My
wife, Nina, had unusual reading habits. She only, and I mean only,
read books on abnormal psychology. Newspapers and various magazine
articles don't count. Must be me you say?! Well, probably some,
however most of her interest came from the misery caused by her
second husband's raping of her two pre-school children. He was a
charming man, older than Nina, and got on well with kids I was told.
He was also a psychopath. Walked on the easily proved charges due to
his psychopathy, however it didn't end there. I'll get back to him...
When
I lived in Silicon Gulch in the 70's, I was extremely lucky being a
young EE doing work I loved, having many friends to play with (give
up, I'm a hopeless case!), and waaay too much money. Some of the jobs
I would have paid to do (Palomar & Siding Springs) and they
wanted to pay me?! Good
times and I knew it!
Since I was a V-8 running on 12 cylinders, I got
“volunteered” for various social projects. To this day, I don't
know who set me up on some, probably to keep themselves from getting
skinned!
One of the projects was for a branch of the VFW. A young
man, mid-20's, came by the house one Saturday morning collecting
clothes for returning vets. Jerry, the young man, was also looking
for folk to assist some of the vets re-establish themselves in the
US. These guys wouldn't be head cases, those got the VA, they were
just kids barely younger than my 22 years who had the misfortune of
coming back to nothing. This worked out very well with me having five
“guests” over the next year. More on a couple of them later...
Another was with the suicide prevention hotline. Whoever
volunteered me is staying low. I'd probably have to hurt them! The
hotline at the time had, if my memory serves, 60 branches around the
Bay, with 20 or so volunteers per branch on scheduled call for active
intervention. As you probably know, this isn't something one does
just out of the box, there was a fair amount of training involved.
There are a couple of stories worth telling, I might put them on my
list. How the interventions were done was probably the best thing
going.
The last one I'll mention and the only one that fits
this post, is the one I tried for years to do again after moving out
of California. One Saturday morning (Saturday was the day for
Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Buddhists, Save the Giant Flying
Vampire Squid day) two young women, Sheila and Donna, stopped by the
house and said a friend of mine suggested I was likely to be
interested in helping with their facility. It turned out to be a
foster group home and school with a big difference; every child, male
and female, had been raped.
You probably already know what my feelings about
creatures that do things of that nature is; swift, sure, extremely
violent death. These beasts get no more air.
I was volunteered due to lots of reasons with one that I
didn't expect.
When younger, one of my good buddies parents ran a
foster home for kids with the “normal” miserable reasons; death
in the family, ugly divorce, car accident, that type of pain, and I
was a regular visitor. Those kids bore up well and it was really
quite a lot of fun, especially the fishing trips we'd all go on!
The
unexpected reason Sheila and Donna wanted me was I was short! These
kids were severely traumatized and did
not trust men at
all. I was barely taller than some, only my bushy, black moustashe
indicated I was a adult male!
Two of the kids, Billy and Rachel, stayed with the home
the three years of my association. Billy was a total, man-hating brat
when I met him at age eight. Kicked the snot out of my ankle,
scowling at me with defiance, daring me to something about it. By the
way, the boys were by far the worst.
Rachel was also eight in the beginning. She was a pretty
little pixie with long, dark hair, perfect manners, and never smiled.
Also, she never spoke. Sheila said she was an excellent student,
nothing wrong there. Just terribly traumatized.
Can you feel the love I have for the bastard that did
that to that precious child? Right now my thoughts are of a tattoo
saying “jew” in Farsi across his forehead and a one-way trip to a
ISIS camp.
Moving right along, most Saturdays, weather and my
schedule permitting (I often did field work and instruction), they
would bring a crop of kids up, under five, just Sheila, five and up,
both gals, once they brought 20 and a pair of UC Santa Cruz students
to herd the kittens! We would do things as simple as play in the back
yard with some rabbits from my rabbitry, go to the San Jose Flea
Market with its amusement park including a huge super-slide and food
court, take nature hikes in the south valley, and go to Great
America, a full-time fair. Altruistic? Not on your life! I was having
as much fun as the kids!
This is from Robert Heinlein's “Time Enough For Love”:
“Beware
of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.”
“If
tempted by something that feels “altruistic” examine your motives
and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it,
wallow in it!”
Ever meet a true altruist? Me neither. If I did, I'm
afraid I'd have to kill it!
Sometime in the early Spring of 1975, Sheila just
brought Billy and Rachel up. It was coming on time for me to vanish
for a while under contract and I was going to miss them. Billy had
become a good friend by now and poor Rachel still didn't talk. I
don't know if my future leaving had anything to do with it, Rachel
started talking one afternoon! She did it as matter of factually as
if she had never stopped. It was so powerful both Sheila and me wound
up crying our hearts out with simple joy! Smiling and talking,
meeting one's eyes, a child getting her childhood back! Both of them
are 50 now. I have often wondered how they have fared in life.
I see I've left two topics unfulfilled; Antonio
Sillato, Nina's child-raping ex, and Steve H. & the crazy sniper.
...and a bit more about serial killers. Oh, and looking for the
photograph of Sheila, Rachel, and Billy. I've got several hundred
data CD's, too many that are carefully labeled “misc.”
Decisions, decisions...
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