Welcome to Jacob's homepage
This page is dedicated to my Son Jacob, who I haven't
seen since 1981 when he was 8.
When I'd put the kids to bed, we always said the same prayer, "now I lay me down
to sleep. Because I am a little creep. If I should die before I wake, I hope they
have some chocolate cake!". Needless to say, I wasn't all *that* gung-ho
to turn my kids into the same type of "Religious Robot" that I had become
after decades of Roman Catholic indoctrination.
Jacob was a fine young boy when he was growing up. Smart, polite, industrious...
he could spend hours building a lego project and wouldn't be satisfied until
his work looked exactly like the picture on the box or the catalog. He also
didn't take long before he could beat his Old Man at chess!
Jacob was a pretty typical kid. He enjoyed his Tonka trucks, model
railroads (never could get a locomotive to run right on his bedroom floor!),
yo-yos, baseball and so on.
Jacob did very well in school and had a natural gift of common sense and
intelligence. I always figured that Jacob would have a fulfilling and
financially rewarding career someday. Jacob was a handsome, likeable kid and seemed to
get along with most everyone.
Jacob really used to enjoy riding his bicycle. We picked up a beat up one at a
yard sale when he was young. I cleaned it all up, fixed the broken stuff and
gave it a coat of paint. It didn't look like much but I ran just fine. Jacob
would spend hours on hours riding up and down the street on it, in just about
any kind of weather. I figured that he had probably picked up my "Biker gene"
somewhere along the line.
The big discussion around Town was this new racing bike that came out. Lebanon
wasn't a particularly wealthy Town, so most of the boy's Fathers weren't able
to afford something quite that expensive and unneccessary. I decided to sell
one of my motorcycles to help raise the money to get Jacob the bike that he
talked about from the time he got up until the time he went to bed. "Now I
lay me down to sleep...please God, I want a racer bike!" is the way the
prayer was going...
We told Jacob that there was a Family in Town who was very poor and that they
couldn't afford a bike for their kids. We asked if Jacob would mind giving
them his bike since he was obviously better off than they were. Although
Jacob loved his bike dearly, he said, "sure Dad!". He put the bike on the
front porch where it sat for a week or so waiting to be picked up by the
Family in need. He never rode that bike again, never talked about it or
anything. Kids sure can make you proud sometimes!
A couple of weeks later, Jacob's new racer showed up and was unceremoneously
presented to him. I don't think that I saw Jacob much after that. He was always
out riding around until it got too dark to see. He sure was the envy of the
neighborhood! Even during my rare visitations,
I think I only got to see Jacob at mealtimes.
Well, a lot of years have passed since then. As explained in another letter,
my Ex-Wife, with the Court's help, was very successful in blocking any attempts
that I made to try to see my kids. No card, no present, no phonecall went
unpunished. Send a birthday card; get hauled into Court. Contact the school
to see what your kid's grades are; get hauled into Court. Mafia Extohtionists
could take a few lessons from Family Court and CSD, folks.
When Jacob turned 18 and was no longer forced to obey his Mother's wishes to
keep me out of his life, I started looking around to see if I could find him.
I didn't have a lot to go on and it took a full 3 years to finally locate
him. About a week before his 21st birthday, I found out that he was serving
in the Army artillery at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. Quick like a bunny, I fired
off a FedEx birthday card. No response.
Over the course of the next few Months, I did various things to try to initiate
contact. Because of Jacob's refusal to acknowledge me it was becoming
abundantly apparent that he would just as soon that I stayed out of his life.
Jacob had, however, indicated that he knew where his Sister Jessica was. In a
last ditch effort, I sent jacob a self addressed, stamped envelope with a
blank piece of paper inside and a request that he write down Jessica's address,
stick the paper inside the envelope and drop the envelope in the mail.
The envelope containing a blank piece of paper showed up in my mailbox several
weeks later. Message received, Son :(
I figure that sooner or later, Jacob will get married and have children of
his own. If his experiences are similar to over 50% of the population,
Jacob will wind up being divorced, will not be given custody of his kids,
will be required to pay an unreasonably high support judgement and may have
an Ex-Wife who denies access to his children same as what was done to me.
I'm wondering how he's going to feel then, smart guy.
What goes around tends to come around. I figure in another few years, it'll
be likley that Jacob will be living the same life as I did, a mere 25 years
ago. Maybe then he will understand what was going on and that it wasn't my
fault that I was allowed absolutely no role and no participation in his
life. 'Course, by then, I'll probably be too damned old to much give a shit
anymore. One can only hope that Jacob does a better job with his life
than I did with mine.
Time will tell.....
Last modified November 26,1997