Here’s the next Chapter of Lost and Found.

It seems as though this week so far has been taken up with a lot of political issues to which I should probably not devote so much effort. I don’t know how to sit back and rest when I see so many things happening in our world, and especially in this country, where I feel an urgent need to express my beliefs.

One of the reasons why this Memoir/Novel is being written is to show how a person who lived by violence as a way to solve everything, can become a person who believes in peace as the only way to live his life and work on problems.

I hope you will all stay with me in this project. We have quite a ways to go. I do appreciate your comments and encourage you to let me know your thoughts.

Be well — be in peace,

Ron Rink
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It was one of the slowest days I had seen in all the time I’d been working at the bowling alley. Billy and I were spending most of the time just hanging around in back of the lanes, smoking. Most of the other guys working were doing the same. There were a couple of the guys working with bowlers, but the rest of us were just hanging around.

We sat there smoking and waiting for some business on our alleys. Billy was drinking a chocolate coke he got earlier from the food counter. We normally weren’t allowed to get anything from the counter but the boss had gone out and the woman behind the counter would sneak them for us whenever it wasn’t too busy.

“Billy,” I said leaning back against the wall behind me with my eyes closed, “what do I have to do to get into the State Fair Dukes gang?”

Billy looked like he was half asleep. He turned his head a little bit and glanced at me sideways, “You have to fight a couple of the guys and steal a few cartons of cigarettes,” he muttered.

He said it like it was no big deal. By contrast, my heart leaped into my throat when he told me what I had to do — fight two of the Dukes and steal cigarettes? I was not feeling anywhere near as relaxed as he was right about then. I had no idea I’d have to do anything like that.

“I don’t think I’m ready yet — aren’t those guys a lot bigger than me — and I don’t know how to steal stuff? Do I have to rob a store or something? Do I have to win the fights, or do I just have to get into a fight with these guys?”

The questions were rolling off my tongue faster than I could think them. I knew I would need to be one of the Dukes if I expected to have any chance of surviving on the streets full time. From what Billy had told me, the Dukes really looked out for each other. I knew once I was living on the streets all the time, I would need places and people I could depend upon. The hobos, perverts and other street people were always around, but since I had found ways to stay off the streets at night, they hadn’t bothered me.

Billy was still sitting with his eyes closed, his arms folded across his chest, his legs spread out in front of him, and his cigarette dangling out of his mouth as he said, “Don’t worry about it, Van. You can handle it. You don’t know it yet, but you fight a lot better than some of the guys in the Dukes who are three or four years older than you.”

“You really think so?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’ll talk to Bob Morton. He’s the leader of the Dukes. I’ll tell him about you. I’ll tell him you’re a good fighter. I’ll ask him to pick a couple of guys I think you can handle.”

I knew I was getting stronger and smarter all the time. Even though the only people I had fought were the kid at the hockey rink and Billy, I was learning how to keep my mind on what I was doing. There were lots of times now when I could do things to completely catch Billy off guard. I was able to get him down faster and more frequently. I also could tell he wasn’t faking it when it happened. He’d be surprised, but also a little pissed. He’d show it by the way he retaliated when we’d start practicing again — he’d have me on the ground so fast I didn’t know how I got there.

I took a slow drag on my cigarette and leaned forward, wrapping my arms around my legs. I looked back at Billy and asked, “But won’t the guys I fight get pissed if I do win a fight with them? I don’t want to be making enemies in the Dukes.”

Billy shook his head and said, “Nah. Morton doesn’t let the fight go on for long. He just wants to be sure you can fight and aren’t afraid to fight, that’s all.”

“Okay, but what about the guys I fight?”

“Don’t worry about them. They know what this fight is about.”

I’m not sure I was convinced. We sat daydreaming for quite awhile. I don’t know where Billy’s mind was wandering, but mine was extremely busy with street-fighting two of the Dukes and stealing cartons of cigarettes.

“What about stealing cigarettes? Can you show me what to do?” I asked.

“Yeah. I steal cigarettes all the time for my old man and me. There are lots of places where you can do it and not get caught if you know what you’re doing. Meet me tonight and I’ll show you one of the stores I’ve robbed before. Can you get out?”

“What time?”

“About nine o’clock.”

“Yeah, my parents have their choir practice tonight and they don’t get home until after ten or eleven,” I said as I smiled with nervous anticipation.

My stomach was doing flip-flops I was so excited. Getting caught on the streets as a runaway kid would be a lot different than getting caught robbing a store.

The thought of robbing a store brought with it an entirely new set of fears and anxiety.
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My other blogs:

http://www.theleaderinside.com
http://www.buddhistbelief.com
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Here’s the next Chapter of Lost and Found.

When I was about to publish this last week, I realized I only had an outline prepared from this point on, so there was some serious work to be done to put it in final form. Please let me know if you see any typos or other errors I need to correct.

Most of what I’m writing in these past few chapters is background information which I need to include in the book. One of the purposes for deciding to finish this project is so my children will get a glimpse into who I was in those days. Until this writing, they know very little about my youth.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this each week. It means the world to me. I also love the comments. Keep ‘em coming!

Be well — be in peace,

Ron Rink
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I had never had the experience of talking about the way my parents were brought up. It was the first time – and to have it be with my Aunt Dorothy made it feel right. My parents never spoke about their lives as children. I had no idea how either of them was brought up. I had been on trips to visit my relatives to Holland, Michigan, where my mother grew up, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, my father’s hometown.

I know I felt good around my grandmother, my mother’s stepmother. Their real mother died not long after Aunt Dorothy was born. The grandmother I knew, married my grandfather and took over the raising of his children, all eight of them. He was a plumber and ran his business out of a large barn-like shop behind their house. One of his sons, my Uncle George, worked with him until grandpa died. Then Uncle George and his sons took over the business.

Whenever we would go to Holland to visit, Grandma would always make a fuss over me, making sure I had toys or games to play with, and plenty of good things to eat, especially breakfast cereals. In my house, there was only cream of wheat or Shredded Wheat. In grandma’s cupboard, there were always five or six different kinds from which to choose.

Visiting in Grand Rapids was a fun time for me also. When we went, we would go to my Uncle Bills’ house. He was one of four brothers. My Uncle Fred was the oldest—he lived in Grand Rapids, then my father, followed by my Uncle Sam who was an architect in California, and then the youngest brother, Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill lived with his wife, Dot, their two sons and one daughter. One of his sons, Willard, was the same age as me. His other son, Jimmy, was a couple of years younger. His daughter, Isla, was about three years older than Willard. I was completely enamored with her. When I was alone in my room at home, I used to imagine that I would be married to her some day.

They lived out in the open country outside of Grand Rapids so there was ample room for running around and playing. Willard and I would play catch most of the time and sometimes Jimmy and Isla would join us. Both Willard and Jimmy got into semi-pro baseball when they got out of high school, but neither continued with it and went to college instead.

Isla, on the other hand, did get into one of the first women’s professional softball leagues in the country and was recognized as one of the top women’s fast-pitch softball players. To me, she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. I followed her everywhere. I’m sure I was a pest, but she never stopped me from being her shadow and would even take my hand sometimes. I adored her.

Aunt Dorothy continued to quietly talk to me, “I don’t know how your father was treated by his father, but your mother believes he’s right in what he’s doing, and I haven’t been able to convince her otherwise. Your father believes all children are sinful and need to be punished regularly even if he doesn’t know whether you did anything wrong. He just assumes that since you are a child, and all children are sinful, you must have done something wrong, so he does this to punish you.”

As I was listening to her talk, I noticed I was on the verge of crying. Determined not to let that happen, I sat up straight and asked her, “Have you ever tried to get him to stop beating me up?”

Aunt Dorothy shook her head and took both of my hands into hers and said, “Your father is a very stubborn and domineering man. Not only does he believe children are terrible little sinners who need constant punishing, he believes women need to stay in their place. I have tried to talk with him a couple of times after I realized what he was doing to you, but he just told me to mind my own business— you were his son and he would raise you his way. He was quite angry with me for saying anything to him about it.”

“What about my mother? Have you ever talked to her about this?” I asked, hoping she would come up with a magical solution.

“I have talked with your mother many times—especially after she came to me with her fears when you started running away from home. She gets frightened when you disappear and has talked with me each time it happens. She worries about you getting enough to eat. She worries about where you’re sleeping. I know she worries about whether you’ll be safe. She knows there are many men who don’t have homes who are wandering the streets at night. There are also the hobos who come in and out on the freight trains and who set up camps down by the railroad tracks. She worries about what those people might do to a young boy like you.

However, I think her fear of your father is even greater than her worries over you, although she has told me he has never struck her. I couldn’t get her to stand up to him—but I have tried—several times. This again goes back to the way they understand the Bible. She told me she is his wife and must not interfere with him. She also doesn’t think he is doing anything wrong.”

My lips had gone past the stage of being numb and were starting to hurt from being so cold. I took the ice pouch off and set it on the table.

Aunt Dorothy bent down and gently placed her hands on the sides of my face. She tilted my head and looked closely at my lip. She straightened up and stood with her hands on her hips, smiled and said, “I’ll be right back, Roland. I want to get some special salve from the bathroom to put on that lip to help it heal.”

She left the room as I sat quietly at the table. I was thinking about getting another cookie, but my milk was gone and I didn’t want to just help myself without asking first. I thought about all the things Aunt Dorothy had just told me and wondered how I was ever going to find a way to cause my parents to change. I loved the way I was feeling with my aunt. I was tempted to ask her if I could come and live with them, when she came back into the room holding a small jar of salve and what looked like Mercurochrome. I was sure glad it wasn’t iodine since that’s what my mother always used on cuts or scrapes.

She took her finger and dabbed a little of the salve on my cut lower lip. She looked at my face carefully and said, “I don’t think you need any more medicine. Your lower lip is the only place where you have a cut. The bruises and the swelling will get better on their own, I’m sure.”

“I think I’ll just have to keep running away until I finally figure out how to keep from getting caught all the time,” I said as she got up from the table.

“I do understand why you feel it’s your only choice right now,” she said, looking at me, her eyes filled with concern, “but you can’t imagine how frightened your mother and I are when you do. We’re so afraid you’ll be hurt out on the streets all by yourself. There are a lot of not-so-nice people living on the streets.”

“I haven’t seen any people who act like they want to do anything to me. In fact, the people I meet are good to me and have helped me a lot,” I explained. Of course, I was thinking mostly of Billy and the people at the track. “Plus, I’m learning how to take care of myself too. My friend, Billy is teaching me how to fight.”

“My dear little Roland, I just wish there was some other way for you to cope with all this, but I don’t know what to say to make it easier for you.”

She took my face into her hands again and looked into my eyes with concern. “Try not to lick that salve on your lip if you can help it, okay? I don’t believe what your father is doing to you is right. It isn’t. It’s wrong. But there really isn’t anything I can think of which will make him stop—I’ve tried—with both of them. But they won’t listen.”

“I know Aunt Dorothy,” I said rubbing my fingers over the salve and wincing, “but maybe sometimes I could come over here and play with Smokey and Diane if it gets bad at home, okay?”

She smiled and nodded her head, her eyes filling with tears.
I left a few minutes later and started to ride over to the track. How I wished I could have been her child instead.
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My other blogs:

http://www.theleaderinside.com
http://www.buddhistbelief.com
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In this next Chapter of Lost and Found, we get a look at why this amazing person, my Aunt Dorothy, occupies a special place in my heart.

It’s been a quiet week in my neck of the woods. I have very little to report. However, I can confess this — I’ve been a major procrastinator this past week. I haven’t been doing the writing I wanted to do. I do know that one of the factors which plays a role with keeping my mind free and open to do the writing, is the way politics has been here in the USA. I won’t bore you with any of those thoughts here, though. I will be writing more along those lines, and sharing some of my feelings in my blog at: http://www.theleaderinside.com over the next few weeks.

For now, on with sharing more of my life ….

Be well — be in peace,

Ron Rink
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It was in the spring when I rode my bike over to Aunt Dorothy’s house the day after my father had given me a particularly awful beating. I didn’t really give a lot of thought as to why I chose to do this other than I knew it was still too cold to try to run away again. I also knew I needed to do something which might give me the same feeling I would get when I did run away, and I knew whenever I was at her house I felt free and safe.

Their house was small like ours. From the outside, it looked almost the same. The inside was completely different, though. Their living room was much larger and had a lot more light coming in. They didn’t have a dining room, but instead, had a much larger kitchen where they ate their meals. The kitchen table was where most things happened in their house. They had their meals there; they read the paper there; if either Uncle Lisle or Aunt Dorothy had paperwork to do, that’s where it happened; they did jigsaw puzzles there, and Diane did her coloring and school work there. The table had metal legs and a metal top which was always covered with a patterned oilcloth. There were six matching chairs around the table. I never paid much attention to the rest of their house because the kitchen was where I always went whenever we were there visiting
.
I had looked in the mirror at home that morning and saw I had two sizable bruises on my cheeks, my lower lip had a cut on it and my upper lip was swollen. When Aunt Dorothy answered my knock on her door she just looked at me, shook her head, took me by the hand and pulled me through the door into the house. She didn’t ask any questions or say anything.
Still holding my hand, she led me into the kitchen, pointed to one of the chairs at the kitchen table, poured me a glass of milk and put the cookie jar on the table. I could see she was upset by my appearance, but she never said a word. She went into her refrigerator, cracked some ice out of one of the trays and put some of the cubes into an ice-pouch.

“Just finish with your cookies and milk, then put this on your lower lip,” she said quietly as she patted me gently on the shoulder. “If your lip gets too cold, just switch the bag to the swelling on your upper lip.”

She pulled out one of the other chairs next to mine and sat down. “After the ice has a chance to take some of that swelling down we’ll see if we need to put anything else on it. How about your cheeks? Are they painful? Do you need more ice for them?” she asked.

I shook my head no, broke off a piece of a cookie and dunked it in my milk. It was a chocolate-chip cookie—my favorite kind. I had to put small pieces into the corner of my mouth because I discovered my front teeth hurt and I couldn’t bite the cookie normally.

I kept dunking the pieces, which helped to make them more chewable—not that I wouldn’t have dunked them even if my teeth and lips weren’t sore. Those cookies dunked in milk were one of my favorite treats. I don’t ever remember a time when there weren’t chocolate-chip cookies at Aunt Dorothy’s house. The only time we ever had them at home was when Aunt Dorothy brought some over. It was another one of the contradictions about my parent’s rules – they wouldn’t make any cookies because they considered them to be against the church’s teachings, but my father would devour Aunt Dorothy’s cookies anytime they were around.

I ate a couple of the cookies and then put the ice-pouch on my lip. I didn’t realize how much the lip hurt until the ice began to numb it.

“When did this happen, Roland?” Aunt Dorothy asked with a look of concern and sorrow in her eyes. “Did he hit you with his fists?”

She didn’t ask how it happened – or who did it. In fact, it was the first time I realized she knew what was happening.

“Yes,” I mumbled through the ice-pouch, “It happened yesterday afternoon right before supper”.

I had never been at my Aunt’s house after one of my beatings, so I was nervous about whether she would want to talk about it. It was one thing to talk about it with Billy or for the people at the track to see the cuts and bruises. It was another thing to talk about it with my Aunt who I loved so much. I was also worried about what my parents would think if they knew I was talking to anyone about this. However, those worries were outweighed by the part of me which hoped she would ask questions. Perhaps it was the hope she could do something to change things.

Then Aunt Dorothy revealed something which was a huge surprise to me.

“Oh Roland”, she said as she dabbed away at the bruises on my cheeks with a cold, damp cloth, “I wish I knew how to help you. I’ve known this was happening for quite a while. Your mother and I have talked about it a few times, but she is convinced what your father is doing is right. I don’t know how your father was brought up, but your mother, myself, and all of our sisters and brothers were brought up with very strict parents. Your Grandpa and Grandma, my stepmother and father, believed that children needed to be sternly punished when they did wrong things. It all had to do with the way they were taught and treated when they were young.”

“Do my parents feel this way because of their church?” I asked.

“Yes, I think it does have a lot to do with the way your parents, especially your father, understand the Bible. I think he believes the Bible tells him he should be doing this to you. My father was also very strict as far as his religious beliefs, but neither of my parents ever punished us the way your father does you. We were spanked, and plenty often. Sometimes it was with a belt, or sometimes with a switch, especially if we were awfully bad. Most of the time, though, they would just put us across their knees and spank us with their hands on our behinds. Nevertheless, our parents never struck any of us with their fists, not even our brothers. The only place any of us were ever hit was on our behinds.”
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(NOTE: There is some rewriting needed before I can publish the rest of this, so the next Chapter will be a continuation of this incident. Thanks for your patience.)
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My other blogs:

http://www.theleaderinside.com
http://www.buddhistbelief.com
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