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After being rescued by somebody like Big Red it became evident that we were living the rashness of more than two generations of individuals who lived on the periphery of two confusing social systems- two societies that were producing a people totally devoid of the sentiment of closeness- the Panamanian society and the American Canal Zone.
Even today the general inability to maintain a healthy sense of closeness be it friendships, a marriage, business partners, etc., has become an increasing preoccupation in psychiatric circles in Panama. Their anxiety ridden patients are hard pressed to establish and maintain any kind of healthy intimacy or closeness after growing up in our totally detached and disjointed society.
In my youth as today mores and ethics were not necessarily a part of our upbringing and to make matters worse were not officially made part of the school curriculum. For someone like me who had been living without parental guidance and was surrounded by relatives who never communicated with children, the real emotional traumas were only beginning.
My preparation for the future would include many scars on my anatomy, the result of a Westindian people who I desired to know and understand fully but whose way of taming children included the crude and age old custom of beating them to a pulp while calling it “training up a child.” The scars of my “training” and taming, in fact, would not only be physical but emotional-mostly emotional- while I grew up deeply resentful and increasingly harbored thoughts of vengeance. By 1950 I was a bundle of mixed and volatile emotions bordering at times on bitterness and full of conflicting ideals and ideas about life itself.
After Big Red bailed me out of my problem classes continued for me the next day with some slight admonitions from a teacher I soon hoped to forget the moment graduation from primary school rolled around and I was delivered from ever having to set foot in that school again. The teacher would not let me forget my great “sin,” however, because she placed me in the double seated desk with a female classmate right up front facing her desk.
More than a show of favor this was a sign that I was being closely monitored and that she had not, after all, removed that “convicted” tag from me but would see to it that my “prison record” followed me wherever I went. I had developed a reputation for delinquency it seemed without ever having done anything to earn it.
During that year I also remember being the only child in the home of my two absent aunts and a grandmother who I could never really count on for support because she acted at times as though she did not respect my feelings. I developed an understandable aversion at being the only male in the house surrounded by a bunch of uncommunicative adult females. My feelings and thoughts were escaping them and they didn’t seem to care. I began to feel even more rejected by women when I considered that even my mother, the first female in my life, had rejected her own first born and brought years of distress and total disruption into my young life.
So, from the earliest moment in my sojourn on this planet I began to feel that my emotions in so far as the female of the human species were concerned were totally soured. For all it is worth, my prayers became my honest emotive appeal to the humanity of the female counterpart- something I considered absolutely necessary if I were to grow emotionally balanced. However, it wasn’t turning out that way, it seemed, and it would be a continuing issue throughout my formation into young adulthood. My view of women and their influence/impact on me would be an issue I would continue to resolve and to handle in my own way for many, many years to come.
On the other hand there was my father or that elusive “fatherly figure,” as modern sociologists would put it, and my distinct feelings for him. One thing stood out in my mind and that was that I was the child my father hated for some reason. By this point in my life I was convinced that the man hated me for something that was beyond my comprehension- some unresolved issues of his own that I would never really decipher. The proof of my assertions was in observing my father’s behavior towards me in particular which was more like “hit and miss,” literally hit and miss trying to understand his son or being understood by him.
Well, this was my emotional profile, so to speak, as I approached the crucial rite of passage into adulthood for many Westindian youth which was finishing primary school. During this year I would also have to make a decision if to continue on to secondary school or simply find employment to sustain myself. The second option seemed very tempting to me although my spirit longed for continuing my education.
This story continues.
