A True Story of When I Was Young

When I was a young boy, back in the sixties, one day my older brother wasn’t getting the attention he wanted so he announced that he was going to commit suicide.  Only seven years old he stormed out the door and climbed up onto the roof.  He then climbed up the TV antenna tower to a height of forty or fifty feet off the ground. 

When nobody would come out to watch he started yelling and screaming for everybody to come out and see, to watch him kill himself.  When nobody came outside he climbed down off the tower and stormed back into the house and demanded that everybody come outside because by golly was going to kill himself and they were going to watch, they just had to. Everybody just complained that he was interrupting the latest episode of their favorite show, the hit TV show, “Get Smart.” 

Well, since nobody would watch him, he decided that he wouldn’t kill himself that day.  He decided that he would do it another day when folks would pay attention.  He pondered and pondered his dilemma and so he retrieved a box of strike anywhere matches.  Ya’ll remember those?  Well, he took the matches and crawled under his bed, our bunk bed and proceeded to light the fibrous strings that were hanging down from underneath the box spring.  Soon the bed was full on ablaze and then everybody took notice. 

Now this was back in the sixties, during the days when the telephone system was a party line. Who could forget those days?  Unfortunately for my family the fire department was an all volunteer one.  Before the calls could get made and everybody could respond and good Ole Clem could get the fire truck to the house, the small mattress fire turned into a major catastrophe that rendered the house uninhabitable, forever.  Something that with all the new technology and taxes we pay doesn’t happen very often anymore.  Well, at least not every time.    

Lucky for us, my grandparents took us in despite the fact that my mother hated my grandmother.  The two of them had been fighting like cats and dogs over “The Right Way” to raise the children.  They had been fighting over their differences in beliefs, in values, over their individual sense of what was right and what was wrong.  All this fighting had been having a negative affect on the family for a long, long time. 

The funny thing was they were both truly correct in their beliefs; they just didn’t use the same language to communicate.  And they were both to stubborn to compromise.  Chalk that up to the generation gap, ego, and the fact that one was Church of Christ the other Methodist, you name it.  Bottom line, they both were cut from the same mold, born of the same cloth!  They just couldn’t get over the use of particular words that defined their culture and heritage, their values; until that moment, when catastrophe struck and they realized the fact that, they were family.  That one simple fact would override everything.

 As a writer and public speaker, I have learned that it is the way we present our message that matters most; especially if we want folks to read what we have written or listen to what we are saying.  In this election year I truly believe that there is no particular group holding a monopoly on patriotism.  I just hope it doesn’t take another catastrophe like Pearl Harbor or, 9-11 for us to relearn the lessons of days gone by.  Above all we are all still in this together, still family, still Americans.  And when it is all said and done, that is what matters most.    

So to all the politicians out there, the right wingers, the leftist and everybody in between, to all of you; I say go for it!  Go ahead climb that tower, yell and scream, burn the house down.  It is an American revolution and it happens every four years.  I don’t mind because in the end, I know it will only bring us closer together.  This entire process will make our lives that much better!    

That was a true story by the way.

I will be addressing the Summerville 9-12 Project 6:30 p.m.Feb. 16 at 6:30 PM at the Summerville Holiday Inn Express.  They are asking for a $3 donation and I will also be signing copies of my book, “The Night Eagles Soared!”  So come on out and join me.

I will also be at the Barnes and Noble on Rivers avenue near Northwoods Mall 1-3 p.m. Feb. 11.  I would love to meet you all there as well!        

S. B. Newman, Author  "The Night Eagles Soared"

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