My 1966 Mustang convertible has come back to me over and over in my dreams. For many reasons, this car was a pivotal memory from my teen years. I loved to wash, wax, and polish it getting ready for a wonderful summer drive with the top down. Playing 70’s music on my eight track tape player made it even more memorable.

Our lives become what they are from the life we have lived. As I look back on being in high school I realized that it was in my teens where the damaged life I had lived as a young child started to manifest itself in the relationships I developed. I also see how my past affected the choices I began to make about life. These years were the beginning of my own personal dysfunction stemming out of the dysfunction of the developmental years I had lived in previously.

Cars began to symbolize memories of great elation, as well as memories of the painful history that was manifesting itself in my life.

My first job, my first car, my first girlfriend. Elation, and disappointment. Entering high school was my practice game and I realized I was not ready for the prime time players!

1966 Ford Mustang

There’s no doubt that 1966 is one of the most popular Ford Mustang model years in the history of the car. In fact, March 1966 marked the creation of the millionth Mustang.

 

Although the first few years were definitely good for Ford and its sporty Mustang, 1966 was the year all that hard work truly began to pay off. By 1966, most people began to associate the Ford Mustang with power and performance. It was the car to have if you needed a daily driver and it was the car to have if you needed a weekend cruiser with a sporty edge.

About that 1966 Mustang convertible; even to this day I dream that it is still in my garage and I mysteriously had forgotten I had it. The dream discovery seems so real that I wake up to realize that it was a dream and feel disappointed the whole rest of the day. I am not exactly sure why I dream about it but I had owned it right in the middle of my teenage years of life.

My First Real Girlfriend

Oh, man, I was fifteen and she was beautiful! Her hair long and silky, she had a bright smile and a wonderful personality. Her name was Beth and she was a little older than I was. She had her driver’s license! So, on our first date she picked me up in her brother’s 1963 white Chevy Impala Convertible and out we went. I don’t remember where we went, but I was definately smitten with her. She was not only older, but she was taller than I was. We’d meet at her locker at school and others would stare at us because I was just 5′ 3″ tall. She was 5′ 9″ so there was quite a difference but it didn’t matter to me. She was the most wonderful thing that had happened to me.

Being a Teenager

As I began to learn how to be a teenager I found that I was more at ease with the girls and distant from the guys. It is the norm to think that sex dominates a young man’s life during his teenage years.  Guys being “girl crazy” are seemingly run amok with sexual urges and desires.  But my experience with puberty was that it came into my life seemingly unnoticed due to the turmoil that I had been living in. I experienced the most dramatic impact of the new hormones by discovering masturbation. I didn’t think about it with any sort of moral awareness. It was just a personal practice that entered my life. I wasn’t girl crazy, but I wasn’t aware of any other attractions either.  Since I didn’t hang around guys much I didn’t hear much “sex” talk and felt even more estranged from my own sexual identity.  Oh, I had many emotional urges going on inside me that were confusing and at times painful.  I found myself feeling warm thoughts of desiring physical closeness to an older man I was around at times.  I wanted to be held by him, just a touch from his hand would send desires through my mind.  But since I was so sexually naive I didn’t have anything to attach those feelings to nor did I know how to define them as being sexual.

During all of this, which included my current relationship with Beth, I moved to my dad’s house. The transition was huge for me but I am not sure she fully understood all of my life issues. She came from a wholesome family. She had a wonderful mom and dad and I loved to go to their home because it was so warm and normal. One memory I have of them was when I picked up Beth one night. I went into their foyer and looked into the living room to see both of them sitting there in their wingback chairs with the fireplace glowing. That scene never left my mind because of the wholesome picture that it painted.

We were going to the “Sweetheart” dance together and I was thinking ahead about spending a long time with Beth beside me. She was an artist and we enjoyed art class together. I remember her long plaid wool slacks and her “maxi” dress. We loved to laugh and most of all, I like to just sit beside her and talk.

Then one day, my whole world crashed. Beth told me that her parents didn’t think it was a good idea that she settle down with one person, so she broke up with me. I felt abandoned, lost, and alone. I tried to move on in my sophomore year, but none were close to what I had felt with Beth.

Living with my dad brought about a sense of peace that I hadn’t known in many years. But it also brought a lot more responsibility. I willingly accepted all of the things that had to be done to maintain my life. I washed my own clothes, cleaned the house we lived in and learned how to cook my favorite meals. I paid my own bills and virtually lived as an adult. I didn’t think anything about all of these new aspects to my life since I had just launched from the prison of my mom’s house into the free world of personal choices. I appreciate having lived with him for those few years as I learned life skills that serve me well today.

My Spiritual Life

I was raised Catholic and my dad was very committed to his faith and making sure his kids were trained to be committed to it as well.  We went to church every Sunday without fail.  We were raised in catechism and we went through all of the childhood sacraments of Confession, First Communion and Confirmation.  We were members of a community Catholic church where we knew many people.  They were primarily friends of my dads who worked for the Postal Service with him. They were great people and we enjoyed being around them. But something triggered a strong reaction in my heart as I looked around this church.

I had a strong desire to connect at a deeper level. I wanted to find a place where I could belong, serve, and feel significant to this church family. As a teenager, and there wasn’t a youth group, I looked around for places to fit in and found nothing other than Sunday church and the sacraments.  Something inside me told me that I was not significant there. It seemed there was no place for me.

One Sunday my older sister and I decided to look for something different.  We “skipped” our church service and went to a Baptist church down the street.  We thought we were doing something very risky and that if our dad found out what we had done we’d surely be in trouble. So, on the way home we stopped by our church and picked up a leftover bulletin to take into our house to “prove” our attendance at the Catholic church.  Our dad never knew what we had done. The other church didn’t impress me either.

So, I made the decision that when I was on my own after high school, I wouldn’t continue going back to the Catholic church. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t interested in anything else either.  There just wasn’t any connection or present purpose for me to attend. It was just something we did, not anything that was in my heart.

My First Job

While I lived more like an adult in my personal life, I had a group of friends that I hung out with that brought some fun along with it. The fall was my favorite time of year. We went on hayrack rides, had parties at one kid’s house and hung out together at school. I started working for a local Italian restaurant when I was 14 years old making $1.00 per hour. I worked about 25 hours a week there so I was busy on the weekends and week nights. After about a year I moved to a kitchen job as the salad room manager. With that was a raise! I was now at $1.15 per hour.

Working at the restaurant brought some fun like riding in Mary’s 1970 Dodge Super Bee! Wow, a 383 Magnum engine, four speed transmission, bright purple with black racing stripes, we all manipulated Mary into taking us home on many occasions! Mary was known to be a lesbian, but that didn’t seem to matter to any of us. She had a great car and we all loved to ride in it. Besides, she was really good to us kids. She laughed with us and came to our defense when the main chef would get on our case.

But I also had experienced some  bullying from an older kid named Randy. He would throw out threats of beating me up by the trash bin if I didn’t do what he wanted me to. He scared me to death. I started working there when I still lived at mom’s so I walked to work and back, which was over two miles each way. When I got off at midnight I would look over my shoulder for most of my walk home wondering if he was following me to beat me up. I wanted to leave there so bad but didn’t have another job to go to.

My cousin heard I might be interested in a new job and came to me and asked if I might want to work at his company. It was a transport refrigeration company called “Carrier-Transicold”. I would be working in the parts department along with being the janitor. I jumped at the chance to make $2.35 per hour. At the beginning I worked after school five nights a week. Then when summer came after my Junior year, I began to work 40 hours per week. I liked making the money and could afford to pay for virtually all of my own personal things. I also liked the guys I worked with. Jerry and Bill were the same shift I was. I felt like a man alongside of them.

As my bank account increased so did my eyes for a new car. Bill offered to sell me his 1966 Buick special but I chose to buy a 1970 Volkswagen. This car had been originally bought in Germany and was only 6 months old. This made it unique for the American market. I can still remember feeling the texture of the seats, turning the new style safety knobs on the dash board, and certainly listening to the German built Blaupunkt AM/FM radio! I felt pretty sharp in my shiny new vehicle.

Kris

I met a girl named Kris. She was friends with some of the folks I hung out with in the library at school. My first memory of her was when a friend of hers was talking about Kris being in an emotionally blocked shell and no one seemed to be able to enter her world. I thought Kris was fun to be around and wondered if I might be able to get through her “shell”. So I began to get to know her.

We dated and hung out. I met her family. Her parents were divorced like mine were. Her mom managed an apartment complex so we’d go to her place just to hang out. Her dad lived in a house that was very empty feeling because through their divorce, he didn’t keep much. Her brother also lived there, but her little sister lived with Kris and her mom. She was a good cook and enjoyed making things for me to eat like a lemon merangue pie.

I found that there were many things we understood about each other. Divorce, arguing a lot between her parents, and her siblings being the same ages as mine made our families very similar. Driving to see a movie one night I saw the connection between us. I thought she understood my life more than anyone. Having a lifelong need to feel heard, our similarities felt like she heard me.

Our relationship became quite rocky for one reason or another. It seemed like we broke up several times while we dated. We got back together shortly after each time we broke up. This was all pretty confusing to those around us.

During the next year the burden of my car payments became more than I wanted to bear. I was paying $95 per month for my “Bug”. I talked with my dad about it and we agreed that it might be good to sell it and get something else. I sold it pretty quickly and then found my next car.

The Mustang

It was a 1966 Mustang Convertible. The payments were half of the other car and oh boy, a convertible! I loved it! I polished it, bought “mag” wheels for it and I was stylin! I got an “eight track” tape player for it and listened to Bread, Grand Funk Railroad, Rod Stewart, and so many other popular 1970’s groups.

In my junior year our Homecoming parade was coming up. My car was red with black interior. These were our school colors so I entered my car in the parade. I felt so cool and I may have even had a moment of populararity!

The school I went to felt like it had two classes of people. The rich, and those from the other side of the tracks. I seemed to be able to cross he divide. I was from the other side of the tracks, but since I had such a good job, I could afford to have things that the rich kids had. New clothes, a nice convertible, and I could pay for the other things that came along. I felt independent, responsible, and connected on the surface. But underneath, I felt lost, lonely, unaccepted, and foreign to my school and the kids there.

Yes. I Flunked Phys-ed

We had to take physical education in our course profile. I hated phys-ed! In junior highschool I was teased mercilessly by students and coaches alike. I was not a natural at sports. My family wasn’t a sports family. I didn’t know how to throw a ball, or keep score for any major sport. I wondered what the phys-ed teachers were there for? If they were teachers, then why didn’t they teach. It seemed they were there for the natural sports guys and those of us who didn’t know how, well, we were just left out to dry and feel awkward and stupid. I was so anxious about being in gym class that on one occasion I had to go to the doctor from internal stomach problems.

When I reached highschool I found that it was easier to skip gym class without any immediate consequences. I skipped many classes in 10th grade and learned how to skip the whole year in 11th. Yes, I flunked Phys-ed. I ended up having to take it in summer school. It was much easier and I got by with less stress.

I’m Not Smart Enough

I didn’t do well in school with regards to scholasic achievement. But I had a dream of becoming an architect. As I perused the class selections and I saw the requirements for architecture included taking physics and chemistry. I felt woefully inadequate to take those classes. I thought they were for smart kids and I certainly wasn’t a smart kid. So I had only one choice. Give up my dream for being an architect. Little did I know those classes were nothing more than glorified Physical Science. I loved that class in the eighth grade but I didn’t make the connection. I didn’t feel connected to anyone who would have helped me figure that out. Again, I felt lost and alone so I just had to do what I could to find my way through.

As I moved into the end of my junior year I decided to make my plans to just work and earn a living. I registered for “Coop” for my senior year. This would mean that I got credit for having a job and only had to take two classes each semester. So off I ran! I was an adult now,or so I thought. I learned that independence was the best way to get by. With our “modular scheduling” school structure I only had to be in school two mornings a week all through my senior year.

Modular scheduling also made it easier to leave school. If we had more than one hour of free time we could leave. One girl that I hung out with a lot was named Shelly. Shelly and I spent a lot of time together. I remember one special day when we went to lunch during our free time. Shelly drove her mom’s 1969 Oldmobile convertible to school. That car was so cool! We put the top down and off we went! I didn’t particularly like the color gold, but driving off to lunch in an incredible convertible of any kind was a special event for me.

Since I wasn’t at school as much, my friendships seemed to go away and all I had was Kris. Our relationship was something that just existed but at least I wasn’t alone. On one warm summer evening I remember feeling connected to her while we sat on my red convertible listening to the “Carpenter’s” singing “Superstar” on the eight track player. I never forgot that positive memory.

Me, Owning A Horse?

Jerry, the guy I worked with, owned an acreage. His family loved the country. I looked up to Jerry so much and enjoyed spending time with them at their home. They had a couple of horses and I had always loved horses. There was something different about my relationship with Jerry. I was very sensitive about how he acted with others and how he was towards me. I felt pretty consumed with him on most days but I didn’t really know what was going on inside me.

One day I talked about horses and he told me they would board a horse if I wanted to get one. In my mysterious mind, I thought maybe if I had a horse it would allow me to spend more time with Jerry and his family. So, I found a two year old quarter horse and we took it to their farm.

I drove twenty miles each morning to take care of the horse before work. I loved spending time there. The horse on the other hand was just a vehicle to go to Jerry’s house. This family became an obsession in my life and took precedence everything else, and all of my other relationships. I spent virtually all of my free time there. I’m sure my dad felt my absense and my over focus on Jerry, his family, and what seemed to be my horse.

I even gave up my Mustang convertible for the horse. I traded it in on an “El Camino” to somehow manage the things I had to carry around to facilitate having a horse. I never liked that car and it gave me unending problems with the engine and other things. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the beginning of a long road ahead with emotionally exagerrated relationships with guys and the painful challenges of what was going on inside of me.

“Nasty Grams” From Our Moms

Kris and I shared another life experience.  It was a place of understanding our common pain. Graduation was coming quickly and I was ready to get out of school. Highschool didn’t work well with my independent spirit so I felt the sooner the better. The week of graduation Kris and I both got letters from our moms. There was something about our moms that was so similar. Each letter seemed to be more of a criticism than a celebration. We both talked about how mad we were at those letters. Our bond was once again confirmed by our survival from having grown up in such dysfunction.

Kris and I shared another life experience.  It was a place of understanding our common pain. Graduation was coming quickly and I was ready to get out of school. Highschool didn’t work well with my independent spirit so I felt the sooner the better. The week of graduation Kris and I both got letters from our moms. There was something about our moms that was so similar. Each letter seemed to be more of a criticism than a celebration. We both talked about how mad we were at those letters. Our bond was once again confirmed by our survival from having grown up in such dysfunction.

I had lost out on so much growing up. While living with my dad brought such a new life for me, I was still very wounded from where I had been. My relational dysfunction had taught me to survive rather than to live. I didn’t know how to relate well with anyone. I especially didn’t know how to relate to other guys. Since sports was not a common denominator I grew to believe had nothing in common at all with other guys. I mostly knew the girls and they were all dating and their attention was more on finding guys to date than it was to build a community.

At the end of the year I remember getting my high school yearbook and looking up my name. It seemed to show my name in bright red with NOTHING behind it. I wasn’t in a club or activity that would have been mentioned. I felt invisible, insignificant, and certainly not important in any way. As I left high school, I moved forward and never looked back. I didn’t remain in contact with anyone other than Kris.

In the next 6 months, my life was about to change dramatically based on an undiscovered reality.