An Average Joe

Chapter 1 -How it All Started

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Hi, my name is Joseph Rector. You can call me Joe.

My Mom still calls me Joey, but you know how that goes. I think of myself as just a typical red blooded American. I am middle aged and see myself as a middle income earner. I live in the suburbs, we have the white picket fence, I tried to do my part by only having 2.1 kids, but then we were surprised when number three came along. So I have two sons, Sam and Stephen and the youngest is daughter Jackie and I am lucky enough to have a grandson.

I am just one of those average Americans. I guess I really am your “Average Joe”.

Let me quickly say that I am not an author. I never really wrote anything worthwhile before. I mean I did the term papers in school. I remember once in junior high writing a paper about the “Black Hawk War”. I was proud of that paper. At the ripe old age of 12, it was probably the crowning achievement of my life. It was my very first research effort. I think I got a “B”, but in my mind it was “A+” work.

I also did the obligatory essays on Hamlet in high school, history paper about the Peloponnesian War and a couple of papers on Freud and Child Development in college. An engineering major in school, I also wrote a lot of reports and analysis type papers. I now write the yearly Family Christmas letter and I have put together a bit on the genealogy of the family.

That was it. A book? Are you kidding me? What could I possible say that would warrant writing a book let alone publishing one?

Besides all of that my life was just a normal everyday grind kind of thing for the typical American who grew up in the ‘50s. I did the military stint after college. You know the whole Viet Nam thing and all of that. Most of it I would just as soon I did not remember but I am proud of my service.

Judy, my first wife asked me about Viet Nam once. That really did not go very well. She was a sweetheart, but we just could not get through the knot when I returned from Nam.

We tried counseling, I tried therapy, but in the end we just decided that an amicable separation was best. We tried to make it work for some 6 years that even brought Jackie into the mix, but after all of that, we ended up divorced. We shared custody of our three children. A bummer certainly but that was a long time ago. The kids are now grown starting families of their own. Did I mention I had a grandson?

Anyway that part of my life is water over the dam or under the bridge, which ever metaphor works for you. To make a long story shorter, I am now extremely happily married to my soul mate. In fact, she was my high school sweetheart but we somehow got lost and didn’t find each other until later.

Romantic, isn’t it? As it turns out, I would say that I probably would not be here today if it were not for Susan. She has become the light of my life and the real reason this whole story started and became this book.

You see, I didn’t really think much about it. I did not see any reason to write the story, let alone a book. For me, it was just another day of my life.

The 9-5 grind: get up before the alarm; do the coffee; read the paper and then get on the road before the sun is up, just to enter the traffic jam on them expressway so I can get to work on time.

Work all day, put up with the “man” (in this case Tim), deal with all the knuckleheads, try to add some sanity to the insane just to make a buck so I can continue to put bread on the table. When the clock approaches 5PM, hop in the car and reenter the traffic jam on the expressway to get home.

Same old, same old five days a week, 52 weeks a year for the last 15 years. Not a big deal. Nothing out of the ordinary for me, it was just another day.

Susan of course reminded me of the issues at hand.

“Joe…you need to write a book.”…she started. I had heard this before. Susan has been trying to encourage me to write down my thoughts ever since 9-11. “Don’t just tell me and let it go.” She continued, “As much as I value the conversation, I don’t like the idea of being your only sounding board. You have great ideas and the thinking behind it all….you just need to tell others. Do it for the family…think of your grandson……”

“What do you mean…he’s only 2?”…I replied. Of course I figured she was just playing on my ego, making me feel good that she thought I had all of these great ideas. So I tried to make light of the whole thing. I had after all heard it before.

“You know what I mean,” she countered. “You always say that kids nowadays don’t get it, that they are not paying attention and that we as parents are the cause…and that the world we are creating will be even worse for Chad.”

Chad is our grandson. He is only 2, really 28 months, but that’s not yet 2 1/2, I don’t think. Then of course our daughter has another grandchild on the way, so what Susan really was telling me was to “do it for the grandkids” or maybe since it was my idealistic Susan, “Do it for the next generation”.

She was right.

That is just one of those truisms of life. Susan was always right. Not in a condescending, arrogant mean spirited way either. Just in a firm, this is the right thing to do frame of mind way. That was one of the things I loved most about her, even if I didn’t want to believe it or contradicted her or got snippy, I always knew. She was right.

Besides, this time I had to agree with her. In my 50 plus years of life I had seen a lot. Some of it wasn’t so good but some of it was very good. The thing I just could not fathom was what I saw as a deeply disturbing trend that I called; “The atrophy of the human mind”.

There it goes again.

Every time something comes up it is like my brain can not let go. Susan calls it one of my “brain cramps.” I think that is because she knows my mind will take the issue and turn it sideways, then backwards and inside out if I could. I try to reason with it, my mind that is, kind of a dialogue with myself, so I usually look for logic and consistency on the issue. If Susan is around, she knows I will start to talk to her about it. I really ask more questions than provide answers. That is just the way my brain works. Give me a topic and you will cause my brain to “cramp”.

Sometimes it can be painful as my opinions don’t necessarily agree with those of other folks. So whenever Susan sees that quizzical look on my face she knows… “cramp-city”…and for however long my brain will be working overtime on that issue, what ever it is.

One time at a neighborhood get together, Jim who lives across the street was telling me about his “passion” for “Cheez-Doodles”. Pretty innocuous right? Well, I just thought “passion” was a rather strong sentiment to have about a fried corn snack covered in a chemically treated cheese dust.

Brain Cramp!