The Curse of the Shieldses

Sometimes we reflect on our youth in ways that aren't entirely accurate reflections of the truth. These distortions may not be the result of fading and fallible memories. They may be more due to the fact that we never really understood the truth to begin with. Why? It was our parents. They never told us the complete story of anything. It was not to their benefit. They wanted an edge.

This would be a scandalous accusation if it could not be proven. But alas, I can. In more than a few instances.

It began for me with a simple admonition from my parents. From as early as I can remember, I was told, "Be careful what you do, because we WILL find out!". At first, I considered this an idle threat...a rule that could not possibly be enforced. How naive I was! Then I slowly realized that living in a small town where everyone knew everyone, the length of time it took for word to get back to parents was only a millisecond longer than the time it took the viewer to get to a telephone.

I was seven years old and riding my bicycle home about a half hour before dark. I carelessly veered too far toward the other lane without looking. A car with a driver who, thankfully, was looking, saw me just in time and had to brake hard enough for anyone close by to hear the screech of his tires. I was glad no one was around. He chided me, as all grownups would do to children in that time, to be more careful. I told him I would and began the last quarter mile home, being thankful that my father would not be there in case there was a phone call. He was teaching night school to veterans returning home after the war.

After putting up the bike I entered the door to the sound of the telephone ringing. A blessing was about to be had. I would be the one to answer the phone if it was someone ratting me out. And no one would know.

Hello?

Bad news! The caller was my father. Seems the driver was one of his students and before I could ride the bicycle for less than five minutes, he had parked at the school, found my father, related my transgression, my father had left the class, found a telephone, and had a verbal instruction waiting for me. That ended riding the bicycle for a while.

And that's the way life went. Nothing was private. There were no secrets. There was just this giant conspiracy that pitted a world of adults against me. Terrible odds! And it never got better.

Even when I was a senior in college living in a dormitory 250 miles away, I wasn't safe. It had become a curse! I was helpless. The best example of this inequity was the time when I had been to Columbus on a weekend night on a blind date. This is an important nuance. I went to go out with a girl I had never met. No big deal. Introductions. Movie. Returned my date to her dorm. Back to Starkville at midnight and into bed.

At that time there were no phones in every room. Only a single pay phone in the middle of each floor to be shared by more than 100 students. Seven-thirty in the morning comes with a knock on my door. I have a call. Stumbling down the hallway, I reach the booth and answer. It's my mother who not only knew that I had been to Columbus, she knew who I had been out with by name and knew where she was from. Did you have a good time? That's not why she called. She just wanted me to know that she was still connected. That she knew. And she always would. For the next twenty five years of her life, she never told me how she found out. It would not have been to her benefit!

So what did I learn? I learned that this is a ploy with potential. Imagine the personal satisfaction of hearing your daughter return from her first year at college and harping that life isn't fair. She can't go anywhere without being asked if she is Richard's daughter, or if she is related to Lenore. She even was assigned the daughter of one of her uncle's college football teammates as a roommate as a freshman. "Daddy. I can't go anywhere without this happening. It even happened on my trip to Washington, D. C. in the Senate chambers!". You have to love it!

What did I tell her? Why, it's the curse of the Shields'. And now there is an entire generation out there in Jackson, and Pascagoula, and Washington, and San Antonio,and Starkville. Looking over their shoulder and knowing that they are never safe from being accountable for their actions and their lives. They will be found out.

Life is good! And that's the way I'm going to remember it.