Raised by the following rules/wisdom (Part 4)

1. Being taught by my dad that “if I find out you stated a fight you’ll be in deep trouble with me, but if someone starts it, you finish it.”

2. Being taught by my mother that if she ever heard me “say something racist or ugly about someone without knowing them first, she would crown me (smack my head from behind with her hand)

3. Being taught by my mother that failing to hold doors open for people, not treating women like ladies, being unkind for no reason to anyone, talking back, or in her words “failing to behave like a gentleman” would also result in a crowning.

4. Being taught that while living in her house, eating her groceries and wearing her clothes, I would do what I was told, or I was free to “find another place to live” or “pay for it myself.”

5. Being taught there always a difference between need and want, and that we had what we needed,

6. Being told by my dad at age 5 that if I didn’t sit down while he was watching TV that he would “unscrew my navel and my butt and legs would fall off.” Or that he was gonna “nail one of my feet to the floor and I’d only be able to walk in small circles” or that If while buzzing around in front of the TV, that if I “didn’t land, he was gonna shoot me down”

7. Riding in a go-cart downhill toward an oncoming car, swerving last minute, crashing into the curb and nearly biting my tongue clean through. Running to my mom inside the house and opening my mouth to have blood pouring down my chin and neck. Watching my mother get woozy, having my mouth packed with gauze and rushed to the ER.

8. Falling off the top of a baseball backstop, landing on the side of my foot, hearing my ankle pop very loudly, then getting up and continuing to play. An hour later my ankle turned black and blue, swelled up to grapefruit size and had to be set in a cast.

9. Fell through a frozen lake while alone and managed to rescue myself.