A SIMPLE ACT OF KINDNESS
CHAPTER one:

introduction

Written by Rick Archer 

early 1955

THE DAY I CUT MY eye OUT
 

Born at the end of 1949, that makes it easy to keep track of my age.  For example, I was 5 in 1955.  Like a lot of kids that age, I was young and stupid. 

For reasons that escape me now, one morning it was terribly important to take a thick piece of rope and cut it in two.  My mother was in another room watching TV as I searched for a tool.  Sharp knives were kept in places I could not reach, so the only thing I could find was a dull kitchen knife.  The weak serrated edge was not getting the job done.  It was taking forever to cut through this rope, so without thinking I changed directions and began pulling the knife towards me.  I was stronger pulling in the wrong direction, so I continued.  It was slow going, at least ten minutes, possibly longer.

I was nearly finished when suddenly my mother called from another room in a loud, demanding voice.  "Richard, it's time to go."

I immediately protested.  "But, Mom, I'm not done yet!"

Mom responded, "I don't care.  Andale!  (Spanish for hurry).  Whatever you're doing, finish it up and let's Vamanos."

A sense of urgency came over me.  I was almost done, so I gave the knife one big jerk.  The knife went through the rope like butter and, since I am left-handed, continued in an arc that sliced the pupil of my left eye.  Strangely enough, it did not hurt at all.  All I remember is some fluid gushing out and then the eye went blank.  Of course I screamed.

Next thing I know, Mom was rushing me to the hospital.  Tough luck.  Ultimately the eye could not be saved.  I developed a cataract but two surgeries to correct it were unsuccessful.  Even more problematic, I developed a detached retina.  At this point, the doctor detected early signs of 'sympathetic ophthalmia'.  This is an inflammation of the bad eye which can follow trauma.  Somehow the inflammation can transfer from the bad eye to the good eye, causing the good eye to go kaput just like the bad eye.  This condition can leave the patient completely blind, so they decided to completely remove my bad left eye as a precaution.  I was given a plastic eye to fill the empty eye socket.  As I aged, the risk of losing the good eye kept me out of high school sports.  That was a shame because I turned out to be a pretty good athlete.  We will get to that in due time. 

Over the course of my life, I blamed my mother for a lot of things, but not this one.  There is no way for even the most overprotective parent to anticipate all the extremely ignorant things a child is capable of.  Especially one like me.

What turns this accident into a potential Supernatural Event is the curious timing as well as the collapse of my better judgment.  As for Timing, my mother called out to me at the worst possible moment.  If she had called earlier, there would have been no problem.  Or if she had called out with less urgency in her voice.  I would have calmly put the rope aside and resumed later.  I only gave the knife a giant jerk because I could see the rope was down to its last fiber.  Let's finish this and get it over with. 

The other area of concern was the mysterious loss of my common sense.  At age 5, I knew better.  I had been warned to cut away from myself.  I sometimes wonder why I forgot that warning.  So this brings up the possibility of Cosmic Blindness. 

Cosmic Blindness, you ask.  What the heck is that?  Well, as a favor to my Readers, we might as well start the weird stuff now.  The danger here is that if I postpone talking about "The Weird Stuff", you might risk really enjoying this book.  They say it's better to have loved and lost and so on.  In the case of this book, I don't necessarily agree.  I say it is better to decide early on if your author and this odd book are just too far-out to make continuing worth your valuable time.

Based on several experiences over the course of my lifetime, I have developed a theory that says there will be times in our lives when our Fate decrees really bad needs to happen.  An easy way to allow Fate to take place at its assigned time would be to suspend our judgment temporarily.  After the deed is done, we get to spend the rest of our lives wondering how a smart person like ourselves could have ever done something so pathetically stupid. 

As it turns out, I have a kindred spirit who I suspect thinks in ways similar to mine.  Author J.K. Rowling once said, "Talent and intelligence will not inoculate anyone against the caprice of the fates.  Humans have a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for them." 

Blind eye.  Good Luck or Bad Luck?  As we shall see, some of my worst mistakes turn out to disguise a hidden benefit.  Unfortunately, no Silver Lining in this one.  In Hindsight, I cannot think of a single benefit over my lifetime.  Verdict: Bad Luck.  Really Bad Luck.

RICK ARCHER'S LIST OF SUSPECTED SUPERNATURAL EVENTS
 

A SIMPLE ACT OF KINDNESS:  THE CHILDHOOD YEARS

Suspicious

GOOD LUCK BAD LUCK
 

Jim Archer, my father, was very interested in Fate.  However I am not sure where he got his outlook.  I was probably too young for him to talk about his philosophies.  Dad was religious.  He and Mom were members of the Quaker Meeting here in Houston.  Dad was fascinated by Edgar Cayce, the man known as the Sleeping Prophet.  He also had an affinity for a 50's TV show called One Step Beyond, advertised as a guide to the supernatural.  The show presented tales of paranormal events and various situations that defied logical explanation.  In particular, Dad fixated on stories about Peter Hurkos, a Dutchman considered by experts to be the world's foremost psychic.  Dad could not stop talking about him afterwards.  "I think there really is something to this ESP business!"

Oddly enough, just like me, my father lost his left eye as a young boy.  A brick falling from a stone wall struck him as he walked home from school.  Dad heard a commotion above and looked up at the worst possible time to allow the brick to take his eye out.  So when I cut my eye, Dad freaked out.  This was too big a coincidence for him to overlook.  He was convinced something very weird was going on and told me so.  My father was extremely superstitious.  So am I for that matter.  I get my big mouth from my mother and my superstitious side from my father.  Dad was very upset because it seemed weird that we would both lose an eye during childhood.  However, if you thought he was superstitious about that, you should have seen him the day we barely escaped death.

I had cut my eye out just days before the family's big 1955 move to Texas.  Dad was an electrical engineer.  He had recently been transferred to Houston from Bethesda, Maryland, by his company Square D.  Mom and I stayed behind in the hospital while Dad went ahead.  When we reached Houston, I underwent my second unsuccessful operation to remove the cataract.  It failed due to a detached retina.  However the doctor said I still had a chance to save the eye.  He recommended I stay bed-ridden for a month to see if the retina would heal on its own. 

Since I was healthy otherwise, I despised being forced to stay in bed 24/7 with a giant bandage over my bad eye.  During my bed stay, my father would visit me every night and sit on the bed.  As a little boy, I worshipped the ground my father walked on.  Every now and then I would ask him to show me his Purple Heart medal from World War II.  Invariably I would also ask to see the impressive scar on his upper thigh caused by the bullet wound. 

"Dad, was getting shot the worst thing to ever happen to you?"

My father would nod and remind me how he had been in extreme pain during his six month stay in the hospital.  One day after I asked him to show me his scar again, Dad stared at the bandage covering my damaged left eye.  Sitting at the side of my bed, he said, "You know, Rick, I am really sorry that you cut your eye.  But being blind in one eye is not the end of the world.  I'm blind in my left eye too and things have worked out okay."

I protested.  "But, Dad, I've had two operations and they haven't done any good.  Plus I've been forced to lie in bed for the past month because the doctor says that's the only way for my detached retina to heal.  I'm sick of it!  I just want to go running in the fields with my dog and play baseball and stuff like that."

My father was crazy about me back in those days.  We did everything together.  Wherever Dad went, I went too.  It made Dad sick to think about what I was going through.  At the time, I was allowed to walk around with a giant patch over my bad eye.  My father already knew I was going to have my damaged eye removed, but so far he did not have the heart to tell me.  Dad felt really sorry for me, so one summer night he tried to cheer me up by taking me to a carnival.   Afterwards, the plan called for us to attend a stock car competition held on a race track located at the back of the carnival.  

Dad and I had a deal.  I could play all the games I wanted as long as I promised not to protest when it was time to go see the race.  Dad let me play games, the usual stuff, ring toss, baseball toss, haunted house, house of mirrors, etc.  However, after an hour, Dad became impatient when he heard the sound of the race cars warming up in the distance.  Dad said it was time to go see the stock car show.  I could have cared less about the cars, but that was what Dad was interested in so I cooperated as I said I would.   

As we began making our way to the race track, the loud roar of the powerful car engines was intimidating.  Due to a tall wooden fence, I could hear the cars, but I could not see them.  I asked Dad why the noise was so loud.  Dad said the drivers were warming up their cars by barreling around the track at breakneck speed.  Then he added there must be a curve just on the other side of the fence.  

As we walked along the sidewalk to the ticket booth, we passed an arcade game where I could shoot slow-moving wooden ducks with a cork rifle.  I froze in my tracks with excitement.  Overcome by a sudden irresistible urge to play, I grabbed my father's arm and forced him to stop him too.  I pleaded with Dad to let me play one more game. 

Dad said, "No, son, you've had enough. We're going to be late as it is."

But I wouldn't take no for answer.  I held onto his arm and insisted. 

"C'mon, Dad.  Just this one last game, please??"

Just as the word 'please' left my mouth, we were startled by the frightening sound of a loud crash.  We had been standing there debating for no more than three or four seconds when a race driver lost control of his car on that curve.  His car plunged through the flimsy wooden fence as if it were made out of thin paper.  Whirling our heads in panic, we screamed at the sight of an enormous race car hurtling straight at us.   

Something had caused the car to leave the ground, so it was literally flying in air.  Since the rickety old fence did nothing to slow this giant projectile, there was no time for us to dodge.  We were sitting ducks!  Fortunately, the car missed us by about three feet.  The displaced air was so powerful it knocked us down with a rush.  As I fell to the ground, I looked up to see the car crash violently into a telephone pole ten feet to my right.  The impact was brutal; the driver was killed instantly.  He had paid the ultimate price for losing control of his car. 

As I scrambled to my feet, I heard a snapping sound.  Dad and I stared in horror as the telephone pole broke in two, then fell on top of the crumpled car.  Dad was in shock.  I guess I was too.  Unable to get over seeing that poor lifeless driver slumped over the wheel of the car, I started to cry.  Meanwhile Dad stared at me with the weirdest look on his face.

"Son, if you hadn't stopped me, we would both be dead now.  You should thank your guardian angel for saving us."

The timing of my sudden interest in that arcade game was a Coincidence of the highest magnitude.  It saved my life.  Otherwise we would have been right in the path of that car.  Due to his belief in ESP, Dad believed my guardian angel had telepathically persuaded me to stop where I was.  That confused me.  Angel?  What angel?  I took Dad literally and looked around.  There wasn't any angel I could see.  However, my father was right about one thing.  We had missed death by an instant.  Had we continued walking, we would have been right in the path of that speeding car. 

Dad was so convinced a Higher Power had intervened to save us, I became very interested in my guardian angel.  If I had a angel, then why didn't that driver have an angel?  Furthermore, where was my guardian angel when I cut my eye out five months ago?  Although I was too young to fully understand the metaphysical implications, thanks to my father, I became interested in the Hidden World at an early age.  Dad talked about Fate on several occasions and always reminded me of the race car story.  Dad was convinced we had been saved that day because it was not our time to die.

RICK ARCHER'S LIST OF SUSPECTED SUPERNATURAL EVENTS
 

A SIMPLE ACT OF KINDNESS:  THE CHILDHOOD YEARS

Serious

Suspicious

early 1955

MOM AND DAD
 

"But, Rick, you have to tell them about your childhood.  Otherwise no one will ever understand just how screwed up you were when you started your dance career."  -- Marla Archer, 2013

Be forewarned I intend to speak of my parents in a distinctly candid way.  I apologize in advance for my candor, but my story will not make much sense otherwise.  Out of respect for my parents, I waited till they passed on before writing this memoir.  However, once they died, I saw no reason to disguise or sugarcoat the truth.  Although my parents deserve credit for helping me obtain a fine education and for giving me a home, beyond that they came up woefully short.  While I understand that parents worse than mine can be found in the filth of Mumbai and the mean streets of Detroit, by any standard of middle-class parenting, my parents belonged at the back of the line. 

My mother was Mary Griffiths.  She was born on August 1925, in a rural area near Reading, Pennsylvania.  Mary's parents were William and Lenore Griffiths.

Mary grew up in an upper class family who lived in a comfortable and quite spacious mansion high atop Knob Hill.  My mother described her home as very beautiful.  High upon a large hill in a heavily-wooded area, her home offered a wonderful view that stretched for miles.  Sledding down that snowy hill in wintertime was an activity that brought kids from miles around. 

Mary had a step-sister Gwen who was eight years older. Mary also had two younger brothers Bill and Richard. As one might gather, I was named for my Uncle Richard.  I was called Dick for the first 16 years, then changed it to Rick in high school.

My grandmother Lenore was said to be a beautiful woman.  Her marriage to William Griffiths, Mary's father, was her second.  Previously Lenore had married a handsome British man named Rupert Spencer who unfortunately died fighting in World War I.  During their brief marriage, Lenore gave birth to her very attractive daughter Gwen. 

In case you are curious, yes, Rupert was from the same family tree as Princess Diana.  Considering Aunt Gwen and her daughter Sally (my cousin), were very good-looking, I imagine they inherited the beauty the Spencer family is known for.

 

Mary's father William was a highly-regarded district supervisor for Standard Oil, the Pennsylvania oil company.  From what I gather, Bill Griffiths was competent and quite prosperous. 

Unfortunately my grandfather was diabetic, so he died when I was five.  My grandfather was a warm man, always very kind to me in the brief time I knew him. 

My mother did not like her mother Lenore very much, but she adored her father.  They were very close.  Bill Griffiths encouraged Mary to study hard and to speak her mind, bold advice considering this was an age when women were fighting to be considered equals.  Only recently had women finally won the right to vote, unfathomable as that sounds.

I think it is interesting that my mother kept a picture of my distinguished grandfather on the mantelpiece wherever we lived, but not a single picture of her mother.  Pictures tell a story, but so do the absence of pictures.

 

There were two boys and two girls in the family.  The birth order was Gwen, the half-sister eight years older than Mary, then Bill and Dick.

Mom was extremely close to her younger brother Dick, but always felt inferior to her older sister Gwen who was quite beautiful.  By contrast, Mary was plump, plain and wore thick glasses.

Unfortunately Mary's mother Lenore never failed to point out the disparity.  Lenore constantly berated her daughter about her looks.  She asked why Mary couldn't try harder to be pretty like her older sister.  Do your hair, use some make-up, but for heaven's sake, do something!  And while you're at it, lose some weight. 

As one might guess, Mary grew up feeling like the ugly duckling.  Mary wasn't particularly athletic or social.  On the other hand, she was extremely bright and excelled in school.  Books were Mom's best friend.

So what about Dad?   Like me, Jim Archer was an only child.  He was born in October 1925 in Lima, Ohio.  Following the death of his father at age 6, his childhood was very lonely.  He and his mother moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, when he was 13.  He met my mother in high school, but they did not date.  They reconnected after the war in 1945.  Mom was rich, Dad was poor.  Mom was plain, Dad was handsome. 

The parallels between my father's childhood and my own are disturbingly similar. 

Dad was an only child who did not get along with his strange mother.  Interesting. 

Like me, my father lost an eye due to a childhood accident. 

Like me, Dad had a serious bout with acne, although not nearly as bad as my problem. 

Jim's father died from acute appendicitis.  While my father didn't exactly die on me, he more or less removed himself from my life at age ten.  Following my parents' 1959 divorce, I would see Dad for lunch four times a year and that was the sum total of our interaction.  The nicest thing I can say is that Dad was a very smart guy and brilliant in his field.  Unfortunately, he was also a superficial man who lacked character.  He was soft.  I think the world knocked him down at an early age and he never completely got back up.  For the rest of his life, he always took the easiest way out of any dilemma.  Dad spent most of his life hiding behind the skirts of domineering women.

Jim became a lonely, insecure young man who turned to books as his escape route.  Hmm, so did I.  Jim told me how much he missed having a father.  How ironic.  I often wondered if Dad ever realized he was making me suffer the exact same fate he did.

My father caught a lucky break in World War II.  Practically on his first day of action, a German sniper popped him in the hip while he was on patrol during the Battle of the Bulge.  Although Dad was unable to walk for a while, it was a non-threatening wound that left an impressive scar. By the time the wound healed, the war was over.  Dad collected his purple heart and began his free ride to college paid for by Uncle Sam.

However, Uncle Sam didn't pay for room and board and Jim was penniless.  One might suppose Jim could work odd jobs to pay his way, but he had a better idea.  My mother came from a wealthy family in my father's hometown.  Although Mom was plain and lacked confidence, Dad needed a meal ticket and Mom was a good catch.  She dropped out of college to support him while he got his engineering degree at Drexel Tech.

My father had a rather checkered genealogy.  His paternal ancestors from England arrived in Connecticut in the 1600s.  His maternal Irish line settled in Ohio and Michigan.  Sometime prior to 1900 Clara Randle from the English line married William Peet from the Irish line and gave birth to a son.  Peet was a lout, so Clara Randle escaped with the boy.  Soon after that Clara took up with a guy named George Archer.  There is no record of a marriage, but the woman adopted his last name nevertheless.  At that point she changed her son's name from Peet to Archer.  This proved to be a waste of time because George promptly deserted Clara, leaving my father's father with no legal reason to be called 'Archer'.  So what?  People often changed their names back in those days.  However, since I do not belong to the Archer family tree, I have no need to buy the family crest.

My paternal grandfather had the curious name of Orlo.  He was a traveling insurance salesman.  Somewhere around 1924, Orlo married Dorothy Johnson who gave birth to a boy, Orlo Junior (Dad).  Sad to say, Orlo the First died when my father was 6, leaving his widow Dorothy and her little boy to face a hardscrabble existence.  I don't think Dorothy remarried, so it was just her and Orlo the Second.  Incidentally, the crazy thing is I had no idea my father was a 'Junior' until I was in my 70s.  Nevertheless I suppose I should be grateful things worked out like they did.  Thank you, Mom, for saying no to 'Orlo'.  I would much rather be an 'Archer' than a 'Peet' and thank God I didn't end up as Orlo the Third.  Just the thought makes me shudder.

I don't recall much about my father's mother Dorothy, but my mother had few good words to say about her weird mother-in-law.  Dad's domineering mother was said to have a bad habit of relating to her son Jim more as her "companion" than son.  Which is another way of saying this lonely woman liked to touch him.  I have no idea how far this went nor do I want to know, but no doubt this strange relationship contributed to my father's suspect character issues. 

Mary probably suspected Jim had his shortcomings.  On the other hand, he was a good-looking man and extremely bright.  Plus I can't imagine my mother had a wide range of marriage offers, so I expect she decided to take her chances.  And so Momma's Boy married the Black Sheep of the Griffiths family.  Considering the baggage each brought to the marriage from their respective childhoods, it was an inauspicious match that bode poorly for the future.  Their wedding picture alone sends chills up my spine given the unfortunate disparity in their looks. 

Dad received his training as an electrical engineer from Drexel Tech in Philadelphia.  Mom dropped out of college to support him.  This was a noble gesture at the time, but it would prove to be a serious mistake after the divorce twelve years down the road. 

Dad started his career a year before I was born in 1949.  My first home was in Rockville, Maryland.  Dad worked as a salesman for Square D, a manufacturer of fuse boxes and equipment used to control and distribute electric power.  The company transferred Dad to Houston when I was six.  Dad was good at sales, but yearned to put his engineering talent to better use.  While I was in college, Dad moved over to Kranco, a company that built massive cranes.  During his career at Kranco, Dad was finally able to show the world what he could do.  My father was frequently called in to handle the toughest assignments.  Due to his creativity, Dad became the go-to guy for large and difficult projects that called for unusual solutions.   For example, he designed the electrical system for a rocket-launching crane at Cape Kennedy meant to hurl astronauts into space.  Another time he designed the electrical system for a crane used to remove spent tie rods from a nuclear reactor. 

My father's forte was succeeding at jobs where others failed.  He designed the electrical system for a crane forced to work in sub-zero temperatures at a lumber mill in far northern Canada.  The Canada project is where he showed his special talent.  Several engineers had worked on this assignment previously, but could not overcome the problem of the extreme freezing temperatures.  However this was not a problem for Dad.  Once Jim was able to get that lumber mill equipment to work despite the arctic cold, he received several impressive new projects and watched his salary rise in proportion.   And so did my father's fame.  He was considered a genius in his field.

Dad's most interesting project was designing a crane to handle a secret prototype aircraft for the military.  Asked to work strictly from specifications, Dad was never allowed to see the actual plane itself in New Mexico.  Dad loved to talk about that project.  Due to his superstitious streak, he was more than willing to believe in UFOs, especially since the dimensions he worked with did not exist for any known aircraft.  Consumed with curiosity, Dad was positive his crane was being used either for a plane with stealth technology or some sort of alien space ship.  Considering the proximity of the airbase to Roswell, his UFO theory seemed plausible. 

The Civil War was my father's favorite preoccupation, especially Gettysburg.  He was convinced the South should have won the war.  Why did Jeb Stuart, the main scout, disappear when Lee needed him most?  Why did Stonewall Jackson have to die of an injury little more serious than a flesh wound?

My father was also very interested in the occult.  For Christmas one year, Dad gave me a book on Edgar Cayce, the sleeping prophet of Virginia Beach.  Dad would explain to me how Cayce would go into trances and magically come up with amazing cures for extremely sick people that doctors had given up on.  Cayce also raised the prospect of Reincarnation as a fact of life, not just some mumbo-jumbo Hindu philosophy.  Dad used to say Edgar Cayce interested him more than any other person on earth.  Following some  strange college experiences, I would one day come to agree with him. 

My first eight years were idyllic.  Not only did I love my father with all my heart, Dad was very fond of me.  Aunt Lynn once told me that back when I was a little boy, my father used to watch me with a look of pride that touched her deeply.  Lynn said, "Your father absolutely adored you." 

I agreed with Aunt Lynn.  That was my impression too.  I think Dad liked me a lot, or at least he did in the beginning.  As for me, I worshipped the guy when I was little.  I tagged along wherever he went.  Whenever my father built something in garage, I would sit there and watch him all day long.

I remember watching in awe as Dad built an ultra-complicated electric train network in the attic.  Dad covered a giant table with interlocking train tracks, then added mountains, tunnels, and bridges.  Using split levels, one train would pass on a bridge over the other.  I always expected those two trains would crash sooner or later, but they never did.  This amazing complex was so huge it took up half the attic.  I was absolutely mesmerized as the two trains crisscrossed the complicated tableau without crashing or running off the rail.  I beamed with pride.  I had the smartest Dad in the world!

Jim was not an aggressive man by nature.  Rather than use his fists, he was more the passive-aggressive type who got even in sneaky ways.  I suppose my mother was the same way, but let's stick to one parent at a time. 

When I was 8, we moved to Sharpstown, a brand new subdivision at the far western edge of Houston.  We lived next to a neighbor whose house was on the corner.  He was a grouchy old guy who lived and died for his beautiful St. Augustine grass.  Every time I walked past his house, he was working on his lawn. I had just gotten my new puppy Terry.  One day as Terry and I came home from a nearby field, the old man screamed at me for walking through his yard.  My mistake was using a well-worn shortcut that crossed diagonally across his lawn instead of using the sidewalk rectangle around the corner.  It wasn't all my fault.  Every kid in the neighborhood did the same thing.  Except that I got blamed for the problem.  As I cringed in fear, the man pointed to the barren path where his precious lawn had been damaged, then really laid into me. 

"From now on, kid, use the goddamn sidewalk!  And while you're at it, I want you to keep your damn dog from doing his business on my lawn!" 

When I told my father what happened, he was furious.  Rather than speak to the guy and maybe clear things up, Dad thought of a very unusual way to get even.  He drove to the hardware store and brought back three sacks of fertilizer.  That night after I went to bed, I heard Dad working in the garage.  So I went and peeked through the door.  Dad got out that fertilizer and hand-sprinkled huge quantities into the man's yard in the middle of the night.  However, that was not good enough.  Dad was afraid of getting caught so he put his genius to good use.  First Dad bought some sort of contraption, then used his engineer skills to modify it into a make-shift catapult strong enough to reach the far corners of this guy's lawn.  Trust me, it was quite a sight to see Dad launch giant clumps of fertilizer into our neighbor's lawn at 5 am.  This way he could fertilize the entire lawn undetected. 

Sure enough, the neighbor's grass began to grow like crazy.  However Dad refused to stop, so once a week he got out his catapult.  For the entire summer, that poor man was forced to mow his lawn practically every day in the hot sun.  Sitting in his shaded lawn chair with a drink, Dad loved to watch the guy mow.  Dad thought it was the funniest thing he had ever done. 

Dad and I had a grand adventure when I was 8.  We embarked on a cross-country summer camping trip that took us all the way to the Grand Canyon.  One night in a remote and completely deserted park in Arizona, we were awakened by two bears who got into the trash can outside the tent.  Uh oh.  Dad had left some food out.  Unfortunately, we were the only ones at the campground.  There was no one to save us if the bears came after us. 

Boy, was I scared, especially when the bears growled!  As we cowered in our tent, Dad pulled out his prized Bowie knife.  Dad told me not to worry; he was ready to defend me.  I wasn't so sure that big knife was going to be enough.  Fortunately the bears never bothered us as we remained huddled and quivering in our tent.  We eventually made a run for our car and drove to a motel.   When we returned the next morning to pick up our gear, there were bear tracks all around our tent.  We were both pretty shaken by he ordeal.  Not surprisingly, Dad was done with camping.  We stayed in motels for the rest of the trip.  Oh, so what?  Bears or no bears, that was a great trip!  Dad and I had a wonderful time together.

Sad to say, that 1958 trip was our final moment of happiness together.  We were so tight that his later abandonment made it that much harder to understand.  How does a father go from idolizing his son to forgetting his son?   Why would a man go from caring to not caring?

1958-1959

THE STORM BEGINS

Not long after we returned home from Arizona, serious marital problems developed.  My parents began arguing every single night of the week. 

I am an only child.  As many an only child can attest, 'only' and 'lonely' rhyme for a reason.  Age 8, I was terrified when my parents began fighting practically any time they looked at each other.  Their raised voices during the nightly arguments reverberated throughout the house. 

Frightened, I would run to my room.  However no walls could contain the sounds of their anger and loud voices.  Consequently I spent many a night crying myself to sleep.  Trembling and alone, I learned to depend on my year-old border collie Terry for security.

I had no idea why my father had become such an angry man. He had gained weight and grown distant.  When he wasn't arguing with my mother, he spent his nights locked in his study reading or solving math problems.  Personally, I wish he had stayed in his study.  When he did decide to come out, Dad turned into something straight out of the Shining.  Here's Jimmy!!

My memory is that Dad started the fights.  He liked to pick on my mother.  Dad would to come home and inspect the house.  He found fault at the drop of a hat.  Seriously, Dad would walk in the door, put his briefcase down, hang up his hat and immediately stroll around the house.    It was obvious he would keep looking until he found an excuse to start an argument.  Eventually Dad would find something to criticize my mother over.  Dad's favorite trick was to run his fingers over every surface until he found dust.

I knew the script by heart.  "Mary, god damn it, I work my ass every day and all you do is sit around the house and do nothing!"

Game on.  My mother would take offense at his effrontery and the fireworks would begin.  Dad loved to tell my mother how lazy she was.  I suppose he was right.  Mom was not big on housework.  Furthermore she was quite comfortable with clutter.  On the other hand, the house wasn't that bad.  My father didn't see it that way. He expected the house to look perfect.

Why the hell should he have to work so hard only to come home to a dirty house?  What did she do all day, watch TV?  Read magazines?

"Damn it, woman, get off your fat ass and do a little work sometime!"

Duke was Mom's dog as well as Terry's father.
Terry is the middle dog.  Mom gave Susie away.
 

Those were fighting words.  Sure enough, a major battle quickly ensued. Things would escalate and some really mean things would be said.  

In my opinion, my father was totally off base.  Whatever he objected to was hardly worthy of a screaming match.  In addition, my father had conveniently forgotten this was the same woman who sacrificed her own education so that he could get his.  Now that he didn't need her any more, my father began to tee off on Mom nightly. 

My parents never even noticed me as I stood there watching them in horror.  When their voices began to rise, I soon learned to run to my room for shelter.  I had only my dog Terry for comfort.  It didn't matter that Terry was little more than a puppy; he was the only friend I had.  I would shut the door to lessen the noise and pull Terry onto the bed.  Then we would both hide under the covers.  When the arguing got too intense, I would start crying in the solitude of my room.  Once I ran to my room, the door stayed closed for the rest of the night.  Neither parent ever came to check on me after the battle was over.  That was a really rough year.  I became a major disruption at school and my grades plummeted. 

Now for the irony.  When my grades dropped, my father concluded I wasn't nearly as smart as he was.  That is what led to the Devil's Bargain. 

September 1958-may 1959

problems in the 4th grade
 

In addition to crying myself to sleep every night, I frequently disrupted my 4th grade class.  My school grades were lackluster and my discipline marks were abysmal.  I had turned into a daily pain in the butt for my teacher.  Each morning I would take a seat in the back of the class room.  I would draw extensive tableaus of two armies complete with tanks, hand grenades and bazookas.  From there I would spend the rest of the morning blowing up every soldier complete with boom boom boom sound effects and excruciating death moans.  For variety, I would draw spaceships and destroy them with ray gun zap zap sound effects.  Then I switched to dinosaur battles.  I wasn't quite sure what sounds dinosaurs made, but growls got the job done."

And how did my teacher react?  She was not happy.  Looking back, I am ashamed of myself.  I must have been a load.  My poor teacher tried to overlook my disruptions, but how could she?  I sat in the back and tried to keep my noises muffled, but if my teacher could hear all the way up at the front, apparently my muffling left a lot to be desired.  She would ask me to be quiet and I would comply, but the battle would soon resume. 

My noisy pitched battles were just the tip of the iceberg.  I already had my smart mouth.  I talked back all the time, not just to my father, but to anyone who told me what to do.  I had become a cold, surly, angry kid.  Not surprisingly, I received failing marks for discipline.

As for my smart mouth, my mother let me get away with it.  I was more careful around my father because he was so angry all the time.  To be honest, I don't recall being corrected for sassing my parents.  They were so preoccupied with their own problems in that final year, they barely paid attention to me. 

To be honest, neither parent was much of a disciplinarian.  Nor did they have any reason to be until the problems began.  Since I was basically a happy boy, I gave them little trouble and did whatever they asked to do.  Growing up with a minimum of parental guidance, I was never taught the do's and don'ts of when to speak, what to say, what not to say, when to shut up. 

However, as the tension at home built, I became increasingly defiant and rude with my teacher Miss Davis.  Understandably this nice lady got fed up with me.  One day I brought a note home from school to be signed.  The note said that I was an enormous disruption in my class and it was time for my parents to visit the principal.  The principal made it clear to my parents that I would be suspended if they couldn't get me under control. 

In addition to my discipline issues, my parents were shocked at how poor my grades were.  They had always thought I was smart, but after seeing my recent report card, they were beginning to have their doubts.  What they did not know is I rarely paid attention in class and only periodically did my homework.  And why didn't they know?  Because their minds were on their own problems.

My father went off the deep end.  Since his own childhood was accompanied by an unending series of superior school marks, I imagine his pride was shaken to see his only child struggle to muster a D average against public school competition.

September 1958-may 1959

dr. Mendel
 

Throughout my 4th Grade school year my parents were busy trying to save their marriage.  They had been in therapy with Dr. Mendel, a noted psychiatrist here in Houston.  After the principal's warning, they asked Dr. Mendel to take a look at me.  Maybe the eminent doctor could explain why my grades were so poor and why I was angry all the time.  Such a mystery, right?  I'm just being sarcastic.  Yes, my parents knew full well why I was angry.  What they didn't know was what to do about me.  After some testing, Dr. Mendel told my parents they didn't need to worry about my intelligence.  In his opinion, I was a smart kid.  As for the anger, he said I was acting out due to tension at home.  He also suspected I was bored in school.  He told my parents what I needed was a challenge.  He said my parents should put me in a school with a faster pace, something that would focus my unharnessed energy. 

Dr. Mendel knew exactly where I could find that challenge.  He suggested my parents put me into St. John's, a private school where his own two boys were thriving.  He had been very pleased with the progress of his sons.  Dr. Mendel was convinced this school for gifted children was just what I needed.  Only one problem.  My father was deeply opposed to the expensive price tag.  He argued if his son could barely pass public school, why pay all this money just to watch him be annihilated by all those elite students?  Public school was good enough for him and it would be good enough for me. 

However, my mother refused to drop the subject.  When Mom said the testing phase was free, Dad relented and allowed me to take the admissions test.  To be honest, I think Dad expected I would do poorly and that would let him off the hook.  Now he wouldn't have to be the bad guy.  However, to his surprise, I did well on the test and was given an acceptance letter.  Now my father began to seriously object.  Too expensive!  Giant waste of money!  Not only that, why should he take this man's advice?  Dad hated the therapist because in his opinion the doctor usually sided with my mother's position.  There was no way Dad was ever going to agree to this folly.  Forget it.

September 1958-may 1959

the mistress
 

The major reason my parents' therapy was going nowhere was my father's secret mistress.  Dad claimed he was trying to save his marriage, but that was a smoke screen to give him time to evaluate the new woman in his life.

Did I know about the mistress?  No.  Did my mother know about the mistress?  No.  But she had been suspicious ever since Dad began staying late at the office with increasing frequency.  The moment Mom noticed my father's secretary was quite attractive, her suspicion increased. 

Realizing how inflammatory it would be to accuse Dad of having a mistress, I think Mom bit her tongue.  But I can't be sure.  It was not like my parents would confide their marital problems to me.  But they didn't need to.  All I had to do was listen to their knock down, drag out battles to get the latest scoop.  That is how I knew that my father was completely opposed to sending me to St. John's as the therapist recommended. 

Then one night I heard Jezebel mentioned for the first time.  Of course that is a pseudonym, but due to my animosity towards the woman, just typing her real name makes my blood boil.  Suffice it to say my ears perked up when Jezebel entered the conversation, but to my profound irritation they subsequently lowered their voices for a change.  Stuck in my room, I had no idea what they were talking about.

I got my answer the next day.  Mom announced I would be going to St. John's next year.  She failed to add they had also agreed to a divorce.  My parents were such cowards they never said a word.  Instead they packed me off to live with Uncle Dick and Aunt Lynn for the summer.  Uncle Dick, Mom's brother, drew the unlucky assignment of breaking the bad news. 

September 1958-may 1959

the devil's bargain
 

During the heat of the battle I had only the vaguest idea what was going on.  However, through the gift of Hindsight plus the occasional hint my mother let slip, further down the road I was able to figure out the score.  Trying hard to keep Jezebel a secret, my father had been asking for a divorce for some time.  My mother said no each time.  Since Dad had control of the economic purse strings, a divorce was not at all to Mom's advantage.  Sad to say, my stay-at-home mother had zero job skills and no college degree.  However, Mom probably knew the divorce was inevitable because one day she went out and got a part-time job just in case. 

Meanwhile my father was getting increasingly frustrated.  He knew a contested divorce would be costly.  And if news about Jezebel ever got out, uh oh, say goodbye to his savings.  As a result the divorce talks remained at an impasse with my mother stubbornly saying no. 

However, the dynamics changed when I was accepted into St. John's.  Say what you will about my mother.  Mom was a hopeless mess, but she did have a good heart.  Unlike my father, she recognized Dr. Mendel's advice concerning St. John's was correct.  In addition, she knew how hard it was to gain admission into St. John's.  I think she knew my acceptance was some sort of crazy fluke, a once-in-a-lifetime lucky break for me that should not be passed up.

So the next time my father asked for a divorce, Mom countered with a deal.  Send Richard to St. John's and he could have his divorce.  Did Dad take the offer?  No.  Too expensive!  In my father's defense, the tuition at SJS was so steep that his modest middle-class salary would never be enough.  More than likely, Dad would be forced to borrow money to make ends meet.

However, my mother insisted.  When Dad balked again, Mom played her ace.  She told Dad she had a strong suspicion he was having an affair with his secretary.  When Dad denied it, Mom told him she knew full well he was seeing another woman and had proof.  Mom said she would make this divorce very ugly unless Dad did the right thing.  Mind you, Mom didn't have any proof.  It was a total bluff.  Nevertheless, the moment Mom said she had proof, my father folded like a wet blanket.  Although he continued to deny the affair, his rapid capitulation spoke volumes.  So now you know how my mother successfully blackmailed me into St. John's.  The divorce settlement included my father's agreement to pay full tuition at St. John's for three years... 4th, 5th, and 6th grades.  After that his obligation was over.

It was a Devil's Bargain.  I gained a school, but lost a father.  I would barely see him for the rest of my life.  Good luck or Bad Luck?  Considering what a deadbeat my father turned out to be, I suppose I got the better end of the deal.  But I paid a terrible price.  Although my superior St. John's education would become the shining light of my childhood, the divorce and my father's subsequent abandonment would damage me almost beyond repair. 

September 1959

is st. john's a supernatural event?
 

As we shall see, St. John's School was the main reason I survived my childhood at least partially intact.  So I asked myself if this gave me the right to add SJS to my List of Suspected Supernatural Events.  Please take note of the word 'Suspected'.  I would not dream of claiming I am right about every event I add to my List.  The best I can do is say that some Events are further beyond the limits of Believability than others.  If the Event is truly unbelievable, I list it as 'Serious'.  If there are other possible explanations, I am more inclined to list an Event as 'Suspicious'. 

On the surface, the Reader might question my decision to call St. John's a Supernatural Event.  For that reason, I would like to explain my reasons.  For starters, I had no business being there.  Given my mediocre grades in public school, to this day I cannot imagine how or why I was accepted.  This school was so difficult to get into that the son of a future United States President was denied admission.

St. John's belongs on my List for three reasons.  First of all, the Impact.  My nine years at St. John's gave me the education necessary to succeed in life.  For example, where do you suppose I acquired my writing skills?  But it goes deeper than that.  When I speak of a Simple Act of Kindness, time after time someone at SJS stepped forward just in the nick of time to keep me from falling off the path.

Second, Probability.  St. John's is extremely secretive about its admissions process.  No one knows for sure what the 'Applicant Acceptance Ratio' is.  One in ten?  One in twenty?  The key word is 'Exclusive'.  In my day, St. John's made a real effort to limit each classroom to 15 or less students.  St. John's was so difficult to get into, the attrition rate was very low.  For example, my original 4th Grade class had roughly 40 students.  37 students were promoted from the SJS 3rd Grade class while two or three new students such as myself were added.  Typically one or two students moved to another city per year.  And rumor has it that parents of struggling students were advised to transfer them to an easier school for self-esteem reasons.  What I am saying is that out of perhaps 50 applicants, I was one of two or three to be accepted.  Those are pretty long odds.  Why me?  To this day my admission feels like a small miracle.

Third, Weirdness.  How does one define Weirdness?  You can't measure it.  Weirdness is a totally subjective criterion.  So try this one on for size.  Rick Archer gets accepted into a school his father cannot afford thanks to a mistress so tempting he cannot bear to live without her.  To me, that is a weird story.  "Rick Archer owes his elite education to his father's mistress."  Should I say thank you?

Oddly enough, it has been known to happen.  Prince Edward, the man next in line to become King of England, abdicated his throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, a commoner and two-time divorcee.  At the time, it was such a scandal that no one could believe something this weird was even possible.  I contend my own story was almost as weird.

RICK ARCHER'S LIST OF SUSPECTED SUPERNATURAL EVENTS
 

A SIMPLE ACT OF KINDNESS:  THE CHILDHOOD YEARS

Suspicious

Serious

Suspicious