THE FORTRESS WALLS WITHIN

Mine was a story that could have happened to almost any average person living an average, simple suburban life, but it didn’t happen to just anyone. It happened to me. The story began simply enough. Many great events do. My life to this point had been normal, with few if any big things to celebrate other than the odd wedding and childbirth. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for those special days. Those memories made it possible to have a grounded, healthy view of my life, giving me direction and purpose. I guess I lived a normal, uneventful life, just like many people in my part of the world. I went to work like everyone else to pay for the life I chose to live. I had my hobbies and routines that gave me some moments of happiness, and when I looked back at my life to this point I was basically satisfied with most of the things my family and I had accomplished. In many ways, I was quite happy about my life. I just never stood out any more than the next guy. I was ordinary. My parents had named me Robert after a grandfather I never knew. For some reason I could never tolerate being called Bob or Bobby when I was younger, so I would always correct people. As I grew older, it somehow seemed less important, so I didn’t go to the trouble of correcting them anymore. Funny thing was I couldn’t remember the last person who called me anything except Robert. Maybe the less important I made it, the less often it happened. Robert Henry sounded simple and strong to me, even if it did seem strange when I was a small boy to have two first names. There was a time; I was about four, when I thought Henry was a brother I never got to meet. Every time my mother or father called me by both names, I thought they were calling for me and my “brother” Henry. It didn’t take long though to understand that being called by both names usually meant I was in some kind of trouble. That was when I really wished I did have a brother Henry, because then he could have taken the blame from time to time. He could have had the spankings that went with it. Believe me I wouldn’t have missed them. Even with two first names and the confusion it caused me in my early years, I still felt much more fortunate in grade school than some of the other kids in my class who received nicknames that stuck with them all the way to junior high. No one really got around to giving me a nickname based on either of my names. As I got older, I was forced to get used to being called Mr. Henry by service clerks, gas attendants, and other people who were younger than me. I tried to tell myself that it was out of respect rather than because of my age; then I didn’t feel like time was slipping away. To know me and understand my story people had to know about my family. I had great parents. I loved and respected them but they were disciplinarians and I always knew there was a consequence for anything I did. That’s when the spankings became a big part of the process. If I did something wrong – and got caught – I knew for sure what the punishment would be. I never had to wonder when it would happen either, it was immediate and firm. The question in many ways “Was the reward worth the consequence?” I was young so often I figured I wouldn’t get caught and if I did so what? It wasn’t like I was stealing cars. What was the worse that could happen, another spanking? I could handle my parents discipline and there were times that I did get away with misbehaving. That’s when I thought I had outsmarted everyone, but of course I hadn’t, I had just got lucky. Funny thing was that even at this stage of my life, the use of both of my names makes me feel nervous. I suppose their form of discipline kept me out of getting into any amount of serious trouble. I’m sure they would say they did it for my own good and it hurt them more than it hurt me. Parents always said things like that but given a chance I would tell them I thought they had made “my own good” too much of a priority. I would also have challenged them on their statement. I was sure my butt hurt more than their feelings had! It was true that I had grown up in the “me generation” and believed that everything was mine for the taking, just like many people who made up the back end of the baby boomer population. I did not have the same opportunity to go to college that most of today’s middle- and upper-class children do today. My parents had made work ethic and responsibility important things in my life. It was okay to fail as long as I did my best and lived with the results. I felt I had worked hard throughout my life and was just as proud of my failures as I was of my successes, because I felt both made me stronger. My father taught me that. My family wasn’t poor but we didn’t have a lot and I had memories of my own happy times when imagination was all I had. They were some of the happiest days of my childhood. My world was as big as I wanted to make it back then. Nothing was impossible. I was taught a work ethic by my parents. Chores and responsibility were a part of my childhood. When I took that work ethic and applied it to my adult life I was able to obtain most of the things in life that I wanted. They also taught me to never forget the value of family so my wife and daughter meant the most to me. My Dad used to tell me how important is a big house without a family to share it with? I learned to understand what he meant and tried to remember it every day. In the end my parents discipline had helped me carve out a good life for myself. For that I was grateful. Unfortunately my greatest enemies had become complacency and boredom. I lived an above-average middle-class life, where I had too much to lose and felt I was too old to take the big risks anymore to get to the next level. In many ways things were too good for me. Sometimes good can block the path to great and keep a person from making that big step forward so if I wasn’t going forward was I going backwards? That was where I was in my life.