For this blog to make sense, I am going to have to go back a bit to a time I don't like to revisit.
One of my past stepfathers (a man we'll call John Doe) was a man my mother met in a casino in Wendover, Nevada, and married in jail when he was in on a burglary charge. He was also the most sadistic man I ever met. One example of his twisted ways of doing things was when he beat me severely for leaving a coat at school (until I was bleeding rather steadily), then took us to the Great Salt Lake the following day, with my sores still fresh, for a swim, and forced me to go in the water. That was an incredible amount of pain for an 11 year old boy to endure.
John was also sexually twisted. I honestly don't think he ever met a minor he didn't sexually abuse, all of us kids and the neighbor kids included. It was for these acts that he was eventually put in prison (he was released some years back).
My mother kept his surname, despite twice remarrying, but, as I've come to know and understand mental illness, I just wrote that off.
Flash forward to the very recent past. Before my mom took off on a tizzy, she was around when my wife went into preterm labor (she split when my wife was still in Vegas, leaving us with no transportation to get back and forth). She had a friend of hers and his wife look after the kids (we'll call him Bob).
So, as we're driving back from one of the trips into Vegas, my mom is speaking with me, and she says "You known who Bob reminds me of?".
I was clueless, "Uh, no, not really."
"He reminds me of John," she replied, with that dreamy tone in her voice that most teenagers use when referring to their favorite teen idol.
And she expected me to trust this man with my KIDS?!?
signing off,
Gideon MacLeish