Earliest Memories: Ft. Ord, California (1967-1968)

I remember living in a house with a hill in the backyard that had curved sidewalk that disappeared up over the crest. I remember always wondering where the sidewalk went. I was only four or five at the time, so the yard itself was the extent of my world, or at least the world I was able to explore by myself.

I remember feeling alone in my world, even though I know now that I had three older sisters and a younger brother, all roughly two years apart in age. I have few early memories of my siblings. I later --- much later --- came to realize that my older sisters never liked me because of how my mother, who dominated my family, favored and doted on me. As I grew older, they resorted to doing everything they could to make me look "bad", and even convinced me I was "bad", either intentionally or unintentionally. I grew up believing I was "ugly" (I wasn't), "stupid" (not at all), and "worthless" (you be the judge, if you like), because of the way my older sisters treated me.

I don't blame them, though, nor ever did. My mother desperately wanted another boy after she lost her first in a mid-term abortion that was induced when my father hit her in the stomach in anger over her pregnancy (i.e. he essentially "murdered" my older brother pre-naturally, and lived his life as a result in a state of perpetual guilt that my mother constantly lorded over him and used to keep him submissive to her). She and my father were both still in high school at the time.

So my sisters were only reacting naturally to the very palpable emotional neglect that they themselves experienced as a result of being unwanted girls by my mother, and impositions upon my father, who escaped the family as much as he could through an NCO military career.

I don't blame my mother or father either. They were just kids themselves, struggling to adapt to a completely new and fast-changing post World War world where television ruled moral conduct with falsely composed images of perfect American families that were, and are, impossible to attain. My mother desperately wanted such a family, so desperately that she shunned even her own thoughts, and children, when they did not conform. I think my father just wanted to stay out of prison, and then, later, out of hell. (And then, later still, out of prison again; but that's a different story.)

If I were to blame anyone, for my loneliness and such, it would be society itself for the way it held up such impossible idealistic familial images that even the most staunch advocates could not attain in the end (as history shows). And I did blame society for the longest time years later, after all the fear, confusion, and loneliness I experienced as a child lead me to behave against love and human connection itself and landed me in prison before I even understood what it was I was rebelling against.

But, I can't blame society anymore. Like my sisters, like my parents, and like everyone else, including me, society was just a "victim" of its own ignorance and historical circumstance. The disease, if you can call it that, that causes all such fear, confusion, and suffering (loneliness) is ignorance itself. And I have since come to understand that even ignorance has its place and purpose. So in the end, I no longer blame anyone or anything. It just is what it is.

So, my earliest memories excuse nothing. Though they could help explain everything, if considered without an eye on blame, or fault, but instead with an open heart and mind that might allow one to see how WE are all responsible for what our children do (and become), as I hope the fact of my earliest memories as a child help to set forth here. I became a "serial killer", and "child rapist/murderer", even "the most hated man in Idaho" (according to the popular newspapers). But, what I became was the result of who and what we all are together, not just who or what I am alone. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, so it takes a society to create a "monster". My hope is only that someday WE will realize this, and stop blaming everything on the "monsters" that we create, which only propagates the ignorance, and the "monstrous" behavior itself.

I remember puppies in a flimsy pen made from chicken-wire erected in the backyard. These were from our family dog's first and only litter. Her name was Gigi, a black and white mixed spaniel. She had eight puppies, which we gave away quickly. I don't remember their birth, or anything else. Just the puppies in a pen on the grass.

I remember being so desperate for attention from my older sisters that one day as they walked me home from school (half-day kindergarten for me), I told them I knew where there was some "human poop" behind a bush along the way. When they asked how I knew it was human, I said because it looked human. I couldn't tell them the truth, that it was my own poop which I had deposited earlier as I walked to school by myself (during their lunch time). I had to poop and there was no bathroom near enough, so I dropped my pants and took care of business behind the bush. I don't know why I'd remember such a thing, and it's a rather embarrassing memory even now. But it shows how desperate I was for any attention I could get from my older sisters, a desperation that permeated my childhood and even carried over into my adult life. I've always felt unloved and unwanted by my sisters, even if I don't understand why.

I was a very curious boy, even as a small child. I loved exploring, and poking things. I remember riding over a bumble-bee I saw on the sidewalk with the front wheel of my tricycle. And then, after I thought it was dead, I tried to pick it up to look at it more closely. It stung me, and I ran to my mother crying. When I was stung again years later, I had a bad allergic reaction, which makes me wonder how much the allergy has to do with this early experience (i.e. could it have been psychosomatic?).

I have "picture memories" of kindergarten. I remember the classroom, the playground, and the walk to school each day at lunch. But I don't remember any other children (peers) or teachers, though my mother says I was the teacher's "pet" in kindergarten (or so the teacher, Mrs. Hall, told her how impressed she was by my manners and intelligence). I don't actually remember Mrs. Hall, or what I actually did in kindergarten at all. I just remember the place, not what happened there.

I remember one day taking my father's army trench-shovel to a nearby play-area with another boy who had brought his father's trench-shovel also. These shovels were common objects in the army, and they could be fixed so that the shovel-head extended at a ninety degree angle and used like a pick-shovel. The other boy and I configured our shovels in this way, then sat opposite each other on the ground and began digging a hole to China (in our imaginations) by taking turns swinging the shovels and scooping out the dirt. I ended up getting hit in the crown of my head by the pointed edge of the other boy's shovel when he swung out of turn, and again ran to my mom crying, this time covered with blood. The wound required stitches at the hospital, but I don't remember that part.

My mother tells me that around this same time, some other children in the neighborhood propped me up on another child's bicycle that was much too large for me so I could not reach the peddles and hence brake. They then pushed me down a hill near our house and I managed to keep upright until reaching an intersection at the bottom of the hill where I was nearly hit by a car that had to swerve to avoid me. My mother said she heard the screech of tires and horn and ran out to investigate, and when she asked what happened, the driver, who had stopped and gotten out of his car to make sure I was okay, told her what happened and that after I subsequently crashed the bike on a nearby lawn, I got up and ran. They found me hiding in some bushes, uninjured, but terrified because of the "trouble" I though I was in. My mother was just happy that I was uninjured.

These are all my earliest memories. I have no memories this early of anything sexual or abusive. I just remember being alone a lot, and feeling alone, though I did not feel sad. Feeling alone just felt "normal" to me. I did not know it was possible to feel otherwise.

[J.D. August 18, 2018]