While we were at home for a few days during the cold snap of January 1977, my dad suggested I work on my country report, the first long-term project I ever had to do. Oh, it was a laundry list of things I could choose from to put together about Saudi Arabia, a country that I could not have possibly cared less about. I could prepare food from there, draw their flag, talk about the major religions, clothing, culture…blah.
I was pretty cocky about my academic performance back then. I’d never had to try hard to do anything to do with schoolwork. The only grade below an A- I’d ever gotten was in penmanship. Yes, my young readers, we used to be graded on that. With that in mind, I ignored the country report for as long as I possibly could. I had better things to do with my time. That is to say, anything would be a better thing to do with my time. I’m sure you can see where this is going.
I waited until the last minute and I had thrown enough stuff together to get it done, at least. Or so I thought. I saved drawing the flag for last, because I was good at drawing. Have you ever actually looked at the flag of Saudi Arabia? Neither had I. I looked it up in an old set of encyclopedias, and cursed its designer to hell.
So, I spent a couple of HOURS drawing this nightmare, outlining the Arabic inscription, which translated, means, “There is no deity but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” Ask me how I know that. It’s because I had to do a country report on Saudi Arabia. I was up well past my bedtime getting it done and coloring in a massive green field around my outlines by the light of the fireplace. And I swore that I would never procrastinate on a large task again. Oh, if I’d only lived up to that promise.
I ended up with a B on that project, which was the majority of my grade for social studies, so I finished with a B+ in the class for the quarter. And that is when I learned that some grades are stupid things to worry about. And to this day, I still don’t like Saudi Arabia. But not because of their stupid flag.
One big difference about living with my dad in 1977 was doing manual labor. I had to do plenty of it while living with my mom and stepfather, but I hated every minute. Working with my dad was fun. We used a fireplace to heat the unfinished basement we lived in, and every weekend, we went out and got wood for it. I learned how to use a chainsaw to cut down a tree, and how to split wood using an axe. Pretty cool for a 12-year-old!
But the fun part of cutting wood for our family was how we hauled it. We would venture back into the woods on Peggy’s property on snowmobiles, and we chained an inverted car hood to the back to one of them to use as a sled. We would stack the wood on the inverted car hood and haul it back to the house. For the next trip back to the woods, it was game on, as we boys would take turns clinging to the car hood for dear life as another would make sharp turns at high speeds to throw the rider off.
One weekday in January, it was bitter cold, nearly 10 degrees below zero. The wind chill made it far worse, like 25-30 below. Winds were fierce and snow was blowing horizontally by the time it reached the ground. School was called off, and it would have been a perfect day to huddle by the fireplace. The problem was that we were completely out of wood. It was one of the coldest Januarys on record and we had gone through all of our firewood by Wednesday. With no choice in the matter, it was off to the woods, just my dad and me, since my step-brothers stayed with their dad during the week. I can tell you with certainty that I’d never been that cold before, and I haven’t been that cold since. It was the kind of cold that made your lungs hurt when you breathed. We brought back four loads of wood on the car hood, but without the hijinks of the games we boys usually played. I realized later that this was actually a matter of survival. The physical activity of splitting the wood usually kept me warm enough to take off the top of my snowsuit, but not that day.
For the first time in my young life, I had a real sense of pride in the labor that I had done. I wasn’t just mowing a lawn or vacuuming a house. I was helping to provide heat and comfort for my family on one of the coldest days in memory.
When a stranger offers an opinion about my arrested development or emotional immaturity because I still enjoy the trappings of childhood in the form of comics or cartoons and the like as an adult, I just think about this day when I was 12 years old and I let them ramble in their ignorance. They have no idea what I’ve experienced in my life, and frankly, I generally don’t care enough about them to take the time to explain how wrong they are. The only person I ever need to convince is me.
Tustin Elementary was a small school. There was only one class for each grade, so I got to know all the sixth graders in Tustin. Mr. Hunter was the teacher, and he was cool. He had a big, bushy mustache and a way of speaking I had never heard before. He actually said “toe-mah-toe,” once when he spoke. I thought that only happened in the song.
This sixth grade experience in Tustin was entirely different from my previous one in Engadine Michigan. One drastic difference in attending Tustin Elementary as a result of living with my dad was the fact that I could wear blue jeans to school. When I lived with my mother, that was not allowed. When I asked if I could wear tennis shoes, I thought I was really pushing boundaries because I wasn’t previously allowed to do that either. I always had to wear dress shoes to school, which made recesses challenging at times. And God help me if I came home with a grass stain on my slacks. This was a whole new ballgame. I thought I might actually fit in right off the bat.
Up in the Upper Peninsula, kids were shy about the opposite sex. Not so, here in Tustin. Russell was paired off with Monica, and Ron had already laid claim to the prettiest girl in class, Janet. Oh, yeah, instant crush. I spent way too much time staring at her in class. Janet was best friends with Robin, who was also really pretty. As far as I knew, Robin didn’t have a boyfriend, so I felt good about that. I know, I know. Sixth grade?
I had always made friends pretty easily in elementary school. I didn’t have a choice. By the time I was 12, I had gone to nine different ones. And being a baseball kid, I would always find the boys to play baseball, pickle, or the more popular $5.00* with at recess. The problem was that it was January, and there wasn’t going to be any baseball to break the ice. They were doing indoor track events. A boy named Brent was a hero to all of us. He had been doing the shot put and someone threw him the shot. He caught it in one hand, but the weight of the shot pulled his hand to the ground and his finger nearly exploded under the weight. One day soon after, he pulled a bunch of us around to show us the stitches from the surgeons trying to put his finger back together again. The toughest of us stayed in. Some of us almost puked. His finger looked like it belonged on Frankenstein’s monster. I was one of the ones who stayed in, and that gave me the “in” I needed to be accepted.
The drawback of starting in a new school midyear was made plain to me that first week. The entire class were doing country reports, a long-term project. I had arrived after all the countries had been assigned. I would have hoped for Japan, since my uncle lived there. That would have been nice. But no, I was given Saudi Arabia, literally choice #25, a country no one else wanted. It was going to be a long week.
After church on Sunday, I was shocked to see that Justice League of America #141 was on the spinner rack. I honestly had never seen a cliffhanger resolved in a comic book series before. I would get the first part when visiting my grandma’s house, but by the time we returned, it would be three or four months (and issues) later. The first time I got the second part of a story, it had only been a week! Green Lantern was on trial for destroying that moon in #140, but Batman (of course) figured out that the moon had not really been destroyed, and that the Manhunters were engaged in a conspiracy to discredit the Green Lantern Corps as well as their former masters, the Guardians of the Universe. Such satisfaction had never been achieved by this young reader. What a perfect ending. And yet, at the very end, the League hadn’t been able to contact The Atom, Aquaman, and The Elongated Man, who hadn’t answered the alert, and in the best tradition of comics fandom, I couldn’t wait to find out where they were!
Justice League of America #141
On our way to visit Grandma and Grandpa later that day, I read both of the issues back-to-back all over again to get the complete scope of the story all in one sitting. I loved it. I still do.
My dad had a dog named Ladybug. She was a three-month-old basset hound/dachshund puppy. She was long, short-legged, with big floppy ears, and light brown fur all over. From the very beginning of my life with my dad and his wife’s family, I had an attachment to Ladybug. We did not have indoor pets in my mom’s household. Mom had tried to keep a pet, but Steve had always put his foot down. We had a German Shepherd named Dudley when I was in third grade, but he had a house way out in the back yard and never came inside. I fed him twice a day but was not allowed to let him loose or even to play with him. When we moved from that house, Dudley disappeared. I don’t even want to think about what might have happened to him.
But from the time I moved in, Ladybug and I were inseparable. She took to me immediately, since my dad’s affections were divided. She slept with me in my room, burrowing under my covers and sleeping at my feet each night. The problem was that Ladybug was a chewer. She chewed my dad’s moccasin slippers. She chewed a pair of my shoes. And then one day, she made a big mistake. She chewed up the couch. I don’t mean that she chewed one of the wooden legs of the brand-new couch. I mean that we came home and all four legs had been chewed. I mean that there was stuffing everywhere and that the upholstery was destroyed. For such a little dog, she did an awful lot of damage. Peggy, my dad’s wife, was done. She said that the dog had to go. Is it difficult to predict my reaction to this proclamation? I didn’t think so. I broke down completely, sobbing, begging them not to get rid of Ladybug. I had just made an attachment to another living thing after five years of trauma. After about an hour of tearful pleading, a deal was struck.
Ladybug would become MY dog. But as my dog, I would be responsible for everything to do with her. I would feed her, water her, take her outside, clean up any accidents, and, work to pay for any future damage that she would do in the house. To no one’s surprise, I agreed. But then, I would have agreed to give up my firstborn child to save that dog.
With deep snow outside, I spent a lot of time in my black Arctic Cat snow suit and Detroit Lions stocking cap, digging tunnels and throwing snowballs at Ladybug. She would try to catch them with her mouth. She loved being outside with me. And when it was time to come back in, there was no better companion with whom to sit by the fireplace and warm up. She was the Queen of Belly Rubs.
Ladybug’s favorite toy was a tube sock. Any tube sock. I would take my old socks, tie a knot in the middle, and turn her loose on it. She would shake them back and forth, toss them up in the air, pounce on them, and rinse and repeat. But her favorite game was tug of war. She would bring you the sock, drop it, and wait for you to reach for it. And once you got ahold of it, it was game on. She’d grab the other end, and pull for all she was worth. I think if you tied one end of one of her socks to a car, she could have pulled it uphill. She would make this adorable growling sound, so very vicious, but the moment either you or she let go of the sock, she’d wag her tail and be your best pal.
We had another dog in the house as well as Ladybug. Her name was Suzy, and she was Peggy’s youngest boy David’s dog. She was a beagle mix, and she and Ladybug would often go on adventures together in the woods next to the house. They loved to chase rabbits, which were plentiful. This adventurism, however, came at a cost one time. That cost came in the form of a porcupine. When Ladybug came back to the house, her mouth was just filled with blood. Suzy had a couple of quills, but with Ladybug, we counted, once we got her mouth open, over 200 quills. She was in agony. My dad grimly brought me a pair of needle nose pliers and told me to get to work. He showed me how to remove them by taking Suzy’s few out, and then I got to work. I had to pull the quills out individually, each time evoking a cry of pain, and I spent over two hours removing them, hoping that Ladybug wouldn’t bleed to death. We cleaned her mouth as best we could, and I slept out in the living room with her wrapped up in a towel. Incredibly, by morning she was her old self again, like nothing ever happened. I couldn’t believe it.
That next night, with moonlight still illuminating the Fantastic Four on my Marvel calendar on the wall, I wasn’t just grateful for my own safety, but also for that of the snoring dog under the covers at my feet.
Living with my dad was very different from the very beginning. We lived near the small Northern Michigan town of Tustin, a town built around one street. Not a lot of business there, to say the least. A hardware store, a general store, a couple of churches, and not much else. On the first Sunday after moving in, we went to church. My dad’s wife, Peggy, had four children from a previous marriage, all older than I was. Debbie was 17, Barb was 16, Johnny was 14, and David was 13. Debbie and Barb lived with Peggy, while Johnny and David lived with their father. We picked Johnny and David up every Sunday for church. We all sat quietly for the service, which was really no different than any other service I’d been to with my mother and stepfather, who attended a Baptist church in the upper peninsula.
After the service was over, we walked over to the general store. I was kind of excited. I never got to go into stores with my mom and stepfather. We three kids always remained in the car, and it was my job to watch out for my younger siblings. Peggy started handing out quarters to everyone; two quarters each. “What’s this for?” I asked, dumbfounded. “Behaving in church,” she said. I almost laughed out loud. I had just gotten paid fifty cents to do what I normally would have done to avoid getting beaten. I thanked her profusely and went in search of something to buy with my new ill-gotten wealth. The girls were buying cigarettes, which made me wonder a bit. The boys were buying bottles of pop. I spotted a comic book rack in the middle of the store. Taking my dad aside, I timidly asked him if I could buy a comic book. He just looked dumbfounded at me, tousled my hair, and said I could buy whatever I wanted. This had never happened to me in my entire life. I almost ran to the spinner rack and calculated the best value for my money.
I bought Justice League of America #140, with a cover price of fifty cents. It was a double-sized issue, and featured my favorite superheroes: Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, all of them! In the issue, Green Lantern was accused of destroying a populated moon with his power ring, and he admitted his guilt and allowed himself to be taken prisoner by a group called the Manhunters! I had to know more. I bought the comic and after everyone had made their purchases, we all headed home.
Justice League of America #140
I, of course, had to read the comic immediately, and I didn’t wait until we got back to the house. We dropped Johnny and David off at their dad’s trailer, where they lived, and I may have mumbled goodbye, I’m not certain. I was engrossed in the story.
There was a particular piece of dialogue that stood out, as Green Lantern stood accused of a terrible crime, destroying an entire planet: “Blast it, Arrow! You’re always so quick to see conspiracies! I’m not brainwashed! I’m admitting my guilt, on my honor as a Green Lantern! I would have admitted it last night if I’d had the chance! Can’t you see it’s eating me alive?” This taught me a very different lesson, indeed, than being told to lie to my teacher about being punched in the face, for example. The DC superheroes of this time helped me develop a moral code, even when the adult role models in my life had done just the opposite.
When we did arrive back at home, the girls lit up their cigarettes. I was stunned. My stepfather didn’t allow smoking in his home. And I mean, ever. He had even forbidden my mother to smoke. She did it behind his back when he was away, but she did her best to cover her tracks. But right here, two kids were smoking! And that’s not all. They cursed like sailors. I was still not allowed to swear, but then again, I didn’t really want to. I was not only in a safe home, but I was allowed to read (and keep) comic books in it! After the girls found themselves something to do, my dad had another surprise in store. He and Peggy and I got into the panel van and headed up to Mesick to see my Grandma and Grandpa McClain. It turned out that Dad went to visit them every week! I was so excited, I almost forgot to take my comic book with me so I could read it again.
The trip from Tustin to Mesick was only 35 minutes, but I swear it seemed like an eternity. I passed the time by reading, but I couldn’t wait to see Grandma and Grandpa again. I had just seen them the week before during Christmas break, when Jeff and I stayed overnight with them, but this was different. This time, I was here to stay. We took off our coats and snow boots (Northern Michigan, remember?) in the familiar mudroom and Grandma met me at the doorway, almost crushing me with a bear hug. Grandpa was there at his spot at the dining room table, and he did crush me with a hug of his own. With hindsight and empathy that I didn’t possess then, I now realize that my grandparents suffered perhaps the worst of my parents getting divorced, as they only got to see their only grandchildren twice a year.
As the grownups sat around the dining room table, Grandma brought out cups of coffee for everyone; everyone but me, that is. I got a tall glass of milk, and I knew what was coming next: An entire Tupperware cake container filled to the top with chocolate chip cookies! It didn’t take long for us to put a big dent in the cookie pile. Grandma made the best cookies. On the other hand, whose grandma didn’t, right? And before too long, the adults were heavy into adult talk, and I asked Grandma if she would pull out my stash. She smiled and nodded, and went to her room, quickly bringing back my box of comic books. This was where I kept the comic books that Jeff and I received every summer and Christmas so that Steve wouldn’t get his hands on them. I was reunited with old friends.
I sat in the living room, in Grandpa’s recliner, reading under his favorite reading lamp. This itself was a treasured luxury. My brother Jeff and I were not allowed to sit on the living room furniture in Mom and Steve’s house. “Animals don’t sit on furniture,” you see. My dad had bought Jeff a padded Mickey Mouse stool a few years before, and I had been jealous as all get out of him for that. I had to sit on the floor. But there I was, in Grandpa’s chair, with the omnipresent bowl of Brach’s candies next to my spot. Starlite mints, butterscotch discs, and those terrible blue things. Ice Blue Mint Coolers, or somesuch. And there were a few anise square candies there, in their red wrappers. I love black licorice to this day, but I knew Grandpa liked those best, so I only ate one.
The adults talked until dark, which came fairly early, around 4:30. Then it was time to go. It was a school night, and I was starting at my new school the next day. Grandma asked me if I wanted to take my comic books with me. On previous visits, I had always insisted on leaving them, but now, I was suddenly free to have them with me all the time. I laughed at the thought and agreed. I was suddenly laughing a lot, it seemed. I wasn’t used to that. But I would get used to it.
My mother saved my life on December 5, 1976. It was my 12th birthday, and she asked me one simple question: “Who do you want to live with? Me or your dad?”
Things had gotten bad. The entire left side of my face was bruised from where my stepfather Steve had hit me a few days before. He had ordered me to tell my teacher that I had fallen into a door handle, but when Mr. Wise asked me what had happened, I matter-of-factly told Mr. Wise the truth: My stepfather had punched me in the face. Steve had also taught me never to lie.
I knew what would happen as a result: nothing. As far back as when I was seven, my younger brother and I had been beaten so badly that neighbors had called the police, reporting the screams. When the police came, they inspected our bare behinds, saw the welts there, and did nothing. Steve used a 14-inch wooden ruler with a metal backing to beat us. It was called “The Stick.” We always took our beatings with our pants and underpants down. Steve hadn’t drawn blood–that time. So, I knew that telling my teacher the truth would change exactly nothing. We lived in a small town, attended a Baptist church, and oh, boy, did I hear “Spare the rod, spoil the child” on multiple occasions. The bible, the church, and God had done nothing to spare me or my brother. I had become so inured from the beatings with The Stick by the time I was 11, I could take his beatings all day long and not even shed a tear. I couldn’t even pretend to cry. It would have been better if I could have, because it would have prevented the hard physical abuse that followed for the next year, including punching and kicking, having my head held underwater until I was forced to fight to breathe, and more. The Stick was still effective on my brother, who was six years younger than I. He “only” got beaten with that at this point.
Did I mention that my mother worked for the Department of Social Services? Any report of abuse would have crossed her desk before going anywhere where it would have helped us.
There was also no shortage of emotional abuse. Being called a moron was just a part of my day, despite my straight A grades. Lazy, stupid, weak, selfish, pig, all were words that I was more than familiar with. I heard them every day. We weren’t allowed to read comic books. My stepfather had burned mine in front of me in the first weeks that we lived with him. We were made fun of for playing with action figures. We weren’t even allowed to watch cartoons on Saturday morning.
The only reprieves that my brother and I ever had were visiting our father and his parents on vacations. We lived too far away for monthly visitations. We saw them twice a year. For one week at Christmas, and two weeks in the summer, we were safe in their arms. We could read anything, play with anything, and watch anything. I used to mark a calendar and literally count the days to safety. If I could only make it through until the next break, I’ll live.
My mother thought the same thing, because as she would relate to me years later, she was literally afraid for my life, and she would rather give me up then see me dead.
All of this flashed through my mind as my mother finished asking the question. Without a nanosecond’s hesitation, I said, “I want to live with Dad.”
The next few weeks lasted an eternity. I said goodbye to my 6th grade classmates, and my teacher, Mr. Wise. We left for Christmas break, as we called it back in those days, and went to visit my mother’s family for Christmas Eve, and my stepfather’s family for Christmas Day, as usual. The plan was to drop my brother and me off on their way home at my dad’s house, which we had never seen, and then my mom and Steve would return with all my things on New Year’s Day and pick my brother up.
It was dark when we arrived in Tustin, Michigan. My dad had told us that he and his new (third) wife Peggy, whom we had met at their wedding the previous summer, lived in a two-story home along a wooded area with a spacious yard that had a fish pond. We had directions and drove up and down the road they supposedly lived on but found no sign of this dream house. After stopping to ask for help, we found the address. It appeared that everything my dad had said was true, except for the house part. He and Peggy and her two oldest children apparently lived in an unfinished basement built into a dirt bank. Near the road was the burned-out husk of a house that had been destroyed a few years before. We went up the driveway, still unsure. There was a sliding glass door facing out over the spacious lawn and pond, sure enough, and I could see my dad inside.
My mom was LIVID. L-I-V-I-D, man. A litany of curses familiar to me only because they were usually reserved for my father spewed from her mouth. We went up to the door, and sure enough, this was the right place. I hugged my dad, and then got out of the way because I knew I would be trailed closely by my mother. I spotted the lit Christmas tree with presents still under it, undoubtedly saved for my brother and me, even though Christmas was a week previous.
My mom barely held her contempt and had some very direct, but hushed words for my father. I felt a chill, because I was afraid that this meant she wouldn’t let me stay with him, and that I’d be in for five more years of beatings…or more. After she was done with him, she took me aside, and asked me if I was sure I wanted to live here in this basement. I knew by now that my decision to live with my dad had hurt her feelings, so I tried to contain myself a little better than I had when she asked me who I wanted to live with. “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.” There were tears in her eyes and she hugged me, something she NEVER did. I’m not sure if it was because I would rather live in a concrete box than with her, or just because she knew she would hardly see me again beyond visitations in the summer and the holidays as had been the case with my dad. It could have been both.
After my mother, stepfather, and sister left, we sat down to open our Christmas presents. Now, my dad was known for his terrible gift-giving skills. He had bought me a Tonka truck the previous year, which I was a little old for. I had my share of Skin Bracer after shave, too, from previous years. But in 1976, he hit it out of the park. He had bought my brother and me matching Star Trek phaser pistols.
Remco Star Trek Phaser Gun
These battery-operated wonders lit up, and allegedly made phaser sounds, although it came out sounding more like a communicator chirp than anything. They projected a beam of light on the wall with a set of three discs that made a light silhouette of three spaceships; the Enterprise, a Klingon ship, and a flying saucer. My newest stepmother immediately regretted these gifts as we chirped all night long. They discovered quickly, however, that the chirping sound could be disabled by removing the 9-volt battery in the pistol grip, while still allowing the flashlight part to work. My dad also gave me a 1977 Marvel Memory Album, which I put aside. It would be a few days before the New Year. When we were shown to what would become my room, a separate cinder block partition, my brother and I shared the bed, me on one end, and him on the other. We played with the silenced phasers until the AA batteries in the back of each one died. We went to sleep happy.
When New Year’s Day came, my mother and stepfather rolled up the long, snowy driveway, and the car was loaded down. I could see my bike tied to the roof. That was the first time it really hit me. This was permanent. My brother Jeff and I were going to be separated for the first time since he’d been born. We’d been sharing a room for years, while my younger sister had her own. We had bunk beds with matching sheets and identical NFL bedspreads. I wasn’t even sure I could sleep without him in the room. Suddenly, I had second thoughts about leaving him behind. But no, surely with me living with my dad, Steve wouldn’t dare beat on Jeff the way he had me. I knew from stories that my dad had fought Steve years before and came out on top.
When my mom hugged me, I didn’t think she was going to let me go. She whispered to me that if I wanted to come back, to just call her and she would be there that same day. I tried to fight back tears but lost the battle. I told her I loved her and watched her go. I watched them all go.
I went back to my new room and hung the 1977 Marvel Memory Album. At that time of my life, I wasn’t a big Marvel fan, but that hardly mattered. It was a comic book item, something I had not been allowed to have in my room at my mother’s house. And I hung that calendar proudly over my dresser in my cinder block room with some Scotch tape. The first page was January and featured the Fantastic Four, fighting Skrulls.
I still have a copy of this calendar!
I had never read a Fantastic Four comic in my life, but I had watched the cartoon with my dad when I was little. I knew who they were, and that was enough. When my dad came in to tuck me in (he had no idea what to do with a 12-year-old who doesn’t need to be tucked in, but give him some credit for trying), he kissed me good night and told me how glad he was that I was there with him. He closed the curtain over the empty space that would someday have a door and turned off the “living room” lights outside my very own room. Moonlight leaked in ever so slightly from the basement window, illuminating the calendar on the wall, and just before I fell asleep, I felt silently grateful for my new situation. I was finally out of danger. I felt warm and protected, from both Skrulls and my stepfather.
