In the spring of 1978 my parents welcomed an unusual addition to their lives: a son. I was born on Memorial Day, and joined the five daughters my parents had in the first eight years of their marriage. We lived in a small house, in a average sized town in Western New York.
As I was approaching school age, my parents decided to try something different when it came to education. They pulled my school age sisters out of the Christian school they were attending and began to homeschool. While homeschooling is commonplace today, in 1982 it was almost unheard of.
As the youngest child, and only son, things were a little different for me. Most of my sisters loved to read, and while I didn’t mind reading, I have always been a slow enough reader that I never had a passion for reading. From a young age many of my interests revolved around sports. My family wasn’t a big sports family, but I was and in the process sports became a point of connection in the home.
While I have always enjoyed listening to sports on the radio, my parents got rid of their TV before I was old enough to remember, I especially liked to play sports in the neighborhood. We lived on a small village lot, and so the neighborhood boys were limited in what we could play. Touch football, street hockey, and baseball were the regular go to sports.
The boys in the neighborhood were from varied backgrounds. Some came from single-parent homes, some were only children, a family a few doors down were Catholic, most were not religious at all. My parents were suspicious of all of them, for one reason or another, and as a result if I wanted to play with them, it had to be in our yard and on my parents terms. As we all grew up, by age 10 or so we had outgrown playing in our small back yard and for the most part my interactions with the neighborhood crew ended.
Around the same time, my parents grew wary of the man who was teaching the Sunday School class I was about to enter. He had told a previous class that reading horoscopes in the newspaper were harmless because it was made up garbage. My parents took the occult seriously, based on the books, audio sermons, and other information that could be found in our home, and so someone saying anything other than complete condemnation of things like horoscopes was enough to pull their children out of this Sunday School class. For the next couple years my parents, my youngest sister and myself would sit in our vehicle during the Sunday School hour and my mom would read a Christian book, devotional, or some other inspirational source to us as our own Sunday School class. As a result, I had little to no interactions with children my age, apart from my five sisters at home who ranged from two years older than me to nine years older than me.
Not much changed until the fall of 1992. Following the pattern my parents had set with my sisters, when we finished junior high, my parents sent us to a different Christian school for high school. As a 14 year old I could interact and relate with adults much more than my peers. I was socially awkward. But, I had a class of 15 or so peers to interact with.
The transition from homeschool to going to school, albeit a small private school, was also difficult for me at first. I was short and fat for a 14 year old. Entering high school I was five foot tall, and tipped the scale at about 180 pounds. As I grew taller, my mom didn’t want to spend money on new pants each time I outgrew a pair, so she bought longer pants and put a few stitches in the legs so she could make them longer when needed. I lost track of how many times I accidentally ripped the stitches, and had to walk around with one pant leg eight inches longer than the other until I got home.
I saved up money my freshman year and was set to go to a Christian camp for teen week. It would be a time for me to spend more time with my peers in a Christian environment. But on the Friday before I was to go to camp, I had an accident on my bicycle, breaking my nose, cracking my cheekbone, and having enough road rash to make people feel uncomfortable looking at me. As a result of the injuries, I had to spend most of the summer at home, no sports, and little to no sunlight—at least until the scabs were gone. So I was back to being alone, at home.
My sophomore year was an extension of my freshman year. I was still socially a misfit, but I was starting to learn some social norms, and starting to gain some friends.
Another change that happened during my sophomore year was one of my sisters began working as a secretary at our church, and started working alongside the youth pastor with the youth group programs. Before this point, I had not been allowed to go to youth group, or AWANA as a child, because my parents said there was usually not enough supervision, and too much time spent on fun and games. But with my sister helping out, my mom agreed that if she would pick me up and take me I could go to youth group.
As the school year came to a close, one of the helpers, who was 19 at the time to my 15-16, began to show interest in me. As my sister was wrapping things up after youth group, he and I would often shoot hoops in the church gym. For the first time in my life there was someone who showed interest in me to this extent. He’d call just to talk. Once summer vacation started he would drive from his town to sit on the front steps of our house to talk. We’d play catch in the back yard, walk to the nearby park to play hoops or tennis.
At the park, we would listen to pop or rock music; neither which were allowed in my home. He said it was fine and my parents wouldn’t find out. I still remember it was the summer when All-For-One’s song “I Swear” was atop the charts. In addition to listening to the forbidden music with him, I would find myself using my Walkman at home to listen to more and more unapproved music at home. It was a rebellious, but it was enjoyable.
One day he asked if I wanted to learn to play poker. Granted, poker and playing cards were the devil’s game, and so strictly forbidden in our home and church. He said it would be our little secret. Over the weeks that followed, I learned how to play several different card games, wagering pennies or dimes. It was fun doing something forbidden, and having it a secret.
One day as we were driving around town, likely going to or coming from the park, he told me to reach under the passenger seat. I felt something and pulled out a magazine. It was a Playboy.
Sex was never mentioned in my home growing up. Sex was never mentioned in my church growing up. Sex was never mentioned in my Christian school growing up. The closest thing to anything related to sex I’d ever been told, indirectly mind you, was when I was 13 my one sister got a free subscription to a sports magazine, a poor mans Sports Illustrated if you will. When the annual swimsuit issue came in the mail, my mom cut out little hearts from construction paper and glued them over the women’s bodies. Why my mom didn’t just throw away the magazine I don’t know, but the message she sent was there is something wrong about this. Nothing else, and I mean nothing, was ever said about sex, sexuality, nudity, pornography, and so forth.
So, as I turned the pages of the magazine, it was exhilarating for me as a post-pubescent teen. Once again, the youth group helper said this was our little secret. He said he would get in a lot of trouble if anyone found out, so I had to promise not to say anything. And I didn’t. After all, who would I say something to? No one in my life had ever opened a door to feel safe talking to them about anything of this sort. And why would I say anything? I liked what he was showing me. I was a minor, and couldn’t even purchase it if I wanted to. He was an adult, and was my supplier. As the summer went on, it went from soft-core pornography to hard-core magazines. Each time I had to promise not to tell anyone. And I didn’t. He would ask me what I liked about the pictures. How it felt to see them. What I thought it would feel like to do what I was seeing.
As the summer ended, this youth leader began to date a girl in the youth group, a girl younger than me. That fall I played soccer, and got busy with school, and our time hanging out came to an end.
While we didn’t hang out anymore, he had opened a door that I would continue to go through for years to come.
To Be Continued...
