Upbringings

The largest was I'm afraid, negative.

Dad was a Chartered Electrical Engineer, a scientist in a Government department. His establishment was closed wholesale and a huge number of employees and their families moved to a new, custom-built site about 100 miles away.

I was only seven, in my last Year at Infants' School.

By a stroke of total lack of communication between Departments, it was right in the middle of the schools' Summer Term. I can't think of any other explanation as the country's education system was, rightly, also State-run with similar, largely-coherent term times and curriculae nation-wide. So it only needed one lot to talk to another lot to agree when best to move our lot.

'Best' would have been a couple of months later, in the long Summer Holiday (six weeks) so far less disruptive to so many people.

Many fellow-pupils took it in their stride and indeed some excelled irrespectively of it; but the change was too great for me, especially in Arithmetic for some reason. So I was never much good at anything numerical since; although I did catch up a bit in later life.

So that scuppered my chances of following my dream of science or engineering career, although of what sort i was never certain, since both disciplines are highly mathematical.

(Engineering can be defined as applying scientific knowledge to practical ends; and some areas require very advanced mathematics indeed.)

.....

Still, with a technical streak within my family I did develop and still follow a broad interest and largely-lay knowledge in science and engineering, and did work at "shop-floor" level in various ways in those fields.

Hearing The Beatles for the first time in January 1964. I was 13. It was "I Want to Hold Your Hand." My life was going in one direction and 2 minutes and 24 seconds later everything had changed.

I mentioned it on an earlier post: our house burning down on my 7th birthday. We were not there, but we lost all of our material goods. I learned what is really important in life and how vital it is to help other people.

Being beaten repeatedly. For years.

My friend drowning when I was 16.

Abandonment

Two.

1) I grew up "poor". My dad had a Masters Degree but was a public school teacher with 4 kids. Money was always tight. When I set out into the big World I knew I didn't ever want to worry about money. Took a few years but I like to think I finally got my shit together in that regard.

2) My parents argued ALL THE TIME. As a result I knew I never wanted to be involved in that type of relationship. I detest arguing, it solves nothing and leads to animosity (as in, I was glad when my parents divorced and moved on).

Which ones? Many were pivotal!

Even my birth was! 🤷🏻‍♂️

Can't be more major than being born or not.

Six months after being born I was thrown out of a moving truck going more than 35 miles per hour. It saved my life though.

That's just the first two pivotal points.

My whole life never was mundane!

When I was about 7, a friend of my Mother's was looking after me for a day during the summer and she pantsed me in front of her 2 young daughters, both of whom were older than I was though. I never told my parents what had happened and I learned later on that she was a total slut and slept around a lot but at that time I was very shy and it totally marked me for years that she'd humiliated me like that in front of those girls.

Countless blows raining down on my little body... is it no wonder that I learned to dissociate???

When I got mono I was all set on going to officer's training school in maryland when it hit. Went to the doctor to have my sore throat checked and was told my spleen was about to pop so i couldn't go. Plan B then was an internship which I did first at IBM then at Control Data,MPI. I ended up.getting hired on at MPI.

Being around 9 or 10 learning how to meditate in the woods with my friend. Meditation was a huge part of getting through my otherwise abusive childhood.

I saw my father walking on steel structures when he took me to his Construction site.
I knew i had to be a construction man!!

Overall, I would probably have to nominate the moment of my birth, without which my childhood would have been, at best, fictional.

I used to miss the school bus and get punishment for being late.
I am very particular about time as an adult in my professional life.

Not knowing when to quit

Integrating my elementary school in the 60s.I wasn’t subjected to protests, but I was bullied and someone called in a death threat.

My sister's first seizure.

The death of my Dad two months before my 11th birthday in early 1981.