Five Minutes Embedded Forever

Today, parking spaces painted across the pavement where once my life existed and memories formed, most forgotten, some pleasurable, while a few, unwanted. One determined not to go away. Most memories faded like newsprint left exposed to the sun. As much as I might, a single recollection refuses to let go. Instead, it returns at the most inopportune time, imposing itself upon me, creating an existential conflict.

The answer I seek has evaded me for years. I wonder, is it possible to disconnect oneself from an entrenched belief? Seared to ones very psyche?

The dark red brick building appeared confident in the middle of several acres of well-aged, established greenery. In the front, parallel to the primary thoroughfare, were large established elm and maple trees. Located to the west, a walkway framed by the building and chain-link fence; across the street was a funeral home, to the rear of the building, a paved space for students to play tag; and toward the back, tall swing sets. On the east side, a playground with more swings, a jungle gym, slides, merry-go-round, round-about, Witch’s Hat, seesaws, bike racks, and two newer “portables” added as the community grew. Five days a week, this schoolyard filled with chatter while students waited for the bell to call all to their respective classrooms. Inside aged wooden floors creak and along the walls hooks were empty where soon students hung their coats, scarfs, mittens, and hats. Below the coats, boots stood at attention while creating puddles of melting snow.

The classrooms, with their high ceilings and hanging lights, made one feel small by comparison. Two walls filled with large windows, often opened, allowing a fresh breeze to cool the classroom during the summer, are now closed and frosted over. The central heating system generated heat in gas/oil boilers. I know not where; but, somewhere hidden away, forcing heat through radiators, occasionally humming to remind us of their presence. Desks, in rows, faced the teacher’s desk; that was covered with a few books and knick-knacks. Wooded floors, worn smooth, creaked as students scurried about.

I sat at my desk filled with reading materials, workbooks, lined paper, graphite pencils, and a special pen molded to ensure students’ hold correctly. Massive black chalkboards, with trays filled with white and yellow chalk, and felt chalkboard erasers surrounded us; upon which we have yet to master the art of not squeaking the chalk when called to the front to provide a written answer. In the corner, a stool with a dunce hat sat as a warning that misbehavior would not be tolerated. Students sat quietly while the teacher took attendance.

Christmas break was approaching. Third grade lessons to be completed and decorations made to take home. It was a busy time of year.

On the back table stood construction paper, neatly stacked by color. Next to that we find colored foil, empty oatmeal boxes, a pile of toilet paper tubes, glitter, and the materials to make Paper Mache paste. When the paste was ready, strips of newspaper would painstakingly dip into and saturated by the paste before we placed it on the toilet paper tubes and oatmeal canisters. Once covered with mache, painted white, we sprinkled glitter on top. We were building a castle. A huge castle - remember third grade? A Christmas castle with towers and a drawbridge, and did I mention—it was HUGE?!

When completed, displayed for all to view. We would raffle it off and that lucky student would take it home! Thirty students all dreamed of being the one, the winner, the child to walk into their home and present their family with such a coveted prize, a gift to possess and share with their family.

I was no different. With great care, as a class, we assembled the winter Christmas castle, made handmade Christmas cards and with toilet paper tubes covered with red and green foil make Christmas trees. The countdown was on; ten days to go, nine days to go, each day slips slowly by until finally the last day of school before the break, the day to select the winner of the castle.

We place thirty slips of paper of equal size in a shoe box. One slip of paper had the word CASTLE printed with care.

The first person selected a folded wad of paper, 1 out of 30, blank.

And I prayed! Oh, dear God, please let me win!

The second person selected a folded wad of paper, 1 out of 29, blank.

And I prayed! With great fervor, I pleaded! Please, please let me win!

The third person selected a folded wad of paper, 1 out of 28, blank.

And once again, I was begging God to let me be the one. A heartfelt request. Each night, with parents watching, I prayed, but never like this, this was from deep within. Those were rote words, holding little authentic meaning. This was genuine.

From where I sat, there were many slips to be pulled and with each blank, my stomach turned, fearing a classmate would leap for joy at having pulled the winner from the box.

As long as I could remember, my parents would sit on the edge of my bed and listen as I prayed nightly. “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep;” with some request to protect, thanks for blessings received, some acknowledgment of God’s favor, Amen.

Every Sunday morning and evening and Wednesday evening and at every meal, a man would lead the church family in prayer. The family gathered around the table, always offering thanks, expecting petitions to be answered.

How many times had I heard quoted, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh. findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened“

Well, I am asking like I have never asked in the past!

And, the fifteenth person selected a folded wad of paper, 1 out of 15, blank.

Oh, I believe!

So close only a few more until my turn!

My prayers are becoming more fervent and desperate.

Finally, with about a dozen of us left, it is my turn. With care, I selected a folded wad of paper. I opened it, confident God was about to answer my prayer, because he promised me all I needed to do was to ask. I could feel my heart pounding, my breathing constricted.

I opened it and there it was, printed, the word CASTLE.

29 students moaned, those following me groaned, several cheered, one threatens to beat me on my way home, to destroy the castle, one said he would help me carry it home. Whatever, my prayer answered just like God, through his word, promised.

This story, this event, this experience, this victory scars me even to this day!

Five minutes in a lifetime of minutes.

Embedded now forever within my very psyche.

Would apparently……, will apparently never release me. I know this for a fact, because I sit right here, even now, haunted by that day.

This story takes two paths. One would last about three weeks as the Castle slowly deconstructed and eventually disintegrated, finished its life in the trash bin. As majestic as it was, there is not a single photo to prove it ever existed.

Like the thousands of events, I experienced in seventy plus years this silly castle story should have faded long ago, the result of a simple math calculation, like everyone else I had a 1 in 30 chance of drawing the single slip of paper with the word, CASTLE.

I wish it never had happened. I wish it would have been just one of many disappointments I experienced in life — as we all have; I am astonished and sometimes frustrated by how those Five Minutes are now Embedded Forever.

Contemplating where this story is about to venture, even now, I dread the passageway I am about to travel. Someday I will let the Voices in My Head free and share some thoughts on religion, but for now, suppressed.

Please note this story is not about Church with its dogma, or rituals, or doctrine, or even eternal implications. It is about the impact of a solitary event in the life of a third grader creating an angst that influenced a deep-rooted frustration, a sense of annoyance, and occasionally a feeling of impending doom.

For now, let us just say that someday I know the Voices in My Head will push me toward revealing my beliefs about being raised religious, my faith. BUT NOT NOW! For now, a peek behind that curtain.

We filled our lives with decisions, great and small. Many, having no consequence, air ball. Few will have notable consequences, swish, score, we are winners! Some, we are certain, will be consequential but, really, are they?

Throughout life, I have faced choices. With options. The proverbial fork in the road. Seemingly important decisions, “life changing” decisions.

Now, logically, one path makes sense. Then again, the other path seems equally viable.

Then it happens, I travel back to third grade.

It is like I can see myself as that young boy, a third grader. This experience is simple to remember it and share the details of what happened and even how it has impacted me. However, sharing those feelings and the ultimate impact stops me in my tracks. I feel frozen. Stuck with not knowing how to progress and finish telling my story. How do I put on paper what I sought to express? The words wrapped in never-before-shared feelings mocked me, made me doubt my capacity to venture onward.

Time out.

Let me watch some television and let the Voices chatter among themselves and leave me alone for a small amount of time. I’m exhausted and need to rest, for surely they will be back.

It was a miracle! (Perhaps a poor choice of words.) Now, I know how to proceed.

From previous ruminations, I have shared that I was the perfect, compliant child. Likewise, as I have previously noted and will fully illuminate in the future was captive in an ultra-conservative religious denomination, undoubtedly more than I could comprehend (grasping) entirely by third grade, age of eight.

Without realizing what had transpired, this “miracle of prayer” now deeply rooted into my nature, hermetically sealed by an omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient, all-seeing eye.

Five Minutes, Embedded Forever…………………

While taking a break last night, I was watching Young Sheldon; each episode follows the 9-year-old Sheldon Cooper as he navigates living with his family in East Texas while going to high school and this season, college. Occasionally, a point of contention within the family revolves around religion as mom endeavors to maintain her Baptist roots and tenets that she fervently adheres to and promotes to while working for the church even though she can occasionally be found smoking or drinking with the next-door neighbor.

Last night’s story really hit home, so much so I spent half the night replaying it in my mind, the scenario in a continuous loop. The world I was born into was full of activities deemed inappropriate, sinful, if you will. For example, playing card games, girls and boys swimming together, saying dang or darn it, smoking (although my parents smoked), listening to the Beatles, and, for the point of this saga, dancing.

Missy Cooper, Sheldon’s twin, now entering Junior High School, wants to attend a school dance with her friends. Although my attention split between Facebook and the program, this mother/daughter interaction snagged my attention while the Voices in My Head went into overdrive.

My church activities for teens never included dancing or questionable music. For me, lunchtime at school, where dancing acceptable in the auditorium, I sat atop of the bleachers, alone, so no one would ask me to join in. There was never a question about it - no school dances attended. In Junior High, I served as a Cadet, an organized group of guys involved in community service activities/projects, including “monitoring” dances. When I had to attend the dance as a Cadet monitor, I became quite adept at lying why I could not dance in my uniform or while on duty. At that moment, when Missy refused to talk to her mom because they forbid her to attend her school dance, I felt her frustration, her heartache.

We finished Young Sheldon on our DVR and immediately Norma cues up Bob Hearts Abishola. Weird, right? The story line covers how a mom and estranged dad insist that their son, Dele Adebambo, become a doctor! He wants to be a doctor, perhaps, but also is interested in dance and choreography. Like me, he is a compliant son seeking to honor family traditions and, in his case, Nigerian customs. His internal battle between his dreams and desire to be obedient to his parents and their expectations cause him obvious sadness. Abishola notices his sadness and turns to Bob for help.

The point here has nothing to do with dancing, rather the impact of those in my life and the values they projected on me and, unfortunately, those values I turned around and imposed on others.

How does this all relate to me? In third grade, my passionate prayer was answered. God answered my prayer. Like the Castle, that was a HUGE moment for me. Clearly, the adults guiding my life were right.

So, at every decision point in my life where embedded beliefs and rationality faced off, I become that, third grader, locked in a perpetual battle between a compliant, obedient child, his conscience, and his ability to rationalize reality and make demythologize decisions as an adult. I did not have a Bob to save the day. I didn’t live in a 30-minute sitcom. While my life has been manageable, things happened that tipped the scales against me. And for much of my life, with a deep conviction, believed that God listened to and answered that third grader’s fervent prayer.

One out of thirty (the probability 3.33%), a simple mathematical calculation, a single event that has dictated, formed me, and confounded me time after time. While the path that I took that day is true, while the events were factual, I have to speculate, what if?

What if I did not pull that insignificant slip of paper out of a shoe box?

How might my life taken a different path?

How I wished I had never pulled that slip of paper, locking me into a constricted, restricted existence. It would have been one more disappointment amid many soon to fade away.

Five Minutes Embedded Forever.