Warning: The following material is very ugly...it is however a part of my life that has to be told. I marvel at the fact that I managed to survive all the ugly parts with a whole and loving heart. Mind you, there are things about me that show my imperfection as a human as well, I am not a saint by any stretch of the word. The thing that makes me a better human is that I learned from all of my mistakes, as much as I learned from others mistakes. Deep breath... My stepfather was a monster. He was a womanizer, abusive physically, mentally and sexually. He was an alcoholic and he belonged to what we called the 'good old boy's club'. He was in fact, the most evil human I have ever known and he was proud of his ugly ways, in part because he was allowed to get away with what he did. He has passed now and I have to honestly say that I breathed a huge sigh of relief because I could finally let go of his memory. As I said before, my mother suffered greatly at his hands and her early death was due in large part to his beatings. As a child I stood between him and my mother when they started fighting and took many blows meant for her but there were many times that I wasn't there to see the beatings. The last time he beat her, he injured her internally and nearly blinded her in one eye. She never did anything that would incur a person's wrath like that. I remember one small incident very well... I was 18 at the time and lived in the cowhands cabin on their property. My mother was going to the store and I asked her to pick me up a jar of mayonnaise. When they got home I went to get the mayonnaise from her. They were in the kitchen putting things away, as he emptied one bag he saw 2 jars of mayonnaise and asked why she bought 2. She told him that one was for me and he blew up! He assumed that she bought it with his money for me and that simply wasn't true. When she turned to explain he doubled his fist and hit her in the face. Then turned to me and hit me in the stomach. For years I had a 32 Smith and Wesson, small, light weight and fit easily into my pocket for protection. That day I pulled it on him. I told him if he hit her again I would kill him. Being raised on the farm I learned to shoot all of the guns we had and was pretty good so he knew I would make my mark. He grabbed a broom and held it straight out at me as he backed his way out the front door. He went to get in his pickup to leave but I shot the tires so he couldn't leave...since we lived in the country it kept him there long enough for the cops to come:-) Not that they did anything since he belonged to their 'good old boy's club. It was a small town that we lived in, most of it in the country and the men were the variety who believed that women and children were to be seen and not heard, that you could do as you pleased without consequence and boy did they take advantage of that! If anyone in their club did something wrong and got caught, there were any number of men who would lie for him. It was a twisted society in those days and still I hear tales that some of that still goes on. The following shows you exactly how twisted things were... My stepfather drove a school bus, no one knows for certain how many children he abused but I am certain there were many. He was allowed to drive that bus across state lines if he needed to in order to do his dirty business with little girls and teens as well. He never got in trouble for that, never! I mentioned I had kept a journal that I buried in a metal box in the woods and that journal contained much of that activity. Other times it would be women he met in the bar that he would bring home and 'sleep' with in the car in the driveway. To this day I have no idea why he married my mother because it was obvious even to a child that he didn't respect or love her. On Sunday's he would drive her and us kids to church and then he would go to the bar, more often than not we had to have someone else drive us home. Once home, mother would retreat to her rocker and I would do Sunday dinner. Sometimes he came home in time to eat and sometimes not...but those times that he didn't there better be a plate in the oven for him or all hell would break loose. If he came home at 3am and found no food ready for him, he would come upstairs and wake me up with a smack across my head I learned quickly to leave him a plate! Other times he would come and try to crawl in bed with me, he was never successful in his attempts at having his way with me but I can tell you that I got beat for that too, by him for not complying and from my mom for 'lieing' to her about what her husband did...to the day she died she never believed me. Some of her beliefs were very selective...she caught him in bed with other women, knew what he did with the school kids and yet she chose to believe that he never did that to the girls and never tried to do it to me. She chose to love him and that in the end was her downfall. In my mind he murdered her, she never recovered completely from that last beating. I do have to give him a measure of good credit in that he took us to the ocean and the mountains so maybe there was some good in him, and because he took me hunting my love for creatures grew stronger. I have never killed an animal, I simply can't. But the good was well hidden in evil. He was extremely cruel, once when I had a bicycle accident and had gravel embedded in my leg and hand he asked to see my hand...I knew not to show him but had no choice, that or a beating, but I was completely unprepared for what he did. My palm was swollen and sore, instead of taking me to the doctor he pressed his thumb into my palm and pressed and squeezed till I thought my hand would break...he smiled while he was doing it, I screamed and cried while he was doing it. When finally he let go I grabbed the 12 gauge shotgun that was by the door and yes, I pulled the trigger! Lucky day for him, it wasn't loaded. Lucky for me too because I could never forgive myself for killing someone and because I didn't have to go to prison. Oddly I loved his mother and father, they were good to me. It was in her kitchen that I first learned to make jams and jellies. They had an enormous house and I liked spending time there. It was by the railroad tracks so not much for a view but I liked the trains because I could imagine, where they were going, what and who they carried. I remember thinking that one day I would find out what was at the end of the track when the train went out of sight. I don't remember much about them, I was too young the last time I saw them and as with most adults then, children were put outside when the adults were talking. I just remember that they were good to me for the time that I knew them. While I lived with alot of horror growing up, much more than I have told here, those lessons were invaluable for me in how I should treat others. Sadly tho, I married 3 physically abusive alcoholics and was lucky to escape with my and my childrens lives from all three. So his evil did influence me. Again I am grateful for the lessons I learned, those things shaped who I am. I am also grateful that my mother finally escaped from him tho it came way to late. In writing this I have furthered my healing from those times. In writing this publicly I hope someone else will find some healing for themselves, will realize that they do not have to be destroyed by anothers inability to love or by their abuse. The pic above is me, I am adding a link to another piece that I wrote quite some time ago. Little Girl Free Because of the sensitive nature of this piece, I hope you will read the poem and pass it on. I have had many people write me privately to thank me for helping them to find the courage to tell someone, to ask for help in order to get out of their situation. Children are at risk everyday and I can't stress enough how important it is to tell someone. And keep telling someone until someone listens! If you are in this type of situation and wish to talk to me, please feel free to site mail me. Your story is yours and I would never betray a confidence by telling someone else. To be continued... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This will be my last posting for awhile. My monitor is so bad I can barely see anything and it gets worse daily, not sure if its the monitor dying or the graphics card but there are mass wavy lines and huge blotches of red and green. I have rolled back drivers, updated drivers, removed all possiblities of magnetic problems, done tons of diagnostic tests, you name it I have done it, pulled my hair out and screamed, considered throwing something at the monitor and considered throwing it out, all to no avail. My daughter is moving here in November or December and has some puter knowledge so hopefully by then we will have found and resolved the problems. So again I apologize for lack of comments, I just can't see the images well enough to make valid comments. I miss viewing your works just as much as I miss being able to do any art, very frustrating for me. Hope to see you all mid or end of December. Thank you for your support over the last 5 postings and thanks for making them favorites. Special thanks to Mark (anahata.c)for his help, for reading before anyone else. Always cheering me on, I appreciate you Mark!