Memoirs of a Hunter's Son... Part 1

This blog post, and the series of postings to come, will be a tale of anguish, terror, occasional joy, and yet be completely true to the best of my recollection. This is an autobiographical set of writings which detail my life from 1975 to today. On occasion, some of the details captured in these postings may contain topics and instances of violence, abuse, and sexual references. For the most part, I will strive to keep everything as PG Rated as I can, but I am not making any promises.





Memoirs of a Hunter's Son... Part 1:


One of my earliest memories is waking up to the noise of people talking in the next room. The light came on and my brother called my name to wake me up. Mom leaned down to me on the bottom bunk of the bunk-bed my brother and I shared while we were living in my grandmother's basement. She gently shook me awake and told me she had a surprise for me. The next thing I recall is suddenly seeing my daddy for the first time in a long time.

The context in which the previous memory resides must be filled in for you to comprehend what emotional impact and resounding fear brought to and followed this moment captured in my memory. My father was a man who indulged in every substance he could find which allowed him to escape the pressures, pain, memories, and fears of living in a world where he had always been told he would never be good enough.

Dad was the oldest son in his family, and received an indecipherable amount of abuse, neglect, and accusations throughout his childhood. Other than that, I know very little. Rumor has it that - when his parents would go out to the movies or to parties or shopping, my father - as a child of 10 years - would be locked inside the cabinet in the kitchen of the farmhouse he lived on. Upon his father's return home, he would be beaten if a single tear or flicker of resentment was seen in his eyes or on his face.

The damage to a child's mental state makes the man he will become a bitter, isolated, terrified soul. My father escaped from his memories of anguish and pain by drinking, smoking, snorting, and injecting anything that would numb the pain. As a child myself, I had little awareness of the snorting or injecting, but full knowledge of the drinking and smoking.

The chain of physical, psychological, and even sexual abuse continued with my father upon my siblings, myself, my mother, and anyone who was in my dad's way when he was upset. The scars in my mind are more ingrained within my being than the markings left to this day on my flesh from my father's abuse. The majority of my memories from childhood are so filled with agony and terror that my subconscious has hidden them away behind a wall of depression and fury. 

So, upon reflection of what my father was, what he did to my family and myself, I shall return to the tale of memory with which I began this posting.

I awoke to my mother's face, so loved and beautiful back then, before father had his way with her, by battering and bashing and breaking her jaw... Mom picked me up and carried me into her bedroom and - to my sand-man dreary, sleep-filled eyes and groggy mind, I saw my father. The joy in my brother's eyes and the smile on his face was something I remember with bitter sibling jealousy - an emotion I had no name for at the tender age of 8 years.


Mom set me down and I ran to Dad and let him scoop me up as I wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him my best and longest bear hug ever. 

My father was always doing things which would end with him behind bars. Every time he would do something he knew was illegal, he would always assume he could never get caught. For several years he had been in jail. I had known his presence and his face and his voice and his smell from my infancy, and would remember it all my life, whether I thought I could or even wanted to, but for much of my life, Dad had spent a lot of time in prison or being his party animal self with an unknown quantity of women at every party he went to...

After the bear hug, I recall little of detail. Occasionally, these images repeat their presence in my mind at odd moments.  The years following this moment of happiness in my youth would be terrifying and filled with bruising, bleeding, broken bones, silent tears while hiding in the closet, endless screams of pain as my father's leather belt would lash its way across our backsides until we bled out and could hardly walk, much less sit down, and rare, but precious moments my father would take us for a wild ride in the van and get us some ice cream...


These memories are cruel, but I must open the gates and let the compressed oceans of darkness find the light.