Personal Narrative Analysis

While big events may create major changes in our plans for our future, little events define us as the people we will become. One of my earliest memory was as a five-year-old. I have been there many time, in my thoughts and dreams. In it, I was on the dirt drive of the church parsonage was evening.

Whether during gentle times or fiercely dark ones, throughout my life, I imagined standing on this path. At times, I stood in that spot, focused and having a direction. In this case, I clearly recognized the setting as when I was in kindergarten. It was dark outside and I was there for an event at my school, Concordia Lutheran. It stands like an old movie remembered by from a few frames from a film reel. It was a shimmer in time; gone in a flash.

My mother kept a clipping from school play for which I took part as a kindergartener from 1969, as I played the image of grass. In the ‘Summer of Love’ where the drug culture was king, I swayed on a stage as a tall six-year-old blade of grass. As a little boy, I was full of wonder and curiosity. I asked questions—so many questions. I needed to understand why a thing worked. It was more important to understand that than how they did. I explored things with an unstoppable curiosity.
That lone path has become a world of its own. At times, I dreamt of being there as a child, sometimes I am a man standing there seeing the child I was, filled with the wonder of the child filled with curiosity. At times, I have stood in that empty spot as the man I am today, where the child that I was, is not. The church, as well as its parking lot, its lights and the cars are gone. I see the church parsonage down at the end of this drive, with a cool evening breeze at my back. It is as if after getting out of my parent’s car. I stood looking for something off in the distance. I dreamt of this moment in time over the years.
By the time, I was five, I had lived in six different places. Before I could develop friends, we moved, where I would start it all over again. Before I walked or spoke in full sentences, I had developed a social version of attention deficit disorder. Being the new person or visitor when interacting other children. It was the first instance where I recognized that life can go quickly beyond your grasp or control. Although, I could not put into words or even thought about on a conscious level at the time.
My parents were a young couple from the rural Minnesota town of Fairmont. When I was one, they moved to Iowa, where my sister Elaine was born. During my formative years, my father was always busy working to provide for his family. Sometimes a child does not know the difference between not being there so his father can give his family a better life and him simply not being there. I learned to walk, as my father was taking night classes at Mankato College.
During a visit with his sister, who was living in Rockford, Illinois, my father got the job offer to work at Sundstrand Aviation. We moved to a house on Kingsley Drive. I met Frederick and Eric, who were identical twins. I had home and made real friends. While it was a rental for my parents, I was welcomed by the kids I was not related. My yard included the neighborhood. While my time there was measured in months, I still look at my time there with fondness.
On our porch, my father performed magic tricks to entertain us. He so captivated us with his ability that I cannot recall whether my parents owned a television, when we lived at that house. We had only three channels and television programs were still in black and white. Watching that little box seemed less important than the inventive world a child had, playing in the neighborhood. As a child, we all used any neighbor’s yard as our own. Most did not invite others as much they expected them. I was happy on Kingsley, where I was just another kid.
In December 1970, my parents purchased a new house.

It was the first home in the new Pebble Creek subdivision next to a limestone quarry. The first road into the subdivision ended after the first intersection and the cul-de-sac with our new home. Named after the Battle of Gettysburg, it became my playground. It had no creek and, other than the quarry, no pebbles.

We had sent the first man to the moon just a few months before. This told every child that if we could imagine it, nothing was impossible. During the next two years, there were a dozen roads and cul-de-sacs, with many homes. In two years, it doubled again. I watched the subdivision grow as the roads at the back of the subdivision would stop only to expand again. In a similar fashion, it seemed that my horizons were as well.

The first children, I interacted while I was in the first grade was Jim and Paul. Growing up, I knew a number kids with those names. I list just first names, as their last names are not important. This is not an historical account; rather this is the story of my life. If you recognize these events, I can only repeat the immortal words of Jerry Garcia, “Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it's been.” One of these two kids, became one of those people you remember the face, but cannot place where or why. The other became one of my future

tormentors.
After kindergarten, my parents transferred me to start first grade at North Park Elementary. When my parents purchased their new house, it was built in a new subdivision. It was going to be a new house with a new yard, and sitting on a new road. It also meant that I was going to a new school. It was my third in less than a year. In January 1970, I was the new kid trying to fit in with a classroom of children who had already become familiar with one another. They were past the awkward stage and one another by the time I first walked into my new homeroom. The kids that I was familiar with were at my previous school.