new year…

the black hand-by jay herron

Originally uploaded by jayfherron

This is not a really good day for me-the memory of the event that changed my life came in the early morning hours of new years eve…1970.
Because of the recent death of my father my emotions are shaken…I wanted to validate myself with my father….to be able to tell him I had not failed the Navy,they failed me. Its all lost now.
So you have to forgive me for being so brief today-no story behind anything today…it happened on this date and stayed with me-no its even deeper,the pain.

it seems so strange…

drawing by-jay herron

Originally uploaded by jayfherron

I drove away from my parents home yesterday almost powerless to be able to say good bye to my mother because grief was taking over me and my voice was crowded with the ready burst of tears. So I rubbed her back and mumbled something and took for the refuge of the car. I drove out to the highway with my face flooded with all that I had fought earlier to keep inside.
My son and his wife-and my three year old grandson-had driven away in front of me. They turned north and I turned south. We spoke later and admitted it was a strange weekend.

I don’t know where to pick up a place to write. I believe what was so strange was that my father had died and in my heart as I drove to there-in Georgia-all my thoughts were about ‘now it is over and never will I be able to clear it up what really happened’….meaning-what really happened to cause my discharge from the Navy. And then-my son who is Navy-took us on a drive Christmas eve afternoon…me and mother and his family all ended up eating lunch in view of several Navy frigates at the McDonalds on base at Mayport Navy Station. None of them knew what was going through my mind at that time….we were together on an unplanned Christmas together. Please allow me to call it ‘crixmix’ from here on out….it is a remarkable date for me,but not a holiday by any means.
My rapes happened on the advent of the up comng new year-and surrounded by the timing of the holiday…well,the whole celebration thing just went away and I never enjoyed the gifting and glitter of it since. The memories….get used to it-thats what I was told.
I wanted to be in the Navy-which adds to all the rest of it…and here we were as if some strange spirit was pulling us through this time and timing….my father gone-just two days,and not even a funeral. It was all too perplexing for both my son and his wife and me,and because I’m with holding my own private grief the scene of the ships out the window of the lobby of the Micky D’s was just too strange.

We had earlier this day-crixmix day…had gone to my brothers home for the gift time. I don’t do gifts-I don’t care for any of the crixmix production…it truely disturbs me. Yet here we were. And it came time to go and I drove my mother to her house.
As we pulled around the corner in the sub-division where they live…a land of house next to another and on and on with the ever other house looking like every other house and a sporadic tree dotting the landscape…this huge hawk flew up to the peak of one of the houses. So out of place for where we were-this hawk.
It was a messenger to me…peace and calm man-thats what it was about,that hawk.
It was last year on new years eve the hawk flew in my front door of my house. It had ended its flight at the huge window opposite the door-it just sat there with its wings spread wide…it allowed me to pick it up and release it. I was in awe of God to send me such a message of strength…the hawk on new years eve,my rapes at that time years before-the significance of the birds presence was important.
And there was this hawk in suburb setting at that moment and that particular day and that exact timing…the hawk.

My Father

My Father

Originally uploaded by jayfherron

I recieved the telephone call this morning that my father has passed away.
I just sat here for an hour an tried to write what I could-the graces of internet and electronic mystery allowed every bit of it to get lost into space-or where ever all of this cyber stuff gets lost in….vacuumed every bit of my words and shoved them somewhere…it just aint right.

I’m even afraid now to write another set of paragraphs in fear they too go and get lost as well…
My father grew up in an era of much history-being born in the 1920’s in New Orleans you can imagine.
He was raised in Washington DC.
He passed away in Kingsland Georgia.

I truely have a million things to say..but after spending the time writing what I just lost has made me weary-the memories I tried to give account of caused me grief as I wrote them…I cannot do it again,at least not now.
Those of you that know me know that this is not an easy loss for me.
I will try to rewrite my dedication to my my dad at a later time.

drawing a blank…

drawing by-jay herron

Originally uploaded by jayfherron

It is not even the official date of winter….and I do live in Florida-but niether of these things change the fact that it is freezing today. My bedroom was a crisp 34 degrees F and the wind chill outdoors was 26. It is supposed to be colder tonight.

I used to be able to do it with out much problem. It has always been work-this lifestyle with out the thermostat and instant cold air in the summer or the ready to order heat when it gets too cold-the winter becomes a tricky task.
It’s hard to describe this place…Florida in the winter. Just the other day it was 80 degrees and I could have used the air conditioner in the truck but chose the windows down and listening to the radio news saying how Oklahoma City was still with out power from the rages of a winter storm that had just passed through. I could’nt imagine the nights and days in Oklahoma in the winter with out heat-its hard enough here in Florida.

I remember as a teenager my father had a rule about being in by a certain hour-I think it was 10 p/m…and if you did’nt get in the house by then you waited until the morning. I’ve sat in the front seat of a car in the winter watching the snow pile up on the hood. It was my fathers DeSoto where I waited-freezing-for him to open the front door in the morning.
To be homeless and living in a car is no good place to be.

I have to be honest.
My mind is in a daze lately.I don’t even know if I can explain the way emotions and rhoughts all accumulate and pack into my head. I’m tired. The front that brought this arctic blast through last night was forwarded by a healthy rain storm the night before…the scramble to find towels to absorb the water that dripped through my bedroom roof at 2 a/m has had an effect on the rest of it all of being tired and trying to think out all that is going on is beating me up. Crixmix….my term for the glitterly yee-hee holiday-it always a certain drag for me. My first time away from the old family home with the tree and stockings and the fire place was spent on board my new home-the USS Vulcan. I was going to miss the sight of gifts and that way the early morning of Crixmix day makes a kid feel-I was not going to be able to see my family until the New Year weekend. That did’nt work out too well either.
So my mind is always more deeper into the thoughts and memory of barracks D and what happened there new years 1969-70 and how it was that I got there and the fact it was that holiday and now its that holiday again….and how this thing has never ever gone away-and the things in addition.
Well…I’m drawing a blank as how to say what it is – in addition.
I guess at times I become afraid I might sound like a whiner…and I am not.
I came to live here in these woods over 30 years ago with nothing but a tent and a worn out car-a really worn out car….my family and I started right here with out any question-on the dirt. And I never want to lose that memory and the taste of that experience-and that is something I worry about.
Last night there must of been a power surge-the electric went off for about an hour and sitting here in the dark with a candle and a blanket wrapped around me and it was still cold and the thoughts of my dad’s DeSoto and how even so it may have been inside-it was freezing ass cold…and my mind drifted to those who are sitting up under an overpass somewhere or standing out on the street.
Of course-when the power goes off the well looses its prime….for those of you who have no clue what that means I will explain that the water to my house comes from a spring underground and an electric pump pulls the water up through a 2″ pipe thats about 175 feet deep in the ground and when the electric is off the water in the pipe goes back into the spring and emptys the pipe…so I have to fill 10 five gallon buckets with water and that means I have to drive to town somewhere and find a source for water and fill my buckets. Then I have to come back and open the pipe and one gallon at a time I have to fill that pipe until grabs its prime and it gushes like one of those oil wells the Jed Clampetts found. It aint so bad in the summer….but its not going to be so great today doing the water thing in the cold. But it helps me to remain humble about it…the process of thought helps me to know I am yet richer then others.
Luke 4:18

the way things go…

shined wheels

Originally uploaded by jayfherron

Yesterday was one month since my hearing. It has been five months since I last had therapy-I still feel the effects of both and still feel the effects of the reason why there was therapy and a hearing.

My feelings about all of this still make me feel the numbness of how the cycle of things are and the way things go.
I did live my life with out all this being.
Once,and it was a long time ago-I can hardly even imagine it although I have vivid moments of memories,they are pieces.

Things just seem to happen sometimes in a way that it speaks to you in a spiritual sense-you don’t exactly know the everythings or the whys…but you know things happen for a reason of some kind of lesson-or encouragement and strength.
Ten years ago I had a hearing about my Social Security-I had no idea of these things but I knew at the time I needed the help getting it. To make a long story short-the attorney I chose to see me through this was from Washington DC. I chose him because he had a very odd name.
We never met until the day of the hearing and the day before we were to meet my body was in such stress because to meet somebody strange out of the blue is not an easy thing for me-and a person in authority makes it a lot more stressfull.
I took a long walk the day before and I was thinking about the connection this attorney and I had-he being from Washington and my being from there once upon a time….and I was remembering about how it was back in the 1950’s our grandmother used to give us a handfull of dimes and bus tokens (little coins from the city transit system) and my cousins and I were free to roam the city museums. She’d give us the dimes to get us out of her way for the day-back in the 1950’s it was safe to do so….send a bunch of kids downtown DC alone.
So I’m thinking about this as I walked-and where I live is so rural and away from everything and my place sets up against a Florida State Forest…I was walking through the forest along an old logging road thinking about my grandmother and those dimes in connection with the attorney with the strange name from Washington DC.
And there on the ground far from any place and any one was this dime-shined enough it caught my eye,and I picked it up and knew that it had a meaning and was a sign.

Last week my son invited me to ride to Georgia to see my parents-my father who is sick in bed from cancer.
I confess I have been having a desperate time with his being ill…its been over two years now.
When the things that happened to lead me into barracks D-all my father saw was barracks D…not any further than that.
There are things that my father will never know on this side of eternity as to what my heart feels;
grateful , I believe one way he will know-one day.
My father and I have had a strained relationship for all of these years-it seemed so odd sitting in that moving vehicle and thinking of the man who seemed so forever…looking so badly.

On the trip out of Gainesville we stopped to pick up a package at a local drug store-my son and his wife had taken a VCR cassett which was full of our family home movies from the time I was a baby until around my 14th year and had them transfered to DVD. My baby brothers-my older siblings Frank and Jo Eileen…my great grand parents and grand parents.
My father took so much footage of home movies which is priceless now that I look back at it and at them. There is eight hours of film…now on DVD ,thanks to my kids.

So we returned home from Georgia and my kids drop me off and I come in here with this set of discs (so much footage it took up two…) and I began to watch the old family films.
My father did love me.
I can see it as he holds me as a baby-I am lucky enough to be able to see….thanks to these films.
It seems so strange to look that far back-way back before we were damaged and see myself so innocent and interesting to see myself before I knew of all the tragic things which will effect our lives…before there was ever a thought of drugs or alcohol-before I ever knew people could be as evil as those who attacked me in barracks D.

It is sort of in a way like finding that dime to be able to see these old movies and to see my father being alive and happy and young and holding me his brand new son….and wanting me. I could see love in the faces of everyone-my father included. How strange for it to come to me from these films.

I don’t really know what I’m going on about here…it’s just thats it is all so surreal.
Here at my lifes back door…things look so crazy to me. My life and its secret goes all these years,my own personal agony,mine alone…and then it comes to light once again-therapy begins,interest in what had happened…then other things which developed from that.
It just all seems so surreal….and soon my father will be gone-and all I have is the movies to see his love.
Sorry-it is one of those days where my mind is muddled.