One Day in Philadelphia

David Johnson R.

Description

Across the globe, there are many forgotten youths. Some have homes. Some do not. They learn earlier than most to fend for themselves. Many fail. They fall victim all too often to the evil that is in this world. The evil that permeates the underbelly of our civilized society. It has always been there, this evil. Carefully hidden away, like so many dark unspeakable things. It is nothing new. This book examines neither someone who was consumed by it, nor defeated it. Instead, it is about someone who engaged it in battle and still battles it today. Victory here is measured in each day lived. Hope lies in faith. God and soul.

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 12 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528958776
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

One Day in Philadelphia
R. David Johnson
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-04-12
One Day in Philadelphia About The Author About The Book Dedication Copyright Information Acknowledgment Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four (The Day) Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Further Considerations
About The Author
R. David Johnson was born in 1960 to working-class roots. He joined the United States Navy on his 17th birthday, not so much out of patriotism, but because he needed food and shelter. Patriotism came later. Self-educated, he managed to acquire a few college credits along the way. Married at 19, he raised three sons and a daughter. He spends his free time riding his Harley-Davidson with his second wife, Claire, or doting on his many grandchildren. His faith in God is strong. He will tell you he has seen the fallibility of mankind within his own heart, and that has driven his belief in the Almighty. He is currently working on other projects connected to his own history, as well as the world we live in.
About The Book
Across the globe, there are many forgotten youths. Some have homes. Some do not. They learn earlier than most to fend for themselves. Many fail. They fall victim all too often to the evil that is in this world. The evil that permeates the underbelly of our civilized society. It has always been there, this evil. Carefully hidden away, like so many dark unspeakable things. It is nothing new. This book examines neither someone who was consumed by it, nor defeated it. Instead, it is about someone who engaged it in battle and still battles it today. Victory here is measured in each day lived. Hope lies in faith. God and soul.
Dedication
To Claire, you drove me to tell the story and you gave me the confidence to believe I could.
Copyright Information
Copyright © R. David Johnson (2019)
The right of R. David Johnson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528907996 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528908009 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528908016 (Kindle e-book)
ISBN 9781528958776 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgment
My thanks to:
Claire Rene Johnson
Lisa Ellen
Rickie
CBM

It is said that wisdom is learned over time and carries the scars of foolishness as proof of its authenticity. And as a man now nearing 60 years of age, who knew no real mentors in youth to guide him, I can say without reservation that I am at least somewhat wise today. Or, just an old man with some very foolish scars. It is natural, after all, to look back at one’s life and see all the glaring mistakes we have made and to mutter to one’s self, “Damn! Why didn’t I see that coming?” And that leads me to the rest of the story.
The title says ‘One Day in Philadelphia’, so it can be assumed that this story took place there. One might also surmise that the writer of this account spent at least one day in Philadelphia. That much is true. I was in Philadelphia in the winter of 1974 for about 31 hours; just longer than a 24-hour day. And although this story will move around the country, as other places and events are pertinent to it, Philadelphia and what happened there is the key ingredient to the tale. And although I never passed that way again, except a brief stop on a MAC flight bound for Rota, Spain, I never truly completely left Philadelphia.
That city, and the events I experienced there, changed me forever and set my path. Philadelphia removed from a 14-year-old boy the last bit of innocence a 14-year-old American boy from a broken home could still hold. It forever affected his confidence, at times making him capitulate when he should have fought, and at other times making him fight way too hard to proportions, so exaggerated that he often appeared relentless and overbearing. It is a balance that only now in later years am I getting a handle on.
Don’t get me wrong. That day did not ruin my life. I never ‘fully’ allowed it to influence me, although it has never left my mind. In fact, in some ways, it made me a diligent father, always making sure my sons were tough enough and well equipped to handle themselves with both mind and body.
It turned me into a watcher, constantly looking for signs in people who tried to endear themselves to my children. Always suspicious and ever vigilant was I, constantly vetting teachers, coaches, and councilors. I was overprotective to a fault when my kids were young, and when it became impossible to treat them in such an overbearing manner as they got older, I wilfully took on the role of ‘Almighty Tyrant’, making sure that they were strong enough—having dealt with me—to handle any situation that might arise, should their mother or I be un-availed to help them.
In short, I loved them to pieces when they were small, always spending time with them, family outings, bike rides etc., and when they hit their teens, I became an instant asshole, unapologetic in my efforts to be the meanest, most strict authoritarian asshole of a dad the world had ever known.
My own father, himself, was largely an absentee in my youth, so I was totally winging it. Winging it with baggage that I am sure my kids hold some resentment over today.
Oh, we all get along. My children and grandchildren are all very much in my life today. I am blessed that way. But I often wonder how much better it could have been had I started my journey through family and fatherhood without the weight of that one day in Philadelphia.
Chapter One
It was November 1974, just after Thanks giving. I was living with my stepmother and my younger brother in Zanesville, Ohio. My father had moved us there, because he was going to work as a truck driver for Gould Battery Company, after having lost his own business. A recurring theme in my father’s life, it seemed.
And, as always since the age of 10 back home in a small town outside of Youngstown I had delivered newspapers to help augment the family income. The old man had insisted on it.
Zanesville was no different. We had only been in town a week or two in August, and I had a morning route. And getting up at 4 am, long before anyone else in the house, was something I had been accustomed to for years already.
My route encompassed a neighborhood that sat high up on a hill and continued down to the river where it met the Y-Bridge that separated our neighborhood from downtown. That November morning was no different than any other morning for me, except that 8 inches of fresh snow had fallen overnight and none of the streets were plowed.
That meant that the 138 morning editions I had to deliver were going to be even tougher than anticipated. Using the bicycle was out of the question, and since we now lived in a city instead of a rural farm community, riding the dirt bike was out as well. The police would have zeroed in on a loud two-stroke engine echoing down the hillside at 4 in the morning, and I would not have lasted more than a couple of stops before a phone call from a concerned citizen would have had one of my few possessions impounded downtown. What to do?
Well, there was the stepmother’s prize, 1962 Chevy Biscayne, sitting in the driveway behind the house off the alley. And if I drove it real slow through the heavy snow—I had learned how to drive back in farm country—it might not get stuck, and I could go pick up my papers and get them delivered, and have the car back before anyone else even knew it was gone.
Oh, sure, she would be pissed as hell if she found out. She would chase after me with a section of hot-wheel track from my kid brother’s toys and try to whip me good for taking her car. But I was getting bigger. And at 5 feet 1 inch tall, I could look her in the eye now, and she knew I was no longer afraid of her.
By standards, I was a scrawny 14-year-old, among the smallest in my class at school, and she did have at least 25 pounds on me still. But I had speed. All those mornings getting up before the sun had given me a fitness. Even for a short skinny kid, I could outlast her, if I had too.
OK, I’m taking the car.
After a quick cup of tea and a handful of dry cereal—making sure first that the cockroaches had not gotten to it—I was out the door. The keys had been sitting on the kitchen table from the night before when she brought my kid brother back from band practice.
I climbed into the car and gingerly closed the door, so as not to wake anyone, started the car and backed out into the alley that ran between our house and the neighbors. Once in drive, I feathered the accelerator lightly, so as not to spin the tires in the snow and motored away down the alley to the next street over.
The papers were dropped off in a parking lot next to a store about three blocks from the house, so I headed there. When I got to the parking lot, I had every intention of getting the papers folded and delivered and going straight back to the house. That was my intent.
Some family members speculated that I had planned this all out in advance. If I ever said to any of them it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, they would never have believed me, so I let them think what they wanted to.
I was there in the parking lot, sitting next to 3 bundles of newspapers that I was supposed to deliver, but I could not get out