My Life So Far, Volume One
Those of you who grew up with me will know the first part of this story, but bear with me while I fill in the ones who never met me. I was born in Mt. Clemens General Hospital on August 8, 1958, to Alfred Edward Seys and Laura Mae Seys (nee Laura Mae Aude). Yes, that means I have been twenty-nine years old for more than twenty-nine years. My family, two older sisters and my parents, lived on Tallman Street, though I have no memories of the place and couldn’t find it on a map if I didn’t have GPS.
My earliest memory is of our home in Mt. Clemens at 60 Logan Street, between Cass Avenue and Church Street, one block East of Groesbeck Highway (M97). The first memory I have is of me navigating the stairs in the old house so my mother could put my shoes on my feet and I then went out to find my new friend, Ron Kenyon, down the oiled dirt road. I believe I was around four years old at the time. Life was a great adventure, and I was happy not to know I was poor. We lived on the wrong wide of the railroad, but it insulated us from the intrigues of the city proper.
I attended Woodrow Wilson Elementary School just a short walk up Church Street from my home, and walked home and back for lunch each day. I actually felt sorry for the kids who rode the buses because they didn’t get as much time at home each day. It was here I learned that I was not considered as good as some of the other kids because of the low income of my family. I decided by the third grade that the opinions of others made no difference to me, because I knew my own worth. When the playground bullies found that my feelings went unscathed by their taunts the quickly tired and sought easier prey.
On the day of President Kennedy’s assassination, I was in kindergarten. The school rolled televisions into the classrooms so we could all watch the news coverage of the death of our beloved president. I remember my eyes watering at the obvious distress of the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, until I noticed Martha Stanton crying. It became more important to me to comfort Martha than to cry myself, so I held her hand until she stopped. Martha, please forgive me for embarrassing you like that.
My family suffered some severe setbacks when I was in the second grade under Mrs. Lockwood. My father was hospitalized with a “nervous breakdown” and my mother had gall bladder problems that led to surgery while dad was in the hospital. When mom got home we returned to as normal a life as we could until dad came back from the hospital and returned to work.
My dad was not a very big man at only five feet eight inches, but he was very strong and worked in foundries trimming castings with a swing grinder. I have tried my hand at the work and I know it takes lots of brawn. Dad did this for the whole time we lived in Southeast Michigan. He took me fishing but I only went for his company, I was a lousy angler. My biggest catch was always pan fish too small to keep.
After the sixth grade I attended George Washington Junior High School, walking there from home using Grand Avenue past the old railroad passenger station that was already out of service by nineteen seventy. I played football with Brian Maikoski, Mike Ocianiki, and Jerry Copp, among others. It was there that I fell in love with math and science, in spite of the efforts of Mr. Penzene to destroy my love of math. Were it not for Mr. Penzene, I would have learned to do algebra in the eighth grade and had calculus in high school. As it is I still haven’t studied the calculus in a formal setting. My math education was badly stunted due to his efforts.
In high school at Mt. Clemens Senior High, I took a double science major and a math major, twelve semesters of science and six of math in a school that lasted only eight semesters. Yes I doubled up on science. I also became a history buff. But the curriculum at the high school was not as in depth as the books I was reading in the library across the street. When the history class was studying the Second World War, I asked the teacher to allow me to give the lecture on the Pacific Theater of Operations. I spoke from memory, without notes, but was able to convey the entire information in half an hour so we could have a comment session. The teacher was impressed enough to commend me in front of the class. He said he learned something from my presentation.
In my junior year, two important events took place that shaped the course of my life. I took the PSAT and scored in the top ninety-five percentile, I even have a certificate from the Michigan Department of Education for my high scores. Even the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offered me an academic scholarship. But I knew I was too weak in English to make it at MIT. So my senior year I took the college writing course while all the jocks were taking film study. I always had a writers’ block whenever I was required to write on an assigned subject. I could always write, and write well, when I picked the topic, but whenever the topic was assigned, my mind would blank out and no words ever came. I failed that course and didn’t receive my diploma until the end of the summer of 1976.
In the summer of 1975, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps delayed entry pool. I wanted to serve my country with the best there was. Even though I recognized that the United States Army was already the greatest in the world, I perceived a difference in the way Marines are trained and the way they perform in battle. I was hooked by the writings of Richard Tregaskis (Guadalcanal Diary) and Leon Uris (Battle Cry). So I had a place to go after school was done for me, and I had a way to pay for college once my first enlistment was over. I left Mt. Clemens in June, 1976, not realizing I would never return.
To be continued….
Ol’ Fuzzy is not employable and was denied for disability benefits. The only thing I have is the blogs. But I don’t qualify for ads on the blogs until September. If you like the scribbles I post, please help me keep it going. You can leave me a gratuity by dropping a buck or two in Ol' Fuzzy's Tip Jar. This is a PayPal account I opened on Wednesday, April 5, 2017.
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