Under The Influence(s)- An Entry Into My Own Contest
WARNING: This could be a tough read for some. From the beginning of my Under The Influence(s) contest, I've planned on writing an entry myself (understanding, of course, that I can't get any kind of prize). I'll take no offense if folks don't read the whole thing- as part of it is a brutally honest, hard-hitting piece of writing that will make some uncomfortable. Before I begin, I'll stress two things for folks to keep in mind: 1) I'm fine- don't worry about me, and 2) I don't intend to elicit any sort of "poor Dennis" reaction or responses, either. Those who know me personally will tell you I don't sit around crying about stuff- and ask none to do so for me. And away we go...
The first influence who popped into my head when thinking of this contest was my high school R.O.T.C. instructor, SFC Donovan C. Smith, U.S. Army (Ret.). A Viet Nam veteran and member of the 101st Airborne's Screaming Eagles, it was Sgt. Smith who introduced me to both leadership traits and principles that I carry with me 33 years later. Bearing, courage, decisiveness, dependability, endurance, enthusiasm, initiaitve, integrity, judgment, justice, knowledge, loyalty, tact and unselfishness are traits we look for in folks all the time; it's a good things when we can find them- and it's easy to recognize it when we find others who lack them.
"Know yourself and seek self-improvement", "Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions", "Know your men and look out for their welfare" and "Set the example" ring in my ears every day. It was Sgt. Smith who raised awareness in me that whether we set an example for others isn't a choice we get to make- but that the type of example we set surely is.
My second influence was MM2 (SW) Cecil Foote, my Navy recruiter. It's funny, but there are a ton of parallels between military recruiting and the real estate world. Recruiters have certain requirements they look for in those seeking to join the service- just as we have certain requirements for folks looking to buy or rent a home. Recruiters spend time at job fairs and high schools- and once they have some specific prospects in mind, they spend time courting their parents and meeting with the prospects and their friends and family for what can be months on end with no guarantee that anyone will ever join the military. Sounds a lot like how one might spend a good bit of time with a prospective buyer (or in some cases renter) trying to find the perfect spot they'll call their next home. As trustworthy as we'd like everyone to be, everyone isn't- and in both real estate and recruiting, the passage of time leads some to embellish the truth or flat-out lie in efforts to ensure time spent with prospects isn't in vain.
Not so with Petty Officer Foote. It was only a few days into basic training when I realized that he might very well have been the only honest recruiter the Navy ever had. While seemingly every other guy in my company had complaints- about their recruiter's "incompetence", of how their recruiter "promised them a job, then the Navy said they couldn't have it", etc., I had nothing but a positive experience to recount. Upon taking a test called the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) and missing all of 3 questions on it, I qualified for any job the Navy offered. Without any filtering at all, Petty Officer Foote handed me a stack of cards with the details of every available job. After spending a good bit of time going through them, I narrowed things down to four: Mess Management Specialist (cook), Journalist, Photographer and Cryptologic Technician. When I asked him if he had any advice or suggestions, he told me that "one of them should stand out" to me- but that I needed to realize my choice came with a number of consequences and that I needed to make the decision for myself. He let me choose my path- and I am forever grateful. A life lived fully will come with choices and crossroads, forks and obstacles. We have to trust ourselves to make our own decisions- and know ourselves well enough to realize that those decisions are the best route to withhold any endless blaming of others for poor outcomes. MM2 (SW) Cecil Foote passed away a few years ago- a victim of lung cancer in his early 50's. May God rest his soul.
(yours truly- back row, 4th from the right in white)
Influence #3 came during my Navy days in the form of a TRW maintenance contractor named Bob Swartz. Bob had been in the Navy (and in our small, tight-knit cryptology world) for a while- and had left a few years prior in search of less work and more pay in the world of government contracting. As many in our project did, he took off his uniform and traded it in for (in his case) T-shirts and jeans, but was doing the same job he did while in uniform. He repaired our equipment and handled hardware upgrades- and usually headed up the hardware side of the traveling teams that went from site to site doing installations.
In the early part of 1991, I was on Guam and coming to a decision point in my life- would I leave the Navy myself, or would I re-enlist for another 4 years? As many know, one's "first 4 years" in the military isn't always a party. Despite the relative cushiness of our job was compared to others', junior folks were still junior folks- and when stuff needed mopping or cleaning, it wasn't the admiral that did it. I was ready to get out of the Navy. I had nowhere to go, no job lined up and no plans as to what the heck I was going to do with the rest of my life- I just knew I wanted out of the Navy. Bob and I had a short conversation that went a little something like this:
Bob: So you're gonna get out of the Navy. What are you gonna do next?
Dennis: I don't know.
Bob: That's pretty dang stupid. Don't "get out" unless you've got something to "get out" to.
Seeing that I didn't have anything to get out to and figurin' ol' Bob "Suave" Swartz might be onto something, I stayed in the Navy for another 4 years. Over the years, recalling Bob and his advice has reminded me to trust in the guidance of others- and has, when necessary, reinforced the knowledge that there are indeed others who want the best for us. In 1995 and nearing the end of that 4 years, I pondered an old question once again- but with a different answer in that I knew where I was headed if I decided to leave.
Influence #4 is a guy named Robert E. Rubin. When I worked at The White House, Bob was initially chairman of the National Economic Council, then confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury while I was there as well. His (and his wife's) influence on me can be summed up in one anecdote. Bob lived in D.C. during the week and returned home to New York on the weekends. When confirmed as Treasury Secretary and given a Secret Service detail for the first time, his assistant Linda called his wife to let her know that they'd be coming home with him for the weekend in a few days. His wife asked "Do I have to feed 'em?" Here was a guy that had about $200 million in the bank- yet somehow remained humble with his feet on the ground. While the economy, economics and money was the means by which Bob made his living, it wasn't his life.
Influence #5 was a sweet Christian lady named Esther Pugh. Well past 90 years young when we moved in across the street from her, Mrs. Pugh loved the Lord and tending her flowers. My sister (9 at the time) would visit with her nearly every day- and the talk would always include Jesus and her church, Fairview Baptist. It wasn't long before my 13-year-old self joined my sister in heading off to church every Sunday- and Fairview Baptist is where both my sister and I were saved and baptized by Rev. Eural Starnes. There's little doubt in my mind that God brought us and Mrs. Pugh together for a reason, I only question if she actually knew the whole story. For you see, my sister and I were initially led to the church because it gave us a respite- however brief- from our abusive stepfather. Jesus saves, Jesus saves.
NOTE: Here's where some might wish to stop reading.
Influences #6 and #7 were my stepfathers- for reasons both very different and very much the same. Influence #6 was my step-father for a few years before he became my sister's real father- he was an alcoholic with an addictive personality that went to other things as well. I recall his addiction to Neosynephrine nasal spray (which came in a little white bottle with a blue cap at the time)- he typically went through 2 bottles/day. A childhood friend of the real-life sheriff of McNairy County, TN, Buford Pusser long before the Walking Tall movies came about, Influence #6 had his run-ins with the law and served time for everything from phone harassment to forgery and fraud, to various drug and traffic offenses.
Physical abuse was a way of life for both my mother and I- but it's two events that'll forever stand out above the rest for me. One Saturday's cartoon-watching session was interrupted by a loud boom- which I discovered had come from the loaded gun he kept under his pillow. The gun had "accidentally" fired as he slept- and the bullet that sailed through the pillow my mother's head rested upon had planted itself in a nearby wall. The second event involved what I can only describe as a savage beating that my mother endured one night- where he beat her so hard with a telephone receiver that it crushed her eye socket. Loading us up in the car, she drove herself to the nearest fire station for help with the injury she'd sustained from "falling in the bathtub".
Influence #7 came along a few years later- in the form of a certified paranoid schizophrenic who would legally adopt me and change my name to Burgess to match his. Simply put, Influence #7 walks the Earth today as one of the scariest men alive.
Things were OK for a year or so (as I remember it), but started downhill when my twin brothers were born in '79. I'm thankful to the Lord Almighty that Influence #7 never drank, never did any illegal drugs and never physically abused my mother. That's the end of the good part, though, as both my sister and I became his punching bags for no reason at all- and I endured beating after beating from when I was 13 or so until I went in the Navy at 19. An 80-lb high school freshman and 105-lb Navy enlistee, I was never able to mount a defense or fight back against him- and I quickly lost count of the times I'd awake in the morning to find my ears were still ringing from punches I'd taken to the head the night before. Adult-onset epilepsy came along in '97, and it was only then that tests revealed a great deal of scar tissue on my brain.
Influence #7 managed the impossible, though- for in 1988, I actually felt selfish for "only" having endured so many years of physical abuse. Hearing that my sister endured much worse did it, though- as a stack of photos he'd taken of her in various stages of undress revealed the long-held secret that he had molested her from ages 5-15. Though convicted of offenses against my sister, God's grace and mercy and a complicated series of plea-bargains kept him from a long prison term and the hands of fellow prisoners who would've meted out much tougher justice- and for a while, he disappeared. I discovered him again in 1998- only to learn he had never registered as a sex offender, and I wanted to make sure that was corrected.
Working with a great guy (and now Lieutenant) named Clifford Moore of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, he was forced to register as a sex offender for the first time. It was good to see that, but one of the worst feelings in my life came when I got word that flyers would soon hit his neighborhood and that some folks with little pink bicycles on their porches would soon learn they'd been living beside a monster for years.
"So why is this guy scary?", you may ask. His 10 years of registering as a sex offender are over. His illness having worsened over the years, he missed his photo dates every year he did register- with the sheriff's office having to threaten to send a patrol car for him as he denied to them that he'd ever been convicted of anything. I last looked him in the eye toward the end of 2000. I say he's the scariest person on the planet because he looked me in the eye and said he's never hit me once and he'd never done anything to my sister- and there's no doubt in my mind that despite the absurdity, he truly believes it.
I'll group Influence #8 and Influence #9 together- with Influence #8 being Pastor Anthony George and Influence #9 being Pastor Joe Boatwright. Now the senior associate pastor at First Baptist Atlanta, Pastor Anthony was senior pastor at Aloma Baptist Church when I moved here. I first met him in September of 2006, and I remain hard-pressed to think of a more down-to-Earth man of God. Owing a good bit to our having a great deal in common in terms of our upbringing, Pastor Anthony quickly became someone I could relate to and trust to speak the truth- even when (or especially when) the Word of God he preached didn't quite align with the ways of this world. Though he's no longer Aloma's pastor, he will forever be my pastor and my friend.
At the same time, Pastor Joe Boatwright was (and remains) Aloma's Pastor Emeritus. Senior pastor at Aloma himself from 1971 until Pastor Anthony's arrival in 1997, Pastor Joe continues to be an inspiration and an influence to me and anyone lucky enough blessed enough to know him. A few weeks into his 85th year now and a few months into his 65th year of marriage to his sweet wife Joyce, it's tough to imagine God has a better ambassador walking around today. Pastor Joe is always ready with a Gospel tract in his back pocket for those in need of a comforting word, and he remains sensitive to the needs of everyone from our church members to one who may be serving him at lunch on any given day. If I were to ask God to provide me with an example of a Godly man whom I should follow, I suspect he'd remind me that I've already got the best he could ever offer.
It was through just having watched Pastor Joe's courageous bout with stomach cancer that I gained comfort and strength when I heard the doctors mention the word "tumor" recently- and as I went through my surgery for bladder cancer this past April. More times than I could ever count, I thought "If Pastor Joe and his 80-something-year-old self can handle something like that and continue to praise God, I oughtta be able to do it, too". Whether He calls him home in 5 years or 15, Pastor Joe will surely hear the Lord tell him "Well done, good and faithful servant". And being in line behind him up there could really stink- because as fast as the Lord works and all, it could still take him a while to hand out all of the treasures Pastor Joe has coming to him.
I couldn't possibly list the influences in my life and omit a couple of folks I'll group together and call Influence #10- Candi Ramsey and her daughter, Alexis (Lexi) Ramsey. The two go together because well, they always have. Though we're not together right now, Candi was, is and will forever be the love of my life. Lexi is her daughter- about whom I wrote about a couple of months back (http://actvra.in/4h6g). This will be the first I've ever written publicly about her mom.
Simply put, Candi is the sweetest, kindest, most caring, most loving and most beautiful woman I've ever known. The Author and Perfector of all our lives, only the Lord himself knows whether things can work out for us- but the script that's played out so far has proven a few things: Candi has loved me more than I ever could have imagined, and surely more than I ever could have deserved. Early on in our relationship (2006), she remarked that "all she ever wanted to be was a mom"- and I've had the good fortune of watching her be the best one Lexi could hope for as she's molded the 10-year-old I first met into the 18-year-old Flagler College-bound young lady that she is today.
As I grew up, it was a ton of movies, stories and books that told of an amazing bond of love between a mother and a daughter- yet it was seeing Candi and Lexi together for a number of years that first made the poetic a reality. My hope for Lexi is that she will always remember the love in her mother's heart- and realize that it's in her, too.
Closing in on 3,000 words here, I'm rendered virtually speechless in looking for ways to convey through words what really can't be explained. Perhaps the best thought to end this with might be the notion that a truer love than what Candi has had for me might never exist- for all she's ever done is love me, encourage me and cheer me on toward being better than I ever could've been without her.
Under The Influence(s)- An Entry Into My Own Contest
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