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Memoirs
Locations
I started my life in this atmosphere on February 14, 1944, coming out from my Mother’s reproductive system at a time and on a day unknown to me, while she was at Dixie Hospital in Hampton, Virginia. You would think this might be something I might had been interested in, asking my Mother – the time and day, but until just now it never really occurred to me to ask. But I suspect the information is on my birth certificate. I probably have looked at it there, but just forgotten. It is not all that important, anyway.
I now know that Dixie is no longer used as a hospital name, which in one sense is a shame, since the name had been in use for a long time, since the 1800s. The hospital, if not the building, is continuing, at least in spirit, up to and including the present, as information from a Google search indicates Dixie as having merged into what is now known as Hampton General Hospital.
But, then the bad reputation of the word “Dixie” likely made the disappearance of Dixie easy enough. Also, since the old Dixie Hospital building is long gone, what sense does it make to continue with the name?
And furthermore, why should not things changed. Just as Dixie that I was borne into no longer exists, but that which replaced it has some ties back to what then did exist, I too, am much different from back then, but also have ties to what was then there at Dixie Hospital on February 14, 1944.
Having been born in Hampton, it is only sensible that one can conclude that chances are I ended living my first life period also in Hampton, which I did. In fact, I stayed in Hampton until I was four, which it seems to me, is a sensible age at which to move, if one has to move, which I did, since my father was transferred to a new job (he was in the US Navy), at another location. This is the first real change I remember in my life, but certainly not the last, as I hope will become apparent as the theme of these notes on my life, my memoirs, unfold. The journey that I have taken, the one that is most important to me, has been one based on change – change of being and of becoming. Hopefully, you will enjoy the journey, so let’s begin.
One of the changing features of my life has been location, at least up to my 40th year. I do not think that I was really a good candidate for such change, since in addition to what likely is everyone’s difficulties in adjusting to the change associated with moving, I believe I had the additional burden caused by my, what I consider to be, a learning disorder – an inability to mimic.
You might say “leaning disorder, an inability to mimic?” scratch your head, and ask where is the connection. It may seem minor, but my inability to mimic sounds, to carry on the mental process of mimicking that occurs in singing, not to mention the mimicking mental process that occurs in hearing and then saying the sounds of words has been quite a difficult proposition for me, one that, as a youth, has materially effected me, my personality, my drive to overcome, and many others of my mental characteristics. I was not just delayed in creating “normal” verbal communications, I am to this day easily tagged by an unusual voice, and can get overwhelmed, when I am in a group, especially if I think attention, I should add especially bad attention, is being directed at me – a result of growing up, not quite communicating correctly, and the attention that such a situation receives.
One of the persons I think I have become, because of this experience, is a person determined – determined to overcome, determined to succeed, and most importantly, determined to understand. Because, you see, none of this was ever told to me, and I did not come to this understanding of my “learning disorder’ until after many years of seeking understanding, when I did reached the understanding of what my problem resulted from – an inability to mimic, which, believe me, is an importantly learned-characteristic, not always certainly or easily learned.
Well, along with this learning disorder, and relocating 13 times, from Hampton Virginia to Portsmouth, Virginia, to Kalamazoo, Michigan, to Hampton Virginia, to Norfolk, Virginia, to New Orleans, Louisiana, to Norfolk Virginia, to Suffolk, Virginia, to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to Charlottesville, Virginia, to Alexandria, Virginia, to Frederick, Maryland to Frankfort, West Germany, I finally arrived at where I am at now, a 61-year old, well traveled and adversity survivor, living in Walkersville, Maryland, at least for the next few weeks, before I relocate, yet again, to Frederick, Maryland .
Education
My first public school, grade 1, was Robert E. Lee Elementary School, which, like Dixie Hospital, in Hampton, my birth hospital, is no longer present. With a name like Robert E. Lee, in Portsmouth, Virginia, this is not surprising, that the school did not make it. School was, always, even into college, a frightful place for me to be headed, knowing that my “secret” learning disabled lack of speech communicating success would doubtlessly be uncovered and cause me pain, a pain that I badly wanted to avoid, but a pain all too often I did not.
However, having such painful experiences as a child, perhaps, I believe, gave me an ability to bear pain, not a strange need or sought-after state, but a more positive ability to endure the pain of long hours of study and loneliness; the pain of choosing a route down which to travel that is not avoided because of painful steps along the way; the pain of responding to loss and insult, and getting up for another day, of going on – characteristics I believe I have.
One thing I was not, was a good student, from the start, and right through to near the end of my high school days, for whatever reason - perhaps because of the pain that school caused; the poor quality of the schools that I attended; not really liking to read, probably because words were not my strength, you might say; not a strong educational tradition in my family or in parts of my heritage; and just poor motivation and laziness.
It was not until close to the end of my high school days that I began to turn in a different direction, thanks in large part to my first, my best, and my most memorable mentor – Roger Velico – a fellow high school student, who was passionate about knowledge and ideas, which somehow, mysteriously, flowed over on to me, thanks to Roger. You might say it was a complete reverse face, this different direction, for in a few short months, during my 11th public school year, I went from lack of interest to passionate pursuit of knowledge and ideas. And, although I am now much more cognizant of my lack of abilities to create really new, breakthrough knowledge and ideas, those few short months in my 11th year of school has extended into a life time of passion, for knowledge and ideas, and the education that followed, going into my 61st year.
Since that audacious beginning, many years ago, I have become, I think, something of the quite good student, when in the last 20 years, or so, of a lot of continuing education and credit courses, I have seldom gotten a grade less than A, an accomplishment I am proud of. Over these 20 or so years, I have racked up quite a list of educational experiences, either as college courses, continuing professional education, or trade courses (e.g., courses taken during my career with the Defense Department).
I have become quite passionate about reading, writing, and problem solving – not exactly where I was prior to my 11th public school year. My initial passion for knowledge and ideas was definitely in science and math, where Roger, my mentor, was also passionate. The discovery of the world of science, and the search that is much at the center of that world, just did something mysterious to me. Like a volcano eruption, erupting and changing the mountain side, I was changed in a new direction, a direction, I believe I have been faithful to – a faithfulness that makes me feel good and dignified, and is an important part of my becoming and what I have become. Although I have gone down several different, money-earning, career paths, I feel I have continued to hold to this very first, initial passion for search.
Along the way, I have worked as a laboratory chemist, an intelligence analyst, an accountant, a business analyst, and an Internet information researcher. And these experiences certainly have changed me. New learning has occurred within me. Fortunately, I have been opened to new learning, education – which in my experience has been a critical mechanism in my journey of becoming.
From this education and learning, I think I have changed for the better. I have become a more knowledgeable, problem-solving, and wise (i.e. with wisdom) presence, but I am also, perhaps, a little “too wired”, meaning not quite settled always into a mellowed, peaceful, single-focused state, that seems to be most harmonious with the world. On the other hand, perhaps, I think, my best abilities center around searching successful solutions to a problem presenting itself, which after all, is what I have experience a lot of in my education life.
Family
My Mother, Father, and Brother have had large influences on me, as well as my son, and his mother who I am go longer married to.
My brother, who has good intellectual intelligence, somehow has never been able to apply this intellectual intelligence, to what I would consider, productivity, although he probably would disagree. And, I would say, what is behind this result for him is very much related to his emotional perspective, his emotional coming to the same playing field of emotions where most of the rest of us play on, and yet, when he comes, not really being in the same game.
I do believe of such a thing as emotional intelligence (perhaps intelligence is not a good word, but better might be adjustment, or perspective, or maybe level, and anyway), which determines one’s fate every much as intellectual intelligence. I have, perhaps, a less of intellectual intelligence, than my Brother, but, I have, somehow, been able to used what I have to some advantage, without letting such things as my emotional perspective, interfere, in a way, I suspect, emotion has with him. Because my Brother is older, I was influenced by his experiences, knowing of some of them, often thinking that I did not want to follow his ways. His ways just never seen suited, and I always thought he went his ways because of emotional adjustment problems with the world.
I greatly admire both my Father and my Mother. I have been much closer to my Mother, now that she is near the end of life (she will be 97 at her next birthday), primarily because, since my Father’s death 21 years ago, I have spent considerable amount of time with her (as has my Brother), as she has needed our help. A very positive experience of my life has been these 21 years that I have gotten to know her so much better than before, and the good feeling I get from giving her good, loving care, which has greatly increased my affections for her.
My Father was the great driver of the two, the planner, and the person with the necessary ability to achieve unique success in the secular world. And, he was also a very troubled man, as I knew him, because, I think, of the experiences he had earlier in his life, especially the unique experience of being a naval officer at sea during war, which I think scarred him emotionally, from which he never recovered. The effect was a man which I knew as having such characteristics as a terrible temper, an inability to show love and affection visually and effectively, an inability to seemingly have proper empathy or concern for others, and recurring nightmares during which he would morn, groan, and yell out, frightenedly. This was all very unsettling to me
I now believe that I probably really never knew the true person my Father was earlier in his life, and even later, what he was, even after I was born, and up to his death. And I also believe that some of the pain from the fears I had, caused by my learning disorder, probably darkened my perceptions of my youth, and overflowed to include darkened perceptions of my Father. I have come to appreciate the instances and ways in which my Father did demonstrate love and concern for his sons and wife, and I greatly admire his accomplishments and his ingenuity, ingenuity being one of his strongest traits. I have come to love him more, but I must admit I still feel some inadequacies in that love. I think possibly if it was he who lived to 97, and not my Mother, and it was he I might have been a similar caregiver to, as my Mother, I might have ended up with a much different feeling for him. But unfortunately, as we are becoming, we cannot control much the influences on that becoming, except within ourselves, internally.
My son has influenced me, as children will do – when placed in our lives. And the influences that he has on me continue, in contrast to the influences from my
Father, Mother, or Brother, which now are mostly falling behind.
Over the last several years, I have spent a considerable amount of time researching my family history and writing up the results. I have discovered many details about my eight great grandparents, the focus of my research, and have learned much about these eight great grandparents, from whom I am descended. These details can be found in my book “A History of My Eight Great Grandparents – Richard W. Robertson, Mary A. Eubank, Dale Delafield Luke, Martha F. Shepherd, George Torian, Amelia Blanche Crawley, Charles Augustus Jenkins, Lillie Shepherd Cocke”
Writing this family history has been a most interesting, absorbing, and enjoyable growth experience. I feel this family history project has been very much in keeping with my passion, I initially found back in my 11th year of public school, for knowledge and ideas.
A part of us, it seems to me, should be that of the nature of a historian – a historian focused on our own individual histories, which for me, is, as, a minimum, a good an understanding, as possible, of our eight great grandparents. I think this is the world that, as a minimum, we should have some understanding of. This is, in a very special sense, our world. I now feel much more complete, much more peaceful because I did this family history project. I feel this was a necessary achievement, if I were to gain a reasonably good understanding of who I am, and from where I have come.
I wonder what differences might have been in my family if my parents, my grand parents, and their offspring knew this knowledge, which I discovered in this family history project. The truth is that very little of this rich and interesting material was likely ever known by any of these folks. I think if there were more knowledgeable, the quality of all of our extended family experiences would have been much improved. I believe there can be a relationship, between quality within families, and family history knowledge. This, I think, represents a major communication failure in families – a situation, in my own family that will forever haunt me.
Religion – Church
I remember being in a church as early as my 3rd or 4th year, however, the recollections that I have are very few and difficult to recall. From then, age 3 or 4, up to around my 30th year, being in a church was not a regular pattern. There were periods, during which I cannot remember being in a church at all, especially during periods corresponding to particular locations where my parents lived, while I was with them. More important, I cannot feel much influenced from going to church, and participating in church activities. This lack of feeling of influence by religion and church during my youth is a feeling I have not well known how to consider. How should I look at it - does it represent the reality for most of us as children?
I am probably underestimating the influence that experiencing church early did have on me. Indeed, there must have been some influence from my earlier church experience, for there was at least some understanding within me of what it is that is found at a church, and some sense that there was a need, that is met by a church and its life. For, around the time of preparing to leave my parents, during my college days, I began to attend church, on occasion, on the basis of my own free choice to do so. With my own free will and freedom to choose, I chose to attend church, at least occasionally, looking for responses to needs that I had. I chose to be an occasional churchgoer until around my 30th year, when I changed my choice, and began to attend church faithfully, every Sunday, seldom missing, in the last 30 years.
In my ancestral history, for example, my eight great grandparents and their parents and grandparents, I have found many church denominations, just as I have found in my own church attendance over the 61 years of my life, various church denominations. Huguenot and Baptist, Methodist going back to the very creation of Methodism, Anglicanism, Presbyterian, German Protestantism, and Untied Church of Christ are all denominations or movements that my ancestors or I have tried as a route to the discovery and worship of God.
I have concluded that from a strategic perspective and in the overall plans and objectives of all of these denominations, there is not much difference in terms of what can be accomplished for the individual and his or her connection to God. The overwhelming influence on a person loving God is not the denomination, but the person. Thinking that a denomination is your route, or interference, to God, is, in my thoughts, a poorly constructed conception.
Denominations only serve the need for tactical objectives and to satisfy preference variability needs within the human condition, and will not better insure, or more interfere, an individual’s relationship with God, which is not denominational, but personal.
Faith and Beliefs
Some time during my college days, reflected in my choosing to attend a church service, an awakening, or perhaps better said, a revelation, or a need, or maybe, just simply, an urge, lead me to an interest in God. I have been responding to this interest ever since.
An important part of this interest, and the response I have made, has been the search for understanding and the pursuit of questions and answers that grew out of my redirection to passion for knowledge and ideas. Important to my growth as a person, the development of my inner self, the realization of being something that I wanted to be, of becoming, what ever that becoming might be, has been this search.
An aspect of this search and pursuit that became strong in me is that important to the success of my personal growth, development, and realization is participation in church life, which means as a minimum, regular, consistent attendance at a worship service on Sunday, supplemented by participation in religious education. This participation has become a sort of bedrock, a foundation, the mysterious and very special period of my week that connects me to a higher being, not only God, but my own, and is a time when I am most peaceful and contented.
I do believe that our own natures are intertwined, in a way beyond our comprehension, with God’s nature, and how we decide to explore the intertwining state and what we do in response to what we find is, for me, the most essential practice of my being and my becoming.
I believe that great guidance, divinely given, is available for us, and is the most important of heritages, that have been passed on to us by previous humanity, and to not to allow ourselves a pursuit and an understanding of this guidance is a self-inflected wound. What most great and right and beneficial that humanity has created flows out of this mysterious interaction between us becoming and the power to do so, mysteriously gifted to us by God.
What I now believe, and the faith that I have that this belief is right, is a long way from whatever I believed in my 11th year of public school or during my 30th year of my life, two written about periods elsewhere in this memoir, as important milestones influencing directions in my life. In fact, I have no idea what these beliefs might have been at these two earlier periods.
My experience is that it was with challenges, disappointments, work, loses, milestones, accomplishments, and special moments, important subjects in these memoirs, that I was able to grow, and develop, and become the being that I am now – a being with a lot of faith in my beliefs. I also know that very much a part of my ability to work my way through these challenges, disappointments, work, loses, milestones, accomplishments, and special moments have been the good fortune to make choices that turned out to be, mostly, positive and constructive for me. I sincerely believe my beliefs have greatly aided me in these choices. I believe God is important, in these choices so made, and to me, such choices have helped me be a more successful human being.
Challenges
A major challenge, it seems to me, in everyone’s life, is climbing the hill that represents work life. At least, this was for me, in what I look back upon as one of the first major hills I had to climb, which was deciding what to do to keep myself, and arranging myself in a way that I would be able to self keep.
For many of us in modern day America, this is a challenge addressed initially by going to college. I entered college, having decided on chemistry and being a chemist, as the work path for me. As I indicate elsewhere in my memoirs, at the end of my high school period, I had found passion in science, knowledge, and ideas. I also found passion in the characteristics and subjects and goals of chemistry during my high school chemistry class. Chemistry seemed a good fit for me.
I also now well remember thinking about one of my other challenges that I was continuing to face at that time, and also mentioned elsewhere in these memoirs – a challenge of verbal communications, and my lack of understanding and confidence in a personal verbal communication ability and effectiveness. With this problem of understanding and confidence, I was looking for a work life that would match this understanding and confidence level. Work as a chemist, somehow, struck me as an activity with requirements that would match these perceptions of me.
Looking back on all of this, from my present perspective, I now understand that, in fact, a career as a chemist, in which very unique and special languages are used (e.g. think of chemical nomenclature and organic synthesis), require verbal skill in mimicking – just the skill that was so weak for me, and would always be weak. I think that a role in my eventual departure from chemistry was played by this mimic challenge, a challenge I never felt I could live up to. Later in life, I took up accounting, a work with a language that I feel much more comfortable with, and language in which most of my mimicking deficiencies seem not to bother me. And, in some way, this better comfort level has reduced previous tensions.
A challenge for me that I have emphasized in trying to meet, is, in one word, improving – improving my knowledge, my skills, my analytical ability – all, I think – for the purpose of increasing my usefulness, my contributions, my making a difference.
I feel very fortunate that somehow, absorbing as a challenge that of improving, flows, for me, into an important human need – that of becoming. This is perhaps why throughout these memoirs a theme of becoming, I think, is my focus. I have come to appreciate and want to live in a way so that every day is looked upon as a period of time best spent in improving – whatever the activity is, from the mundane and simple to the strategic and complex.
If the activity can be viewed as a challenge of improving, and succeeds – then somehow, magically, improving transforms into becoming, and becoming, through free will and choice, is connected to infinity and infinity to God. Somehow, it is this process of improving, then to becoming that peace, love, righteousness, and, ultimately, heaven is found.
A challenge that I feel very much connected to, reinforced by recent research and analysis I have done in writing my family history, is the challenge based by the region of America to which I feel indelibly tied – the south. I mean the challenge that this region, for a brief period a nation, faced as a conquered nation, and as a terror-stricken, defeated, destroyed, uncertain society.
How little, it seems to me, that any one of us, as individuals, can really comprehend how a society and its communities can radically be affected by such a defeat, even as we live through the defeat. The human has an incredible capacity to adapt, and to make the most of that which is presented to it. This does not change the fact that more complex and difficult challenges of adaptation do exist, in comparison to others, which can exact great suffering and deprivation and disadvantage and hardship and a poorer quality of life, all freely, readily accepted and adapted to. I think the south, after the civil war, going into the middle of the 20th century, bears out the truth of this suffering adaptation concept.
At least two important great standards suffered in the south, even into the middle of the 1900s – education and economic opportunities. Perhaps, that these two suffering areas were felt by me, through and by my parents, as important challenges, for my own self, somehow relates to that from which I have come, and might explain why I have felt the challenge of these two areas, education and economic opportunities, and focused on them in my becoming.
A challenge that I am currently going though is care giving to my Mother.
My Mother, who will be 97 in September, now suffers from many problem conditions, such as recovering from a fall that fractured her pelvic and broke her wrist; a fairly recent onset of what is increasingly looking like some form of Alzheimer’s; a memory and cognitive degradation, coming on over the past several years, which may be best described as dementia; a progressive vision lost over the last several years, which has now reached near blindness; and, then, the lessening of her body to flourish, but rather struggle with such activities as good skin nourishment and replacement and bowel movements.
At the moment, she cannot get up without assistance and guidance and she cannot walk without guidance and assistance, or with a walker. For this, and perhaps other reasons, she needs a diaper. Nevertheless, even with her age, and showing some minor manifestations of some of these problem conditions, up until eight months ago, she was (eight months ago) considerably able to dress, bathe, toilet, walk, groom, and eat, all on her own accords, with a little direction from me. She has remarkably lost a lot of this ability, as of this time. Just how much of her change for the worst is related to her fall, and subsequent 70-day rehabilitation center stay, and therefore, may with time, and with work can be regained, or at least improved, and how much is now permanent remains to be seen.
For now, I am caring for my Mother, who has come to live with me, likely, for the rest of her life, unless she gets even worst, and then, beyond what I can provide for what she would then need.
I am proceeding, diligently, to reach the goal of keeping her, at least, at her present capability level, and hopefully, an improved level, which, I will not give up on, while she remains with me. This diligence is requiring much effect and dedication and is a few-hours-a-day job.
I am making the best of it. I am using the period to readjust myself. I am writing my memoirs. I have decided that this change in her, and her new requirements, and prospects for her future, should be celebrated as a glorious opportunity. I am changing my location. I am moving, after living here at my present location, 32 Maple Avenue in Walkersville, Maryland, for 21 years, the longest I have lived anywhere, by far, by a factor of 4 or 5. The prospect of moving, and where we will be moving to, is reinvigorating, and improving my mental state. I am inspired and am working hard to arrange everything and to make this a truly positive transition to a new becoming. I am hopeful that my Mother just might be able to live with me, with modest effort from me, and, if so, has the potential of being the very best place for her to be at the end, at home.
And, finally, although I have long been in a care giving relationship with my Mother, which I have written about elsewhere in my memoirs, these final few months, and perhaps years, of even more dependence that she will have on me as she dies, is bringing me a real sense of righteousness – that I am doing what is right by way of another human being, who other wise would have no one else to do such, and therefore, because of what I am able to do, hopefully, will die with love and faith and happiness, surrounded by someone she knows and loves, as she has lived.
Other Losses and Separations
Brokenness is, for me, an incredibly meaningful spiritual word, and a word that seems too often to me represents an ever-present condition in the world. The word brokenness has a spiritual quality, poetic in its saying and pronunciation, a word that captures that which is deep and profound within us in our spiritual journey, our search for peace and realization, and in the development of our soul.
I suspect all of us must experience brokenness, I know I have. But, in a way, the thought of brokenness is not all that negative for me. Perhaps, this is a problem for me, but, somehow, I feel the experiences of brokenness that I have had have enriched me spiritually, even as they may have harmed me emotionally, physically, and materialistically.
The great brokenness (or separations) that I think of in my life, such as a broken marriage, broken relationships with father, brother, and cousins, broken relationships with work associates, broken relationships with work communities all have to do with relationships with people. This is a revelation. This is a revelation from God. I am coming to believe that it is in our relationships with people and with community that God is at work. In fact, what ultimately is important, for me, it seems, in our lives is the God that is at work in these relationships.
Brokenness has happened in my life and I have suffered from it, but I believe and practice that from the power of God, I can be healed and become more whole again, as a response to this brokenness. I feel one of the great discoveries that I have made in my life’s search, in my attempting to become, is finding and continuing to find that brokenness can be healed by God.
I think there is another type of lost, different from the brokenness or separation, written about above.
Whereas the above is a situation that has been broken by our inadequacies in perfecting and inabilities, internally driven to become, I have had losses that are more of an external origin, less internal, that are simply a part of changed.
As I have written elsewhere in my memoirs, I have relocated fairly often, and each location has involved losses – loses of friends, of attachments to objects, losses of habits and traditions. I think of my past and I do remember the friends that I have had but are no longer. I think of the activities that I enjoyed, the activities that I pursued, the activities that were, at a particular time, for me, very important and met so much to me that are no longer there. And, I think of the hopes, the dreams, the wants, and the plans that are no longer there.
But then, I think of change, and I think of how fortunate I am that change is present in my life, of how essential change has been in my life and welfare, how important change has been in my developing and realizing – of becoming.
And I conclude that these losses are blessings, they are very positive necessities in life, they are to be praised and thought of as good experiences that can nurture us, just as the right food nurtures.
Personal Characteristics
One thing that struck me about myself, as I looked at photographs of me that my parents preserved from my earlier periods, before adolescent, was how smiley I was. I always seemed to have a big smile. I guess that this perhaps indicates I was a happy little boy by nature and birth. Then, progressively, photographs seem to reflect a more somber, seriousness, a lessening big, friendly spontaneous smile, a more cautious, reserve, staged smile, a reflection of worry and concern, a certain strange expression that I could not shake off.
I do believe this photographic shedding, if you will, of my expression, reflects somehow a change in me. I feel the change has been a good one, but the photographic evidence might suggest a less happy change. In fact, I think this is true. I think the change has been good, but I am less happy in a way which has been caused by more stress, a stress tied in to the theme through these memoirs – that of becoming.
I have succeeded in achieving the state of becoming. A personal characteristic of mine is certainly one of becoming, of doing, of moving, from task to task, of mapping out a plan of action, of keeping lists of things to do, of being organized around actions and accomplishments.
I have been successful at working out the process of the act of becoming. I have been less successful at actually becoming. In my early days, I wanted to become a research chemist. I wanted to become an intellectual. Then, when I went to work for the federal government and the intelligence community, I wanted to become a star federal employee and an analyst that made a difference. Then, I wanted to become a recognized and published poet, to become an accomplished and successful essayist and writer. I wanted to become knowledgeable in many fields. I have wanted, at various time, to become a winning tennis player, to become an exciting and skillful dancer in many different types of dance. I have wanted to become a fluent German speaker and reader. I wanted to become a good speaker before groups. I wanted to become a good husband, with a successful marriage, to become a wonderful and loving father.
Then, later in life, after I retired from my first career, I wanted to start the second half of my life, at age 50, with a new perspective, a new career, and a new youth. I wanted to become something different, something new, with the benefit of hindsight that would now, oh so wonderfully, create life’s perfect second life.
Now, as I write these memoirs, and am writing about these elements, as I have chosen to think about and write about that which seems important to me, I am beginning to think more and more that I have done enough of becoming. I am thinking that, what I am now I am, and am what will be, that which I have become. And, I am thinking, how now with this, with the characteristics that I have, what will make me happy, is to used what I have become to love my God and to love my world, actively and successful. I am now beginning to believe it is love that will lead to the perfect second half.
Work
I have this nagging feeling that I have not worked enough in my life. I mean, after all, I only spent 21 years working for the federal government, before I quit, because I was able to retire early, and because I had seem to had reached the end of what I could and wanted to do, with success and recognition. And then, prior to that, I only worked five or six years in laboratories as a chemist. And now, since my retirement, I have added another three years work as an accountant for others, and since 2003 have worked for myself in self-employment.
But then, I think how hard I always seem to have worked, always working more than 40 hours a week, often on Saturday mornings or afternoons, and then I think that maybe I need to add another 10 to 20% to this accumulated work time. And, then there was the great amount of time I spent in work-related training, the many weekend courses, and night courses.
Perhaps, I have worked enough, but still, when I hear that someone has spent thirty-five years with one career, one company, rising up the ranks, I get feelings of guilt, of envy that I have made mistakes and have missed out. I now realized I have work hard enough and that it is not that I have not work enough, but that the work somehow did not quite come to a satisfactory completion, a better completion, that this is behind my nagging feeling.
But, I have yet concluded that I am finished working, although my remaining work life will very likely continued to focus on self-directed, self employed work, and, hopefully, work that will be successful, not just in satisfaction, but economically.
The work that I have done I am proud of, in that I know that it was work with the right attitude – work to contribute, work to aid, work to serve, work to accomplish. I am proud because I feel I always was conscientious about doing the best I could, about spending the time that I had efficiently and effectively. I am proud because I feel I did all of this, and, in some cases, certainly added some value to the organization I was working for.
I am proud and happy because I feel this is the strongest connection that I have with my Father, in this area, where I feel most connected, most proud, happiest of and about my Father. It is in this area where my greatest love surfaces, as I think of my Father, and the connectivity I feel as a worker similar to the worker that he was.
And, in this way, work has, for me, holiness to it, a connection with some one else, a binding with another, for example, my Father, such that a sense of holiness is somehow present.
One of the greatest differences between my brother and me, I have come to believe, is that he has never, I strongly suspect, found this connection, through and in work, to our Father, or to holiness, but rather just the opposite. The lack of the connection with work that I have felt, has forever separated my Brother from an important part of one’s heritage, good work, and an important positive connection our Father.
Family Lost
The family I lost was the family I never could have. The family I have, which is very abundant and of whom I am very proud, is in reality my family. I am hoping that one of the things I have become is a person who appreciates what I do have, loves what I have, nurtures what I have, and am grateful and thankful for what I have.
I have a wonderful son who I see and love, have had parents who have cared for me and I have had important relationships with, I have a brother, a former wife, and the family that was hers, while I was married to her. I have met and been with grandparents, uncles and their families, cousins, and parents-in-laws. I have a nephew and know him and have interacted with his family. I have come to know, through the study of historical information on my great grandparents, something of who they were, and something of their children and their parents and grandparents. I have leaned, relatively, a lot about these people, a great number of people, who are, in fact, my family.
The family I have lost is not the family I have had, and have, which has been and is enormous, but the family – the children and their decedents – which perhaps I might have had, who I was willing and wanting to have.
This then is one of the dualities, so common in the human condition. We have the family that we have and need to become the persons who worship this family, and then secondly, we try to become, by having the family not yet there. It is this duality, which somehow creates separation, it seems to me, than that is so much of our condition of righteousness versus sin, of God versus of Satan, of choice versus suffering, of the word versus biology. This merging of loving and accepting the family we have and the family lost is at a center of connectivity in our lives, and the elimination of separation, or at least has been for me.
Politics
The recollection that comes to me when I think about my early period and any understanding of politics and the political system is of the Democratic Party in Virginia, which then was very much a part of the Democratic Party in the south, and was the only political party that mattered, in the south, for the most part, at least in terms of ever being elected to office. What I remember of my introduction to and thoughts on politics was of what I read in the newspapers of the goings on in determining who would be nominated, who was an important possible next candidate for Governor, and of the political family dynasties, such as the Byrd’s of Virginia.
I think back and now it seems to me that those political times very much represented an attitude towards public policy and thinking that much tied into the feeling of the majority, which of course voted the politicians, that represented those feelings, into office. Feelings seem to be important in politics. In my family, the public policy inclinations of the politicians seem very much in harmony with what seemed to be the feelings of my Father (I have never my Mother to express a political feeling) – feelings built upon through his experiences coming up in a struggling south, a depression, a war for survival – feelings then that represented caution, frugality, and, unfortunately, the superiority of the white man.
It was out of these experiences, that most would vote and would agree, in a majority, of what was important, and upon which the Virginia Democratic party would win and be expected to express – caution, frugality, and, unfortunately, the superiority of the white man.
What then might explain, why then would I not share the feelings of my Father and others of his period, but would have different feelings, and would embrace different responses to and views to public policy questions, and those who inspired me. It is in those experiences that we have, which I believe an explanation is found for the differences in feelings and from which political preferences emerge. Political inclinations, or the lack of them, definitely seem, to me, to express something deeply within us, so deep that feelings best connect to these inclinations.
I voted for George McGovern in 1972, the first vote I can remember casting. This was not a Vietnam vote. In fact, I never was passionately opposed to or for the war. After being rejected for Officer’s Candidate School in the 1965 to 1966 period, which I put in for, intending to go, if accepted, I continued, with what had been, irrespective of the war or any other consideration, other then to become a research chemist, a course towards graduate school. In the fall of 1966, I entered Wake Forest University Master's Degree Program in Chemistry. Once into this program, a benefit, which was not one that shamed me, was draft deferral. Another factor in draft deferral was being married. I do not remember any association or pressure in decisions connecting my marriage path and the Viet Nam War, but only very personal motivations, which, I believe, marriage decisions should be. But, being married may have kept me from being drafted, I do not know. Another recollection I have about this topic, is that I wrote to my draft board with the argument, that, as a scientist, I would be more productive to the country, than if I would not become a scientist if I was drafted.
I was naïve then, as I think I been often, and I was very patriotic then, a feeling I have always had. This was a time, in the early 60s, when the nation was seeking scientists, as a national strategy, often stated in the press, and I actually believed that I would help the nation by being a scientist, rather than being drafted, and that it made sense to argue to the Draft Board so.
This patriotism, and perhaps the naiveté, to which I refer above, was reflected in the feelings that I had towards politics and towards what a decision-maker should be. I was very much attracted to George McGovern because he seem to be the wisest (after all he did have a PhD) of the candidates, and what I read of his policies and plans seem much more progressive and addressed problems that I could identify with, and solutions were proposed. What he represented seemed best to progress the interests of the country. He made proposals that incorporated, for me, the concept of progression. This concept of progression came to represent what eventually I would consider myself as, during this period (up to my 40s), politically - a progressive. Whether this met liberal or conservative, I did not know, but liberals seemed, to me, at that time, to be more progressively minded, from what little I knew of the details.
I do know that I have always taken my choice for whom I was to vote for fairly seriously, which, for me met I should read of the candidates and their views, to study the differences. This was very much present, studying the candidates, when I cast my first vote for McGovern back in 1972, something I have continued. In recent times, I have depended on the television debates for a final decision about whom I would vote for.
I do not really think of myself as a Democrat or a Republican, although my feelings have come to be that religion, individual determination (the presence of freedom), and free markets are important foundations to base a society on. I think these foundations are more associated with the Republican Party today, in America, but I could easily vote for a Democrat, if I concluded the Democratic candidate was the superior leader and had qualities that appealed to me, and as being obviously superior and more sensible to me, as topics are debated. For me, it has never been so simple as to vote a particular philosophy, although a factor, but a much more complex decision requiring careful study, and observation, and reflection, in respect to what is being offered.
I seem now to have much more interest in watching the deliberations of the Frederick County Commissioners and the Frederick County Board of Appeals when their meetings are televised over the cable government channel, than interest, I think I ever had, in what was going on in federal and state legislatures.
One of the reasons, I think, I am so fascinated and absorbed by these proceedings is because of what they represent – which, although I may not actually and constantly contemplate such abstract thoughts, as I watch, I am somehow able to be well aware, and that is, of the complexity of the human activity, as well as the fundamental importance to human welfare of what is going on before me. At least, I do believe this to be so, and so believing, I am so impressed and awed by what I am watching.
There, going on, at the most local, basic levels are issue resolutions that face the most relevant of our communities, our own. Going on are issue resolutions in an orderly process, a process I judge to represent an advanced state of development, developed through the best that American democratic traditions have come up with. And, then, this is going on using, for the most part, the word, the spoken word, the most powerful of forces ever developed, and here so powerfully being deployed, ultimately for betterment, for righteousness, for fairness in a way that represents the best that man does when it comes to self government. I just like lying on my couch and watching this all going on.
No where, I think, will you find such a direct interaction between the governed and the governing, between the governed and the government, between the governing and the government, between those who governed and those who governed, and, importantly, between the governed and the governed. In spite of the oft times, in what seems to be mundane issues, watching these bodies at work comes about as close as you get, it seems to me, to that which is so valuable to us all.
Influences
Elsewhere in these memoirs, I write much of becoming. As I reflect back on my life, the sense of a striving to become, a feeling that as my life evolved, my great input, to this life, has been to influence the outcome of what I would become. But who else had an influence on the outcome?
The first super change in my life occurred, as I have written elsewhere, in the 11th year of my public schooling, when a friend and classmate, and neighbor, Roger Velico, at the Algiers Naval Base in New Orleans, where my father was stationed in his last assignment in the Navy before retiring, redirected my life by redirecting me from indifference to knowledge and ideas to passion for knowledge and ideas. I find it difficult to find or to feel any such life changing redirections, as this was, prior to this 11th grade epiphany. Certainly, those about me, prior to this, had influences – parents, sibling, friends, teachers, other family, but not the effect on strategic change that Roger had.
The next person of influence in impacting strategic direction would be Mary Louise Byrd, who I met while an assistant for an Old Dominion University freshman chemistry course’s laboratory session in 1963, and she a student in the course and laboratory. From that meeting, we went on to eventually marry in 1965, have one child in 1976, a son Maxwell Lansing, and remained marry for almost nineteen years. It is hard for me to imagine that living with another person, in a marital and sexual union, cannot but have a major strategic influence on one’s becoming. It certainly did for me.
I still went off into a separately conceived world, from my marriage world, as I, in my own life, would continue to evolved and continue to become, but now a part of becoming definitely included two, Mary Louise and Me, as a pair, together, in a very special, and what I believe to a be a sacramental (God’s special presence) relationship.
I now am thinking, as I have looked back, on my marriage to Mary Louise, it was when we stopped becoming, together, that which made, or would make, us both happy, that ended the happiness of the marriage, for one or both of us. I think this is what happened. We wanted to become something different, than what the other wanted, and we (one or the other or both) were unhappy, that we were not becoming what we wanted to become and being together prevented this.
Another major influence has been my child, my son. Like as a marriage, a child is of such a unique, intimate, and profound association, that it is hard for me to imagine children not having major influences on one’s life, as they should. Upon the birth of my son, and I suspect many feel this way, I felt I was in receipt of a gift, a priceless gift, and a transforming gift, a gift purely loved. And I am thinking that it is this aspect of a child, a priceless gift, purely loved, that perhaps is behind the influence that my son has had on me.
It was at the birth of my son, Max, that I began to attend church regularly, faithfully, weekly, continuing to this day, for close to thirty years. I often think the birth of a child is an event that brings many people to or back to church. And, somehow, this religious awakening is associated with this sense of a child, a priceless, mysterious gift, purely loved.
Although difficult for me to put into the right words, having children is, it seems to me, an act of becoming where God may be most present for us. This is where God may have the greatest influence on us.
Another major influence on me, one that I feel changed me in a fundamental way, a way that changed me strategically, put me on a different course, was not by an individual, but by a community – the community that I experienced when Mary Louise and I moved, in 1980, and started living in Frankfurt, Germany.
This act of moving to Frankfurt, an act of becoming, led to, for both Mary Louise (I believe) and I, a new world view for both of us. This was the beginning of new perspectives of what we then wanted and would be happy becoming. The experience of living in Germany was, for both of us, I believe, a fundamentally transforming experience, in terms of what we would then go on to want to become. One outcome of this was, I think, the dissolution of our marriage.
The experience of living in Germany and in Europe, absorbing the cultural differences, and the new opportunity to grow in the way that I did through the work I was assigned to do, has had a strategic change on me. The change was of assimilation, of a different internal nature, I think, then the change I experienced from my 11th grade finding of ideas and knowledge, which was more of an epiphany, or from my taking on a wife and having a child, a change of addition. The German experience changed me somehow, I think, intellectually. It expanded me in a way that met that I could not go back to being happy, viewing the world and my work the same way, and being happy with the skills and tasks I had previously used and applied. I had a new view and I had new capacities.
One final major influence that I feel has been present is one that is currently unfolding and ending up, as my Mother, who will be 97 in September, is ending up her life, as she now lives, full time with me. I have written elsewhere in these memoirs, about my Mother and the care giving relationship that I have had with her for several years, and how this has brought me closer to her. This is not the influence that I am speaking about here. But, rather, the influence is my inheritance.
My inheritance does not just represent property, it represents more. My parents worked hard and wanted to build up property. This was their decision, a decision intimately related to their freedom, their freedom to save and build up property. This, I believe, is a fundamental right, and then, a fundamental human value, and an important component of freedom, to be able to choose and to build up property. Without this right, we would, I think cease to be great builders in and of this world, and cease to be becomers, and would loose vitality, vitality that comes with property ownership.
My parents did build up property, for whatever reason, one of which was, presumably, for their own benefit. That they decided to do with this property, as they wanted, is one of the great freedoms that should be. That they decided to keep and to pass on the property, and this was by choice, is a fundamental right and value that, I believe, is important for all of our welfare. That which they have built up, their property, which will be passed on to me and my Brother, is, I think, and it should be, an important influence for me, just as receiving property should be for all children who receive inheritances. I should be proud of my inheritance, which I am. I am proud of my parents, what they did in their lives, of their property, of the son that I have been, of the influences they have had on me, and the influence that they will continue to have on me, and those who inherit from me, because of their property and my inheritance.
People Loved
I suspect all the people I identified elsewhere in these memoirs are people I have loved, and perhaps still love. Each person identified, both those identified with name, or identified by role played, has been meaningful to me. For me, being identified in a memoir means meaningfulness. And, associated with this meaningfulness I believe, has been love.
I guess meaningful people can make their ways into memoirs because they are not loved, by the memoiree, but I do not think that I have any such people in my memoirs.
I have not gone back and done an accounting of whom I have identified in my memoirs, but I am thinking that the number of people identified is probably surprisingly high. And thinking about these numbers, and even higher numbers for others, and how such numbers are probably common for most of us, this strikes me that love is then not limited. Loving all of these people has not worn me out, worn me down, burned me out, or in other ways permanently harmed me. Also, there does not seem to be a limit on the number of people that I can feel love for, have loved. The limit seems not to be the love that can be generated, but the numbers of people that enter the life became.
I feel fortunate to have been able to identify these people, who are in my memoirs, and to feel love for them, and, in my journey of becoming, to have had the opportunity to love these people. I now think about this and feel very much at peace, and very much enriched that I have, in life, people to love. I now, as I am writing this, am thinking that an important contributor to a life became, is the people loved.
And, with this, I cannot but help to think of my religion, Christianity, and of how one prominence in Jesus’ massages is love and loving people, and, this further makes me think, as I complete these memoirs, and with love presence in my own life, that the act of loving people is essential to the success of becoming a person worthy of becoming.
Milestones
The milestones of my life, I am thinking, are the strategic points reached, those points that represent a period of me becoming. For me, in this memoir, that attempts to emphasize a certain quality of my life, the quality of becoming, the milestones of my life are periods I feel that represent the most memorable periods during when I became.
Perhaps, the first of these periods was when my family moved, when I was four, from my first and only home to that time, in Hampton, Virginia, to the Portsmouth Naval Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia. When I look back, it was subsequent to this move that I began to find the first acting out, as a person, alone, going off, with other little boys, when my parents were no longer presence. I look back now as this being a period of beginning to become independent.
I remember well, from those Portsmouth days, attending Saturday morning westerns and film matinees, with my friends, and eating popcorn. I remember well riding bicycles to, what seemed like a long way, the junk graveyards where the Navy dumped obsolete items no longer used. I remember well hours spent at the post pool with my friends. I remember fondly this period when I was first out on my own.
The next memorable period that comes to me is between ages seven or eight and ages sixteen or seventeen, represented by a period of relocations for my family, and by a period of me trying to adjust to the rigors and discipline that life requires. I feel this was a period of becoming a person who could handle pain and struggle, important in adjusting to the rigors and discipline that life requires, in a way that I could, a way unique to each of us, and a characteristic (handling pain and struggle), I think, that helps defines each of us, what we will become. I feel this was a period of becoming a person who needed to find understanding, understanding of who I was, and who what I was, interacted with, and would interact, with the rest of the world
I remember well from these days the names of some of my closest friends, and some of the feelings that I had for them, and the times spent together, the explorations and gratifications that we sought, together, only in a way that could be sought successfully, together. I remember well girls who I felt love for, my first sexual kiss, sexual awakenings, and those feelings so important that come as we become sexual beings. I remember well the person I became who could have happiness, because of friends and activities, and the fun that would follow. This was a very special period.
The next memorable period that comes to me is from the period beginning in the 11th year of my public schooling through to the end of my college days, to my college graduation. This was a period of becoming a person who began to explore his mind, his internal being, and the use and need of mind for knowledge and ideas.
I remember well from these days, the passion that I had in the discovery of new knowledge, of reading books, and of exploring the world of knowledge and ideas. I remember well classes and instructors I had in college, of going to summer school to take courses that I had special interest in, for example, European History in the summer of 1963, and how passionate I was that summer in the information that the professor presented to us and the readings I did for the class. I remember well my first English course in college where I began to write, for the first time, and the recognition of writing's importance, and how so poor I was then at writing and the relationship between writing and ideas and knowledge and a life of the mind. I remember well the satisfaction I got from studying and making good grades. I remember fondly this person I became, capable of passion for ideas and knowledge.
The next memorable period that comes to me is from the period beginning around 1973, when I was about 28, and went to work for Army Technical Intelligence, to when I was in Frankfurt, Germany, from 1980 to 1984, working for the Army seeking out European technical information. This was a period during which I became a person who was a worker, a person applying knowledge and ideas towards improvement of a cause.
I well remember many of the work accomplishments of this period, the projects completed, the dedication I had to my mission. I remember well many of the other workers that I worked with. I remember well the person I became, capable of a successful work life. I remember well this period as one of family, a very happy family life, wife and son, and the importance of the feelings and the uniqueness of the love this gave me. I have great fondness for this period as a period when I was most happy from the love I experienced for my family.
The next memorable period that comes to me is from the period beginning in 1984, when I returned from Germany, alone, my marriage over, to 1994, when I gave up my Army Technical Intelligence career, and took the opportunity of an early retirement from this career. This was a period, during which I became a person more unique and independent, a person creating and pursuing his own way at work when convinced of the correctness of the way, a person very interested in quality and the truth of the actions of my being – that I was being true to what I was and wanted to be.
I well remember the program I ran during this time in technical intelligence, the uniqueness I was able to bring to the program, its quality and the passion I had for it, and the contrariness to accepted views projected through the program. I remember well how this was a period of newness for me as I became a single adult, and because of the newness, the pursuing of outlets for creativity to deal with this newness and being alone. I became a person who began to recognize that the act of becoming is important to who I am as a person, and that I could survive through the act of becoming. I am very fond of this period of becoming.
And the last memorable period that comes to me is the period that I am in now, beginning in 1994, and retirement from my first career. This is a period during which I have become a person with a history, a history of becoming that now allows me to better become what I might like to become during that which remains. I am very fond that I have during this period such an opportunity and a desire to try to do just this - try to become what I most would like to become – and that I am doing just that.
Special Moments
In recent years, I have gone running in the late afternoon, almost everyday, on the middle school track across the street from my home. I run one and a half miles and then walk two. During this walking, I would experience recollections of special moments. These special moments have been thoughts of an experience, an interaction, an event that I have had in my life, thoughts, which would bring forth special good, positive, uplifting feelings. I am going to try to recollect some of these special moments now.
I love good films. Some of the very special moments that I have had have been in the solitude of my living room, the world shut out and closed down, I separated from myself, from my stresses, totally absorbed in the story, and its message, that is unfolding before me. Good films are one of life’s treasures. I have enjoyed discovering good films, based on what others have concluded and recommended, and writing my own comments about the films, that have I watched, and what I have learned from them.
I loved to contra dance, and other dances, and have such fond memories of those many hours dancing. The joy of loosing oneself in the movements of the dance, in the coordination with that wonderful, spirited, uplifting dance music, played by passionate, dedicated musicians; the sensuality of the female touch and presence and her smile and eye contact; the sense of skill and exertion and healthiness created, during the years of my dance life, were very special moments in my life.
I have such enjoyed fixing “chicken and noodle in creamy sauce”, since that very first time, about seven or eight years ago, I fixed it while Max, my son, was living with me after his return from his year of college. These many times that I now have fixed this special meal, when Max visits me, and then sitting and eating with him and experiencing our enjoyment again and again of the food, and being together, have been very special moments for me.
I so enjoyed visiting my Mother while she still lived in her condominium at 27C, 2700 Banyan Road, in Boca Raton, Florida, and going out every evening, after spending the day doing the tasks needed by her, to our dinner at one of those restaurants that we always went to, and then on to the early show of whatever film was showing, that had received some good ratings. In the close to twenty years that my Mother lived in Boca Raton, following my Dad’s death in 1984, I ended up spending close to a full year of time (but only in a few days increments) in Boca Raton with her. This time was very special moments for me. I have very fond memories of Boca Raton, and of all the tasks, activities, and fun I had there with my Mother.
I have so enjoyed the many hours I have spent at the Library of Virginia, at the National Achieves, on the Internet, and in other ways searching for and researching my family history, and then putting the results of what I found into a written document. I have had many special moments as I have discovered information on my ancestors, and their and my history, and gotten to know them, for the first time, and something of their lives.
I so enjoyed those shows and programs that I see on television that take place in and deal with European countries. Those shows have brought back memories and feelings of so many special moments that I had while living in Frankfurt, Germany and traveling through Europe on assignments for the Army. I have such fond memories of those special moments.
I have so many good memories of special moments I spent with my wife before our son came, and then, after his birth, with us all together. I remember well her great tennis ability and watching her play, so many times, and how others would take to her so easily. I remember well our dating and the night I asked her to marry me and our marriage ceremony and our honeymoon. I remember well the birth of our son, and how I was present, and subsequent days of raising him. I remember the locations we lived and the residences we occupied. I remember many of the friends we had. I remember well the time we spent together in Germany, a time that was so special for both of us, and which was so of full of so many special memories.
These are some of the special moments that I recollect as I am walking my 2 miles on the track across the street, while I am reflecting on my life, and on what I am, and what I have become. Hopefully, I can continue to run, and to walk, to become, and to recollect such special moments. For, it seems to me, it is the act of becoming that allows us to have special moments, and I am so very happy and grateful for having the special moments that I have had.
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