Opportunity and Temptation

One of the problems I've always had is a slow learning curve when it comes to complex motor skills. An example is riding a bicycle. I don't believe most people take two months learning that. Another is dancing set moves. I enjoy dancing, but when I say "dancing" I don't mean "choreographed." I have to be dancing by myself moving to the music. I can't dance a routine or match a partner.

I have tried to learn to type with all my fingers several times. I have never been able to type faster than 11 words per minute using ten fingers. That's exactly how fast I type with 2 fingers. So why use ten? Anyway, I don't care, because I also think at 11 words per minute. So it suits my needs. I'm not a scribe copying other people's writings, I'm composing this stuff as I go along.

[Right: Even in my dreams I don't do the kind of dancing that guy's doing.]

I have long suspected that my difficulty learning motor skills is a leftover symptom of brain damage, from one of the 1950 or the 1953 head injuries. There were later head injuries I'll be getting to, but I'm sure they aren't responsible for the learning disability, because the disability preceded them.

The first sign I had of it was in 1953-54 when my Mother was trying to teach me to dress myself and tie my own shoes. She got nowhere. My Father blamed her genes.

As I came to have more contact with other children my slowness became a social challenge. The first inkling I had that I was comparatively slow this way was when another couple visited with a girl my age in tow. The girl was astonished that I needed help tying my shoes still.

Fortunately, this girl, whose name was Kathy, decided that not being able to tie shoes didn't make me a pathetic wretch, and I fell in love with her, and she agreed to marry me. So I was engaged to be married before the age of 5 to a beautiful curly haired freckle factory. It wasn't just a one day affair, either. We got together a great deal in the next few years. Whenever we did there was mass kissing. We never had sex, because she wanted to save herself for marriage.

Anyway, back to the House in Shirley and 1954. My Mother, therefore, had to dress me and tie my shoes, all the time.

She made matters worse than they had to be by insisting that I sit down to pee. Her feeling was that doing it standing up was "nasty" and spread germs (because of stray drops.) Great, but that meant my pants had to come down, and back up, each time, and that put Mom in the driver's seat. So to speak.

All of this had an impact on her sexual abuse of me. The more physical involvement she had to have with me during the day, the more opportunities and temptations there were for molestation.

Sometime in February or early March, 1954, my Father had to engage in a couple of weeks of war games. So he didn't come home for two weeks. His absence also added to the opportunity and temptation to molest. The abuse increased during that period. It was a pattern that repeated many times in years to come.

One vivid memory from this time is hearing the phrase, "I'll make you black and blue where it won't show" in connection with rape. It didn't refer to beating me where my pants would cover the signs. It referred to the intention to cause internal bruising of the rectum. It was a form of punishment she came up with that was sure to never be caught, because I would always be too shy to tell people where it hurt.