Richard P. Nixon's Blog

Argh. It seems my Facebook account got hacked. Without warning, my account has been vaporized. I sent notification that it had been hacked within a few minutes, but too late. Oh well.

It’s funny that in this day and age, these things can happen without recourse. You would think there would be an appeal process or something. I mean, I enter my cell phone number and it finds the account but says it’s gone.

Now I’m wondering if this frees me or drags me down. Hmm, interesting question given how much time I waste on FB.

I recently watched Hulu’s “Looking for Alaska” based on the book by John Green. I’d been holding off because I didn’t have a subscription and buying the episodes seemed pricey for something I was hesitant about in this day and age where everything but the story seems to take precedence. I’d read the book several times already. I’m reading it again now as if for the first time – one of the few advantages of getting old I guess.

The title captivated me for a couple of reasons. I used to live and love Alaska (not a girl but the state), and the idea of a boarding school in Alabama of all places intrigued me. I spent seven years in boarding school, in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and England. Once I left Northern Ireland, my parents let me choose where I wanted to go next. During my time away, all I wanted was to get “home” – Anywhere, USA. But when I chose a school in Anywhere, USA, my Dad said nope, not the States. How ‘bout Canada then? Nope. Okay, fine. Send me to Diego Garcia for all I care then. Dad wagged his finger at me and said if I didn’t take it seriously, he’d send me to Scotland. No thank you. I chose a school in South England, an idyllic location with a pub located literally across the street from the main gate. Despite everything, I did poorly. I think if the school hadn’t been so hard up for money, I’d have been kicked out.

Looking for Alaska asks a central question – how will I ever get out of this labyrinth? This resonated with me because over the years writing my story I’ve dug myself deep in my own labyrinth that began when some asked if I’d ever consider someday sending my kids to boarding school and I didn’t scream, “FUCK NO.” Why? I had to find the answer. Alaska finds her own solution, “Straight and Fast” which is exactly how she exits. But there’s hope.

“He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth. There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless.” ~Green, John. Looking for Alaska. Penguin Young Readers Group

I like that a lot. Forgiveness. Of others, of ourselves. So far it hasn’t helped me but I continue trying. Will I ever get out of my labyrinth? God, I hope so.

Memoir is supposed to be absolutely true, and yet sometimes it is necessary to change details to protect the innocent and guilty alike. The question that often comes up is just how much do we change? When does the blurring move from non-fiction to fiction? If done right, never.

I am conservative by nature. I do not like change in general, and less so when it’s done just because it’s fashionable. Some people insist names, dates, places, physical characteristics, etc. all must be changed so as to become unrecognizable. The goal is to ward off any potential litigation. But if the work becomes unrecognizable then what have you got really? I think it’s a pile of words for self-consumption.

I fought against the notion of changing anything at all during my writing. I didn’t see how I could stay true to the story and still capture the heart of what I was trying to say. I once tried changing Portora Royal to something else and it didn’t sound or feel right. Besides, with only a handful of “Royal” schools in Ireland, I wasn’t accomplishing much. And because there were only a handful of such schools, I’d have to make many more changes to try to “hide” things. What was the point? Who was going to sue me, and for what? I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, and I didn’t even say anything controversial! I just wanted to spare feelings.

I did use different names for a couple of the players, though, and even that felt like a cheat. And if I did change the names, how would I go about that? There are over a hundred people, some Irish, some American, some Catholic, some Protestant. How to make it even sound close?

“Stand Before Your God – an American Schoolboy in England,” was recommended to me, and I am so glad it was. The story involves two boarding schools, the latter being Eton. Yes, that Eton. While there were obvious differences, there were enough similarities that I wanted to know more.  The author uses real places and dates, and I figured surely anyone at the school(s) at those times would know who he was talking about so. So, how did he solve the problem?

I decided to go out on a limb and reach out to the author, Paul Watkins. He most graciously answered me promptly and said he took his publisher’s advice and changed names and certain physical characteristics where he thought necessary. He suggested if I needed to make name changes, I could perhaps use names from Irish or English football rolls of the time for my names.

What could be simpler? Absolutely brilliant idea! Even my nemesis gets a new name that sounds far better than what I’d come up with.

I am eternally grateful.

It’s been 40 years since I left boarding school, and yet the effects linger. I am unsure of myself, don’t particularly like groups of people, or rules for that matter. I hate that I comply almost always. I’m told to jump and I bitch and moan about it and then do it. I’d like to blame the rigid authority and discipline of boarding school from all those years ago, but I think it’s more because I’m just not good at getting away with things, and that’s probably because I don’t often think well on my feet. I take time with even the simplest things. Forty years is a long time.

I’ve been in contact with many “old boys” my schools, the goal being to find the answer to why, when asked if I’d ever send my kids to boarding school, I didn’t scream, “FUCK NO!” Almost everyone I knew then came out okay, or so it seems. Some have carried obvious anger with them, and when I hear why, it makes sense. I try to tell them to let it go, but if I took my own advice, I’d have abandoned my memoir and gotten on with writing science fiction.  

Experts say the best way to overcome the past is to face it. I remember when my wife insisted on us going to Ireland back in 1992 as part of our honeymoon – she wanted to meet some of my family – I was so apprehensive. I thought I’d collapse, trembling with fear. I felt nothing when I got off the plane in Belfast from Manchester. I felt nothing that whole trip but figured it was because it lasted just one day. We were in and out. 

But the same happened years later when I went over to bury my father. This time, I took a day in the car to go to Enniskillen to my old school. Again, I expected to tremble and shake seeing the town, the gates, the school on the hill. Nothing. I’ve since been to the other schools and felt the same nothing as before. No nostalgia, no fear, just a blank. 

I’ve been in contact with old boys but talking with them is somewhat challenging. Some have done well and don’t dwell on the past, and some don’t mind sharing what they remember. Either way, I always feel guilty about pumping them for information because it’s all one way. If and when I finally publish my memoir, all I can do is say thank you with a free copy and a much-deserved credit on the inside.  

I am so close. The answer to the question – would I have considered sending my kids to boarding school – is yes. Would I have actually pursued that course? Not likely. If our circumstances had been different, I might not have had a choice, but they weren’t, and it’s moot now anyway. Now it’s your turn to wonder why I came to that conclusion. 😉

The quandary of using real names, dates, places in memoir. Oh, what to do, what to do?

Originally, I was going to go full bore headlong into publishing my memoir without a thought to the people in it. Why? Because my original version had me as their victim and this was my way of getting back at them. Oh, I was so angry when I started, and I wanted the world to know who was responsible. But a funny thing happened – the people came alive. Suddenly, they were real people and not the cardboard stand-ins I’d started out with. What to do, what to do?

A magical thing happened, for when my characters came to life, they added such depth to my story that it became something quite different to what I intended. No longer was it good enough say so-and-so was an asshole. It was only fair I be honest and let the reader decide for himself so-and-so was truly an asshole.

Yet, I still chose to use real names for a lot of my characters and pseudonyms for all the others, and I’m wondering why.

I just finished reading Paul Watkins’ memoir Stand Before Your God – an American Schoolboy in England, and on the copyright page or very near it, he clarifies that he changed the names and identifying characteristics of all the faculty and students. He left the names of places alone. By doing that, however, anyone who was at the schools during the times in question would know who he was talking about. And so, the question is, do we change details to protect others or ourselves?

Some in my memoir FB group say I need to change everything. Well, that would be fine if I were accusing my uncle of being a bank robber or child molester who was never caught. I could change every detail and the story would remain the same. But in my case, I just can’t see how to do that. It would be like writing about my time in the Secret Service protecting President Whoever without mentioning or changing all those details. Just wouldn’t be a story then, would it?

I get people can sue for anything if they have $$$, and it costs $$$ to defend the truth (which is where the big problem is, so always countersue), but I’m thinking of where even the truth could potentially cause harm to another (to lose their job or break up their marriage, emotional distress, etc.) even if unintentional. I don’t think I’d want to do that, not even to my arch nemesis responsible for so much emotional trauma and decades of recovery.

On a funny note, in a working draft I had changed names and professions, and when some of the “old boys” read it they were only too happy to set me straight.

Oh, what to do, what to do?

April, 1984. A friend, Charlie we’ll call him, and I were on our way to the Silver Dollar Saloon to meet up with the love of my life at the time Jane, we’ll call her and another friend, Buck we’ll call him. Jane floored me from the moment I saw her across the room at college, and I got to meet her because she was friends with Charlie who took great pleasure to embarrass me in introducing us. Confused? Yeah, well, so was I. And dumb in some ways. Before we went in, Charlie said I’ve got something I gotta tell you. Jane’s going out with Buck. I put on the brave smile, went in and congratulated the couple, and when I went home I kicked myself over and over. I thought my world had ended.

I was fresh out of an all-boys boarding school in England. I’d been away so long, I thought I had lost myself and didn’t know if I was here or there. I lacked confidence. I might have been cocky on the outside, but not cocky enough to ask out this gorgeous creature. I thought play it cool and the American bit would come back to me.

The next day, I told her how I felt, and she smiled and said ok, and added the usual we can still be friends bit. I ended up banging out a song for her on my piano, drums and violins and vocals and all.

As the years went by, the happy couple ran aground, and my tape went missing. I kept thinking it’s here somewhere, but it never was. More maddening is the lyrics I’d written down went missing, too. I had only a fragment from memory.

Yesterday, I was sorting through a stack of cassettes from my deceased parents. Imagine my amazement when I heard my piano come through the headphones! A different song, but one I’d not heard in a very long time. And the cassette was of the right type – a plain looking red and white Radio Shack Normal bias. And then, just a few moments later, came my song that I’d been searching for all these years.

Now, the song is crap, and the music is crap, but that’s not the point! Miracles do happen!

When Pink Floyd’s The Wall came out in November 1979, I didn’t like it. Thought it was too disco-like from what little I’d heard on the radio. “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control” were the lyrics to an anthem that was supposed to make me want to run out and buy the album. I didn’t feel I was getting much education, and I refused to bend to the rigid discipline and mind control, and yet the song didn’t resonate with me. Maybe because I already knew it was all for naught. That summer, a grade evaluation at an American high school in Maryland confirmed my suspicions when my average grades became failures. Not that it mattered. I had other things on my mind.

I was in Bethesda, Maryland, when the evening news announced the IRA had blown up 18 soldiers in Warrenpoint, Ireland. A tactician would say it was a brilliant ambush, and it was, helped along by British arrogance and trust. Then mention came of another attack the same day. The IRA had blown up Lord Mountbatten and his family while they were out on a fishing boat. I knew nothing of Mountbatten but the attack had happened in Sligo, where I’d gone to school and where it was supposed to be safe. Yet, I still didn’t pay much attention. I was living there, and such reports were blasted on the television daily. So, when they mentioned a local schoolboy who’d taken a summer job of boatman was also killed in the blast, it didn’t even register. Not consciously.

My mom and I were on our way from Belfast Airport to Enniskillen when the taxi driver asked where in Enniskillen we needed to go, and when Mom said Portora, he cocked his head and said it was such a tarra what they’d done to that poor boy. “What was him name now?” he said almost under his breath. “Paul Maxwell,” I replied. It just had come to me. Somehow, I knew.

Yet none of that was on my mind at that moment as Comfortably Numb, another track from The Wall, played on the radio. I’d just got off the phone with my brother who was in Holywell hospital, in a lockup ward. He was a huge Pink Floyd fan and I’d told him the latest album wasn’t worth spit. I’d felt guilty, too, until I reminded myself he’d not remember what I’d said. He was brain damaged due to  asphyxia. He’d been hanged.

My housemaster, passing me on the stairs to my dorm after the call, had asked if everything was alright. “No,” I said. And it wasn’t.

He shrugged, and I hardly noticed.

I was 12 years old at my first boarding school, in Ireland. The bump on my head was the result of an older boy putting putting me in a choke hold, lifting me over onto his back, and then letting go after I’d passed out. I only got three of the best as a result, for fighting. My way of getting striking back? I began collecting screws, removing them from doors and windows and anything else I could. The school literally began falling apart. As I look back now, I see I was as much at war with myself as I was with Them, a war that continues even now.

A group I recently joined would have a particular way of seeing the attached letter. I see things differently. I am searching for answers, not excuses. Life is too short, and I’ve wasted too much of mine.

Letter Home, March 3, 1977

How are you? I’m terrible It was nice to hear your voice last Sunday. Things are really bad. I don’t want to be separated from you ever again. I am not learning much. I think that the rules are rotten and I can’t bear it. How’s Brandy? I had to put a padlock on my wooden locker to keep thieves out. All my writing paper and envelopes have disappeared. Please send me lots of letters. Already I was sick for four days. I had a big bump on my head and had to get x-rays, and I’ve had German Measles all in 1-2 weeks. My rabbit is fine and I am growing a chestnut. It grew almost a foot in 1 week. Now it is dividing into two. What are we doing in English? Reading a book and learning nothing. The book is called Julius Caesar. I read part of a book called Transistor Electronics. I read about sources of energy, AC-DC motors, and generators. I plan to build a boat next week of Balsa wood. Here is the plan. It probably not to scale because I used cm and converted using 2.5cm for an inch. Well it’s time to say goodbye.

P.S. Send my shoes for Church.

I looked forward to going to boarding school. For me it meant a plane trip, and being a fanatic about airplanes, I was excited to go. I didn’t think of Ireland as a strange place full of strangers. I’d been there before, and even went to school there before the police discovered a car bomb outside the bank up the town and Mom decided to take us to the safety and warmth of Portugal. Lastly, going to Ireland meant I’d not have to attend the local junior high where, according to my older brother, the older boys did terrible things to the young ones. He told it so much better than I can remember. It was because of him we were both going in the first place. Getting arrested for breaking and entering to steal a case of beer was the last straw. Something had to be done.

It was my brother, Roger, who suggested Irish boarding school to straighten him out, and my parents thought that was a great idea. I don’t know if my brother was scheming at the time or genuinely wanted to get straight. After his friend across the street put the barrel of his father’s .357 into his mouth and blew the back of his head off, everyone was open to anything that might help.

So, during the summer of 1976 while America prepared for its bicentennial, I was getting poked and prodded and shot full of vaccines to protect me from diseases I didn’t even know Ireland had. Roger joked it was all to protect Ireland, not me, and we had a wee chuckle over Guinness and cigarettes in the camper. “A wee taste of Ireland,” Roger had said before slugging back half the bottle. I took a sip and hoped Ireland tasted better. I was eleven years old. What did I know?

I stepped off the plane at Shannon Airport in early August and was treated to my first bomb scare at the local hotel. The staff ushered everyone outside. Everyone except my mom and the funny old lady sitting under the stairs drinking gin. She wasn’t scared. Mom was. She didn’t say so, but I could tell. She asked if I wanted to go outside with the others or stay inside with her. “It’s your life, son, and if there is a bomb it could be anywhere, and with all the glass it wouldn’t matter much: we’d all be cut to ribbons either way.”

Thankfully, there was no bomb. Not that day.

I look pretty silly in this picture. Sure, I was a kid about 11 and had little choice in style or dress, and on this occasion I can only presume I was being forced to go to church. But the lack of snow and the fact I’m wearing short sleeves makes me wonder if this wasn’t for another event, one that would better explain the look on my face.

My parents never were big on church. I remember going on Sundays for a while when we were in Silver Spring, but that didn’t last long. My dad enrolled me in a Lutheran school for a year or part of a year. That was okay for the most part. There was a chapel attached but to this day I don’t recall having to attend services in it. Certainly not like what was about to happen to me not long after this picture was taken. Our church going dwindled down to midnight service on Christmas eve, but even then I didn’t associate the toys and colorful lights and the Christmas tree with church. The two were do opposite.

I’m wearing a spiffy outfit, eh? But as I mentioned, there are some clues that tell me this wasn’t Easter. It’s certainly not Christmas, and I can’t think of any other occasion I’d be going to church save one. A fucking funeral.

There was a kid in my class who had such an infectious smile. He lived across the cul-de-sac from us, and me and my brother were okay friends with him and his brothers. We’d sometimes crank call pizza joints from there. All good fun. One night, his brother put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Funny thing – I didn’t cry until after it was all over, and it wasn’t because I was especially fond of the brother. I hardly knew him. But Brad’s face was broken, in so much pain, and I cried because I feared he’d never smile again.

Anyway, you might agree I look silly and even inappropriate if it is for a funeral, I know, but have you seen me in my Gloucester House uniform? Now that’s what I’d call silly!

And, come to think of it, maybe this isn’t the funeral outfit. As I recall, Mom took me, and she’d not be the one holding the camera – she’d be in the shot, I’m sure. And since she’s not, now I wonder if Dad is taking me to the airport to meet her coming back from somewhere. Then again, there was only one time I can recall being alone with Dad for any length of time, and that was when Mom and Roger went to Hawaii for a week, and that was in November. I’ll have to think on this some more.