life as a redneck
i just happened to notice in the paper yesterday that some guy from the town where i grew up was arrested for molesting someting like 10 different kids. i kept reading and the article said that he is only 17. i dont know why that didnt really shock me. i guess for a couple reasons. my first thought is he was probably abused too. which is no shock either. i suppose it should be, but its not. and then i started thinking...
i know kids arent really safe anywhere, there will always be bad people. but some places are so much worse than others. the town where i grew up is like some sort of lost redneck colony. most people are extreme christians who will swear they live by every last word of the bible. which i suppose is noble, but not really sane. women and kids are sort of glorified pets. not that all of them are treated badly, but for the most part, people had a lot of respect for men and little respect for anyone else. anyway none of it seemed strange to me until i was old enough to compare it to what i saw on tv. i guess there are a ton of little towns like that all over the place. little farming communities where its normal to beat your wife and kids in the streets. but what struck me most as i was thinking about this was the weird mentality we were given by our parents.
ill ignore for a moment the fact that my dad is a pedophile.
i remember walking to school with my sister. i have no idea how old i was. maybe 7 or 8. there was this house on the corner a few blocks from our house, we passed it every morning on the walk to school. the man who lived there used to stand in his front door way and masturbate as we walked by. im assuming i was pretty young because i didnt really notice that this was strange. i just knew that was the house with the man who played with himself. kids dont judge that sort of behavior. but my sister is 6 years older than me, she must have been old enough to know it was creepy. she eventually told my mom about this man. i remember sitting on the front porch and my mom asking me about it and telling me we shouldnt walk past that house anymore. and from then on we took a different route to school.
funny, though, she didnt call the police or report this guy. id like to think if i had kids and some pervert was doing that id call everyone i could until he was arrested.
but its ok. as long as you avoid his house, no harm done.
at the time that was not weird to me. but now it is. things like that were normal there. i had this friend growing up, whose father was more than likely a pervert too. i remember seeing him act really inappropriately to all the young girls in our neighborhood. but no one said anything. it was normal.
and the priest at our church. for a few years i was an altar boy. i have pretty clear memories of a lot of that time and none of them include him touching me or hurting me. but a few boys said hed touched them. i remember the rumors. but no one ever asked me about it. and the priest didnt go away. and all of us remainedaltar boys after that, at least for awhile.
i dont know why. and the list goes on. it makes me wonder if maybe places like that breed insanity. in most places, id assume that adults would make a big deal out of things like that. everyone always makes jokes, about where i grew up, there are all sorts of incest jokes about that town, jokes about children and adults. i guess it applies to most of hte state. and people laugh. im sure for the most part the jokes dont apply. but in my little world growing up, those arent jokes, they are just facts about what life was like. at least from my perspective.
and so i read this article about this 17 year old who molested a lot of kids. and it didnt shock me at all. because i know what life was probably ike for him growing up. thats not to say i sympathize or condone anything hes done. its inexcusable. but not shocking. and thats really sad. there are probably so many places like that, where kids arent safe and protected, and no one really does anything about it.
i know kids arent really safe anywhere, there will always be bad people. but some places are so much worse than others. the town where i grew up is like some sort of lost redneck colony. most people are extreme christians who will swear they live by every last word of the bible. which i suppose is noble, but not really sane. women and kids are sort of glorified pets. not that all of them are treated badly, but for the most part, people had a lot of respect for men and little respect for anyone else. anyway none of it seemed strange to me until i was old enough to compare it to what i saw on tv. i guess there are a ton of little towns like that all over the place. little farming communities where its normal to beat your wife and kids in the streets. but what struck me most as i was thinking about this was the weird mentality we were given by our parents.
ill ignore for a moment the fact that my dad is a pedophile.
i remember walking to school with my sister. i have no idea how old i was. maybe 7 or 8. there was this house on the corner a few blocks from our house, we passed it every morning on the walk to school. the man who lived there used to stand in his front door way and masturbate as we walked by. im assuming i was pretty young because i didnt really notice that this was strange. i just knew that was the house with the man who played with himself. kids dont judge that sort of behavior. but my sister is 6 years older than me, she must have been old enough to know it was creepy. she eventually told my mom about this man. i remember sitting on the front porch and my mom asking me about it and telling me we shouldnt walk past that house anymore. and from then on we took a different route to school.
funny, though, she didnt call the police or report this guy. id like to think if i had kids and some pervert was doing that id call everyone i could until he was arrested.
but its ok. as long as you avoid his house, no harm done.
at the time that was not weird to me. but now it is. things like that were normal there. i had this friend growing up, whose father was more than likely a pervert too. i remember seeing him act really inappropriately to all the young girls in our neighborhood. but no one said anything. it was normal.
and the priest at our church. for a few years i was an altar boy. i have pretty clear memories of a lot of that time and none of them include him touching me or hurting me. but a few boys said hed touched them. i remember the rumors. but no one ever asked me about it. and the priest didnt go away. and all of us remainedaltar boys after that, at least for awhile.
i dont know why. and the list goes on. it makes me wonder if maybe places like that breed insanity. in most places, id assume that adults would make a big deal out of things like that. everyone always makes jokes, about where i grew up, there are all sorts of incest jokes about that town, jokes about children and adults. i guess it applies to most of hte state. and people laugh. im sure for the most part the jokes dont apply. but in my little world growing up, those arent jokes, they are just facts about what life was like. at least from my perspective.
and so i read this article about this 17 year old who molested a lot of kids. and it didnt shock me at all. because i know what life was probably ike for him growing up. thats not to say i sympathize or condone anything hes done. its inexcusable. but not shocking. and thats really sad. there are probably so many places like that, where kids arent safe and protected, and no one really does anything about it.
