Introduction

Don K
3 min readOct 29, 2020

On the evening before my first day of high school seminary, I hopped across the family room and sat down on the small swivel desk chair. With hands raised high in the air, I began spinning.

“Wheeeeee, wheeeeee, wheeeeee. In twelve hours and fifty-seven minutes I will be begin high school, and be on my way to becoming a priest,” I said with a big smile on my face.

“Wheeeeee, wheeeeee, wheeeeee,” I said a minute later with another spin, “twelve hours and fifty-six minutes!”

Stomping his foot, my dad yelled, “Goddam it! I can’t even read the evening paper. You’re going to break that chair and crack open your skull.”

Hearing him yell and curse like that made me cringe. I feared what could come next. Therefore, when he huffed out of his chair, but this time, stormed past me into the kitchen, I heaved a sigh of relief.

“He’s going into high school and acting like a goofball,” he said to my mom. “When is he going to grow up?”

“A walk in the fresh air will do you good, honey.”

My Dad then stomped down the stairs and out the garage.

Rule to remember for tomorrow: Do not spin and yell “Wheeeeeeee.” I’ll make it number 8. No, better make it number 3, right after “Respect the teachers,” and “Stand tall and look straight ahead.”

Of course, that was just one among a long list of rules that I learned growing up. Eating at the dinner table, taking a bath, walking down the street all needed rules. At any given time, there were different sets of rules that needed to be followed for different situations.

While my dad was concerned I would say or do something socially unacceptable and embarrass the family, my behavior seemed not to register with my mom who tended to overlook such impropriety. When teachers suggested I be tested, she always said no.

“There is nothing wrong with Donald. He’s just misunderstood.”

Always quick to make assumptions, I remember her at breakfast one morning, looking out the window and seeing a Special School picking up the neighborhood boy.

“That poor kid. I always knew he was a little slow,” she paused. “Oh, his poor parents, can’t they just drive him to school and not announce it to the whole world!”

What my mother did not realize, nor did I at the time, was that the bus was giving him a ride to the ice rink. Jimmy was on his school’s hockey team, and the only time they could practice was very early in the morning.

The pressure to conform to my dad’s standards and my dependency on my mother were just as salient as my desire to be a priest. Yet at times this mixture proved to be toxic.

Once when I asked my dad what seminary was like, he said, “It’s where they train boys like you to be priests.”

What am I to you? A misfit? Some kind of freak? A dog?

Perhaps my perception was unfair. I never asked what he meant by “boys like you,” and why he considered “trained” a better word for me than “formed.” I may be nitpicking, but I doubt my dad had any clue about what was the best way to form priests.

Most of the time, what he said often made me feel inferior. My dad did not recognize any mental or spiritual powers in me. Nor did I have any “special” gifts. Even though he was far wiser than me, he never had the patience to teach me anything, or make me feel good about myself. It was always one put down after another.

As a result, I often retreated to my bedroom, closed my eyes and hoped to hear God talking to me. But the only sounds I could glean from what I normally perceived on any given day were water splashing in the bathroom sink, and birds outside the window.

That night, after brushing my teeth until I counted to 30 — no more, and no less, I went into my room and looked at the clock.

“Nine hours and forty-five minutes!” I yelled.

“There’s something not right about him,” I heard my dad say in my parent’s bedroom.

I then jumped into bed and buried my face under the pillow, and remembered what my dad said earlier to me that day.

“Tomorrow, don’t act like a crazy fool with your head on ass backwards.”

That night I dreamed I was a grasshopper hopping across the grass when along came a shoe that stomped on me.

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