Bingo! To hell with OCS.

Did I tell you that at parties to which my wife drug me, that I would find a book or a magazine so fascinating to me that I would bury my head in it so that I would not have to "relate" to anyone? I figured that nobody would notice me, but of course this made them notice me all the more.

"Who is that nut hiding over there in the corner?" they would ask each other.

I thought everyone else knew how to party. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was expecting someone to come along and teach me how to live. I sure as hell didn't know how.

This was the guy who, while waiting for a friend at his house I overheard him say to his wife that I was always blushing. "Look," he says, "he's doing it right now!" I'm standing there blushing -- for no reason. Embarrassed. About what? Existing, I guess.

I always felt that everyone was always looking at me, judging me, condemning me. Dr. Burke once told me that I thought that people could see the inside of me by looking though my eyes. I recognized that right away.

I used to go on three day trips when I was on flying status. TDY (Temporary Duty). I thought, not being around my wife, that she would begin to see what a bad person I was. I felt I had to be around someone so they didn't have a chance to think about me. I could schmooze them. The fact that I couldn't schmooze a squirrel never entered my mind. Since I had given her an opportunity to see my true self, I had better attack her first before she could do it to me. I ALWAYS arrived home hesitant and defensive, sure I was going to be told to go away and never come back.

One time when I was fifteen years old, my girl went into a dance hall to talk to her friend a few moments -- maybe five minutes. When she came out, looking at her from below, on the stairs, I pointed a finger at her and said, "You can go to hell."

What had happened in my mind was that she would find someone in there who was head and shoulders better than me. Out of maybe fifty men in there, there had to be at least forty-five who far outshone me. Better I dropped her than she dropped me, like she was obviously going to do.

Besides being shy, I was angry. Not being able to stand up for myself, not wishing to offend anyone, I could only respond to what I considered an imposition when I was angry. Then I didn't care what they thought of me. It gave me a freedom in which I could make my voice heard, although my actions were usually way out of proportion to the perceived injustice. Besides a sense of injustice setting me off, any suggestion -- by word or action that the person thought I was stupid would do the trick.

I took a book back to the college book store for a return and the paper cover had been accidentally bent (while in my care). The man refused to take it, which made me furious. On the way out of the store I took a book from a display as a substitute and stormed out of the place. Looking through is on the way to a coffee house type of edifice, I noticed that it was a book of poetry. I felt cheated. I was outraged. How dare they? I immediately turned around, stormed back to the bookstore, gave a little more thought to a replacement, picked it up, left the poetry book and walked out. I remember a girl at the checkout counter watching me, but I must have looked and acted so dangerous that nobody said a word.

Another time I bought something in a grocery store, went outside where I discovered I didn't want it for some reason I can't remember now. I took it back to the same girl that I had bought it from and she said it wasn't listed on my receipt. GOD DAMN IT TO HELL! I stormed out, but at the door I blindly threw the item back into the store as hard as I could. One of my sons told me that he saw it hit a customer in the back. I wonder what the customer thought -- where did he think the item came from? Why him? Hah!

These stories are difficult for me to disclose. I don't even like to think about them. I ain't gonna tell about the time I punched an old man in a fit of road rage. I was not a good husband, I was not a good father, I was not a good person.

Dr. Burke once commented that he thought it interesting that Americans used the word, "mad" when they meant "angry." My anger sure made me "mad."

I remember an argument with Dr. Burke in which I stated that if a man walked up to a woman and asked for sex, he would be refused, but if a woman walked up to a man and asked for sex, he would probably oblige. The argument was about whether or not women were as difficult to get into bed as it was to pick coconuts in Iowa.

After that session I walked out to my car which was by a park and I saw a woman sitting on the grass. Scared as hell, I went over to her and engaged in small talk. In no way was I going to initiate anything more than that. It was a test to see if she would shoot me.

Everything went well. I left, but I wonder nowadays what that woman must have thought of that incident. "Seemed like a pickup, but yet not. Did he think he knew me? Did I smell? Did he just come out of analysis and was trying out something he learned there?"

It was not too long after I began analysis with Dr. Burke - a week or two maybe, that I learned that whatever happened during the time between sessions, Dr. Burke would make it better. I began to get my first taste of confidence. A very pleasant sensation.

I was with my wife and a friend of hers in the Sac State cafeteria. I was carrying a plate of spaghetti to our table when I spilled it all over the floor. I cleaned it up as well as I could and went to get another serving. It wasn't until we were in the car on the way home that I realized what had happened. I had felt no embarrassment at all. Ordinarily I would have dissolved into a red-faced flushing pool of quivering ashamedness.

I discovered that no one knew how to live. We are all doing it for the first time. I was free to do whatever I wanted. There are no rules except those we make for ourselves. I could be clumsy any time I wished. There never was a rule about clumsiness.

I began to identify emotions I never knew I had.

I started wearing neon colored socks of different bright colors. Neon red sock on one foot, neon blue sock on the other. I bought a pair of gold colored corduroy pants with matching vest which I wore at parties with my wife. I enjoyed a freedom I never suspected existed.