Chapter 2 "White Privilege"

My father worked for Catholic Charities and was transferred to Washington D.C. when I was three. That’s where my extraordinary memory and the ability to sort of like put things on a mental hard drive will kick in. LV I was a sort of prodigy in my own way for I had no fear and a constantly inquisitive mind. I engaged in activities that often only the “big kids” were doing for instance; I could swim and jumping off the side of the pool or the high dive was all the same to me, yet I was incredibly shy being an only child. I spent my day times in pre-school while both parents worked, and at night we lived in our two bedroom apartment on the 2nd floor of a building in D.C. I have a couple of memorable incidents from this age. I can go all the way back to my last set of foster parents at the age of one year and I was adopted at thirteen months. I remember the stone house where we lived in Detroit, the brown bath tub, our cat, the living room where I lost my best rolling toy under a large dark stained cabinet, or riding my tricycle up and down the sidewalk. Though it maybe considered remarkable to have solid memories of that time nothing of notice happened until we moved south.

We were on our way to Mexico entering via California. We had stopped on the side of the highway; why exactly, I don’t remember. I do recall a diaper being thrown out the window by my mother. She was a little mad. I had made a mess. While my parents were hosing down the inside of the car; I scampered off in the desert for my eye had been caught by an unusual cactus. I pulled the flower off the top and popped it into my mouth. The most incredible sweet flavor filled my mouth and rushed down my throat like nothing I had ever experienced. If you ask me three and half is a little young to be tripping on Peyote. I have a few memories about the next three days. I recall an old Mexican man with on of those big Sombreros who sitting with his back to a wall on the ground had an interesting talk with me for a while what he said; I don’t recall. My parents had purchased a huge balloon in the shape of Santa Clause for it was just before Christmas, and I was very sick, had been for two days. I awoke Christmas morning and went to look out the window on the small balcony for the Santa balloon, yet it was gone. My parents were overjoyed for my fever had broken in the night. They covered me with kisses and hugs and tears were very evident in both there eye’s which for my mom said something my dad is pretty much a sap. Mom would only cry if she was really mad or real scared which didn’t happen much.

 Her temper was something though; boy let me tell you I have seen here go after a man 6 foot 4 inches tall who was violently mad. I mean this guy had murder in his eye, and was intent on carrying it out. He came through our yard chasing my dog Spooks our dog at the time. It seems Spooks bit him. Not the first not the last. Well this guy decides to kill Spook’s with a big rock. I can see that rock in my head it was a big hunk of quartz a light tan in color about the size of a small cantaloupe. I first saw it skittering down the walkway at the base of the stairs throwing sparks right behind Spooks, for a second I thought I was going catch him then Spooks pulled the juke move that totally threw the rock and it miss it’s aim traveled across the backyard the crashed full speed into the side of garage which took the blow with a modicum of indifference except for a dent it was fine. The final person in this parade was the one who had hurled this destructive instrument moving fast and like I said PISSED OFF. What he wasn’t counting on was my Mom. My Mom was maybe five feet, maybe. My mom swelled up to about 8 feet easy, and fire shot from her eye’s, her voice had the effect of a freeze ray on the guy, and he came to a dead stop from a full run without a step. My mom won that yelling match hands down.

I found out more of the story of our trip to Mexico when I was older. It seems they had not kept me up to par with my immunizations, and I needed to get my small pox vaccination before I could enter Mexico. A doctor was called, not our regular physician. I know, no kidding we're in Mexico. A Mexican official type Doctor who administered my vaccinations in a haphazard fashion. I say this because of the mess he left in his wake. The small pox vaccine in my day left a small ring on the upper arm of all those who received this vaccine it was a sort of an ear mark. The doctor who did work on me was not properly prepared, and any kid worth his salt is going to grab, pull, or scratch at the work unless it’s bandaged by a someone skilled in the art in this case a master in the art would have been necessary because I would guess the peyote was starting to kick-in about that time. I scratched, and I scratched, my arm my face; I was scratching. This was bad; it seems if one scratches small pox vaccine the small controlled little ring of small pox can be kind of smeared around, and allowing an open sore come in contact with the fresh vaccine was just asking for it. I was accomplishing this as fast as possible until my mother pulled me over, and helped the Doctor who was an apprentice bandager. I got small pox sort of but not really. So needless to say my parents were pretty scared, and therefore overwhelmed with joy that I was fine. Me, I just wanted my balloon.

I spent time in several pre-schools due to the fact that both my parents pursued jobs. One of these lay in a big basement in large building. It was an old building with tile floors. The first part of the morning involved a group activity at our desks after cleaning our cubby holes. The cubby hole area also was next to where we hung our coats and in the same room as the desks where we also ate lunch. There is a certain reflex that makes a child just plain throw-up; I found mine with sweet potatoes. All the kids had herd the menu and were dancing around sing-songing “Sweet Potato, Sweet Potato”. So I start “Sweet Potato Sweet Potato”, and then the sweet potatoes came and I was eating and saved them for last and took one bite. All the food in my mouth came out immediately followed by all the food in my stomach. I got in trouble for that. It was told that I had a willful disregard for authority and was not following directions when my mother who had been called out of work to get me showed up. It was true that rebel thing yet, I plead innocent this time. You see what really happened was, I started puking and stood up, still puking, and the proctor an elderly lady(well older than my Mom, and quit possibly an nun undercover, they do that you know.) rolls over and starts yelling at me to stop. That’s all, no rebellion other than my stomach. It would be off to naps after lunch. It was the wake-up we all waited for; playtime. What was so great about this church’s basement was the floor. The huge cavern had a wide tiled floor with a gentle slope towards the center where an inlaid drain centered the floor. Remember this is play time and what is play time with out toys. After naps the great chests of toys were opened and among these toys lay the most coveted toys of all by the boys; wooden rolling toys that could hold the upper half of a small child up. Some resembled fire trucks, or dump trucks, but the best one of all was the ambulance. It had the best wheels and went the fastest. So when you’re a little boy being a “Vrooming” truck, zoom, zoom, back and forth across the smooth tiles, “Vroom” “Vroom” for hours, well at least until Mom showed up. The best day ever was the day I woke up early before all the other kids at nap time and I got the ambulance.

I remember other things from being three like swimming, the dog paddle and the high dive. Really, you see my parents learned I could climb anything I could get a leg on, and not fall.( In fact though out my solo rock climbing adventures and time I spent in trees I’ve only fallen once or twice from not far that’s 15ft or above. I used to run the woods up in Appalachia, West Virginia shelf jumping get flights of 30 ft on down hill swoops, which means I run down a mountainside that had an up life in the base granite and turned in on an angle then pushed it back down that’s all geography but the point is it granite shelves layered in such a fashion make great ramps.) My mother used to laugh when she would tell people, “I’m looking over at the line of all the big boys-” my mothers hand would gesture in the air like she was patting the head of tall boys then her had would descend in representation of my position, and she would laugh, I always loved my mom’s laugh it was always pure. “And there he would be in line. All the other boys would be looking at him with disbelief in their eyes, and up John would go right the ladder one rung at a time.” (You know when a kid so little and they run up on a step so big they got to use their stepping leg to get up real high and kind of get that foot hooked and then up you go. I could do that.) “Up, up until he reached the board, and zoom he’s right running right off the end into the air-” Again the laughing as my mother could get the giggles a little. “and plop into the deep end he went.” There she would pause giving her audience of ladies enough time to ask. “Well?”

“Oh well” She would say in a manner of fact tone, “He would just dog paddle right along to the latter, climb out of the pool, and get back in line” Now everyone would have a good laugh.

In 1973 my father purchased an old three story Victorian on 7321Takoma Avenue. A house with a history a story that started in 1878 when it was built for one of the two major land owners of Takoma Park M.D. and then transported in 1931 on logs with horse teams three blocks to it’s present location. This house would be the place where my childhood would be played out. When I first saw the house we were to live in it shot into the sky above the strange willow tree that reached to the sky in with strange arms and green tuffs like something from a Dr. Sues book. The front of the house had four great windows stacked on top of each other with a porch to our right with a white icing trim. In the middle behind a small round azalea that turned pink in the spring like I swear on of those marshmallow things with the coconut, hostess I think, lay a big red door as the center piece of a two small pillared cement porch. We entered the house into a small foyer straight ahead where the stairs to the second floor on the left hand the dinning room on the right lay the living room a room with a warning; for the 13 foot ceiling was falling in. We were not allowed to enter the room until it was finished my father decree, but you can look in he added. My father pulled back the plastic and we looked into the gloomy room. It ran the length of the house making the room now large to me now, at five years old, it was a cavern, a colossal cavern that my father, year after year, would fill with the largest Christmas tree possible. The ceiling was twelve feet eight inches which in my father’s eyes could hold a fourteen foot tree once we cut off the bottom and trimmed the top. I remember the age old battle my father a piece of twine, two nails, a Christmas tree with an average base of eight feet which could swallow a small child easily, and the ever present gravity which never seemed to change tactics during it’s run in with my father. My father did, every year he would have a new plan. My mother and I were his accomplishes, following his direction, until at least once the tree would crash into the wall, or topple on top of me or my mother completely engulfing one or the other of us. My father once brought a hammer and step stool into the mix. This was bad and my mother and I new it. My little sister Alicia was there that year so my mother was ridding herd on her at a safe distance. My father’s first foray up the step stool twine attached to the tree hammer in hand leaning in a precarious fashion and then zeroed in on his nail hook was successful. Well he picked the easy side first. The other lay in the corner behind the tree. What happened next was one of those things that I remember in slow motion. I believe it has to do with the fact that I move into an arena of heightened awareness when in danger which allows me to get away to safety before doom descends. I was tired of getting caught under the tree, and without mom’s voice and the natural maternal need to keep her child safe from harm; I might be in trouble. I’m not really sure how my father’s gyros work but some how he can manipulate hand tools or machinery with some unseen ability which I still haven’t figured out. None the less Dad began his assent up the step stool, hammer in one hand and the nail in the side of his mouth while the other side of his mouth was telling me which branches I should hold and where to stand. All this I considered dubious, yet I trusted my Dad, and the tree though large couldn’t kill me, just hold me to the ground like some great pine claw with needles for hair. I forgot to tell you in his other hand he had the twine which of course was looped around the tree I was holding, and looped around his hand. Now you are starting to see the picture. In short there where a lot of variables, making my contribution negligible at best, Dad began by pulling the nail from his mouth and while holding the tree’s weight with the hand holding the twine which worked well. He raised the hammer zeroed in on his nail, while his tongue did flips and turns in his mouth, swung, and missed catching his thumb instead. Everything happened at once, the hand holding the twine decided to take it personal that it had been hit in the thumb and quite its job post haste which included letting go of the twine and for good measure slipping off the wall towards the corner with my dad right behind it. Crash went Dad behind the tree where there wasn’t enough room for him which set into motion the law of equal and opposite action; meanwhile I am on the other side of the tree about to receive the opposite action. Everything went dark green, I herd my Mom give a little gasp and yell, “Jerry”. I was trapped, yet I had not let go of the branches I was holding like a good son. I wanted the tree up other wise no Santa and no Santa means no gifts or maybe I was just holding fast like a sailor on the stormy seas. My parents quickly pulled the tree up into the air, and my Mom grabbed my legs and pulled me out. I still had not let go and found myself with two hands full of pine needles. We got the tree up finally without any more miss haps. The next year my mom wanted a blue spruce which is an expensive tree and only comes in smaller sizes. Dad had to deal with a tree that was only ten feet tall which was a literal reprieve from the governor. The twine was there as usual for it housed all the Christmas cards we would receive; some things were not meant to change.

There were twenty-one stairs leading up to the second floor to the left lay the large black and white tiled bathroom, to the right was my sisters room, and back towards the front of the house lay a long hall which connected to my room in the front right of the house across the hall was the master bedroom where my parents slept. I had chose my own wall paper, Noah and the Ark complete with animals two by two. Out my window to the front one could get a good look across the street and see the train tracks behind the row of pine trees that lined the opposite side of Takoma Avenue. Out my other window just slightly to the left was the roof of the side porch with a red rust colored tin roof this also was the spot heralding the white icing ornamentation that could be seen from the front. I do want you to remember this is the south and porches are a necessity the one under my window could be reached only through a door in the living room. A second porch lay at the back of the house, right off the kitchen which leads into the back yard. The third floor stairway lay atop the second floor stairwell forming a zigzag that split the house east –west down the middle. Oh yeah there are eighteen stairs to the third floor which is equipped with a full apartment; I counted them one day in the first grade. Our house was a great place to play hide n seek, for the places to hide were endless and often had dual escape routes to the wary hider. There was evidence of a third porch on the west side of the house, yet during the long life of the house and the smaller size of the lot it had been removed. The front yard was a green square bisected by a cement walkway and dirt gravel drive on the left leading back to the garage which housed no car during our stay just wood, mold, and a few items of no significance other than garden instruments. The back yard was in a long sharp triangle whose point reached far down the hill and was lost to the mini jungle that ran behind all the houses on Takoma Avenue. My father and I would dig a vast stretch of area on the eastside of the yard putting in a garden. We started by hand when I was real young, but not to young to break up the dirt clods that my father laboriously tore from the clay earth, sorting through each and pulling rocks and other foreign objects.  Every year we would make it larger and, larger meant gas powered roto-tiller the last couple of years which is interesting supposing the fact that I grew in size and the gifts of my genetic make up made me stronger and faster. My father was the driving force to get the garden in and tended. My father worked hard always even now he is a man driven by a powerful inner voice that has turned him into the great patriarch of our family as his father was to all of his descendants. I find it surprising that in the 1980s and 90s that there was such a social move away from farming that it became a “Hippie-Naturalist” thing to be done. The few people on my block who didn’t have some form of garden were the elderly and a few professionals. Mr. Thorn who adorned his face with a grand blond mustache to go with his large head of hair all poised in a face that with jaw square on barrel shoulders often in dungarees would stand on one side of the wire mesh fence, and talk to my dad at night while they tended their perspective gardens.

 Mr. Thorn was big man compared to my father who at six feet was of a slim build, wiry and slim with knuckles and knees just a little on the knobby side. that he inherited from his father. His hands weren’t large or overtly strong yet in them lay untold years of hard and heavy work. I had chance to ask him in a conversation today what college he went to what I received was a list that started at Seminary school, and ended at St. Mary’s College I know he earned a Masters in Philosophy and Theology with a Bachelors in Journalism. Pretty good for a boy from the farm who spent his time, working. Too much at times you might think but true to form when it comes to the Ernst’s for Grandpa Ernst could outwork all us kids till he laid down one day and went to be with Grandma.

  His head is round with a crown for his eyebrow but more like with the lines of life as all Ernst his siblings it is easy to point them out in a crowd of reunion size. His hair at the time was worn in a swoop across the top dark Brown and speckled and laced with gray gave a lid for his face and sheltered his glasses which he wore until the frames left their toll. His eyes are brown and his cheeks puff out a little. The mouth was often demonstrating some form of yoga or affliction as the case may be; for it continually would work from one corner of his mouth to the other and or upside down. I used just watch in amazement until he caught on and hollered at me. Dad didn’t like me funning him much. His hands were hard from work and life in contrast to his voice which was a gentle tenor in song. I often describe him as the quiet personable character with rounded corners; I in comparison to myself. I have that same personable personality which is not so rounded and in juxtaposition definitely not quiet. We would race I the child with gifts of speed and strength I stated getting faster than my dad by the time I was in 4^th grade, but he didn’t let me win until I learned to stay away from him when I was racing, he cheated. I would be passing him somewhere in the race and he would reach out and grab a hold of my shirt and pull himself by me or just plain give me a push. You could call that cheating; I did. That was the only way he could beat me for years. A man who had a deep moral reservoir was always pulling hood winks with me. He would be at the finish line laughing; I would pull up mad and yell, “You cheated.”

His response was always along the lines of, “I just bumped you”. Dad had a strange sense of humor. I can’t describe it other than it’s hard to find sometimes not that a comedian couldn’t. Just I couldn’t sometimes. We would wrestle until I got big and Sherelynn freaked out on us. I once saw her get so mad. I had given my Dad one of my Suzuki Titan 500 motorcycles and she came out and said, “If he thinks he’s going to ride that motorcycle, he can just” she welled up to say this word, “Spit”. Sherelynn is where my second family came from housing my little brothers Evan and Adam and my little sister Amy. She was a teacher, they were so totally made for each other; she’s a sap too.

 The houses were adorned with white and other light colors that quickly faded but still told the wealth of the houses of that time. The older houses often lace and fine wood work on the outsides. The Winter’s family lived right next with two great pines standing as sentinels over their long wraparound front porch and almost matching home with it’s light green paint. They had a reputation as the ones with the wild boys who were often known to ride Harleys and be full of trouble, lived right next door. Never no trouble to me, yet just the image they portrayed was far more than the decent household of our neighborhood would venture. They had the best sour cherry threes “Royal cherries” if I recall correctly. The trees had this thick sap with black bark and super sour cherries, my mom made pies one year when I and Joan spent the day picking them. The trees in our neighborhood gave bounty to fruit, including several types of Mulberry trees. Each year we would repeat the activity of putting in a garden raising different vegetables ranging from Zucchini, Eggplants, summer squash, carrots, lettuce to a failed corn crop, the ants ate it as fast as the cobs began to ripen. We planted strawberries one year and had to fight the slugs for them until we found out that a slug is the slowest moving drunk on the planet, and getting rid of them required just placing a bowl of beer in an easy access pit dug just for them. I can imagine the conversation and drunken escapades and merry songs the slugs had upon their last night on earth, and then as the day approached their futile and wild battle to escape their addiction, until finally deciding this was the end and might as well have one more drink. I witness this behavior in adults and one would suppose they would be smarter than slugs, yet more deaths have occurred every night people and slugs.  

Speaking of slugs let me tell you about Grandpa Keesling and the battle of the slugs. There is a hallway in the middle of the Keesling house with a picture of an aerial view of the Keesling property. That’s just to give you an idea of how big the property is. Across the long driveway lay a hay field about a ½ acre. Every night the hordes of slugs form their battle lines after working themselves up to fight a war that has lasted for the better part of twenty years. They know most of the brave, “SS” soldier slugs will not survive the upcoming battle, yet they know in their hearts they will prevail…one day, for what they lacked in ferocity they made up for with sheer numbers and confusing the enemy. The enemy was Grandpa Keesling. They figured as long as he kept trying different tactics. He must be confused. I witnessed and backed Grandpa Keesling up on one patrol. I held the plastic bag the large freezer type and he was the veritable death from above as he descended on the ranks of slugs with a wild fervor. His eyes had a malevolent gleam in them which scared me for a moment. I had herd of his temper from his daughters Suzie, and Sherlynn. The Keesling’s owned a couple of horses ¼ horse which is an averaged sized saddle horse about 6 feet at the shoulder and a ¾ horse which was so big it was intimidating even to me. It must have been just under 7 feet at the shoulder, well it seems this horse decided to bite Suzie which it soon regretted. Grandpa Keesling had chased that horse all over the pasture throwing sticks and insults at the bully of a horse until it screamed bloody murder and was sorry it ever bit one of his daughters. We filled up two large sized freezer bags that morning it was glorious. Then we went to the killing machine a freezer in the basement, as he placed the still alive valiant “SS” into the freezer next to a weeks worth of frozen troops, he explained that after many years of attacking the slugs the most efficient and cleanest way to kill them was the deep freeze. It pays to keep the faith because as time went on their assailant began giving ground by shear absence. What had happened was Grandpa Keesling had gotten sick with cancer. The doctors gave him a short time and his lawyers said he had too much ready cash. What all this boiled down to was he had to spend it, and spend it he did on the entire family in the form of vacations. I got a call from Dad while I was in Baltimore International College inviting me for a two week vacation in Hawaii; I couldn’t miss that much class so I was unable to go. Soon the slugs long awaited victory came Grandpa Keesling had passed, yet it was a war that had taken 700 generations of slugs.