THE LAST FOUR GENERATION PHOTOGRAPH

Portrait I painted of my father.

In an earlier piece [or chapter] I wrote about my family’s tradition of taking the four generation photo.  Almost as soon as I was born a four generation photo was taken.  In the photo was my great grandfather, Luther Norman, my grandfather, Bill Norman, my father, Richard Norman Sr, and me, baby Richard Norman Jr.

Every time the four generation people were in the same place at the same time a four generation photo was taken.  They did not just take a picture of any member that represented their generation.  For example, there was no photo of the oldest great grandmother, grandmother, mother, and daughter.  The focus was on the oldest son of an oldest son and his oldest son, and ending with me, an oldest son.  It was a little like we were the world’s most disregarded royalty.

During my time as the Putnam City President, my grandparents were approaching a major wedding anniversary, it may have been their 60th wedding anniversary.  A family reunion celebration was organized.  When the day arrived Kathie and Ryan and I drove down to Waco, Texas to attend the event.  I had a good time at the event.  It turned out to be the last time I was around my four brothers and sister for almost 20 years.

As the event was about to wind down, the photos were taken.  This time someone had actually hired a professional photographer and this event seemed a little like a sixty year old echo of my grandparents wedding.

Brothers and sister photos were taken with my dad, uncle Bert, and Aunt Pat.

Pictures of the happy married couple, my grandparents.

My great grandfather was dead but this turned out to be the first time, since my great grandfather had died that a new Four Generations Photo could be taken.  At this event we had my grandfather, Bill Norman, my father, Richard, me, tex [I’d legally changed my name by this point], and my son, Ryan.

I’ve never made a secret that Ryan is adopted.  In that training session we had two weeks before taking Ryan into our home, we were told that it was better to just talk about the adoption in front of the child.  Talk about adoption in a matter-of-fact manner, that there are two ways to become part of a family.  One way is to be born into the family, of course, but the other way is to be brought into the family, like through marriage, or adoption.  So Ryan was the oldest son of an oldest son, me, but he was adopted.

Throughout Ryan’s infancy my mother made off putting remarks about Ryan.

The first time my mother saw Ryan she said, “He is so dark, and Oriental looking.”

We came to visit one Christmas, and my sister was pregnant with her first child, Jody.  We were all sitting together, and my mother hugged my sister Carol and said, “I can’t wait until we have our first REAL Norman grandchild.”  [The emphases on the word REAL is mine.  You could not tell when she said it, if it was in capital letters or not.]

I was steamed about these attitudes.  I felt like my parents, especially my mother, were not accepting an adopted child as a full member of the Norman family.  There was also a subtle racial aversion to Ryan, who was half Japanese.

Racism has long been a spreading cancer within my family.  When my sister got engaged to her husband, Ron Guzman, my father wrote me a letter that included the phrase, “Your beautiful blond haired sister is engaged to a Mexican with a withered hand.”

All these negative vibes I was getting from my parents about my son were tolerated, but I was unhappy about it.  Then, during that picture taking session the proverbial “last straw” occurred.

Clearly, my mother was in charge of the picture taking.  She wasn’t the photographer, they had a professional photographer for that, but she was the one calling the groups one, by one, to the area where they were to be photographed.  I could see that my mother had a list, that the picture combinations to be taken had been discussed, and upon agreement, a list was made.  Professional photographers are expensive and the goal was not to forget anyone, and to not take more pictures than were needed, given the cost.

Knowing that the list of TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED was hashed out with other prominent family members, that the list of TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED was a discussed, debated, premeditated list, made what happened even more upsetting to me.

I had already been in a couple of group shots:  the grand children, the Richard Norman family.  Then my mother called for the Four Generation Photo.  I started to stand and was preparing to get Ryan and move to the TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED area, but my mother called to the focal area, my grandfather, Bill, my father, Richard, my oldest brother [though 6 years younger than me] Tim, and Tim’s son Nicholas.

I was confused.  How come Tim and his son were replacing me and my son?

Let me make this clear:  my growing anger was not being excluded from a photo.  My rage was over what was being signaled by cutting me and my son out of the photo.  I was the oldest son, and Ryan was the oldest grandchild, and he was in the position of being the oldest son, of an oldest son.

I asked some family members why this was happening.  I was told that the night before when my father mother, and aunt Pat were discussing what pictures were to be taken, my mother said the Four Generation Photo should included my grandfather Bill, my father Richard, and then the pattern should be altered to the second oldest son, Tim, and his oldest Son Nicholas.  I was told that the rationale was that while Tim was not an oldest son, if they included me, they would have to either include Ryan in the photo, or exclude Ryan and substitute Nicholas.  The thinking was that since Ryan was adopted and Oriental, that the photo should included only bloodline males.

My son was the reason we were excluded from the Four Generation Photo and while all my family was complicit in this racial shunning, my mother turned out to be the primary advocate of excluding Ryan from the picture.

I later learned that my brother Tim had asked about having the picture taken to include himself, and his son.  It may have been that he too felt Nicholas was the preferred child and the real oldest grandson, since he was the product of coitus.  Maybe he just wanted the picture for his photo album.  Perhaps, to give Tim the picture he wanted, they had to exclude me and Ryan, because, remember, the photos were by a pro and therefore the photos were expensive.

I was pretty damn sure that if Ryan had been the product of intercourse instead of adoption that that Four Generation Photo would have included Ryan.

When this slight was clear to me.  It was obvious that this was not a slip up, not a mistake, not some unfortunate oversight.  The snub was premeditated.  I did not know how many family members were complicit in the decision but my mother was apart of this excluding action, my father was there and did not object, my grandparents probably knew, though I can’t be sure about that.  I was told that my aunt Pat voiced concern and asked “How is tex going to react to this?”

I was told my mother said something like, “It won't matter to tex.  He knows his child is adopted and not a true Norman.”  

Someone who claims to have been present told me that my mother was pushing this change in the Four Generation Photo and she insisted that the Four Generation Photo be taken the way it was taken.

I gathered this much information while the photos were still being taken.  I got my wife and Ryan and without saying bye to anyone we drove back to Oklahoma City.

I mailed a letter to my parents that said I was divorcing them as my parents.  I told them that they would never see my son Ryan again.  I explained what I believe was communicated to Ryan and Ryan’s parents [me and Kathie] by changing the pattern of the Four Generations Photo.  I reminded my mother her of words that she was excited to get the first Real Grandchild meaning my sister’s first child Richard.

We argued a little.  I took a couple of phone calls where I made it clear that they were doing things to indicate Ryan was not a full fledged member of the family.  I added other insults that have come to me through my parents.  When I signed my second teaching contract at Butner Schools I was excited.  I was going to get another year of income.  I called my parents to tell them this exciting news that I’d been rehired when Butner School did not have to rehire me.

My father’s first words were, “Oh, no.  I thought you had more ambition than that.”

I remembered all the times my parents had lashed me with a belt, called me idiot, and stupid knot head.”  I remembered when I was 15 I was painting a pretty large copy of Picasso’s Blue period painting of an old man with a guitar.  While painting my father came in, he told me the picture was great, that when I finished it he would put a $100 frame on it.  Once the picture was finished, the picture was never framed.  When I asked my father why he never framed the painting he said, “I thought it was going to turn out better than it did.”

My father could have said, “I wish I could frame the painting, but money is so tight, I just can’t afford to pay for the frame.”  I’d have accepted that answer, but saying, “I thought it was going to turn out better than it did,” was just one more slap in a face that had been slapped silly for years and years.

I remember, after I had painted a dozen new works, my father came for a visit.  I arranged my paintings like a museum around the room. My father walked slowly around looking at all my paintings.  His first words to me were, "Have you ever thought of taking some Life Drawing classes?"  There were no compliments, just, "Have you ever thought of taking some Life Drawing classes?" 

Eventually I changed my phone number.  When I got letters from my parents I drew across my address and wrote the words:  RETURN TO SENDER.  I gave my parents a chance to say, "I'm sorry," but they never did.  My mother died without ever admitting any wrong at all about that snub of my son.  I had difficulty forgiving someone who did not ask to be forgiven.  My father is still alive, but he has never said he was sorry.  No one in the family has said they were sorry.

I kept Ryan away from his grandparents until he was graduating from high school.  At that point we were living in Florida, my parents had moved about a hour away from us, in Florida, so I finally relented and invited them to attend Ryan's graduation from high school.  He was a sort of co-valedictorian at that event.

As I dance with my regrets this was another of my actions that I regret.  Well, I sort of regret it.  In my mind I was saying, ‘I am not going to subject my son to the poison that comes from my parents. I felt like ever chance my parents got they put me down, insulted me, pointed out my every flaw.  I grew up hating myself, questioning myself, feeling like I was a fuckin’ loser, and I was not going to have anyone with the power of family put down my child.”

The part I regret was not keeping Ryan away from my parents, but, by doing that, I kept Ryan away from his cousins.

Of course members of my family see it differently.  Here is one reaction from my brother Tim:

Tex,

Some correction on the anniversary I feel I need to address.  I can't say that mom didn't have any input into the "four generation picture," I don't' know about that and perhaps she did.  But if it did, that conversation did not happen the night before, because mom and dad weren't at Pat's the night before. I don't know where they stayed that night but it wasn't at Pat's. Pat had asked my family to stay with them and we were there that night.  I didn't hear that conversation between Pat and Sue either, but Sue maintains that she asked Pat about having a "four generation picture" made for us and that we would gladly pay for it.  As I understand it she told Sue that we wouldn't need to pay for it because that was the very picture that would be taken and she said that her and her mom (grandmother) had discussed it already and decided on that picture.  This event was completely planned and organized by Pat.  She hired the photographer, she planned the meal and picked the location, and she had the final word on the photos that were taken.  If mom had requested that picture be taken that way, and Sue and I offered to pay for that one picture, then why didn't Pat see our offer as a way to have both pictures taken? The expense would not be an issue since we would have paid for that extra picture.  I was concerned that night when Sue told me about the plan for the pictures and looking back I should have gone and talked to Pat about it that night, but I didn't. Maybe I didn't have enough backbone to do something, but I was concerned about it the night before. The next day when I was called to get the picture taken, I remember that it was Pat that was calling the different people together for the photos and not mom. In fact, I remember that once I was called, I went looking for mom and found her and told her they were about to take that 4 generation picture and were excluding Tex and Ryan from it and putting myself and Nicholas in it. Mom was getting things ready for the reception, in fact while I was talking to her about what was going on, she was ladling punch into cups and setting them on the table, she was not calling people for pictures.  When I told her what was happening she said told me that I would have to take that up with Pat, that she had nothing to do with what pictures were being taken.  These are the things I know for sure.  Maybe at some point mom made such a request but from my perspective it sure didn't seem that way. By the way she responded to me when I told her what was going on it sounded from her tone more like she may have had a conversation about the pictures but didn't get her way.

On another note regarding this memoir. I thought you were going to send me a copy of this memoir, more like a personal private copy, but for some reason you have put it on Facebook. Did something change?  I'm a bit concerned because dad is on Facebook and very well might read this blog and I thought you told me you didn't want him to read it. I don't know that he has or hasn't but I know he could.

To be honest, this part of your story, hurts a bit, because of the errors I see. I know your perspective is different and mine as well, but what I don't know first hand I tried not to state as fact, but what I do know for sure, these are the things that I know differ from your story.

Personally from the time of that event onward I have always blamed what happened on Pat.  She was in charge and could have taken more than one 4G picture, especially when she was offered a financial solution that would have taken care of both sets of pictures.

I have thought a long time about what to say here and I have tried to stay to the facts as I remember them.

Grace and peace,

Tim

Here is my brother Jim's reaction to my telling the story of the four generation picture:

. . . when you truely forgive someone, you forget it. That is not to say that you pretend things didn't happen, but you don't dewel on those things, and you don't keep bringing them up. 

    If I wrote my life story, I would try to skip most of the bad, because I don't see how the bad helps anyone. I would think telling Ryan all this bad stuff would make him not want to know his extended family. Everyone should get to find out for themselves if they like someone or not. 

  We probably did have different parents, I like to think that they learn from their mistakes as well as I do. 

     I have to go now, Love....Jim

Years later, when I went to my mother’s memorial, I watched Ryan’s cousins as they wept over the death of my mother, and hugging one another.  It was clear those cousins shared a lot of experiences and they felt a connection of love and history.  My actions cut Ryan out of having a deep meaningful connection to his cousins.  Ryan might feel connected to me and his mother, but I don’t think he feels much of a connection with anyone else in my family, and I blame that on my actions to cut my family off from My Parents.

One good side to this divorce of my parents was that I no longer felt an obligation to be kind to the church of Christ.  My contention that the church of Christ made people mean, is NOT a Fair Characterization of all church of Christers, but if you knew my parents the way I knew them, it sure seemed like their church beliefs were connected to their meanness.

OKC, Living Word, Ryan, and Mayfield

 

 

Kathie was still a prayer.  I was a doubter, but I, being a spineless dweeb, waffled and wobbled like a weeble when it came to faith.  Kathie had accepted a job in Oklahoma City, we both resigned from our jobs at Butner, but we still had a log house, house payments, no money to move, and no place in Oklahoma City to move.

Kathie prayed.

We were in Oklahoma City, looking for something we could rent that was low enough that we could pay rent and make our log house payment.  It looked hopeless to me.  I was in the with Kathie, we were both in the back, as her dad drove us all to Gibby’s [a nickname for the Store Gibsons, a store like TG&Y or an early Walmart Store], and we drove past this little brick duplex.  It looked too nice, and no way we could afford it.  Kathie, who is usually the one unwilling to take financial risks, wrote the phone number down.  

When we got back to her folk’s house, Kathie called the number and found out the cost was almost $500 a month, which was about the same as our house payment.  I thought, ‘No Way This Will Happen.’

The landlord said the couple there had to move soon and he could show us the house with permission from the tenants.

I went with Kathie to see this duplex and I knew there was absolutely no way we could afford to do this.  Once we got inside the wife-tenant said something surprising.  Her husband had just been hired as the police chief for the Wewoka Police Department.

We were living in Wewoka.

The couple needed a place to rent.

We just happened to have a place to rent.

They would have to have a washer and drier in the house.

This duplex had a washer and drier so we could leave our washer and drier there.

Quickly a deal was struck.  We would move in, the same day they moved out.  They would rent our log house, and we would take over their rental duplex.

It is hard to totally poo-poo prayer when something like this happens.  Oklahoma City is a big town.  We just happened to drive past the duplex and see the for rent sign.  The couple moving out just happened to be moving to Wewoka and they were needing a place to rent.  

Things seemed to work out in a way that does not seem possible.  If you insist you can claim that those were just coincidences, or you could at least consider that perhaps God uses coincidences to answer our prayers.

I found that whole experience jarring.

The move worked out and we were in Oklahoma City, and we had someone to pay our house payment for us, via rent.  But only Kathie had a job.

I went to the mall and started selling shoes at JC Penny’s, and I applied everywhere I could think of, including a church of Christ K through 12 Church of Christ Private School.

I was a closet doubter.  I did not know, then, that most believers are also carrying some doubts.  

“It’s funny how you can spend your entire life wondering if there’s a God until suddenly in a time of crisis, you’re begging Him for help as if you’d never doubted He existed.”  ― Penelope Ward, Stepbrother Dearest

What happened was more than praying to God out of desperation, this was answered prayer that had shocked me so.

I was confused.  I did not have much faith in prayer, although I was given to short shallow prayers when times were tough.  I did not then, nor do I now believe that prayers change God’s mind.  Most people I knew used prayer as a sort of magic incantation.  If you say the right words, the right way, you magically get what you want?  No.  

And yet, sometimes, like with the housing, the prayer seems to work exactly like a magic spell.

SELLING SHOES

I worked all summer selling shoes but by the end of Summer I was offered a position teaching English at the Living Word Academy.  There was one uncomfortable catch to taking the job.  This Church of Christ private school required that the teachers enroll their children in the school.  That meant that Ryan would have to go to kindergarten, and to stay at their daycare.  I needed the paycheck, and I agreed.  

The Living Word Academy also required that the teacher attend a church of Christ congregation, faithfully.  We placed membership with at the Quail Springs Church of Christ.

One good thing about a big church is that you can, if you want, get lost in the crowd.  If you go to a small church you are going to be asked to serve at the table, lead a prayer, lead the singing, teach a class, take over the youth group, or something, but Quail Springs had well over a thousand people every Sunday.  I had been burned by churches of Christ repeatedly, and, yes, I was part of the blame for all that, but I was tired of being upset by the church.  I was going to try to just do my job, go to church, keep my head down, and hope life got better.  Now I was still seeing a shrink.  My struggles with depression never left me.  It took me years to realize that one of the main reasons I felt unworthy of life, is that I felt unworthy of worthiness.

I started painting again.  I painted and drew throughout my childhood.  I was doing serious art work while we were living in Milwaukee, so I was 15 years old when that painting was going on.  I painted some while we were living in Wewoka, and did several major works then. There was a drop off of painting when I went to Ada, but I did start painting again just prior to graduating from college.  In Oklahoma City I did a lot of work.  I showed my art work twice at the Paseo art show.

Kathie seemed to fit in well at Central Junior High [now called Capps Junior High School], but obviously there were adjustments.

Ryan really hated the Living Word Academy.  He would cry every single day when I left him at the daycare.  When I picked him up he voiced his complaints about what went on in his Kindergarten class.  Ryan told me about how his teacher would yell at the children, and make some of the students sit on the floor under their desk as punishment.

“Why can’t she just give them another chance?” he asked.

I thought it was a good question.  These were young children and this was their first experience with education.

One day Ryan told me he was sorry he had not cleaned his room, and then he added, “I want to go to heaven, and not to hell.”

“Why would you even think you would go to hell?” I asked.

“The Bible says it is a sin not to obey your parents.  If you sin, God sends you to hell,”  he said.

“God never sends children to hell,” I said.

I hated the way the students at the Living Word Academy were manipulated by the staff and pressured to accept a “Church of Christ Way.”

One chapel service the head of the school showed an anti-abortion film.  It may have been Silent Scream.  It is possible they showed more than one and I am remembering parts from different films.  What I want to stress is that it was shocking to me and may have been a form of child abuse forcing very young children and tweens to watch those horrible propaganda films.  In one film they showed a woman, almost totally nude from the waist down.  The woman was on an operating table and there was a fuzzy circle covering her vaginal area.  Not much was obscured by the frosted circle and it was clear something had been pushed into the woman’s vagina and they were vacuuming out a fetus in pieces.

There were pictures of dead babies in a garbage can.  There was some sort of X-ray film showing a probe grabbing a fetus and the unborn baby was about to be torn apart and removed from the womb, and on the face of this unborn child was something that looked like a scream, a silent scream.  

I remember the school showed a segment of the Phil Donahue Show about a woman, named Marian Guinn who was suspected of being involved in some sort of sin, by the Church of Christ in Collinsville, Oklahoma.  When the woman found out that the Elders were considering Withdrawal of Fellowship, she sent the Elders a letter withdrawing herself from membership in the Collinsville Church of Christ.  

The Elders felt that since no one adds themselves to the Body of Christ, that that happens through baptism, that no one has the right to withdraw themselves from the Body of Christ.  

When the Elders informed the congregation of the specific sins Ms Guinn was accused of committing, and the exact scriptures she had violated, they formally withdrew from Ms Guinn.

Marian Guinn countered the actions of the Elders by filing her lawsuit, alleging that she was abusively treated and that her privacy had been violated.  

Later I think the courts ruled that when Ms Guinn joined the church of Christ she was voluntarily submitting herself to the process of Withdrawal of Fellowship, but once she sent a letter and dropped out, her consent to the rules of the church of Christ had been removed and the Elders no longer had the right to withdraw from her.

The atmosphere at the Living Word Academy was oppressive.  They had daily chapel for the students.

Chapel for the kids was not enough.  We had a devotional every morning with the teachers.  

I remember one morning, before school started, the sky was still black, and the temperature was freezing.  Because the school was not doing well financially, the buildings were not kept warm enough.  I was huddled in a circle of desks with other women teachers [there were very few males on staff there] and we were all miserable.  One of the principles was giving a little devo-sermon when he says:

“Do you want to know what heaven is like?”  He smiles at us like he as this gotch statement to say next that is going to blow our collective and chilled minds.  Then he says, “Heaven, [dramatic pause] is like this.”

Nine frozen teachers, tired, worried if our paychecks are going to clear, ordered to come extra early to school for a devo, and heaven is like this?  I thought, “Oh, Lord I sure hope it is nothing like this.”

The paycheck thing was an issue.  When payday came around the Superintendent would call a teacher’s meeting and tell us, as soon as school was out, we should go to the bank and deposit our check, that if we wait the checks might bounce.

I made up my mind early on that I was not going to stay there another year.

It worked out well because I think the school went defunct the following year, or no later than the year after that.

I was not going to have Ryan go to a place that made him so miserable.

I started interviewing as soon as the school year closed.

I eventually got a call to interview with Bubba Hellzeal [yeah, I made the name up] the principal of Mayfield Junior High School.  Bubba was a former CHIPS officer from California, a big barrel chested  guy.

I wish I’d had more imagination.  I wish I’d looked for work outside of teaching, but at the time I figured I had to teach, that I was too much of a loser to do anything else.  I was also too much of a loser to teach, but I still tried hard to get the job.  I sent Mr. Hellzeal a thank you card after our interview.

Later he told me that of all the people he interviewed for the job, I was the only one who sent a him a thank you card.

MAYFIELD

My first faculty meeting at Mayfield let me know that there was something seriously wrong at that school.  The teachers sort of huddled together and made snide remarks about the principal.  Now I felt the guy was intimidating, but he’d just hired me, and that saved me from the Living Word Academy, so I had no grudge against the guy.

After the faculty meeting it was clear to me that Bubba was similar in style to Don Hoover.  Several of the teachers started passing around that they were going to a bar for drinks as soon as they were released for the day.

I found certain things off putting.  Bubba acted like I was one of his close confidants.  There was a teacher there who had been teaching drama, and she had been moved to a straight English teaching load, AND she was forced to float, meaning she had to move all her stuff every time the bell rang. I was given her drama class.  I took it, because I was needing a job and that was part of the job, but I’d not only not ever had a drama class, and I’d never been in a play, I also had zero experience with drama.

Another duty I was given at Mayfield was to be the Cheerleader Sponsor.  

Cheerleader sponsor is not a job that should go to a 32 year old man teacher, but again, I’d been a pep club sponsor at Butner, and I was needing work, so, yeah, I’ll be a Cheerleader Sponsor.  

My first problem happened before school even started.  The “head” Cheerleader came to me to complain about one of the other cheerleaders who had been caught drinking over the summer, and she had missed several of their practices.  According to their bylaws, or rules, or this stupid piece of paper with Cheerleader Rules on it.  According to the rules the girl needed to be suspended from performing for the first two performances for the year.

I read the rules, called the girl at home and told her she was suspended from performing for two performances.

The following day I’m called down to the Teacher’s Lounge to meet with that girl and her mother.  The mother was one of those born again fundamentalist women who lets you know she is a Christian in every other breath.  

Immediately the mother started pressuring me to change my decision.

Here was my thinking:

1. If I cave on my very first action as the Sponsor then every decision I make from that point forward would be subject to attack by anyone who didn’t like my decision.
2. The rules were printed and clear and I was not doing anything but following the guidelines.  This girl and her mother had signed a document saying they understood the rules and they agreed to follow them.

I’d just read something in a book about how to handle difficult people, and one of the suggestions was to use THE BROKEN RECORD TECHNIQUE.  The Broken Record Technique was to say what your decision was and then pause.  Let the other party vent, scream, cuss threaten, et cetera.  Then you were to say what you had just said, using virtually the exact same words, as if you were a broken record.  [Those who have no history that included vinyl LPs may not know but sometimes a needle would get stuck on a vinyl record and a segment of the record would play and repeat and repeat and repeat.]  That was what I did with this mother.  At one point the mother told me she hated me, that I was so unfair.  I just kept repeating that the guidelines she and her daughter had signed off on, were violated, and the consequences of that violation was also part of the guidelines.

The mother eventually ran out of steam and my suspension remained in place.

I found out that Cheerleader sponsor was nothing like a Pep Club Sponsor.  My responsibility as a Pep Club sponsor was to chaperone the Pep Club as they went to football games.  I rode the bus.  I sat in the stands.  Sometimes I was asked to watch purses.

Cheerleaders dress in skimpy clothes and their practice resembles what I imagine is identical to stripper pole dancer practice.  I was very uncomfortable to be sitting in the gym watching prepubescent girls to dance and perform in as sexy a manner as they could get away with.  

I felt open to allegations of inappropriate behavior.  I wasn’t going to be inappropriate, but that had nothing to do with it.  That girl I suspended could easily have destroyed me by waiting a little while and then telling her mother I had tried to touch her boobies.  That is all it would have taken.  How could I prove I was innocent?

I endured the duty that first year but I told Mr. Hellzeal I did not want to continue with that duty for the following year.

I got an excellent evaluation when Mr. Hellzeal himself did my evaluation.

Hellzeal’s behavior with the teachers was odd and upsetting to everyone.  He would do things like require the teachers to go to the office to get a ditto master and when the request was made the teacher was given ONE.  They may have had 3 or 4 preparations, but they were given one ditto at a time.  

I guess teachers were dragging in slow some days, so Hellzeal made a rule that you had to come by the front office, get the attention of one of the secretaries, and sign in with the time you arrived.  At exactly the second you were officially late, they secretaries changed to a LATE sign in sheet.

There were dozens and dozens of micromanager, I’m the boss and you’re a turd, actions by the principal, and at one point in the Spring of the school year, someone said they wanted to file a grievance against Mr. Hellzeal.  After this was talked it around a second decision was made to have a “group grievance.”

By the Spring I was convinced that Bubba was mentally ill and sometimes he got so angry I wondered if he might go berserk, and hurt somebody.  Really.

I signed the group grievance.  

Hellzeal’s way of dealing with a grievance was to demand the first hearing immediately.  I think he didn’t want the grievant to have a chance to prepare.

After school the same day he got the grievance, all the grievants were called to the vocal music room after school.  When Hellzeal came by my room he said,

“Well, Mr. Norman, it seems you have accused me of a crime.”

“Crime?” I said, “there’s just some treatment that needs to be worked out,” I said.

“No!” he said with a raised voice.  “You signed the grievance, and you have accused me of a crime.”

Then Bubba told me to show up in the vocal music room as soon as school was out.

We all gathered in the room and sat in student desks.  Bubba was there, and eventually, Mike Medford showed up from Putnam City High School.  Mike was the grievance chairman for the Putnam City Association of Classroom Teachers.

As I watched Bubba and Mike debated the negotiated agreement I was inspired.  The PCACT guy was trying to convince Bubba that he had violated the negotiated agreement.  Bubba was trying to convince Mike that he had not violated the negotiated agreement, that this was all bellyaching by a bunch of spineless teachers who were too yellow to come to him directly and instead were hiding behind the negotiated agreement.

Obviously no one agreed with anyone, but for me, the whole thing seemed a little like church of Christ arguments with those sinner Baptists and Methodists.  I could actually see myself being the grievance chairman for the district.  It seemed like teacher union stuff was something I was perfectly prepared to do.

We lost that grievance, of course, but I was going to meetings and suddenly I found myself on the teacher negotiation team for PCACT.  I expected to have trouble with Bubba the following year, because I’d been part of the group grievance, but I figured, being on the negotiation team that that was such a high profile position that Bubba would not single me out for retaliation.  I was so fuckin’ wrong about that.  

Later, when the teachers and school board were at impasse regarding negotiations I was put on the team of folk who started trying to get the Board to move on their impasse position.

That Fall, Mayfield had this Oktoberfest night where some of the clubs had booths and the choir performed.  I was not a sponsor for a club, so I decided to use this opportunity to advocate for the teachers.  I had a flier run off at the PCACT office.  On the flier it explained what issues were involved in the impasse.  The flier also provided all the phone numbers for the school board members and asked the parents to call their school board members and urge them to return to the negotiating table.

The following day I was sitting in the In School Detention Room, where I monitored the room one class period each day.  

Bubba comes in and chuckles.  “Well,” he says, “it looks like those union marauders hit our cars last night.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Were you involved in putting those fliers on the cars last night?” he asked me.

I told him I was involved.

“I was just wondering,” he said, and chuckled, and left the room.

My life got a lot more difficult after that.

While my last evaluation had been perfect, this time, when I was evaluated, I was deficient in everything.  I want to say that I can’t dispute that I had poor classroom control.  My experience is that you can suck in every other area as a teacher, but if you have strong classroom management skills you are seen as a great teacher.

I was not a great teacher.  I also was not worse at my job in year two than I’d been in year one.

It was clear to me that I was being punished because I was active in the teacher union.  There was actually something in our negotiated agreement that said you could not be harassed or intimidated or threatened because you exercised your right to be involved in the teacher union.

I was afraid to do this, but I filed a grievance against Bubba Hellzeal.

The grievance process required that I meet with the principal, orally tell him what issues I was wanting relief from, and give him an opportunity to try to resolve the grievance at the first step before there was anything reduced to writing.

I did the informal step.  My hands were shaking.  I was afraid.  Remember how often I’ve mentioned I had debts, and needed a paycheck.  I was afraid, but I did it anyway.

Bubba mentioned that I didn’t look good, that my face and ears were red, and maybe I should look into doing something else.  Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a school teacher.

I agreed with him, but I wasn’t about to say so.

I started the formal steps of the grievance procedure.

By the end of the school year I was still going through the steps of my grievance against my principal, and I was running for PCACT President.  I was elected, replacing Candy Chavez, but it was not that big a deal, because I was running unopposed.  I had some fear that someone might seek to be a write in candidate and I would run unopposed and still lose.

One of my happiest periods of employment was while serving as the PCACT President.

 

Ryan, School, Hoover, and Depression

Early on, it was clear to me that Ryan was not an average little boy.  My pride might be ignored as the ravings of a proud daddy, and perhaps there is some of that, but really, we started to realize Ryan was smart.  Ryan was crazy smart.  I wish I could say he got that from me and his mother, but Ryan was adopted.  It is possible Ryan’s smartness is genetic.  The debate about nature and nurture is not going to be settled by me.

I wanted Ryan to be smart.  As soon as we needed a babysitter we used the wife of one of the school’s custodians.  Jim Grant, and his wife and home daycare owner, Barbara Grant.  The house was painted green and as soon as Ryan started talking he called the house Green Barbara’s.

One of our peers, Mr. Sanders, had a little girl, Shasta, who was very close in age to Ryan.  I remember once when Shasta spilled her drink.  Shasta said, “I spilled this all over my dress!”

I was shocked.  Ryan wasn’t talking beyond saying a word or two.  Here was his female contemporary speaking in complete sentences.

So yes, I was interested in Ryan being outstanding.  He seemed outstanding to me, but I knew I was seeing him through the eyes of love.

The summer arrived and my wife, Kathie started going to OU with Ms. Butner to take a class.  I was home alone all day with Ryan.  I would put him on my lap when I was reading something.  I started pointing to a word and I would say, “Ryan, this is the word ‘the.’  Find all the ‘the’s’ on the page.”

Ryan was just a tiny little guy, but he would find all the ‘the’s’ easily.  I would move on to other words and repeat the game.

Kathie would also give Ryan little challenges.  

Kathie would teach Ryan to say some big words like, zygomaticus, or orbicularis oris and pointing out where those muscles were in the face.

Once we were at a football game at Butner and we were sitting near Mrs. Factor.  Kathie prompted Ryan to say his big anatomy words and point to where the muscles were in his face.

Mrs. Factor said, “Oh, I could never say such big words.”

“Yes you can,” said Ryan.  “Just say it real slow: zi-go-matacus.”  Everyone thought that was cute and hilarious, but it just seemed to go way beyond what I would expect from a very young little boy.

By the time Ryan was five years old he was starting to correct my spelling, and he was reading age appropriate books.

I remember another time when we were driving from Wewoka to the gynecologist in Shawnee.  Kathie had developed endometriosis and was preparing to have a hysterectomy.  The trip took us past the drive-in movie theater that had a big marquee outside the gate.  One day as we were driving past Ryan looked up and said, “They’re showing POLTERGEIST.  Ryan was not recognizing the logo for the movie.  The sign was in all caps and it was just standard sign block printing.  How could a preschooler read the word POLTERGEIST?

MORE CHURCH OF CHRIST TROUBLE

One day Mr. Hoover, the Superintendent of Butner Public Schools, called me into his office.  He got pretty parental, or bossy with me.  

“Tex,” he said, “you and Kathie have been coming to church here [meaning Cromwell Church of Christ] but your attendance is not good.”

What was I supposed to say?

“And you have never placed membership.”

I was still waiting for a question or something.

“I think it is time for you to place your membership, and start being apart of the church.”

I told him I would talk to Kathie about that.

I talked to Kathie.  I was not wild about placing membership, but Kathie thought it was a good idea.  

We decided to go to church the following Sunday and place membership.

We did that.  We came forward to the sound of Just As I Am, filled out the little card, and we had done what we were asked to do.

After church we drove home, and we were changing out of our church clothes when the phone rang.  It was Mr. Hoover.  He and his wife were in town and he wanted to come to my home immediately.

Within a few minutes Mr. Hoover and his wife were sitting in my livingroom.  [This was before our move to the log house.]  

The conversation went something like this:

“There is a problem with your placing membership at Cromwell,” he said.  “I guess as soon as church was over someone called one of the Wewoka Church Elders and told them you’d placed membership.  The Wewoka Church is not going to let you place membership in Cromwell unless you repent at the Wewoka church for your part in the withdrawal of fellowship that happened back in 1972.”

“Then let’s just not be members of the Cromwell Church,” I told him.  “You asked us to place membership.  I didn’t want to place membership.  I placed membership because you asked me to.”

“But all will be OK if you just repent with the Wewoka Church.”

“No,” I said. “How can they tell the Cromwell Church what to do?” I asked.  “We were never withdrawn from,” I added.

“I’ve talked to the Elders,” Mr. Hoover said, “and all you have to do is write a statement and they will read it in the Sunday night service.”

“I won’t say that I was wrong about objecting to what they did to Stormy Winters.”

“You don’t have to say you were wrong,” Mr. Hoover, my boss, told me.  “All you have to say is if anyone was offended by my refusal to comply with the Elder’s action, that you are sorry for that.”

Kathie thought I should be able to say at least that.  I was feeling pressured to do what Mr. Hoover wanted because he was an elder and my boss.  

I caved.  I agreed to say that if anyone was offended by my actions during that withdrawal of fellowship that I am sorry.  It sounded to me like I was sorry I’d not agreed with the Elder’s action when the actual wording was that I was sorry if other people were offended.

I did this.  I did not go forward, but Mr. Hoover and his wife picked me and Kathie and Ryan up and drove us to the Wewoka Church of Christ building.  I sat through their Sunday night worship service.  Charlie Butler stood up and read my statement aloud and then lead a prayer thanking God for my willingness to comply with the leadership of the Elders and the healing of our relationship with the Body of Christ.

I was pretty steamed about this whole thing.  

I was not sorry I didn’t comply with the Elders.  I did not give a flying fuck if my actions offended anyone.  I was mostly mad at myself for not having enough spin to stand up to Mr. Hoover and telling him to leave my house and not to talk to me about church matters ever again.

I was, and still am, ashamed of myself when I cave in to intimidation and fear.  

I did what I was pressured into doing, but I again fell into a long period where I was not going to church.

THE HOOVER PROBLEMS

In my view, Mr. Hoover was an arrogant, dictator, who ruled the teachers like a teacher of a coach might try to cow down and control students.  But the teachers were adults.  Mr. Hoover was often sarcastic.  He had a way of dropping his head and giving you a death stare that he would hold until the target of this treatment would drop their head, look away, and, almost always, they would cave to whatever it was he was wanting.

Over time the majority of the teachers had a list of grievances against Mr. Hoover.  I remember driving down the road Harold Rowe would flash his headlights and I would pull over to the side of the road.  He would get out of his car and tell me about some complain or mistreatment he had against Mr. Hoover.

Eventually the teachers started to meet as a large group, and they met in my room.  I was asked to contact the Oklahoma Education Association and to see if they could send someone out to talk with us about our complaints.

Mr. Hoover saw us meeting in the room and he started picking off teachers and grilling them about why were were meeting.  OEA sent a Uniserv Director out to talk with us.  We were told we could form an association by filling out cards.  Once we had the majority of the teachers who had joined, we could actually bargain a contract with the School Board.

When Mr. Hoover had word of what was going on he called a faculty meeting and he yelled at us for over an hour about the problems we were causing for the school and how it was unprofessional for us to air our dirty laundry in public.

I started gathering information and letters from the Superintendent and I would slip them to a reporter at the Wewoka Daily Times.

This resulted in another faculty meeting.  Now we were not just airing our dirty laundry in public, but we were putting that stuff in the newspaper.  Mr. Hoover wanted to know who had given information to the newspaper.

Eventually the faculty signed membership cards and we had 100% signed up.  I was elected as the first president.

Now I had no idea what I was doing.

There was a heated school board meeting and a number of parents showed up.  Negative things were said.  It seemed that this parochial attitude Mr. Hoover had towards the teachers he had with at least some of the parents, and the lid boiled off that school board meeting.  

I was asked if we, the teachers had concerns we wanted to turn over to the School Board.  We had such a list.  I said we would like to go over our list with the school board, but we did not want Mr. Hoover in the meeting.

Again my lack of courage showed up.  The president of the school board said they needed someone to take notes, and he wanted Mrs. Hoover to sit in on these quzi negotiations and to take notes.  I offered to have Mrs. Scott to take the notes, but the president of the school board said they wanted someone impartial to take the notes.  I caved.

But clearly Mrs. Hoover was not impartial.  Mrs. Hoover was going home that same night and telling Mr. Hoover every single complaint we voiced to the school board.  The other teachers were really taking huge risks.  Teachers like Mrs. Scott and Mr. Rowe lived in houses that belonged to the school board.  If they needed repairs they had to go to Mr. Hoover to get those repairs.  They were risking their homes to stand up to Mr. Hoover.

I honestly do not remember everything that happened then, but my memory is that there were lots of hard feelings then.  I can remember the look on the faces of Mr. Hoovers two daughters and I felt like a turd on a stick.  

Mr. Coker moved up to be the new Superintendent.  Slowly feelings calmed down.  As Association President I had no clue what I was supposed to do.  One of the things I thought was a good idea was to write letters to our elected readers on topics that might advantage or disadvantage teachers and students.  When I say letter writing, I don’t mean just me.  I would call all the teachers together and have them all write letters to the elected leaders.  I thought a lot of letters would get more attention that just a few letters.

I remember several years after I left Butner Schools I ran into Enoch Kelly Haney.   He remembered me.  Mr. Haney said that he never got the volume of letters he got when I was at Butner Schools.

Did those efforts make any difference?  I don’t think so.

DEPRESSION

In 1980 it was clear I was seriously depressed.  I sometimes would be at home and just start crying.  I felt trapped.  I felt homeless.

I started seeing a psychiatrist in Oklahoma City and took my first antidepressant medication that year.  Here it is 2015, as of this writing, and I am still taking antidepressants.

Early on I figured we would retire from Butner Schools.  I thought Ryan would go through Butner School and end up at OU or OSU.  But I was not making enough money.  Ryan was about to start school and I wasn’t sure I wanted  him to go through Butner Schools.

I don’t mean to imply there was anything wrong with Butner Schools, but I do mean to imply that all schools are NOT equal.  The electives were limited.  I thought Ryan was above average in intelligence and he needed as many advantages as I could prove him.

To me it felt like we would never have enough money if we stayed at Butner Schools.  

We applied for teaching jobs at Putnam City Schools, the school system Kathie had graduated from, and that would put us closer to her parents.  Moving your wife closer to her parents is rarely bad for the wife.

One day Kathie was called and she was hired to teach Junior High Science at Putnam City.  I didn’t have a job but we followed the old saying, “Leap, and a net will appear.”