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May 17, 2009 at 10:05:31

Promoted to Headline (H3) on 5/18/09: Permalink
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Damaged Animals

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By GL Rowsey (about the author)

Become a Fan -- Page 2 of 2 page(s)

opednews.com

No, mother made her deal with the devil in the 1930's when she abandoned the path to becoming a brilliant woman journalist to marry a rich man's son. And when I asked her why daddy did all that hitting – when I was home from law school and we were sitting alone in the living room one day -- she told me that he was tormented by tinnitus, and explained that it was incessant ringing in the ears. Then she told me that my dad's father had whipped my dad when he was a young adolescent and stayed in the bathroom for suspiciously long periods of time.

And the final straw, as they say, must have been dad's never desisting from telling the story about how my mother had locked me out of the house instead of opening the door so I could get in and avoid fighting the bully who had chased me home. Of course I construed mother's refusal to discuss the hitting as continuing complicity. Wasn't it just that?

(Written 2005-2008)

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"How could I fail to speak with difficulty? I have new things to say." I graduated from Stanford Law School in 1966 but have never practiced. Instead, I dropped back five years and joined The Movement, but it wasn't until the 1970's that I (more...)

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I liked your Diary like story by Starla Immak on Sunday, May 17, 2009 at 3:34:14 PM

sounds familiar by Theresa Paulfranz on Sunday, May 17, 2009 at 3:38:49 PM

Thank you both, Starla and Theresa. by GL Rowsey on Sunday, May 17, 2009 at 9:00:50 PM

Your Openness Gave me Courage by Starla Immak on Monday, May 18, 2009 at 2:57:59 PM

Few of us had parents who had any kind of instructions ... by Meryl Ann Butler on Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 9:17:49 PM

I know I have unnecessarily negative thoughts, by GL Rowsey on Friday, May 22, 2009 at 9:22:11 PM