Autobiography

My Early Years

Part I:

At some point during my infancy, I developed the habit of headbanging in my crib, especially at night, which lasted until I was around eighteen to twenty years old. My mother thinks I might have developed the habit from her bouncing me on a pillow on her knees, and I just naturally carried on on my own, but she says it's the only way she could keep me from crying. Anyway, they couldn't get me to stop the habit and took me to see a doctor to see if anything was wrong with me. The doctor didn't think anything was really troubling me, and told my mother that these things happen, and that there was nothing wrong with me.

When I became old enough to walk, I made a game of jumping and diving head-first into objects. I liked to climb up to the higher spots I could find, like the arms of couches and chairs (for I remember one incident very clearly where I was up on the arm of a couch at our grandma's house, when my cousin noticed I was about to jump and kind of dared me to do it by saying, 'You won't do it!' and she was smiling because it must've been funny to her, and I did jump and remember the edge of the coffee table rushing at me through my eyesight and hitting the edge), but I would jump into coffee tables and end tables. In these toddler-years I had split my head open numerous times requiring stitches and can still count about 8-9 scars on my head, mostly on or around my eyebrows, several of which are long and follow my brow-line, to where I could've easily lost an eye, but never did. I believe I made up the 'jumping' game as a result of my nocturnal headbanging, as well as that I had autism and was fixated with hitting my head (as shown by headbanging every night before I fell asleep, but that can't be proved.

When in my first or second year of school, I noticed that one scar in particular popped out when I would scrunch my brow, and I likened it to a lightning bolt, all on my own (1990-ish). One day, I showed my teacher my 'lightning bolt' by first telling her about it, then scrunching my brow to make it pop out. My teacher, she thought it was humorous. I went up to her and said, 'Want to see my lightning bolt?' and she said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'It's on my eyebrows. Watch!' and I gave my best brow scrunch, and said, 'See!? Do you see it?' and pointed to it. When she saw it, she laughed, and said, 'That's quite funny. I think you're onto something!' I couldn't help but laugh and smile from ear to ear, and said, 'Really? You think so!?' and we shared a laugh.

Part II:

When I was about four years old, I learned to be left-handed. I was coloring at the kitchen table at my grandma's house one day when my left-handed Uncle Joe, suggested I try and color with my left hand and I thought it was the cool thing to do. After that, my left hand was my go-to-hand and it easily became my dominant hand.

I moved in with my dad a year or so later, in Glenn Bridge (Asheville, NC.) At sometime during the school year of 1989-90, my dad and I were playing basketball with some big kids (I was about five,) and my dad caught me using my left hand, and yelled at me from across the basketball court, 'Shoot the ball with your right hand!' and I said, 'like this?' but used my left hand, and he said, 'No, your right hand! Don't you know what your right hand is?' Then he called me over and we had a talk. He said, 'Show me your right hand.' I gave him my left. He said, 'No, your right hand. It's the hand you write with. What hand do you write with?' I gave him my left. He then said, 'No, it's the hand you punch with.' He put his hands up and said, 'I want you to hit my hand. Give me your best punch. You won't hurt me.' I punched with my left. He said, 'Again, as hard as you can. You won't hurt me. I promise.' He then said, 'Now try your other hand.' And I punched as hard as I could with my right. He then said, 'Yeah, you're left-handed alright.' He then went on to tell me that I was using the wrong hand, and that my right was better. When I asked him why the right hand was better, he said 'Because it's a right-hand world!' He then told me a list of 'right-handed' things including scissors, and possibly baseball gloves, because I remember that, I just don't know if it was at that very moment. So, I agreed to switch, and spent the next few weeks trying to relearn my dominant hand, which it was frustrating at times.

Part III:

When I was in kindergarten, my grandpa came to visit my dad and I during spring break. During his visit, we took a trip to Cherokee Rock. I remember two very specific things. We were walking the trails and came to a cliff face with a fence guarding the edge. I asked my dad why there was a fence there and he told me it was there to keep people from falling off the edge, and that specifically kids might not know any better and think it's a game.

Later on, we visited the gift shop and my dad told me to pick out something, anything, that struck my fancy. I looked around and quickly made up my mind that I wanted an arrowhead. I was very enthusiastic, but my dad said, 'No,' and when I asked why, he told me 'Because they're not toys!' He and grandpa then directed me over to the toy tomahawks and said, 'How about one of these?' He then told me that they were for warriors, and even what scalping was, and when I asked why you'd want a scalp he said that the scalps were kind of like trophies. I warmed to the idea of that as a toy and chose that for the one gift I was afforded. We were celebrating my sixth birthday a few days ahead of time, and I remember my grandpa gave me a toy car that you charge my pushing it and it carries on for however long the 'engine' was 'revved.' I thought it was so cool that I played rough with it and they warned me and told me how to do it so that I didn't break it.

Part IV:

One day I was moping around near the door of the apartment and my dad said, 'What's wrong, you look bummed out? Why don't you go outside and play.' I said, 'I'm bored, there's nothing to do.' He said, 'Why don't you go play in the woods. You love that.' I said, 'I did that all day yesterday.' He said, 'Come on. I know you like it. Why don't you go to your favorite spot, walk the trails or something? I bet you'll have fun.' I brightened up at the thought, and said, 'You're right!' and walking off, I said, hesitantly, 'But do you really think I'll have fun?' He said, 'Of course, you always do!'

So, I headed out to the woods and started looking for something to entertain myself with, when I found an arrowhead (likely a spearhead) off to my left among the bushes of my favorite spot and couldn't wait to show my dad. I grabbed it and raced for home. I ran down an incline coming out of the woods and then across a large field that followed the tree line, before it opened into a short lawn near the complex we lived in. I was running downhill approaching a large ditch not far from the door to our apartment, (that, I was told, was so big because it collected rainwater rushing down the hill before it reached the complex.) I guess I was about 10-15 meters from the ditch when I noticed the arrowhead in my left hand, and I had a thought, and decided to feign a hard fall at the ditch and stab myself. I did so and tripped myself just at the bottom of the ditch, driving the arrowhead into my right wrist. I was bleeding profusely, crying, and fearing for my life at the loss of blood, and made my way inside to my dad.

He said, 'What did you do, son?!' I told him, "I cut myself!' He asked, 'How did you do that?' and I told him I had found an arrowhead. He then said, as he was checking the wound, 'You've got to be more careful, you could have killed yourself!' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'You see that vein there? You know what veins are?' I said, 'No.' So, he traced the vein I had just missed on my arm, going upwards from my wrist, and pointed towards my heart, and continued, 'The vein goes straight to your heart. You cut that and you could bleed to death!'. He then told me it was a big vein, and that if I cut it, I would've lost too much blood. I replied, 'What do you mean, 'I could die?' He looked at me and said, 'You would be no more.'

He then bandaged me up and told me it had a nice shape to it, and that I shouldn't mess with it or else ruin it. Still to this day, it's a well-defined shape, almost a perfect V, or the v-like shape found in a five-pointed star. Anyways, after that I calmed down, and wanted to go look for the arrowhead I dropped, but my dad said he would look for me, but I had to stay inside for the rest of the day, and he sent me to my room. Before going to my room, he said he'd go look for it, but he later said he couldn't find it, and I couldn't find it on my own the next day.

The next few days I was amazed at how lively the woods were. I went to my dad and asked him, 'What happened?' He said, 'What do you mean?' and I told him that things were so alive and vibrant. He then told me, 'Well, nothing happened, you're just having fun!' and I left it at that. But I remember spending time admiring the wonder of the woods and sitting on the ground looking at the trees and the beautiful scene, in a clarity I never knew before.