Let There Be Greb
(Part I of a Weird and Terrible Saga)
Eventually, the earth cooled. Water condensed and formed into oceans. These oceans were not like those portrayed in some version of events on the Discovery Channel; they were rancid cesspools of the kind where only tadpoles find happiness. Things edged out of the water and onto the land. Some turned around and went straight back, but those few that stayed decided they liked it enough to grow lungs and legs and finally hair.
Slime continued to ooze out and across living room floors, and some of it was me. I am aware that I became aware, but I am not aware of anything of which I first became aware. I’m told the place was Hammond, Indiana, but how can I really know? I have a vague recollection of brick buildings, but whether they are memories of actually buildings or buildings in photographs, I do not know. Few things are as pliable as memory.
I am certain I’m aware of the next neighborhood to which I moved. The address was 791 Appletree Lane – the first address I was to learn. (The phone number was 433-1593. I didn’t learn an area code; you just used the operator for long distance, anyway.) My mother had married Edwin P. Greb, who then adopted both me and my older brother Michael. I suppose she felt it was a good match, a good step at making sure her children were well cared for. Ed sold drugs. Quaaludes. He worked for William H. Rorer, a drug company. He also had the Maalox account. (The double As in both names were his idea.)
I didn’t know it then, but we were rich. Highland Park, Illinois, would later be the neighborhood chosen by Michael Jordan when he played for the Bulls. It is located north of Chicago, and the city is a short commute by train.
It seemed to me that I was living a normal childhood, but I had nothing with which to compare it. Ed (soon to be spoken of as Nasty Edwin by my brother and me) was away five days a week. On Fridays we would all usually pack into the Country Squire stationwagon and head for either O’Hare or Midway, and make another trip there with the new week. I have no direct memory of it because my mother did her best to shield us and surely because some memories are repressed, but Ed was an abusive alcoholic. I now know that both Mike and I fell into textbook roles for children in alcoholic households. Mike rebelled, drew attention to him with misbehavior, while I took the opposite tack. I disappeared into an anonymity of goodness. Perfect at school, quiet at home, I vanished into the basement on weekends and watched monster movies, WWII movies, westerns, and old comedies: Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and the Three Stooges. It wasn’t so bad (for me).
Events I was not privy to uprooted my complacent existence in the late 1960s. We packed up and moved to Fresno, California. I do not know whether Ed’s drinking got him fired, whether he quit in some grandiose fit of pique, or whether he parted ways with Rorer amicably to seek his fortune on his own. It doesn’t really matter the cause; we moved.
Fresno was uncomfortable, and not just due to the summer heat. By now there were a younger sister and brother, and Mike and I were getting older. I withdrew into further isolation. Two quick stories full of pathos to illustrate:
Story 1
I am at a neighbor’s house watching Star Trek when it is time for me to go home. Climbing over the six-foot wood privacy fence, I hop into our backyard and land directly onto a nail. The impact drives the nail through the sole of my Converse All-Stars and into the middle of my foot. I try to pull it out myself, but the nail has penetrated deep into my flesh, and the rubber of the shoe seals it tight. I call for help, but no one comes. Struggling to my good foot, I decide to try to limp the rest of the way to the house. Unfortunately, the nail is in the yard because it has been used to fasten some wire to the fence in order to hold up some vines. The vines are long gone, but the wire is not. Much of it is still attached to the fence, and after a few steps, I reach the end of the slack in the wire, and it yanks me off my feet when I try to take the next step. I sit crying and calling for a long time, until I finally remove my shoelaces and extract the nail from my foot.
Story 2
Saturday, the day of the little league tryouts. I take my mitt and ride my bike to the field. I’m not very good, but I want to play. I am the only boy there by himself. Fathers and sons in matching ball caps. When my turn comes to field grounders, I make what is for me a spectacular catch, but the torque starts me spinning. I make a full turn before throwing to first. Some other boys snicker and call me a ballerina. None of the coaches select me. I’m under the impression that everyone is supposed to be picked, but I don’t have the nerve to confront the man in charge. When I get home, no one even asks where I’ve been.
Was I right about the pathos?
Michael was flush with testosterone, so while I gradually effaced, he grew more in your face. Soon my mother wasn’t the only one on the receiving end of Nasty Edwin’s physical abuse. I suspect that Fresno was supposed to be a fresh start, but this added violence to her child created an even fresher start: my mother packed up the four kids, and we moved north and in with her parents in Carmichael.
The five of us squeezed into a three bedroom ranch with my grandparents and uncle. We were in Carmichael for about a year until my mother could get on her feet financially. About the only event of consequence during that time for our purposes here, gentle reader, was that through regular school testing and then further recommended testing, I was identified as a gifted student. This would create opportunities for me later.
Once my mother had a stable and adequate revenue, we moved to Coloma, the place where James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill. She rented a two bedroom, four room (counting the kitchen) house, and we tried to adapt. This was my third new school in as many years, and it wouldn’t be my last. We moved again a year later, this time to Smith Flat just east of Placerville. By the time I was ready for high school, we moved into Placerville itself, just off Canal Street with the school on the other side of our fence. By sophomore year, we moved again to Diamond Springs onto a piece of property with six acres. These moves were caused by a combination of slowly improving finances and frequently changing boyfriends for my mother.
But for now, gentle reader, let us stop before we enter the bewildering world of humiliation that is to be found in America’s public high schools.
(Part I of a Weird and Terrible Saga)
Eventually, the earth cooled. Water condensed and formed into oceans. These oceans were not like those portrayed in some version of events on the Discovery Channel; they were rancid cesspools of the kind where only tadpoles find happiness. Things edged out of the water and onto the land. Some turned around and went straight back, but those few that stayed decided they liked it enough to grow lungs and legs and finally hair.
Slime continued to ooze out and across living room floors, and some of it was me. I am aware that I became aware, but I am not aware of anything of which I first became aware. I’m told the place was Hammond, Indiana, but how can I really know? I have a vague recollection of brick buildings, but whether they are memories of actually buildings or buildings in photographs, I do not know. Few things are as pliable as memory.
I am certain I’m aware of the next neighborhood to which I moved. The address was 791 Appletree Lane – the first address I was to learn. (The phone number was 433-1593. I didn’t learn an area code; you just used the operator for long distance, anyway.) My mother had married Edwin P. Greb, who then adopted both me and my older brother Michael. I suppose she felt it was a good match, a good step at making sure her children were well cared for. Ed sold drugs. Quaaludes. He worked for William H. Rorer, a drug company. He also had the Maalox account. (The double As in both names were his idea.)
I didn’t know it then, but we were rich. Highland Park, Illinois, would later be the neighborhood chosen by Michael Jordan when he played for the Bulls. It is located north of Chicago, and the city is a short commute by train.
It seemed to me that I was living a normal childhood, but I had nothing with which to compare it. Ed (soon to be spoken of as Nasty Edwin by my brother and me) was away five days a week. On Fridays we would all usually pack into the Country Squire stationwagon and head for either O’Hare or Midway, and make another trip there with the new week. I have no direct memory of it because my mother did her best to shield us and surely because some memories are repressed, but Ed was an abusive alcoholic. I now know that both Mike and I fell into textbook roles for children in alcoholic households. Mike rebelled, drew attention to him with misbehavior, while I took the opposite tack. I disappeared into an anonymity of goodness. Perfect at school, quiet at home, I vanished into the basement on weekends and watched monster movies, WWII movies, westerns, and old comedies: Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and the Three Stooges. It wasn’t so bad (for me).
Events I was not privy to uprooted my complacent existence in the late 1960s. We packed up and moved to Fresno, California. I do not know whether Ed’s drinking got him fired, whether he quit in some grandiose fit of pique, or whether he parted ways with Rorer amicably to seek his fortune on his own. It doesn’t really matter the cause; we moved.
Fresno was uncomfortable, and not just due to the summer heat. By now there were a younger sister and brother, and Mike and I were getting older. I withdrew into further isolation. Two quick stories full of pathos to illustrate:
Story 1
I am at a neighbor’s house watching Star Trek when it is time for me to go home. Climbing over the six-foot wood privacy fence, I hop into our backyard and land directly onto a nail. The impact drives the nail through the sole of my Converse All-Stars and into the middle of my foot. I try to pull it out myself, but the nail has penetrated deep into my flesh, and the rubber of the shoe seals it tight. I call for help, but no one comes. Struggling to my good foot, I decide to try to limp the rest of the way to the house. Unfortunately, the nail is in the yard because it has been used to fasten some wire to the fence in order to hold up some vines. The vines are long gone, but the wire is not. Much of it is still attached to the fence, and after a few steps, I reach the end of the slack in the wire, and it yanks me off my feet when I try to take the next step. I sit crying and calling for a long time, until I finally remove my shoelaces and extract the nail from my foot.
Story 2
Saturday, the day of the little league tryouts. I take my mitt and ride my bike to the field. I’m not very good, but I want to play. I am the only boy there by himself. Fathers and sons in matching ball caps. When my turn comes to field grounders, I make what is for me a spectacular catch, but the torque starts me spinning. I make a full turn before throwing to first. Some other boys snicker and call me a ballerina. None of the coaches select me. I’m under the impression that everyone is supposed to be picked, but I don’t have the nerve to confront the man in charge. When I get home, no one even asks where I’ve been.
Was I right about the pathos?
Michael was flush with testosterone, so while I gradually effaced, he grew more in your face. Soon my mother wasn’t the only one on the receiving end of Nasty Edwin’s physical abuse. I suspect that Fresno was supposed to be a fresh start, but this added violence to her child created an even fresher start: my mother packed up the four kids, and we moved north and in with her parents in Carmichael.
The five of us squeezed into a three bedroom ranch with my grandparents and uncle. We were in Carmichael for about a year until my mother could get on her feet financially. About the only event of consequence during that time for our purposes here, gentle reader, was that through regular school testing and then further recommended testing, I was identified as a gifted student. This would create opportunities for me later.
Once my mother had a stable and adequate revenue, we moved to Coloma, the place where James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill. She rented a two bedroom, four room (counting the kitchen) house, and we tried to adapt. This was my third new school in as many years, and it wouldn’t be my last. We moved again a year later, this time to Smith Flat just east of Placerville. By the time I was ready for high school, we moved into Placerville itself, just off Canal Street with the school on the other side of our fence. By sophomore year, we moved again to Diamond Springs onto a piece of property with six acres. These moves were caused by a combination of slowly improving finances and frequently changing boyfriends for my mother.
But for now, gentle reader, let us stop before we enter the bewildering world of humiliation that is to be found in America’s public high schools.