Continuing my Storyworth project, here’s how I answered, “Who had the most positive influence on you as a child?”
I was blessed to have parents and grandparents, as well as aunts and uncles, on both sides who loved and spent time with me. Since I’ve written about them in other places, I will write here about a few key people—in order of importance, not chronology—who had a positive impact on my life before the age of sixteen.
The first was an older gentleman named Arnold Strang, but everyone called him “Sharky”. Sharky was short and stocky with a big, warm smile and a similar handshake. I knew him from church, and he was always eager to see me. Sharky lived near one of my closest friends—way back in the woods on a lake. After driving down the long dirt road that led to his property, you’d see a big sign that hung near his house that said, “Lazy Arnold Strang.” I don’t know that he was lazy, but the sign captured some of his external chillness, self-deprecating humor, and internal serenity. One memory stands out.
Each year, our church hosted a canoe trip on the Morris River in NJ for 7th-12th-grade students. For elementary-school-age-kids, it was a trip you couldn’t wait to be old enough to go on. I had just finished sixth grade and was finally allowed to participate if I was paired with an experienced adult chaperone.
Knowing my dad loved canoeing and was an expert, I asked him repeatedly to take me. Having just started his own business, he repeatedly said no, feeling he couldn’t take time off. Learning of the situation, Sharky said I could go with him in his canoe. I was elated, and over the six-hour wind down the river that included many shenanigans (e.g., pulling your canoe to shore, then hiding around a bend as you waited to sneak up on someone or tip their canoe!), Sharky patiently taught me how to paddle and steer, delighting in my company.
The second person of influence was my third-grade teacher, Miss Bagg, an unfortunate name as she was young and beautiful. Despite my getting into trouble a bit, she took a special liking to me and kept me challenged with advanced work. One memory stands out here as well.
I shared the bus ride to and from school with a kid named Joey who was always giving Miss Bagg a hard time. He was pretty adept at irritating my classmates and me, too. One day, as he was sitting in the bus seat behind me, he kept repeatedly pulling off my beanie cap. I kept telling him to quit it, but he wouldn’t, and then I warned him that he had better stop. Knowing he was going to keep doing it, I carefully positioned my elbow on the back of the seat. Then, as I felt him getting close enough to do it again, I elbowed him squarely in what turned out to be his nose. Blood gushed everywhere, and the bus driver had to stop the bus and address the situation. I was suspended from the bus for a week, which meant my parents had to take me to school. When I got there the next day, before the buses arrived, I was the only one in the class with Miss Bagg. She asked me why I was so early, and I had to tell her I was suspended from the bus. Of course, she asked why, and after I told her, she unexpectedly said, “He probably deserved it.” Why did her response rivet itself in my memory? I’m not fully sure, but I felt seen and validated, whether I should have been fully or not. Moreover, it was a powerful counter to a sense of shame I had of being a bad kid.
The third and last positive influence goes to a couple: John and Stacy. John was the namesake and oldest son of John Janney, the predatory and criminal pastor I grew up under at Berachah Bible Baptist. Not surprisingly, and in ways I only later realized, John Jr., the son, was also a victim of Berachah’s toxic church environment. Four to five years older than me, John and his girlfriend (and later wife) Stacy were two individuals who truly delighted in me and became close friends. In our small Christian school, John was my basketball coach, and Stacy, one of the church secretaries, was my Pac-Man buddy. She would take me on errands every chance she had, and these errands, as much as possible, included highly competitive games of Pac-Man, one of the most popular arcade games that was available in the entrance area of many stores.
When our family finally decided to leave Berachah, when everyone else judged and shunned us, I felt their love. John and Stacey were sent, as other select individuals were, to try to talk or scare my parents out of leaving. Tactics usually involved some version of “if you don’t come back, you will lose your children.” In reaching out and coming to our house, John and Stacy’s agenda was far different. Instead of judging or scolding my parents or me, they just hugged me and told me, while fighting back tears themselves, that they were going to miss me. Sadly, they knew all too well that Berachah’s culture would shame and cut off anyone who left. Like Tom Cruise and Jeanne Tripplehorn’s characters in the movie The Firm, I’m sure at some level they felt trapped, even if they hadn’t yet grappled with their own exit plan.
As I evaluate these recollections, it’s interesting that being seen, understood, delighted in, validated, seen as a good boy, and a person someone would be eager to be close to and have fun with are huge themes. What do these stories suggest about me? What might your stories suggest about you?