The Pool

Yesterday we went the public pool in Greenville, NC. We had a blast!! The day couldn't have been nicer, 85 degrees and partly cloudy. As I watched my daughter learning to swim around in her little flouters, it was a bitter sweet moment for me. See I was never allowed to swim in a public pool when I was a child. It's not like Lynchburg,Va didn't have one, They had two. They had an awesome one with a Olympic sized pool and a water park. It was every kids dream. The only reason my parents wouldn't let me go is because I was born the wrong color. You see, both my parents were raging racists. The only reason they wouldn't let us go have fun in the pool on hot summer days is because we were white, an affliction, like Brain Cancer, like Bipolar, I didn't ask for. So my summertime fun was split three ways. Cutting grass, Chopping wood for winter, and working on grimy engines for my fathers business. All of which sucked big fat donkey balls when I knew that I could have been enjoying my self and having fun at the pool if I had only been born another color. Why does that make a difference? We're all human. We all have the same problems. Maybe my parents were scared that I would grow up to test their controlling authority they had over me. Which I did. I've been on my own since I was 14. I had to learn to be a "Man" when I was 10 years old for Christ sakes. So that pretty much cancelled out childhood fun, such as pools.
The crushing, controlling authority was mainly placed on me by my father. My mom was out of the picture do to a myriad of mental health problems. Battered women syndrome, Manic-Depression Disorder (now called BPS) and a raging case of Post Pardun Depression after my younger brother was born. My father instilled in me his form of parenting which usually involved cruelty and violence. "Values" that I've tried to erase from my subconscious as I raise my family.